Vietnam's native verse form, alternating six-syllable and eight-syllable lines linked by an internal rhyme scheme that carries across each pair of lines, flexible enough to sustain the long narrative poems of Vietnamese oral and literary tradition, most famously Nguyen Du's national epic The Tale of Kieu.
Facts
Place of OriginVietnam, oral tradition of uncertain age, first widely attested in written literature from the 15th-18th centuries. 1 StructureAlternating six-syllable and eight-syllable lines (luc = six, bat = eight), with the sixth syllable of each eight-syllable line rhyming into the following six-syllable line, allowing indefinite extension. 1 Notable ExampleNguyen Du's Truyen Kieu (The Tale of Kieu, early 19th century), Vietnam's national epic poem. 1 Connections
Associated With
Form Of Genre
Epic, Genres Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
In the Other Atlases
- Also in Geography Atlas: Vietnam, originated there.
Sources
1. Encyclopaedia Britannica
Wiktionary: luc bat
Etymology 1, definition lineQuote, Etymology 1, definition line
a traditional Vietnamese poetry with alternating lines of 6 and 8 syllables, whereby the last syllable of a 6-syllable line rhymes with the 6th syllable of the very next 8-syllable line, and the last syllable of an 8-syllable line rhymes with the last syllable of the very next 6-syllable line; the rhyming also has to conform to the matching of trắc or bằng tones
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