What are the categories of "fugue"? Is there a certain format?

The name of the genre. There is a process of evolution in the meaning of "fu". In Zuo Zhuan (The Chronicle of Zuo), there are many records of someone writing a certain piece. The word "fu" means to recite, not to refer to the style of writing. The so-called "reciting without singing is called fugu" in Han Shu - Yi Wen Zhi (The Book of Han - The Records of the Arts) also refers to this meaning. Zhouli - Chunguan Zongbo - Masters" in the "six poems" mentioned, "Mao Poetry Preface" called "six meanings", namely, wind, fugue, than, Xing, Ya, Song, according to Zheng Xuan's notes, "fugue" is the meaning of spread, that is, "fugue". According to Zheng Xuan's commentary, "Fu" means to spread, i.e., "straightly spread out the good and bad of the present-day politics and religion", and it does not refer to the style of writing. However, the poetic scripture in the spread of speech, for the formation of the fugu style is influential. Therefore, Ban Gu's "Preface to the Two Capitals Fugue" said, "Fugue, the stream of the ancient Poetry." The name of fugue as a literary style was first seen in Xun Zi's "Fugue" in the late Warring States period, in which five kinds of things, namely, clouds, silkworms, rituals, knowledge and advice, were written, which can be said to be the beginning of the development of fugue by fugue name.

But the Fu as a literary system can be traced back to Chu Rhetoric. In the middle of the Warring States period, Qu Yuan's "Li Sao", "Nine Songs" and other chapters, at that time, did not have the title of the fugue, to the Western Han Dynasty, Liu Xiang, Liu Xin led the school of the Secret Pavilion books, for Qu Yuan compilation, began to call it "Qu Yuan fugue" 25, "the Han book - art and literature" to be recorded, and at the same time, there is also a record of the "Sung Yu fugue". At the same time, it also recorded "Song Yu Fu" (16 articles) and "Tang Le Fu" (4 articles). Between Chu Rhetoric and Fugue, there is indeed a close relationship, so the classification of later literary styles is often called Rhetoric and Fugue, and Qu Yuan is recognized as the ancestor of Rhetoric and Fugue. However, Chu Rhetoric and the authentic fugu after Han Dynasty are different in spirit and appearance, so the later generations also distinguish between rhetoric and fugu. To sum up, the fugue was originated from Chu Rhetoric, and Xunfu began to have a definite name, which appeared in the late Warring States period, and only formed a definite system in the Han Dynasty, which is the origin of the fugue.

About the characteristics of fu, "Wenxin Diao Long" - interpretation of fu, said: "Fu, paving also; paving the □ text, the body of things to write Zhi also." The "body of things to write their aspirations" refers to the content of the Fu; the "pavement" refers to the appearance of the Fu. Compared with the tradition of "poetry speaks of will", the characteristics of fu firstly lie in "body objects", i.e. copying and writing things. There is only a very brief description of scenery in the Book of Songs, but in the works of Qu Yuan, Song Yu and others in Chu Rhetoric, the composition and skill of writing scenery have made great progress. The Han Dynasty Fu more model mountains and water, write the palace garden hunting works, a large number of listing a variety of rare birds and animals, flowers and trees, insects and fish, aquatic, flag and ceremonial, a wide range of names. That is why Lu Ji said, "Poetry is characterized by love and beautiful, and fugue is characterized by a bright body." This clearly delineates the difference between the two styles of writing in terms of the content of expression. However, while focusing on the "body of things", Fu also pays attention to the "writing of will", which is in line with the tradition of "poetry speaks of will". The Han Book - Art and Literature Zhi" said: "Sun Qing, a great Confucian and Chu minister Qu Yuan, away from the slander and worry about the country, all made fu to the wind, all have sympathy for the meaning of ancient poetry." The preface of San Du Fu by Huang Fu Quiet between Wei and Jin also said: "In the Warring States, the king's way was late, and the style and elegance were bedded down, so the sages lost their will, and the fugue was made." It can be seen that the origin of rhetoric is also associated with the satirical advice to describe the will. Although the tendency of the great fugue in the Han Dynasty to exaggerate the description of the state of things has developed to the extreme, "persuade a hundred and satirize one", but the end is still not without the meaning of satirical admonition. That is why the Records of the Grand Historian (史记-太史公自序), says: "The matter of Zi Xu (子虚), and the fugue of the Lord (大人), are all very colorful and exaggerated, but their references to the wind of admonition are attributed to the meaning of doing nothing." The Historical Records - Sima Xiangru's Biography also says: "Although Xiangru made many false statements, his main point was to cite frugality." Through copying things to achieve the purpose of expressing emotions, this is the requirement of the fugue in terms of content.

