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In a broad sense, ancient poems include many forms such as poems, ci poems and songs. Poems of different periods have different historical and cultural characteristics.
China is a country of poems. In the long history of thousands of years, poems and essays were deemed as orthodox literature and developed along many lines. Ancient Chinese poems can be classified into archaic poems and modern poems according to meters. Archaic poems mainly refer to pre-Tang poems with unfixed numbers of sentences and Chinese characters, few metrical restrictions and free rhymes. Modern poems, which are metrical poems relative to archaic poems including metrical poems and quatrains, maturated in the Tang Dynasty. A metrical poem includes eight lines, and a quatrain includes four lines. A line usually consists of five or seven Chinese characters, and there are strict rhymes. Metrical poems also require antithesis at designated positions. Ancient Chinese poems can be classified into poems on objects, poems on departure, poems on borders, poems on the past, poems on women's complaints, satirical poems, pastoral poems, etc. according to different contents; and can be classified into lyric poems and narrative poems according to different modes of content expression. In a broad sense, ancient poems include many forms such as poems, ci poems and songs. Poems of different periods have different historical and cultural characteristics. As people usually say, the poetry of the Tang Dynasty is emotional and the ci poetry of the Song Dynasty is rational. Different regions' poems also have distinctive local features. For example, though both The Book of Songs and Verses of Chu are pre-Qin classics. The former depicts the northern region with the Yellow River basin as the center in a plain style, and the latter mainly depicts life in the Chu State in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River with passionate emotion and abundant imagination.
The Book of Songs is China's earliest collection of poems and the beginning of China's poetry traditions. The Book of Songs was called Poetry or 300 Poems in the pre-Qin period. In the Han Dynasty, Poetry was listed as a Confucian classic and thus was called Classic of Poetry. Most works in The Book of Songs were created from the early Western Zhou Dynasty to the mid Spring and Autumn Period. Read more
Qu Yuan (340 BC-278 BC) was a great romantic poet in the history of Chinese ancient literature. His pioneering romantic and emotional style exerted far-reaching influence on the creation and development of Chinese poetry in later ages. Qu Yuan, with the given name of Ping and the courtesy name of Yuan, lived in the Chu State in the late Warring States Period. He was the founder of verses of Chu and the most accomplished representative writer of verses of Chu. His main representative works include Sorrow at Parting, Heavenly Questions, Evocation, Nine Elegies, Nine Songs, etc. Read more
Tao Yuanming (c. 365-427) was the greatest Chinese hermit poet, and his pastoral poems occupy a glorious place in the history of Chinese poetry. Read more
The Tang Dynasty was the golden age of Chinese poetry. In a period of almost 300 years, about 50,000 poems re composed and handed down. More than 50 poets are distinguished for their own works and style.
Ci poems as a kind of ancient Chinese poems can be sung with music. The earliest ci poems emerged among people in the Sui Dynasty. At that time, ci poems were regarded by scholars as unrefined short lyrics different from poems. In the mid Tang Dynasty, Bai Juyi and Liu Yuxi (772-842) "wrote lines according to tune beats" and created tunes such as Recalling the South of the Yangtze River, and many poets also wrote ci poems sometimes. Thus ci-poetry began to occupy a place in literary creation and some excellent works emerged. In the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties, literati ci poetry's position was further established, and ci specialists and collections emerged. For example, Wen Tingjun (c. 812-866) was the first ci poet to compose ci poems to given tunes. Collection from among the Flowers includes his 66 ci poems. 500 ci poems written by 18 ci poets are included in this earliest collection of ci poems. Thus, ci poetry became an independent genre in the history of Chinese literature and developed in parallel with poetry. In the Song Dynasty, ci poetry thrived, and famous masters emerged one after another. Great ci poets such as Su Shi and Xin Qiji contributed to the maximal improvement and development of ci poetry creation. Ci poetry of the Song Dynasty became comparable to poetry of the Tang Dynasty, and was reputed as the culmination of literature by later people.
• Su Shi: Creating a New State of Ci Poetry