What is the historical significance of Yuefu in Han Dynasty?

The position and influence of folk songs in Han Yuefu

China's poetry creation has a long history and a fine tradition, and has always had a good reputation as a country of poetry. As early as the Western Zhou Dynasty to the Spring and Autumn Period, there was a collection of The Book of Songs. During the Warring States period, despite the war in the Central Plains, scholars were keen on vertical and horizontal techniques or theoretical speculation, and poetry was sparse, but the great poet Qu Yuan appeared in the southern Chu State, which opened a brand-new page in the history of poetry development, which was enough to make the poetry circles in this period shine brilliantly. However, during the 400 years from Qin Dynasty to Han Dynasty, poetry creation was very depressed, because this was the era of literary ci and fu. Until the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, there were almost no commendable poets' poems, and the lonely poetry world was generally deserted. However, just at this time, from the "reading poems at night" of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty to the "raising ballads" of the Eastern Han Dynasty, a large number of outstanding folk poems were preserved in the form of Yuefu, which not only filled the relative gap in the poetry circle of the Han Dynasty in time, but also "turned the desert into a garden" (preface to Selected Poems of Yu Guanying Yuefu). In this sense, it is the folk songs of Han Yuefu that make the realistic spirit of China's poems, which began in The Book of Songs, develop into a richer and more creative tradition, and its importance is self-evident.

Yuefu folk songs in Han Dynasty had a far-reaching influence on the healthy development of later poetry. Of course, this influence is first manifested in the inheritance of the realistic tradition of "feeling sadness and joy, starting from things". It is under the nourishment of folk songs in Han Yuefu that the creation of poets facing life in Han Dynasty gradually became active, from initial simulation to innovation, which laid the foundation for the prosperity of Jian 'an poetry circles. The "Jian 'an Style" and "Wei-Jin Style" admired by poets were also a banner of Chen Ziang's poetry innovation movement in the early Tang Dynasty. The immortal poems such as Three Officials and Three Farewells by Du Fu, a great poet in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, the "New Yuefu" movement advocated by Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhen in the middle Tang Dynasty, the "ZhenglYuefu" by Pi Rixiu in the late Tang Dynasty, and the fine tradition of Han Yuefu folk songs played a guiding role in the creation of realistic poems in the whole Tang Dynasty. Even Huang Zunxian, a famous poet in the late Qing Dynasty, consciously adopted "Yuefu philosophy" in the era of the old democratic revolution. As for the five-character poetic style initiated by Han Yuefu folk songs, it has always been the mainstream of Chinese classical poetic style, and it is obvious to all that Han Yuefu folk songs have played a significant role in narrative skills and language art for future generations.