Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.11, 2020

“Living” Literature: A New Approach to the Bibliographic Study of Classical Literature

(Abstract)

Feng Guodong

The bibliographic study of classical works developed on the basis of ancient China’s “bibliographical learning” is an instrumental discipline with bibliographic methodology and techniques at its core. This discipline must provide reliable texts and materials for other disciplines, but should also give full consideration to its own distinctive features and academic aspirations. Its research topics should not be confined to the methods and techniques of textual collation, but focus on the documents themselves. Textuality, materiality, historicity and sociality are the four most important properties of the literature, and the bibliographic study of classical literature should involve the holistic study of all four elements. If we analyze the historicity of the literature longitudinally, reveal its sociality horizontally and combine internal documentary research with research external to the documents, we may be able to attempt the creation of holistic research on “living” literature.