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Kuang Zhouyi's Monthly Lessons for the Annotation of Cheng Meng'an's Ci-Poems: A Summary Review

Peng Yuping   

  1. Chinese literature at Sun Yat-sen University.
  • Online:2019-03-25 Published:2019-06-11
  • About author:Peng Yuping, Ph. D., is a professor of Chinese literature at Sun Yat-sen University. His research mainly focuses on ancient Chinese poetry and poetry criticism.
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Abstract: Learning how to compose ci-poems was an essential part of ci-poetry study. Therefore, revision and annotation played a very important part in ci-poetry learning, which was mainly conducted in two ways: the author's self-revision and discussion with teachers and friends. During the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, it was a fashion among young people to study ci-poems personally with a master, and thus the practice and theory of ci-poetry revision matured. A representative master in this period was Kuang Zhouyi. His monthly lessons for the revision of Cheng Meng'an's ci-poems in 1923-1924, which are still extant, reflect his theory and method of ci-poetry revision. Based on correcting meters, and altering words and sentences, Kuang Zhouyi demonstrated how to further improve on themes, poetic conceptions and styles. Meanwhile, Kuang Zhouyi guided the development of Cheng Meng'an's thoughts on ci-poetry by way of annotation and topic assignments besides his revision. In the 1920s, when the New Culture Movement was surging, Kuang Zhouyi's monthly revision lessons for Cheng Meng'an's ci-poems was not only his personal effort to perpetuate the life of the old literary genre but also a reflection of the common aspiration of the camp upholding traditional Chinese culture back at that time.

Key words: Kuang Zhouyi, Chen Meng'an, monthly lessons for ci-poetry revision, Wu Mengchuang

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