Interesting Talk on Couplets (1)

Couplets are very common in our life. Whether it is the homes of ordinary people or government agencies, or public places such as shops and auditoriums, there will be couplets. Because it is often pasted or hung on doors, columns or walls, it is also called couplet.

Couplets are characterized by concise genre, rich content, diverse types, popularity in Kaya and convenient use. They are deeply loved by people and have extensive mass characteristics in national culture.

Throughout the ages, people have never stopped exploring the art of couplets. From the beginning, it was limited to Spring Festival couplets, and later, the innovation of couplets in various industries and Wen Yuan fully demonstrated that couplets have strong vitality and unique practicability. As far as the functions of couplets are concerned, there are eight aspects: decorating the environment, enlightening the world, conveying feelings, praying for good luck, cultivating sentiment, whipping away evil spirits, advertising and social recruitment.

Almost any environment such as meeting places, stages, pavilions, temples, shops, schools, halls and study rooms needs to be decorated with couplets, while Spring Festival couplets, wedding couplets, birthday couplets and elegiac couplets play a role in praying and expressing feelings, which can enlighten the world, cultivate sentiment and ward off evil spirits, and merchants often use couplets to advertise their products. In recent years, there are more and more phenomena that some units register with the society for a certain purpose.

The most common is Spring Festival couplets.

Spring Festival couplets originated in Fu Tao. In Wang Anshi's poems in the Song Dynasty, there is a saying that "thousands of households always exchange new peaches for old ones", which is about writing Spring Festival couplets during the New Year.

According to legend, from the time of the Yellow Emperor, people nailed red boards on doors and painted two gods, namely the door gods. Around the Spring and Autumn Period, some people stopped drawing door gods and only wrote the names of two gods on the mahogany board, namely "Lei Yu" and "Shen Tu", which was the earliest "Fu Tao". Later, it evolved into replacing the names of the two gods with auspicious characters, and replacing the red boards with ordinary boards (or red paper), gradually completing the evolution of couplets. In the Five Dynasties, Meng Chang, the owner of the post-Shu Dynasty, inscribed "New Year's Day, Changchun couplets" on the mahogany board, which was regarded as the earliest Spring Festival couplets in China.

During the Spring Festival, no matter in urban or rural areas, every household should choose a pair of red Spring Festival couplets and stick them on the door to bid farewell to the old year and welcome the new year, so as to express their good wishes for the New Year and increase the festive atmosphere of the festival. Yu Yafei's "Welcome the New Year" said: "The jubilation is red, and every household sticks Spring Festival couplets; Resign from the old and welcome the new, and the wheel always moves forward. " Sticking Spring Festival couplets at home means that the Spring Festival officially kicked off.

In the past, Spring Festival couplets were written by hand with a brush. Now there are printed Spring Festival couplets for sale in shops, but there are not many handwritten ones. But the printed Spring Festival couplets are all the same, which can't reflect the owner's mood and desire. Therefore, people who have a certain knowledge of writing couplets always like to write Spring Festival couplets themselves, and even show the road of life and the changes of the world from Spring Festival couplets. (See "Spring Festival couplets Write the Way of Life" and "The Story of Stewing for 25 Years")

If an elderly person dies in the family, the younger generation generally does not paste red couplets for three years from that year, but always writes them in white, green and Huang San: white paper for the first year, green paper for the second year, yellow paper for the third year, and red paper for the fourth year after the mourning period expires, so white, green and Huang San couplets are commonly called "filial piety couplets" or "filial piety couplets". Couplets are generally:

Some places put up yellow couplets in the first year, blue couplets in the second year and green couplets in the third year. Some people simply don't post couplets for three years to express their grief, so people who hold lanterns during the Spring Festival are not allowed to go in.

Couplets are one of the important forms of weddings, and because they want to reflect some characteristics of the newly married family and the bride and groom, they are basically written by themselves or invited by others.

Wedding people often post couplets from their doorways to halls (living rooms), new houses and even kitchens to show their happiness, and they are often in Tibetan (inlaid with the names of the host's family or the bride and groom). For example:

Gate:

Hall:

Gift room (where gifts are registered):

New house:

Liu Ruan's "Meeting the Fairy" is a classic, which tells the fairy story of Liu Chen and Ruan Zhao going to the mountains to meet the fairy and get married. Xiushui is the name of the local river, which is a pun here, meaning that getting married is fun.

Birthday couplets are birthday couplets for the elderly, mostly to wish them a long life or both. For example:

Mourning couplet, also known as elegiac couplet, is mostly a tribute to the achievements of the deceased before his death. Such as the elegiac couplet written by Sun Yat-sen for Ms. Qiu Jin:

As for different trade associations posted in different environments, they are closely related to the environment and industry.

