Literature of the Song Dynasty

The Tang was followed by a long period of the turbulent Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms（907-960），which made no important literary achievements.Then another important dynasty with great literary achievements appeared，that is，the Song Dynasty.Diachronically，Song falls into two periods，namely the Northern Song and Southern Song Dynasties.In general，literature of the Northern Song Dynasty exhibits themes of strong social responsibility and political enthusiasm while that of the latter shows a bit of sadness.As far as genres were concerned，poetry and prose flourished on，producing six of the famous“Eight Prose Masters of the Tang and Song Dynasties”.A blooming urban economy accelerated the development of popular narratives.The greatest literary achievement of the Song is the boom of a new poetic form:Ci.The Complete Anthology of Song Ci by modern scholar Tang Guizhang（1901-1990）collects more than 20，000 pieces of Song Ci by more than 1，000 Ci writers.

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