The Cihua History Of Republican China

As a literary style of Ci poetry with a long history,Cihua originated from Song Dynasty when composing a poem to a given tune of Ci was flourishing.It maintains relatively extensive scope of Ci poetry criticism and relatively fixed literary characteristics of Ci.After entering Republican China Period,because the fundamental system including economy,culture,education etc have changed overwhelmingly,the identity of Ci talks author,mainstream literary style,the formats and platforms of literary works,etc were in a process of updating accordingly.This paper puts emphasis on the dynamic changing process of Cihua in Republican China Period in standpoint of historiography.On the one hand,there were changes to the content of Cihua.The traditional Cihua includes assorted critical content of Ci Poetry.However in the modern transition of Ci Poetry,Ci Poetry creation,teaching,appreciation and research etc were gradually divested in stead of concentrating in one kind of Cihua.On the other hand,there were changes to formats of Cihua.With emergence of vernacular Chinese and wording formats,rapid commercialization of contemporary publishing industry,popularization of Ci Poetry education etc,the traditional Cihua can’t satisfy the new need for literary style derived from the above phenomena.It was bound to evolve on the basis of traditional short-entry style and finally separate from the traditional format of Cihua completely.This paper analyzes Cihua in Republican China period by dividing a history of 38 years into 4 phases.This division is based on the rise and fall of Cihua in Republican China period.The paper is composed of the following sectors:Introduction Part explains the meaningfulness of the topic.It reviews and examines the current status and blind-spots of the overall research into Cihua in Republican China period conducted by current community of scholars.Furthermore,it illustrates cut-in points and feasibility of research from perspectives of historiography and literary style.The First Part is the summary.It defines the concept of Cihua in Republican China period by text features and time limit,meanwhile simply summarizing the features of development stages of Cihua in Republican China period.It analyzes the inner connections among three schools together with distinctive features of their Cihua.The three schools are “Classic,Modern,Commercial” which constitute the whole history of Cihua in Republican China periodThe Second Part targets the Cihua from 1912 to 1918.It analyzes relationship between prosperity of Cihua in Journal at the beginning of Republican China period and Nan She.It confirms the founding role played by Chong Yin Ci She and its members’ Cihua for history of Cihua in Republican China period,especially the profound meaning behind Meng Chuang boom at the beginning of that period.In the same time,it also pays attention to the non-mainstream poets,observing how their Cihua differed from the popular Ci poetry styles at that time.The Third Part centers on the Cihua of the elderly poets in late Qing dynasty,discussing how the elderly poets insisted on the ideal of Ci Poetry and actively expressed viewpoints of Ci Poetry with emergence of New Culture campaign in 1920’s and increasingly unpopular Ci Poetry.It was best represented by “Hui Feng Ci Hua” written by Kuang Zhou Yi.“Hui Feng Ci Hua” is the final masterpiece of Changzhou School of Ci poetry in late Qing dynasty bringing new life to traditional Ci Poetry in Republican China period.The Fourth Part is focused on period between 1919 and 1932 when the whole social culture is in transition.Not only did New Culture campaign affect literature but also reshaped education,publishing etc.Among the most affected were professors in universities and young students.They showed different viewpoints and aesthetic tendencies in Cihua.Under the influence of the boom of Ci poetry education,Publishing industry produces massive Cihua of general knowledge teaching Ci poetry and composition means.In addition,unlike the former stage,there were Cihua with regional characteristics nationwide instead of focused in Shanghai.The Fifth Part is about Cihua between 1933 and 1937 during which the most eye-catching journal is“Ci poetry quarterly journal”.It is the first journal of research into Ci poetry as a milestone marking the beginning of modern academic research of Ci Poetry.In contrast,the popularity of old-fashioned Ci poetry was declining rapidly when traditional Ci poetry criticism is almost wholly included in newly-developed papers and works.Traditional short-entry Cihua lacked highlights except for nostalgia.On the other hand,there were new features involving vernacular Chinese writing and Ci poetry appreciation in Modern School of Cihua,which injected vitality into traditional Cihua with help of western literature theory and classic Ci poetry criticism.The Sixth Part is related to resurgence of traditional Cihua between 1937 and 1949.Normal form of composition and aesthetic tendency led by two famous elderly poets,Zhu Qiang Cun and Kuang Zhou Yi,have become a history.Different poets showed different attitudes concerning this history.Wang Yun Zhang,Chen Fei Shi,Zhao Zun Yue and others respected Zhu and Kuang as tutors and missed prosperity of Ci poetry at the beginning of Republican China period.They mainly focused on review and conclusion.Nevertheless,more poets started reflecting on the phenomenon that more emphasis was placed on technique rather than the soul of Ci poetry in the former half of Republican China period.Not only young poets but also elderly poets conducted self-reflection.The Seventh and Eighth Part are two special topics of Cihua in Republican China period.They are respectively “Cihua of commercial journal” and “female Cihua”.The former one pays attention to Cihua creation by journalists of commercial journal in Republican China period,investigating how poets’ personality was replaced by the journals’ need for profit which led to the disappearance of this kind of Cihua in the background of contemporary commercialized publishing mode.The latter topic is concerned about the new changes of female Cihua under the influence of female mind liberation,analyzing the multiple values of female Cihua in Republican China period from the perspective of both male and female authors.Cihua involved in the research of this paper were compiled as “summary statement of Cihua in Republican China period” as an attachment.