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Critics and Commentators: The Book of Poems as Classic and Literature. By Bruce Rusk. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2012. Pp. xvi + 282. $39.95 (hardcover).
In five chapters, with a long introduction, a conclusion that muses about gains and losses of the classic's fate in twentieth century scholarship, and four appendices, Bruce Rusk takes us through the long history of literature about and interpretations of Shijing (ProQuest: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.) (Classic of Poems, hereafter Shi) poems and their paratextual matter. From early on, Rusk writes, the Shi had been "a major point of reference and source of inspiration for ideas about poetry and literature in China" (p. 5), thus an understanding of the Shi vis-à-vis the vast bulk of poetry and commentarial works produced thereafter throws light upon the multifarious ways of dialectical interaction between text and readers in changing socio-political, cultural, and intellectual milieus. Rusk's book may be characterized as an attempt at marking out moments of Shi intertexuality, springing from and returning to its topography.
Chapter 1, "Poems and Poems," begins with the Eastern Zhou (771-256 B.C.) period, examining Confucius' treatment of Shi poems as found in the Lunyu (ProQuest: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.) (Analects) applied to non-Shi verse, namely, the song of Jieyu (ProQuest: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.) the "Madman of Chu." Rusk argues that when early Confucians (Scholiasts, Ru (ProQuest: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.)) interpreted "noncanonical" or "secular" verse, they did so with techniques forged for the explanation of the "canonical" poems. This mode of reception set not only the pattern for later readings of secular verse outside the canon like the "Li sao" (ProQuest: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.) ("Encountering Sorrow") or other works of the Chu ci (ProQuest: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.) (Verse of Chu), but also became part of the elite narrative of canonization, the purpose and function of poetry, genre construction and categorization, and of questions regarding the very act of creation, innovation, and poetic judgment. While direct "imitation of canonical models" (e.g., quotation, allusion, rhyme) was one approach, more frequently parallels were drawn between collections of poetry and the Shi, commonly regarded as the first Chinese poetry anthology. The shape and content of the Shi inspired numerous authors...