The choice of the origin of couplets

Couplets, one of the traditional cultures in China, also called couplets or couplets, are antithetical sentences written on paper, cloth or engraved on bamboo, wood and columns. The antithesis of couplets is neat and even, which is a unique artistic form of Chinese language. Next, I sorted out the origin of couplets for you. Welcome to read!

The origin of couplets

About Meng Chang's version of The Montessori Family and Zhang's version of Shu? It is included in Huang Xiu's Wandering, Mao Ting Hakka Dialect, Liang Zhangju's Conghua Couplet and Tan Sitong's Records of Shi Juying. "Shu? "Before Shu Han returned to the Song Dynasty, he often ordered bachelor Xin to carve a peach symbol on the bedroom door, claiming that his words didn't count, saying that' years are long and festivals are long'. After Shu Ping, the court took Lu Yuqing as the name of Mao's birthday. "Mysterious, afraid of providence. According to "Song Couplets Collection", Meng Changyuan is full of flowers, and Yao Yao, the minister of the Ministry of War, wrote an inscription: "The islands are divided into cross waters, and several flowers are seen outside the Taiwan. "This is also the earliest garden couplet in China.

However, in recent years, it has been suggested that couplets on New Year's Eve have become a custom in the Five Dynasties. The earliest couplets were written by Liu and his sister Liu Lingxian, writers of the Southern Liang Dynasty. This is recorded in Tan Sitong's Notes on Shi Juying's Residence, saying that Liu Xiaozhuo could not be dismissed from office, and the title was linked to the door: "Close the door to celebrate the hanging, lie high and thank you." His sister also made a pair of couplets: "The fallen flowers are still in harmony, and they are reunited with the orchid." Although the couplets are short-term, every sentence is beautiful and engraved on the door. It can be said that it is the earliest couplet recorded in China's history books. This is four or five hundred years earlier than Meng Chang's couplets.

Many scholars believe that the mature age of couplets should be Sui and Tang Dynasties. This is also recognized by most people. In the early years of Liang Dynasty, Yongming style only played a certain role in paving the way for the formation of couplets, but as a literary category, it did not form a system. Liu Xie, a literary critic in the Southern Dynasties, has incisive views on "temperament" and "kind words" in his literary criticism masterpiece "Wen Xin Diao Long", and has suggestions on poetry, Sao, Fu, Yuefu, praise, couplet, inscription, monument, mourning, literature, harmony, historical biography, hundred schools of thought, various theories and imperial edicts. However, many scholars believe that this view is controversial after the couplets produced metrical poems (the Five Dynasties Tang Dynasty). Opponents believe that the problem of leveling between sentences was solved before the Tang Dynasty, and the problem of the number of sentences and rhyme in metrical poems has nothing to do with couplets.

During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, Yongming style flourished day by day. Some literati like to focus on dialogue, which has formed the trend of "picking sentences and appreciating comments" for a while. For example, Li Bai's "Three mountains and a half fall out of the sky, like this Egret Island divides the river." Du Fu's "She went out of the Purple Palace into the desert, and now she has become a yellow grave." Bai Juyi's "It is difficult for an ape to cry and a goose to fly across the lake." "Silkworms in spring are spinning until they die, and candles will drain the wick every night." Li Shangyin. They are all famous sentences. With the participation of poets, the art of couplets has been improved. Except Bai Juyi, most poets in the Tang Dynasty are famous in history and passed down from generation to generation. For example, Li Bai's title Hunan Yueyang Loulian:

A large body of water

The miracle of natural beauty is infinite.

Du Fu inscribed the couplets of Zhuge Liang's former residence;

Worried about what is happening in the world.

During his two terms in power, he served the kingdom wholeheartedly.

Wang Luobin's title: Hangzhou Tide Pavilion;

Louguancanghai Day

Zhejiang chaode gate

Li Shimin's Lian Mo was hidden in Zhenguan Bao Han, Jinci, Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, and wrote an inscription for Taizong's imperial book:

The article is eternal.

She Ji yi Rong yi

In Song Dynasty, it was a common custom to put couplets on doors. Wang Anshi wrote in the poem "January Day": Thousands of families

A body of water 3,000 miles away.

There are two tides at twelve o'clock.

The famous writer Su Shi also wrote an inscription for Zhenwu Temple in Guangzhou:

Let's have long hair and fight the sword.

There are means to subdue dragons and tigers, and turtles and snakes are floating clouds.

