Of Lady Wang Talks Diamond Sutra In Its Bai Ethnic Dialect Version

I hold it is a pity that because of the language barrier, most research on minority ethnic folk songs display on their Mandarin translation. For such studies usually concentrates on the work’s moral contents while neglecting its artistic values. As a classic of Bai ethnic group, Lady Wang Talks Diamond Sutra, circulated mainly in Da Li Bai Autonomous Prefecture, is not only the longest local narrative poem discovered, but also the most characteristic Bai ethnic literary work thus far. Taking its Bai ethnic dialect version as my object, this dissertation tries to give Lady Wang Talks Diamond Sutra literary analysis through methods both of field study and close reading.Roughly my I divide my dissertation into two parts. The first part includes an introduction and first three chapters. I wish it could be the solid and reasonable foundation to further my study in the second part. Since the poem is not so popular in the other parts of the country, I start my introduction from an outlining of the story. In explaining the existed relative research results and the methodology I am going to use, I especially emphasize the translation problem, which, if not cause a displacement, is easy to confuse the study of the translated version with its original work, though both have their legality and rationality. In the first chapter, I trace back the collecting and integrating work of Bai folk songs have been done in Jianchuan County, where the poem wins a good popularity. In doing so, I design a project probably more responsible for the coming generations, I mean, to establish a minority ethnic literary study position, of which the first importance is to serve the local cultural community and help it to preserve, integrate and use its own literature. I take it the very premise of cultural communication and contribution. In second chapter, I illustrate how Lady Wang Talks Diamond Sutra achieves its classic identity among local literature in depicting the development of Bai folk songs in Jianchuan county. Then in third chapter I Introduce certain versions I acquired through field investigation and data collection. I hold that as row material of this dissertation, they exhibit a total new creation instead of adaptation of relative Han nationality classics, though the influence cannot be denied.The second chapter is the main body of this dissertation, in which the forth chapter shows a close reading model in accordance with the poem’s "classic identity" dividing Lady Wang Talks Diamond Sutra into15sections based on its meters and contents with a close reading respectively. In the reading, while giving notes to folk stuffs, language difficulties and some special items, I also point out the differences between translation and the original writing, plus my own commentaries to each section. Finally, the fifth chapter should be a macro literary evaluation of the whole work, of which an analytic thread from plot conflict, comparison, tragedy and plural tone could be traced. Last but not least, is a reiteration of the "classical condition" of the great work, Lady Wang Talks Diamond Sutra.