The Book of Songs is a collection of poems from 1 1 century BC to the 6th century BC, and it is also the first collection of poems in China, with 305 poems. According to different music, it can be divided into three categories: wind, elegance and ode. "Ode" poems are music songs used by rulers to sacrifice, including ancestors, mountains and rivers and farmers. "Elegance" can be divided into elegance and indecency, both of which are used for banquet ceremonies. The main content is to praise heroes of past dynasties and satirize current politics. Wind is the essence of The Book of Songs, which contains 15 local folk songs.
In the 4th century BC, the great poet Qu Yuan was born in Chu State during the Warring States Period with its unique cultural foundation and the influence of northern culture. Influenced by him, Qu Yuan and Song Yu created a new poetic style. Qu Yuan's Lisao is an outstanding masterpiece of Chu Ci.
Chuci developed the form of poetry. It broke the four-word form of The Book of Songs, from three or four words to five or seven words. In terms of creative methods, Chu Ci absorbed the romantic spirit of myth and opened up the creative road of romanticism in China literature.
Following the Book of Songs and Songs of the South, a new form of poetry appeared in the Han Dynasty, that is, the folk songs of Han Yuefu. There are more than 65,438+000 folk songs in Yuefu in Han Dynasty, many of which are five-character poems. Later, the intentional imitation of classical writers became the main form of poetry in Wei and Jin Dynasties.
Five-character poetry is the main form of China's classical poetry. It took a long time from folk songs to literati writing, and by the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, literati five-character poems were becoming more and more mature. The mature stage of five-character poems is marked by the appearance of Nineteen Ancient Poems. Nineteen ancient poems are not works of one person at a time. The content of this poem mainly tells about parting, lovesickness and feelings about the shortness of life. Being good at expressing emotion and making good use of metaphor is the greatest artistic feature of Nineteen Ancient Poems.
Ruan Ji (2 10-263) was a representative poet in Zhengshi era after Jian 'an. His love poems further laid the foundation of lyric five-character poems. He often expresses his worries about the country, his fear of disasters and his avoidance of the world with tortuous poems. Ruan Ji's contemporary is Ji Kang (224-263), whose poems are cynical and point to the dark reality. Their poetic style basically inherited the tradition of "Jian 'an Style".
The Southern and Northern Dynasties is another development period in the history of China's poetry, which is manifested by the appearance of another batch of Yuefu folk songs. They not only reflect the new social reality, but also create new artistic forms and styles. The overall characteristics of folk songs in this period are short space and lyrical rather than narrative. There are more than 480 poems preserved by Yuefu in the Southern Dynasties, which are generally five-character and four-sentence poems, almost all of which are love songs. The number of Yuefu in the Northern Dynasties is far less than that in the Southern Dynasties, but the rich content, simple language and vigorous style are beyond the reach of Yuefu in the Southern Dynasties. If Yuefu in the Southern Dynasties is a romantic song, Yuefu in the Northern Dynasties is a veritable "military music" and "battle song". Stylistically, Yuefu in the Northern Dynasties created seven-character quatrains and developed seven-character ancient poems and miscellaneous words in addition to five-character quatrains. The most famous Yuefu in the Northern Dynasties is the long narrative poem Mulan Poetry, which, together with Peacock Flying Southeast, is called the "double gem" in the history of China's poetry.
Poetry developed into the Tang Dynasty and ushered in a highly mature golden age. Nearly 300 years ago, the Tang Dynasty left nearly 50,000 poems, and there were about 50 or 60 famous poets with unique styles.
Poetry did not develop as brilliantly as in the Tang Dynasty, but it has its own unique style, that is, reducing lyrical elements, increasing narrative and discussion elements, emphasizing description, and widely using prose syntax, which alienated poetry from music.
Poetry in the Ming Dynasty moved forward in the repetition of imitation and anti-imitation, and there were no outstanding works and poets.
In the May 4th literary revolution, modern literature in China was born. After the pioneering stage, new poetry has formed a relatively perfect form, mainly free poetry, both new metrical poetry and symbolic poetry.
In the second half of the 1940s, new poems, which were later called folk songs, matured in the rural areas of the liberated areas. The narrative poems of Li Ji and Ruan embody the outstanding achievements of new poetry.
1949 after the founding of new China, poetry entered a new stage of development, and new themes and themes emerged with the new life. The poet wrote an ode to the new era with passion. At the same time, the new society has also created a group of new people and brand-new poetry works.
Since the new era, the poetry circle, which has been silent for ten years, has shown a new scene of a hundred flowers blooming. Poetry can be widely used for reference in expression, but its form tends to be loose and free, with diverse styles. In the early days of the new period, the poems cheering for victory and reflecting on history inherited the tradition of realism and made it continue to develop. At the same time, a group of young poets, such as Shu Ting, Gu Cheng and He Jiang, grew up rapidly in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Their poems usually show an obscure and unusual complex emotion, which is called "misty poetry".
After the middle and late 1980s, the modernist trend of thought called "the third generation poet" appeared in the poetry circle.