The liminality of the garden: A comparative study of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and Tang Xianzu's The Peony Pavilion

Abstract

This article explores the liminality of the garden through a comparative study of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and a coeval Chinese play, The Peony Pavilion (mŭ dān tíng, 牡丹亭, 1598) by Tang Xianzu (汤显祖). It studies the garden as a liminal space between art and nature as well as between dream and reality: an exploration of plant symbolism and allegory in English and Chinese cultures indicates how the garden has been eroticised and politicised in the human imagination. It adopts a cross-cultural perspective, aiming to shed light on the undiscovered aspects in previous parallel studies of each play.

In 2016, the quatercentenary of the deaths of William Shakespeare and a coeval Chinese dramatist, Tang Xianzu's (汤显祖, 1550–1616), brought a renewed academic interest in the two playwrights. Political attention was kindled by Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit to Great Britain in 2015, when he regarded Tang Xianzu as the ‘Shakespeare of the East’. ¹ But without the high-level attention from both the British and the Chinese governments, enthusiasm for comparing the two dramatists has waned dramatically. Six years after that anniversary, Shakespeare remains a household name, but Tang Xianzu and his plays once again need a brief introduction outside the Sinophone world.

 Tang Xianzu, also known as the ‘Chinese Shakespeare’, was a scholar-official and dramatist of the late Ming dynasty known for his integrity – he was banished to a remote place for writing an article attacking the corruption of the prime minister. He later resigned his post and returned to his quiet study to compose plays. ² His magnum opus, The Peony Pavilion, is nicknamed the ‘Chinese Romeo and Juliet’ because of its similar theme of forbidden love. The play revolves around the love story of the maiden Du Liniang (杜丽娘) and the scholar Liu Mengmei (柳梦梅), which transcends life and death in 55 scenes. ³ Du Liniang is the only child of Prefect Du Bao and Madam Du, and she is home-schooled by Tutor Chen. In scene 10 ‘The Interrupted Dream’, Du Liniang takes a stroll to the rear garden with her maid Chunxiang (春香) and sadly realises that her beauty, like the splendour of spring, will fade with time. Returning to her boudoir, she dreams of making love to a handsome scholar. Later, she returns to the garden to relive her romantic dream, but fails. She falls sick and paints a self-portrait before she dies. Liu Mengmei, on his way to the imperial examination, finds Du Liniang's self-portrait by chance. That night, Du Liniang's ghost visits Liu's chamber, and they share the same pillow; she is urged to reveal her true identity and begs Liu to help her return to life. After much hardship, Du Liniang marries Scholar Liu with the Emperor's blessing.

In Chinese culture, a spring garden where birds and bees flirt with flower buds is imbued with erotic allusions, and as such provides the romantic setting for the encounter between beautiful maidens and talented scholars in the repertoire of traditional Chinese theatre. The Peony Pavilion is no exception. The garden is central to both Romeo and Juliet and The Peony Pavilion, and the keyword ‘garden’ is often used interchangeably with ‘balcony’. Despite the mention of ‘balcony’ in Shakespeare's sources and the worldwide popularity of the so-called ‘balcony scene’, ⁴ I choose to use the keyword ‘garden’ rather than ‘balcony’ because the horizontal garden in The Peony Pavilion does not share a similar vertical dimension as a ‘balcony’ does, while the horizontal garden serves a similar function as one would expect of Juliet's garden.

The liminality of the garden has attracted numerous studies. To date, studies of both gardens have tended to focus on a feminist reading. ⁵ The garden in Romeo and Juliet is seen as a liminal space between the maiden's private bed chamber and the public space: ‘The woman is to be besieged and conquered, she will resist and then she will surrender’. ⁶ Similarly, in Chinese studies of The Peony Pavilion, Zhou Ning summarised that the talented scholar (Liu Mengmei) from the outside world was an intruder into the inner chamber of the beautiful maiden (Du Liniang). ⁷ Another problem with previous studies is the separation of the page from the stage in the analysis of both plays. In fact, a feminist reading may not be as effective once the Elizabethan performance conventions are taken into consideration. The tradition of boy actors enacting ‘Juliet’ denies the clear-cut boundary of gender on which some feminist studies are based.

