What are the characteristics of couplets? Example analysis.

Couplets, commonly known as couplets, are elegant couplets (because they are often posted, hung and carved on the doorposts of halls). Lu, a contemporary writer of couplets, defines it as: "Couplets are the combination of two groups of antithetical sentences with related meanings". Among them, the first group is called uplink and the second group is called downlink. Like parallel prose and metrical poems, couplets are a unique literary form in China literature. As the famous sinologist Dr. Yan Guwen said, "Couplets are a special product of China literature". Chinese characters are ideographic characters, commonly known as square characters, which have independent language features (a few variants, polyphonic characters and polysemous words, which does not deny that Chinese characters can only have one word, one sound and one meaning in a specific language environment), so China literature composed of Chinese characters has unique symmetry and unity. Judging from the use of words, couplets are a wonderful flower on the tree of China literature. It embodies the characteristics of Chinese characters and is an important part of Chinese character culture. As a literary form and cultural phenomenon, antithetical couplets basically exist only in the cultural circle of the Han nationality and have strong national characteristics.

Couplets are a practical literary form. Whether it is appealing to both refined and popular tastes, posting, hanging and carving them in the gatepost hall can create a peaceful, festive or elegant and solemn atmosphere and style. Therefore, couplets have been closely related to people's daily life since they came into being, and gradually merged into the folk customs of China people, becoming an indispensable part of China's traditional culture. It is generally believed that the earliest couplets are Spring Festival couplets, which originated in Fu Tao. From the Jin Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty, the literary form of couplets has sprouted and gradually developed. However, people usually put Meng Chang, the late ruler of Shu in the Five Dynasties, on the Fu Tao board in 963 AD to make a pair of Spring Festival couplets:

Xinnianna Qing Yu

Changchun festival number

As the beginning of the Spring Festival couplets. Until the Ming and Qing Dynasties, couplets gradually prevailed and continued to this day. In a word, strong tradition and practicality are the soil for the survival and development of couplets.

As a unique literary form, couplets are not only very practical, but also have high artistic requirements. Generally speaking, his literary style can be summarized as "short and pithy". The length of couplets is often very short, with a few words to a dozen words on one side, and few long couplets with hundreds or thousands of words. Because of this, on the one hand, the metrical requirements are very strict, and if the two groups of words are equal, they cannot be supplemented. If there is no strict meter, then, as a unique literary form, the uniqueness and artistry of couplets will be gone, and its artistic vitality will be difficult to last. Because the most essential artistic feature of couplets is symmetry, only strict meter can guarantee its symmetry. On the other hand, as a small literary genre, its content should be concise and contain as rich ideological connotations as possible. In this sense, if a couplet has only form but no connotation, it will inevitably become a kind of "word game" and "carving skills" On the other hand, good couplets have the reputation of "poetry in poetry". In short, the refinement of form and content is another important artistic feature of couplets.

In addition, couplets are a very enlightening literary form. Learning to write couplets is very helpful for us to learn Chinese language and literature, especially the basic knowledge about pronunciation, rhythm, part of speech, grammar and rhetoric. Appreciating and writing couplets is a good way to learn Chinese.

In a word, the cultural and artistic characteristics of couplets can be summarized as: nationality, tradition, practicality, symmetry, exquisiteness, enlightenment and so on.

(2)

Couplets are a literary form that pays attention to meter. To appreciate and write couplets, we must understand its most basic metrical requirements. The so-called couplet (abbreviated as couplet) refers to the format and laws of couplets in terms of levelness, part of speech, grammar and rhetoric, writing and posting, and its core is antithesis. The basic rhythm of couplets can be summarized as follows:

1. The number of words is equal and the content is related.

Judging from the number of words, in principle, as long as the number of words in the upper and lower couplets is equal, no matter how many words. If four words are linked together, it is called four-character association, and so on. But in practice, most of them are more than four words, because Chinese characters generally need more than four words to form sentences. From the content point of view, the contents of the upper and lower couplets of a pair of couplets should be related, that is to say, they should set off or contact each other to achieve the opposite or complementary effect. The content between most couplets.

