Five-character poem refers to a poem with five words in each sentence, and the whole poem consists of five words. Five-character poems are formed by absorbing folk songs. Five-character poems can accommodate more words, thus expanding the capacity of poems and expressing feelings and narratives more flexibly and meticulously.
The appearance of five-character poems originated from folk songs. Around the end of the Spring and Autumn Period and the beginning of the Warring States Period, there have been four fonts in folk songs, which are more convenient to accommodate disyllabic words to express more and more rich social real life and the embryonic form of people's inner world.
Five-character poetry is the main form of classical poetry. In the Han Dynasty, after hundreds of years' development, five-character poems finally broke away from karma, moved towards narration, and jumped onto the track of literati's creation from the stage of folk songs and Yuefu songs, with independent language and artistic characteristics, thus laying a solid foundation for poetry to consciously embark on a new period of prosperity and brilliant achievements.