The Study On The Book Of Songs And Its Social Function In The Spring And Autumn Period

The main purpose of this article is to study the using of the Book of Songs of people in the Western Zhou Dynasty and the Spring and Autumn Period and the social function of which.There are four kinds of the pre-Qin literture datum used in this text,which are the using of the Book of Songs of people in the Spring and Autumn Period,written in the Master Zuo's Spring and Autumn Annals,the number of which is 279;the using of the Book of Songs of people in the Western Zhou Dynasty and the Spring and Autumn Period,written in the Guoyu,the number of which is 38;the using of the Book of Songs,written in The Analects of Confucius,the number of which is 15 and the playing,dancing and singing the Book of Songs,written in the Yili.In this text,the author describes the using of the Book of Songs berore the Spring and Autumn Period and the social function of which,interprets the generation of primitive poetry and the flux of poetry use before Zhou Dynasty and concludes the social function that showed up during the collecting and editing of the Book of Songs.Through carding the datum of playing,dancing,singing and quoting the Book of Songs in the Western Zhou Dynasty,people can come to a conclusion that the pristine music,dance and poetry was created to adapt to the reality of the original production and primitive life,the use of which was to provide a support to primitive production and the improvement of primitive life.However,with the popularity of the pantheistic worship,Gods became the masters of the world.Under such conditions,poetry,music and dance mainly served for the arrival and entertainment of the Gods.With the establishment of the states,poetry had become the social governance tools of the ruling party.Inditing is an important way of the using of the Book of Songs of people in the Spring and Autumn Period.In the inditing,the inditer(s)read rather than sing the poety by beat,the process of which without any music accompaniment at all.However,this is its key difference between playing and citing the Book of Songs and the main cause of its thriving in the Spring and Autumn Period instead of playing and citing the Book of Songs.From the number of the inditing of the Book of Songs of people in the Spring and Autumn Period which were written in the Master Zuo's Spring and Autumn Annals and Guoyu,which is 74,we can see that there are three kinds of inditing,which are inditing the Book of Songs in the feasting,in the diplomacy and in the advisory occasions.The inditing follows four rules which are "quote a remark out of its context","poetic consensus","quote the first sentence of the whole article" and "write the article not for satire".The formation of these rules because of the diplomatic situation needs in the Spring and Autumn Period,the Social function transformation and the knowledge monopoly education system.The social function of inditting poetry presents a development tendency from observing ethics to expressing meanings.Quoting is also an important way of the using of the Book of Songs of people in the Spring and Autumn Period.From the number of the quoting of the Book of Songs of people in the Spring and Autumn Period which were written in in the Master Zuo's Spring and Autumn Annals and Guoyu,which is 144,we can see that there are five ways in quoting,which are expressing the meaning according to the Book of Songs,contrasting the difference between the Book of Songs,extending the meaning according to the Book of Songs,quoting a remark out of its context and summarizing the meaings of the Book of Songs.From the flexibility of form as well as the regularity of the consciousness of regarding,we can see that quoting has the social functions such as justify?comment and criticize according to the Book of Songs.From the poems quoted by Confucius written in the in the Master Zuo's Spring and Autumn Annals and the quoting and interpreting of Confucius written in the Analects of Confucius,Confucius were affected by the social function view of traditional Poetics.He used the Book of Songs to as social principles and to judge people and things.However,the Analects of Confucius record that Confucius admired Zixia explaining Weifengshuoren "her smile is so beautiful,her eyes are full of expectation" with "following with etiquette" and emphasized " Human accomplishments begins with the Book of Songs,stands with etiquette and finish with music.It's clear that Confucius also emphasized the social function of educating common people,so he exploited poetry civilizing besides poetry justification and comment.That is to say poetry served as a tool of civilizing social morality,which had a decisive effect on the formation of "Poetry teaching theory",especially the Chinese traditional theory "writings are for conveying truth".In a word,the pristine music,dance and poetry was created to adapt to the reality of the original production and primitive life.However,when the Gods became the masters of the world,poetry,music and dance mainly served for the arrival of the Gods.With the establishment of the states,poetry had become the social governance tools of the ruling party.In the Spring and Autumn Period,people indited and quoted the Book of Songs in the feasting,especially in the diplomacy occasions,which treated the book as an communication tool,which gave full play to the social communication function of the poetry.From the production function of adapting to the reality of the original production and primitive life,to the religious function of entertaining and paying a tribute to the ancestor,to the political function of advising the empire and changing the policy,to the commuction function of poeticizing and pleading by the Book of Songs,the primitive poetry showing a historic transform with the social demands change.