TERMBASES
Ci (词) originated in the Tang and the Five Dynasties, and developed to maturity as a new literary form in the Song Dynasty. Also known as “lyric with a melody,” “yuefu (乐府) poetry” or “long and short verses,” ci developed from poetry. Its main feature is that it is set to music and sung. Each piece of ci has a name for its tune. There are strict requirements for the number of lines and the number of characters as well as tone pattern and rhyming in different tunes. In terms of length, ci is divided into short lyrics, medium lyrics, and long lyrics. In terms of musical system, a piece of ci is usually divided into two stanzas of que (阕) or pian (片), as ancient Chinese called them. Occasionally, it consists of three or four stanzas, or just one. Thus, the music can be played once or many times. In terms of style, ci falls into the graceful and restrained school and the bold and unconstrained school. The former is delicate and sentimental, often describing family life and love, while the latter is bold and free, often expressing one’s vision about major social issues like the fate of the nation. Many literati and scholars of the Song Dynasty composed ci lyrics, which played a significant part in promoting its development. Today, ci is generally not set to music and sung. Rather, it is a literary form composed in accordance with the requirements of a music tune.
Ci (词 a form of poetry with long or short verses which can be set to music and sung) and qu (曲 a form of rhyming compositions which can be set to music and sung) are a combined appellation for two kinds of literary styles. In Complete Library of the Four Branches of Literature, they are listed at the very end of the “Collections” section (Qu is a sub-genre and is not listed in the table of contents). This is because according to the literary views of ancient scholars, poetry and essays were the only accepted tradition to express important ideas. To write in the form of ci (lyric) and qu (melody) was only seen as a minor skill showing a person’s talent. Sometimes, the combined appellation ciqu also refers to traditional opera and genres of performances featuring speaking and singing.
Shi (诗) is a major genre of ancient Chinese literature, the earliest literary form that emerged in China. Observing the requirements of a certain rhythm, rules of rhyming, number of characters, and type of verses, and using concise language and rich imagination, it reflects social life and conveys thoughts and emotions. Shi and wen (文) are two principal forms of ancient Chinese literature. Shi, as referred to by the ancient Chinese, consists of the older type of poetry and the latter type of poetry. It generally does not include ci (词 lyric) and qu (曲 melody), which appeared as literary genres after the Tang Dynasty. The older type of shi is also called gufeng (古风), meaning ancient style, which is a general appellation for all kinds of poetic forms produced prior to the latter type of shi, except the style employed in the odes of Chu. With relatively few restrictions in rules and forms, shi is not constrained by any antithetical arrangement or a fixed tone pattern, and its rhyme is fairly free. In addition, the length of a piece is not limited. A verse may have four, six, seven, or a mixed number of Chinese characters. The latter type of shi is also called gelüshi (格律诗), meaning poetry with fixed patterns. Its number of characters, rhyming, tone pattern, and antithetical arrangement are all strictly fixed. A poem of this type may contain four lines (known as jue 绝), each with five or seven characters, or eight lines (known as lü 律), each with five or seven characters. Occasionally, it is much longer than normal, expanding to one and a half dozen lines, which is referred to as pailü (排律). The difference between shi, and ci and qu is that the former is not set to music, while the latter may be set to music and sung. Shi has existed as a literary form for more than 2, 000 years in China. Ancient Chinese used shi to connect humans with nature, voice aspirations, and give expression to emotions. It embodied the spirit and aesthetic pursuits of literature and art in ancient China, which is very different from the West, which only sees poetry as a category of literature. In ancient China, Confucian thought played an important guiding role in poetic creation, while Daoist and Buddhist thoughts had a profound influence on the theory of poetry’s artistic conception. Since The Book of Songs was China’s earliest collection of poems, later generations also used shi to refer to The Book of Songs in particular.
Qu (曲) is a literary form that came into being later than poetry and ci (词). It generally refers to the northern- and southern-style melodies created in the Song and Jin dynasties. Northern melodies were composed mostly with tunes in northern China and performed in northern dialect, while southern melodies had southern tunes and southern dialect. Since qu reached its peak in the Yuan Dynasty, it is generally known as Yuan qu or Yuan opera. Qu is similar to ci in form but is more flexible in sentence structure, and colloquial language is used. There are two main types of qu: one is northern zaju (杂剧) opera and southern chuanqi (传奇) opera； such qu is known as xiqu (戏曲) or juqu (剧曲). The other type is sanqu (散曲) or lyric songs, also known as qingqu (清曲). As with other forms of poetry, sanqu describes a scene, a sentiment or an event and can be sung, but it has no spoken parts or instructions for performers’ movements and expressions. Generally speaking, the old-style opera is much more accomplished and influential than sanqu. The Yuan period was a golden age in the development of Chinese opera. There are more than 80 known playwrights from that time. Guan Hanqing, Ma Zhiyuan (1251?-1321?), Bai Pu (1226-1306?), and Zheng Guangzu (?- 1324?) represent different styles from different stages of the Yuan opera, and they are recognized as the four leading Yuan opera writers. Yuan opera has distinctive plots and artistic appeal. Together with Tang and Song poetry and Ming and Qing fiction, it marks an important milestone in the historical development of Chinese literature.
