Classical Chinese poetry forms are poetry forms or modes which typify the traditional Chinese poems written in Literary Chinese or Classical Chinese. Classical Chinese poetry has various characteristic forms, some attested to as early as the publication of the Classic of Poetry, dating from a traditionally, and roughly, estimated time of around 11th–7th century BCE. The term "forms" refers to various formal and technical aspects applied to poems: this includes such poetic characteristics as meter (such as, line length and number of lines), rhythm (for example, presence of caesuras, end-stopping, and tone contour), and other considerations such as vocabulary and style. These forms and modes are generally, but not invariably, independent of the Classical Chinese poetry genres. Many or most of these were developed by the time of the Tang dynasty, and the use and development of Classical Chinese poetry and genres actively continued up until the May Fourth Movement, and still continues even today in the 21st century.
History Gao Bing wrote the Graded Compendium of Tang Poetry (Tangshi Pinhui), which is the first work using prosodic principles in a systematic method to classify poetry by Classical Chinese poetry forms. This built upon an extensive but less systematic approach; for example, by Yan Yu.
Formal elements There are various formal elements of Classical Chinese verse which are associated with its classification into formal types.
Scansion Various factors are considered in scanning Classical Chinese verse in order to determine the meter.
Meter For the purpose of metrically scanning Classical Chinese verse, the basic unit corresponds to a single character, or what is considered one syllable: an optional consonant or glide (or in some versions of reconstructed Old or Middle Chinese a consonantal cluster), an obligatory vowel or vowel cluster (with or without glides), and an optional final consonant. Thus a seven-character line is identical with a seven-syllable line; and, barring the presence of compound words, which were rare in Classical Chinese compared to Modern Chinese (and even people's names would often be abbreviated to one character), then the line would also be a seven words itself. Classical Chinese tends toward a one-to-one correspondence between word, syllable, and a written character. Counting the number of syllables (which could be read as varying lengths, according to the context), together with the caesuras, or pauses within the line, and a stop, or long pause at the end of the line, generally established the meter.See Stimson The characters (or syllables) between the caesuras or end stops can be considered to be a metric foot. The caesuras tended to both be fixed depending upon the formal rules for that type of poem and to match the natural rhythm of speech based upon units of meaning spanning the characters.
Line length Line length could be fixed or variable, and was based on the number of syllables/characters. In more formal poetry it tended to be fixed, and varied according to specific forms. Lines were generally combined into couplets. Lines tended to be end-stopped; and, line couplets almost always. Line length is the fundamental metrical criterion in classifying Classical Chinese poetry forms. Once the line length is determined, then the most likely of the line by caesuras is also known, since they are as a rule fixed in certain positions. Thus, specifying the line-length of a Chinese poem is equivalent to specifying both the type of feet and the number of feet per line in poetry using quantitative meter.
Fixed line length poems A three-character line is known from the Three Character Classic, a book for children written in three-character eight-line verse in rhymed couplets.
Four-character lines are encountered in the popular form of verse matching, where two verses are matched, often with rhyme, and often traditional four-character idioms (chengyu), frequently drawn from classical poetry. For instance, two four-character lines may be written on matching scrolls, in Chinese calligraphy, and each decoratively hung on either side of a door or entrance way, these are known as Duilian. Some ancient style poetry was also four-line.
Six-character line lengths are relatively rare in fixed-length poems, but are found for example in the work of Wang Jian.
Five, Seven, and eight (or doubled four) character lines are standard for serious, fixed-length poetry.
Variable line length poems
Some poems have lines of variable lengths within a single poem, either experimentally, as unique specimens, or in certain fixed formats. For example, the poems written according to fixed patterns based, or originally based, upon song lyrics such as the cí form or upon folk ballads such as the yuefu. The "tune", or tonal structure of these poems was also fixed within each specific pattern. This resulted eventually in quite a few fixed-forms with variable line lengths within each piece, with hundreds of named models identified. Often the name of the model used features in the title of the poem.
Couplets
Most Classical Chinese verse consists of multiple couplets or pairs of lines (), which are considered to be somehow especially related to each other by such considerations as meaning, tone-structure, or parallelism. A common rhyme scheme is the rhymed couplet, so that generally in rhymed poetry, the even numbered lines rhyme. Sometimes these couplets appear by themselves, for example one-half on each side of a door.
