Study On Chuci Zhangju By Wang Yi From A Perspective Of The Study Of Confucius Classics

Since the20th century, the international status of Qu Yuan who was named asone of the world’s four historical and cultural celebrities by the World Peace Councilin1953, had been rising, which raised a hot fad of Songs of the South (or Chu Ci)worldwide. Chuci Zhangju (poetry anthology Chu Ci with commentaries) by Wang Yiis the earliest but the most complete work among literature and references known byus, keeping the original content of Chu Ci and annotating it, which made a greatcontribution to study. Due to the Confucian classics’s flourishing during themid-Eastern Han Dynasty when Chuci Zhangju was completed, it’s hard for latergenerations to study it without considering this background. Accordingly, from aperspective of Confucian classics, this paper is based on the analysis of theprofound relevance between Chuci Zhangju and Confucian classics in Han Dynasty,consisting of five parts—introduction, the historical and cultural background forChuci Zhangju’s completion, the hermeneutical way of Confucian classics in ChuciZhangju’s commentaries and interpretations on Chu Ci, the thoughts of Confucianclassics in Chuci Zhangju, and the summary.The introduction part mainly reviews the status quo of the study of ChuciZhangju.The first chapter introduces the background. First, combining Wang Yi’s life andthe officialdom and on the basis of previous studies, it demonstrates that ChuciZhangju was produced by Wang Yi at a time when he held a governmental post as acollator; Second, it analyzes historical and cultural background of Wang Yi’s work that the close origins of the Han and Chu culture and the situation that eunuch andrelatives of emperors came into power in turn since the mid-Eastern Han Dynasty, ledto the court facing a severe political crisis; Finally, starting from two differentcomments to Qu Yuan, it states the fierce collision between the ‘upright and spoken’wing and ‘withdrawing oneself from the court’ wing on the court, which is believed asan important reason for Wang Yi to praise Qu Yuan and compose Chuci Zhangju.The second chapter discusses the thoughts of hermeneutics of the Confucianclassics studies within Chuci Zhangju. The paper firstly lists the points of view ofdifferent groups of scholars according to the timeline, regarding Li Sao as one of‘Jing’(Confucian literature classics) and analyzing the achievements anddeficiencies of each views in sequence, so that recommends Wang Yi’s opinion ofcalling Li Sao as Li Sao Jing should be the most credible conclusion and indicates thepolitical purpose of doing so at the same time; Next, although calling Li Sao as ‘Jing’,Wang Yi referred to ‘Jing’ as a way or a method, which avoided a embarrassing factthat Qu Yuan and Li Sao were not belonged to Confucianism. Chu Ci cannot berisen to a level of ‘Jing’ only based on Wang Yi’s influence; Additionally, adopting astyle of zhangjuti (syntactic and semantic analysis of ancient writings) to note Chu Ci,Wang Yi cannot be detached to the Han Dynasty mode of Confucian thinking, but hiscommentaries are simple and concise, which reflects the progress of Zhangjuti in HanDynasty.The third chapter regards the thoughts of Confucian classics in Chuci Zhangju asa breakthrough by analyzing the propagandizing meaning of the rules of order andethicality, which were what the Confucianism valued under the thoughts of Confucianclassics in Han Dynasty. First, the paper discusses whether ‘the conception of Li Sao was based on the Five Classics (Wu Jing)’ and concludes the pros and cons of thecomparison between Wu Jing and Li Sao; then, interpreting the meaning of ‘zhong’(or loyalty), it states that ‘zhong’ in Chuci Zhangju mainly refers to the ‘loyalty tomonarch’,’vigilantly alerting monarch’ and ‘persistent pursuit of personal ideals’;Although Chuci Zhangju inherited the tradition of worshiping Confucius from thestudy of Confucian classics in Han Dynasty, apparently, it already revealed the newopinion in Eastern Han Dynasty towards Confucius, regarding him only as the‘greatest sage and teacher’ instead of ‘God-man’; Last, after drawing lessons fromYin-and-Yang and Dong Zhongshu’s ideas, Chuci Zhangju formed a comprehensivetheoretical system, aiming at serving the politics and maintaining the feudal rule oforder.The summary concludes further the significant meaning of Chuci Zhangju byWang Yi to the time and to later generations’ studies.