| Volume 8, Number 4, October 2011 |
Observations and Reflections on
Traditional Music in Modern China
by Jeff Roberts 杰夫·罗伯茨 |
Stories are Like Life
On Odour of Chrysanthemums and Daxuesheng
by 吴卓娅、李姣、吴爱丹
Wu Zhuoya, Li Jiao & Wu Aidan |
THE history of China and its music stretch back over four thousand years. During this time, traditional Chinese music meant a lot of different things, depending on the epoch. Such variety over time reveals that music culture is not static, but dynamic and in a four thousand year old tradition, much change over time has taken place. At the same time, such change occurred in the context of a remarkably stable and fixed system of cultural beliefs.
When looking at music traditions in Mainland China, as they exist today, we must consider the continuity of China’s history while at the same time accounting for evolution and change, whether historically or in the present day. We look to identify what Chinese music traditions are by looking at what they were in the time of Dynastic China; where cultural continuity shaped millennia-long lineages of music tradition. At the same time, when we look at Chinese traditional music today (which has been changed by dramatic socio-cultural, political and... [ Read more ] |
Odour of Chrysanthemums (by D.H. Lawrence) and Da Xue Sheng (by Wang Anyi) are chosen to be compared in this thesis. They all describe people’s life and state of mind at the times of social transformation. The difference is that their two heros’ attitudes towards life are totally opposite. One is desperate. The other is still struggling for survival. Moreover, the real life experiences of the two authors also helped set the keynote in their respective story building. That is also the main point of the sameness of the two texts.
AT one time in history literary criticism placed the reader at the centre, developed a reader oriented theory, and went as far as to claim that “the Author is Dead”. In actuality, we cannot entirely eradicate the influence of an author in a creative work. To a certain degree, an author’s worldview and values are manifested in their writings. This essay has selected the works of a foreign author, David Herbert Lawrence, and a domestic author, Wang Anyi, to compare to one another and attempt to...
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| Issue 8.4 |
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The Double-Ten
Uprising
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