Before the Han Dynasty, there were occasional five-character poems, but there were no complete five-character poems. Five-character poems first appeared and developed in folk songs and Yuefu folk songs in Han Dynasty. According to Records of Five Elements in Hanshu and Biography of Yinshang, the ballads of the Western Han Dynasty when it proclaimed itself emperor have become a complete five-character style. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, five-character poems emerged constantly and were incorporated into Yuefu, such as Mulberry on the Stranger, Lotus Picking in Jiangnan and so on. , are relatively mature five-character works.
At the beginning of the literati's five-character poems, the views of predecessors were quite different. In the Western Han Dynasty, Mei Cheng, Li Ling, Su Wu and Ban Jieyu, these old five-character books, are actually unreliable. Today, the earliest five-character poem written by literati should be Ban Gu's Ode to History in the Eastern Han Dynasty:
Write poems about history
Third, Wang Demi is thin. Only after corporal punishment. Being too pale will make you feel guilty. Give it to Chang 'an. I hate not having children. I'm trapped and lonely. My daughter is bitter about her father's words. The dead are not renewable. Write me a letter. Think of ancient songs and cock crow. Worry destroys cracks. The morning breeze bursts. Emperor xiaowen of the holy Han dynasty. Feel sad and affectionate. What is a hundred people? Not as good as Ti Ying.
Zhong Rong's Poem says that he is "ignorant", which shows that scholars are still very unskilled when they first learn five-character poems.
The following authors are Zhang Heng's Song of Simultaneous Speech, Qin Jia's Poem for Women, and Zhao Yi's Song of Sickness. Their performance skills are becoming more and more mature. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the appearance of "Nineteen Ancient Poems" by Anonymous marked the development of five-character ancient poems to a mature stage. By Jian 'an, Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, five-character poems had become the most popular poetic style, and a large number of famous poems appeared.
Five-character poetry can accommodate more words, thus expanding the capacity of poetry and being able to write and narrate flexibly and meticulously. In terms of syllables, even-odd matching is more musical. Therefore, it is more suitable for the social life developed after the Han Dynasty, thus gradually replacing the orthodox position of four-character poetry and becoming the main form of classical poetry. Modern poetry appeared after the early Tang Dynasty, including five-character poems and five-character quatrains. Five-character poems after the Tang Dynasty are generally called "five-character poems in ancient style" or "five-character poems in ancient style".