From the performance function, it can be divided into narrative poems and lyric poems.
There are four basic expressions of language art: narration, description, discussion and lyricism. No matter poetry, prose, novel or script, the difference lies in which technique is adopted.
From the perspective of poetry, narrative poetry focuses on narration and description, and rarely uses lyricism and discussion. Once lyricism and discussion are used, it is bound to be a climax or a finishing touch. To conceive a narrative poem, we should first adopt the thinking mode of novel creation and arrange the plot and structure of the story, and then the problems of language, sentence pattern and rhyme.
China's ancient narrative poems mostly used five-line poems. Narrative poems in Han Dynasty are all five major antiquities, such as Peacock Flying Southeast, Stranger on Mulberry, Joining the Army in the Fifteenth Five Years, Lang, Rao and so on. There were seven in ancient times, but the number was small, such as Bai Juyi's Song of Eternal Sorrow, Pipa Journey, Wu's Yuan Yuanqu and so on. And there are few miscellaneous words, such as the folk song Mulan Poetry in the Northern Dynasties.
There are often many narrative poems in the poetry works of ethnic minorities, such as Genesis, Escaping Marriage Tune and so on. There are also many famous narrative poems abroad, the most famous of which is Homer's epic in ancient Greece.
Some people say that there is no way out for modern people to write modern life in ancient style. In the late Qing Dynasty, Huang Zunxian was the standard-bearer who advocated the world revolution. Unfortunately, when the nation is in danger, there is no condition to gather more people to discuss all the way. But Huang Zunxian's theory is valid and his own works are excellent. It is worth learning.
The legacy of China's poetry is mainly lyric poetry. Lyrics, writing scenes and expressing feelings are generally short, not long. Generally speaking, things are not narrated, there is no complete storyline, or even no storyline at all. Its image is either single or a set of unrelated plots. Writing about the scenery, the environment and the story are all aimed at setting off thoughts and feelings. Descriptive, but not systematic, often jumping. As for the discussion, it is generally unnecessary. Even if it is used, it must be the crowning touch.
Second, classify from the perspective of subject category.
The anthologies of many poets in ancient China, or anthologies of many poets, are often classified according to their themes. The advantage of this method is to provide reference and convenience for people who study poetry to imitate the topic.
Classification by this method mainly includes:
Frontier poems, or military poems, have a broader concept and flourished in the prosperous Tang Dynasty. Famous poets include Cen Can, Gao Shi, Wang Changling, Li Qi, etc. Their style is heroic and magnificent, which embodies the Confucian thought of saving the world and patriotic feelings. But we can also find the source from the Book of Songs: Taifenggu and Qin Feng have no clothes, Cao Cao's Hao and Han Xing, as well as the northern folk song Mulan Poetry and Lu Sidao's Sui Dynasty Joining the Army, all of which are the forerunners of frontier poems in the prosperous Tang Dynasty. However, the most famous works, the most extensive and far-reaching are the works of frontier poets in the prosperous Tang Dynasty.
Landscape poetry, the earliest poet who wrote a lot of landscape poetry was Xie Lingyun in the Six Dynasties, known as Lao Xie and Xie, and was known as the father of landscape poetry in history. But in general, it is not mature enough, and it is called "a sentence without a text". His descendant Xie Tiao developed on his basis and was called Xiao Xie. Li Bai especially praised Xie Tiao, especially his "sunset scattered into beautiful scenery, and Chengjiang was quiet as practice." Thank you, Xie Xuancheng. The pastoral school of landscape poetry in the prosperous Tang Dynasty is also quite famous, but its overall achievements are not as good as frontier fortress and landscape is not as good as pastoral. The style of landscape poetry is open and elegant, which often shows the idea that a master was born. Poets such as Li Bai, Du Fu, Wang Wei and Meng Haoran all have many famous works.
Pastoral poetry, the earliest poet who wrote many pastoral poems was Tao Yuanming. Pastoral poetry is often accompanied by the theme of seclusion, its style is often simple and easy, and it often shows the ethereal artistic conception of Buddhism. Tao Yuanming (pastoral), Wang (Wei), Meng (Haoran), Wei () and Liu (Zongyuan) are also called.
Yan Yanzhi was the earliest poet who wrote poems about history, but his works were not many. In the Tang Dynasty, Liu Yuxi and Du Mu were poets with a large number of works and great influence on the theme of singing about history and remembering the past. Later, the number of dynasties gradually increased, becoming a very popular theme, enduring, and numerous fine products.