Belong to the relationship of mutual foil. This kind of foil, either from the same angle, complement each other (so-called "positive"), or from the opposite angle (so-called "negative"), such as "positive":

Xin Lian Jing Qing

The unity of heaven and man (note: the couplets quoted without indicating the author or source are all from this book, the same below. )

"Objection", for example:

Peace of mind accumulates happiness.

Want to recruit again

The contents of several couplets are interrelated (so-called "serial pairs" or "flow pairs"), that is, the two clauses of the upper and lower couplets form a complex sentence, and there is a complex relationship between the upper and lower couplets, such as coherence, progression, choice, turning, causality, hypothesis, conditions and purpose. Of course, this kind of interconnection also sets off each other. For example:

There was no cardiotoxicity before.

There are no accidents in my life.

Another example is:

Except sweet, bitter, salty and sour.

Nothing more than rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea.

If the content of couplets is irrelevant, it will make people feel stiff and funny, then the literary effect of couplets will not be achieved.

Unless it is a special form of couplet, which is the so-called "unfeeling pair". It means that the upper and lower couplets are neat in form (literally) and irrelevant in content (in meaning), thus causing a special effect. For example:

Samsung brandy

Huangmeitian in May (commonly used couplets)

Flowers bloom in front of the court.

H.E. Mr. Li (Regular Edition)

Gongmen Li Tao Honor Day

France, Netherlands and Belgium (common)

This tree is half dead, so rest your axe.

It's totally irrelevant.

2. Considerable parts of speech, concepts, structures and rhythms.

The so-called part-of-speech equivalence means that the relative word attributes of the upper and lower couplets (strictly speaking, the part-of-speech of each word) should be as same or similar as possible. For example, noun to noun, verb to verb, adjective to adjective, conjunction to conjunction, adverb to adverb, and so on. For example:

Do great things and forget honor and disgrace.

The supreme way is heartless and empty.

Judging from every word, greatness, honor, yes, shame, and non are adjectives, xing, Dao, vulgarity, and affection are nouns, and absolute, forgetful, and empty are nouns. However, in practice, the requirements for function words are relatively loose, and general function words can be used relatively with function words. The requirements for notional words are strict, and different parts of speech generally have no relativity. But those substantive words with similar parts of speech or both parts of speech are still allowed to be relative, such as nouns and pronouns, some verbs and adjectives. Of course, those with the same parts of speech belong to working pairs, and those with similar or similar parts of speech belong to wide pairs.

More strictly speaking, not only the parts of speech should be equivalent, but also the concepts represented by words should be equivalent, that is, as similar or relative as possible. This also involves the issue of Guang Yun Lian. If the two words * * * belong to the same concept, the smaller the scope, the more difficult it is to confront, and vice versa. For example, "China" is something like "rooster"; "Dawn" is a natural thing for "rooster"; "Grass" is reduced to "rooster" as a creature; "Horse" to "rooster" is reduced to an animal; "Old duck" to "rooster" is reduced to birds, even poultry. Furthermore, if the conceptual relationship between two words is more contradictory (the so-called "contradictory concept"), the confrontation will be more complicated, such as "being" against "nothing", "truth" against "falsehood", "life" against "death", "thing" against "spirit" and "nature" against "society".

The so-called structural proportion means that the grammatical structures of the upper and lower conjunctions should be the same or similar, that is, the subject-predicate structure is opposite to the subject-predicate structure, the verb-object structure is opposite to the verb-object structure, the radical structure is opposite to the radical structure, and the juxtaposition structure is opposite, and so on. For example:

Shengxingyan Buddhist figure

Legally benefit the world.

Both upper and lower couplets are subject-predicate-object structures. Among them, "victory" is biased against the structure of "law" and "Buddha" against "human". Another example is:

Soft head and wonderful light, distinguished reputation.

