Module 6 The Tang Poems--Background readings 外研版必修8VIP专享

Module 6 The Tang PoemsPart Two Teaching ResourcesSection 1 Background readings1. Tang poemsAlthough shi is a general term for “poem”, it describes especially a type of regulated poem that was very popular during the Tang Dynasty and has been in use until today. Besides the songs and hymns in the Book of Songs, the earliest kind of shi poetry is the gushi (古诗) “old poem” type during the Han Dynasty. This type was probably influenced by Inner Asian types of music and poetry with a simple style in rhyming in couplets. For the “old poem” there were no rules regarding the placement of tones throughout the verse - except requirements of euphony. It was an easy and natural lyric medium in use during the Han and Jin Dynasties. The Tang Dynasty aristocracy scholars developed a new type of poem called lüshi (律诗) “regulated verse”. Seen from the outer shape, the gushi and lüshi are identical. Both have five- or seven-syllable verses, composed to quatrain stanzas. Like older poems too, the first two verses describe a natural scene, while the other describe the poet’s sentiments or feelings. Additionally, couplets are underlying some rules of contrast or parallelism in the words used, e.g. the first verse using words describing height, must be alternated by the second verse describing a scene of flat land or so. Knowledge of the lüshi form was a prerequisite both for the imperial examinations and for membership in the upper-class society. Anyone with an education was expected to compose regulated verse on virtually every social occasion. A short type of lüshi is the jueju 绝句 "termined sentence", a type less subject to the rules of verbal parallelism. The jueju is particularly su...