Meiji Japan, "the Book Of Songs" Learning Theory Of History (1868-1912),

Various schools appeared with their own characteristics in the history that the research on Book of Odes came into being and developed. They are different from each other because of different regions, epochs, receivers and annotators. Japan, be considered as the research key figure of the oversea Sinology, its research on Book of Odes also responds to the history it accumulated, the civilization it spread, the impact it accepted, and the foreign current of thoughts but it is different from Chinese research on Book of Odes in the learning aim and the academical styles. However, before Meiji period, the research on Book of Odes in Japan was influenced by Chinese academical current of thoughts enormously. It succeeded the Chinese academical current methods and propagated the functions of political thoughts. For those reasons, at the same time, it is lacking in the survey and observation from scientific angle of view. This kind of condition couldn't change until Meiji period. The period is the transitional period from traditional Sinology to modern Sinology. Accompanied with civilization, the affluxed western current of thoughts struke against the traditional Sinology fiercely and made the traditional Sinology divide into two camps —"old Sinology" and "new Sinology". On one hand, "old Sinology" received the traditional research methods of Sinology from the final phase of Edo period, such as the textual research, word principle and word meaning to research Book of Odes imperceptibly from one word to one phrase. However, its achievements are not as good as those of Edo period for the strike of foreign culture and civilization. On the other hand, "new Sinology" paraphrased the classic with Occident thoughts and attempted to research Book of Odes from various aspects, for instance, culture, politics, geography, etc. In the academical way, it has great value because of its initiatial spirit and profound and lasting influence.In Meiji period, the achievements of the traditional research on Book of Odes embodied three main aspects. The first one is a large quantity works were written and come out with "Xundu" (reading Chinese characters in the Japanese way). It has established the foundation for the acceptation and the research on Book of Odes, such as Big Department in the Written Chinese: Mao Poem, Shang Book ,Posthumous Works of Past Sago: Whole Book of Chinese Country Words Annotations, Poem, etc. The second one is it concluded the achievements of Book of Odes in Edo period when Japanese research on traditional Sinology was in the most prosperous period. Big JapaneseCatalogue of Sutra Annotation ( compiled by TERADA Hiroshi ), and Japanese General Catalogue of Sutra Annotations (written by HAYASHI Taisuke ) are the main represents. The third one is a school of traditional Sinologists, from the last phase of Edo period, have inherited the relique of Japanese research school. They used the common words to paraphrase and annotate Book of Odes. However, the whole achievements are not equal to those of Edo period because of the strike from Occident civilization. Among them, Collection of Mao Poem, which was written by TAKEZOE Ii, is prominent one with remarkable explanatory notes and rigorous search of proof.Except for a few theses, there are no works in modern sense to be given birth in Meiji period. However, in that period, the earliest works on Chinese Literature History in the world, presented and paraphrased Book of Ode in modern cultural view and made an attempt to research Book of Odes from the angle of geography and humanities, national faith, social system and political culture, etc. Although the attempt is in the early stage to make use of western theories and the viewpoints from those works, they are similar to the view of past Sinology more or less. The new research thoughts have inherited the quintessence of past ones and make helpful points for the next research. It has remarkable enlightening significance in the progress that Japanese research on Book of Odes which was headed from traditional Sinology visual field to modern Chinese learning category.