In the Yuan Dynasty, due to various reasons, couplets were somewhat neglected compared with the previous dynasties, and few were handed down from generation to generation. Now can see only a few works by Yang Rui, Zhao Mengfu and others, such as Yang Rui's title "Apartment Couplet":

Guang yi dong bi book store

The heart is in the landscape of the West Lake.

Zhao Mengfu Title West Lake Lingyin Temple Union:

The sword and dragon wind returned, and thousands of valleys and pines were connected with the sea and air.

Jiufeng clouds converge, and the Millennium laurel moon prints the lake light.

Yuan Zaju skillfully used the form of couplets in Yuan Dynasty. For example, Guan Hanqing's zaju "Saving the Wind and Dust" ends with:

An Xiucai turned flowers into candles.

Zhao's romantic life saved the dust.

This is also a new form of couplets.

The origin of couplets

Speaking of couplets, everyone is most familiar with the Spring Festival couplets posted every year. Wang Anshi's poem "January Day" in the Song Dynasty said: "In addition to firecrackers, the spring breeze enters Tu Su from send warm. Thousands of families always change new peaches for old ones every day. " It can be seen that posting Spring Festival couplets is also an ancient custom. But Spring Festival couplets are just one kind of couplets.

Couplets, also known as couplets, dual plays, opposite doors, spring stickers, Spring Festival couplets, couplets and so on. , originated in Fu Tao.

According to legend, couplets originated from Meng, the master of Shu State after the Five Dynasties. He wrote an inscription on the Taofu board in front of the dormitory: "New Year's Eve, Qing Yu, Jiajieno. Changchun "means" engraving peach characters ". This is the earliest couplet in China and the earliest Spring Festival couplets. However, there are other sayings. China's earliest couplets appeared in the Tang Dynasty, based on the Dunhuang suicide note unearthed in the Tibetan Sutra Cave of Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang.

I would like to add here that "Fu Tao" refers to two red wooden boards hung on the gate in ancient times, with the door gods painted or their names written on them to ward off evil spirits, which is equivalent to the door gods. The "Five Dynasties" is a historical period between the Tang Dynasty and the Song Dynasty in the history of China. During this period, dynasties changed frequently, because many people only have a general understanding of the historical stages, but in fact, many stages, including historical books, are not described in detail, so I am afraid that everyone is not clear about this era, so I will mention it a little.

However, from the perspective of literary history, couplets gradually evolved from the antithesis in ancient poems, which probably went through three stages. Namely, dual stage, parallel stage and legal stage.

The time span of the dual stage is from the pre-Qin and Han Dynasties to the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, and there are also dual sentences in ancient poems, such as "Work at sunrise and rest at sunset". The parallel prose stage originated in the Eastern Han Dynasty, flourished in Wei and Jin Dynasties, and prevailed in the Southern and Northern Dynasties. This is a parallel essay composed of antitheses. The stage of law couples began in the Wei and Jin Dynasties and was formed in the Tang Dynasty, that is, the general five-character or seven-character law poems.

So the origin of couplets is very early. As for the time of origin, it depends on your whole definition. Because many couplets are not necessarily posted on the door, they are called couplets, and there are traces of couplets from the pre-Qin and Han Dynasties. You can think that it originated in the Tang Dynasty or the Five Dynasties period, or you can think that it originated in the earlier pre-Qin period, so I personally prefer the latter.

In fact, there are many forms of couplets. As long as they are right, they are all couplets, but there are good and bad ones. Even a random pair is a pair, and a good pair pays attention to a neat and even pair, echoing each other, one after another. So I think the origin of couplets tends to be earlier.

I am sharing two kinds of couplets with you, one is "absolute" and the other is "palindrome".

The so-called "unique" is generally handed down from the people for a long time. Some difficult couplets have existed for a long time, and some cannot be corrected so far.

"Yan Suochi Liu Tang" is a famous "absolute", which I believe many people have heard of. It has been more than 300 years since the collection of Zhongzhou Caotang by Chen Zisheng in the late Ming Dynasty.

The word "Yan Suochi Liu Tang" contains five elements: gold, wood, water, fire and earth, so the bottom line should also have the opposite meaning to the five elements. Some people take the "Grey Heap Zhenhai Tower" as the base, but it is only a formal confrontation, and there is a big gap between elegance and vulgarity. Others change the "ash pile" into "gun pile", which is still not good enough. This is a pair of right and wrong couplets, but it is also a couplet. What is "Zhenjiang City with Gun Racks"? Although it is better than the former in momentum, it is still not good enough, and it is also flawed in level and level confrontation.

