It remains a tradition in China to sing ancient poetry. A great number of content from The Book of Songs, The Elegies of Chu, Yueh-fu poetry in Han Dynasty, Tang Poetry, Song Lyrics and Yüan Verse can be reprocessed with melodies. The singing shows high musicality with its cadence and a style that is highly unified with that of music. The course, from the perspective of singing, makes clear the relationship between music and poetry in the history of ancient Chinese literature, and summarizes the musical characteristics of The Book of Songs, The Elegies of Chu, Yueh-fu poetry in Han Dynasty, Tang Poetry and Song Lyrics. Furthermore, the leader of the course also interspersed the chanting and videos of ancient poems, an action which enhances the aesthetic feeling.
Professor Liu Dongying, the lecturer of the course, is a doctoral supervisor of Classical Philology of Heilongjiang University. She is a representative of ancient poetry singing in China and is committed to the exploration, saving, sorting and dissemination of ancient music scores and poems. Since 2016, Professor Liu has presided over the National Art Fund project Communication of Classical Poetry Singing through New Media, and become the leader of compiling original ancient poetry and tunes from more than 20 sorts of ancient music scores, such as Se Scores, Baishr Daoren’s Songs, Jyougung Dacheng： the Score Collection of Nine gungs, including Sourthern Opera and Northern Opera, Weishr Tablatures and Swei Jin Scores. Meanwhile, the original ancient poetry tunes are compiled. The works of famous artists are recited with reference to classical poetry and the tunes of contemporary famous artists are actively sorted, preserved, and inherited through modern notation methods as well as professional music arrangement, production mode and the deductive technique of "literati singing poems" make it re-emerge the beauty of art. Benefiting from both theoretical and practical achievements of the National Art Fund project, the course adopts the method of both teaching and appreciating to bring everyone into the beautiful artistic conception of Chinese classical poetry.
