Couplets are antithetical literature. The parallel symmetry of this language is very similar to the so-called "Tai Chi gives birth to two instruments" in philosophy, that is, everything in the world is divided into two halves of yin and yang symmetry, which are very similar in thinking essence. Therefore, we can say that the philosophical origin and deep-seated national cultural psychology of China's couplets are binary concepts of Yin and Yang. The dualism of yin and yang is the basis of China's ancient world outlook. It is the way of thinking of ancient people in China to grasp things with the binary concept of Yin and Yang. This concept of duality of yin and yang has a long history, and so does the custom of Spring Festival couplets in the Book of Changes.
The divinatory symbols in Yi Zhuan are composed of yin and yang, and Yi Zhuan says, "One yin and one yang is the Tao." Laozi also said: "Everything is negative and holds Yang, and it is harmonious to rush." ("Lao Zi" Chapter 42. Xunzi thought: "Heaven and earth combine to create everything, and Yin and Yang combine to change." (Xunzi's Book of Rites) Huang Lao's silk book says: "The way of heaven and earth is left and right, yin and yang." This concept of Yin and Yang is not only an abstract concept, but also widely penetrated into the understanding and explanation of everything in nature and human society in ancient China. The preface to the Book of Changes says, "Where there is heaven and earth, everything is men and women, men and women, couples, fathers and sons, princes and ministers, ups and downs, and manners." In Yi Zhuan, various concrete things are used to symbolize Yin and Yang. Yin represents Kun, earth, female, woman, son, minister, abdomen, lower, north, wind, water, lustre, flowers, black and white, suppleness and so on. Correspondingly, Yang represents dryness, sky, male, husband, father, monarch, head, up, south, thunder, fire, mountain, fruit, red and yellow, vigor and so on. This ubiquitous concept of yin and yang has penetrated into the subconscious of the Han people, thus becoming the collective unconscious of the nation. The concept of yin and yang is manifested in national psychology, and one of the important characteristics is the persistence and infatuation with things in the form of "two" and "pair".
Language root-seeking
The most essential feature of a standard couplet is "antithesis". When expressed orally, it is verbal confrontation, and when written, it is verbal confrontation. What is the meaning of language duality? Usually we talk about four items: equal number of words, relative parts of speech, flat and oblique contradictions, and the same syntax. The most important of the four items is that the number of words is equal and the contradiction is flat and oblique. The number of words here is equal, which is different from the "number of words" in English. Its essence is syllable equality. That is, one syllable corresponds to one syllable. In English, the words "cart" and "jeep" are equal in number, but not in syllable. However, in Chinese, "k?m?ch?" and "j?p?" are equal in number and syllable. The reason why Chinese can achieve "syllable" equality is because Chinese is a language with monosyllabic as the basic unit. Syllables, morphemes and characters are trinity. Every syllable in Chinese has a strong independence and has a certain length and tone. In ancient times, there were four tones: flat, rising, falling and entering. Now there are four tones: rising, falling, rising and falling, which are divided into flat and falling. Flat confrontation is a contradiction. In this way, between morphemes in Chinese (that is, between words), we can establish an antagonistic relationship with equal words or even equal words. In English, even if the name and concept of things can be relative, the number and part of speech of words can be relative, and the sentence patterns of two sentences can be relative, but their syllables are different in length, weak in independence, free to spell and have no tone, so they can't be relative. Couplets are mostly written in words, often written, hung or engraved on other buildings or objects. So the second level of antithesis of couplets is the so-called literal opposition. The relativity of words means that couplets are both language art and decorative art. As decorative art couplets, it requires neatness and symmetry, giving people a harmonious and symmetrical aesthetic feeling. Chinese characters just have the conditions to achieve neat symmetry. They exist in the form of individual squares, square and uniform, occupying an equal spatial position in writing. It is readable and visible. Its square configuration has both aesthetic principles and mechanical requirements. Whether writing horizontally or vertically, it can be dense, neat and beautiful. English, on the other hand, is a phonetic symbol, and each word has different lengths, and it is only phonetic but not ideographic, and it is even more invisible. It can only be arranged horizontally, not vertically, and it is impossible to achieve true symmetry in form. In the following interview, two Chinese and English antitheses with the same meaning are compared to further explain why only Chinese has a real antithesis, while English and other pinyin characters do not. However, from the perspective of literary history, couplets gradually evolved from antitheses in ancient poems. This development process has roughly gone through three stages.
