Four fonts
Four-character poems prevailed in the Western Zhou Dynasty, the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and there were few other poems except Chu Ci.
Four-character poem is the earliest poetic style in ancient times. Four-character poems are the basic genres in The Book of Songs, such as national style, Xiaoya and elegance. In other ancient books of the pre-Qin and Han dynasties, such as Mai Xiuge in Historical Records, Notes on Song Chengzi, and Zi Chanyong in Zuo Zhuan, etc. Four fonts are also dominant. It can be seen that from the Western Zhou Dynasty to the Spring and Autumn Period, the most popular poetic style is four-character poetry, whether it is the upper or lower class of society, whether it is entertainment or sacrificial occasions.
Five fonts
Five-character poetry is a genre of ancient Chinese poetry. Refers to a five-word poem, and the whole poem consists of five words. Five-character poems can accommodate more words, thus expanding the capacity of poems and expressing feelings and narratives more flexibly and meticulously. In terms of syllables, even-odd matching is more musical. Therefore, it is more suitable for the social life developed after the Han Dynasty, thus gradually replacing the orthodox position of four-character poetry and becoming one of the main forms of classical poetry. Modern poetry appeared after the early Tang Dynasty, including five-character poems and five-character quatrains. The five-character poems before the Tang Dynasty are generally called "five-character ancient poems" or "five-character poems".
Five-character poem is a poem with five words in each sentence. As an independent poetic style, it originated in the Western Han Dynasty and matured in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. Of course, there are already five sentences in the Book of Songs, such as "Calling the South to Expose": "Who said that birds have no horns, why wear my house? Who says women are homeless? Why are you going to jail? " Poetry in the Han, Wei and Six Dynasties is mainly composed of five words. It shows that the five-character poem was formed in this period. In ancient times, there was a saying that five-character poems originated from the poems of Li Ling and Su Wu, but later generations denied this statement. For example, Su Ruan said: "Li Ling and Su Wu are all false." There are also five statements in Nineteen Ancient Poems, which have not been widely recognized. Generally speaking, the five-character poetry system absorbs the form of folk songs.
Qin Shihuang's ballad "Ballad of the Great Wall": "Be cautious when giving birth to a man, and nurse a woman. I can't see the Great Wall, the body is the pillar. " Is to use five words. Yuefu poems in the Han Dynasty, such as Jiangnan, White-headed Ballad, Sang Shang Mo and Peacock Flying Southeast, are also five words. Generally speaking, the earliest five-character poem written by literati is Ban Gu's epic poem. Five-character sentence pattern is to add a word to each sentence on the basis of four characters and a beat to the rhythm of the sentence to form a beat group of 22 1 or 222. Because different rhythms are used alternately in poetry, the sentence patterns are more diverse and more musical.
Six fonts
Six-character rhyme belongs to ancient poetry, which is rare.
Six-character poetry is a genre of old poetry, which consists of six words and one sentence. It has sprouted in the Book of Songs. Later, the poet occasionally wrote short poems of six words and four sentences, such as Wang Wei's Pastoral Music:' Peach is full of rain, willow is more smoky. The flowers have left home, but the servants have not come back, and the birds are still sleeping. ''
Six-character loose sentences were first scattered in The Book of Songs. There are single sentences and even sentences. For example, "People in the room make friends with me all the time", "People in the room make friends with me all the time to destroy me" (North Gate of Gaofeng), "I have nothing to do at night" and "I don't sleep at night at work" (Feng Wei) "I moved my stock in May. Because there are so many six-character quatrains in The Book of Songs, Zhiyu and Liu Xie discuss the origin of the six-character poems. However, the six-character poems in The Book of Songs are only scattered sentences, which are relatively rare, and there are no more than two consecutive six-character poems. Therefore, if we think that there has been a complete six-character rhyme in the era of the Book of Songs, there is obviously a lack of sufficient evidence.
