From the 1 1 century to the 6th century BC, after the long-term accumulation of human production and life, poetry began to develop and improve, which greatly promoted the creation and recording of poetry. The Book of Songs is China's first collection of poems. This is a leap from oral inheritance to written record of poetry with words to be tested. The Book of Songs is divided into style, elegance and ode according to different rhythms, which established the style of poetry for the first time in form.
In the 4th century BC, under the influence of unique regional customs and foreign cultures, Chu Romantic poets represented by Qu Yuan created a new poetic style "Chu Ci Style" different from the Book of Songs. This form absorbed and developed the romanticism of traditional mythology, and developed the four-character format of The Book of Songs into five-character and seven-character format. On the whole, however, Chu Ci did not break through the influence of the style of The Book of Songs, but only changed in theme and form.
Han Yuefu poetry is another form of poetry after The Book of Songs and Songs of the South. This style adopted the five-character format and began to pay attention to rhythm, but it was far less obvious than the five-character, seven-character quatrains and metrical poems in the Tang and Song Dynasties. Yuefu poetry in Han Dynasty experienced long-term development and perfection. In the Wei and Jin Dynasties, it gradually became the mainstream form of poetry at that time. Generally speaking, although Han Yuefu is closer to real life than The Book of Songs and Songs of the South, its theme is wider and its style is more mature. However, there is still a lot of room for development in image construction, lyric expression and poetic theory research.
Five-character poetry is another poetry genre after the Book of Songs and Chu Ci. During the Three Kingdoms, the Jin Dynasty and the Southern and Northern Dynasties, due to the influence of the war, the pastoral poetry school represented by Tao Yuanming and the Jian 'an poets group represented by Cao Cao, Cao Pi and Cao Zhi, which reflected the war and aristocratic life, gradually rose, becoming a development stage that can not be ignored in the history of ancient China poetry. Five-character poetry is a poetic genre that came into being in a specific historical period, and it is also the first time that various poetic genres "let a hundred flowers blossom" in the development of ancient culture in China. But as far as the development process is concerned, the development time is too short. Although five-character poems can be seen in the following poetry genres, their successors are different from the former. With the end of the political turmoil in the Three Kingdoms, the five-character poem briefly withdrew from the mainstream of China's poetry.
During the Jin Dynasty and the Southern and Northern Dynasties, another style of Yuefu poetry in Han Dynasty was formed and developed. This genre takes war as the theme, aims to reflect social reality, pays more attention to lyricism than narration, and creates a seven-character style with seven words and four sentences as the main body besides five words and four sentences. This has made necessary preparations for the development of quatrains and metrical poems in Tang poetry.
The golden age of China's ancient poems will soon belong to Sui and Tang Dynasties. Quatrains and metrical poems in Tang poetry are both mature poetic genres. From the advantages of perfect style, wide genre, various schools and development environment, we can see that the Sui and Tang Dynasties was the heyday of the development of ancient Chinese poetry, which not only produced a large number of great poets with outstanding achievements, such as Li Bai and Du Fu, but more importantly, poetry became the standard for selecting talents to be officials in ancient China, and established poetry as the social system at that time. It can be seen that poetry played an insurmountable and important role in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, which was rare in the historical development before or after the Tang Dynasty. It can be said that the Sui and Tang Dynasties are the peak of the development of China's poetry, and it is an ideal era of poetry that other dynasties and even the present society can't reach.
Song Dynasty is the silver age of China's poetry development. Not as dazzling as Sui and Tang Dynasties, but it developed slightly on the basis of inheritance. The "Jiangxi Poetry School" represented by Su Shi and the "Reformists" represented by Ouyang Xiu and Wang Anshi not only made innovations in genre, but also set a standard for China's ancient poetry in poetic style and quality, which was more conducive to China's abandonment of impetuous and informal poetic style.
During the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, China's poetry developed difficultly and achieved little, only a few outstanding great poets such as Wen Tianxiang and Gong Zizhen were produced. Even so, due to social pressure, these people's poems did not break through the limitations of traditional rules from beginning to end, and the result was a copy of literature, which could not develop and innovate.
Generally speaking, the development of China's ancient poetry is a gradual process. Poetry has experienced changes and development from oral communication to written records, from the establishment and development of uncertain style to the establishment and development of definite style, from high-class literature with single material to popular art with wide materials. From a macro perspective, it is an improvement. As for a series of problems in the development process, it is normal. As long as the poet insists on abandoning the impetuous and single-minded poetic style in today's poetic development atmosphere, I believe that an ideal era similar to Tang poetry will appear in front of the world in the near future.