There were two meanings of the word Yuefu. One was the name of a music organization in the Han Dynasty; the other was the name of the folk songs that the organization collected.
The music office in the Han Dynasty had three duties:
-- To create the music for the poems of the literati.
-- To play the music to accompany the poems.
-- To collect the folk songs and ballads from around the country.
These collected folk songs and ballads were called Yuefu Shi -- Yuefu Poems or Han Yuefu in the Han Dynasty. One hundred and thirty six poems that were collected by the officers of the Western Han Dynasty are still extant. They were the highest achievement of Han Dynasty poetry.
The Yuefu Poems in the Han Dynasty followed the tradition of Shi Jing and expressed thoughts and feelings of civilians in its own time; they mainly reflected the poor life of ordinary people, the pain of war and corvée, love and labor.
The difference was that Shi Jing mainly expressed people's emotions while Yuefu was mainly narrative.
The linguistic form of the Yuefu poetry mainly uses five characters per line and is based on the poems of Shi Jing which have four characters per line, its sentences are sometimes long and sometimes short and its language is natural and unaffected.
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Sequence:
Time Content Love, Kinship and Friendship
关雎 — Singing Ospreys
七步诗 — The Quatrain of Seven Steps
寄扬州韩绰判官 — Send to the Official Han Chuo in Yang Zhou
夜雨寄北 —Send a Poem Letter to Someone in the North on a Rainy Night
Landscape
敕勒歌 — Chi Le Song
一望二三里 — Have A Look Over, Two, Three Miles
柏林寺南望 — Look Over the South From the Bailin Temple
江雪 — Fishing on a Snowy River
Philosophy
赋新月 — Ode to the New Moon
Travel and Farewell
赠汪伦 — Present the Poem to Wang Lun
静夜思 — Missing my Hometown in the Peaceful Night
绝句(江碧鸟逾白) — On the Blue River, Birds Seem More White
Song of the Spring
晚春 — Late Spring
Encouragement
庭竹 — The Bamboo in the Courtyard
梅花 — Plum Blossoms
Appendix
My Endless Gratitude -Feb,2017 in the USA
The Appendix ( Nov 16, 2017 in China) of My Endless Gratitude -Feb,2017 in the USA
The Han Dynasty ( 202 B.C. - 220 A.D.)Poetry and Yuefu
The Han Dynasty ( 202 B.C. - 220 A.D.)Poetry and Yuefu
The Han Dynasty (202 B.C. - 220 A.D.) was the third important phase in the development of Chinese poetry. The main poetry of these times was the Yuefu Song.There were two meanings of the word Yuefu. One was the name of a music organization in the Han Dynasty; the other was the name of the folk songs that the organization collected.
The music office in the Han Dynasty had three duties:
-- To create the music for the poems of the literati.
-- To play the music to accompany the poems.
-- To collect the folk songs and ballads from around the country.
These collected folk songs and ballads were called Yuefu Shi -- Yuefu Poems or Han Yuefu in the Han Dynasty. One hundred and thirty six poems that were collected by the officers of the Western Han Dynasty are still extant. They were the highest achievement of Han Dynasty poetry.
The Yuefu Poems in the Han Dynasty followed the tradition of Shi Jing and expressed thoughts and feelings of civilians in its own time; they mainly reflected the poor life of ordinary people, the pain of war and corvée, love and labor.
The difference was that Shi Jing mainly expressed people's emotions while Yuefu was mainly narrative.
The linguistic form of the Yuefu poetry mainly uses five characters per line and is based on the poems of Shi Jing which have four characters per line, its sentences are sometimes long and sometimes short and its language is natural and unaffected.