"Four outstanding figures in the early Tang Dynasty" is the collective name of Yang Jiong, Lu and Luo. In addition to being in the same period, it is mainly because of its contribution:
1, broaden the theme of poetry.
In the early Tang Dynasty, the four outstanding poets began to move poetry from the palace to the market, from Taige to Jiangshan and Saimo, and their themes were expanded. With the conscious change of writing style, they have a very clear aesthetic pursuit: opposing delicacy and advocating vitality. The change of their poetic style and the expansion of subject matter predicted the future development direction of Tang poetry and played a positive role, and they were the real pioneers of Tang poetry.
2. Finalize the form of five-character and eight-sentence rhythm poems.
Four outstanding poets in the early Tang Dynasty laid the foundation of the five-character poem and made it mature. The Five-character Law appeared before the "Four Masters", and Wang Ji, a poet in the early Tang Dynasty (Wang Bo is Wang Ji's nephew), also made efforts, but his works were few. It was not until the "four great masters" that the five laws were fully developed and gradually fixed in their works. The "Four Masters" created a large number of high-quality poems, which laid a good foundation for Shen Quanqi and the later metrical poems in Song Dynasty. Five-character ancient poems flourished after the Three Kingdoms period, while seven-character ancient poems did not prosper until the Tang Dynasty. The four masters (Yang Jiong without seven-character poems) pushed the seven-character ancient poems to a mature stage with a large number of excellent works. Therefore, the four outstanding poets in the early Tang Dynasty were affirmed as "the four outstanding poets in the early Tang Dynasty" because of their achievements in the development of poetry.