The Study Of The Historical Narrative In Book Of Songs

Mencius once said:"Book of Spring and Autumn came out after Book of Songs perished."Book of Songs is the first anthology of verse in the history of China.The poetries in it are enriched with strong emotions of the poets,and they are also mirrors that reflect the historical and social status of that time.For a long time in the literary criticism history of China,the studies have put the focus on the lyricalness of Book of Songs.It is after the Tang and Song dynasties that scholars started to notice the narrative content of Book of Songs.After the western narratology was introduced in China,it led to discussions in the academic community whether or not there is epic in Book of Songs.The research topics on the narrative content of Book of Songs soon expanded to the narrative of historical events and figures as well.Comparing the content of historical events and figures in Book of Songs with historical literature makes it possible to both analyze the attributes of the historical narrative of Book of Songs and supplement the historical records with the content of the poetries.Hence,it is of literary and historical significance to study the historical narrative of Book of Songs.This thesis analyzes the attributes of historical narrative of poetry in Book of Songs by looking at the content of the poetry in Book of Songs and comparing among the historical narrative of Songs,Odes&Epics and Hymns,historical literature and Homeric Epic in ancient Greece.There are three chapters in this thesis:Chapter one is based on the development of the literary theories in both the East and the West and talks about the origin and development of the concept of narrative in the eastern and western literary theories as well as its application in the literary criticism.In the West,the concept of narrative originated during the time of ancient Greece.Plato and Aristotle first came up with the idea of narrative which then became the foundation of the concept of narrative in the western literary theories.With the development of the western literary theories,narrative is considered as a separate subject.Classical narratology redefines the application of narrative in literary criticism and post-classical narratology further takes it to the cross-genre field of literature.There is also the concept of narrative in ancient China together with narratology as a form of literary criticism.With the prosperity of historical literature in ancient China,there is a characteristic of historical narrative in the narrative literature in China.This characteristic can be found from the historical literature in early stages to poetry in later times.Scholars' review of historical narrative of literature has developed from a historical review to a poetical one,and the review of Chinese poetry has developed from lyricalness to narrative aspect.Since Du Fu in Tang Dynasty,the narrative nature of poetry has gained more emphasis.Scholars after Song Dynasty started to review the content of poetry in the narrative perspective,and constantly looked upstream to the earliest poetry in China——Book of Songs.Chapter two looks at Songs,Odes&Epics and Hymns of Book of Songs and delves into the historical narrative of poetry content in it.There is debate on Hegel's claim that"There is no epic in China" among scholars in modern times.As a consequence,the poetries about the historical development of Zhou tribe in Book of Songs begin to go into the public view.Although there are still various opinions about whether or not there is epic in Book of Songs in the academic community,it starts to catch the eyes of more and more scholars that there are narratives about socio-historical events and historical figures at that time in Book of Songs.The research on only five poetries like Hou Ji,The Lord of Corn in Epics has expanded to the whole Book of Songs.Songs,Odes&Epics and Hymns of Book of Songs all have content of poetries related to historical narrative.Using the explanations in Rectification of Mao's Poetry as a reference,according to the standards that the poetries include plots of historical events and figures and that the narratives of the poetries can be traced back to historical materials,this thesis filters all the poetries in Songs,Odes&Epics and Hymns,and presents forty poetries which are Complaint of a Soldier,Duke Wen of Wei,Patriotic Baroness Mu of Xu,Incest,Duchess Wen Jiang of Qi,Duke of Qi and Duesss of Lu,Burial of Three Worthies,Coming Back From the Eastern Hill,With Broken Axu,in Songs.A Homesick Wrrior,General Nan Zhong and His Wife,A Soldier's Wife,General Ji Fu,General Fang,On Homeward Way after Construction in Odes,Hou Ji,the Lord of Corn,Duke Liu,The Migration in 1325 B.C.,The Rise of Zhou,Three King of Zhou,Count of Shen,Premier Shan Fu,The Marqius of Han,Duke Mu of Zhao,Expedition against Xu,The Wongrous Park,Kings Wen and Wu,Great Drought in Epics.King Wen's Statutes,King Cheng's Hymn,King Wu's Sacrificial Hymn,King Wu's Progres,Kings Cheng and Kang,Hymn of King Wu Great and Bright,The Martial King,Hymn to King Wu,King wu's Hymn to King Wen,The King's Progress,The poolside Hall,Hymn to Marquis of Lu,The swallow,The Rise of Shang,Hymn to King Wu Ding in Hymns.This thesis compares the narrative in each poetry above with the reports of historical literature,and analyzes the differences between the historical narrative of Book of Songs with historical literature,and summarizes the attributes of the historical narrative of Book of Songs.Chapter three mainly looks at the differences and similarities between the historical narrative of Book of Songs and Homeric Epic in the comparative perspective of China and the West.The historical narrative in poetry can be traced back to Book of Songs in China and Homeric Epic in ancient Greece in the West.Homeric Epic,a long narrative epic,records the historical legends of ancient Greece.It includes aspects such as myths,histories,geologies and customs which help people understand ancient Greece.As far as the content is concerned,there are many similarities between Book of Songs and Homeric Epic.Thus,by comparing these two,this thesis delves into the differences in the content of historical narrative between them in the aspects of the narrative of wars,the descriptions of heroes as well as gods;it also delves into the differences in literary features of historical narrative in the aspects of genre,text structure,communication method and narrative perspective.Moreover,the two different kinds of ethos in the poetries are discussed.