Genre Evolution of China's Ancient Seven-line Poems
Seven-character quatrain is a kind of quatrain, which is called seven-character quatrain for short, and its origin is not clear. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, people thought that the Four Musts originated from Xiao Gang, Yu Shinan or the four great masters, and all of them referred to the seven-character law. Although in its development process, the Seven Juexing was indeed dominated by the law, like the Five Juexing, the formation of the ancient Juexing still preceded the law.
Modern scholars at home and abroad generally tend to regard Yuefu folk songs in the Northern Dynasties as the source of seven-character ancient poems. Some scholars also believe that the source of seven-character ancient poetry should be traced back to the folk songs of the Western Jin Dynasty. Although there were mature seven-character quatrains like Ge Yanxing written by Cao Pi in the Han and Wei Dynasties, the earliest complete seven-character four-sentence style appeared in the ballads of the Western Jin Dynasty. This is the song of the old man in Yuzhou, which rhymes: "Fortunately, Li escaped from danger and became a loving father. Mysterious wine forgets bitterness and pain, so why sing and dance?
In the early Tang Dynasty, the seven-character quatrains were not only few in number and narrow in subject matter, but also had little influence on the poetry circle and were not mature enough in art. Not only was the rhythm not completely coordinated, but the style was relatively sluggish (such as the first half of an antithetical poem) and lacked long rhyme. Famous poets in the early Tang Dynasty, such as Shen Quanqi and Song, were good at writing regular poems, but the level of seven-character regular poems was average.
In the prosperous Tang Dynasty, a large number of poets with four wonders emerged, and they made great progress in art, which can keep pace with the five wonders. Li Bai, Wang Changling, Wang Zhihuan, Wang Wei, Jia Zhi, Gao Shi, Cen Can and Chang Jian. It was really a group of four-line experts in the poetry circle at that time. Li Bai and Wang Changling are two people who represent the highest achievements of the Four Wonders.
Wang Changling took the lead in creating seven wonders, and the themes of the seven wonders in his works have been greatly expanded, such as joining the army, leaving the village, remembering the past, seeing off, hunting, feasting, worshiping Buddha, worshiping Taoism, thinking of women and complaining about the palace. All of them can be expressed by the four wonders, which expands the influence of the four wonders in poetry.
Li Bai's seven-character quatrains can better reflect the typical characteristics of quatrains in the prosperous Tang Dynasty. In the middle Tang Dynasty, there were many poets who were good at the Four Musts, such as Li Yi and Liu Yuxi, but their basic methods did not break through their predecessors. In the late Tang Dynasty, the Seven Wonders had a new development in the hands of Du Mu, Li Shangyin and Wen.