The Book of Songs is the spiritual home of China people.
The sage Confucius said that a person "has nothing to say without learning poetry". The Book of Songs mentioned by Confucius is the Book of Songs, which is called the pioneering work of China's poetry.
Once, in the cultural tradition of China, the familiarity with the Book of Songs and the proper quotation of the Book of Songs were all signs to measure a person's cultural accomplishment. Today, it is difficult for students of Chinese Department in universities to guarantee that they have read the full version of The Book of Songs. However, when ordinary people quote poems from The Book of Songs, such as "Guan Yu's dove is on the river", the fact that China people are directly or indirectly influenced by it cannot be ignored. The Book of Songs has always been the eternal hometown of China people's spiritual world, even though you have never expounded it.
It is precisely because of the eternity of The Book of Songs that the interpretation of The Book of Songs has become the tradition of Confucian researchers.
For example, "Guanluo" is a deep-rooted concept, that is, the male and female of pheasant pigeons are in harmony to symbolize the harmonious coexistence of husband and wife, which has a history of at least two thousand years. In the interpretation of China's literary history, people in China heard almost the same voice.
However, in the newly published book The Charm of Wind Poetry —— Comments on Shan Li's The Book of Songs, the author Shan Li boldly put forward that Guan Ju is not a love poem.
Charm of Style Poetry —— Shan Li's narration of The Book of Songs is the achievement of Shan Li, a professor at Beijing Normal University, who has studied the Book of Songs for 30 years. He will also return to CCTV's Lecture Room to fully interpret the Book of Songs.
Shan Li successively studied under scholars such as Qi Gong, Nie Shiqiao and Xia Chuancai, and achieved fruitful results in the field of literature research in the pre-Qin and Han Dynasties. His new work, Charm of Wind Poetry, is based on the 60 works of Guo Feng/KLOC-0 in The Book of Songs, with a wide range of topics, covering marriage, family, love, farming, hunting, war, labor and so on. This classic of Chinese studies, with plain language and interesting angles, is more original than The Analects.
Recently, our reporter interviewed Mr. Shan Li by e-mail, and Mr. Shan Li answered the questions about the influence of The Book of Songs, the misreading of classics, and the craze for Chinese studies.
The immortal Book of Songs
Cultural genes of all classical poems
Reporter: You have studied the Book of Songs in recent years and annotated it three times. Have a soft spot for The Book of Songs?
Li Shan: First of all, The Book of Songs itself is fascinating. The more you study her, the more you can feel her charm. Just like "Other stones can attack jade" in The Book of Songs Xiaoya, we should broaden our minds and broaden our horizons. Knowing that the hardness of jade is second only to gold, it depends on other stones to grind it, that is to say, we should study what we should use. With the help of the party, they have made achievements in anthropology and social philosophy; In addition, it is also a good way to learn Canon knowledge and choose a favorite Canon for long-term preservation. This is called establishing an academic foundation and then expanding outward.
Reporter: In your opinion, what is the importance of The Book of Songs?
Li shan: the research results of predecessors and peers are the stones of other mountains; Thirty pairs of foreign colleagues made people notice her "He Ming", and all she taught us was stones. Also, it is the stone of other mountains that I study on behalf of western learning, where I study ancient classics. Without some knowledge and methods of history, philosophy, anthropology and sociology, there is no future in studying literature. It is very important to open your mind and learn all aspects of learning, especially its methods.
The Book of Songs is the beginning of China's poetry literature. To understand China's poems, we must understand The Book of Songs. In addition, she not only influenced poetry, but also influenced other literary styles, such as Fu. China's poetic literature, such as Tang poetry, Song ci and Yuan Qu, appeared late because of its good original literary genes. The Book of Songs contains the cultural genes of all the later classical poems.
Reporter: You have studied under Qi Gong, Nie Shiqiao, Xia Chuancai and other great writers in the history of China literature. They are very helpful for you to learn the Book of Songs.
