Literary Anthropological Interpretation Of Liu Sanjie's Ballads

Liu Sanjie ballad is a kind of oral folk songs created by local people collectively with which Zhuang people express their emotions,reflect social life,and accumulate the experience of production and life.It has been playing an important role in the life of Zhuang people.In Yizhou,a city of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region,Liu Sanjie ballad---which originates from the god worship,ritual of exorcism,blessing,treating illnesses and making efforts to avert calamity---impacts on the concept of "folk songs"of folk literature style.At present,as aristocratic feature,excellentization and textuality dominate the perspective of literary history,Liu Sanjie lies in the edge of the mainstream culture.However,in the ancestors' life of Zhuang nationality,it is very important,irreplaceable,useful "spiritual food" beyond imagination.In the folk literature of Zhuang,folk songs is not an independent individual.In fact,it is a compound art form with a variety of factors such as the sacred belief,singers,events,objects,ceremonies,scenes working together.The previous studies of Liu Sanjie ballad usually confines in the general studies of Zhuang(folk literature,folklore),which always can't get away from the pattern of textuality and literalization.From the perspectives of literary anthropology and through the field work and under the cross-cultural and interdisciplinary context,this paper studies the cultural function of Liu Sanjie ballad by combining this oral regional literature and folklore,contrastive study of religion,contrastive study of mythology disciplines and so on,aiming at revealing the weak points and limitation of the previous research of Liu Sanjie ballad.Consequently,in terms of epistemology and emotional and mental bearing,we can break away from ethnocentrism and nativism and obtain the cognitive ability on cultural reflection,making the rediscovery and re-recognition of native culture possible.The thesis consists of five parts and they are:The first chapter mainly discusses the formation of Liu Sanjie Ballad and its types.With a long history,Zhuang ethnic group is fond of singing songs since ancient times so people were eager to learn songs and loved singing songs,which were one of the characteristics and development of the culture "Shang Yue Sheng"(loving the local songs).Liu Sanjie Ballad is highly valued by Zhuang ethnic people living in Yizhou,Guangxi Province in their daily life as these ballads not only consist of their entertainments but also carry many functions such as setting up people's ethics and values,spreading knowledge and carrying out the social practice.These ballads give a good show of the feelings and personality of Zhuang ethnic group people and serve as a significant symbol of the local culture.The second chapter focuses on the analysis of the songs that worship deities.Among the songs of rites of Liu Sanjie Ballad,the song,"Ma Guai" is one of the songs that represents this type very well.It concentrates on the worship of the frog deities as well as some closely related legends.Frog is worshipped by Zhuang people so the thesis describes the activities held in the festival "Ma Guai" and analyzes the reasons that fog is worshipped in this culture to give a tentative research on the models,history and culture of the frog worship that have been appeared in Liu Sanjie BalladThe third chapter studies on the function of praying luck and happiness of Liu Sanjie Ballad.In the history of British literature,such songs are the most primitive literature form.They are popular because they are not only rhythmical but also closely related to the worship of totem and happening of witchcraft.As this is also true with the Chinese ancient literature,it will be found that the rich culture and traditional value cognition,such as praying good luck for reproduction,soundness and happiness,are included in those popular poems by studying Liu Sanjie Ballad from the angle of anthropology.The fourth chapter focuses on the therapeutic function of these folk songs.Psychotherapy and cultural integration are the most original and most essential functions of Liu Sanjie Ballad.Such folk songs are written in "curse" form to expel disease,nightmares or parasites that hurt people's health.In Chinese literary history,there are many examples that function as psychotherapy,so is some western literature.Among them,the most outstanding one is the work composed by Ye Shuxian Literature&Therapy which officially studies the therapeutic function of literature.In the 20th century there were some research direction turns in western knowledge system and scholars from home and abroad finished the restore of the process of witchcraft.The topic of therapeutic function of literature is restored into real life in all six types of ethnical literature,which indicates the colorfulness of the culture.The fifth chapter studies on the carnival spirit of entertainments of Liu Sanjie Ballad.As the symbols of human languages,literature release people's inner thoughts by creating happy environments on paper,which is very helpful for the mental health.As the iconic symbol of Zhuang carnival culture,Liu Sanjie Ballad is popular that provides space for people to celebrate their happiness.The characters described in the Ballad are different from those who are admired in the official literature and the languages are far from being graceful that deletes the differences between the social classes.This chapter will highlight the function of the entertainments of Liu Sanjie Ballad.