With the evolution of Chu ci to prose, another poetic Yuefu entered the poetry circle of Han, Wei and Six Dynasties with the unique vigorous and fresh style of folk literature. Yuefu folk songs, whether long or short, are all "influenced by sadness and joy, and have their origins" (Ban Gu's Han Shu Literature and Art Annals). A strong sense of reality is their important symbol. This realistic spirit directly influenced the "Ancient Yuefu Poetry" created by later poets and the "New Yuefu Movement" in the Tang Dynasty. Among Yuefu folk songs in the Han, Wei and Six Dynasties, the treasures of China's ancient long narrative poems, such as Mulberry, Peacock Flying Southeast and Mulan Poetry, add luster to the poetic power. In the development of Yuefu poetry, people pay more and more attention to the five-character and seven-character sentence pattern. By the end of the Han Dynasty, there were 19 ancient poems written by an anonymous person, and the style of five-character poems was basically mature. By the time of the Qi and Liang Dynasties, Zhong Rong, a famous literary critic in ancient China, had confirmed in the Preface to Poetry that "five words are the essence of literary words, and they are those with many qualities". Seven-character poems came into being later than five-character poems. Its widespread popularity was in the Jin and Song Dynasties.
After the full preparation of Shen Yue's poems in Qi and Liang Dynasties, modern poetry was established in the Tang Dynasty, and poetry entered its heyday, which was a golden age of China's poetry. During this period, classical poetry and modern poetry developed in an all-round way, and world-famous great poets such as Li Bai, Du Fu and Bai Juyi appeared.
There is a close relationship between China's poetry and music, and the development and change of the relationship between them has gone through three stages: following poetry with music, entering music with poetry, and composing words by sound. "Lyrics according to sound" is a more advanced combination of poetry and music under the new historical conditions after long-term development and evolution. Later ci and Sanqu all developed along the road of "composing ci by sound". Ci, formerly known as "Qu", "Qu" or "Qu Ci", is a musical style. Ci originated from the people, and after the prosperous Tang Dynasty, it became a common practice for literati to write Ci. In the Five Dynasties, China's first collection of literati ci, Huajianji, came out. In the Song Dynasty, Ci, a special style, was widely welcomed by all walks of life. In the Song Dynasty, artists expressed their joys and sorrows (Chen Zilong dialect, Shen Xiong's Ancient and Modern Ci-Hua, Ci-Pin) through "words can't be expressed" (Wang Guowei's Ci on the World), and achieved the perfect unity of content and form. Ci in Song Dynasty reached another peak of China literature, which can be juxtaposed with Tang poetry, and a number of great poets, such as Su Shi, appeared. In the late Southern Song Dynasty, Ci gradually lost its ability of harmony. At the same time, the music of the northern minorities has been introduced into the Central Plains, which has brought a "strong" rough style (Xu Wei's "South Ci Shu") and aroused people's new interest. This kind of "Le Hu" is combined with folk songs in the north and mixed with popular language, thus forming a new poetic style-Sanqu. The obvious difference between Sanqu and traditional poetry is that it absorbs a lot of slang in folk dialects. Sanqu works have a strong color of popular literature, and a large number of Sanqu works also have a sense of humor that is rare in previous poems, which has injected a fresh air into the poetry world. Sanqu developed rapidly in Yuan Dynasty and became one of the most prosperous genres in the history of China's poetry in a short time. While Song Ci and Yuan Qu are in a dominant position in the literary world, traditional poetry still creates a large number of works. There are a large number of poems in Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties with their own characteristics, but in terms of overall achievements, they have not surpassed the Tang Dynasty.