An Analysis Of Spreading And Influence Of Zhang Yan’s Etymology

The origin of Ci poems is inseparable from the musicality of vocabulary because music goes before vocabulary.Dunhuang Qu Ci,found in written language,is the earliest record among the Ci poems in Tang dynasty.The emergence of Ci poems,as a new literary genre collaborating with musical notations,resulted from three factors:the prosperity of music,the nurture of folk arts,and the active urban singing performance and musical recreations.Popular in folk Royal Academy,Ci poems grew from the folk creation to the intellectual creation,which has caught the gradual attention of men of letters.They were gradually but exclusively employed because the men of letters have begun to make simulated writing of Ci poems by filling up the vocabulary according to its sound ever since Tang dynasty.It is clear that music,tune and vocabulary complement each other with an order of gradual progress.There was the theory of “Musical notations are composed when poetry dies” in ancient China.Musicians in the song workshops were quite familiar with the musical notations and musical words,which was not recorded when Ci poems were at their prime status in Song dynasty.Having studied the Ci poems during Bei and Nan Song dynasties,Zhang Yan,a rhythm school poet at the turn of song and Yuan dynasties.Produced his masterpiece Etymology by summarizing and sorting out the creative laws of Ci poems.The continuous studies afterwards on Etymology and the inheritance of Zhang Yan’s thought about Ci poems have laid a foundation for the dissemination of Etymology in the 20 th century.Meanwhile,the research into Etymology has taken on a prosperous,diversified and systematic trend in the 21 th century.It is therefore noteworthy that scholars have applied such approaches as aestheticism,reception theory and comparative study to their specific research into Ci poems.The analysis of the dissemination process of Zhang Yan’s Etymology can both enable us to perceive the inheriting law of the ancient literary theory canons and explore or discover the law of the dissemination on how the literary canons are formed.This paper taking Zhang Yan’s Etymology development under different historical background at different stages,and reveal the significance and value of Etymology at different stages,which will undoubtedly be significance for us to study the dissemination of literary canons.