This is one of the two ci (词) lyric schools of the Song Dynasty, which mainly dealt with major affairs of the nation and expresses noble aspirations. It featured broad vision and bold expression, often employing the methods of prose poetry and uninhibited by metric stereotypes. The first poet who used the term “bold and unconstrained” was Su Shi （1037-1101）who, together with Xin Qiji（1140-1207）, was widely acclaimed by Southern Song critics as the leading poets of this school. Northern Song writer Fan Zhongyan（989-1052） created this school with his ci lyric, A Fisherman's Song, which grew into a major poetic style thanks mainly to Su Shi's contribution. After the Central Plains fell to the Jin forces, the Song court fled south of the Yangtze River and was too weak to recover the lost territory. Many ci poets, led by Xin Qiji and supported by other prominent poets such as Chen Yuyi (1090-1139), Ye Mengde (1077-1148), Zhu Dunru (1081-1159), Zhang Yuangan (1091-1170?), Zhang Xiaoxiang (1132-1170), Lu You (1125-1210), Chen Liang (1143-1194), and Liu Guo (1154-1206), expressed their longing to return to the north in verses of a stirring style. They voiced their patriotic sentiments and identified their own fate with that of the whole nation. They thus enriched ci lyrics’ ways of expression and greatly lifted its status in the history of literature. Although poets of this school wrote in the bold and unconstrained style, they occasionally wrote graceful and subtle ci poems. And some of their works contained too many commentaries and allusions, were careless about the use of metric schemes, and read more like prose than poetry.

Ci lyrics can be divided into two types: the graceful and restrained vs. the bold and unconstrained. The first type of poems features subtle expression of one's feelings, whereas the second type is far more explicit and has a broader vision. This distinction is due to different dispositions of poets. Qin Guan's ci lyrics are mostly graceful and subtle, whereas Su Shi's tend to be bold and exuberant. Generally, the graceful and restrained style follows more closely the original spirit of ci lyrics than the bold and unconstrained style. (Zhang Yan: The Metric Schemes of Ci Lyrics)

According to Zhang Yan, ci lyrics can either be graceful and restrained or bold and unconstrained. I believe that Li Qingzhao is the best of the former and Xin Qiji the best of the latter. They were both natives of Ji’nan. After them, no great ci poet has emerged in our province. (Wang Shizhen: Random Notes on Ci Poetry)