Poetry is the earliest literary style of any nation, and so is China. Since the Book of Songs, the history of poetry development has been thousands of years, and the form of poetry is difficult to describe. Generally speaking, poetry can be divided into classical poetry with less emphasis on meter and modern poetry with more emphasis on meter. There are other ancient poems, such as Shijing style, Chuci style, Yuefu style (ancient Yuefu, new Yuefu), folk song style, seven-character ancient poems, five-character ancient poems and so on. This difference is different not only in time, but also in form. Their general characteristics are simple and dignified, direct reflection of reality and freedom of expression. Modern poetry includes five-character or seven-character poems and five-character or seven-character quatrains. Their general characteristics are conciseness, gracefulness, implication, indirect reflection of reality, rigorous meter, great leap from poem to poem, and quatrains emphasize ethereal charm.
After the Tang and Song Dynasties, Ci, a new poetic style, began to appear and developed rapidly, keeping pace with poetry. Words are more subtle, more exquisite in form and more harmonious in tone than poems, because they are sung by women at banquets. Ci is divided into poem, middle tune and long tune. Poetry is exquisite and light, ethereal and meaningful, and has a long charm; The middle tune is similar to the seven-character modern poetry in scale, which is divided into two parts, but it pays attention to change, seeing implication in simplicity and seeing the whole in separation; Long tune is also called slow character, because the beat is slow and the length is long when singing. Due to the length and capacity of the long tune (The Preface to Birds is the longest, with 256 words), poets can give full play to their talents, narrate, express feelings, write scenes, argue calmly, and pay attention to the turning point and structural changes, so as to achieve unity.
The songs that appeared in Yuan Dynasty (Yuan Qu is divided into drama and Sanqu, the former refers to the lyrics in zaju, and here refers to the latter), although they are sung with music and developed with words, they have a unique flavor.
Different styles of poems and songs are just like people's different costumes to meet the needs of different seasons and aesthetics. Recognizing this and reading again, we cannot but admire the wisdom of the ancients in creating different poetic styles. The ancients have long recognized the difference between the three and discussed it many times. However, some of them are too abstract. For example, Wang Guowei believes that "the realm of poetry is wide and the words are long"; Some of them are too intuitive. For example, Wang Shizhen took Yan Shu's words, "I can't help falling flowers, and I feel familiar with Yan's return" and Tang Xianzu's lyrics, "What a beautiful day, who is happy?" Give an example to illustrate the difference between words and songs; Some of them are too simple. For example, Li Yu thinks that the word "is not like poetry in the world, not like music in the world, but stands in the middle". In fact, the differences between the three are reflected in the theme, artistic conception, style, techniques and forms.