Building on previous parallel studies, this article adopts a cross-cultural perspective because, according to Antony Tatlow, ‘[t]he impulse from another culture … enables an otherwise difficult, if not impossible, engagement with what has been repressed at home’. ⁸ It aims to shed light on what has been ‘repressed’ or neglected in the study of Romeo and Juliet in the Western academia and in the study of The Peony Pavilion in the Sinophone world. It sets out to explore the significance of the garden by paying particular attention to the plant symbolism and allegory in the much-studied ‘garden scene’: 2.2 of Romeo and Juliet and scene 10 of The Peony Pavilion. It also looks beyond the two scenes, and even the two plays, in order to gain a broader perspective on the liminality of the garden. Although the garden has been defined as a liminal space between the private and the public, this article posits the garden in Romeo and Juliet and The Peony Pavilion as a liminal space between art and nature and between dream and reality in order to explore how the garden has been eroticised and politicised.

Plant symbolism and the eroticised garden

The garden as a physical space is the crucial meeting point of art and nature, the relationship of which has been the subject of some of the most profound philosophical debates: the Aristotelian mimesis focuses on the relationship between art and nature, and the time-honoured Chinese xing shen lun (‘form-essence theory’) also ponders over the imitation of nature in degrees in artistic creation. The natural flora and fauna of the garden have often become symbols in human society, especially in the fields of art and literature. For example, since the herb Paris was known to every Elizabethan theatregoer as the English truelove plant, the audience immediately associated the character of Paris with the symbol of love. Thus, Shakespeare wastes no ink in describing Paris's affection for Juliet. ⁹ In Romeo and Juliet, Lord Capulet refers to the young ladies invited to his feast as ‘fresh female buds’ (1.2.29), and he adds the adjective ‘female’ to modify ‘buds’ and distinguish them from the young men who may also be associated with ‘flowers’: for example, the handsome Paris is ‘a very flower’ of Verona's summer (1.3.78) in the Nurse's eye. ¹⁰ The ‘flower’ is also associated with beauty in The Peony Pavilion: Du Liniang regards her beauty as ‘a bright flower’, and Liu Mengmei exclaims, ‘Lady, I am dying of love for you’ because of ‘the flowering of your beauty’. ¹¹

The transition from a ‘bud’ to a ‘flower’ indicates the coming of womanhood. As Juliet says to Romeo, ‘This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, / May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet’ (2.2.121–2). The virgin Juliet is compared to a ‘bud’, and the next time she meets Romeo in her bedchamber, she will be transformed into a blooming flower after the consummation of their love. In Chinese culture, flowers represent the female sex organ, and the saying ‘a peony blooms with dewdrops’ vividly represents the process of a girl becoming a woman with the injection of ‘dewdrops’, the sperm. As the peony flower is the symbol of the female sex organ in this saying, the ‘Peony Pavilion’ in Du Liniang's garden indicates the place where she and Liu Mengmei had sexual intercourse.

Like the meaning of ‘peony’ in Chinese culture, the ‘rose’ mentioned by Juliet in the first garden scene (2.2.43) also has sexual implications. In A Dictionary of Images and Symbols in Counselling, the rose is attributed to Venus. ¹² Venus is the goddess of love, beauty, lust, and sexuality, and the image of the ‘rose’ in Juliet's monologue hints at her desire to renounce her virginity and embrace her passionate lover. Her desire echoes with Romeo's secret wish that Juliet should no longer be the maid of the ‘envious moon’ (2.2.4–9). The moon goddess is Diana, a virgin huntress, goddess of wildlife, and patron of hunters. Romeo says that his first lover, Rosalind, has ‘Dian's wit’ (1.1.215) because she worships Diana and is therefore committed to virginity and chastity. In contrast, a young woman ceases to serve Diana when she loses her virginity.

