What is poetry? What are the characteristics of poetry?

Poetry is the oldest and most basic literary form in the world, and it is a literary genre that expounds the soul. Poets need to master mature artistic skills and express social life and human spiritual world with concise language, rich emotions and rich images according to certain requirements of syllables, tones and rhythms. Confucius believes that poetry has four functions: arousing, observing, gathering and telling. Lu Ji believes that "poetry is beautiful because of love." In ancient China, unhappy people were called poems and happy people were called songs. Later people call it poetry. Poetry is a highly concentrated literary genre that reflects social life. Full of the author's thoughts and feelings and rich imagination. Its language is concise and vivid, with distinct rhythm, harmonious rhyme and rich musical beauty. The sentences are generally in rows and pay attention to the beauty of structural form. He Qifang, a modern poet and literary critic in China, once said: "Poetry is the literary style that most strongly reflects social life. It is full of rich imagination and feelings, and it is often expressed in a direct lyrical way. Moreover, in the degree of exquisiteness and harmony, especially in the distinct rhythm, its language and prose are different. " This definition summarizes several basic characteristics of poetry: first, it reflects life in a highly concentrated and general way; The second is lyrical expression, full of rich thoughts and feelings; Third, rich imagination, association and fantasy; Fourth, language has musical beauty.