Words, Music, and Meaning: The Debate on Qin Song in Late Imperial China

Humanities: 1st Place (The Ohio State University Edward F. Hayes Graduate Research Forum)This paper investigates the relations between words, music, and meaning in the views of the late imperial Chinese literati, focusing on the practitioners of the qin (the seven-string zither) who were at once poets, musicians, and scholars. Qin song (a combination of qin-playing and song-singing) saw its heyday during the 16th and 17th centuries. However, the debate about whether qin music should be accompanied with lyrics (and/or singing) started to rise also during this time. The debate eventually led to a decline of qin song from the 18th century onward (Liang, 1969; Xu, 1982; Zhan, 2005). In this paper, I challenge previous scholars’ explanation that the debate over qin song during this period was a result of different aesthetic preferences or the competitions between schools. For a deeper understanding of this debate, I compare the musical works and the paratext (prefaces, postfaces, instructional essays) in different collections of qin music published in wood-block print from the 16th to the 19th century. Moreover, because the qin was long regarded as an indispensable means of self-cultivation and moral transformation in premodern China, I situate these qin practitioners’ writings and works into the broader intellectual and religious contexts of this period. I suggest that their debate over qin song was not simply an issue of musical aesthetics, but it implied a broader intellectual concern, namely, what was the ideal way to communicate moral teachings. While both sides of the debate agreed that music was a powerful means for communication, the advocates of qin song still found words to be indispensable for clear expression and accurate comprehension. The opponents, however, insisted that music alone was sufficient, while language might become an obstacle to communicating the true meaning. I argue that both the flourish and the decline of qin song in the late-imperial period suggest an increasing emphasis on the limit of language as a communicative tool. Given that the qin was traditionally regarded as the “instrument of the sage-kings,” my findings about these qin practitioners contrast with a prevalent view in the 18th century that one must use a philological approach to truly understand the sage’s teaching.A three-year embargo was granted for this item