Lion sword, treasure solemn.

"Soft-headed Miaoguang" and "Lion Sword" are both parallel structures; "Prominent fame" and "solemn treasure" are both subject-predicate structures; "Soft head" favors "lion", "wonderful light" and "sword", and "prestige" favors "treasure".

In addition, the rhythm between the upper and lower couplets should also be commensurate. Couplets often use two words (sometimes one or three words) as the rhythm. The rhythm is commensurate, that is, try to synchronize. For example:

Leak away

Return with an empty heart

Another example is:

Use-divine power-protection-dharma

Set-Meng Lanpen-Crossing-Kindness

In short, the upper and lower couplets should be as equal or commensurate as possible in parts of speech, grammatical structure and rhythm, so as to keep the form harmonious and tidy. However, these requirements are still allowed to be relaxed in practice. In some cases, you can make some changes. For example:

53 participants, intelligent visiting tutors.

A hundred cities are full of smoke and water, and I am willing to practice my original intention.

Among them, "Fifty-three Ginseng" and "Hundred Cities Smoke and Water" are two common expressions of the same allusion. Strictly speaking, it is not in accordance with the law in the form of part of speech and structure, but in the content, it belongs to "semantic pair" and is allowed.

3. Coordination between levels.

In a narrow sense, the coordination of parallel lines refers to the two major requirements of couplets in tone: the relative parallel lines and the alternation of parallel lines. Broadly speaking, it also includes some other leveling problems, such as the arrangement of sentence feet. To understand these problems, we must first distinguish what is flat sound and what is Legato. There are two kinds of dividing standards. In the creation of couplets, the "ancient four tones" are generally used, that is, in ancient Chinese, the tones are divided into four types: flat, rising, falling and entering. At present, a few people use the "new four tones", that is, modern Chinese divides tones into four types: flat tone, rising tone, rising tone and falling tone. Among them, the leveling and rising sound are flat sound, and the rising and falling sound is muffled sound. The key to the difference between the two phonology lies in the entering tone. Generally speaking, the mastery and recognition of entering tone characters have rules to follow, so I won't go into details here. For beginners,

The easiest way is to use reference books first. According to the author's personal experience, it is easier to be familiar with the entering tone characters in application. However, it should be noted that although the above two usages are compatible, they cannot be mixed at the same time in the same couplet.

Now let's talk about the coordination of leveling and leveling. The so-called level-to-level, that is, the steps of up and down couplets should be level-to-level, level-to-level. On the other hand, if the flat sound is opposite to the flat sound and the flat sound is opposite to the flat sound, it is called flat sound, which is also called simultaneous opposition. Generally speaking, a rhythm is a step. Because couplets are born out of metrical poems, the antitheses in couplets and metrical poems are basically the same in level. Moreover, there is another saying that the arrangement of steps is "135 regardless, 246 is clear". Because in actual operation, it is not necessarily required that the whole step is flat and relative, but only that the position of the step is flat and relative. The so-called step position is the last word of each step and the key sound that determines the nature of the whole step. Because most Chinese characters are two-character steps, the step position generally refers to the second, fourth and sixth words in each sentence. So there was "135 whatever, 246 clear". For example:

have mingled/mixed feelings of grief and joy

Two-way street (note: flat sound is indicated by "",flat sound is indicated by "",the same below). )

Another example is:

The fire has moved wages, and the industry is still there.

Evil spirits never die.

Where 135 is not necessarily flat relative, and 246 is flat relative, that is, it belongs to the working pair. But not all the steps are in the position of 246, mainly because the format of couplets is mainly the antithesis in metrical poems, as well as the existence of lyrics, songs, essays and titles. For example:

Tired of a woman's wife's painful field

Rhodiola practice

Look at the beauty, the bottle is full of feces.

Sigh that ordinary people are willing to throw mud.

Straight heart is the foundation of all things.

