" Dictionary of Poetic, Lyric, and Prose Terms (Volume 1 and 2) "

Author: Zhang Xiangzhu
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Features: The language of poetry, ci, and qu refers to the special terms that were popular in poetry, classics, and other literary works during the Tang, Song, Jin, Yuan, and Ming dynasties. These terms range from single characters to phrases, and their nature is mostly colloquial, not encompassed by classical or archaic meanings, nor commonly found in the classical prose of the Eight Masters. There has never been a dedicated book to explain these terms. However, since ci is the complement of poetry, and qu is the complement of ci, while the three forms—poetry, ci, and qu—remain distinct yet share the same origin, I believe that compiling and interpreting them together would be more convenient. There are two methods for this compilation: first, based on their distinctiveness, poetry is used to verify poetry, ci to verify ci, and qu to verify qu, which is called self-compilation; second, based on their common origin, the three forms or any two of them can be used to verify each other, which is called mutual compilation. By synthesizing all the evidence, a single interpretation is assumed. If one interpretation is insufficient to cover all meanings, another interpretation is sought and assumed as a secondary meaning. For terms with general meanings, the scope is broad, including both poetry and prefaces, as well as drama and spoken parts. The collected evidence often includes as many as ten or more examples.