Quatrain

Author: Zhang Mengji
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-10-01
Features: The quatrain originated from the Han Dynasty and took shape during the Wei, Jin, and Southern and Northern Dynasties. It flourished in the Tang Dynasty. At that time, it consisted of four lines per poem, known as "linked verse." As mentioned in The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons (Wenxin Diaolong), "linked verse with shared rhyme is the legacy of the Bailing Palace." The Tang and Song dynasties were the golden age of classical Chinese poetry, and the quatrain became wildly popular. The creativity was so abundant that masterpieces and fine verses were as numerous as flowers competing for attention, breathtakingly beautiful and unparalleled in history.
The quatrain is also called "quatrain poem," or "truncated verse" or "broken verse." "Truncated" and "broken" both imply shortening. According to The Origins of Poetic Methods, the term "truncated verse" means taking four lines from a regulated verse (lüshi) or cutting the first and last couplets, or the first two couplets and the last two, or the middle two couplets. Another theory suggests it evolved from "five-character short ancient poems" and "seven-character short songs." The Tang people gave it a rhythmic structure, which solidified it into the quatrain.
The definitive form of the quatrain consists of only four lines, divided into two types: five-character (five-character quatrain) and seven-character (seven-character quatrain). Before the regulated verse (lüshi) took shape in the Tang Dynasty, the quatrain already existed. During the Southern Dynasties of the Chen Dynasty, Xu Ling edited The New Lyric Anthology of the Jade Terrace (Yutai Xinyong), which included the term "ancient quatrain." However, these ancient quatrains, while rhyming, had relatively free tonal patterns (zè) or could be said that some poets were reluctant to be constrained by rules. After the regulated quatrain (lüju) became popular, the ancient quatrain continued to be used and developed. Ancient quatrains were predominantly five-character, while seven-character ones were much rarer.