Poems of in my heart forever and Poems of in my heart forever are side reflections of the themes of war, scenery, official travel, business travel and court. The war caused young couples to run away for a long time, and young and middle-aged women lived alone, suffering. The development of business makes businessmen run around and leave home for a long time, which violates human nature. Under the imperial examination system, in order to pursue fame, men go out to make friends and take exams, and their wives can only stay at home alone. The emperor's backyard system, "there are other maids in the palace, 3 thousand rare beauties", can be favored by the emperor, and most of them die of old age in the palace. The normal physical and psychological needs of these women can not be met at least, and there is no happiness at all. Although most of them stick to the boudoir, their inner feelings can be imagined. Poets have observed and realized this universal social phenomenon, which is bound to be reflected in their works. Since the Six Dynasties, the works on this subject have been occupying a considerable number. More common in Yuefu poetry.
Poems about things, good poems about things are sentimental, and they support their aspirations by borrowing things, and they are metaphors of people by things. Poems describing objects often use quatrains.
Philosophical poetry, philosophical poetry is to use the topic to play, focusing on clarifying some truths.
Love poems, China ancient feudal ethics is strict, "men and women don't kiss", there are few love poems in orthodox poetry creation, and antique and modern poetry are rarely involved. Nan Zhou Guanju occupies a large proportion in The Book of Songs, and there are many folk songs in the Southern Dynasties. In the late Tang Dynasty, Li Shangyin wrote a considerable number of untitled poems, all of which were subtle and tortuous love poems. After the rise of Ci, love has become a hot topic, and many graceful works are about love.
In a narrow sense, mourning poems originated from Pan Yue, especially mourning the death of his wife. In fact, the question of life and death is the eternal theme of literature, which will of course be reflected in poetry. Fu Liang and Hao Li in Yuefu poems are devoted to mourning the dead and realizing life and death.
Poems about immortals, poems about immortals, and dreams, in which poets describe their feelings of wandering in fairyland. The earliest poems about immortals originated in Guo Pu. The most famous poem about immortals is Li Bai's masterpiece "Climbing Mount Tianmu in a Dream".
Poems that are dedicated to expressing feelings of life are often composed of poems and chapters. Ruan Ji was the first person to create a large number of poems.
Third, classification from the perspective of meter.
The concept of poetry genre division can be considered from two poles: from free poetry to metrical poetry and the intermediate form-semi-free poetry. This constitutes the basic framework of the classification of poetry forms.
Broadly speaking, poetry pays attention to meter, but it is different from leniency and strictness. According to the number of metrical elements, it can be divided into three categories: free verse, metrical verse and semi-free verse.
1, free verse
Free verse has no other requirements except rhyme.
The earliest poems were all free poems. The so-called free poetry only has the most basic characteristics that distinguish poetry from prose, and there is no additional artistic form restriction in other aspects. Specifically, Kubinashi defined a sentence, which has no definite characters, no rhyme position, and no rules in sound.
There are two kinds of freedom in poetry, one is objective freedom and spontaneous freedom, and the other is subjective freedom and conscious freedom. Free verse is the source of poetry, and metrical poetry is the evolution of poetry; When a meter is fixed, people will seek new breakthroughs and produce new forms. This new form is free for old metrical poems, but it may become new metrical poems for later imitators.
China's ancient free poems include:
(1) The original form of poetry-folk songs. The artistic feature of the earliest folk songs is unpretentious, which only has the basic connotation of poetic form, but there is no formula in mode, rhythm type and rhythm rules, which determines that it is the most thorough free poem.
Folk songs are the cradle of poets and orthodox poems. All the successful poets and masterpieces in history draw nutrition from folk songs directly or indirectly, and express their feelings, knowledge, understanding and thinking about life practice by combining tradition with innovation.
Folk songs have great vitality and still exist today. The freedom of folk songs is also relative. For example, there is no limit to the total number of words in a sentence and the total number of words, but it is a rhyme between two sentences and cannot be broken.
(2) Sao poem is also a free poem, the sentence has no definite word, Kubinashi has its own rhyme.
Sao poetry has the following two characteristics:
A. Connect two clauses with exclamation mark "xi" to form a longer sentence, or put it at the end of the sentence and connect the next sentence to make the poem more rhythmic and musical.
B. The sentence pattern has broken through the four fonts and changed to three-character short sentences (such as mourning for the country), five-character sentences (such as Dong Jun) and seven-character long sentences (such as ode to orange).
③ Yuefu folk songs are also free poems. The difference between Yuefu folk songs and folk songs is that they have been officially processed and recognized.
The appearance of Yuefu folk songs has two great meanings:
A. The folk songs collected and processed by the government have been polished by literati, and their artistic value exceeds the original state of folk songs;
B. The folk songs collected and processed by the government are widely spread, which makes the latest artistic achievements in folk songs be used for reference by many literati, and makes individual artistic progress become the historical artistic progress of the whole society.
