ABSTRACT
By the later stage of the Southern Song Dynasty ci poetry had developed to the stage at which it had become a one-sided pursuit of elegant diction and beautiful rhythms, and consequently something which only a minority of people appreciated. The origin of Chinese drama can be traced back to the primitive songs and dances which accompanied the sacrificial rites of ancient times. But they only formed one aspect of drama, and cannot be regarded as dramas in the proper sense. It was in the Song Dynasty that drama proper emerged in China, with the advent of the zaju performance; this, together with the yuanben, or storyteller's prompt books, was the fledgling form of the Chinese drama. The Song and Yuan Southern Opera was a type of opera which flourished in southern China from the end of the Northern Song Dynasty until around the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty.
