Abstract
As an important poetic concept, the trend of "emulating pre-Tang regulated verses" arose in mid-Tang Dynasty. After its finalization of the pattern, the metrical verses were criticized by those scholars believing that the regulated verses are inferior to the pre-Tang poems, as they were believed to lack the pre-Tang's esthetic characters like Fenggu (air), Xingji (message), simplicity and naturalness. Thus, some scholars proposed the concept of "emulating pre-Tang regulated verses" to learn from pre-Tang poems' rhetoric technique, text structure, style function and writing spirit. Tang poetry advocated Bixing (two metaphorical and rhetorical qualities from The Book of Songs) in the metrical verses, and attempted to incorporate this rhetoric device prevailing in the Qi and Liang Dynasties into the poetry so as to allegorically reflect life and politics. After the Song Dynasty, the emulation of pre-Tang regulated verses highlighted the rhetoric technique and the composition structure, while the Qing-Dynasty poets focused on details in poetry such as the differences between the rhythmic rules of regulated verses and pre-Tang poems. The concept of "emulating pre-Tang metrical verses" showed the development of poetic tradition in different perspectives and levels, and the artistic thoughts of poets on regulated verse and ancient style verses provided us with fruitful inspirations for further studies.
First Page
94
Last Page
101
Recommended Citation
Liu, Zhanzhao. 2013. "The Evolution of the Concept "Emulating Pre-Tang Regulated Verses" in Ancient Chinese Poetics." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 33, (6): pp.94-101. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol33/iss6/19
