Abstract
During the Song dynasty, Liu Yong's ci-poetry enjoyed widespread and enduring popularity among the common people and served as a creative model. However, it never gained recognition from the high culture of the upper class and its political authority. Thus, his work was considered a folk classic rather than a scholar-official classic. From the Yuan and Ming dynasties to the early Qing dynasty, his ci-poetry remained popular in the lower-class cultural spheres, while receiving a relatively lukewarm reception in the upper-class cultural spheres. From the late Qing to the Republican period, the canonization of Liu's ci-poetry was comprehensively advanced within literary circles. Scholars produced meticulous and positive commentaries on his work, composed ci-poetry that echoed and emulated his style, and collated Collected Ci-Poetry of Liu Yong. These activities promoted the elevation of Liu's ci-poetry from a folk classic to a scholar-official classic. This ascent was closely related to the “discovery” by the Changzhou School of ci-poetry and the development of the style-worship (zun ti) movement. The process by which Liu's ci-poetry achieved the status of literary classics shows that culture possesses distinct strata and that classics should also be understood as stratified. Classics can move between cultural levels, but not all folk classics can become scholar-official classics. Certain conditions are required for this transformation.
Keywords
folk classic, scholar-official classic, Liu Yong's ci-poetry, reception, canonization
First Page
122
Last Page
134
Recommended Citation
Cao, Mingsheng, and Xianyi Sha. . "From “Folk Classic” to “Scholar-Official Classic”: Thousand-Year Reception and Canonization of Liu Yong's CiPoetry." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 45, (4): pp.122-134. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol45/iss4/12