In addition to the significance of ‘peony’ and ‘rose’, ‘willow’ deserves further attention in both plays. The willow grows near water, and it has many practical functions: its twigs can be woven into containers, such as the ‘osier cage’ (2.3.7) carried by Friar Lawrence to ‘upfill’ with ‘baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers’ (2.3.8). Because of the willow's great vitality and the ease with which its branches, once broken, regenerate and grow again, the willow has long been regarded as a symbol of vitality, fecundity, and rebirth. ¹³ In The Peony Pavilion, scene 10, Liu Mengmei enters Du Liniang's dream holding a willow twig in his hand. He holds the willow not only because his family name is ‘Liu’, which means ‘willow’ in Mandarin, but also because he is the one who later helps Du Liniang resurrect in scene 35. Aside from the positive connotations, the willow is used to describe venereal disease in China. In Mandarin, venereal disease is colloquially known as ‘the disease of flower and willow’. As the ‘flower’ is the symbol of the female sex organ, the ‘willow’ represents the male sex organ. Similar allusions to the sex organs are rich in Romeo and Juliet as well, especially by Mercutio: ‘O that she were / An open arse, thou a pop’rin pear!’ (2.1.37–8). A medlar is a type of apple thought to resemble female genitalia, and ‘pop’rin pear’ is a type of pear, shaped like a penis. ¹⁴ In Chinese slang, visiting the brothel is called ‘looking for flowers and willows’, and ageing, promiscuous women and men are called ‘withered flowers and willows’. In The Peony Pavilion, scene 24 ‘The Portrait Recovered’, Liu asks ‘How much spring longing can this “willow” bear?’ ¹⁵ It is explained that Mengmei wants the ‘willow’ to grow and bear the spring longing. Since the ‘willow’ is the male sex organ, this line clearly alludes to Mengmei's desire for his sex organ to ‘grow’. ¹⁶

Given the traditional association of flowers and plants with sex, the garden has been a clichéd setting for love affairs. As a result, few scholars have questioned the improbable elements of the garden in Romeo and Juliet and The Peony Pavilion. For example, how is it possible for Romeo to easily climb into Capulet's garden when the ‘walls are high and hard to climb’ (2.2.63) and should have been heavily guarded? How it is possible for Romeo, the enemy of the Capulets, to remain there without being noticed considering that ‘the place [is] death’ (2.2.64) for a Montague? Romeo explains that he ‘o’erperch[ed]’ these walls ‘with love's light wings’ (2.2.66) and that he has the ‘night's cloak’ (2.2.75) to hide him from the eyes of the enemy. But he is speaking metaphorically rather than literally, and the airy metaphor will not protect him from iron swords as his words promise. The Peony Pavilion is also abundant with improbable elements. How is it possible that Du Liniang has no knowledge of the family garden for three years during her father's residency in Nan’an Prefecture? Although it is explained that, as a high-born maiden, Du Liniang is subject to strict discipline and is not allowed to leave her boudoir, how can her maid's ignorance of the garden be explained? As a maid, Chunxiang should have known the exact location of every place to better serve the household. It is even more unlikely that Chunxiang, having no prior knowledge of the garden, should have discovered it by chance on her way to the lavatory, without making a conscious effort to look for it.

The garden in both plays seems like a capricious presence: its walls are not very high and not difficult to climb when Romeo wants to enter, and in The Peony Pavilion, the spring garden suddenly reveals itself when Du Liniang is in the mood for a lover. Within a seemingly ordinary garden setting, both Shakespeare and Tang Xianzu juxtapose improbable elements. The challenge to verisimilitude defines the garden as a liminal space between dream and reality. Figuring as an imaginative space, the garden is both real and fictional, similar to Dana Percec's discussion of the balcony in Romeo and Juliet. ¹⁷ In The Peony Pavilion, scene 40 ‘In Search of the Master’, Camel Guo, the servant of Liu Mengmei, complains that, when Master Liu was at home, he could pick a hundred ripe fruits from every tree in Liu's family orchard, but once Liu has left, all he gets is a hundred maggots. As the Chinese proverb goes, the ‘tree will bear no fruit when the master is gone’. The deterioration of the orchard after Liu's departure suggests that the orchard is associated with Liu's psychological space and is dependent on Liu for its prosperity.

