BOOK REVIEWS
239
However, none of the above-cited translations deal with any original work of the Chin period (1115-1234). Amongst various branches of Chinese literature developed during the Chin period, the Chu-kung-tiao3, (literally, the "various moods", hereafter to be abbreviated as CKT), a kind of popular literature of this period, seem to be among the more important.2
To quote from the introduction of the Ballad of the Hidden Dragon, "The Chu-kung-tiao belongs to that large group of 'story-tellers' ballads in which prose and verse alternate, but its verse was sung, while its prose was narrated! The sung part of any chu-kung-tiao consists of a large number of tunes (ch’ü-tiao #8) succeeding each other according to fixed musical rules. Groups of tunes belonging to the same mode (kung-tiao) were assembled into a suite (t'ao-shu) to make a musical unit for which different words were supplied by each story-teller." (p. 3) Although popular during the Chin period, yet few original texts of the chu-kung-tiao literature remain today. A woodblock print edition of the Liu Chih-yüan CKT✰✰✰ was found in a 1907-1808 excavation by Peter Kuzmitch Kozlov (1863-1935). It remained in the Leningrad Oriental Institute, as the introduction of the Ballad of the Hidden Dragon has pointed out, “until April 1958 when the Soviet Government made the People's Republic of China a gift of this priceless volume and it is now kept in the Peking National Library" (p. 5).
The original text of Liu Chih-yüan CKT is divided into 12 sections. But only 5 sections (1-3 and 11-12) have survived. The main body of the Ballad of the Hidden Dragon by M. Dolezelova-Velingerova, a Czech Sinologist, and his collaborator, J. I. Crump, an American professor in Michigan University is in fact, their full English translation of these 5 sections. This book is the first work about Chinese folk literature of this kind ever written in English.
Yet this main source of satisfaction is marred in several respects. First of all, the author's knowledge concerning the beginning about the CKT study in China is not complete. pp. 123-125 are devoted to bibliography of Chu-kung-tiao studies, in which Crump and Dolezelova-Velingerova have selected 30 articles contributed by 20 Sinologists from various countries (17 articles by 12 Chinese
静農
2 See T'ai Ching-nung £#£ : "Chu-kung-tiao-Chinese literature under the rule of the Nüchen Tartars" ƒÆŒ%TO**£*—*?* in Chung-wai Literature †±‡, Vol. I, No. 1, (1971, Taipei): 6-20.
BOOK REVIEWS
239
However, none of the above-cited translations deal with any original work of the Chin period (1115-1234). Amongst various branches of Chinese literature developed during the Chin period, the Chu-kung-tiao 3, (literally, the "various moods", hereafter to be abbreviated as CKT), a kind of popular literature of this period, seem to be among the more important.2
To quote from the introduction of the Ballad of the Hidden Dragon, "The Chu-kung-tiao belongs to that large group of 'story- tellers' ballads in which prose and verse alternate, but its verse was sung, while its prose was narrated! The sung part of any chu-kung-tiao consists of a large number of tunes (ch’ü-tiao #8 ) succeeding each other according to fixed musical rules. Groups of tunes belonging to the same mode (kung-tiao) were assembled into a suite (t'ao-shu) to make a musical unit for which different words were supplied by each story-teller." (p. 3) Although popular during the Chin period, yet few original texts of the chu-kung-tiao literature remain today. A woodblock print edition of the Liu Chih-yüan CKT✰✰✰ was found in a 1907-1808 excava- tion by Peter Kuzmitch Kozlov (1863-1935). It remained in the Leningrad Oriental Institute, as the introduction of the Ballad of the Hidden Dragon has pointed out, “until April 1958 when the Soviet Government made the People's Republic of China a gift of this priceless volume and it is now kept in the Peking National Library" (p. 5).
The original text of Liu Chih-yüan CKT is divided into 12 sec- tions. But only 5 sections (1-3 and 11-12) have survived. The main body of the Ballad of the Hidden Dragon by M. Dolezelova-Velin- gerova, a Czech Sinologist, and his collaborator, J. I. Crump, an American professor in Michigan University is in fact, their full English translation of these 5 sections. This book is the first work about Chinese folk literature of this kind ever written in English.
Yet this main source of satisfaction is marred in several respects. First of all, the author's knowledge concerning the beginning about the CKT study in China is not complete. pp. 123-125 are devoted to bibliography of Chu-kung-tiao studies, in which Crump and Dolezelova-Velingerova have selected 30 articles contributed by 20 Sinologists from various countries (17 articles by 12 Chinese
静農
2 See T'ai Ching-nung £#£ : "Chu-kung-tiao-Chinese literature
under the rule of the Nüchen Tartars" ƒÆŒ%TO**£*—*?* in Chung-wai Literature †±‡, Vol. I, No. 1, (1971, Taipei): 6-20.
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