Today I'll talk about "Ci"
Ci is a form of poetry performed
with musical accompaniment
A Ci is conveyed through music
The West classifies music as a temporal art
And generally speaking,
Ci is characterized by an awareness of time
a sense of the passage of time
Of course, Chinese literature
often expresses a sense of time passing
or a nostalgic lament
Nostalgia is a common theme in Ci
Ci express nostalgia in beautiful language
Why employ such beautiful diction
to lament bygone days?
Their beautiful words
were chosen in the hope that
they could fix this feeling for all time
to make it eternal
Each word is meaningful
The refined language captures life's beauty
preserving it forever
So, as a genre
Ci is a lament, a sad song, about life
It carries within it a profound pain
grappling with time's passing
In the Song dynasty
poets were especially fond of laments
As I once argued
as song lyrics
Ci were like pop music
Of course the content varied
but most Song Ci
are about a sense of abandonment
of being discarded by time
as if the good days are behind us
In a word:
'Good times don't last'
'Life is short'
These are the primary themes of Ci
'Good times don't last'
and 'Life is short'
We've all felt that way before.
If you want to understand Ci
think of them as popular music
like in your own music collection
Ask yourself
when did I get hooked on pop music?
What about romance novels?
What about film adaptations?
We got hooked when we were growing up
As childhood fades away
we confront new challenges
People often resist change,
and dwell upon the past
We often indulge in nostalgia
Ci are songs of youth
which will never come again
We all dream a dream of youth
hoping never to awaken
This is an important side of Ci
'Good times don't last'
'Life is short'
These feelings are part of being human
Let's return to the Song
the history of the Song
The Song was turbulent
It had financial woes
and a bloated bureaucracy
It fought frequent wars
It was a weak nation
But Ci became the classic literature of the Song
Ci teach us how Song writers felt
Fan Zhongyan's "Yueyang Tower"
'Country is primary, pleasure secondary'
This spirit was well-established
It was a Song literati secular Confucian spirit
an uncompromising spirit
Can we see this spirit in Ci?
Yes!
You can't judge a Ci on the surface
and claim one expresses an active will
or that another is an indulgent reverie
They might both express the same thing
We know that in reality
most literati at the time composed Ci
Many of them were outstanding
Su Dongpo
Ou-Yang Hsiu
Yen Shu
All of them composed Ci
We can see that
Ci don't leave you cowardly
or weak
One can get lost in Ci
They are somehow feminine
Ci are authentic and vital
I say this because
the more Ci you read
the more you sense a grief within
I should mention something else
Ci touch on the transience of life
but also convey permanence
Ci are not about giving up on life
or rejecting society to live in a monastery
Not at all!
Song literati admired Tao Yuanming
but few forsook society like he did
A Ci might describe
a girl who is abandoned
but won't give up
A stubborn girl
who clings to love
Ou-Yang Hsiu: 'Man has always been lovesick'
It's true, but so what?
What do you do when you're lovesick?
As you learn one of life's hardest lessons?
Song poets remained committed to love
steadfast in love
Many Ci take the perspective of a young girl
What do you notice about her?
Time passes;
she ages;
but never loses her faith in love
her faith that love will come to her
Otherwise, she can only despair
and continue waiting
Li Ch'ing Chao said:
'One longing, two sorrows'
Even so,
'a sorrow one cannot shake'
If you can't shake sorrow
then you must face it
This attitude is seen in Song Ci
There's a negative side
and a positive side
steadfast in love
This is the spirit of the Song
Song Ci demonstrate
resilience in fragility
I always say that this resilience
shines through the whole country
for 300 years of the Song
In all of Chinese history, only the Han
was longer
How did a weak nation last so long?
Because of its spirit
a literary spirit
a philosophical spirit
a cultural spirit
Song poets have something in common
that we often fail to notice
They were sentimental
They had a strong will to live
They endured the suffering of life
Su Dongpo is an example
He is a giant
He lived earnestly
Through Shi and Ci poetry and Ci poetry
Through essays and Fu rhapsodies
he reflected on different emotions
There was struggle
There was progress
One man's story was the story of an age
Su Dongpo's Ci weren't just beautiful
Beauty is only one aspect
We witness the state of one man's life
which is the spirit of the age
Su Dongpo was a paragon
and Ci
He even wrote political Ci
after the Crow Terrace Poetry Case
When we talk about his life
the thorniest issue he faced
was the Crow Terrace Case
His poetry and other writings
got him in trouble
A clique called the New Party framed him
and used his poems against him
Su Dongpo was scrutinized
Every piece of his writing was collected
When he was punished
read his punishment into his poems
and took him for a heinous criminal
But in his poetry was he
critical of the powers that be?
Of course he was
He opposed certain new policies
In his youth, he was competitive
even abrasive
He was prone to offend
It was a phase he had to go through
You know young people:
they speak without thinking
without ill intentions
They just say what comes to mind
But the clique saw Su Dongpo
as an obstacle to change
a great big obstacle
so they set him up
For this reason
His Ci had another purpose
Of course,
his poems were monitored
but Ci were considered trivial
so Ci didn't attract attention
Ci were regarded
as entertainment
and weren't scrutinized
When he was caught for his "crimes"
his Ci were spared
Is that why Su Dongpo
turned to Ci in exile in Huangzhou?
He started writing more Ci
not knowing that his Huangzhou Ci
would revolutionize the genre
Su went all out
He also wrote Fu rhapsodies
and short essays
without political commentary
Politics didn't bother him anymore
It's hard to find current events in his Ci
Su didn't deal with politics directly
Later, Hsin Chia-hsuan (1140-1207)
is considered a patriotic Ci poet
Why?
It's hard to tell
Like Su, Hsin didn't comment directly
That's not what Ci are for
There're requirements for each genre
Music Bureau poems criticize the state
Music Bureau poetry was folk poetry
collected as a reference for rulers
When literati wrote Music Bureau poems
they commented on social injustices
which everyone found acceptable
But Ci are just lyrics
They're not supposed to be political
Su Dongpo's Ci were subtly political
Su's writings were politicized
The New Party doubted him
They interrogated and exiled him
His writings were banned after he died
The ban was lifted in the South Song
There're lots of stories about him
Sometimes banning something
makes it more popular
That's how it's always been
Su's writings were widely circulated
If you had something from his hand
you could sell it
Su's works were valuable
Su's Ci
were misunderstood during his life
but soon the North Song would end
and in the South Song
people found Su's Ci were special