Outline Of Ci-types In The Tang&Song Dynasties

Ci exists not only as one literary type and textual form., but also as one arts style and activity standard. Study of Ci style is one of the least studies areas while it is one of the most fundamental and therefore most important studies. This paper focuses on structure and formation of Tang-Song ci by exploring its structural elements and their relations with reference to different historical stages. The six chapters in this paper correspond to special subjects.Chapter One focuses on the subject of Standard and Ci, where the origin and foundation of Ci in Tang and Five Dynasties are discussed. We look anew the issues such as of Ci’s origin and historical stages, tune in Ci and Ci style, musicians and Ci evolution. We analyze especially the editions and propagation of the Anthology of Huajian. Ci, as a genre in poetry, with its tunes set and forms set, marks the birth of a completely new writing style, and a new textual style. Once music and tunes are conventionalized and texts formalized, Ci came into being.Chapter Two focuses on Musical instruments and Ci, especially on how instruments and music influence the development of Ci from Tang to Song Dynasties. From Lute First Instrument in Tang to Bili First Instrument in Song can we see the big change in musical instrument prominence and correspondingly the changes in tune, in rhythm, and in stylistic features in Ci. It is these changes that have helped Ci shift from Tang Dynasty Music to Song Dynasty Music, from Ling-Ci in Tang-Five-dynasties to Man-Ci in Song.Chapter Three focuses on the topic of Styles and Ci. History of the acronym Ling-Yin-Jin-Man and the different meaning in different tunes are explored. The name of Ling-Yin-Jin-Man does not originate from different periods in a long music, nor from the classification of Ci according to text length, number of words, etc. Indeed, the name is in YueFu Yulun by Song Xiangfeng in Qing dynasty, where Ling, Yin-Jin and Man refer respectively to Small Ling, Mediate Tune, and Long Tune. Then this trichotomy evolves into a quartering of Ling, Yin, Jin and Man. These four types of tunes are used as concepts in music, singing and texts, and thus people look at the nature of Ci and the form in Ci very differently.Chapter Four focuses on the subject of Singing and Ci. The problem of how singing and Ci are related is discussed. Sounds and tunes in Ci reflect human’s emotions and feelings, but misuse of topic choice and music choice is often found because of loss of music and loss of methods in singing. Repeat song, the repetition of musical sentences, shows clearly that singing does exert influence on Ci’s text, especially on its syntactic features. More importantly, we find in repeat song the traces of evolution from music literature to language literature. Ziduqu, Self-created music, does enrich Ci’s diversity, but many of them are not original:they depend on other musics.Chapter Five focuses on Text and Ci. Textual features such as that of syntax and lexicon are explored. Ci style has experienced different stages and therefore there are different standards for both paragraph segmentation and sentence segmentation. This accumulative difference in standards may lead to confusion and mistakes in segmentation. We introduce this kind of errors and analyzed the reasons for them, with especially reference to current standards set for segmentation. In Sanziwei, Three Words at End, the last three words in a sentence rhyme in consistent tonal pattern. The phenomenon of Sanziwei implies somewhat correspondence and formal relation between sound and text, between natural rhythm and metrical pattern, between Shi (poetry) rhythm and Ci rhythm.Chapter Six focuses on Metrical Pattern and Ci. It explores Ci’s elements, structure and history. Textual elements such as word number, passage, sentence pattern, tonal pattern and rhythm constitute metrical pattern, and this takes its shape in Tang-Song Ci. There has been controversy over whether Tang-Song Ci can be regarded as metrical pattern especially when looked at from different stages and standards. We base our discussion on Niannujiao and other tunes related, with the purpose of having a definite answer to the above question.The birth and evolution of Ci Style can be regarded as logical unfoldness of elements and system in Ci, and also as evolution through different morphological stages. Therefore, the study of Ci in text and history is in fact a kind of structural location and historical location. The paper is not in pursuing the configuration of a system, nor reaching a definite conclusion. Rather, it attempts to look anew those old problems in Ci Style study such as stylistic features and morphological evolution.