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TERMBASES

Proper Music / Finest Poetry

It is originally a term in ancient Chinese music. It has two meanings: 1) The refined and pure music encouraged by Confucian and official circles; sometimes it was also a general term for the five notes of ancient music gong, shang, jue, zhi, and yu. 2) Examples of the finest poems and songs. Confucian scholars believed that the content and music of The Book of Songs were the best and most refined, and thus were set as the models for zhengsheng, or the finest poetry. Gao Bing(1350-1423) of the Ming Dynasty named his collection of carefully selected Tang poems A Selection of Finest Tang Poems in an effort to present the finest and purest examples of different styles of Tang poetry for later generations.

CITATION
1
Vicious music affects people by arousing their negative instincts, so licentiousness and degeneracy surface. Pure music moves people and stimulates their decent and amiable and obedient impulses, therefore harmony and peace prevail.
CITATION
2
Why are the refined notes as in The Book of Songs remote and weak, while in "Lisao" Qu Yuan created a new sorrowful style?
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