On Granet's Research On Book Of Songs

Fetes et Chanso anciennes de la Chine, written by Granet Marcel, a French sinologist, initiated the anthropological study of book of songs. In his work, Granet was devoted to the ancient and religious study of ancient China and with keen insight and special methods he was able to present a brand-new perspective toward the research of book of songs. Compared with other Sinologists, he paid particular attention to the contemporary scientific methodology and made a comprehensive research through the perspectives of anthropology, folk studies, literature and methodology, which led to his success in delineating the social structures and religious situation of ancient China.His work was divided into five major parts, namely introduction, part one titled the love songs in book of songs, part two titled ancient sacrifice, conclusion and appendices. The title of his work indicates that the argumentation mainly focuses on two issues, namely the love songs and the ancient sacrifice. And he adopted sociological methodology combined with empirical study and some collected materials from Chinese literature of history study. In the successive chapters from chapter two in part one a subjective judgment was given after the presentation of all the ballads and the notes concerned in book of songs. Granet further divided the ballads into three groups with different themes. Specifically the themes are "countryside lyrics", "cross-village love" and "ballads in the mountainous areas". At first sight, such a division is not effective in interpreting some lyrics in book of songs. However, out of expectation his idea is in full compliance with our observation and discovery in our field work.Out of the intention to know more and research in Chinese convention and religious belief, Granet selected book of songs as his starting point and research object. It can inferred from his study that in terms of the research in book of songs he was to maintain a holistic view of Chinese culture as a whole, including the customs and the spiritual civilization. However, his understanding of Chinese culture was based wholly on western background.Granet's study mainly focuses on Chinese culture and history. It can be concluded from our study of Granet's research as well as the Sinology studies abroad that the subjectivity of Sinology has to be recognized. Thus inter-subjectivity should play an active and positive role in our Sinology studies. It has become urgent and impending to elucidate the differences between and the influences of foreign Chinese studies so as to absorb their strong points and establish academic norms in the present China.Since the beginning of the last century, Granet's study of book of songs had incurred wide criticism that actually made no sense because of their blindness to the essential points. Instead, such criticism only presented the self-evident. And we hold that his study, as an attempt, provided a brand-new perspective for Sinology in spite of its inherent weakness and demerits. But it's of no doubt that his study is of great value in that it can inform us much from the exotic perspective. To summarize, in such aspects as its historical significance, epistemology and methodology, Granet's Fetes et Chanso anciennes de la Chine is epoch-making, original and thus readable.