However, there are some strange and interesting phenomena.
First, according to Mr. Wang Li's research: "The origin of seven-character poems seems to be earlier than that of five-character poems, at least at the same time as that of five-character poems, which is quite strange." ①
Secondly, between the four-character poems in the Book of Songs and the five-character poems in the Han Dynasty, Li Sao, which is dominated by miscellaneous words, emerged, and Qu Yuan's Li Sao and The Book of Songs became the two peaks of ancient poetry; However, the poetic style of Li Sao, which is so vivid, soon disappeared, and the rest of the waves were rarely seen, which is also quite strange;
Thirdly, it is quite strange that six-character poems between five-character poems and seven-character poems have never been a climate, and they are far from being compared with five-character poems and seven-character poems.
Fourthly, the seven-character poem has never developed into a poem with more than eight words, but the miscellaneous poem style of long and short sentences-Song Ci style and Yuan Qu style has become fresh and strange.
Fifth, miscellaneous poems have appeared in the Book of Songs, and were not scattered until the maturity of Song Ci-The Book of Songs, miscellaneous poems, miscellaneous poems, ancient prose ... But why did it become one of the mainstream forms of poetry until the seven-character poem could not develop a longer sentence pattern? This is the fifth rather strange thing.
Poetry is the art of language, and the development of poetry form is bound to be restricted by two factors. One is the law of language development, which is an external factor; One is the restriction of the development of poetry itself, which is an internal factor.
In form, it can be roughly divided into ancient poetry and modern poetry.
(1) Classical poetry: including ancient poetry (poems before the Tang Dynasty), songs of Chu and Yuefu poems. Poems in ancient poetry genres such as Song, Gexing, Quotations, Qu and Ling are also ancient poems. Classical poetry does not talk about antithesis and rhymes freely. The development track of classical poetry: The Book of Songs → Chu Ci → Han Fu → Han Yuefu → Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties Folk Songs → Jian 'an Poetry → Tao Poetry and other literati five-character poems → Tang Dynasty Ancient Style New Yuefu.
① Chuci: a form of poetry created by Qu Yuan during the Warring States Period, characterized by the use of dialect and phonology of Chuci, with strong Chu color. There are seventeen volumes of Chu Ci edited by Liu Xiang in the Eastern Han Dynasty, mainly the works of Qu Yuan, and Qu Yuan's works take Li Sao as his masterpiece, so later generations also call it "Chu Ci Style" and "Sao Style".
② Yuefu: It was originally the official name in charge of music in the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, and later became a poetic name. Music songs collected and created by Yuefu officials in the Han, Wei, Southern and Northern Dynasties are called Yuefu for short. Poems written by poets in Wei, Jin, Tang and beyond are quasi-Yuefu, which makes them quasi-Yuefu and quasi-Yuefu, although they are not enjoyable. Such as Chile Song, Mulan Poetry and Short Song (Cao Cao). Generally speaking, the titles of Yuefu poems are songs, lines, quotations, songs, songs and so on.
(3) Gexing style: it is a variant of Yuefu poetry. After the Han and Wei Dynasties, there were quite a few Yuefu poems with the theme of "Song" and "Xing". Although the names are different, there is no strict difference between them. They all mean "Song". Their syllables and meter are generally free, and the form is the archaic form of five words, seven words and miscellaneous words, which is full of changes. Later, they had the style of "Gexing". In the Tang Dynasty, poets in the early Tang Dynasty created Yuefu poems, in addition to following the old themes of Yuefu in the Han, Wei and Six Dynasties, a few poets also created new themes. Although it was renamed Yuefu, it was not limited to temperament, so it was called New Yuefu. This kind of poetry has been greatly developed by Li Bai and Du Fu. For example, Du Fu's "Sad Chen Tao", "Mourning for the Head" and "One Car Paves Two Roads", as well as many of Bai Juyi's works, appear in the form of Yuefu songs, mostly mixed in a few words.
(2) Modern poetry: Compared with classical poetry, modern poetry is also called modern poetry, which is a kind of metrical poetry formed in the Tang Dynasty. There are two kinds, and there are strict rules on the number of words, sentences, level tones and rhymes.
(1) a "quatrains", each sentence four sentences, referred to as five words, referred to as seven words.
(2) One kind is called "metrical poem", each poem has eight sentences, five characters are abbreviated as five laws, seven characters are abbreviated as seven laws, and more than eight sentences are called excluded laws (or long laws).
The rhythm is very strict. There are definite sentences (except arrangement), definite characters in sentences, definite rhymes (definite rhymes), definite tones (definite tones of each word in the poem) and definite couplets (the two rhymes in the middle must be aligned). For example, verse poems originated in the Southern and Northern Dynasties and matured in the early Tang Dynasty. Each poem has four quadruples and eight sentences, and each sentence must have the same number of words, which can be four rhymes or five rhymes. The two couplets in the middle must face each other. Two, four, six and eight sentences rhyme, and the first sentence can be put or not. If the arrangement is extended to more than ten sentences on the basis of fixed rhythm, it is called arrangement. In addition to the antithesis of the first and last couplets, there are also antitheses, which are called "model pairs". For another example, quatrains are just antithetical sentences of two or four sentences, also known as quatrains, broken sentences and broken sentences, which have certain requirements for parallelism, rhyme and duality.
(3) Ci: also known as Yu Shi, long and short sentences, Qu Zi, Qu Zi Ci, Yuefu, etc. Its characteristics: the tone has a fixed frame, the sentence has a fixed number and the word has a fixed tone. The number of words can be divided into long tune (above 9 1 word), middle tune (59-90 words) and minor tune (below 58 words). Words can be divided into monosyllabic and disyllabic, and disyllabic is divided into two paragraphs, in which the level and number of words are equal or roughly equal, and monosyllabic is only one paragraph. A word is called a paragraph, the first paragraph is called money, business and fashion, and the second paragraph is called Hou, Xia and Xia.
(4) Qu: also known as Yuefu. Yuanqu includes Sanqu and Zaju. Sanqu rose in the Jin Dynasty and flourished in the Yuan Dynasty, and its style was similar to that of Ci. Features: the number of words can be added with interlining, and more oral English is used. Sanqu includes poems and songs. The number of songs is a coherent set of songs, ranging from two to dozens. Each group number takes the song of the first song as the name of the whole set of songs, and the whole set of songs must be in the same palace tune. It has no guests, but only oratorios.