A historical database that records the development of folk songs

——About the History of Chinese Folk Literature and Song Volumes

Author: Duan Baolin (Professor, Department of Chinese, Peking University)

Ballads are oral poetry that have played a very important role in the history of literature. Ballads are the direct ancestors of poetry, and all poetic forms—two-word poems, three-word poems, four-word poems, five-word poems, seven-word poems, words, song asanas, and Fu Bixing—were first created from the ballads. Later, the ballads composed orally as collective people were excluded from the literary world. Therefore, the vast majority of song works can not be recorded in time, often disappear like the wind, and the occasional record is also extremely scattered. The song data is incomplete and very scattered, so it is very difficult to comprehensively study the history of song songs.

Professor Wang Juan's "History of Chinese Folk Literature and Ballad Volumes" is actually a "History of Chinese Folk Songs", which has conducted systematic research on the history of Chinese songs and ballads for thousands of years, with very rich information and considerable in-depth research, especially the study of songs from a new perspective from a new folklore point of view, often surprising new discoveries.

In the past, academic circles studied ballads, generally from a purely literary point of view, only studied their literary value, and only analyzed their literary characteristics. This, of course, is also very necessary. However, the literary characteristics of ballads are very different from written literati poetry. This is because the ballad is a kind of folk literature, which has the characteristics of three-dimensionality, and is a three-dimensional literature. Past pure literary studies have ignored this three-dimensional characteristic, so it is a very incomplete study. This "History of Chinese Songs" has made a great breakthrough in this regard. This is the first time that a comprehensive study of the history of song and ballad has been truly conducted.

Professor Wang Juan not only made an artistic analysis of the literary characteristics of songs, but also conducted an overall and three-dimensional study on the oral, collective, heterogeneous, fragmented, and practical (multi-functional) characteristics of songs as living folk literature. This is a pioneering cultural project, although she pays great attention to absorbing the research results of her predecessors, but after all, the results are very few, and the barren hills are a piece, the need to be blue wisps, starting from scratch, the search for a lot of information, in the sweaty ancient books is like finding a needle in a haystack, which is very difficult. But the author finally did her research well, very informative, with many new discoveries.

For example, the Book of Poetry is an important document that encompasses many works of song and ballad, but in the past it was only interpreted as a literary work, and it was often distorted according to the literal far-fetched interpretation of the work. In fact, these ballads are sung in a certain folk context, and as a song history, it is necessary to interpret these songs in the original context. The author has made some efforts in this regard and achieved good results. In addition, this book makes a detailed three-dimensional analysis of the context and historical content of the pre-Qin zhuzi and the songs in the history books, such as "The Proverbs of the Yu People", "The Chengzhi Chen", "The Ballad of King Xuan of Zhou", and "The Song of Chengxiang".

For example, Wang Juan examined the editor of Du Wenlan's "Ancient Ballads" in the Qing Dynasty. Through the diaries, anthologies and other documents at that time, she found that the real editor of this book was Liu Yusong, the author of the preface. Because Du Wenlan was a very large official—an observation envoy, a salt transport envoy, busy with official duties, and not much academic writing, it was impossible to have the time and energy to find 3,300 folk proverbs from the collection of eight hundred and eighty sutras and histories, and the Yizheng scholar Liu Yusong's father and son not only had family roots, but also had four libraries of knowledge and many works. The signature of the "Ancient Ballad Proverbs" is Du Wenlan, and Liu Yusong's "Tongyitang Anthology" also includes this example, and specially indicates "Dai Xiushui Du Xiaofang Observation Work". This article has a very rich number of examples, which shows that the author is not Du Wenlan, but Liu Yusong, and Du Wenlan is only a writer at most. Liu Chenggan gave a detailed introduction to Liu Yusong's life when he published the Tongyitang Anthology, and also particularly explained that the collection, compilation, and selection of the "Ancient Ballads" were all done by Liu Yusong. The preface written by Li Xiang for this collection of essays also says that Liu Yusong helped Du Wenlan compile the "Ancient Ballad Proverbs" when he was in the Du Wenlan Mansion Zhongzhong Teachings: "(Liu Yusong) compiled the "Ancient Ballad Proverbs" for the compilation, repaired several golds every month, and did not continue to eat. He concentrated on fabricating the preamble from generation to generation, calmly and self-sufficiently, and slightly without embarrassment, so that Mr. Zhi was loyal to others, and although he was trapped in himself..."

It is more specific here, so that we know that when Liu Yusong taught and compiled books in Du Wenlan's home, he only had a small monthly commission, and his life was very hard, but he did a good job in compiling the "Ancient Ballads and Proverbs". This preface more clearly proves that this book is the work of Liu Yusong. Moreover, his son Liu Shouzeng also helped his father to do a lot of work on the compilation of the "Ancient Ballads", which is recorded in Zhang Shunhui's "Qing Wen Collection". Again, this is strong circumstantial evidence. Therefore, Wang Juan believes that "the true compilers of the Ancient Ballads and Proverbs should be Liu Yusong's father and son."

Liu Yusong's examples and appendices collect almost all the information on folk songs and proverbs in ancient times, which is very useful for studying the basic theory of songs. In ancient times, there was a process of understanding the concept of songs, ballads, and proverbs, which was relatively vague and chaotic at the beginning, just saying "quhe music is a song, and a disciple song is a ballad", so that the ballad is also sung. In fact, according to the circulation of modern folk songs, folk songs are not sung, but only said and not sung. I have made a clear argument in the folk literature textbook Outline of Chinese Folk Literature, which I wrote in the 1960s, and the main argument is the material in the "Ancient Ballad Proverbs". Of course, the data on these song theories is very complex and confusing, and it needs to be well sorted out and analyzed. In fact, the proverbs of the "Ancient Ballads" themselves are only spoken and not sung - folk songs and proverbs are only spoken and not sung, and their content is characterized by social irony and philosophical reasoning. These are the basic theories of song and ballad, and through the study of the history of song, they can be more clearly understood.

Wang Juan's work on the history of songs and ballads is a very good academic treatise, and there are many academic innovations in it, which deserve the attention of comrades who study and teach the history of Chinese literature, Chinese folk literature, and literary theory.

Guangming Daily (2020-08-29 11th edition)