In the same vein, the improbable elements in Juliet's and Du Liniang's gardens can evoke an understanding of the garden as the psychological world of the female protagonists. Indeed, these gardens which belong to the female protagonists are walled and enclosed. ¹⁸ In Europe, the topos of the hortus conclusus (the enclosed garden) reaches back to the Song of Solomon 4:12 in the Bible. ¹⁹ In medieval and Renaissance poetry and art, the hortus conclusus was intimately associated with the Virgin Mary, and paintings often represent her in an enclosed garden. ²⁰ During this period, the enclosed garden was a metaphor for the closed womb of the virgin, and symbolised guarded virginity as well as female ‘virtues’. ²¹ Thus the garden, which is initially difficult to access, suddenly allows Romeo entrance, because Juliet has fallen in love with him and is prepared to renounce her virginity. Similarly, the enclosed garden belonging to Du Liniang's family can be seen as Du Liniang's maidenhead, a garden that invites Liu Mengmei to visit. In the imaginary garden where Du Liniang conjures up in her dream, she wonders how improbable it is that a strange scholar should come to the enclosed garden. The improbable element can be explained by Freudian dream analysis, in which dreams are the fulfilment of ‘repressed wishes’. ²² Du Liniang's dream reveals her repressed desires – the need for a lover – as Du Liniang's sexual desire awakens as she enters womanhood. Seeing that even the orioles and swallows in the garden are all in pairs, she says to herself, ‘My young passions stir to the young spring season, but where shall I find a proper suitor?’ ²³ Du Liniang has reached the age of sixteen and she should have been betrothed according to the local custom, but her parents, especially her patriarchal father, think that it is still too early to arrange a marriage for her. There is a similar hesitation on Capulet's part, who initially fears that Juliet is too young to be married to Paris. Du Liniang's wish remains unfulfilled in the real world; thus in her dream, a handsome scholar comes to her garden and satisfies her sexual desire.

The utopia and the politicised garden

In addition to its sexual connotations, the garden can be used as a potent political metaphor. In the kingdom of nature, all species are equal, no plant is superior to another. Thus, the garden of nature often nourishes utopian thinking, or, in Amy Tigner's words, the ‘paradise imaginary’. ²⁴ When the natural garden is translated into dramatic art, it becomes a utopian presence, as it does in both plays.

Juliet, leaning towards the garden, questions ‘what's in a name’ (2.2.43). Although she complains that a ‘name’, like an airy word, is not any part belonging to a man, she herself clearly knows the answer to her question. A name, especially a family name, is the symbol of the family and signifies the family's position in the wider society. Shakespeare succinctly describes the higher class of the Verona society by simply reading out the list of names of the guests invited by Capulet (1.2.64–72). In the social world of Verona, the two names, ‘Capulet’ and ‘Montague’, represent two feuding families; love between the two is forbidden.

Besides, what is in the name of ‘Juliet Capulet’? Like ‘Montague’, ‘Capulet’ is the name of a noble house in Verona, as the prologue announces. Being ‘Juliet Capulet’, the offspring of the dignified Capulet family, Juliet is born a noble lady and she is bound by the decorum and etiquette required by her social status. In her own words, she should ‘dwell on form’ (2.2.88), which means she needs to insist on and abide with social etiquette and propriety. ²⁵ She needs to live up to the role of an obedient daughter: when Lady Capulet asks Juliet whether she will love Paris, she replies, ‘no more deep will I endart mine eye / Than your consent gives strength to make it fly’ (1.3.98–9). She will not show her affection to any suitor without parental consent. Her reply is exactly what would be expected from a noble and proper young lady. But in the garden scene, she abandons propriety: she encounters Romeo, the only descendant of her family's foe, and darts her affectionate glance at him without parental permission. Similarly, in The Peony Pavilion, Du Liniang is born into a distinguished family, and is ‘concerned with jealous guarding of the family reputation’, which requires her to behave in a ‘serious and reverent’ manner. ²⁶ Her mother, Madam Du, recalls that she herself has never seen ‘irreverent levity’ in Du Liniang's eyes. ²⁷ However, in scene 10 ‘The Interrupted Dream’, situated in the garden, Du Liniang boldly has premarital sex with a complete stranger – a sin unthinkable for a high-born lady to commit.

