What is music? And is “music” a mistranslation for the Chinese concept of yue (樂)? Rather than defining exactly what “music” or yue is, dictionary style, I find it more stimulating to ask where music/yue falls within a particular mapping of the structure knowledge—for which a fancier word would be episteme. While many important cartographies of knowledge existed in the Classical Chinese corpus, arguably the weightiest due to its proximity to imperial power was The Complete Library in Four Sections (四庫全書, 1784/1803), published by the Qianlong Emperor (r. 1736-1796).
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From the Reed Ashes Pavilion 