Chinese Poetry and Lyrics Despite the popularity of the term “Tang Poetry and Song Lyrics”, these literary genres emerged well before the Tang or Song dynasties. The Classic of Poetry, complied in Spring and Autumn Period in Zhou Dynasty is considered as the oldest existing collection of Chinese poetry. Since the Han Dynasty, the art of poetry has been practised by scholars, who favoured a more liberal poetic format than that of gushi (ancient style poetry). The requirement of rhyme and metre became comprehensive and stringent later in the Tang Dynasty, known as jintishi (modern style poetry). There have been differing views on the origin of lyrics, or ci. Some argue that it was introduced along with Middle East music during the Tang dynasty. Initially, ancient tunes were sung along with poetry by scholars. Afterwards, they modified the number of characters by considering the melody and therefore produced ci, whose advancement reached its zenith during the Song dynasty. Scores were drafted before their lyrics by then. Nowadays, while the sheet music was lost, ci has been handed down to generations. The lyrics in #1314 take inspiration from Shakespeare’s sonnets. During the formulation of these Chinese verses, it could be the themes or phrases being brought up first. The process echoes interestingly with the conceiving of ci in Song Dynasty. Regarding its format, the Chinese dialogue and lyrics in #1314 bear more relevance to modern poetry, which only began to prevail during the onset of the 21st century. Chinese poetry is profound and deep. Here in this booklet we only compare Chinese poems and sonnets according to their rhyme schemes and metre. It is palpable that the beauty of cadence is desired by poets from both the East and the West.
JOCKEY CLUB New Arts Power
#1314 · 11 ·
