3. The evolutionary history of poetry
(1) As the first collection of China's poems, The Book of Songs is the glorious starting point of China literature and has laid a fine tradition of China's poems. Among them, there are old songs, love songs, war songs, sacrifice songs, funeral songs, ode songs, festival songs and so on. It provides a variety of lyric narrative poems for future generations.
(2) Following the Book of Songs, Ci of Chu refers to all kinds of folk songs in Chu, especially the poems written by Qu Yuan and Song Yu. The most representative work of Chu Ci is Qu Yuan's Li Sao. This long poem reflects Qu Yuan's indignation at Chu's dark and decadent politics, his grief at his love for Zongguo and his willingness to work for it, and his unfair treatment.
In the Han Dynasty, there was a special collection and management department for poetry, which led to the formation of Han Yuefu poetry. Representative works include Shang Yang, Shang Mo Sang and Peacock Flying Southeast. Among them, "Peacock Flying Southeast" and "Mulan Ci" in the Northern Dynasties are called "Two Treasures of Yuefu", which are the most outstanding representatives of narrative poems in Han Yuefu.
(3) After entering the Eastern Han Dynasty, the traditional four-character poems were replaced by five-character poems, and at this time a complete seven-character poem was produced, such as Zhang Heng's Four Sorrow Poems. The earliest five-character poem is Ban Gu's Ode to an Epic, and Qin Jia's Poem for a Woman is a mature five-character lyric poem in Han Dynasty.
Ruan Ji and Ji Kang were the representatives of the period from Jian 'an to Zhengshi, and the Jin Dynasty's poetry world shone brilliantly, and Lanting poems represented by Wang Xizhi's Preface to Lanting appeared, which had an influence on later literati's elegant collections and poems. The times were turbulent, and the school of landscape and pastoral poetry represented by Tao Yuanming appeared. Tao accepted 19 ancient poems, and Wei and Jin poetry reached a new peak in this period.
(4) Folk songs in the Southern and Northern Dynasties are closely related to local rule. The poetic style of this period was dominated by water towns. The representative work is Xizhou Qu, the most artistic poem among the folk songs in the Southern Dynasties, and the poems in the Northern Dynasties are represented by Mulan Poems, which mainly describe the scenery in the North and the customs of all ethnic groups with Xianbei as the mainstay.
(5) From the Wei and Jin Dynasties to the Southern Dynasties, poetry paid attention to the formal beauty of language and the beauty of music, which was an important trend in the development of poetry. The appearance of "Yongming Style" laid the foundation for the formation of regular poetry. The period of Qi, Liang and Chen is the period of the formation and development of new poetry, and the representative figures are Shen Yue and Xie Tiao. From the Eastern Jin Dynasty to the Liu Song Dynasty, the family literature under the door-valve system rose, the poet group formed, and the folk songs of the Southern Dynasties flowed into the court from the market, so "palace-style poems" came into being.