1. It was originally an official office for collecting poems and making music in the early Han Dynasty. Later, it specifically referred to the Yuefu poems of the Han Dynasty. During the reign of Emperor Hui of the Han Dynasty, there was an official Yuefu Ling, and there may have been a Yuefu at that time. During the reign of Emperor Wu, the Yuefu expanded in size and became a dedicated official office, responsible for the music of suburban sacrifices, parades, court gatherings, and banquets, as well as the collection of folk songs for the rulers to observe customs and understand the sentiments of the people. These collected ballads and other poems set to music by Yuefu became known as Yuefu poetry by later generations. There was still a Yuefu in the Eastern Han Dynasty.
2. According to "Hanshu Yiwenzhi", there are 138 folk songs from various places collected by the Yuefu in the Western Han Dynasty, but only 30 or 40 have been handed down to this day, plus the folk songs of the Eastern Han Dynasty. There are more than 100 works of Han Dynasty Yuefu extant, scattered in "Hanshu", "Houhanshu", "Selected Works" and "New Odes of Yutai" compiled by Xu Ling in the Southern Dynasty. The collection of Yuefu Poems is the most complete. "Collection of Yuefu Poems" arranges works according to music categories, and there are four categories related to Han Yuefu. Among them, "Han Jiao Sacrifice Song" listed first in "Jiao Temple Song Ci" is a song composed by literati in the Western Han Dynasty for the ancestral temple; "Drumming Song" The works marked "Ancient Ci" under the title "Xianghe Song Ci" and "Zaqu Song Ci" are basically folk songs of the Western Han Dynasty. Some of the literati works included in "Zaqu Song Ci" are from the Eastern Han Dynasty.
3. Most of the Han Yuefu are folk songs, and folk songs are the essence of them. When people mention Han Yuefu, in a general sense, they often refer to the folk songs in Han Yuefu. These folk songs are all "feeling sad and happy, and are inspired by events", such as "Travel to the East Gate", "Travel to the Orphan", "Travel to Women's Disease", "Battle to the South of the City", "Fifteenth Military Expedition", "Drinking Horses in the Great Wall Grottoes" Chapters such as "Traveling" and "Going Up the Mountain to Collect Weeds" extensively and profoundly reflected the social living conditions and the suffering of the people at that time; "Thinking" and "Shangxie" and other chapters are sincere love songs; "Mo Shang Sang" praises a working woman's contempt and resistance to powerful figures and embodies the people's wishes; "Peacock Flying Southeast", with the theme of criticizing feudal ethics and praising noble sentiments, is also titled "Ancient Poetry Composed by Jiao Zhongqing's Wife" ", is an unprecedented long narrative poem, occupying a high position in the history of Chinese literature. There are also excellent Yuefu poems written by literati in the Han Dynasty, such as "Yu Lin Lang" by Xin Yannian, "Dong Jiao Rao" by Song Zihou, etc., but these poems were also created under the influence of folk songs.
4. The excellent tradition of realism in the Han Dynasty Yuefu played an exemplary role for many poets of later generations. Its form of mainly five-character and miscellaneous words also promoted the development of poetic style.