Greed is the root of all suffering.

In-depth study of the truth * * *

The method of fully developing the big handprint

When it comes to parallelism, we have to mention the feet of couplets. No matter how long a couplet is, no matter whether the penultimate word is flat or cheep, it is required to end with cheep, that is, the last word (sentence foot) should cheep; The bottom line requires a flat tail. It is generally impossible to end with a dull voice and a squeaky voice; Can't be done at the same time. In addition, for long couplets composed of several short sentences, it should also be noted that the foot of each short sentence cannot be flat or flat, but should be scattered.

As for the specific arrangement of this patchwork, there is no conclusion yet. Using "horseshoe rhyme" to write long couplets is a better way to arrange the feet of sentences.

The so-called alternation of flat words, compared with flat words, is actually two aspects of the same problem, which means that flat words should be used alternately between the steps of a sentence itself, otherwise they are flat words. Only the last word (foot) of each sentence can be ignored. For example:

The Buddha's body is far beyond the world.

The coup was unbearable for Xiao Zhi.

Another example is:

Never have anything to do with it.

Success comes from patience.

There are still some taboos about leveling, such as "three-level tail" or "three-level tail", "isolation level" or "isolation", which will be discussed later.

Generally speaking, couplets pay attention to the coordination of flat lines, and writing couplets cannot be separated from flat lines. If we say that the number of words is equivalent, the part of speech is equivalent to the concept, and the grammatical structure is commensurate with the rhythm, which endows couplets with aesthetic characteristics such as neatness, rigor, contrast, structure and rhythm, then the harmony between levels endows couplets with this important aesthetic feature. Of course, sometimes, in order not to use words to hurt others, it is also possible to accommodate the situation that individual places lose their rights or change.

4. Several taboos.

In addition to the above three basic requirements, there are several taboos in the rhyme of couplets, namely, several situations that should be avoided as far as possible:

"Three-level tail" or "Three-level tail"; "Loneliness" or "loneliness"; "Homophony with Different Meanings" and "Heterophony with Different Meanings"; "Synonymous Relativity"; Wait a minute.

"Three-level tail" or "three-oblique tail" means that the last three words of a sentence are all flat or oblique. For example, "practicing according to law can lead to enlightenment", if "can" is changed to "can", it will become a fork in the road. Another example is "sitting on the lotus platform because of deep karma." If you change "sitting" to "boarding", it will become a three-level tail.

"Loneliness" or "loneliness" means that in a sentence with more than five words, only one word is flat or only one word is weak. For example, "silence is the introduction", if it is changed to "silence is the introduction", it is "loneliness"; Another example is "the sun shines all the time", and if it is changed to "the sun shines all the time", it is "isolated" (except for the whole flat or square).

Overlapping or overlapping words are allowed in couplets, such as "everything is there" to "the world of mortals is rolling", "only those who feel can understand" to "sighing intoxicating but not knowing" But couplets should try to avoid "homophony" and "homophony". The so-called "homonym with different meanings" means that the same word is opposite in the same position, such as "dharma" versus "world" and "enlightenment" versus "magic". However, some function words (such as "Lian Zhe Ye") are allowed, such as:

Fish that slip through the net, sometimes on earth.

There are no birds in the sky.

Buddhists view reality and do not live in caves.

All beings play in vain without knowing it.

The so-called "ectopic heavy words" means that the same word appears in different positions in the upper and lower links. For example:

See all the laws empty, straight into the other side.

All beings are equal, and there must be a teacher in a threesome.

If you change the "straight across the other shore" in the first part to "nothing behind", it will be different from the "you" in the second part "You must have my teacher". Another example is:

..... If the Potter scoops up the soil, he will see the fruit in his hand.

..... has a better view of the game than the woodcutter, who will fall into a tree in his dream.

