The development of Tang poetry can be divided into four periods: early Tang, prosperous Tang, middle Tang and late Tang.
[ 1]
The early Tang Dynasty was the pioneering period of Tang poetry. In the early Tang Dynasty, the floating poetry style of Qi Liang was inherited, and palace poetry was popular. Wang Ji is a poet who can get rid of the floating poetic style of palace poems. He admired Tao Yuanming's life attitude and poetic style, mainly describing rural scenery and personal rural life, and his poetic style was sparse.
"Four outstanding poets in the early Tang Dynasty" refers to four poets: Yang Jiong, Lu and Luo. Their main contribution is to destroy and transform palace poems, formulate five laws and develop seven-character songs. After the "Four Masters", Shen Quan and Song are two poets who shape metrical poems.
Chen Ziang was the first writer who raised the banner of poetry innovation in the Tang Dynasty. He praised the ancient poems of Han and Wei dynasties and advocated "the style of Han and Wei dynasties" and "elegance". He took retro as innovation, swept away the floating poetic style of palace poetry, corrected the development direction of Tang poetry, and paved the way for the peak of Tang poetry.
[2]
Poetry in the prosperous Tang Dynasty represents the highest achievement of Tang poetry. The two schools of poetry in the prosperous Tang Dynasty are the pastoral poetry school represented by Wang Wei and Meng Haoran and the frontier poetry school represented by Gao Shi and Cen Can. Wang Changling, William Wang, Wang Zhihuan, Li Qi, Cui Hao and other important poets of the Frontier Poetry School. Li Bai and Du Fu were two great poets in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, and their poems represented the highest achievements of Tang poetry and even China's classical poetry. Zhang, He, Zhang Xu and Bao are also called "Four Scholars of Wuzhong".
[3]
Poetry creation was at a low point in the early middle Tang Dynasty, and reappeared in the later period. Ten poets who enjoyed great fame in Tang Daizong during the Dali period were collectively called "Ten Talents in Dali Period". Yuan Jie and Gu Kuang in the early middle Tang Dynasty paid attention to reflecting people's livelihood, and they were transitional poets between the new Yuefu advocated by Du Fu and the new Yuefu movement headed by Bai Juyi. In the early middle Tang Dynasty, Liu Changqing and Wei were famous for their landscape poems, and they were another great master after Wang Wei and Meng Haoran. The frontier poems of Lu Lun and Li Yi are the latecomers of Gao Shi and Cen Can. The two major schools of poetry in the middle and late Tang Dynasty were the New Yuefu School and the Han Meng School. In the middle Tang Dynasty, a group of poets, represented by Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhen, consciously carried forward Du Fu's realistic spirit, searched for poetry materials from the source of life, created a large number of Yuefu poems with new themes, used new languages and marked new poems, which set off the New Yuefu Movement. The backbone poets of the New Yuefu Movement are Zhang Ji, Wang Jian and Li Shen. Han Meng Poetry School and New Yuefu Poetry School appeared almost at the same time, represented by Han Yu and Meng Jiao respectively. They flaunt "Chen Yan Wu Qu", admire Gu Zhuo, seek adventure, avoid familiarity in art, and deliberately seek novelty because of difficulties, forming a peculiar style. In addition to the two major schools of poetry, outstanding poets include Liu Yuxi, Liu Zongyuan and Li He.
[4]
The late Tang Dynasty is the period when the setting sun of Tang poetry shines again. The overall situation of the poetry world is a strong sentimental atmosphere and a prevailing carving atmosphere. Li Shangyin and Du Mu are very famous poets in the early late Tang Dynasty, and they are called "Little Du Li". They are also the most accomplished poets in the late Tang Dynasty. In the middle and late Tang Dynasty, a group of poets, represented by Pi Rixiu, Nie and Du Xunhe, carried forward the creative spirit of the New Yuefu School in the middle Tang Dynasty and paid attention to reflecting people's livelihood, but their artistic achievements were not high.
Huang Huang Tang poetry
The Tang Dynasty (AD 6 18-907) was the heyday of the development of classical poetry in China. Tang poetry is one of China's outstanding literary heritages and a bright pearl in the world literature treasure house. Although it has been over 1000 years, many poems have been widely circulated by us.
