Slow Words, The Early Song Dynasty

"Manci" is the main form of Songci. After the preparation in Tang Dynasty and Five-kingdoms Dynasty, Manci surged to its high point in Song Dynasty. It is very important to investigate the development of Manci in the beginning of Song Dynasty for getting complete understanding of Songci. This thesis will focus on the Ci writer (except the famous one Liu Yong) in the beginning of Song Dynasty. Through analyzing their works, the author of this thesis tries to clarify the developing route of Manci in this period of time. And the thesis also aims to analyzing Manci's feature in both content and form aspects.The whole thesis will be divided into three parts:The first part will explain what Manci is in both musical form and the words number and introduce the development of Manci in Beisong Dynasty. The distinction between Manci and Lingci is the rhythm. The rhythm of Manci is slow and the tone of it is also very long. But, as time went by, people gradually distinguished Manci and Lingci by the number of the Chinese words used in a Ci poem. They trend to use the Chang Diao to stand for Manci. At the very beginning of Song Dynasty, a lot of new musical form appeared which afforded many opportunities for Manci development. Apart from Liu Yong, Zhang Xian and Ouyang Xiu also wrote many Manci.The second part will analyze the Manci in the beginning time of Song Dynasty very spedfically. Comparing Manci in Tang Dynasty and Five-kingdoms Dynasty, Manci in this time developed into many various content. Although there are still some weakpoint in Manci creation, such as limitation in the embody method. However, the creation of Manci in this time has very important impact on the Manci creation in the later century. For instance, Zhang Xian used the Lingci creation methods to write Manci. And his creation influence Zhou Bangyan a lot. The preface Zhang Xian used in his works has also put impact on Su Shi and Jiang Kui 's creation. There were some Manci which had the meaning of slowness in its name. But, most of this cases became the only example in the literature development history. And this phenomenon revealed the immaturity of the Manci creation.The third part explains the reason why only Liu Yong created many Manci. This deep reason is related to the geographic element and also closed to the writer personal experience.