Word Spectrum Brief

Author: Yang Wensheng (Compiler)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-03-01
Features: This "Brief Collection of Ci Forms," compiled based on the aforementioned Ci forms and various works by modern scholars, includes one hundred thirty-eight commonly used Ci forms and nearly four hundred and fifty famous Tang and Song Ci poems during my research on Ci rules. Below are some explanations regarding the Ci forms.
1. Each Ci form often has several names; this collection includes different names for the same form.
2. Many Ci forms often have several structures, differing in the number of stanzas, lines, rhymes, and characters; this is referred to as variations in the same form.
3. In the Ming Dynasty, Gu Congjing's "Classified Collection of Poems from the Cao Tang Studio" categorized Ci poems into three types based on their character count: "Xiaoling" (up to fifty-eight characters), "Zhongdi" (fifty-nine to ninety characters), and "Changdi" (over ninety-one characters). This rough classification is also worth mentioning. However, this book only arranges the forms by character count and does not adopt this method.
4. The sections of a Ci are called "qu" or "bian."
5. Ci must rhyme.