Chui-Tzu-Shu — Folk Songs from Ho-Nan

Abstract

The study of a variety of forms of folk literature to which I devoted my attention before the last War brought home to me the far-reaching significance of folk literature in the history of Chinese literature as a whole. It was true folk literature, written in lively colloquial language, very different from the literary production of the ruling class in the ancient, written language and it represented, from the time of the Sung, the principal stream in Chinese literature. But only recently, in preparing a more comprehensive study of the literature which arose in the Liberated Areas during the War, did I realize the immense importance of folk literature and art for all domains of the new culture.¹ On the broad foundations of folk literature and art the new Chinese artists build a new culture, with a new, popular and socialist content, but drawing upon the formal traditions of folk art. Thus in the visual arts there is a revival of the Chinese woodcut, which for centuries regularly accompanied all popular prints; the old, colourful New Year pictures acquired a new content and wide popularity was gained by pictorial serials illustrating some topical event, with accompanying text, hsin-yang-pien(1), and similar publications. Still deeper are the connexions between the new rising literature and the old folk literature in the novel, the new writers consciously link up with the tradition of the old folk storytellers and, especially, with their greatest creation, “The Water Margin”, Shui-hu-chuan (2) in order to create a new folk epic.