Great Little Book. An Outline of Poetic Patterns

Author: Wang Li
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-01-01
Features: To conduct in-depth research on the theory of Chinese poetic meter, one must seriously read this monograph, The Theory of Chinese Poetic Meter. If the purpose is to appreciate classical Chinese poetry or to learn to write it, and one wishes to understand the basic knowledge of poetic meter, then the other three books by Professor Wang Li—The Rules of Poetic Meter, Ten Lectures on Poetic Meter, and An Outline of Poetic Meter—can be read. "The 'Dragon and Insect' are one of Professor Wang Li's long-standing principles. The 'Dragon' and the 'Insect' have different subjects and purposes, but the author's seriousness and the scientific nature of the works are the same. Although An Outline of Poetic Meter is simpler than The Rules of Poetic Meter and shares the same basic content, it still has its own features. In some places, it is even more detailed than The Rules of Poetic Meter, for example, when explaining tones, it cites commonly used ancient entering tones to help readers from dialect areas without entering tones grasp the concept. In some places, it differs from The Rules of Poetic Meter. For example, it divides the rescue of "awkward tones" into two cases: major awkward tones must be rescued, while minor awkward tones may or may not be. This is also done to help readers better master poetic meter. Another difference is that The Rules of Poetic Meter uses many of Mao Zedong's poems for analysis, while An Outline of Poetic Meter uses only classical poetry as its basis for analysis. Mao Zedong's poems have high artistic value and comply with poetic meter, and readers are generally familiar with them, making them suitable for examples and helpful for popularizing poetic meter. However, fundamentally speaking, poetic meter is summarized from the works of some great ancient writers. Using the poems of ancient writers to explain poetic meter is, therefore, more appropriate.