(4) Miscellaneous poems are truly free poems. This kind of freedom develops from spontaneity to consciousness. Miscellaneous poems are simple and natural in the spontaneous stage, and have not cut off the connection with prose, but they are vivid in the conscious stage, showing the regularity of harmonious unity of rhyme, rhythm and sentence pattern in the change. Conscious essays are actually more difficult to write than semi-free poems. The poetic transformation of miscellaneous language should be able to maintain unity in change and see harmony in miscellaneous language, so it can't be deceptive. In China's traditional poetry, there are few miscellaneous poems written by literati, and even fewer successful poems. It can be seen that it is even more difficult to write a poem with a high degree of freedom than a poem with strict meter.
2. Semi-free poetry
The so-called semi-free poem is a kind of poem with fixed form and flexible meter. Specifically, Kubinashi defined a sentence. Sentences have definite characters, words have no definite sounds, and rhymes have positioning. Semi-free poems are generally called seven-character poems, which means neat sentences. The emergence of semi-free poetry is the result of the deepening of the creative practice of ancient poets, which makes poetry, as an art form different from other art forms, have the characteristics of richer connotation and completely parting ways with prose, and at the same time, it also prepares the conditions and foundation for further artistic deepening to produce metrical poetry.
① Four-character poem
Four-character poems originated from ancient ballads and were stereotyped in The Book of Songs. The stereotype of four-character poems has made poetry take a big step from freedom to metrical development, which is marked by:
A. The rules of rhyming are strict, generally rhyming at the end of even sentences;
B. The tradition of unifying the sentence scale and the number of sentences in a text is even a multiple of four;
C formed a "two-step" in rhythm form, which became the basis of rhythm form in later generations.
② Five-character poems
The stereotype of five-character poems has made poetry take another big step from freedom to metrical development. Compared with the four-character poem, its symbol is:
A. The rules of rhyme are strict, except that the first sentence can be changed, and it should rhyme at the end of even sentences. Generally, the rhyme does not change, but narrative poems with special length are also allowed to change rhyme;
B, the sentence scale has expanded, and the number of sentences in a text has become the mainstream;
C) A new mode combining "two-step" and "one-step" is formed in the rhythm form, which enhances the fluency of pronunciation;
D. characterized by the gradual popularization of antithesis, temperament and other techniques, it is constantly changing to be more rhythmic;
E. The scale of the chapter is greatly expanded, especially suitable for narration, resulting in such a masterpiece as Peacock Flying Southeast.
③ Seven-character poem
Seven-character poems were born out of Sao style, first appeared in the Western Han Dynasty, developed in the Jian 'an Six Dynasties, and advanced by leaps and bounds in the prosperous Tang Dynasty. At the same time, modern poetry became the main school of poetry after the Tang Dynasty. The stereotype of seven-character metrical poetry has made poetry develop a big step from freedom to meter, which is marked by:
A. The rules of rhyme are more regular, except that the first sentence rhymes at the end of even sentences. Some works (such as "Bailiangti") require sentences to rhyme, generally taking rhyme changes as a positive example, but it is also allowed not to rhyme;
B. The sentence scale is further expanded, and the number of sentences in the text can be paired or not;
C. In the form of rhythm, "two-tone step" is added on the basis of five-character poems, which enhances the fluency of pronunciation;
D. The further expansion of sentence scale makes it possible to make the grammatical relationship more complicated, which opens up a broad world for adopting various rhetorical devices, thus making the expression more colorful;
E. The scale of the chapter has been greatly expanded, and both lyric and narrative are suitable, resulting in masterpieces such as Song of Eternal Sorrow and Pipa.
3. Metric poetry
Metric poems include modern poems, words and songs. Metric poetry originated in the Southern Dynasties, matured in the Tang Dynasty and developed in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, making China's poetry a unique treasure in the world's national poetry art. Metric poetry, as its name implies, has strict requirements on form. Specifically, its * * * elements include:
A forms have definite names, that is, each form has its own specific name;
B. There is a definite sentence at the beginning, that is, the number of sentences in each song is fixed (the arrangement method is generally fixed);
C. Sentences have definite characters, that is, the number of words in each sentence is fixed;
D. Words are fixed, that is, it is fixed to use certain rhetorical devices in some places. For example, the rhyming third and fourth sentences, the fifth and sixth sentences must be dual;
E. Words have a fixed tone, that is, the tone of each word in each poem is arranged according to a specific law;
F. There is a rule in the text, that is, the sentences that conform to the rhythm are combined according to specific rules;
G. rhyming positioning, that is, according to the rhythm law, if a sentence does not rhyme, it must rhyme.
There are also metrical poems in foreign countries, such as sonnets in medieval Europe.