A Study Of Chinese Christian Hymns In Harvard - Yanjing Library

After Professor Hanan began to research the missionary novels, the Christian literatures research increased gradually. Lots of scholars began to study the missionary literature, especially the missionary novels, but the Christian hymnal research remains rare. Compared with other libraries, hymnbooks in the Harvard-Yenching collection of Protestant Missionary Works in Chinese are still relatively scarce and of great value for research. Aiming at the development of Chinese Christian hymns and deeper study of Chinese Christian hymns in literary point of view, this paper researches the hymnbooks in the Harvard- Yenching collection of Protestant Missionary Works in Chinese. The paper is divided into three chapters. The first chapter introduces hymnbooks in the Harvard- Yenching collection of Protestant Missionary Works in Chinese resources, including the history of the library, the holdings in the library, and comparisons between Harvard- Yenching Library and other libraries with rich Christian hymnal resources, and thus highlight the precious nature of these data. Harvard- Yenching Library’s data collection dates back to 1879, after over a hundred years of development, it is now the largest university library in the library collection of East Asian studies in the Western. There are numerous Chinese Christian data collected and compiled by lots of missionaries including Chinese Christian hymnal. And it is of unique value compared with National Library of Australia, National Library of China, Oxford University Bodleian Library, and the Chinese Christian table of Contents compiled by Wylie, Donald Mac Gilfivray, Lei Zhenhua. Chapter 2 scrutinizes hymnbooks in the Harvard- Yenching collection of Protestant Missionary Works in Chinese release directory information. There are more than 30 Chinese Christian hymnal collected in Harvard- Yenching Library, from nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. And this period is also the time when Christian hymnal has just emerging in the modern China. Chapter 2 will also introduce the development of Christian hymnal in China. Then the hymnbooks in the Harvard- Yenching collection of Protestant Missionary Works in Chinese will be divided into mandarin Christian hymnal and dialectal Christian hymnal, which is going be described. Respectively, for discussion to be described, focusing on the representative, far-reaching impact on future generations, and the constantly revised hymnal. The literary value of this book, Protestant Missionary Works in Chinese, is to be explained in the third chapter. Although the majority of Harvard Yenching Chinese Christian hymnal were compiled by the missionaries and their assistants, and the most of which are just the duplicate of Bible, they were assimilated into native culture during the compilation process and consequently blended with both Chinese and Western literature. There are many rpeated statements in hymnbooks in the Harvard-Yenching collection of Protestant Missionary Works in Chinese. The using of dialect and vernacular in these hymnal goes with the flow of Modern Chinese Literature in the late Qing Dynasty. These hymnal influenced the “Poetry Revolution” in the late Qing Dynasty, and it is also the beginning of Modern Chinese Literature.