Both Juliet and Du Liniang, as aristocratic women, violate social codes and betray their family names and reputations in the garden scenes. What is the danger of betraying one's name? Confucius might offer some thoughts on this question. In the Chinese feudal society dominated by Confucianism, the most important thing is one's ‘name’: ‘If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things’. ²⁸ On the basis of names, Confucius develops his ideal social order: ‘A ruler acts as a ruler should, and a subject acts as a subject should; a father acts as a father should, and a son acts as a son should’. ²⁹ Confucius prescribed the code of conduct for each social class, urging people to act according to their status. Rephrasing Confucius’ line in the society of Verona, a lady should behave as a lady should, or else, she is no longer a lady. By violating social decorum, as Juliet and Du Liniang do, they defy established social order, and set their own rules in the enclosed gardens.

Compared to Du Liniang, Juliet goes one step further and teaches Romeo how to speak properly in the garden. Her advice is to ‘farewell compliment’ (2.2.89) – ‘compliment’ means ‘formal expression of civility’ and usually means ‘less than it declares’, as Samuel Johnson memorably put it. ³⁰ A ‘compliment’ is especially needed when expressing one's true thoughts would cause offence or even risk death. But a compliment loses its place in the garden of paradise that worships authenticity and freedom. In addition to authenticity, the garden in Romeo and Juliet renounces hatred and embraces love. The encountering of the title lovers overcomes the hatred between the Montagues and the Capulets. Here, the family name loses its meaning: Juliet is no longer a ‘Capulet’, and Romeo is no longer confined by the name ‘Montague’. In the garden, love between two young people, both in their prime time is encouraged, rather than forbidden.

In The Peony Pavilion, the garden is not only about love, but also equality. For Liu Mengmei, a poor orphan and low-born scholar from the far south part of China, it is almost impossible to meet Du Liniang, a high-born maiden living in the East part of China. In the past, southern China was often stereotyped as uncivilised and barbaric. Tutor Chen judges that everyone from Lingnan, Scholar Liu's hometown, is an indecent tomb-digger (scene 37 ‘The Alarm’). ³¹ To meet Du Liniang, Liu Mengmei has to overcome the barrier of social class inequality as well as the geographical distance between the two places. The only possible place for Du Liniang and Mengmei to meet is the peony garden where all social and geographical barriers dissolve.

The gardens in both plays banish fixed names and set social orders, and are instead spaces for love, authenticity, freedom, and equality. In other words, the garden presents the audience with a blueprint of the best human world imaginable.

Dystopia invading the garden

But the garden of utopia is incompatible with the social reality of Romeo and Juliet and The Peony Pavilion. The sudden joy of finding his true love in the garden makes Romeo fear that, ‘Being in night, all this is but a dream / Too flattering sweet to be substantial’ (2.2.140–1). He has every reason to fear that the encounter in the garden is as unsubstantial as a dream. Scholars such as James Black have noted that Shakespeare duplicates the same setting in the two garden scenes, 2.2 and 3.5. In the first garden scene, Romeo ascends to Juliet's window as the only heir of the distinguished Montague family; in the second, he is banished, and he must leave Juliet, his newlywed wife. The parallel setting emphasises the difference: as Black argues, ‘things look the same but are painfully altered’. ³² Like Adam and Eve, the pair of star-crossed lovers lose their garden of Eden forever.

Although the conflict between the Capulets and the Montagues does not exist within Juliet's garden, the moment Romeo bids farewell and leaves the garden, he is heading towards his own tragic end. The young lovers are the ‘poor sacrifices’ of the enmity between the two families (5.3.304). Their deaths pathetically confirm the futility of Friar Lawrence's efforts to transform the two households’ ‘rancor to pure love’ through the clandestine marriage between the heirs of each family (2.3.92). If the audience lends a careful ear to the Friar's opening monologue in his cell, a more pitiful fact relevant to the reality of Elizabethan theatregoers will soon emerge: ‘Two such opposèd kings encamp them still / In man as well as herbs – grace and rude will – ‘ (2.3.27–8). Literally, ‘Two such opposèd kings’ means ‘grace and rude’, but it would not be far-fetched to suggest that the Friar is also referring to the ‘Two households’ at feud within the play. Hearing the Friar's words against Prince Escalus’ line that three civil brawls ‘[h]ave thrice disturbed the quiet of our streets’ (1.1.100), the audience might be reminded of the three religious shifts in sixteenth-century England shortly before Shakespeare started his career as a dramatist. ³³

