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A Brief Introduction
An ancient Chinese saying has it that "singing
started as early as the time men existed". This well implies the long history of
folk ballads in China. As a literature form of the ordinary people and a
component of folk customs, ballads can be viewed as a wellspring of national
culture, nurturing poets and writers while passing down the traditional virtues
of the Chinese people generation after generation .There is a vast ocean of
ballads in every corner in every corner of the country.
Collection of Chinese Ballads includes an immense variety of folk ballads
collected from different regions and ethnicities of China after May 4th Cultural
Movement, 1919. Focusing on new collections, the book does not include the ones
already recorded by ancient Chinese works or works before May 4th Movement. By
principle, the epics and long narrative or lyric poems of different regions and
ethnicities are not included either. However, excerpts or whole of some long
poems are included or introduced in the book, given their indispensable role in
the representation of a unique province, municipality or autonomous region.
Collection of Chinese Ballads mainly fall into the following categories
according to its contents and functions: work ballads, political ballads, ritual
ballads, love ballads, ballads of daily life, historical or legendary ballads,
as well as children's songs and rhymes. Meanwhile, some modification is made in
light of the customs and the characteristics of some ballads in different
provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions. As a result, apart from
content-based categories, there are also special categories of ballads from a
specific region or ethnic community, which are sub-divided by contents. For
those major multi-ethnic provinces and autonomous regions, classification is
mainly based on ethnicity, and then on contents.
Collection of Chinese Ballads is mainly about ballad lyrics; however, any
ballad which can be sung or has incidental music is provided with the tune name
or its representative opern in the appendix.
Collection of Chinese Ballads, edited and published under the principle of
"scientific selection, broad coverage and wide representation", has involved the
combined efforts of over 100,000 folklorists who have conducted in-depth
investigation and extensive collection and selection across China. The total
collection covers 30 volumes of over 50,000,000 Chinese
characters, each volume about 1.6 million words and colored illustrations at
the beginning.
Collection of Chinese Ballads is to be completed and published in 2005.
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