Double stage
The time span is from the pre-Qin and Han Dynasties to the Southern and Northern Dynasties. In China's ancient poems, some neat antitheses appeared very early. Several ancient ballads that have been handed down to this day have already seen their origins. Such as "digging wells to drink water, ploughing fields to eat", "doing at sunrise and resting at sunset" and so on. In the pre-Qin and Han dynasties, antithetical sentences became more common. There have been some neat sentences in the hexagrams of the Book of Changes, such as: "Those who can see can be lame." ("Lu" hexagram "63"), "Go to heaven first, then go to the ground." (Ming Yi's "Shangliu" hexagram) The neat sentences in Yi Zhuan are more common, such as: "Look up at astronomy and look down at geography." ("Declining Cohesion"), "Correspondence with one voice, seeking with the same spirit, wet water and dry fire, cloud following dragon, wind following tiger ... are all according to their own categories." There are many antithetical sentences in The Book of Songs in the Spring and Autumn Period. Liu said in the History of Parallel Prose in China: "The law of opposing ancient and modern times is almost perfect in the Book of Songs." He listed examples of correct name pairs, similar pairs, renju pairs, disyllabic pairs, overlapping pairs and disyllabic pairs. Such as: "Qing Er, leisurely in my heart." ("Zheng Feng Ji Zi") "There are floating elements in the mountains and lotus in the hills." There are many antithetical sentences in the Tao Te Ching. Liu Zeng said: "The arbitration law in Tao Te Ching has undergone great changes, and there have been serial counterparties, uneven counterparties and sub-word counterparties. Some people repeat their words. Anyway, there is something right. " China's parallel prose history is an example: "What you believe is not beautiful, and what you say is not true. Good people don't argue, and debaters are not good. " (Chapter 8 1) "Independence and changelessness, freedom and danger." (Chapter 22) Look at the antitheses in hundred schools of thought's essays. Such as: "full loss, modest benefit." ("Shangshu Wucheng") "Take a fat horse and go into battle lightly." "The Analects of Confucius Yongye") "Honest people are magnanimous, and villains are often sad." (The Analects of Confucius) and so on. Cifu, which arose in the Han Dynasty, is a new style that pays attention to literary talent and rhythm. As a rhetorical device with the beauty of neatness, contrast and music, duality has been widely and consciously used in the creation of Fu. For example, Sima Xiangru's "Zi Xufu" has: "Drumming, starting a bonfire; The car follows the route and rides on the team. " Parallel coupling stage
Parallel prose originated in the Eastern Han Dynasty, flourished in Wei and Jin Dynasties, and flourished in the Southern and Northern Dynasties. As can be seen from the name, parallel prose is a dual style, which is mostly composed of antitheses. The continuous use of such antithetical sentences is also called parallelism or parallelism. In Wen Xin Diao Long Shi Ming, Liu Xie commented that parallel prose is "a hundred words are right, and the price is strange". Take the preface to Wang Tengting by Wang Bo in the early Tang Dynasty as an example: September will return to Sanqiu. The water is cold and the pool is clear, and the smoke is purple. Yan Yan likes to walk on the road and watch the scenery to worship Afghanistan. Near the Emperor Changzhou, it is the old fairy temple. Mountains and clouds are heavy; Feige is full of blood, and there is no land under it. Heting ancient bamboo, the haunt of poor islands; Gui Dian Lan Gong is the posture of hills. Embroidered, Yamahara full of vision, Kawasawa full of vision. Yan Lu, the hometown of Zhong Mingding's delicious food; Ge boat maze, green finch Huanglong axis. Clouds selling rain Ji, colorful. Sunset and lonely Qi Fei, autumn waters and sky are the same color. Fishing boats sing late and resound all over the coast of Peng Li; Yan Zhen was stunned by the cold, and his voice broke Hengyang's pu. They