Shan Li: When I took refuge in Mr. Xia's school, I read his Summary of the History of the Study of the Book of Songs. As an undergraduate, this book has opened up a vast world for me to study The Book of Songs. In scholarship, Mr. Xia showed me the connection between a person's experience and seeing problems. Mr. Nie is elegant, modest and meticulous. He is a master of pre-Qin literature and has many original views on The Book of Songs. Listening to Mr. Qi talk about the past and the present is really enlightening, awakening people and reading literature. Any pedantry and rigidity will not do. I often say to my graduate students, "I am luckier than you. I met the best teacher in the world, and you are not so lucky! " "The model of doyen, let me never relax.
Reporter: The Book of Songs is indispensable in China people's daily language, but for modern people, there are indeed many rare words in the Book of Songs, and their meanings are hard to understand. What's the difference in your explanation?
Li Shan: It's not a big problem to solve the problem of neologisms. Just add phonetic notation and explanation. The big problem is how to think clearly about the essence of national culture contained in the Book of Songs, speak it out and express it in an appropriate way. In this book, my interpretation should be as simple as possible and understandable. The media should also urge the public to care about the fundamental classics of their own national culture.
Reporter: Which chapter do you think is the most beautiful in The Book of Songs?
Shan Li: "White dew is frost. The so-called Iraqis are on the water side. " What a good sentence, what a wonderful realm. Tang poetry and Song poetry, that's all. I like it. There is also "I used to be absent, and the willows are reluctant." I am moved by it every time I look at it.
Guan Ju is not a love poem.
Reporter: "The pigeons in Guanguan are in Hezhou. My fair lady, a gentleman is good. " From The Book of Songs Nan Zhou Guanju, this is the first poem at the beginning of The Book of Songs and the most famous sentence in It. But you mentioned in your new book that Guanju is not a love poem.
Li Shan: I have two reasons. First, the personal form is wrong. Ms and Mr are the third person; Second, the artifacts in the article are wrong. There are bells and drums, which are used in aristocratic ceremonies.
If the main body of a work is misunderstood, the value of the poem will be overestimated. Guan Ju is the opening of The Book of Songs, which reflects the importance attached by Zhou people to marriage and the kindness of husband and wife. This is not unreasonable.
In the Zhou Dynasty, people connected different surnames in the form of marriage, creating a complete cultural group. If you read poetry as "love" at will, you will ignore the importance of poetry itself at that time, which is not a good attitude towards classics.
Reporter: The debate about the classic interpretation of The Book of Songs has been going on for two thousand years. How do you determine and judge?
Li Shan: First of all, we should get rid of some inherent concepts. For example, scholars first regarded the Book of Songs as a sage's Dafa, and then explained it with their own subjective interpretation. The Book of Songs explained in this way is far from the real Book of Songs. When reading the Book of Songs, you must find out for yourself. Only in this way can we have our own heels. Secondly, we should attach importance to new materials. Nowadays, archaeology is developed, and a large number of bamboo slips in bronze inscriptions appear, which is a good condition for us to pursue the positive solution of the Book of Songs.
Reporter: Some people say that the influence of The Book of Songs on later generations is mainly the concept of marriage and love. In the era of the Book of Songs, where has our view of love and marriage changed the most?
Li Shan: There are many ideas about love and marriage in the poem "National Wind". However, The Book of Songs also contains contents that are closely related to our lives. Unfortunately, people are not interested in this aspect. I think the main reason is that people don't understand it.
Some love phenomena in the Book of Songs era have disappeared in our time. For example, the wild marriage custom of free combination of men and women in spring has disappeared now and has been changed into free love. In addition, the ancient words of attaching importance to parents' life and matchmakers, although there are now, are not the mainstream forms of marriage conclusion. However, the opinions of parents and the role of intermediary are still there. Otherwise, there would be no such program as If You Are the One. Ancient love, such as the free combination in spring, allowed men and women to choose their spouses by singing, although its purpose was to reproduce the population, which was similar to modern love. One of the biggest differences is that the marriages of ancient aristocratic men and women were mostly political marriages, but now they are not the mainstream. Of course, there is still a concept that suits each other.