When it comes to Chuci, six-character sentences are not only common, but also more than four conjunctions have appeared. The basic sentence pattern of Lisao is "Up to seven and down to six", such as "I would like to ride the jade wind, I would like to ride the wind. The morning sun starts from Cangwu Xi and reaches Xuanpu in the evening. If you want to stay less energetic, it will be dusk. I ordered how to celebrate the festival. I hope you are embarrassed, don't be reluctant. " . If you remove the word "Xi" from the previous sentence, you will actually have the prototype of six-character rhyme. There are even six consecutive sentences in Nine Arguments: "I can't be generous, I'm confused. I feel sorry for myself and my heart is beating. " This is a very noticeable phenomenon. Because, as a kind of poetic style, if it can be a poem independently, it must have at least four sentences, otherwise it can only be regarded as a poem, not a complete poem. It can be said that the sentence patterns in Lisao and a large number of neat six-character quatrains in Chuci laid the foundation for the maturity of six-character poems.
The complete and standardized six-character metrical poem only appeared in Jian 'an period. The earliest and most complete existing six-character poems are Kong Rong's three six-character poems. Kong Rong, one of the seven sons of Jian 'an, is famous for his poems. In poetry creation, on the basis of drawing lessons from The Book of Songs, Songs of the South and two six-character prose poems of Han Yuefu, he created a complete six-character rhythmic poem:
In the Han family, Ye Daowei and Dong Zhuo took advantage of the situation to make an insurrection, arrogantly abusing their authoritarian power, and all officials were afraid, and the people were miserable.
Li Guo was in dispute and moved to Chang 'an to consider returning to China. Looking forward to Kanto's sadness and dreaming of Tso Gong's return [1].
From Luo to, Cao Gong served the country selflessly, reducing the sweetness of the kitchen food. The team leader is from Qi Qi. Although he often goes hungry, he misses my bitterness and sadness.
After Kong Rong, both Cao Pi and Cao Zhi had six-character poems handed down from generation to generation. Cao Pi has three six-character poems, among which Li Shihe is the standard six-character poem. The widow's poem is a six-character poem, but because the fourth word of each sentence is "Xi", it can be regarded as a unique style of six-character poem.
Seven fonts
Seven-character poems include seven-character ancient poems, seven-character metrical poems and seven-character quatrains.
Seven-character style is a genre of ancient Chinese poetry, which is mainly composed of seven words or seven words per sentence. It originated from Han folk songs. In the pre-Qin period, Xunzi Xiangcheng Pian, besides the seven-character sentence pattern in The Book of Songs and Songs of the South, is also a kind of miscellaneous verse with seven characters as the main body, which is written by imitating Han folk songs. In the Western Han Dynasty, there were seven popular rhymes, such as Sima Xiangru's Fan Jiang and You's Jiupian, as well as Louhu Song and Shangjun Song contained in Hanshu. There were many seven-character miscellaneous songs in the Eastern Han Dynasty. For example, Mai Yao, Wu Zaicheng (Sima Biao's Five Elements of Han History) and Huan Er Ge (Bao Puzi's Shen Ju) at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty are all vivid, popular and fluent folk works in seven languages. According to legend, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty once called his ministers together and made a seven-character couplet of Bailiangtai. But according to later research, this is an untrue statement and unreliable. Ge Yanxing by Wei is China's first complete seven-character poem of literati. Later, Tang Huixiu and Bao Zhao had seven-character works. Bao Zhao's 18 "Zhun Qi Difficult to Walk" not only greatly expanded the content of the poem, but also changed the rhyme of the original seven-character poem into the rhyme of every other sentence and can be changed, which opened up a new way for the development of the seven-character style. Seven-character poems gradually increased from Liang to Sui, and it was not until the Tang Dynasty that seven-character poems really developed. The appearance of seven-character poems provides a new and bigger form for poetry and enriches the artistic expression of China's classical poems.
Miscellaneous style
Miscellaneous poems, named after the different lengths of sentences in the poems, have variable numbers of words, the shortest is only one word, and the long sentences are more than nine spans, mostly three, four, five and seven words. It is characterized by its relatively free form, which is convenient for expressing thoughts and feelings freely. Any poet who wins by emotion or momentum has a great preference for miscellaneous poems.
The metrical poems in China's ancient poetry reached its peak in the middle Tang Dynasty (the representative poet was Du Fu). Because its poetic beauty space has been excavated by the great poets in the Tang Dynasty, the metrical poems in China in the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties developed into miscellaneous poems, which formed a backlash against the metrical poems, resulting in some rigidity in form and eventually shaped into a systematic form of "Ci". Ci finally developed to the height of "a generation of literature" and made great achievements.