Stanza permutation in the “Guo feng” 國風 and an examination of the hermeneutical tradition of “orderly progression”

Abstract The Anda manuscript and Haihun slips have revealed that there were several different stanza permutations for poems in the “Guo feng” 國風 in early China. As most repetitive stanzas are essentially nonlinear, there is no intrinsic sequence for many poems. Rather than finding a “superior” stanza order, I would like to consider how the various stanza orders might challenge traditional interpretations of references to stanza numbers in the Zuozhuan 左傳 and the hermeneutical rule of “orderly progression” in the Shijing . Just as establishing the order of stanzas took a long time, the development of this rule was gradual. The belief in there being an unalterable stanza order not only influences how rhymes are interpreted but also shapes how lines and verses are annotated. Therefore, reconsidering the theory of orderly progression is a step towards re-evaluating the tradition of Shijing interpretation.