There were many poets in the Tang Dynasty. Li Bai, Du Fu and Bai Juyi are of course world-famous great poets. Besides them, there are countless other poets, like the stars all over the sky. There are more than 2300 famous poets today. More than 48,900 of their works are preserved in the whole Tang poetry. Tang poetry has a wide range of themes. Some of them reflected the class status and class contradictions of the society at that time and exposed the darkness of feudal society; Some praise the just war and express patriotic thoughts; Some depict the beauty of the motherland's rivers and mountains; In addition, some people express their personal ambitions and experiences, some express their children's love, some tell the friendship of friends, the joys and sorrows of life and so on. In short, natural phenomena, political dynamics, working life, social customs and personal feelings can't escape the poet's keen eyes, making their writing the theme. In terms of creative methods, there are both realism and romanticism, and many great works are examples of the combination of these two creative methods, forming an excellent tradition of China's classical poetry.
There are various forms of Tang poetry. There are basically two kinds of ancient poems in Tang Dynasty: five-character poems and seven-character poems. There are also two kinds of modern poems, one is called quatrains, and the other is called metrical poems. Quatrains and metrical poems are five words and seven words respectively. Therefore, there are basically six basic forms of Tang poetry: five-character archaic poetry, seven-character archaic poetry, five-character quatrains, seven-character quatrains, five-character rhythmic poems and seven-character rhythmic poems. Classical poetry has a wide range of requirements for rhyme and meter: in a poem, the number of sentences can be more or less, the chapters can be long or short, and the rhyme can be changed. Modern poetry has strict requirements on rhyme and meter: the number of sentences in a poem is limited, that is, four-line quatrains and eight-line meter poems. The words used in each poem have certain rules, and the rhyme cannot be changed; Rhyme also requires that the middle four sentences become antithesis. The style of ancient poetry is handed down from the previous generation, so it is also called ancient style. Modern poetry has strict rules, so some people call it metrical poetry.
The forms and styles of Tang poetry are colorful and innovative. It not only inherited the tradition of Han and Wei folk songs and Yuefu, but also greatly developed the singing style. It not only inherited the five-character or seven-character ancient poems of the previous generation, but also developed into a long and huge system of narrative romance; It not only expanded the use of five-character and seven-character styles, but also created modern poems with particularly beautiful and neat styles. Modern poetry was a new style of poetry at that time, and its emergence and maturity was an important event in the history of Tang poetry development. It pushed the artistic features of China's ancient poems with harmonious syllables and refined words to an unprecedented height, and found a typical form for ancient lyric poetry, which has been especially loved by people so far. However, the metrical poems in modern poetry are easy to be bound because of their strict metrical restrictions, which is a major defect brought by their advantages.
Poetry in early Tang dynasty
This is the preparation period for the prosperity of Tang poetry. Important poets are Yang Jiong, Lu, Luo, Shen Quanqi and Song, who are called "four outstanding poets in the early Tang Dynasty". Poetry in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China in the Tang Dynasty still developed along the inertia of poetry in the Southern Dynasties, which was soft, delicate and lifeless. The emergence of the "four masters" began to change this trend. They are brilliant, dissatisfied with the status quo, expressing indignation and heroic embrace through their own poems, and broadening the theme of poetry. Such as Yang Jiong's "Join the Army":
There is a raging fire in Kyoto, and gasoline is surging in Chang 'an.
Leaving the palace, the general will assume the command; Surrounding the enemy and attacking the city, the elite cavalry are extremely brave.
The snow is black, the flag is painted and the wind is noisy.
I'd rather be a junior officer to fight for my country than a white-faced scholar who only engraved his chapter.
This inspirational and heroic style has brought a new wind to the poetry circle in the early Tang Dynasty. This poem expresses the young people's desire to join the army and make contributions to the frontier. I'd rather be a junior officer (centurion) than a scholar who has nothing to do with me. Following the "Four Masters", Chen Ziang criticized the weak poetic style since the Southern Dynasties in theory, arguing that this kind of poetry is specialized in playing with flowery rhetoric and empty in content, and abandoned the tradition of attaching importance to ideological content in The Book of Songs. He was deeply worried about this and advocated learning from the poetic style of Han and Wei dynasties to restore the poetic style of Jian 'an era. His 38 poems "Feeling" put his thoughts into practice and had great influence. He wrote on the Youzhou rostrum: "Before me, where was the past era? Behind me, where are the future generations? ; I think of heaven and earth, there is no limit, there is no end, I am alone, and my tears fall. " Desolate and vast, sad but not hurt, is considered to be the swan song of ancient poetry. Han Yu once said: "A country is proud of its son and is high." He commented on his important role in the development of Tang poetry. The contributions of Shen Quanqi and Song are mainly in the aspect of poetic rhythm. They summed up the achievements of the poets in exploring poetic meter since the "Yongming Style" and promoted the stereotype of "Modern Poetry" with their own poems.
