China's poems came into being before the invention of writing, and gradually formed and developed in people's labor, singing and dancing.
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.
Famous articles in Han Yuefu, such as Joining the Army in the Fifteenth Five-Year Plan, Unfamiliar Mulberry and Yu, reveal the war disaster. Of course, the most famous is the long narrative poem Peacock Flying Southeast. This poem tells a sad love story. And broke up because of Jiao Mu's persecution of the Liu family, which led to the human tragedy in Where Are You Going? The most important artistic feature of folk songs in Han Yuefu is narrative, and Peacock Flying Southeast is the highest peak of narrative poems in Han Yuefu. Folk songs in Han Yuefu mostly use colloquial and simple language to express the character, so the characters are vivid and sincere. Although most of the folk songs in Han Yuefu are realistic descriptions, there are different degrees of romanticism in many places, such as the last paragraph of Peacock Flying Southeast, which shows the ingenious combination of romanticism and realism.
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.
During the Jian 'an period at the end of Han Dynasty, "Three Caos" (Cao Cao, Cao Pi and Cao Zhi) and "Seven Sons" (Kong Rong, Chen Lin, RoyceWong, Xu Gan, Ruan Ji, Zuo Ying and Serina Liu) inherited the realistic tradition of folk songs in Han Yuefu, and generally adopted five-character style, which set off the climax of literati poetry creation for the first time. Their poems show the spirit of the times, have a generous and sad masculine style, and form a unique style, which is called "Jian 'an Style" by later generations. Among the seven sons, the highest achievement is Wang Shen, whose masterpiece Seven Wounded Poems is a portrayal of the reality of the war in the late Han Dynasty. Cao Shi and his son are the most important figures in Jian 'an literary world, among which Cao Zhi has the highest artistic achievement. Cao Zhi's poems (19-232) are magnificent, detailed in description, flowery in words and good in metaphor, so they have the artistic style of "extraordinary strength, flashy but not luxuriant", and his masterpiece is To a White Horse, Wang Biao. Poetry in Jian 'an period was the key to the transformation of Han Yuefu into five-character poetry, and Cao Zhi was the representative poet at that time. His poems are influenced by Han Yuefu, but they have more lyrical elements than Han Yuefu.
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".
Poetry creation in Jin Dynasty gradually embarked on the road of formalism, and the content of poetry was vague. Inheriting and carrying forward the tradition of "Jian 'an Style", the poet whose works are rich in content is Zuo Si (about 250-305). His eight poems "Ode to an Epic" satirize current events through ancient events, which is very thoughtful. But after all, such poems are not mainstream, and there are fewer and fewer. It was not until Tao Yuanming at the end of the Eastern Jin Dynasty that he brought his works close to reality to the poetry circle.
Tao Yuanming, who lives in seclusion and is not an official, regards pastoral life as an important creative theme, so people have always called him an "pastoral poet". At that time, Tao Yuanming inherited the realistic tradition of Yuefu, formed his simple and natural pastoral unity, and created a new realm of classical poetry. Five-character poetry was highly developed in his hands.
Xie Lingyun (385-433), who was about the same age as Tao Yuanming, was the first person to create the school of landscape poetry. The characteristic of his landscape poems is that he can put feelings into them, but some poems are too elaborate, lengthy in description and unnatural in the arrangement of allusions.
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.
The most outstanding poet in the Southern and Northern Dynasties was Bao Zhao (4 10-466). Bao Zhao inherited and carried forward the tradition of Yuefu in Han and Wei Dynasties, and created a large number of excellent Yuefu poems with five words and seven words. The number 18 in It's Hard to Go is his outstanding masterpiece. His mature use of seven-character syntax shows his personal misfortune and protests against social injustice.
During the Yongming period of the Southern Qi Dynasty, the theory of "temperament" prevailed, and poetry creation paid attention to tone harmony. In this way, the new poetic style of "Yongming Style" gradually took shape. This new poetic style is the beginning of metrical poetry. The famous poet in this period was Xie Tiao (about 464-499). Xie Tiao is famous for his landscape poems, and his poetic style is fresh and beautiful. His new style poems have a certain influence on the formation of regular poems and quatrains in Tang Dynasty.
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.
Four outstanding poets in the early Tang Dynasty were the main poets in the pioneering period of Tang poetry. These four people are (649-676), Yang Jiong (650-693), Lu (637-689) and Luo (646-684). Although their poems inherited the atmosphere of the Qi and Liang Dynasties, the theme of their poems was expanded in their hands, and the form of five-character and eight-sentence rhythmic poems was also initially shaped by them.
