Seven-character verse is a genre of China's traditional poetry, which belongs to the category of modern poetry. It originated from Shen Yue's new-style poems which focused on rhythm and antithesis during Qi Yongming's period in the Southern Dynasties. It was further developed and stereotyped by Shen Quanqi and Song in the early Tang Dynasty and matured by Du Fu in the prosperous Tang Dynasty.
Its meter is rigorous, which requires the unity of words in the poem. It consists of eight sentences, and each sentence has seven words. Every two sentences are a couplet * * * quadruple, which is divided into first couplet, parallel couplet, neck couplet and tail couplet. The two couplets in the middle demand antithesis.
To conform to the law of flat tones, generally, two syllables (two words) are used as a step, and flat tones are arranged alternately. Typical poems include the Yellow Crane Tower in Cui Hao, the ascent of Du Fu and the stability tower of Li Shangyin.
The development of history
The rise of seven-character poems is later than that of five-character poems. It originated in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, sprouted in the new style poems of Qi and Liang Dynasties, and was shaped between the early Tang Dynasty and the prosperous Tang Dynasty. In the early Tang Dynasty, Shen Quanqi, Song, Du, Li Qiao and others began to write articles. In the prosperous Tang Dynasty, Wang Wei, Li Qi, Cen Can and Jia Zhi all made efforts to master the system, while Cui Hao and Li Bai still had mixed, semi-ancient and semi-French works.
Although there are some masterpieces of Gao Hua Xiulang in the seven-character poems of this period, most of them belong to the content of giving and receiving, which is narrower than the five-character poems. At the same time, in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, most of the seven laws of poets such as Li Bai, Wang Wei and Gao Shi were wrong, sticky and emphasized.
It was not until Du Fu that the seven-character rhythmic poem showed its poetic potential and opened up the artistic world. Du Fu opened up the realm of metrical poetry in an all-round way. Current affairs, politics, life experiences, local customs, cultural relics and historical sites were all integrated with precise and strict metrical rules, which raised the value of this poetic style to the level of being juxtaposed with ancient poems and quatrains.