A Comparison Of Five-character And Folk-song-style-verse Ancient Poems Of Han Dynasties.

Five-character poems play an essential role in Chinese literature history. Like Han Fu(prose poems or rhapsody) and folk-song-style verse poems, its birth represents the most important achievement of the poems developed in Han Dynasties and it is also one of the most important forms of poems after Han Dynasties. However, people share different views on the relation between these two forms and so far no conclusion has been reached.For example, Xiao Difei argues that " only scholars imitate folk-song-style but no folk-song-style follows the intellects slavishly. The establishment of five-character poems resides in the sound development of folk-song-style verse and its birth comes out of the popularity of folk-song-style verse." With the representative works of Nineteen Ancient Poems, there are more scholars begin studying the relation between them and among some of these scholars define these two styles as folk-song-style verse.In fact, the birth and development of five-character poems are closely related to the development and prosperity of folk-song-style verse in Han Dynasties. Both styles are similar on themes, verse meanings and etc.. However, what is worth paying attention to is they cannot be classified as the same style even if they have a lot in common with each other because there are still slightly differences in terms of nature. Reading into the expositions from critics who assume five-character poems as folk-song-style, it can be found that they focus more on one or two similarities of these two styles and therefore, their researches are one-sided.The thesis focuses on differences between these two styles and explores on the difference in nature of them. First, in terms of organization andstructure, five-character poems are featured with closeness and neatness. This structure usually is realized by simple language, skillful antithesis and strict rhyming whereas the folk-song-style verse is more romantic in arrangement.Second, regarding type forms, five-character poems are inclined to true personal emotion. However, folk-song-style verses attach more importance to narration and highlight the dramatic effect during narration as it is presented to audience in form of singing and performance in public. Third, on ideas expression, while five-character poems reveal personal emotion, it also has an implication of philosophical idea that set people thinking. Folk-song-style verse, however, possesses obviously popular education. The thesis will elaborate on these three points and studies on the relation between these two styles together with their origins to provide some reference evidence for defining whether five-character poems are born into folk-song-style verses.