Couplets, also called couplets, commonly known as couplets, are a unique Chinese language, literature and art form in China, and are deeply loved by people from all walks of life. To sum up, the joint law is six elements, also called "six phases", which are described as follows:
First, the number of words should be equal. The number of words online equals the number of words offline. The number of words in each clause of the long couplet is equal. There is a special case that the number of words in the upper and lower couplets is intentionally different. For example, during the Republic of China, some people ridiculed Yuan Shikai's couplets: "Yuan Shikai is eternal; Long live the people of China. " The words "Yuan Shikai" and "China people" are linked together, which shows that Yuan Shikai is sorry for the people of China.
Overlapping or overlapping words are allowed in sentences. Folding in half and overlapping words are commonly used rhetorical devices in couplets, but attention should be paid to the consistency of the upper and lower couplets when overlapping. For example, in the Ming Dynasty, Gu Xiancheng titled "Wuxi Donglin Academy Union:
The sound of wind and rain reading is in the ear;
Family affairs, state affairs and everything in the world care about everything. ：
However, we should try to avoid "homophony" and "homophony" in couplets. The so-called homonym means that the same word is opposite in the same position of the upper and lower parts. The so-called ectopic reduplication refers to the fact that the same word appears in different positions in the upper and lower links. But some function words are allowed to have homonyms, such as Gelinglian of West Lake in Hangzhou:
The song of peach blossom and flowing water;
Between the shade and the grass.
The word "Zhi" in the upper and lower couplets is repeated in the same place, but it is OK because it is empty word. However, there is a special form of "ectopic mutual weight" (called "transposition case"), such as Lin Sen's couplet with Dr. Sun Yat-sen:
A person is eternal;
One person through the ages.
Second, equivalence of parts of speech. There are two types of parts of speech in modern Chinese, namely, notional words and function words. The former includes nouns (including locative words), verbs, adjectives (including color words), numerals, quantifiers and pronouns. The latter includes adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliary words, exclamations and onomatopoeias. Part of speech equivalence means that words or phrases with the same position in the upper and lower parts should have the same or similar parts of speech. The first is the rule of "real to real, virtual to virtual", which is the most basic rule and has the widest meaning. In some cases, just follow this. Secondly, the corresponding rules of parts of speech, that is, the words 12 above correspond to each other. This rule should be observed in most cases. Thirdly, the semantic correspondence rule refers to putting things of the same type represented by Chinese characters together for confrontation. The ancients noticed this rhetorical method long ago. In particular, nouns are divided into many subcategories, such as astronomy (sun, moon, wind, rain, etc. ), season (day and night, etc. ), geography (mountains and rivers, etc. ), government offices (towers, doors, etc. ), vegetation (trees, peaches, plums, etc. ), birds (chickens, birds, cranes, etc. ) and so on. Finally, the corresponding rules of adjacent categories, that is, words in adjacent categories can be paired with each other. For example, astronomy returns to the season, astronomy to geography, geography to the palace and so on.
Third, the structure is commensurate. The so-called structural proportion means that the grammatical structure of the upper and lower conjunctions (or the structure of their phrases and sentence patterns) should be as consistent as possible, that is, the subject-predicate structure is opposite to the subject-predicate structure, the verb-object structure is opposite to the verb-object structure, the partial structure is opposite to the partial structure, and the coordinate structure is opposite to the coordinate structure, and so on. For example, Li Bai's topic is Hunan Yueyang Loulian:
Water and the sky are one color;
The wind and the moon are boundless.
This conjunction is both a subject-predicate structure. Among them, "water sky" and "romantic moon" are both parallel structures, and "one color" and "boundless" are all positive structures.
However, in the case of equivalent parts of speech, the requirements for some similar or special sentence structures can be relaxed appropriately.
Fourth, the rhythm corresponds. That is, the places where the up and down links stop must be consistent. : such as:
Don't let the spring and autumn pass;
It's the hardest for an old friend to come once.
This is a seven-character short couplet, and the rhythm of the upper and lower couplets is exactly the same, both of which are "223". Longer couplets must have corresponding rhythm.
The fifth is uniformity and harmony. What is leveling? The classification of flat tones in Putonghua is, in short, flat tones and upper tones, flat tones and flat tones. In the ancient four tones, the flat sound is flat, and the rising, going and entering sounds are silent. Even peace and harmony include two aspects:
(1) The upper and lower links are opposite. Generally speaking, word alignment is not required, but attention should be paid to the alignment of the upper and lower tails (feet), the upper part is different and the lower part is flat; The words at the end of the sentence or at the rhythm point should be flat and opposite; The ending (foot) of each clause in a long couplet should be flat, right.
(2) The upper and lower couplets alternate in the sentence. Yu Dequan, a contemporary couplet writer, summed up a set of "horseshoe rhyme" rules. Simply put, it is "smooth and steady, smooth and steady", just like the rhythm of horseshoes, such as:
Shushan has a road service as the path;
○○●●○○●
There is no limit to learning the sea.
●●○○●●○
(○ is flat, ● is flat. The word "Xue" is based on Pingbu)
The problem of alignment is not absolute, and it can be flexible in many cases. If there are overlapping words, compound words, palindromes, humor, phonology, etc. in couplets, it can be decided according to the specific situation. There are some exceptions if the trade union thinks it is necessary.
Sixth, the content is relevant. What are couplets? It is both "right" and "related". The words mentioned above are all "right", with the same number of words, equivalent parts of speech, the same structure, corresponding rhythm and even harmony, but they still lack a "couplet". "Lian" is about content relevance. Between the upper and lower couplets of a couplet, the content should be related. If the upper and lower couplets each write an irrelevant thing, and the two can't reflect, connect and echo, it can't be regarded as a qualified couplet, or even a couplet.
