Listen to this articletuō kējiù 脱窠臼
Avoid Stereotypes
指戏曲创作应摆脱陈旧的创作模式。所谓窠臼，不仅指以往作品的窠臼，还包括创作者个人的窠臼。由明末清初曲论家李渔（1611—1680）在《闲情偶寄》中提出。李渔认为，戏曲创作的取意、填词应力求新颖，不能蹈袭前人，才可称得上“传奇”。这一术语的提出既是为了满足观众的审美心理，也体现了文艺创作必须创新求变的宗旨。
This term means that a writer should not fall into old patterns when writing a drama. He should not only avoid stereotypes of previous works but also resist attempts to do so in his own creations. The term was proposed by late Ming to early Qing drama theorist Li Yu (1611-1680) in his Occasional Notes with Leisure Motions. In his view, dramatic creations should be original in both content and wording, and previous works should not be blindly followed. Only such works deserve to be called chuanqi (legendary story). This call to avoid stereotypes was made to encourage creativity and variety in artistic pursuit to delight the audience.
引例 Citations：
◎吾谓填词之难，莫难于洗涤窠臼，而填词之陋，亦莫陋于盗袭窠臼。（李渔《闲情偶寄·词曲部》）
（我认为填写曲词的困难之处，莫过于洗净一切陈旧的套路，而填写曲词的鄙陋之处，也莫过于盗取袭用已有的套路。）
The greatest difficulty in writing lyrics, I believe, lies in ridding them of stereotypes, and the thing not to do when writing such lyrics is to copy old stereotypes. (Li Yu: Occasional Notes with Leisure Motions)
◎非特前人所作，于今为旧，即出我一人之手，今之视昨，亦有间焉。昨已见而今未见也，知未见之为新，即知已见之为旧矣。（李渔《闲情偶记·词曲部》）
（不仅前人的作品，到现在已经陈旧了，即使出自我个人之手的作品，今天看昨天写的，也是有毛病的。昨天见过而今天没有见过，才知没见过的是新的，已见过的是旧的。）
Not that only the works by our predecessors have become largely obsolete; even those I myself wrote yesterday need to be improved when examined today. Only when I no longer see today what I saw yesterday do I realize that what I haven’t seen is new and what I have seen is old. (Li Yu: Occasional Notes with Leisure Motions)
