Pozhenzi

Pozhenzi
Traditional Chinese破陣子
Simplified Chinese破阵子
Literal meaningArmy-breaker
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinPòzhènzǐ

Pozhenzi (simplified Chinese: 破阵子; traditional Chinese: 破陣子; pinyin: Pòzhènzǐ), also known as Shipaizi (十拍子; "Ten Beats"), is a Chinese cipai, a fixed form of Ci poetry. Originating in a music of the Tang dynasty, it developed into an established literary form during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period and reached its greatest prominence under the Song dynasty. Its standard form consists of 62 Chinese characters arranged in two stanzas of five lines each, with a prescribed sequence of line lengths, tonal patterns and rhymes.

The tune originated in the martial music associated with the Tang imperial court before becoming a vehicle for personal reflection, historical remembrance, romantic sentiment and patriotic expression. Its development reflects the transformation of ci from lyrics associated with musical performance into an independent form of literary composition. Most famous Pozhenzi works were filled by Li Yu, Yan Shu, Su Shi and Xin Qiji.

Mural Depicting Dance Poses of Pochen Yue (破陣樂, Army-breaking Music), Dunhuang

Metrical structure

Pozhenzi is a two-stanza lyric pattern known in traditional Chinese prosody as a Shuangdiao (雙調). In its standard form, each stanza contains five lines with successive lengths of six, six, seven, seven and five Chinese characters. Each stanza therefore contains 31 characters, producing a total of 62 characters distributed across ten lines. The second, fourth and fifth lines of each stanza end in level-tone rhymes, giving the complete lyric six prescribed rhyme positions.

The standard pattern recorded by Long Yusheng in Tang Song Ci Gelü (唐宋詞格律) may be expressed as follows, with Ping (平) representing a level tone, Ze (仄) an oblique tone, X a position permitting either tonal category, and R a rhyming line ending. Each of the two stanzas follows the same arrangement: Z Z P P X Z; X P X Z P P (R); X Z X P P Z Z; X Z P P X Z P (R); X P X Z P (R). This notation represents the conventional prosodic template rather than the pronunciation of the words in modern Mandarin.

See Also

References

  1. 1 2 3 Long, Yusheng (1978). "破陣子". 唐宋詞格律 [Prosody of Tang and Song Ci] (in Chinese). Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House.
  2. 1 2 Xiao, Ruifeng; Yang, Jueqin (2021). "唐宋《破阵子》词调演进疏证" [An Examination of the Evolution of the Pozhenzi Tune in Tang and Song Poetry]. Journal of Ningbo University (Liberal Arts Edition) (in Chinese) (6).
  3. ↑ "破陣子（四十年來家國）, 李煜" [Pozhenzi (Forty Years of Home and Country), Li Yu]. 中國古詩文精讀 (in Traditional Chinese).
  4. ↑ "说古道今：元是今朝斗草赢" [Past and Present: Winning the Grass-Fighting Game Today]. Suzhou Local Chronicles Office (in Chinese). 12 April 2024.
  5. ↑ "破陣子（醉裏挑燈看劍）, 辛棄疾" [Pozhenzi (Drunk, I Raise the Lamp and Gaze at My Sword), Xin Qiji]. 中國古詩文精讀 (in Traditional Chinese).
  6. 1 2 Chen, Tingjing; Wang, Yiqing (1715). "破陣子". 欽定詞譜 [Imperially Commissioned Handbook of Ci Prosody] (in Chinese). Vol. 14.