On Zhou Bangyan's Songs

Zhou Bangyan, a famous song composer in North Song dynasty, plays a very important role in the history of song composing, and is eulogized as a "comprehensive song composer". In order to further explore the artistic achievements and perceive the profound influence of Zhou's songs, the paper tries to illustrate from the following six chapters:The influence of the composer's official experiences upon his creations is analyzed in the first and second chapter. Besides, his love songs, military songs as well as nostalgia songs are introduced.The melancholy in Zhou's songs and the characteristics of his time are analyzed in the third, fourth and fifth chapter, and at the same time, the artistic characteristics and achievements of Zhou's songs are discussed. Zhou is not only good at melting Tang poetry into his songs, expressing the true feelings, and choosing the suitable prosody, but also skillful in using elegant images, sophisticated plots and unique style.Based on the analysis above, the source and cause of Zhou's songs is identified and the influence of his songs is discussed in chapter six, with the aim to better understand the literary position of Zhou's songs in the history of Chinese song composing.In the last chapter, the three phases of the latest studies on Zhou's songs are introduced, and meanwhile, some relevant questions that need answering are put forward.