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JOHN MCCOY
Unfortunately, in the vast collection of Chinese literature there is comparatively little folk poetry and most of it is of recent origin. Doubtless it has existed at all periods, but except for the very early samples which became part of the classical tradition, or for the occasional single item preserved in other writings, most of it was lost. The literati generally scorned it, at least in public, and today we are able to turn up only a few collections of any significant age and these chiefly through historical accident.
In recent years the Peking government has published a collection of Ming and Ching Dynasty folk songs as part of a general policy to point attention to the artistic efforts of the proletariat. I was lucky enough to run across this material in a Hong Kong book store. Of particular interest was a book called Shan Ko or 'Mountain Songs', a collection made in the later years of the Ming Dynasty by Feng Meng-lung. These songs were recorded verbatim from the farmers and laborers in the fields near Feng's home, that is, in Wu District near Soochow. To date this group of poems represents the earliest popular collection which I have been able to find. At least it is my earliest collection showing no evidence of revision and rewriting by the collector. More such materials doubtless exist but I have not come across them yet.
Mountain Songs as a literary genre have probably enjoyed a long life. The oldest reference to them may be that found in the 'Song of the Lute' or P'i P'a Hsing by Po Chu-i of the Tang Dynasty. However, this may be merely a general reference to songs from the mountain areas rather than 'Mountain Songs' as a specific genre. Today the Mountain Songs flourish, particularly in South China, with new verses appearing daily. Other Peking publications have collected modern Mountain Songs and added a companion set of more acceptable lyrics with political themes. This gives us a possible spread of at least 1300 years with extant samples of a homogeneous genre going back about 300 years.
The poetic structure of the Mountain Songs won't add anything especially new to our picture of Chinese poetry. The basic verse is four lines of eight metric beats each, or multiples of eight in various combinations. This is much like the classical seven character poem where the eighth metric beat is realized as a pause at the end of each line. The major difference is that the Mountain Songs allow a considerable variation in the actual