Research on Tang, Five Dynasties, and Early Northern Song Ci - Centered on the Interaction between Poetry and Ci - Eastern Cultural Integration

Author: Dong Xiping
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-03-01
Features: This book centers on the interaction of poetry and ci, selecting several landmark phenomena from the history of ci during the period from Bai Juyi to Ouyang Xiu for analysis and discussion, revealing the development patterns of the history of ci in the Tang, Five Dynasties, and early Northern Song dynasties from one perspective.
Chapter 1 analyzes the mutual permeation of poetry and ci during the mid-Tang period. Many poets of the mid-Tang period attempted to write ci, and there was frequent overlap and intersection between poetry and ci in creation and dissemination, with unclear boundaries between the two. The external features of ci, such as sentence structure and titles, and the internal features, such as artistic conception and expressive imagery, as well as the evolution of popular tunes in the mid-Tang period and the activities of singers and instrumentalists, all reveal the close relationship between the development of poetry and ci.
Chapter 2 discusses the evolution of poetry in the late Tang and Five Dynasties and the establishment of the ci form. The expressive content of ci was further expanded, and its emotions and artistic conception were further deepened. The new aesthetic pursuits in poetry had a significant impact on the formation of the intrinsic characteristics of ci. The emergence of ci poets and their tendency toward similar personality traits, as well as the appearance of ci anthologies and the formation of the dominant style of ci, indicate that ci had established itself as an independent literary genre.
Chapter 3 examines the ci scene in the early Northern Song period. During the fifty-year decline of the early Song ci scene, a new type of scholar emerged to meet the demands of the time, shaping a new persona of Song Confucian scholars. As the mental state and creative style of ci poets changed, more poets engaged in the creation of ci. The flourishing of creation and the widespread dissemination of ci works eventually made poetry and ci together an important part of the cultural life of the Song people. The prosperity of san ci marked the further perfection of the development of ci, and the emergence of great ci poets who excelled in both poetry and ci signaled the beginning of ci reaching its peak.