But there are exceptions to any law of couplets, and so is "content-related". There are two extremely special couplets in couplets. First, "there is no love for each other." The upper and lower couplets are neat word for word, but the content is irrelevant (or specious), and the comparison of the upper and lower couplets can arouse unexpected interest. For example:
The tree is half looking for an axe;
Really irrelevant.
In the upper and lower couplet, "tree", "fruit" and "dawn" are all vegetation; "Already", "Ran" and "He" are all function words; "Half", "one" and "three" are all numbers; "Qiu", "Dian" and "Ce" are all escaped verbs; "Hugh", "Nothing" and "Ding" are all function words; "Vertical", "phase" and "An" are all empty word; "Axe", "dry" and "Liu" are all ancient weapons. The All-China Federation is more unexpectedly interested in using spoken English than poetry.
The second is to recite the poem clock alone. The upper and lower couplets recite two unrelated things respectively; Word for word, word for word, neat; Connect two things from a certain point through a conjunction. There are some similarities between the poem in the poem and the bell, and also similar to the riddle, but there are also many differences. Interested friends can further study.
Couplets emphasize the relevance of content, but they are forbidden to be synonymous, which is called "fighting". The so-called "avoiding synonymous opposition" refers to the relative sentences of the upper and lower parts, and its meanings should be avoided as far as possible, such as "rising sun" to "rising sun", "history books" to "history books", "China's past dynasties show" to "Chi county magistrate gives birth to spring", "business is booming all over the world" to "financial resources are expanding into the three rivers" and so on. Of course, the crossing of individual non-central words, or the crossing of hands, accounts for a small proportion in couplets, which is harmless.
The custom of editing this couplet
As a custom, Spring Festival couplets are an important part of the excellent traditional culture of the Chinese nation. In 2005, the State Council listed the custom of couplets in the first national intangible cultural heritage list. The relevant introduction and evaluation texts are as follows:
The custom of couplets originated from the dual phenomenon of ancient Chinese in China. During the Western Jin Dynasty (around 290), the appearance of harmonious and exquisite antithesis can be regarded as an important symbol of its formation. In the course of more than 1,700 years of historical circulation, traditional literary forms such as couplets, parallel prose and regular poems have influenced and borrowed from each other. After three important periods of development, namely Northern Song Dynasty, Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty, the forms became increasingly diverse and the cultural accumulation gradually enriched. Couplets include couplets, couplets and couplets. Since the Ming Dynasty, people have called it couplets.
Couplets use "vice" as quantifier, and generally use two lines of sentences as a pair, which are displayed side by side and vertically, from top to bottom, first right and then left, with the upper part on the right and the lower part on the left. Couplets belong to metrical literature, and there are various stresses, but there are no restrictions on the number of words and sentences, ranging from one word to thousands of words. Its stylistic features are the comparison from top to bottom, the same number of words, the same part of speech, the same level and level, the corresponding words, the combination of rhythm and form and meaning, especially the level and level of melody and part of speech. Couplets are concise, elegant and popular, and are called "poems in poems".
Couplets take characters as their content and calligraphy as their carrier. There are many kinds of products, such as paper mounting, picture frames, wood carving, stone carving and bamboo carving. In the development of couplets, a large number of related works have appeared, and there are tens of thousands of couplets.
Couplets are widely used, not only in palaces, pavilions, halls and bookstores, but also in festivals, inscriptions, congratulations, mourning and tombs. According to different functions, it can be divided into Spring Festival couplets, birthday couplets, scenery couplets, self-titled couplets and various skill couplets.
The custom of couplets is passed down and spread in Chinese-speaking areas and ethnic groups with cultural origins of Chinese characters, which is of great value for promoting Chinese culture.
The customs of couplets mainly include the following:
Customs of Spring Festival couplets. Spring Festival couplets, called Spring Festival couplets in ancient times, are seasonal couplets written and posted during the Spring Festival every year. The custom of Spring Festival couplets originated in the Five Dynasties, formed in the Song Dynasty, and became very common in the Ming Dynasty. In Hunan, posting Spring Festival couplets is an important custom in the Spring Festival culture. Spring Festival couplets have the characteristics of eulogy, timeliness and pertinence, highlighting the word "spring".
There are many kinds of Spring Festival couplets, which can be divided into door heart, frame pair, cross string, spring strip and bucket square according to the place of use. The "door core" is attached to the center of the upper end of the door panel; The "door frame pair" is attached to the left and right door frames; "Cross-dressing" is posted on the crossbar of the door; "Spring strips" are posted in corresponding places according to different contents; "Dou Jin", also known as "door leaf", is a square diamond, often attached to furniture and screen walls.
Marriage customs. Wedding couplets are written to celebrate the wedding, and are usually posted on the door, cave door, hall or makeup hall of the wedding home. Its content is mostly warm praise and good wishes for both parties to the marriage, with a strong auspicious and festive color.
Custom of birthday couplets. Birthday couplets are special couplets to celebrate the birthday of people who have celebrated their birthdays. Their contents are generally articles praising the merits and morals of people who have celebrated their birthdays. Those who wish them a long life are blessed with warm and respectful feelings.
The custom of elegiac couplet. The elegiac couplet, called mourning couplet in some places, evolved from elegiac couplet and is a kind of couplet used by people to express their memory and mourning for their ancestors and the deceased. Often posted at the door, on both sides of the urn, on both sides of the memorial hall, on the wreath. Generally, solemn, solemn and painful feelings are written in black and white. Through a common language, arouse people's memory and respect for the deceased.