The Epidemic Poem in Four Lines

The seven-character meter poem is a genre of traditional Chinese poetry, referred to as the seven rhythms, belonging to the category of proximate poetry. It originated from the new style of poetry that emphasized rhythm and couplets, and was further developed by the early Tang Dynasty's Shen _ period and Song Zhiwen, and matured in the hands of the Tang Dynasty's Du Fu.

Seven-line poems have a strict meter, requiring the number of words in the poem to be neatly organized, consisting of eight lines, each line of seven words, every two lines as a couplet, *** four couplets, divided into the first couplet, the third couplet, the neck couplet and the last couplet, and the middle two couplets required to be matched. Representative works include Cui Hao's "Yellow Crane Tower", Du Fu's "Ascending to the Heights", and Li Shangyin's "Anding City Tower".

Seven-line poems are poems with eight lines in seven words and in accordance with the norms of metrical poetry, referred to as "seven lines", which is a kind of metrical poetry. Rhythmic poetry belongs to the category of proximity poetry, because of its strict rules, so the name.

The rise of the seven-line poem was later than that of the five-line poem. It originated in the North and South Dynasties, sprouted in the new style of poetry of Qi and Liang, and was finalized between the early Tang and the Sheng Tang. At the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, Shen _ period, Song Zhiwen, Du Shenyan, Li Peak began to have a piece, to the Sheng Tang Dynasty, Wang Wei, Li Chip, Cen Sen, Jia to the deliberate refinement of the people, so that it in the system to achieve maturity, and Cui Hao, Li Bai still have parallelism, half-ancient, half-law of the work. In this period, although there are some famous poems in seven-character meter, the content of most of them belongs to the system of Fenghe, honorarium, which is more narrow than the five-character meter. At the same time, the poets of Li Bai, Wang Wei, Gao Shi and other poets in the Sheng Tang period, there are many mistakes of losing pairs, sticking to each other, and repeating words. It was only in Du Fu that the seven-line stanzas demonstrated their poetic potential and opened up artistic horizons. Du Fu fully opened up the realm of metrical poetry, current affairs, political discussions, worldly aspirations, local customs, cultural relics and monuments, all melted into a strict meter, the value of this poetic form to a sufficiently high level with the ancient poems, stanzas, and stand side by side.

Below Du Fu and up to the Middle Tang Dynasty, the seven-character meter failed to make a mark. In the Late Tang Dynasty, a new situation opened up. Wen Tingyun, Li Shangyin and Du Mu, the masters of the seven-character stanza, not only revised the form of the stanza, but also transformed its temperament, advancing the art of stanza to a new stage.

Hu Yinglin[1], a Ming scholar, summarized the development of the Tang dynasty's seven-character metrical poems in the fifth volume of Poetry Serval: "The Tang's seven-character metrical poems were the first to be created since Du Shenyan and Shen _ period. To Cui Hao, Li Bai when out of the ancient, a change. Gao, Cen, Wang, Li, the style is greatly prepared, another change. Duling male deep and voluminous, super negligent vertical and horizontal, another change."

The Five Dynasties period was characterized by a lack of seven-line poems. The Song Dynasty seven rhymes continued the innovative efforts of Du Fu and the poets of the Middle and Late Tang dynasties and gradually stereotyped in the hands of the "Jiangxi Poetry School", and came out of a new way to the interest, to discuss the poem, a lot of good works. Yuan, Ming and Qing below, the decline of seven-line poems.