What does Spring Festival couplets mean?

Spring Festival couplets, also known as "spring stickers" and "door pairs". Every Spring Festival, every household sticks red couplets on their doors, which adds to the festive atmosphere.

It depicts beautiful images and expresses good wishes with neat, concise and exquisite words, which is a unique literary form of the Han nationality. There is no limit to the number of words in the upper and lower couplets, but they must be equal. Common couplets have five words and seven words. The two sides of couplets should correspond. When people put couplets and blessings on their doorsteps, it means the official start of the Spring Festival.

Traditional Spring Festival couplets are handwritten with a brush, but now there are also machine-printed Spring Festival couplets. There are many kinds of Spring Festival couplets, such as street couplets and door couplets, and many Spring Festival couplets have horizontal approvals.

meaning

As early as the Warring States period more than two thousand years ago, the Central Plains region hung "peach stalks" on the Spring Festival, also known as "peach symbols". Fu Cha Dunchong's Yanjing Spring Festival couplets in Qing Dynasty recorded: "Spring Festival couplets are also Fu Tao. Since entering the customs, some scholars have written Spring Festival couplets under the eaves of the city in order to moisten their pens. After the sacrifice, it gradually tilted up and thousands of families took on a new look. "

Pop away from the traditional Spring Festival couplets; The relationship between Spring Festival couplets and peach symbols can also be seen in Wang Anshi's poem "Everything is Renewed" in the Song Dynasty. "Thousands of families always exchange new peaches for old ones."

According to Huainanzi, this "peach symbol" is made of peach wood one inch wide and seven or eight inches long. Write the names of Shen Tu and Lei Yu on the mahogany board and hang them on both sides of the door. Or draw these two gods-left and right. The ancients used Fu Tao's calligraphy and painting Er Shen to suppress evil spirits. This is also known as the "door god" among the people.

In the Five Dynasties of more than 700 AD, Meng Changjun, the queen of Shu, wrote "New Year's Qing Yu, No Festival A". Changchun. " It is the earliest Spring Festival couplets in China.

However, in the Song Dynasty, Spring Festival couplets were still called "Fu Tao". Couplets are not only carved on peach symbols, but also pushed on pillars, which are later called "couplets". After the Song Dynasty, Yichun Post Station used couplets to write powder notes. Some people collect the ancient sayings of The Book of Songs, while others collect Tang and Song poems. According to legend, there is Wang Li's Spring Festival couplets: "The northern country is vast, and thousands of doors are fresh." This is the Spring Festival couplets hanging on people's teeth and cheeks.

Fu Tao was really called Spring Festival couplets in the Ming Dynasty. According to Ming Dynasty scholar Chen, "Spring Festival couplets began in". Jinling, the imperial capital (now Nanjing), don't send messages before New Year's Eve. You should add a pair of Spring Festival couplets at the door, and the emperor will go out to watch it. "Zhu Yuanzhang, the Ming emperor, not only traveled incognito, watched the laughter, but also personally presented the Spring Festival couplets to Bachelor Tao An and others.

The emperor's advocacy made the Spring Festival couplets carry forward and eventually formed an enduring fashion. Couplets are called "couplets", commonly known as pairs. Concise and profound, neat and balanced, with one word and one sound, is a unique art form of Chinese language. It can be said that couplet art is a cultural treasure of the Chinese nation. The types of couplets can be divided into Spring Festival couplets, wedding couplets, birthday couplets, elegiac couplets, filial couplets, decorative couplets, industry couplets, communication couplets and miscellaneous couplets (including humorous couplets).

Extended data:

origin

Fu Tao is an article that people painted on Shen Tu and Er Shen during the Spring Festival to exorcise ghosts. According to ancient legend, there is a big peach tree in Dushuo Mountain in the East China Sea, and under it are Shen Tu and Mao Yu who are in charge of ghosts. A ghost in trouble will tie it up and feed it to the tiger. Later, people wrote some auspicious sentences on the peach symbol. In the Tang Dynasty, couplets began to appear.

Some couplets are recorded in Dunhuang suicide notes, which have auspicious meanings. Some scholars believe that this is the earliest couplet. For example, Tan Chan-xue, a researcher at Dunhuang Research Institute, put forward this view in an article entitled "China's earliest couplets" in the April issue of Knowledge of Literature and History (199 1), but it is still true.

In the Five Dynasties, Meng Chang, the master of Shu, wrote the couplets of "Celebrating the New Year and Celebrating Changchun" in calligraphy. Most people think it is the earliest Spring Festival couplets.

It is said that the peach boards in Song Dynasty are thin boards, two or three feet long and four or five inches wide. You can hang it on the door to draw New Year pictures. Fu Tao is a thin wooden board seven or eight inches long, with words of blessing and disaster relief written on it. /kloc-at the age of 0/8, insert it on the left and right sides of the door and nail it. So Spring Festival couplets should be evolved from peach boards.

References:

Baidu encyclopedia-Spring Festival couplets