Yuan Songs: 300 Classics

Three Hundred Yuan Songs is the standard reader for sanqu, the song-poetry of the Yuan dynasty. Ren Zhongmin published the first selection in Shanghai in 1930; Lu Qian revised it in 1945, and that edition has been the way into Yuan song ever since. It holds three hundred pieces by seventy-eight writers, arranged by period, with the anonymous songs last. Yuan song stands with Tang poetry and Song ci as one of the three summits of classical Chinese verse. The term covers both drama and song; what is collected here is song — plain and vivid in language, direct in feeling, holding the refined musings of scholars alongside the joys and sorrows of ordinary townsfolk. This app follows that selection, checks every text against Sui Shusen's complete Yuan sanqu, and groups the pieces by form: 125 early short songs, 131 later ones, 14 linked songs and 30 suites. Guan Hanqing, Ma Zhiyuan, Bai Pu, Zhang Yanghao, Zhang Kejiu, Qiao Ji and Guan Yunshi are all here. "Withered vines, old trees, crows at dusk; a small bridge, running water, houses." "They rise — the people suffer. They fall — the people suffer." Features • 300 pieces, read aloud line by line, with timer and lock-screen controls • Original text beside a plain-language translation, line for line • Word notes, historical background, author biographies • Highlights and notes, grouped by volume, kept in one place • Nine languages, fully offline