Ancient poetry is a general term for ancient Chinese poetry. In terms of time, it refers to Chinese poetic works before the Opium War in 1840. From the perspective of meter, ancient poetry can be divided into ancient poetry and modern poetry. Taking the Tang Dynasty as the boundary, poetry in the past was all ancient poetry. After that, ancient poetry gradually declined and died out. Ancient style poetry is also called ancient poetry or ancient style poetry; modern style poetry is also called modern style poetry. From the Book of Songs to Yu Xin in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, all poems can be considered ancient poetry, but poetry after the Tang Dynasty may not all be considered modern poetry, specifically due to the differences in meter, sound, and rhyme.
1 word count and line of poetry
Number of words and lines of ancient poetry:
Ancient poetry has fixed lines and fixed styles. All ancient poems are classified according to the number of words in the verses. Those with four characters and one sentence are called four-character ancient poems, referred to as Sigu; those with five characters and one sentence are called five-character ancient poems, referred to as Wugu; those with seven characters and one sentence are called seven-character ancient poems, referred to as Qigu. Four-character poetry has been used by people as far back as the era of The Book of Songs. But it gradually declined in the Tang Dynasty, and few people wrote about it. Therefore, ancient poetry is still represented by five-character and seven-character poems.
Five-character ancient poetry is the orthodox form of ancient poetry and has been written by many people.
Seven-character ancient poetry is not the mainstream of ancient poetry. This is because it originated relatively late. Therefore, the seven-character style is greatly influenced by the seven-character modern poetry.
Five-character ancient poems and seven-character ancient poems are both ancient-style poems with a neat number of words. There is another type of ancient poetry with miscellaneous words, in which the number of words in the lines are mixed and uneven.
2 Classification of ancient poetry?
There are many styles of ancient Chinese poetry, and there are also different opinions on the classification and name of ancient poetry. Especially for the three types of poetry, Yuefu, ancient style, and song-style poems, it is easier to confuse them. Because, from a formal point of view, Yuefu style and Gufeng style are both five-character style, while seven-character ancient poetry and songxing style are both seven-character style, so it is difficult to distinguish them. However, since ancient times, people have relatively unanimously recognized their differences in expression content, techniques, and style features, and have conventional names for them.
The eighth grade (Part 2) of the People's Education Press said in the second question of "Research and Practice" of "Five Poems": ""The Song of Thatched Cottage Broken by the Autumn Wind" and "Song of Bai Xue Sending Judge Wu Back" "Beijing" are both "gexing style" poems, with free form, fluent language and unrestrained style. Please talk about the similarities and differences between these two poems in terms of sentence structure, narrative and lyricism. "Another ninth grade (Part 1) knowledge essay "How. "Study" said: "Du Fu's "Shi Hao Li" has a wider meter and is called Gufeng..."
The name here is not in line with customary rules. It is customary for people to call Du Fu's "Thatched House" a "seven-character ancient poem", while Cen Shen's "Song of White Snow" is called a "seven-character poem". The editor also clearly saw the "difference" between the two poems, so he published Such questions. Although Du Fu's "Three Officials" and "Three Farewells" are in the same five-character form as "Gufeng", it is customary for people to call "Shihao Officials" "New Yuefu" instead of "Gufeng". In order to clarify this issue, a brief review of ancient Chinese poetry styles is needed.
The earliest poetry style in our country is the four-character "Book of Songs Style", followed by the "Chu Ci Style" (also called "Sao Style Poetry") represented by Qu Yuan's "Li Sao", which uses The conjunction "zhi" and the modal auxiliary "xi" lengthen the sentence pattern, such as "The Miao descendants of Emperor Gaoyang are here" ("Li Sao"), "They are practicing Wu Ge and they are wearing rhinoceros armor" ("Guoshang"), which are the later five , the seven-character poem provides a precedent. Therefore, "The Book of Songs" and "Chu Ci" have become the sources of Chinese poetry.
