Poetry is one of the earliest art forms in China literature and the most mature literary style in China literature. However, in the whole history of poetry, the development of narrative poetry is sluggish, which is inseparable from China's ancient poetry theory.
We can see from China's earliest poetry collection "The Book of Songs" that lyric poetry accounts for the vast majority, and it is more mature and sophisticated, with many excellent works; Narrative poetry only accounts for a small part. Except for a few excellent chapters, almost all of them are immature and simple, lacking vivid images and complete plots. There are Sheng Min and Gong Liu in Daya, which describes the history from the founding of Hou Ji, the ancestor of Zhou Dynasty, to the destruction of Shang Dynasty by King Wu, but it is not as good as Homer's epic Iliad and Odyssey, which were produced at the same time as The Book of Songs. Therefore, China's narrative poems are inherently deficient.
Poetry theory is the generalization and summary of practice. China's contemporary poetry theory began with "Poetry expresses ambition, Song always speaks" in Yao Dian of Shangshu, emphasizing that poetry should express the poet's subjective feelings and inner feelings. On the other hand, China's poetry theory is against poetry that is limited to what we have seen so far and tells the whole story. In this way, China's poetry develops towards freehand brushwork rather than realism, and towards expression rather than reappearance. Themes such as traveling and visiting places of interest can be used as narrative works, but they are often blurred by symbols, metaphors and hints. They don't use objective sentences, but use scenery to tell their feelings, vent their repressed feelings and pursue the artistic realm of blending scenes. In this way, the narrative poetry with congenital deficiency has a narrower active world. Masterpieces of narrative poems have also appeared in the literature of past dynasties, such as Peacock Flying Southeast and Mulan Ci in Han Yuefu, which are known as "Three Officials" and "Three Farewells", enriching the artistic treasure house of China's poetry development and radiating brilliant brilliance. But on the whole, narrative poetry is still not comparable to lyric poetry, which is still insufficient.
Poetry expresses desire and lyricism, which, to some extent, captures the fundamental characteristics of poetry more deeply than the representative western theories. As a theoretical summary of China's poetry creation experience, it also influences and restricts the aesthetic ideal and demand of China's poetry, and the deficiency of narrative poetry becomes inevitable.