The Haofang School / The Bold and Unconstrained School
This is one of the two ci (词) lyric schools of the Song Dynasty, which mainly dealt with major affairs of the nation and expresses noble aspirations. It featured broad vision and bold expression, often employing the methods of prose poetry and uninhibited by metric stereotypes. The first poet who used the term “bold and unconstrained” was Su Shi （1037-1101）who, together with Xin Qiji（1140-1207）, was widely acclaimed by Southern Song critics as the leading poets of this school. Northern Song writer Fan Zhongyan（989-1052） created this school with his ci lyric, A Fisherman's Song, which grew into a major poetic style thanks mainly to Su Shi's contribution. After the Central Plains fell to the Jin forces, the Song court fled south of the Yangtze River and was too weak to recover the lost territory. Many ci poets, led by Xin Qiji and supported by other prominent poets such as Chen Yuyi (1090-1139), Ye Mengde (1077-1148), Zhu Dunru (1081-1159), Zhang Yuangan (1091-1170?), Zhang Xiaoxiang (1132-1170), Lu You (1125-1210), Chen Liang (1143-1194), and Liu Guo (1154-1206), expressed their longing to return to the north in verses of a stirring style. They voiced their patriotic sentiments and identified their own fate with that of the whole nation. They thus enriched ci lyrics’ ways of expression and greatly lifted its status in the history of literature. Although poets of this school wrote in the bold and unconstrained style, they occasionally wrote graceful and subtle ci poems. And some of their works contained too many commentaries and allusions, were careless about the use of metric schemes, and read more like prose than poetry.
As one of the two ci (词) lyric schools of the Song Dynasty, the graceful and restrained school mainly dealt with romantic love or parting sorrow. It featured sentimental and nuanced expression of one’s feelings, graceful and melodious metric patterning, and mellow and subtle use of language. Ci lyrics of this school emerged early, and many poets were famed for writing this style of ci, especially Wen Tingyun (?-866) and Li Yu (937-978) of the Five Dynasties period, Liu Yong (987?-1053?), Yan Shu (991-1055), Ouyang Xiu (1007-1072), Yan Jidao (1038-1110), Qin Guan (1049-1100), He Zhu (1052-1125), Zhou Bangyan (1056-1121), and Li Qingzhao (1084-1151?) of the Northern Song Dynasty, as well as Jiang Kui (1155?-1209), Wu Wenying (1212?-1272?), and Zhang Yan (1248-1314?) of the Southern Song Dynasty. The graceful and restrained school occupied a dominant position in terms of both quantity and quality in over one thousand years of poetry’s development. It should be mentioned that poets of this school also cared deeply about the fate of the nation, but they tended to express their concerns in a personal and sentimental way, often through depicting scenery. Therefore, their poems should not be regarded as lacking of vigor and energy.
This term refers to the most influential school of poetic criticism of the mid-Qing Dynasty named after its leader Zhang Huiyan（1761-1802), a scholar from Changzhou. He compiled the Anthology of Ci, containing 116 ci poems by 44 poets from the Tang, the Five Dynasties, and the Song periods. His aesthetic criteria for ci poetry included portraying rich emotional content in concise language, and the painting of mood and feeling through subtle associations beyond the words themselves. Thanks to his commentaries, the literary status of the ci form was considerably elevated. Zhou Ji (1781-1839), who came after Zhang, not only continued in the same practice and theory but also expanded on his ideas and compiled the Selected Poems of Four Poets of the Song Dynasty. Zhou proposed a number of theories about writing ci: for beginners, to acquire the technique of ci writing, it is essential to learn to express their feelings through material references; but to achieve the true depth of the form, material references must not be contrived, and the emotions they represent should both infer yet transcend them. Another theory was “blending.” Tan Xian (1832-1901), Chen Tingzhuo (1853-1892), Kuang Zhouyi (1859-1926) were the third generation of this literary school. Their works Writings on Ci by Futang, Remarks on Ci Poetry from White Rain Studio, Notes and Commentaries on Ci by Huifeng further enriched and refined the art of writing and critiquing ci poetry. The most important contribution of the Changzhou School was to demonstrate from a theoretical angle the value of the ci form in expressing philosophical thoughts as well as ambitions and aspirations. This placed it on a par with other classical poetic forms.
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