Poem length Because of the tendency to write poetry as groups of couplets, most poems had an even number of lines. Generally four lines (two couplets) were considered to be the minimum length for a poem. In the case of curtailed verse (jueju), the poem was limited to this length. Other types of poems were limited to eight lines (four couplets). If the overall length of some form of poetry was not limited, the poems tended to be written using four or eight line stanzas, so the poem lengths would work out to multiples of four or eight. Some poems were quite long. The length of poems based upon specific song and ballad forms depended upon the specific tune or form selected as the model. The fu type of poem, which sometimes even incorporated sections of prose, had few limitations on line length, except that, within a section of verse, the line lengths tended to be of equal length.Frankel, 212–213 A specific poem's length for those forms in which this was a restriction, is another basic classifying criterion (as in Seven-character eight-line verse).
Old, new, regulated, unregulated Poems of the same length in terms of line-length and poem-length and/or poems within the same general type were often distinguished by using the concepts "new", "old", "regulated", or "unregulated".
"Old" versus "new" "Old" and "new" were generally used to denote a basic change of form within a mode or form, like "old" yuefu and "new" yuefu. However, the use of these terms can be confusing, since something called "new" might be centuries old by the present time.
"Regulated" versus "unregulated" "Regulated" verse, or new-style shi poetry, has very strict and often complex formal limitations, such as mandatory tonal alterations between adjacent positions within a line, or in regards to the same line-positions between couplets.
Tone
The existence of tone in Old through early Tang Chinese is debatable.See Norman Certainly by the major period of poetic flourishing in Tang, syllable tones were divided into level and not-level. These variations were or became an important aspect of poetry, sometimes in an esoteric way. The presence or absence of formal tonal constraints regarding tone pattern varies according to the poetic form of a specific poem. Sometimes the rules governing the permissible tone patterns for a poem were quite strict, yet still allowed for a certain amount of liberty and variation, as in the case of Regulated verse. In the fixed-tone pattern type of verse the poems were written according to preexisting models known as "tunes". This was the case with the cí and the qu: an individual poem was written so that its tone pattern (and line lengths) were the same as one of the model types, the poetic variation was in the change in the particular wording of the lyrics.
Rhythm Rhythm was mostly a matter of tonal variation, line length, caesuras within lines, and end stopping. Variations of rhythm were subtly played off in between the various lines within a poem.
Rhyme Rhyme, or rime, was important in some forms of poetry. However, it was often based on a formal and traditional schema, such as is in a Rime table or rime dictionary, and not necessarily upon actual vernacular speech. The Pingshui Yun system was the standard for poetry rhyme from Yuan to Qing dynasty, even though it was very different from actual contemporary pronunciations. Also, generally level tones only rhymed with level tones, and non-level tones with non-level tones. The original rhymes of a poem can be difficult to detect, especially in Modern Chinese, such as Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese pronunciations (including syllable finals and tone) tend to be quite different from in the older, historical types of Chinese language, although perhaps to a lesser extent in Cantonese: either way, Classical Chinese is no longer a spoken language, and pronunciation was subject to major historical variation, as attested through linguistic studies.
Vocabulary Certain restrictions or associations of particular words were often typical of certain poetic forms, and for some forms of poetry there were rules restricting or encouraging the repetition of the same word within a poem, a stanza, or a line or couplet. Sometimes a deliberately archaic or traditional poetic vocabulary was used. Often the use of common words such as pronouns and "empty words" like particles and measure words were deprecated. Certain standard vocabulary substitutions were standard where a certain word would not fit into the metrical pattern.
Formal types Classical Chinese poems are typified by certain formal structures. Some of these can be considered closed collections, such as the groups of poems actually composing the Classic of Poetry (Shijing), the Songs of the South (Chuci), or the Nineteen Poems: These corpora were closed categories, one could not add to these classics, although one might write poems in the similar style, as in Old Style Poetry (Gushi). Further, one might follow the new styles that were introduced over succeeding dynasties, or make up one's own style, which may or may not catch on. In terms of literary form, however, Classical Chinese poetry has the three main formal types: shi, fu, and cí.Watson, 1
Shi
Although in Chinese the word shiShi: can mean "poetry" more or less generically, in a more technical sense shi refers to a certain more specific tradition within the broader category of poetry, which references the poems collected in the Shijing and further developments along certain lines. There are various types of shi poetry, such as "old style" gushi and "new style" jintishi.
Classic of Poetry (Shijing)