are all composed of antithetical sentences, among which "the sunset and lonely Qi Fei, autumn water and sky are the same color" is an eternal antithetical sentence. This antithesis is the further development of antithesis in ancient poetry, which has the following three characteristics: First, antithesis is no longer purely a rhetorical device, but has become the main metrical requirement of style. Parallel prose has three characteristics, namely, four or six sentence patterns, antithesis and allusions. Second, the number of dual words has certain rules. Mainly "46" sentence pattern and its variant forms. Mainly include: four-character dual, six-character dual, eight-character dual, cross dual and twelve-character dual. Third, the antithesis is quite skillful, but there are many heavy words (such as "Zhi, Er"), and the tone and rhythm of the antithesis are not fully mature.
Legal coupling stage
Duality, the antithesis in metrical poems. This style of poetry, also known as modern poetry, was formally formed in the Tang Dynasty, but its origin began in the Wei and Jin Dynasties. During the Cao Wei period, he wrote ten volumes of the Sound and five volumes of the Rhyme, which separated the clear and turbid sound from the palace, the merchants, the horns, the zither and Yu. In addition, Sun Yan also wrote Er Ya Yi Yin, using the method of anti-tangent phonetic notation. He is the founder of arc tangent. Generally, five-character or seven-character metrical poems are all eight sentences, and there are two couplets in the middle, which are called parallel prose and necklaces. They must be opposite, and the sentence pattern, level and meaning are all required to be relative. This is a standard couple. Take Du Fu's "Climbing the Mountain" for example: the sky is high and the wind is urgent, the ape whimpers, the birds return to their nests, and the lake is blue and white. The endless trees are rustling leaves, and the Yangtze River is rolling unpredictably. Li in the sad autumn scenery, a wanderer all the year round, lives alone on the high platform in today's illness. Hardship, pain, hatred, heartache and fatigue are a thick layer of dust in my wine. The jaw joint and neck joint of this poem, "leaves fall like the waves of a waterfall, and I watch the long river always roll forward." "I came from three thousand miles away. Sad this autumn, with my sorrow for a hundred years, I climbed this high alone "is extremely stable." Far better than the parallel prose dialogues in parallel prose. In addition to five or seven-character poems, Tang poetry also has three rhymes, six rhymes and arranged rhymes, and the couplets in the middle are also antithetical. Couples also have three characteristics: first, antithesis is the metrical requirement of style; Second, the number of words changed from even sentences to odd sentences, and finally fixed at five or seven words; Third, the antithesis is accurate and stable, and the tone is mature. Unity of 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 is full of musicality. 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.
Unity of 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.
Unity of practicality and artistry
As mentioned earlier, couplets are a classical literary form of China, which is naturally literary and artistic. It embodies the artistic style of Chinese characters in China with unprecedented flexibility and perfection in poems, words and songs. The beauty of couplets lies in symmetry, contrast and unity of opposites. In Song Dynasty, Hu Zai recorded it in Fu Zhai Man Lu, the last volume of Tiao Xi Yu Yin Cong Hua. Yan Shu once invited Wang Qi to dinner and said his last sentence: "I can't help spending it", but I hated it. Answer: "I have seen Yan before." Yan Shu was overjoyed and wrote this wonderful antithesis into the word Huanxisha. Yang Shen called this antithesis "a beautiful second language, a natural equivalent". This is the artistic charm of couplets. The artistry of couplets can be summarized by a couplet of contemporary scholar Mr. Bai: the couplet of Wuhou Temple.