Later, someone made a pair of bottom couplets that are very harmonious in both level and artistic conception: "tea boiling cuts the wall." This second couplet is not only beautiful in artistic conception and strong in rhythm, but also rare in that the capital of the opposite department is in the second couplet. By the way, the four dots below the word "boiled" mean "fire", and the word "chisel" below the traditional Chinese characters means "gold". Because our current Chinese characters are simplified characters, some traditional characters are unfamiliar, so we know why.

Palindrome is a couplet written in the form of palindrome, which can be read backwards or directly. It is quite interesting. There are many palindromes handed down from ancient times to the present, and I will give you some excerpts.

Guests come from nature, but guests come from heaven.

People have been to the Big Buddha Temple, which is bigger than others.

Monks swim in Yunyin Temple, while temples swim in Yunyin Monk.

The origin of couplets

Couplets, also known as couplets, couplets and couplets, are an independent style composed of two strings of Chinese characters with the same number of words, the same sentence pattern, even and harmonious, and related semantics. It is often hung or pasted on walls and posts to express people's thoughts and feelings. The antithetical couplets are rooted in the fertile soil of our national traditional culture, and combine the double norms of the Book of Songs, the theory of a hundred schools of thought contending, the rhetoric and literary talent of ci and fu, the antithetical rhythm of parallel prose, the style and rhyme of Tang poetry, and the form of peach symbols demanded by the people. They have rich themes and diverse styles, which combine the beauty of emotional charm with the effect of appealing to both refined and popular tastes. This unique traditional art form of national literature has a long history, which lasted for more than 1000 years. Deeply loved by people from all walks of life, it has become a delicate and dazzling flower in Chinese literary gardens.

The origin of couplets can be traced back to Fu Tao. Fu Tao, also known as Xianmu, is a kind of red wooden board, which is hung on both sides of the door during the Spring Festival and painted with legendary statues of Shen Tu and Lei Yu. Later, Fu Tao was gradually simplified, and only the names of "Shen Tu" and "Lei Yu" were written on it. This peach symbol is changed once a year on New Year's Eve. Wang Anshi wrote in "January Day" that "thousands of households always exchange new peaches for old ones", so it was called "peach symbol" in ancient times. However, this kind of peach symbol is only to pray for God to eliminate disasters and reduce happiness, and there is no sense of using antithesis independently, so it is not a couplet in the literary sense.

During the Five Dynasties, the incantations and names such as "Shen Tu" and "Lei Yu" were gradually replaced by couplets. It is said that this originated from a whim of Meng Changjun, the monarch of the later Shu Dynasty. In the twenty-seventh year of the post-Shu Dynasty, Meng Changjun suddenly issued a decree, ordering ministers to write antithetical sentences on peach symbols in order to compete for talents. Meng Changjun was dissatisfied with the ministers' articles. Finally, I simply wrote a pair of couplets: "Chinese New Year in Qing Yu, and Changchun in the First Festival." Later, this form of writing couplets on New Year's Taofu slowly spread to the people, loved by the people, and spread more and more widely. Although this five-character couplet is not necessarily the earliest couplet in China, most scholars think it is the earliest Spring Festival couplet in China.

Judging from the development law of literature itself, the formation of couplets has a long historical process. The antitheses in classical literary works, such as The Book of Songs, Songs of the South, the works of a hundred schools of thought contending, Han Chang's poems and Tang poems, are all original forms of couplets. For example, in The Book of Songs, Xiaoya Cai Wei, "I have been there, and the willow is Yi Yi; Today I think it's raining. " Another example is "full of losses, modest benefits" mentioned in Shang Dynasty, "riding a fat horse and wearing a light coat" in The Analects of Confucius, and "an upright man is open and poised, the villain is always harmonious" in The Analects of Confucius. There is also Li's "three mountains and a half falling out of the sky, like the egrets on this island dividing water"; Du Fu's "She went out of the Purple Palace into the desert, and now she is a green grave in the dusk" and so on.

The Ming and Qing Dynasties were the heyday of couplets. The ruling class attached great importance to parallel prose and couplets and brought them into the imperial examination. Scholars express political views and school disputes in the current situation through couplets. The application of couplets has spread all over the society, which is a great landscape. Couplets have reached an unprecedented distance in both content and art. For example, Zhang Zhidong said that "the four rivers are the first, the four seasons are the second, and the husband lives in Jiangxia. Who is the first and who is the second? " Liang Qichao said to himself, "Confucianism, three religions are in the front, three talents are in the back, and the boy is Confucianism." How dare he be ahead and behind! " And "study hard, plow well and study hard;" It is difficult to start a business, to keep a business and to know a business.