To appreciate Tang poetry, we must first have a brief understanding of the differences between "modern poetry" and "ancient poetry" and master their respective characteristics, so as to better appreciate their beauty.
Classical poetry, also known as ancient poetry or ancient style. This concept is different from the usual "ancient poetry". It is a special term, which refers to a poetic style that was popular before the Tang Dynasty and continued to be popular in the Tang Dynasty, as opposed to modern poetry formed in the Tang Dynasty. The characteristics of classical poetry are: the number of sentences is not limited, the number of words in each sentence is not limited, and it can rhyme or not, and it can rhyme or change. It is not required that sentences should be flush with each other, and words should be confronted with each other. In a word, classical poetry is relatively free in meter, which is quite different from modern poetry in meter. Ancient poems can be divided into five-character poems and seven-character poems (or five-character poems and seven-character poems for short). In addition, there are ancient poems with irregular sentence patterns, which are generally classified as seven ancient poems. Some ancient poems are the same in number, number of words and meter, but different in rhyme, level and antithesis, so they are still ancient poems. The Nineteen Ancient Poems mentioned above and the poems of Tao Yuanming and others are all ancient poems.
Modern poetry, also known as modern poetry ("modern" and "modern" are Tang Dynasty terms), emphasizes strict meter. Modern poetry has four basic requirements: first, it stipulates the number of sentences and words; The second is to rhyme according to the prescribed rhyme department; Third, the words of the upper sentence and the lower sentence are required to be flat, right and sticky; Fourth, it is stipulated that some sentences should use words, that is, nouns to nouns, verbs to verbs, adjectives to adjectives, etc.
Modern poetry is divided into two categories: (1) regular poetry, which consists of eight sentences, five of which are called five-character regular poetry and seven are called seven-character regular poetry. (2) The quatrains consist of four sentences, five of which are called five-character quatrains and seven are called seven-character quatrains. Here are a few examples. As we all know, Wang Zhihuan is in the Heron Villa:
The sun sets slowly near the western hills, and the Yellow River flows into the East China Sea.
By going up one flight of stairs, look further.
This is a five-character quatrain, and it must be four sentences and 20 words. Secondly, according to the rhyme, it must choose a rhyme part as the rhyme, and the words "Liu" and "Lou" in this poem belong to the rhyme of "Eleven Have". Third, the words it uses must conform to the prescribed plane format, so that it can be read in a harmonious and pleasant way. The flat format of this poem is:
Flat and light, flat and light.
Flat and light, flat and light.
Use? The marked words can be flat and even, and the rest can't be flexible. Ping-refers to the word Pingsheng in ancient Chinese; Xu refers to the words "Shangsheng", "Desheng" and "Rusheng" in ancient Chinese. According to modern Chinese, Yin Ping (the first sound) and Yang Ping (the second sound) are flat; The rising sound (the third sound) and the falling sound (the fourth sound) belong to Nuo. A quatrain poem can be antithetical or not. This quatrain is the first antithesis, and the last two sentences are "be poor" to "be good", "a thousand miles" to "the first floor" and "eyes" to "the building".
Let's take the poem Lusu as an example to illustrate the most basic metrical requirements of modern poetry. In addition, there are three flat and even formats of five-character quatrains and four formats of * * * *. Seven-character quatrains, five-character metrical poems and seven-character metrical poems also have four flat patterns. As for the flat format of modern poetry, I only give some hints with the above examples, and I won't introduce them in detail. If you don't want to write this kind of poems, but appreciate the works of predecessors, then it doesn't hurt to have a general understanding of the requirements of metrical rules.