After the "Four Great Scholars", Chen Ziang (66 1-702) clearly put forward his opposition to the poetic style of Qi and Liang, and advocated "the style of Han and Wei". There are 38 poems chanting for the bosom, which are his representative works with distinctive innovative spirit.
The prosperous Tang Dynasty is the peak of poetry prosperity. During this period, besides Li Bai and Du Fu, there were many accomplished poets. It can be roughly divided into two categories: one is an idyllic poet represented by Meng Haoran and Wang Wei; The other is frontier poets, among whom Gao Shi and Cen Can have the highest achievements, and Wang Changling, Li Qi and Wang Zhihuan are also outstanding frontier poets. Wang Changling's frontier poems mostly express the soldiers' homesickness with the ancient theme of Yuefu. His "Joining the Army" and "Going to the Frontier" have always been regarded as the representative works of frontier poems. Li Qi's frontier poems are few in number, but he has made outstanding achievements. A poem "Ancient Meaning" and "An Ancient Warsong" are his representative works. Wang Zhihuan, a frontier poet of the older generation, wrote a poem "Liangzhou Ci" and another poem "Denghe Quelou" is poetic and enlightening.
Poetry in the middle Tang Dynasty is the continuation of poetry in the prosperous Tang Dynasty. The works of this period mainly describe social unrest and people's suffering. Bai Juyi was the most outstanding realistic poet in the middle Tang Dynasty. He inherited and developed the realistic tradition of The Book of Songs and Han Yuefu, and set off the climax of realistic poetry in literary theory and creation, that is, the New Yuefu Movement. Yuan Zhen, Zhang Ji and Wang Jian are all important poets in this movement. The main works of Yuan Zhen (779-83 1) are 19 Ancient Yuefu and 12 New Yuefu. Meta-poetry is very close to Bai Juyi's poetry in both content and form. Their common feature is that the language is easy to understand, which is due to the consistency of their literary views. Although Wang Jian in Zhang Jihe had no clear literary ideas, they became the backbone of the New Yuefu Movement with their rich creations. Sympathy for farmers' sufferings is the theme of Zhang Ji's Yuefu poems, especially wild old songs. Although there are not many poems by Shen Li that are very similar in style to the above-mentioned people, two poems, Benevolence for Agriculture, have won him a wide range of readers.
In addition to the New Yuefu Movement, another school of poets appeared in this period, namely, Han Yu, Meng Jiao, Li He and others. Their poetic art is different from Bai Juyi's and unique. Han Yu (768-824) is a famous essayist. He is good at writing poetry, bringing new language styles and techniques into the world of poetry, expanding the field of poetry expression, but at the same time bringing about the atmosphere of writing poetry, stressing talent, pursuing adventure and strangeness. Meng Jiao (75 1-8 14) and Jia Dao (779-843) are both famous for their "bitter songs", and their * * * characteristics are the pursuit of adventure and hard thinking. Liu Yuxi (772-842) is a poet who is keen on creating folk songs. Many of his poems about Zhi Zhu describe the facts and are very popular with people. Besides, his poems and quatrains are also famous. Like his prose, Liu Zongyuan's poems (773-8 19) express personal grief and depression. His landscape poems are euphemistic and concise, showing his noble personality everywhere, such as Jiang Xue, which has always been told by people. Li He (790-8 16) did not follow the path of his predecessors in image, artistic conception and metaphor, and was unique in the poetic style of the middle Tang Dynasty, opening up a new romantic world with strange rise, beauty and sadness. Su Xiaoxiao's Tomb and Dream in the Sky are both works that fully embody his unique style.
Poetry in the late Tang Dynasty has a strong sentimental atmosphere, with Du Mu and Li Shangyin as the representative poets. Du Mu (803-852) is famous for his seven-character quatrains. His representative works include Jiangnan Chun, Mountain Walking, Bo Qinhuai and Guo Huaqing Palace. These poems show handsome talent in beautiful words and vivid pictures. Li Shangyin (8 13-858) is good at love poems. Du Fu, his theory of seven laws, has exquisite allusions, neat antithesis and is very representative, such as Ma Wei. His seven-character quatrains are also very skillful, among which Notes for Northern Friends on a Rainy Night and the Goddess Chang'e flying to the moon are both famous works.
In the late Tang Dynasty, a group of realistic poets inherited the spirit of the new Yuefu in the middle Tang Dynasty. Representative figures are Pi Rixiu, Nie and Du Xunhe. Their poems are sharp-edged, pointing to the disadvantages of the times.
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 the relationship between poetry and music.