How did Tang poetry, Song lyrics and Yuan operas originate?

Write a few sentences randomly, basically according to memory, if there is any error, will not be responsible.

Ancient poetry can be simply divided into two categories, one is called ancient style, and the other is called proximity poetry, which is also known as metrical poetry. The so-called ancient style is for the proximate poetry. The origin of poetry is very ancient, in fact, no matter whether it is a poem or a word or a song, it is directly related to music, and the words alone are only a part of it.

The earliest collection of poetry was the Book of Poetry, which can be sung to music, so the Shangshu says "Poetry speaks to the mind, song to the eternal word, sound to the eternal, rhythm and sound." Meaning, take what is in your heart, write it out, put a tune to it, and then sing it. (Note: it is the words first, and then the music, the sequence must be remembered, very important point.) This kind of singing, later called "elegant music", all the poems at that time can be sung, so to the present is still called poetry. Unfortunately, after the pre-Qin and Han Dynasties, the Five Husband Rebellion, it was completely lost. This briefly said on, this and the title has nothing to do with, but is a trace back.

Han Wu Di period, began to set the music, so the music and song, known as song, can not sing, called poetry, so, "poetry", became a single man without music. The breakup of poetry and song began here. (Faction argument slightly) By the way, to the Han Ai Di, music deposed, presumably this student, due to deafness and annoyed it. Later generations will write this period of things, generalized as "Han Wei music". And this "music", the way the music, but also the first text, after the music, the way it sings, known as the "Qing music", and the "Poetry" of the "elegant music", very different.

During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Shen Yao, Zhou Egyong, and Xie Jie discovered the four tones of the Chinese language, which are the four tones of "going up and entering". Shen Yao therefore wrote the "four sound spectrum", and created the "four sound eight disease" said, this is the origin of the sound law. However, this doctrine at that time, not all know, including the emperor from childhood to receive higher education. For example, that like to be a monk Liang Wu Di Xiao Yan, do not know what the four sounds, oh, I guess he asked him the Buddhist scriptures, he should know, huh. Once he asked Zhou She (Zhou eulogy's son) "you write about a four sounds, in the end what is it?" Zhou patted a horse's ass and said: it is "the son of God, the holy philosophers". This four words, just flat up into four sounds, but old Xiao just want to go to the Tongtai Temple as a monk, asked too lazy to know.

The above said half a day four sound eight disease, these are the source of the Tang Dynasty near the body of poetry. From the southern dynasty, the sound law said bee, to the early Tang Dynasty, in Du Shenyan, Shen nephew, Song Zhiqian and others continue to improve, a pay attention to the level and the battle, a new style of poetry, officially appeared, and later known as the near style poetry, or metrical poetry. The basic rule is that "within a sentence, the level and the oblique are intertwined; between two sentences, the level and the oblique are relative; between two couplets, the level and the oblique are stained." The basic rule is that "within a sentence, the level and the oblique are interspersed; within two sentences, the level and the oblique are relative; between two couplets, the level and the oblique are connected." Detailed rules are also laid down for the disputed sentence, the solitary level, the disputed rescue, and the counterpoint. In order to distinguish the poems that were not very metrical before the near-typical poems, those were then uniformly called ancient styles. Later, the imperial court included the five-character meter poem in the imperial examination, called "test post poem", so we can imagine that because of the merit, the proximity poem must have been very popular. (Of course, the rise of Tang poetry was not entirely due to merit.) By the way, Du Shenyan may not be well known to everyone, but his grandson, whom we are all familiar with, is the famous Mr. Du Fu. Du Fu educated his son on poetry, saying "Poetry is my family's business", which is the truth, not his bragging. Because of the poem, is his grandfather tossed out.

Tang Poetry, is also the first text, after the music, this is also a feature of poetry, or domestic rhymes. Since there is a domestic, there must be "imported products", this "ship to" the thing, is familiar with the Song lyrics, but this ship, is the desert boat --- camel, oh, I do not know "words "At that time is not riding a camel to the Central Plains, the following rip off the Song lyrics.

That is to say, from the end of the North and South Dynasties, some by the pipa as the main instrument of the Western region band, from India, Central Asia, and other places through Xinjiang, the Hexi Corridor, began to like the Central Plains, "roaming", after a small amount of fusion with the Chinese music, in the period of the Sui and Tang dynasties, in the Central Plains settled down. This group of bands, is the first sheet music, but only music is too monotonous, so according to the music of the high and low melody, singing, to these music with some text, so it seems to be much richer. This group of people, in order to develop, often in and out of the major banquets, so we put this emerging music, known as "Yan music", Yan, is the word, through the "feast", to put it bluntly is the music of the banquet.

Because of this new thing, the first music, after the words, so called "fill in the words" or "fill in the words according to the sound". The words were actually written according to the level of the melody, not according to the level of the words. In order to match the melody, it is said that in the Sui Dynasty there were already words of different lengths. Later the literati gradually became involved in this new music, with Wen Tingyun and Wei Zhuang of the Late Tang Dynasty among the most famous early lyricists. After Wen and Wei, to the Southern Tang Dynasty, the two masters, Feng Yansi, the Song Dynasty Yanshu, Ouyang Xiu, and so on, gradually literate. Among them, Liu Yong, is a dedicated to the long tone of the lyricist, the Western Xia emissary said "where there is a well platform, all sing Liu Yong words. But because many of his words were vulgar, they were not appreciated by Yanshu. From this, we can know that by the time of Yanshu and Liu, the words had basically been completely refined.

(To be continued)