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 Shi said that "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.