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| On the Inheritance of Confucian Classics and Philosophical Interpretation: How The Book of Songs is Canonized by Confucianists |
| Wang Guoyu |
| School of Marxism, Communication University of Zhejiang, Hangzhou 310018, China |
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Abstract “The Confucian canonization of The Book of Songs” refers to the process in which The Book of Songs was successfully transformed from the “political code of the ancient kings” into one of the “Six Confucian Classics”. It is the process in which the meaning and spirit of The Book of Songs were transformed and sublimated. There are two ways for this canonization: first, it depends on the inheritance of the early Confucian classics —the early Confucian classic system, which is the realistic basis for the Confucian canonization of The Book of Songs; second, it depends on the early Confucianists quotation and interpretation of The Book of Songs, as well as the reduction of its overall meaning so as to make its connotation Confucian, which is the internal basis of canonization. The canonization is a twoway process: on one hand, the Confucian values and ideas are constantly injected in the text of The Book of Songs, resulting in the extension and expansion of the original meanings and the fixation of the new produced meanings; on the other hand, The Book of Songs, as the authoritative text, participates in the construction of the early Confucian philosophy with its status, rich values and ideas, and “poetical” flexibility.
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2019, Vol. 21 