In Romeo and Juliet, but also in other Shakespeare's plays, most notably Richard II, the garden takes on a more profound political undertone. In Act 3 scene 4 of Richard II, ideologies of governance and sovereignty are explored by comparing the Gardener's duties with the sovereign's duties, which Richard has neglected. ³⁴ England is likened to a ‘sea-walled garden’ and the whole country is full of ‘weeds’ that suck ‘[t]he soil's fertility from wholesome flowers’ (3.4.39–40, 44). ³⁵ As Thomas and Faircloth suggest, weeds are the result of carelessness, and represent corruption and the Fall. ³⁶ In Richard's kingdom, the harmful weeds and ‘superfluous branches’ resemble a swarm of misleading flatterers who squeeze the living space of ‘great and growing men’. The Gardener politicises the garden as a socio-political space, and use the metaphor of ‘noisome weeds’, ‘wholesome herbs’, and ‘fairest flowers’ to secretly comment on Richard's poor governance and to vent their social dissents (3.4.39–67).

The garden scene also recurs in The Peony Pavilion, transitioning from a utopia to a dystopic space. In scene 10, Du Liniang is saturated with spiritual and sensual love in the company of her handsome scholar. But later in scene 12 ‘Pursuing the Dream’, she is hopelessly alone, trying in vain to recapture her ethereal dream. ³⁷ The stark contrast between the first and second garden scenes indicates that the garden of utopia can only exist in Du Liniang's dream and cannot be realised in her social reality. While depicting the garden scene, Tang Xianzu constantly alludes to the ‘Peach Blossom Land’, an allegory by Tao Qian (365–427). The Peach Blossom Land is a secluded Shangri-la, and its inhabitants live a self-sufficient life, untroubled by the turbulent war outside. A fisherman once stumbled upon this land, but after he returned home, he failed to find his way back. The ‘Peach Blossom Land’ thus becomes an analogy for a lost paradise.

There is also a political aspect to the garden in The Peony Pavilion that has received little attention. The garden is not maintained in good condition, as Madam Du comments that ‘kiosks and terraces [are] crumbling in neglect’. ³⁸ Here Tang Xianzu uses the unattended garden as a metaphor for the neglect of Du Liniang's welfare – her father, Prefect Du, only cares for Du Liniang when he is less preoccupied with his political affairs, as he himself admits in the opening of scene 3 ‘Admonishing the Daughter’. Prefect Du pays little attention to his daughter's development since he is engrossed in his political career, but unfortunately, he is not only an incompetent father, but also an incompetent military official. Prefect Du ironically appeases the rebellion by offering gold to the rebel's wife. To some extent, the play mirrors the political context: not long before Tang Xianzu wrote The Peony Pavilion, ‘peace agreements between the Ming empire and raiding Mongols under their leader Altan Khan had included the offer of a fief of land to one of Altan's wives.’ ³⁹

