Between Elegance And Popularity:a Study Of Class-Crossing Communication OfShi Jing

Shi Jing(《诗经》)is the first anthology of poetry in ancient China, which contains a lot of poems from the civilian class. This paper investigates the lower-to-upper class-crossing communication of Shi Jing from two respects:literary form and notion. On one hand, how was the poetry, as a kind of literary form having its root in lower class, accepted by the noble class, and by what way did the poetry take its status in the system of literary form? On the other hand, how did the folk notions such as love and natural influence the mental and knowledge structure of upper class. All these are the problems I discuss in this paper.The folk poems were accepted by the nobles in the situation of entertainment. In chapters Xiangyinjiu Li(《乡饮�'礼》),Yan Li(《燕礼》), Xiangshe Li(《乡射礼》),and Dashe(《大射》)of Yi Li(《仪礼》)present many ritual scenes in which musicians sing poems. Noblemen had been entertained by the folk musical poems which would be familiar to them gradually, and then poems became the linguistic tool to expressing their emotion or opinion. "Poem-reciting to express one’ will"(“赋诗言志”)in the Spring and Autumn Period was generated and popularized Under such a background. In politic or diplomatic circles of the Spring and Autumn Period, the importance of Shi Jing increased constantly, and the text of Shi Jing even became the educational book for noble class.Along with the communication of folk poetry to upper class, the formulas from folk were received by noblemen who started to use these formulas to compose poems. In this process, the meanings of some formulas had changed to some extent.In some poems composed in late Western Zhou period author wrote down his own name. The significance of this phenomenon is that the author wanted to have his name well reputed in history, namely "making good sayings to get immortal", in their own words of noble class of Zhou dynasty. Xiang Bo(《巷伯》),the most representative one in these name-signing poems, presents some literary features similar to the articles in Shang Shu(《尚书》),the oldest ancient Chinese historical book which has a high status in the stylistic order.In the love poems of Shi Jing contain the ardent folk notions of love which influenced nobles’ understanding of sex and love when these poems were read by them. In the Spring and Autumn Period, and many political catastrophes were caused by uncontrolled love affairs. Under the circumstances Confucius therefore proposed the view "repelling the music in Zheng"(“放郑声”)and interpreted some love poems in Shi Jing by the way of moral elucidating metaphorically.Starting form with natural objects presents the original pattern of Chinese ancient natural history:a kind of knowledge of folk class which was discriminated by nobles in the Spring and Autumn Period. Natural history did not acquire its legality in intellectual order until Confucius bestowed Shi Jing with the worth of recognizing names of animals and plants. In the time of the Warring States, the knowledge of natural history continuously increased its importance, and became a resource for Confucian scholars to construct the order between heaven and human being.