In the Han Dynasty, the "Yuefu", an organization specializing in collecting various poems and folk songs, appeared. The most influential thing it collected was folk poetry. This is the "Han Yuefu" we can still see today. folk song". Its biggest feature is that it is highly realistic, popular and lively, and its form is mainly five-character. For example, "Long Song Xing" in the eighth-grade textbook (Part 1) and "Drinking Horses in the Great Wall Grottoes" and "Fifteenth Military Expedition" in high school textbooks are "authentic" "Han Yuefu". The content and style of Han Yuefu folk songs influenced the poetry creation of literati at that time and later generations. By the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, "Nineteen Ancient Poems", which represented the maturity of literati's five-character poetry, appeared, which absorbed many characteristics of Yuefu folk songs, which played a role in the development of ancient poetry style. Promoting effect. Especially in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties and the Tang Dynasty, the development of Han Yuefu evolved into two main forms. One is the "Ancient Title Yuefu" (also called "Old Title Yuefu") created by literati based on simulation. It borrows the title of "Han Yuefu" and writes new content, just like "new wine in old bottles", such as Cao Cao's "Step by Step" "A Journey to Xiamen" (Part 7), Yang Jiong's "A Journey to the Army", Li He's "A Journey to the Governor of Yanmen" (Part 9), Li Bai's "The Road to Shu is Difficult" and "Coming to Wine" (High School), etc. The characteristic of these poems is that although they follow the title of Han Yuefu, the content is new, but there is a certain connection with the original title. For example, "The March to the Army" is related to the military affairs, and "The March to the Governor of Yanmen" is related to the frontier fortress. The content of the literati's imitation of Yuefu has changed from the narrative of Han Yuefu to mainly lyrical; in terms of form and technique, it draws on its popular and lively style but also "elegantly" adds a literati color and improves the artistic taste. " There are two forms of "Gu Yuefu" with five characters and seven characters. The earliest seven-character Yuefu that can be seen today is Cao Pi's "Yan Ge Xing" during the Three Kingdoms period. Bao Zhaoshi vigorously worked on it during the Qi and Liang Dynasties in the Southern Dynasties. , wrote "It's Difficult to Travel" (18 poems), etc. Yuefu poems can be sung, while the seven-character Yuefu style is mainly recited. In terms of content, it is generally relatively long. When recited, it is like flowing clouds and flowing water. Down.
It can freely change rhyme and rhyme to maximize the variety of content, structural transitions, grand momentum, and emotional ups and downs. This poetry style is suitable for carrying larger ideological content and expressing exciting and unrestrained emotions. It has the popular and lively style of ancient Yuefu It is characterized by the expression of emotions and aspirations of literati, with the main form of seven-character sentences, and occasional miscellaneous words. It is full of literary talent and can be read in a cadence, so it is also called "singing style".
The other kind mainly draws on the narrative of "Han Yuefu", which reflects the content characteristics of reality and the simple and popular expression characteristics. It uses it to reflect the social reality at that time and arouse people's understanding of society. s concern. It no longer borrows the original title of "Han Yuefu", but is named according to the different contents that reflect the event. The so-called "Instant Shi Ming Chapter, no longer relied on". Du Fu in the Tang Dynasty was concerned about state affairs and used his pen to reflect the social reality before and after the "An-Shi Rebellion". He wrote many such poems, such as "The Troops and Chariots" (High School), which specifically describes the disasters brought to the people by the Tang Dynasty's aggressive border wars. "Three Officials" ("Tongguan Officials", "Xin'an Officials" and "Shihao Officials") and "Three Farewells" ("Newlywed Farewell", "Elderly Farewell" and "Wujia Farewell") write about the great consequences that the "Anshi Rebellion" brought to the people. Pain etc. These poems mainly inherit the "Han Yuefu" tradition of "feeling sorrow and music, and writing out of events" in essence. In form, they are no different from ancient five-character poems. Later poets such as Yuan Jie and Gu Kuang also wrote such poems. By the mid-Tang Dynasty, realist poets such as Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhen used poetry to reflect the social reality shortcomings in order to save the country from decline at that time, so as to attract the attention of the rulers. They vigorously promoted poetry forms such as Du Fu and Yuan Jie, and dubbed them " The title of "New Yuefu" was launched and the "New Yuefu Movement" was launched. They themselves also wrote a lot of "New Yuefu" in five-character and seven-character forms. For example, Bai Juyi's "Guan Mao Mao" (Nine Parts), "Charcoal Seller", "Xinfeng Broken Arm Man", "Du Lingsou", etc. are all "New Yuefu Style" with strong narrative and easy-to-popularity. "Answers in the Bamboo Forest" says: "The distinction between ancient poetry and Yuefu has existed since the Han and Wei dynasties. The Yuefu syllables were not passed down, and people in the Tang Dynasty borrowed old titles to create new meanings. At least Ling did not copy the old titles, such as "Three Officials" and "Three Officials" "Three Farewells" and other poems are true Yuefu poems." ("Continuation of Qing Poetry", page 2225, Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, 1983) briefly points out the characteristics of new Yuefu poems.