They lived thousands of miles apart, and both died in 1616. This has led to a lot of studies comparing their works,which are still important to this day. To mark the 400th anniversary of Tang Xianzu and William Shakespeare's deaths, an exhibition called Dialogue Across Time and Space: Homage to Tang Xianzu and William Shakespeare is being held across 26 Chinese Cultural Centers in different countries from Sept 1 to December. Shakespeare's plays are always found in the British school curriculum, while Tang's best-known opera, The Peony Pavilion , continues to be performed worldwide. Both were "great men in the circle of world drama', according to Aoki Masaru, who put the work of Shakespeare and Tang together in his 1943 book A History of Chinese Literary Thought. Both shared a love for a journey of self-discovery. The difference is that Shakespeare's work shows people of all backgrounds and classes, while Tang's dramas come form a more aristocratic  background. Tang's lines were sung mostly in family theaters. Shakespeare, however, had to sell tickets to whoever would buy them. That probably affected their writing styles. Though few can touch Shakespeare's range and richness of work, there is one area in which Tang's work may have been better. That's in the use of dreams, not only to tell a story, but also to explore ideas. The Peony Pavilion is set in the world of the characters' dreams, especially Du Liniang, the young lady who has not seen or gotten to know Liu Mengmei when she falls in love with him. After Liu has dreamed of her, he finds her portrait  three years after her death and can't stop thinking about her. But for Du, a dream is a path to the freedom that young women of ancient China normally didn't have - the freedom to love someone without their families getting in the way. Shakespeare also famously used the stage to look at Philosophy  in A Midsummer Night's Dream . But in a sense, the dream was Tang's stage. According to the article, dreams in Tang's work   _  .
represent Tang's love for freedom are only used to express Tang's support for aristocratic families make the characters seem mysterious and interesting reflect problems young women in ancient China had to face