Song dynasty: 960–1279
The Song dynasty was marked by cultural advancement and military weakness. During this period, literary output was spectacularly increased, thanks mainly to the improvement of printing (invented in the 8th century) and to the establishment of public schools throughout the empire (from 1044). Nearly all the literary genres in verse and prose were continued, and some trends, begun in Tang times, were accelerated.
Prose
In prose the reform initiated by Han Yu in the name of ancient, more straightforward style (guwen) was reemphasized by such 11th-century writers as Ouyang Xiu and Su Dongpo. Both men held high rank in the civil service and were great painters as well as leading poets. Nevertheless, their contribution to prose writing in guwen style was as important as their poetry. The guwen movement was further supported by men whose primary interest was not belles lettres, such as Sima Guang, the statesman-historian, and Zhu Xi, the scholar-philosopher and principal formulator of Neo-Confucianism.
In prose fiction there were two distinct trends. Short tales in guwen were written in ever greater bulk but failed to maintain the level achieved in the Tang dynasty. The subject matter became more fragmentary and anecdotal and the style duller. In sharp contrast to the guwen school, which was still a literary language despite the movement toward naturalness of expression, there arose a school of storytelling in the vernacular. Almost purely oral in origin, these tales reflected the style of the storyteller who entertained audiences gathered in marketplaces, fairgrounds, or temple yards. In the 12th century they became fairly lengthy, connected stories, especially those dealing with fictionalized history. This elevation of the everyday speech of the common people as a medium of story writing of the huaben (“vernacular story”) type was to open up new vistas in prose fiction in later periods.
Poetry
Poetry of the conventional type (shi) was cultivated by numerous rival schools, each claiming many illustrious members. On the whole, the rival literary movements were significant as steps toward greater naturalness in syntax, and a few outstanding writers approximated the spoken vernacular language. Among the many shi poets of the Song dynasty, Lu You, who flourished in the 12th century, was a towering figure. A traveler and patriot, he wrote throughout his long career no fewer than 20,000 poems, of which more than 9,000 have been preserved.
But it was in their utilization of the newer verse form, ci, that Song poets achieved their greatest distinction, making ci the major genre of the dynasty. As noted above, the ci form had been popularized at first orally by women singers, and the first generation of ci writers had been inspired and guided by them in sentiment, theme, and diction; their lyrics were thus redolent with the fragrance of these women. Later in the 12th century, as men (and one great woman) of letters began to take over, the ci form reached the heights of great art. Ouyang Xiu and Li Qingzhao, the latter generally considered the greatest woman poet of China, may be considered representatives of this trend. Li Qingzhao’s poems, paralleling her life, are intensely personal. They at first dealt with the joys of love, but gradually their tone darkened to one of despair, caused first by frequent and lengthy separations from her husband, who was in government service, and then by his untimely death.
Other masters of the ci were Su Dongpo and Xin Qiji, the latter a soldier turned recluse. It was Xin Qiji who imbued the writing of ci with new characteristics by rising above rules without breaking them, surpassing in this respect his contemporaries as well as those who came after him.