If you change the "fruit in the palm" in the first part of the book to "fruit in the palm", it will be different from the "view" in the second part of the book, "Woodman Watching Chess". Of course, there is a special format of "heterotopic duplication" that is allowed, such as:

All methods are unified and there is no difference.

Single-minded, color is empty.

The "one" and "ten thousand", "heart" and "law", "emptiness" and "color" in couplets are the formats of "different support and mutual emphasis".

The so-called "synonymous opposition", usually called "hands folded", refers to sentences with the same meaning, such as "Chixian" to "Shenzhou", "Rising Sun" to "Chaoyang" and "History" to "History".

5. others.

There are some relatively minor rules and unique rhetorical methods in the writing and appreciation of couplets, such as borrowing pairs, antithesis, embedding words, palindromes, defining sentences, cross-commenting couplets, writing and posting formats of couplets and so on. Let's make a brief introduction to the above problems one by one.

Borrowing pairs, also known as false pairs, is a large-scale part-of-speech conversion method, which means that the part-of-speech and the meaning of a sentence are not working pairs, but they become working pairs with the help of their other parts of speech and meanings. For example:

There are common places where stains are spilled.

Life is seventy years old (Du Fu's Seven Laws; & gt Zhong Zhilian)

The word "ordinary" here means ordinary and belongs to adjectives, but the ancient words "Xun" and "Chang" are both units of measurement and belong to quantifiers. If you borrow this meaning, it is relative to the numeral "seventy". For another example, "Da Yan" and "Tao" are opposite, in which "Yan" and "Tao" are verbs and nouns respectively, but "Yan" also has the meaning of nouns and Tao also has the meaning of verbs, and the two are relatively neat. However, borrowing antitheses is not widely used in couplets, and it needs to be changed only when necessary.

Self-antithesis, also known as "self-antithesis in a sentence" or "self-antithesis in a sentence", refers to the antithesis of words in couplets, not only in the upper and lower couplets, but also in the upper and lower couplets themselves (sentences). This makes the couplets more stable and increases the aesthetic feeling of contrast. Such as "truth and falsehood" to "end", "truth" to "falsehood" and "beginning" to "end" are all self-correction in sentences. Another example is that "wisdom and stupidity" is subtle to "conduct", "honor and disgrace" to "right and wrong", "gentle words and limited meanings" to "the right way is wonderful", "supreme" to "implicit", "the sound of mountains and streams to" the morning bell and the evening drum ",and" worry is bodhi "to" dust contains soil "and" harmony ". The usage of sentence self-alignment is widely used in couplets (especially long couplets).

Embedding characters, also known as embedding names, refers to embedding specific names (such as names of people, places, things, etc.) in a certain position in couplets. This is a widely used method. There are many specific ways, no less than fifty. Embedding can be divided into whole embedding and sub-embedding. The whole embedding is to completely embed a name without disassembly, such as>

A couplet:

Learn more about Buddhism and broaden your horizons.

Grow good roots, but keep the land.

The kings of the East, the South, the West and the North are all embedded in the seam. Another example.

& lt& lt The Secret Master inscribed in Vajrayana >:> A couplet:

King Kong has a secret in his hand.

A brave heart destroys ignorance.

Palindrome, also called roller blind, refers to forming a sentence with appropriate words, so that it can be read in sequence or backwards. Palindrome is not widely used because it is difficult, but this format can reflect the independent language characteristics of Chinese characters. The specific ways of palindromes are also varied. Common palindromes include palindromes in sentences, palindromes in sentences and palindromes in chapters. When the sentence is palindrome, that is, it is exactly the same when read backwards, for example:

The fog locks the mountain.

The sky is connected with the water, and the tail water is connected with the sky (anonymous topic: fish belly lotus in Gulangyu, Xiamen)

Another example is:

Pure heart, true heart, pure heart

Round, bright, round

Palindrome, that is, the same sentence is read backwards, and the upper and lower links remain unchanged, such as:

Concentric knot concentric fruit

Flowers with parallel pedicels (often used in wedding couplets), which is read in reverse: flowers with parallel pedicels.

