Soundscapes in Selected Tang Poetries (shi 詩) and Song Lyrics (ci 詞)

Abstract

Since the emergence of the term “soundscape” in the late 1960s and early 1970s, ethnomusicologists have drawn inspirations from cultural anthropology and approached music beyond its sound environment as a product of various human activities. Sinologists and scholars of classical Chinese music have suggested a way to read poetry and song lyrics as not just performances, as they were originally intended, but as textual performances and cultural phenomena. This study introduces the practices of textual production and the cultivation of artistic tastes through selected Tang (618–906) poetry and Song (960-1126) lyric (ci 詞). The author argues in her forthcoming monograph with Indiana University Press, Dunhuang Expressive Arts and China’s New Cosmopolitan Heritage (2024) that these classic literary productions are indispensable for understanding the construction of China’s Northland frontier culture and the Southland urban/metropolitan culture that continue to shape the country’s music and performing arts culture.