On The Entire Musical Elegancy Of The Book Of Songs

This thesis sets itself the ultimate goal of proving the entire musical elegancy of the Book of Songs. We are bound to first of all give a proof that the whole Book was musical; this is done on the support of direct and indirect textual evidence and the fu shi (to recite, sing, and present a poem) practices as documented in Zuozhuan and Guoyu. As regards fu shi, main emphasis is laid upon the classical ritual perspective from which to show that on all sorts of occasions when the fu shi activities took place, musical accompaniment was served. We next point out the peculiar textual format of the fu shi records as distinguished from that of mere quotations of the poems for the purpose of ordinary remonstrance and reasoning, a specialty of fu ski as one ceremonial step, and the time node at which this ceremonial step should have possibly occurred, i.e. wu suan jue. Lastly, synopses of some valuable conclusions rigorously argued and elaborately stated by our predecessors regarding the musicality of the entire Book are furnished, together with thorough analysis and refutation of several historically influential opinions that denied the entirety of the Book’s musicality. Then we give illustrations of where and when to perform this large number of musical poems to end the first half of this thesis. In turn we are left to prove the musical elegancy of the whole Book. What is it for a piece of music to be elegant? The discussion proceeds from the three angles of politico-religion, musicology, and etymology, followed by a detailed demonstration of the fundamental difference between Zheng music and Zheng feng, between the excessive fineness of Zheng music and the so-called indecency of the poems of Zheng feng; in fact, the opposition between Zheng music and elegant music is largely due to their contrasting musical features. We then put forward a new theory, that the music which accompanies the poem was also endowed with edifying significance. Music and poem as a whole bear this significance; i.e. it is preserved not only by the poem, but also by the accompanying music. These edifying significances varying from poem to poem can be summarized into the five principles of teaching through the rituals, that is, be close to your relatives in due hierarchical extent, pay respect to the exalted in due hierarchical extent, be obedient to elder brothers in the clan in due hierarchical extent, esteem and appoint the virtuous in due hierarchical extent, and keep a prudent reserve between the sexes. Showing the music-poems each bear part or all of these positive significances, we manage to provide adequate politico-religious importance basis for the entirety of the musical elegance of the Book. Appended in succession is also the argument that a music-poem being musically elegant is not because of its poetic use of the official Zongzhou dialect, which is but a most basic, intrinsic property of the Book’s poetry. This thesis by and large applies traditional methods and materials, in the simultaneous light of contemporary views about the historical transitions of elegant music, marrying the two sides as fully as possible, so as to spell out the relationship of the historical transitions of the musicology and content of elegant music to the Book of Songs, reaching the conclusion that the Book of Songs contains no Zheng and Wei music; now since music also preserves part of the edifying significance, and since the five principles of teaching through the rituals run through the whole Book as a consistent thread, it is thus both historically and politico-religiously justified to claim that the Book of Songs is entirely musically elegant.