Remarks: It was first seen in Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang Dynasty. A word is a knowing word, and its glyph consists of "disorder" indicating arrangement and "symplectic" indicating punishment. Its original meaning is litigation. By extension, it is the words used in litigation. Then it is extended to general words and expressions, and also to a literary genre. In litigation, excuses are often made for innocence, so it can be extended to excuse.
Furthermore, the lawsuit is to get rid of the charges, so the word has extended meanings such as refusal and resignation. This series of meanings, as well as the extended meanings of words and articles, have gradually become the common meanings of the word.
Fu: Fu is a style in ancient China, which pays attention to literary talent and rhythm and has the nature of poetry and prose. It is characterized by "eulogizing prose and writing ambition in kind", focusing on writing scenery and expressing emotion through scenery. The development of Fu has gone through several stages: it first appeared in hundred schools of thought's prose and was called "short Fu"; Qu Yuan's "Sao Style" is a transition from poetry to fu, which is called "Sao Fu".
The style of Fu was formally established in the Han Dynasty, which is called "Ci Fu". After Wei and Jin Dynasties, it developed in the direction of parallel prose, which was called "parallel prose". In the Tang dynasty, it changed from parallel style to regular style, which was called "law fu"; In Song Dynasty, Fu appeared in the form of prose, which was called "Wen Fu".
2. Different sources
Ci: Ci first appeared in Oracle Bone Inscriptions. On the left of the word is a hand to tidy the spool, and on the right is Xin. There are many variants of inscriptions on bronze: in addition to adding another hand on the left, there are also words of "mouth" or "speech" to make the meaning of "debate" more vivid;
Another way is to replace "Xin" with "Si", which means "governance". The "Si" and "Ci" in the ancient voice belong to the part of "knowledge", so this word becomes a knowing word and a pictophonetic word.
Fu: The first person who used the word "fu" as a style should push Sima Qian. During the reign of Emperor Wendi of Han Dynasty, The Book of Poetry became a Confucian Classics. In this context, it is extremely inappropriate to call Qu Yuan's works poems. However, Qu Yuan's works can only be read but not sung, and it is not appropriate to call them "songs".
So Sima Qian chose two names: Ci and Fu. However, he still prefers to use words to name Qu Yuan's works, because Qu Yuan's works are rich in literary talent.
3. Different expressions
Ci: Ci comes from Chu Ci, which is generally four-character with Xi in the middle. But the sentence structure is relatively flexible, but in general, the words are closer to poetry.
Fu: Fu is a style created by Xunzi, which is between poetry and prose, pays attention to rhyme and adopts the form of subject-object question and answer. Later, it developed into prose with little emphasis on rhyme and meter and parallel prose with strict rhyme.
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