This pair of overlapping couplets used to be "green red, there are birds and swallows everywhere;" Ups and downs, dusk every year ",from the original Hangzhou West Lake Flower Bed (now Hushan Spring Society), this couplet is still in Yu Yue's" Qu Yuan Feng Lian ".

Characteristics of couplets

Uniqueness and universality

It is generally believed that couplets are the most unique literary form in China. What is unique about it? Mainly in structure and language. Couplets can be called "dual structure" style. Standard couplets always consist of two opposing parts. The former part is called "Lian", which is also called "sentence", "antithesis" and "antithesis". The latter part is called "bottom link", which is also called "antithesis", "antithesis" and "antithesis". These two parts are paired. Only the upper part or the lower part can be regarded as semi-joint.

Of course, many couplets, especially those written and hung, have horizontal comments in addition to the upper and lower couplets. Horizontal criticism is an organic part of this kind of couplets, which is often a summary, the finishing touch or compatible with couplets. Generally, it is four words, but also two, three, five and seven words.

From the linguistic point of view, the language of couplets is neither a verse language nor a prose language, but a special language that pursues antithesis and richness. The special "language structure" of couplets is completely determined by the special nature of Chinese and its characters. The uniqueness of this "language structure" makes the creation of couplets different from other literary forms in conception, conception, layout and writing.

With the same objective object and content, we always try to observe and describe things from two aspects and angles, and strive to "shape" the language into a binary and symmetrical structure.

Parasitism and tolerance

The so-called parasitism refers to couplets developed from parallel prose in China's ancient ci and fu. In short, they are a pair of compound sentence, so they can be parasitic in various styles. Poetry, ci, qu, fu, parallel prose, even prose, drama, novel, all have no neat antithesis.

On the other hand, couplets are extremely inclusive. It can combine the characteristics of other styles, absorb the expressive techniques of other styles, especially long couplet and super-long couplet, and simply combine the achievements of Chinese stylistic techniques. For example, the refined meaning of poetry, the exaggeration of fu, the long tone of words, the significance of songs, the free and easy prose, the short rhyme of scriptures, etc., are all eclectic and innovative.

References:

Couplets-Baidu Encyclopedia