Cao Xueqin borrowed Jia Zheng's words from the seventeenth episode of A Dream of Red Mansions and said, "If there are big mountains and rivers, pavilions and pavilions, and there is no caption, flowers, trees, mountains and rivers can all be colored."

The couplets of scenic spots in gardens, like poems, are characterized by the blending of scenes. For example, the Wang Teng Pavilion has a couplet:

This couplet is nostalgic to read, and reminds people of Wang Bo, the author of The Ode to Tengwang Pavilion, as if he had melted into the historical time and space.

Now the college entrance examination is coming every year, and there are couplets for the preparation for the third year of high school and the test sites for the college entrance examination, which creates an atmosphere and boosts morale. For example:

Another example is:

Couplets are also one of the forms that enlighten the world. A good couplet can often make people realize the philosophy and true meaning of life.

Dr. Sun Yat-sen has a well-known couplet:

In fact, this is a sentence from Dr. Sun Yat-sen, but it conforms to the form of couplets. Therefore, after his death, this sentence was widely posted and publicized by later generations in the form of couplets on important occasions, aiming at calling on people to inherit Sun Yat-sen's legacy and complete his unfinished business, which played an educational and inspiring role.

Yu Youren, a veteran of the Kuomintang, a famous poet and a master of calligraphy, wrote to Jiang Jingguo:

This pair of couplets is broad-minded and earnest. Standing at the height of history and country, they have poured infinite affection into Jiang Jingguo.

Jie Jin, a great writer in the Ming Dynasty, has an extraordinary temperament and pungent language. His satirical couplets are also different, such as:

This couplet is a metaphor for people, which satirizes those ignorant people with empty stomachs. It can be described as spicy humor.

And there is a couplet next to the cast iron kneeling statue of Wang Yue Temple in Hangzhou, Qin Jing and his wife:

This pair of couplets praised Yue Fei's loyalty in a contrasting way and flogged Qin Heng's ugly soul.

As for the advertising alliance of merchants, it has become more and more common in recent years, such as:

Nowadays, there are more and more couplets in the society, some are advertising products, and some are collecting couplets for an activity or a newly built scenic spot. For example, The Blueberry Dating in Huaining County, Anhui Province won the first prize:

Another example is the first prize of "Disabled People's Love Cup" in the Spring Festival of 20 16 in Jingchuan County, Gansu Province:

First prize works of the second Shanghai Law Collection Association;

First prize of Anhui Taihu Lake Five Thousand-year Cultural Expo Park;

Huabiao big stage

Shili gallery tourist center

Honghua Village, Dianbai County, Maoming City, Guangdong Province, goes out to collect the first part on March 3 every year. 20 16 first prize works are:

(Comment: Lotus leaves, fish playing between lotus leaves. Beautiful and elegant, wonderful. If fish are people, it's boring. )

(Comment: Use words accurately, cut to show orthodoxy, and surrender is better than replacing it. Take it and make it for your own use. If Jiang Wei is taken away, it may not be possible to catch him. Loneliness can be seen as a number. Ling Du: As a teacher, these two tables together can cover all the great achievements of Wuhou State and the violent wind that died after his dedication. That's great. )

First prize works of Heilongjiang National Reading Association;

As can be seen from the above examples, couplets are various and rich in content, and are widely used in society and folk.

Mr. Bai, a famous contemporary Chinese couplets artist, has such a couplet in "Congratulations on the First Anniversary of the Founding of Couplets", which is highly praised:

This couplet is not only neat, but also a Tibetan couplet.

The writing of couplets is similar to antithesis, emphasizing that the upper and lower couplets have the same number of words, the same structure and the same level, but there is no word limit for the whole couplet. There are only three or four words in a short couplet. For example, Zhu Ziqing's couplet in the college entrance examination was "Sun Walker", and his "Hu Shizhi" was passed down as a much-told story; Long couplets can be as many as ten, dozens, hundreds or even hundreds of words. Such as Kunming Daguanlou couplet (written by Sun Ranweng) with 180 words, which was once called the world's first couplet:

There are three hundred and ninety-four words in the first long couplet of Qingcheng Mountain. There are more than 1000 words in Jiangjin's couplets, and interested readers can find and enjoy them themselves. Limited to space, I won't quote it here.

Couplets pay attention to the upper closure and the lower closure, that is, the last word of the first couplet is upper closure, and the last word of the second couplet is flat. When pasting, paste it on the right side in the order of vertical reading, and paste the second part on the left side. Some people don't understand this feature and often post it backwards. As for the horizontal shawl, because it is horizontal, it can go from left to right according to the current habit.

Interesting Talk on Couplets (Ⅱ)

Interesting Talk on Couplets (2)