It can be said that nowadays we rarely come into contact with six-character poems. Most of the poems within the scope of reading and learning are seven-character poems and five-character poems. Part of the six-character poem can only be seen in some ancient poetry and foreign poetry, but the six-character poem played a decisive role in the early development of poetry. It is also the product of the long development of Chinese poetry, although this type of poetry is not well known by others. Although it is unknown, it still shines in the history of poetry. So why did the six-character poem develop so weakly in the end that even modern people don’t understand it well?
On the one hand, the six-character poem is dull and has a rapid rhythm. The sentence pattern of a six-character poem is generally ?2+2+2?. Every two syllables in a poem is a rhythm unit. There are three rhythm units with equal syllables, and the meaning unit and the rhythm unit are consistent. This way The sentence pattern is rigid, and compared with five-character and seven-character sentences, it loses the flexibility of alternating monosyllables and disyllabic syllables. Generally speaking, the form of Chinese words in most cases is neither monosyllabic nor polysyllabic, but a mixed and alternating form of the two.
On the other hand, six-character poetry excludes the inclusion of monosyllabic predicates. Among the ideographic functions of Chinese, the predicate is the most active, the most critical, and the most expressive, which is what the verb should be. The one that impressed everyone most should be "The spring breeze is green again on the south bank of the river" in Wang Anshi's "Boating Guazhou". The word "green", I believe the Chinese teacher will emphasize this word when talking about this. In ancient Chinese, most predicates are monosyllabic. The sentence structure of the six-character poem "2+2+2" creates a great obstacle to the inclusion of monosyllabic predicates in poetry, which greatly weakens the vitality of the six-character poem.
Thus, although the six-character poem has a high status in the development of poetry, due to its inflexible sentence structure, rapid rhythm, and the difficulty of incorporating expressive predicates into the poem, the six-character poem Compared with Wuyan and Qiyan, the vitality is not strong enough, and it is gradually replaced. Zhao Yi, a scholar of the Qing Dynasty, explained well the reason why six-character poems were not widely circulated in his "Ei Yu Cong Kao": This is because this style is not the natural syllables of heaven and earth, so although it is a work of art, it will not be heard by generous people. .