Inverted palindromes, that is, through reading in reverse order, the lower part becomes the upper part, and the upper part becomes the lower part, such as:

In the distance, trees are green, rivers are bright and sunny, and Hai Xia is red and hazy.

Hazy, rosy clouds, clear sea, sunny day (anonymous: Guishanlian, Wuhan), read backwards: Xiaotian river trees are green, far away.

Set sentence refers to combining existing scattered sentences into pairs. If the whole couplet (mostly short couplet) consists entirely of existing sentences, it is called a complete set of sentences. For example:

The deer returned to the wild.

Everything visible is empty.

Uplink settings come from & gt, from < < Heart Sutra >>, which is a complete set of sentences. Another example is:

Please have another drink.

We will drown the sorrow of ten thousand generations! (Anonymous collection of Tang poetry couplets, from Wang Wei>, the second part from Li Bai>)

On the contrary, it is called an incomplete definite sentence or a unilateral definite sentence. For example:

Sima is not coming, let's meet. We understand. What is the relationship between acquaintances? .

Beauty is peaceful, silence is better than sound (contemporary couplet "Jiujiang Pipa Pavilion")

Only the second half of the upper and lower couplet is an existing sentence (quoted from Bai Juyi's poem & gt), so it is an incomplete sentence. Another example is:

In this world, in this dust

In the dream of life

Only one side is an existing sentence (quoted from Li Shangyin's poem >), so it is a unilaterally set sentence. Strictly speaking, only complete set sentences can be called set sentences.

(3)

After introducing some requirements of couplet meter, let me talk about the classification of couplet. There are many classification standards for couplets, and there are mainly two in practice. First, according to the number of words and sentence structure of couplets, they are divided into short couplets and long couplets. The upper and lower couplets are composed of more than two short sentences, and the couplets with more words are called long couplets; Both the upper and lower couplets are composed of a short sentence called short couplets. Generally speaking, there is no absolute limit to the number of words between long couplet and short couplet. Second, according to the content and use of couplets. Theoretically, this division is more difficult to be strict and complete. In my opinion, it can be generally divided into four categories: Spring Festival couplets, congratulatory couplets, elegiac couplets and special couplets.

Spring Festival couplets refer to the Spring Festival, and the contents are mostly general chanting, lyricism and wishes. Most Spring Festival couplets can be used universally.

Greeting couplets refer to wedding couplets, birthday couplets, bridal couplets (housewarming couplets), holiday couplets, and other couplets with certain congratulations. The outstanding feature of congratulatory couplets is that they have a special congratulatory nature, and their contents must be good wishes, festive and auspicious. There are general couplets and special couplets. Whether it is universal depends on the alliance, and it is not easy to copy, so as not to make jokes.

The elegiac couplet refers to the couplet used to mourn the dead. Its content is limited to mourning, remembering, evaluating and wishing for the deceased. Its style is generally sad, solemn and solemn. Of course, some people write elegiac couplets for the dead, or write elegiac couplets for themselves, which is another matter. There are also universal and special elegiac couplets, so we should pay more attention to the distinction in practice.

The above three kinds of couplets are the most widely used, with the characteristics of mass, nationality, tradition, seasonality and practicality. In addition, those couplets with special contents and uses can be classified as special couplets.

For example, trade associations, historical sites associations, topic associations with certain topic donation nature, and academic associations with academic nature or literary creation nature. Of course, there is no clear boundary between industry associations, scenic spots associations, topic associations and academic associations.

For example, Buddhist couplets can be regarded as academic couplets, and if they are posted, hung and carved in scenic spots, they can also be regarded as landscape couplets.

In addition, according to writing skills or rhetorical devices, couplets can also be divided into embedded couplets, palindromes, riddles, sets of sentences, humorous couplets and so on. But strictly speaking, it should be called inlay, palindrome, riddle, set sentence, humor and so on.