The oldest and most prestigious family of Chinese verse forms, built on lines of a fixed syllable count, most often five or seven characters, and governed by tonal patterning and, from the Tang dynasty onward, strict rules of parallelism and rhyme in its regulated form (lushi); the base form from which nearly all later Chinese poetic forms, including ci and qu, descend.
Facts
Place of OriginChina, from the Shijing (Book of Songs, c. 11th-7th century BCE) through its classical flowering in the Tang dynasty (7th-10th century CE). 1 StructureLines of a fixed length, usually five or seven characters; the regulated form (lushi) fixes the poem at eight lines with tonal and parallel-couplet requirements, while the older form (gushi) allows freer length. 1 Notable ExampleThe Tang dynasty shi of Li Bai and Du Fu, regarded as the form's classical masters. 1 Connections
Form Of Genre
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Influenced
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
In the Other Atlases
- Also in Geography Atlas: China, originated there.
Sources
1. Encyclopaedia Britannica
Shi (Poetry) (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia)Lead section, first sentenceQuote, Lead section, first sentence
Shi and shih are romanizations of the character 詩/诗, the Chinese word for all poetry generally and across all languages.
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