The influence of the Confucian tradition on the Vietnamese song lore (based on the example of the literary miscellany “The anthology of the airs of the states”, 1910)

The article is devoted to the study of the literary miscellany “The Anthology of airs of the States” (國風詩集合採 Quốc phong thi tập hợp thái). Confucian scholar Nguyễn Đăng Tuyển collected this Anthology in 1910. “Airs of the States” (國風 Quốc phong) is the name of one of the parts of the “Book of Songs” (Shi jing). This similarity is not a coincidence: the interest to the collection and interpretation of national song lore in Vietnam is closely related to the interest to the “Shi jing” and growth of Confucian spirit in the light of national liberation movement at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. Confucian scholars were the first collectors of Vietnamese song lore, and they compared Vietnamese song lore with the Book of Songs, more precisely, with the “Airs of States”. The author analyzes how Vietnamese Confucians drew an analogy between this book of the Confucian canon by the example of the “Anthology of airs of the States” and examines whether there is a similarity in the content, form and commentary of these literary monuments. All the songs (ca dao) in this anthology are represented within three types of writing: Vietnamese Latin characters (chữ quốc ngữ), Vietnamese logographic writing system based on Chinese characters (chữ Nôm), Chinese translation and also accompanied by commentary in Chinese. Comments are made in accordance with Chinese tradition of commentary of Confucian canonical books and all the songs are translated in Chinese in the metre that is typical for “Shi jing”. Songs in “Anthology” reflect different themes, that also resemble the diversity of songs in “Airs of the States”. The fact that the first who began to gather Vietnamese song lore were Confucian scholars, influenced the perception of Vietnamese songs in general. Even in modern Vietnamese folk study songs are commonly analyzed using Confucian categories fu, bi and xing that are typical for Confucian comment to the canonical books. Moreover, the term ca dao used for folk songs and verses, has Chinese origin and is a Vietnamese transcription of Sinitic words ge and yao that represent songs recorded by the Music Bureau (樂府 Yuefu).