Seven-character quatrains, we take Meng Haoran's "Send Du Fourteen Down to the South of the Yangtze River" as an example:
Jason Wu is the hometown connected with water, and you are going to Chunjiang.
When the sun sets, where does the solitary sail anchor? As far as the horizon is concerned, it breaks people's intestines.
I expressed nostalgia and disappointment when I saw off my friends who had traveled far away. The whole poem is composed of four sentences and 28 words, with "Seven Yang" as the rhyme, and is even according to the rules. There is no antithesis in this poem because antithesis is not allowed in quatrains.
Five-character verse, let's look at Dai Shulun's Except Sleeping on a Stone Hill;
Who asked about the hotel? The cold lamp is amiable.
Tonight is the last night of the year, and I am wandering thousands of miles away.
Looking back on the past, it is an insignificant thing, sad and sad; Lonely, I only have a wry smile and acid.
Sorrow makes my face old and my hair full of white hair. With a sigh, I ushered in a new year.
This is a poem on New Year's Eve. I am far away from my hometown and feel sorry for my own suffering. The whole poem consists of eight sentences and forty words, with the rhyme of "eleven truths", occasionally. One or two lines of metrical poems are called the first couplet, three or four lines are called the platoon couplet, five or six lines are called the neck couplet, and seven or eight lines are called the tail couplet. The antithesis of couplets and the neckline of rhyme must be opposite. For example, this couplet "One Year" is opposite to "Wan Li", "Will Do" is opposite to "Not Return", and "Night" is opposite to "People"; The neckline is sparse and disjointed, with a smile of sadness and joy, and the past never forgets the present.
Seven-character verse, let's look at Liu Zongyuan's "Don't be my brother Zong Yi":
Lonely soul and sorrow, tears cross the river.
The treacherous party, because the party did not leave the capital, lived more than 6 thousand miles away; I left Baiyue desolate, gaunt and poor for the rest of my life.
Guiling malaria forest, black clouds hanging white; Welcome to the beautiful future of Dongting with spring scenery and water and sky.
Fang Wei depends on dreams, and acacia is willing to sleep on the pillow; Wandering in the dim light, the clouds seem to be real.
This is a poem written by Liu Zongyuan when he was demoted to the wild dragon city and went to Jiangling to bid farewell to his cousin Liu. His mood is extremely sad and angry. The whole poem consists of eight sentences and 56 words, with the rhyme "one poem", which is parallel to each other, antithetical sentences and necklaces. The first sentence of the seven-character rhyme uses rhyme, but it doesn't need rhyme. This rhymes.
There is also a kind of "extension" of rhyme, which is to expand rhyme to more than 10 sentences, or even a hundred sentences. Except for the first and last couplets, all the sentences in the middle should be antithetical sentences. The arrangement is usually five words.
In the early Tang Dynasty, the style of Tang poetry was complete, and the peak of poetry creation appeared in the prosperous Tang Dynasty.
Poetry in the prosperous Tang dynasty
By the beginning of the 8th century, the Tang Dynasty had the so-called "Kaiyuan Shengshi", and its economy and culture reached its peak. There are also a large number of outstanding poets in the field of poetry creation, who have written extremely rich poems. Among them, pastoral landscape poems and poems describing frontier wars accounted for a considerable proportion, and Li Bai and Du Fu also appeared at this time. Let's briefly introduce them respectively.
Pastoral landscape poems
Wang Wei is the most famous author of this kind of poem. Wang Wei, whose real name is miscellaneous, is the right post of Shangshu, also known as Shangshu. Influenced by Buddhist thought, he was tired of bureaucratic life, lived in seclusion for a period of time, loved nature and was familiar with the countryside. His poems are quiet and leisurely, with a static beauty. Such as a farmhouse by the Weihe River:
In the countryside where the sun is setting, cattle and sheep go home along the path.
A rugged old man in a thatched door leaned against a cane and thought about his son, the shepherd boy.
There are whistling pheasants? Full ears of wheat, sleeping silkworms and peeled mulberry leaves.
Jojo and Fu Tian greet each other cordially.
No wonder I yearned for a simple life and sang "Decline" in disappointment.
