Preface#
Recently, I discovered an interesting open-source project on GitHub called COPE: A Metered Poetry Editor. It not only automatically checks for metrical rules such as tone patterns, but also uses machine learning to compare your own works with the poems in "The Complete Tang Poems," resulting in finding Tang poems that are highly similar to your own compositions.
I recall that during high school, there was a period of time when I was obsessed with writing poetry, but I didn't have a good understanding of many fundamental knowledge at that time. So, what I wrote was just for my own amusement, without any formal structure.
COPE is written in Node.js and runs on the Electron framework. Coincidentally, I am currently learning related knowledge, so I can learn both development and poetry composition at the same time. Why not give it a try?
Basic Elements#
Tone Patterns#
- Four Tones
Explanation: Simply put, for Mandarin Chinese, the 1st and 2nd tones are considered flat, while the 3rd and 4th tones are considered oblique. - Basic Sentence Structures
- Flat-Flat-Oblique-Oblique-Flat
- Flat-Flat-Flat-Oblique-Oblique
- Oblique-Oblique-Flat-Flat
- Oblique-Oblique-Flat-Flat
Explanation: Flat followed by oblique, oblique followed by flat. The characters inside 【】 can be either flat or oblique. The same applies to seven-character regulated verse, just add two characters with opposite tones at the beginning.
Rhyme#
Rules#
Even-numbered lines must have the same rhyme and must be flat-toned.
Parallelism#
Rules#
- Quatrains do not require parallelism.
Wang Changling's "Leaving the Frontier" => No parallelism
The bright moon shines over the Han border, thousands of miles away from home. If the dragon city soars, the horses won't cross the Yin Mountains.
Du Fu's "Quatrain" => Parallelism
Two orioles sing in the green willows, a line of egrets flies into the blue sky. The window holds the autumn snow of the Western Ridge, the door anchors the ten-thousand-mile ship of the Eastern Wu.
- In an eight-line regulated verse, the middle two couplets must have parallelism.
Li Shangyin's "The Harp"
The harp has fifty strings without purpose, each string represents a thought of my youthful years. 【Zhuang Zhou dreamed of being a butterfly, Emperor Wang's spring heart entrusted to the cuckoo】.
【The moon shines on the boundless sea, the jade emits smoke in the Blue Field】. This feeling can only be waited for as a memory, but at that time, it was already desolate.
- In regulated verses longer than eight lines, except for the first and last couplets, all the middle couplets must have parallelism.
Different Types of Parallelism#
- Gongdui => Same part of speech and category, as seen in Du Fu's quatrain. Two || one line; orioles || egrets; window holds || door anchors;
- Kuandui, Lindi => Same part of speech and broader category, as seen in the previous example with willows || sky; snow || ship; They are different categories, but both are nouns.
- ...
Cohesion#
Rules#
The second character of even-numbered lines must have the same tone as the second character of odd-numbered lines.
Conclusion#
This article summarizes the basic knowledge and rules of metrical poetry composition. Of course, if one pursues strict adherence to the form, the joy of composition may be lost. However, for beginners, it is still important to understand these rules and common knowledge. In fact, this is also the way of learning. Only by mastering the rules can one create.