Ancient poetry is divided into Chuci style, Yuefu style, Songxing style, metrical style, etc.
Warring States and Han Dynasty: (Chu Ci Style)
Chu Ci Style is a poetry form created by Qu Yuan of the Chu State during the Warring States Period. It is characterized by the use of Chu dialect, rhyme and rhythm. It has a strong Chudi color. The "Chu Ci" edited by Liu Xiang of the Eastern Han Dynasty has seventeen chapters, mainly the works of Qu Yuan, and Qu Yuan's works include "Li Sao" as his representative work. Therefore, later generations also called "Chu Ci style" and "Sao style".
Han and Wei to Tang and Five Dynasties: (Yuefu style, Ge Xing style)
Yuefu style refers to songs that can be set to music and collected and preserved by Yuefu agencies from Han, Wei to Tang and Five dynasties. Ci.
Ge Xing style is a variation of Yuefu poetry. There are many Yuefu poems after the Han and Wei Dynasties titled "Ge" and "Xing". Although the two have different names, there is actually no strict difference. They both mean "song", and their syllables and meter are generally relatively free. The form adopts the ancient style of five-character, seven-character, and mixed-character, which is full of changes. Later, it became an integration of "song and line".
The beginning of the Tang Dynasty: (metrical poetry is divided into two categories: quatrains and rhymed poetry)
Archaic poetry and modern poetry are concepts formed in the Tang Dynasty. Before the Tang Dynasty, poetry writing did not pay attention to level and contrast, but used rhymes freely. There was no restriction on the number of sentences. Each sentence had four characters, five characters, six characters, seven characters, and miscellaneous characters (later generations used ancient style poems and seven-character poems). (more), people in the Tang Dynasty therefore called this type of poetry ancient style poetry, also known as ancient poetry and ancient style. Modern poetry, which is opposite to ancient poetry, is also called modern poetry. It is a metrical poetry formed in the Tang Dynasty. It is divided into two categories: quatrains and rhymed poetry. There are strict regulations on the number of words, the number of sentences, the rhythm, and the use of rhyme. For example, rhythmic poetry originated in the Northern and Southern Dynasties and matured in the early Tang Dynasty. Each four-part couplet has eight sentences. Each sentence must have the same number of words. It can have four rhymes or five rhymes. The two middle couplets must be in opposition. The second, fourth, sixth and eighth sentences rhyme. The sentence can be pledged or not. If the verses are laid out and extended to more than ten sentences based on the fixed pattern of the verse, it is called rhythm arrangement. Except for the first and last couplets, the upper and lower sentences need to be in opposition, and there are also opposite sentences in every other sentence, which is called "fan pair". For another example, quatrains are only four sentences and two couplets, also known as quatrains, truncated sentences, and broken sentences. They all have certain requirements for level, rhyme, and antithesis. In terms of strict rhythm, in addition to verses and quatrains, metrical poetry also includes words and music. However, modern poetry is only called verse quatrains and does not include lyrics and music. Therefore, strictly speaking, metrical poetry in a broad sense cannot be completely equal to modern poetry.