The ci poetry in Chinese literature has
usually been studied as a
narrative rather than an expressive genre. With the
concepts and approach of structural analysis of
narrative texts, I try to see and explain ci poetry as a narrative genre. A ci poem is
usually composed of four parts: the name of the tune, the title, the foreword and the lyric. In its early days, the name of the tune was often used as the title, summarizing the theme; the function of the title was to introduce the story; while the forewords served as an extension of the title on the one hand, and an introduction of the background story and the methods in lyric writing. Unlike other narratives, a ci lyric tells a story in segmented and poetic details, usually in the first person. The longer works may have relatively complete plot under the influence from the fu prose, while the shorter ones usually work through metaphors, as poems do. Compared with fictions, the stories told in ci are more refined and reserved in term of style and preferred by literati.