The afterglow of the sunset reflected the village (the market fell), and the cattle and sheep returning to the pasture poured into the village lane. The old man missed his grandson who went to graze, and was waiting for his return outside Chai Men on crutches. In the sound of the pheasant, the wheat has sprouted, and the silkworm who has eaten enough mulberry leaves begins to sleep. The harvest year is just around the corner, and the farmers returning from Hoho meet each other and talk about their daily life with emotion. This beautiful scenery reminds the poet of the fatigue of official infighting, and he feels how peaceful and comfortable it is to live in such a rural area. I can't help singing "Decline, Decline, Hu Bugui?" In the Book of Songs. It's dark, it's dark, why don't you go home? ), indicating his interest in seclusion in the countryside. Wang Wei is proficient in music, calligraphy and painting, and has profound artistic accomplishment; Su Dongpo commented that there are paintings in his poems and poems in the paintings. The above poem can be said to be an idyllic painting.
The poet with the same fame as Wang Wei is Meng Haoran, originally from Xiangyang (now Hubei), often called Meng Xiangyang. It is said that he met Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty by chance in Zhang Jiuling. Xuanzong knew the name of his poem and ordered him to recite it. When he returned to Zhongnanshan at the end of the year, he read this sentence, including "I was expelled by a wise ruler because of my mistakes" (I lack talents, so a wise monarch doesn't need me). Xuanzong was very unhappy and said, "You didn't ask to be an official. It's not that I won't let you be an official. How can you blame me! " Later, he was not admitted to the Jinshi and was not officially an official. He lived in seclusion for a long time and was famous for his landscape poems. His poem "Passing the Old Village" is the most popular:
This old friend prepared a delicious meal and invited me to his hospitable farm.
Green Woods surround the village and green hills are located outside the city.
Open the window facing the valley vegetable garden and pass the glass to talk about crops.
Please come here to see chrysanthemums when the ninth festival comes.
An old friend killed a chicken to cook and invited him to visit the village. Close-up, dense green trees tightly surround the village; Looking from a distance, Castle Peak extends all the way into the distance. Open the window of the porch, you can see the yard full of food and the green vegetable garden; Talk about the growth and harvest of Sang Ma with a glass of wine. In such a natural picture, how happy and comfortable it is to drink wine, eat delicious food and laugh with friends! After drinking the wine, my friends were still reluctant to go, so they met/kloc-0 and got together again on the Double Ninth Festival in 1999, drinking and enjoying chrysanthemums.
Chu Guangxi is also a frustrated hermit. His Fish Bay describes the pleasure of seclusion:
Fishing in Green Bay comes in spring, and apricot blossoms come in spring.
The pool is clear and shallow, and the lotus knows the fish are scattered.
Waiting for lovers at dusk, the boat is green and the shore is green. Green covers the sky, falling flowers float to the ground, the bottom of the pool bottoms out, the lotus moves and the fish are scattered, and the fisherman does not care about fish. It is the best enjoyment to enjoy this beautiful scenery alone. Fishing and tying boats at sunset, waiting for good friends (lovers) to meet in the green grass, such a carefree life, isn't it equal to a fairy? In fact, their life will not be without troubles and troubles. However, when writing a poem, we should put it aside first, seize a beautiful scene and emotion, and give full play to it. The poet satisfies his own creative desire, and also brings readers the enjoyment of beauty. This is called poetry.
Frontier fortress war poems
In the foreign wars in Tang Dynasty, many literati participated in them, had personal experience of frontier fortress and military life, obeyed the army instead of writing, wrote poems to describe the desolate frontier fortress scenery, praised the brave spirit of soldiers, or cursed the disasters brought about by the war, so frontier fortress poets came into being. The famous poet Cen Can wrote a masterpiece The Journey to the West:
Don't you see: walking along the snow by the sea,
Sand in the desert, yellow flies to heaven. On the night of the ninth month, there was a cold wind blowing in the wheel tower.
And valleys, full of broken boulders like pecking measures, down, forward, with the wind.
Despite the gray grass, Tatar horses are plump, and on the west side of Jinshan, smoke and dust gather.
General of China's army, start your battle! Wear your armor all night,
Marching in the middle of the night, the sharp wind tip cuts the face like a knife.
Sweat from the snow steamed on horseback, freezing the pattern of five-flowered coins.
Your challenge from the camp, from the ink bottle of ice, has chilled the barbarian leader.
You will no longer need a real fight! We are waiting for the news of victory in Xiguan! !