For the non-trail, true and sincere, it can be satirized and sung, comparable to poetry and prose, like a pearl reflecting Baoyu; Combining this grand view has a long history and is also interesting. It adds luster to halls, mountains and rivers and people, just like old trees and new flowers.
The unity of fashion and elegance
People often say that * * * appreciates the elegant customs of couplets, which is true. Imagine that there is another literary form, like couplets, which is dominated by scholars and elegant people. The obedient son of a woman likes listening to music. It can not only enter the ivory tower, but also enter the people of Long Mu, which is both a Chun Xue and a beautiful chin. What is this wonderful unity? The reason is that couplets are a simple and complex, pure and rich art. As mentioned above, the rules of couplets are not complicated, especially the color and style of language, and there is no requirement for theme and content. They are generally short and pithy, and are widely used in social life. Unlike other literary forms, they have an elegant face, and they are easy to learn, understand, remember and write. As long as it is right, regardless of the vulgarity and elegance of the language, the size of the theme and the depth of thought, it will become a couplet. But other literature is not inevitable. Poetry is elegant and connotative, such as "mountains and rivers are blurred, wells are dark, yellow dogs are white, and white dogs are swollen", which can only be called "doggerel". Most people are afraid to ask poetry for fear of writing limerick. And couplets, if written by every family and posted on holidays, are the most popular in literature. However, couplets are both vulgar and elegant. The rules of couplets are simple and the form is pure, but they are profound and infinite in terms of Tao and art, short and meaningful, and the word is natural, which is beyond the reach of vulgar hands; The long giant is embroidered, just like an epic. Unless it is big, it can't be done. Those excellent places of interest reflect the mountains and rivers and shine forever; Those famous philosophical aphorisms are handed down to the world and will last forever; Isn't it elegant that those people with lofty ideals are generous and aboveboard?
Unity of seriousness and playfulness
Generally speaking, literature and art are serious, and people oppose the casual creative attitude of game literature and game language. But for couplets, the situation is different. Couplets have always been regarded as a pen and ink game by many people. Although it is biased, it also shows the characteristics of couplets as games. Because couplets pursue antithesis, it is natural that the more stable the better. This is not only a literary creation, but also contains elements of thinking the game and language games. If you simply develop the right job and skills, it will become a Chinese-style, ideological struggle. In fact, many game couplets are purely for recreation and wits. They are often written by various rhetorical devices and ingenious ideas with the help of the special situation of sound, form and meaning of Chinese characters. Game couplets were very common in the Song Dynasty. Su Shi once wrote many game couplets, leaving many anecdotes. Since then, antithesis has become a major way for scholars and even ordinary people to work hard and a part of China's traditional culture. Couplets of Zhu Yuanzhang, Liu Ji and Jie Jin in Ming and Qing Dynasties
Gan Long and Ji Yun are both masters who are keen on game couplets. At the end of Qing Dynasty, a man named Zhao Fan wrote a couplet in Wuhou Temple in Chengdu. Li Anyun: If you can attack the heart, you will be self-defeating. Since ancient times, you know that soldiers are not good at fighting; It is wrong to combine leniency with severity without judging the situation. You should think hard about governing Shu in the future. This pair of couplets not only summarizes the characteristics of Zhuge Liang's use of troops in Sichuan, but also summarizes Zhuge Liang's general plan of governing Sichuan, thus putting forward his own political views of pros and cons, combining leniency with severity, peace with war, and being both civil and military. It is very philosophical and contains profound dialectics, which is thought-provoking. Compared with any excellent philosophical poem in history, it shows no weakness. Since its publication, the association has received rave reviews. What people "value" is the profundity and seriousness of this connection. When Mao Zedong visited Wuhou Temple on 1958, he read this couplet carefully and spoke highly of it.