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The Chinese Character婉: A Case of Etymologicaland Genealogical Studies on the Core Concepts in Chinese Ci Poetry(PDF)

《南京师大学报》(社会科学版)[ISSN:1006-6977/CN:61-1281/TN]

Issue:
2014年05期
Page:
155-
Research Field:
Publishing date:

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Title:
The Chinese Character婉: A Case of Etymologicaland Genealogical Studies on the Core Concepts in Chinese Ci Poetry
Author(s):
ZHU Chong-cai
Keywords:
婉(wan) studies on ci poetry etymology aesthetics of Chinese characters genealogical analysis
PACS:
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DOI:
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Abstract:
Wan-yue 婉约(elegant and restrained)is one of the core concepts of Chinese ci poetry. The rich implication of the Chinese character 婉(wan)can be detected from its membership of the character family consisting of夗(yuan), 宛(wan)and 婉(wan). Originally, the character夗 meant “lie down” which was engraved, as an ideograph, on the animal bones and bronze wares in the image of one or two persons lying down. Later, it obtained such meanings as “bent”, “curved”, “round”, and “revolving”. The character宛, which was made by adding to夗 the radical 宀which referred to a room, was extended to take such meanings as “deep”, “quiet”, “sad”, and “clear”. The character婉, with adding the radical 女(nü)to the root宛, gained such meanings as “obedient”, “beautiful”, and “lovely”. In the Chinese language, the 夗 family characters including宛, 婉, 惋(wan)and 怨(yuan)can form a lot of two-character words and four-character idioms, which can be used to describe and comment on ci poetry. In this way, there appeared the word wan-yue婉约 which constitutes one of the core concepts of ci poetry studies. The夗 family characters and the words and phrases closely related to them, bearing a strong connection with such characters as 宛 and 婉 in shape, are usually distributed and used in specific contexts to convey rich aesthetic meanings.

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Last Update: 2014-10-05