Aural Fixity and Semantic Flexibility in the Early Chinese Songs Tradition

Abstract

Based on the newly discovered bamboo slip Songs in the Ānhuī University manuscript collection, this article analyses how during the Warring States period (c. 475–221 BC) in China different text communities would fill the sound moulds of aurally fixed songs creatively for their purposes. By way of a hypothetical, emic reading of the manuscript text, we cast light on the conceptual community behind the bamboo slip Songs and how it assigned meaning within suspended but delimited possibles to the text in a systematic fashion. As an exemplary case, we discuss ‘White Boat’ 白舟 in the bamboo slip Songs with reference to ‘Cypress-wood Boat’ 柏舟 from the songs of the state of Yōng 鄘 in the Classic of Songs (song 45) in the Máo recension.