In a broader sense, the neglect of the house and garden in the play can be seen as an analogy for the poor governance of the rulers outside the fictional play. The crumbling ‘kiosks and terraces’ in Du Liniang's garden suggest the gradual disintegration of the country's territory as a result of the constant incursions of the northern nomads. Outside Du Liniang's garden, the horror of the Jin dynasty nomads’ invasion hangs like a sword of Damocles over the heads of the Southern Song dynasty rulers. The ‘barbarian’ emperor of the Jin dynasty sets out to ‘dash across the Great River and wipe out the House of Zhao and their Song dynasty’. ⁴⁰ It is against the backdrop of the nomad invasion that Du Liniang's father, Du Bao, goes to the frontier. But the Southern Song dynasty rulers were indifferent to the impending plight, indulging themselves in entertainment and flattery. Despite being set in the Southern Song dynasty, the rebel leader in The Peony Pavilion would instantly remind the late Ming audience of the invaders in their own time and space. Since his childhood, Tang Xianzu experienced and later criticised the social upheavals caused by bandits. In his poem, ‘luàn hòu’ (乱后, ‘After the Riot’), which he wrote when he was 12, Tang Xianzu condemned the incompetence of the local officials who failed to protect citizens from armed bandits. Depressed, he cried out, ‘Where was hope in times of turmoil?’ ⁴¹ The country no longer resembled the Peach Blossom Land; the territory was being torn apart by invaders from the four corners, and its citizens were displaced and abandoned. The Ming dynasty was in its final years of socio-political instability before being toppled by the Manchus, less than fifty years after The Peony Pavilion was written.

The incompetent ruler in the play was a mirror image of the ruler in Tang Xianzu's time, Emperor Shen-zong (reigned 1573–1620). The emperor believed in the Taoist doctrine that good government could be maintained while the ruler did nothing. ⁴² For about 30 consecutive years starting from 1589, the emperor did not hold the imperial morning audience at which the officials reported major social problems to the emperor. His neglect of government affairs led to the paralysis of the bureaucratic system. Low administrative efficiency made it difficult for officials to achieve their political ambition. ⁴³ Failing to advance in their careers, officials chose to be hermits in their own mansions and private gardens. Theatre was in vogue in the late Ming dynasty, and high-ranking officials had their own private troupe, usually made up of domestic servants. ⁴⁴

As the most popular Chinese play during and after Tang Xianzu's lifetime, The Peony Pavilion was often performed in the private gardens of high-ranking officials. Tang Xianzu's poetry collections record numerous play-watching experiences, including The Peony Pavilion once performed by the private troupe of the Prime Minister Wang Xijue. ⁴⁵ The officials of the late Ming dynasty retreated to their beautifully landscaped gardens, and indulged in theatre performances and other entertainment. Following the example of Emperor Shen-zong, the officials turned a blind eye to the literally burning social issues outside their garden – the threat from northern nomads, bandits, and pirates. They willingly chose to live in the fictional utopia, only to be awakened by the dystopia at a time when it was already too late to change.

Conclusion

Situating the garden in the liminal space between art and nature, Shakespeare and Tang Xianzu employ plant symbolism to indirectly describe premarital sex (as well as adolescent sex in Romeo and Juliet) and forbidden love. Because of the eroticised imagery of gardens in the cultural memory around the world, a simple reference to botanical terms such as ‘buds’, ‘rose’, and ‘peony’ evokes their erotic implications in the audience's imagination. Moreover, the politicised garden is a symbol of an unattainable and vulnerable utopia constantly threatened by external forces, such as social and religious strife in Romeo and Juliet, and the war in The Peony Pavilion.

Furthermore, both dramatists situate the garden in the liminal space between dream and reality with the enhancement of allegory: the metaphors of the Garden of Eden and the Peach Blossom Land allow the dramatists to talk opaquely and tangentially about politics. Indeed, the plays themselves, like the gardens, are such effective cultural artefacts that they have induced audiences to cross the thin line between dream and reality. Many would willingly pay to visit the fictional ‘balcony’ in Verona, notwithstanding the fact that the word ‘balcony’ came into existence after Shakespeare's death in 1618, and therefore never appeared in the written play of Romeo and Juliet. ⁴⁶ In China as well, literary consumers and pilgrim-tourists mark out the ‘peony pavilion’ in Jiangxi Province, Tang Xianzu's hometown, as their next holiday destination.

Finally, being geographically separated, Shakespeare and Tang Xianzu were writing in different contexts, unaware of each other's presence. But a comparative study of the garden in Romeo and Juliet and The Peony Pavilion reveals that both Shakespeare's and Tang Xianzu's metaphorical gardens are deftly constructed to deal with the burning issues of their own time and space. The commensurabilities of the two dramatists’ dramaturgy may enlighten today's theatre practitioners, and shed light on the communication between the East and the West, and raise questions about common human cognition and emotion processes.