A Research Of The Confucian Musical Thought

The thoughts of philosophers always have the time spirit and at the same time surmount the time. Our ancient giant Confucius is one of them. Confucius (BC. 551—BC.479) is the great ideologist, educator, statesman and the founder of Confucianism in the time of Spring and Autumn. He initiated the musical thought of Confucianism and formed the mainstream of musical thought in China. In the later 2000 years, it influenced the feudalism greatly. Due to different political and cultural concepts of different times, descendants reshaped his musical thought differently. Resuming the original features of the history, summarizing its value and limitation, and inheriting critically this cultural heritage are important for us and have a bright future even it is the 21st century. This thesis bases upon the arranging and analyzing the literature. It uses the relevant study for reference and focuses the function of time, society and culture in reshaping the musical thought of Confucius. Meanwhile it tries to comb his musical thought and analyze its basic features, associating with the development of musical noumenon under specific background. The whole thesis consists of "the epochal and cultural background of Confucian musical thought", "the musical saying and the ceremonial and musical practice of Confucius", "the basic features of Confucian musical thought"and "historical influence and realistic judgement"The first part introduces the epochal and cultural background of Confucian musical thought. As a historical and cultural phenomenon, its origin should be explored from the development of time. This chapter studies the social and ethnographic environment of Confucian musical thought from social attribute, stratum attribute, traditional culture, regional culture and cultural status quo. And it also studies how these factors influence Confucian musical thought. The second part shows the musical saying and the ceremonial and musical practice of Confucius by illustrating the literature. The author gathers, analyzes and combs the literature which includes the works of Confucian classics, pre-Qin Dynasty and Han...