Tanci is a narrative form of song in China that alternates between verse and prose.Wang, Lingzhen, p
53
The literal name "plucking rhymes" refers to the singing of verse portions to a '' pipa''.Hu, Siao-chen, p
539
A ''tanci'' is usually seven words long. On some occasions the length is ten words. Some scholars refer to ''tanci'' as "plucking rhymes," "southern singing narrative," "story-sining," "strum lyrics". The local forms of Tanci encompasses

Suzhou Tanci Suzhou (; ; Suzhounese: ''sou¹ tseu¹'' , Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Soochow, is a major city in southern Jiangsu province, East China. Suzhou is the largest city in Jiangsu, and a major economic center and focal point of tr ...

, Yangzhou Tanci,

Siming Nanci Siming may refer to: * Siming District, an urban district of Xiamen, Fujian, China * Siming (deity) Siming () refers to a Chinese deity or deified functionary of that title who makes fine adjustments to human fate, with various English translat ...

, Shaoxing Pinghudiao, etc. ''Tanci'' consists of both spoken storytelling and sung ballads. Another distinct narrative style is ''

pinghua Pinghua (; Yale romanization of Cantonese, Yale: ''Pìhng Wá''; sometimes disambiguated as /) is a pair of Sinitic languages spoken mainly in parts of the Guangxi, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, with some speakers in Hunan province. Pinghua ...

'', a storytelling art form which is purely spoken. The word '' pingtan'' is used as a collective term to refer to ''tanci'' and ''pinghua''.Webster-Chang, p
26

History

Historically ''tanci'' was a popular art form with women in the lower

Yangtze River Valley The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ; ) is the longest river in Asia, the third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains (Tibetan Plateau) and flow ...

, specifically the

Jiangnan Jiangnan or Jiang Nan (; formerly romanized Kiang-nan, literally "South of the River" meaning "South of the Yangtze") is a geographic area in China referring to lands immediately to the south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, incl ...

region. It originated as a popular literary genre in the

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...

. In the mid-to-late

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...

it became popular with educated women who wrote and performed the music and who were the genre's audience and reader base. Women's ''tanci'' often are about their philosophy of literary creation, the sentiments of the author, and descriptions of seasons. Lingzhen Wang, author of ''Personal Matters: Women's Autobiographical Practice in Twentieth-century China'', wrote that "some scholars have even suggested that Chinese women consciously seized upon ''tanci'' to express their gendered experiences and to create a female literary tradition different from the male-dominated genres of novels and stories."Wang, Lingzhen, p
54
During the Qing dynasty it was not only used for entertainment but also for political and social propaganda. The ''

Gengzi Guobian Tanci ''Gengzi Guobian Tanci'' (; "'' Tanci'', on the Boxer Rebellion of 1900" or "The ''tanci'' of the national calamity of 1900" or "The National Disturbances of the Year ''Gengzi''")PL, p547 is a '' tanci'' written by Li Baojia (Li Boyuan), composed ...

'', a ''tanci'' by

Li Baojia Li Baojia (), courtesy name (zi) Li Boyuan (; 1867-1906PL, p547), art name nickname (hao) Nanting tingzhang () was a Qing Dynasty-era Chinese author. He was a writer, essayist, ballad author, poet, calligrapher, and seal carver. He edited a fiction ...

(Li Boyuan) written about the

Boxer Rebellion The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, the Boxer Insurrection, or the Yihetuan Movement, was an anti-foreign, anti-colonial, and anti-Christian uprising in China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, by ...

, is an example of a political ''tanci''.

References

* Guo, Li, (2022). "Narrative and Genre: Locating Tanci in Chinese Literature and World Literature< In ''A Companion to World Literature'', K. Seigneurie (Ed.). https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118635193.ctwl0179 * Hu, Siao-chen. "Qu Xinru." In: Smith, Bonnie G. (editor) ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History: 4 Volume Set''.

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 2008. , 9780195148909. * Wang, Lingzhen. ''Personal Matters: Women's Autobiographical Practice in Twentieth-century China''.

Stanford University Press Stanford University Press (SUP) is the publishing house of Stanford University. It is one of the oldest academic presses in the United States and the first university press to be established on the West Coast. It was among the presses officially ...

, 2004. , 9780804750059. * Webster-Chang, Stephanie J. "Composing, Revising, and Performing Suzhou Ballads: A Study of Political Control and Artistic Freedom in Tanci, 1949--1964." (

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the universit ...

) ''

ProQuest ProQuest LLC is an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based global information-content and technology company, founded in 1938 as University Microfilms by Eugene B. Power. ProQuest is known for its applications and information services for libraries, provid ...

, 2008. , 9781109055801. * Zhang, Yu, ''Interfamily Tanci Writing in Nineteenth-Century China: Bonds and Boundaries''. Lexington Books, 2017. .

Notes

{{Chinese opera Chinese literature Chinese folk music Folk ballads Chinese storytelling