"Han Fu, Tang poetry, Song lyrics, Yuan opera, Ming and Qing novels" refers to a way of referring to each dynasty in the study of literary history by using the representative literary styles that prevailed in different historical periods of our country.
Fu is a literary style popular in the Western Han Dynasty. Han fu is divided into big fu and small fu. Da Fu is also called San-style Da Fu. It is huge in scale and grand in structure. It is often a lengthy work with tens of thousands of words, and is extremely elaborate and exaggerated. The content mainly describes the powerful national power of the Han Empire, the prosperity of emerging cities, the richness of products, the palace. The magnificence of the gardens and the spectacular scenes of royal nobles hunting, singing and dancing in the fields are lauded and described with a hint of irony. Xiaofu is short in length, elegant in literary style, and mainly lyrical.
After Jian'an, the Chinese literary garden became more and more prosperous, and poetry in the Tang Dynasty entered a period of extreme prosperity. The Tang Empire was the country with the largest territory, the most prosperous culture, and the most developed science and technology in the world at that time. Poets are active in thinking and able to face reality, which creates an excellent atmosphere for the prosperity of poetry. The poets held high the banner of the Han and Wei dynasties, absorbed the fine traditions created by the Book of Songs and Songs of Chu, and created an ocean of poetry with their splashes of ink. The number of poems is two or three times more than the total number of poems left in the 1670s from the Western Zhou Dynasty to the Northern and Southern Dynasties. Poetry superstars such as Li Bai, Du Fu, Wang Wei, and Bai Juyi added even more brilliance to the literary world of the Tang Dynasty.
Ci, as an emerging poetic style, began in the Sui and Tang Dynasties and reached its peak in the Song Dynasty. "Complete Song Ci" contains thousands of poets and composed 20,000 poems. It has achieved the same status as Tang poetry and Yuan opera, and opened up an oasis in the garden of poetry. Song Ci is mainly divided into two major genres: graceful and bold. Wanyue inherited the poetry style of the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties, and mostly wrote about romance, farewell and divorce, and love between men and women. It showed an implicit, subtle, and tortuous style, which was exquisite and pleasant.
Yuan opera was developed from the "vulgar ballads and slang songs" sung by singing girls. Yuan opera includes Sanqu and Zaju. Zaju is a new type of opera that emerged and reached its peak in the Yuan Dynasty. Masters of Yuan opera such as Guan Hanqing emerged.
During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, novels experienced unprecedented prosperity. The novels of the Ming and Qing Dynasties shocked the literary world with one masterpiece after another. Beginning with "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" in the late Yuan and early Ming dynasties, many novels with world-renowned reputations appeared one after another, forming a spectacular world of novels.