Fu in the content of the content through the "body" to "write", in the artistic expression will inevitably pay attention to the presentation, describe the external image of things and internal reasoning. Because of the focus on narrative and description, in the language will inevitably use beautiful words, with a gorgeous color. This is also the meaning of "spreading the colorful words". In addition, Fu also pays much attention to the beauty of sound and rhyme, and it combines the chapter and sentence of prose with the rhyme and rhythm of poetry, with the help of long and short staggered sentences, flexible and varied rhymes, and the modes of prose and couplets to form a free and strict, flowing and stagnant style, which is suitable for the prose style of presenting the facts, and also preserves a certain poetic meaning. This is an important feature of the style of fu.

The flow of fugu (rhetoric) has gone through various stages, such as Saofu, Hanfu, Pianfu, Ritu, and Wenfu.

Sao Fu refers to the Chu Rhetoric represented by Qu Yuan and Song Yu as well as the works imitating the Chu Rhetoric in later times. It is characterized by strong lyricism, magnificent imagery, and far-reaching tones, with "Ruoxi", "some", "only" and other auxiliary words used to regulate the sound of the sentence or at the end of the sentence. It does not focus on the presentation of things like the Fu after Han Dynasty, and it has not formed a very fixed system.

Han Fu mainly refers to the popular fugue in Han Dynasty, which was started by Meixian's "Seven Hair", and the representative writers were Sima Xiangru, Yang Xiong, and Ban Gu, etc. The characteristic of Han Fu is that it emphasizes on the presentation of things, and it has not formed a fixed system. The characteristic of Han Fu is to copy all kinds of things, generally are long and huge, strict, magnificent weather, rich and beautiful rhetoric, good use of allusions to difficult words, showing a kind of elegant hall, solemn and dignified style, which is regarded as the authentic fugu. The chapters are mostly in the form of questions and answers, with obvious differences in sentence patterns, rhymes mixed with prose, and the breath of the poems is greatly weakened.

The parallel fugue, also called haiku, was conceived in the time of Han and Wei, and popularized in the two Jin and North and South Dynasties. It is a variant of Han Fu, the so-called "Three Kingdoms, two Jin, quoting haiku; Song Qi, Liang and Chen, plus four or six, then the ancient Fu of the change is carried out" ("Han Wendian"). The characteristics of parallel fugue, one is parallel four and six, the whole piece is composed of four words and six words, neat sentence; the second is the Li Zao elegant rhetoric, deduction will be written in a variety of flowers; the third is two sentences of a rhyme, in accordance with the change of the chapter content and the change of the rhyme, the format is relatively fixed; the fourth is to gradually seek to harmonize the level of the oblique, rich in music; the fifth is the length of a generally shorter, lose the macro-contour meteorology of the Han fugue. Generally speaking, because of the focus on the form of fugue, tends to beautiful, the rhetoric is more luxuriant, and the body style is gradually inferior, the significance of the content of the relative weakened.

To the Tang Dynasty, the imperial examination system was prevalent, and the fugue was included in the national examination subjects, so it produced a special test post fugue, which was called legal fugue. On the basis of parallel fugu, the fugu paid more attention to the neatness and strictness of the contrast and sound, and made strict limitations on the number of words and phrases and rhyming style of the whole piece. For example, Wang □ "Pei father and old man stay in Han Gaozu's fugu", limited to use "wish to stop the front drive to get Shen Shen deep meaning" for rhyme, that is, the whole piece is divided into eight paragraphs, and each paragraph is sequentially rhymed with the words in these eight rhymes. This kind of artifice work, obviously has lost the real life of literature, but as the door of the road of profit and fortune, its form has been inherited until the end of the Qing Dynasty.

At the same time, under the influence of the Tang and Song ancient literature movement, part of the fugue has shown a tendency to return to the prose style from parallelism, not to pay attention to the couplets, meter, algae, allusions, open and fluent chapters, staggering sentences, rhymes are also relatively free to form the prose style of the fresh and smooth momentum, called the text of the fugue. Du Mu "Afang Palace Fu", Ouyang Xiu "Autumn Sound Fu", Su Shi "Red Cliff Fu", etc., are masterpieces.

References:

Du Mu's "Afang Palace Fu", Ouyang Xiu's "Autumn Sound Fu", Su Shi's "Red Cliff Fu", and so on