On The Composition Of The Ci Poets From Jiangxi In The Northern Song Dynasty

In the Song Dynasty, when its culture was at its best, the ci poetry developed unprecedentedly and became a remarkable form of literature. Geographically, there were many ci poets from Jiangxi, who were more active and played an important role in the ci field of Two Song Dynasties. In the Northern Song Dynasty alone, the number of the ci poets from Jiangxi was the second largest, merely behind Zhejiang Province. What is more, their works which were brilliant in quality and rich in style made outstanding contributions to the development and prosperity of the ci field in the Northern Song Dynasty. The ci poets from Jiangxi had more than a strong sense of local traditional culture. They boasted the spirit of creativity. They did not only inherit the style of ci in Wudai and Southern Tang Dynasties, but put their own ideas of beauty and update spirits into their ci peoms. In terms of images, their ci poems ranged from love affairs up to personal emotions. The styles varied from indirect expressions and simplicity up to boldness. Xiaolin dominated as the main body but with "man ci" at intervals. The ci poets from Jiangxi play an important part in linking the past to the future in the development of the ci poetry as a form of literature. We can get a whole view of evolution of the ci peotry by looking at the ci poets from Jiangxi.Jiangxi in the Nothern Song Dynasty just refers to the western region south of Changjiang River. If so, the ci peots from Jiangxi are made up of 25 people, who are Yan Shu, Wang Yi, Chen Pengnian, Ouyang Xiu, Liu Chang and so on, 8 of whom produced collections of poems. So far 716 poems have been found. That there were so many ci poets from Jiangxi and many peoms by them resulted from the solid cultural and economic foundation in Southern Tang dynasty and the development of culture and economy in Northern Song Dynasty .In terms of the origin of composition, Yanshu, Ouyang Xiu, Yan Jidao and so on inherited the poem style of Southern Tang and finished transferring from Tang poem to Song ci. Wang Anshi broke away from the flower style of Tang and composed ci in the form of poems. Huang Tingjian combined something vulgar with something elegant and turned out to be independent in style. From Yan to Huang means the process from the traditional style to a new style. In terms of composition, Yan lived a rich and cosy life, whose poems reflected mainly the life of rich people, like drinking, writing, dancing and the mood of carefree, and whose style was quiet and refined, emotional but full of thoughts. Ouyang's contributions lie in the facts that he not only enlarged the range of themes but invented expressing techniques. Yan Jidao's poems were mainly about his sweet memory of the past and his bad luck (he was talented but was not used), so they were basically sad in style. Wang Anshi wrote to express the sufferings of life and thoughts of life and the combination of vulgar and elegant made him independent from others in style. Huang Tingjian was very similar to Wang in style, but his themes ranged more largely, from love affairs to life sufferings to everything. Xie Yi's works mainly involved romantic stories as well as the life of a hermit and housed personal emotions in nature, who was detached in style. The combination of descriptions of scenes, narration, lyrics and comments characterizes the style of Xie Yi's brother, Xie Ke. Huihong was a monk, but he didn't avoid writing about love while enjoying himself by describing "Chana"; else, his works about earthly love was bold and direct. The other poets from Jiangxi in Northern Song dynasty, who either inherited the traditional style of the last dynasty or were influenced by the poets in the same times, varied from one to another in style.