On Yan Jidao’s Alcohol-related Ci

Connection between alcohol and literature can be traced back to “The Classic of Poetry”(the oldest existing collection of Chinese poetry). Besides, alcohol culture had become a popular and colorful phenomenon in Northern Song Dynasty through cultural influence of Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern and Tang Dynasties. People in the Northern Song Dynasty advocate banquet enjoyment form poetry and alcohol-cultural atmosphere even boomed at that time. Yan Jidao’s works(a famous poet in Northern Song Dynasty), take use of alcohol-related images into the poetry, which present his luxury and dissipating lifestyle and negative mind, to secretly express his emotional thoughts and introspection for his tragic lot and life experiences. Drinking is not only a life style but also a carrier of his thoughts and feelings deep inside. Although themes and contents of alcohol-related Ci(a style of lyric poetry) are quite limited and have a touch of escapism and drinking down sorrow, Yan Jidao generally expresses sincere and innocent feelings repressed in his heart and reflects lives and spirits of contemporary pathetic scholars through the alcohol.The contents of Alcohol-related Ci which is a very important part of his works though narrow have a profound meaning. Also, they trully reflect Yan Jidao’s inner thoughts and emotions, thus giving us a clear idea of his mental attitude as well as feelings. For the artistic style of alcohol-related Ci, the poet mainly uses fine and smooth expressions and reserved sentences to deliver beauties of sentiment and implicitness. For thoughts and emotions as well as social significance, alcohol-related Ci on the whole embodies hedonistic life views of pathetic scholars of Northern Song Dynasty to express their emotions by drinking. His main thought is negative and frustrating but the works to some extent reflect Yan Jidao’s respect and affection for women. It also implies ups and downs of his life, laments and nostalgias for life and time.On the research of alcohol-related Ci, it is now mostly focusing on poet’s life fate and experience. What is more, it is concentrating on the combined influence over the images of alcohol and dream. For alcohol-related Ci, it is poet’s thoughts and feelings hidden in the alcohol image that worth further research.Hence, this article will analyse three different themes, parting lovesickness, carousing and reminiscence, of alcohol-related Ci to comprehensively dissect manifestation, aesthetic taste and social value of alcohol-related images on the basic of content analysis and meanwhile grasp style features and literary value of alcohol-related Ci.