Characteristics of writing Spring Festival couplets

 

Characteristics of writing Spring Festival couplets

 

Posting Spring Festival couplets during the Spring Festival has a long historical custom in our country. Spring couplets not only add a strong festive atmosphere to the Spring Festival, but have also become a beautiful festive scenery in cities and villages. Appreciating a good couplet can make people happy and full of praise; it can also give people wisdom, increase knowledge, and improve the level of literary writing.

Among the "family" of couplets, Spring Festival couplets were born earlier, and there are historical records as late as the Five Dynasties. Posting couplets during the New Year is to post Spring Festival couplets. For a long time, Chinese people, including literati and those who make a profession of "book spring" (setting up stalls to write Spring Festival couplets), have accumulated rich experience in writing Spring Festival couplets and left many fine works for future generations.

The common Spring Festival couplets we usually have include seven-character pairs, eleven-character pairs, and five-character pairs. There are also some four-character pairs, eight-character pairs, and nine-character pairs.

When writing Spring Festival couplets, we usually use some festive, auspicious, and prosperous words, and use metaphors, metaphors, personifications, and exaggeration techniques to sing about a good life, express people's wishes and ideals, and reflect the reality of today's society. like:

 

The door welcomes thousands of blessings from all over the world

Hu Na Qian Kun Ten Thousand Miles of Wealth

 

Blessings and wealth are festive words, while Four Seas and Heaven and Earth are metaphors and exaggerations. This couplet is a wish to welcome a lot of blessings from all over the world and bring money from far away in the universe. Door and household are pronouns, representing the owner.

Another example:

 

If the east becomes the west, the four seasons will bring prosperity to the family.

From the south to the north, all directions bring blessings and blessings.

 

This is a business couplet. It expresses the owner's wish for the new year, hoping that business in the new year will be successful in the east and west, and in the south and north. Harmony brings wealth, every commodity transaction can be successful, smooth, successful, and make money. When business is prosperous, money will naturally come to you, fortune and fortune will come to your door, and your family business will prosper.

In addition to choosing some auspicious and festive words and phrases such as longevity, wealth, wealth, peace, prosperity, prosperity, spring, happiness, good luck, success, ambition, great achievements, joy, prosperity, etc., the Spring Festival couplets also need to pay attention to the upper and lower couplets. Contrast, level, part of speech, etc. like:

 

Heaven increases years and people increase life expectancy

Spring fills the universe and happiness fills the door

 

The first line has seven characters, and the second line must also have seven characters. If the first line has five or eleven characters, the second line must also have eleven characters, and so on. This is for aesthetics and reciprocity. Posting Spring Festival couplets on the door is not only festive and adds a festive atmosphere, but more importantly, it allows people to read and appreciate it. Good Spring Festival couplets are catchy to read, smooth and rhymed, with ups and downs and ups and downs. Therefore, it is required to be neat and beautiful, and the upper and lower characters must have the same gender of speech.

Antithesis focuses on the correspondence of words in corresponding positions in the upper and lower couplets, with the same or similar parts of speech, that is, nouns to names, verbs to verbs, and adverbs to adverbs. For example, in the Spring Couplets above, the sky is opposite to spring, the years are opposite to heaven and earth, people are opposite to blessings, longevity is opposite (noun to noun), increase is to full, (verb is to verb). The upper line uses two characters for "increase", and the lower line also uses two characters for "man" in the corresponding positions.

Correspondingly. This refers to the corresponding relationship between the tones of the words in the upper couplet and the second couplet. Ping tones refer to the first and second tones in Mandarin Pinyin, and oblique tones refer to the third and fourth tones. If the phrase in the first line is in oblique tone, the corresponding phrase in the second line is in flat tone. For example, "As time goes by, people live longer" is: Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping.

The first and second characters of the upper line and the second line correspond to each other, that is, level to level. The third and fourth phrases of the first line and the second line correspond to each other, and they are equal to each other. The fifth and sixth words in the first and second lines correspond to each other, that is, Ping Ping to Qi and Qi. The seventh character is the oblique tone character Shou opposite the flat glottis. In the correspondence between levels and obliques, there is another saying that "one, three, and five are irrelevant, but two, four, and six are clear." That is to say, in the first, third, and fifth characters of the first or second line, the equality can be discussed or ignored, but the equality of the second, fourth, and sixth characters is very clear and certain.

Generally speaking, Spring Festival couplets have the so-called "Lei Qi Ping Fa" theory, that is, the last character of the first couplet is the oblique tone, and the last character of the second couplet is the flat tone. Ancient articles were mostly written in vertical format. When reading articles and poems, they were mostly read vertically, starting from the right. So the way we post the Spring Festival couplets is: Facing the door, the first couplet with the last word in the oblique tone is the upper couplet, and it is posted on the right. The last word of the Spring Festival couplet with the flat tone is the second couplet, and it is pasted on the left. Of course, modern Spring Festival couplets, especially couplets, do not have strict requirements on the corresponding levels, contrasts, and parts of speech, and can only be regarded as a format of wide pairing. Some of the Spring Festival couplets posted now are read from the right, while others are read from the left. It seems that there is no formality. Strictly speaking, Spring Festival couplets that are written strictly in accordance with the requirements of level and contrast, are innovative, and cater to the requirements of the times are more popular.

Spring couplet writing also has many features that can be used for reference, such as:

 

1. Describe spring couplets. Spring couplets have been good at depicting spring scenery since ancient times. like:

 

Spring orioles sing willows

Magpie on the plum blossom

 

Another example is the traditional Spring Festival couplets:

 

Another year of green grass

Still apricot blossoms are red

​

When describing spring scenery, some words with New Year characteristics are commonly used, such as:

Plants - bamboo, plum, poplar, willow, peach, plum, apricot.

Animals - warbler, swallow, magpie, phoenix, roc.

Utensils - firecrackers, wine glasses, gongs and drums.

Colors - red, green, gold, green.

 

2. Ode to auspicious Spring Festival couplets. Originally, praying for blessings, attracting good fortune, and driving away ghosts and evil spirits were the original functions of ancient peach charms. Looking at the evolution process from peach charms to Spring Festival couplets, auspicious words are indispensable, such as:

​

Spring brings blessings

Harmonious and auspicious

​

Another example is the traditional Spring Festival couplets:

​

Heaven increases years and people increase life expectancy

Spring fills the universe and happiness fills the door

 

Nowadays, auspicious words are not only blessings for individuals and families, but also warm praises for the motherland and wishes for a bright future for the motherland, such as:

 

Heroic spirit of heaven and earth

Stormy Spring

(Zhao Puchu)

 

Eight Tables to Watch the Beautiful Sun Together

The four peoples have a happy and prosperous year

(Liu Yeqiu)

 

3． Limited time Spring Festival couplets. Some couplets have been used for hundreds of years, such as "One yuan begins again; everything is renewed", which belongs to "long life". If you use it too much, it will feel old and it needs something new. One of the ways to create new couplets is through limited time orders. There are roughly two situations:

Be a cadre and supporter. That is, embedding the stems and branches of the current year (Jiazi, Yichou, Bingyin, etc.) in the Spring Festival couplets, such as:

 

The soldiers are washed

Zishe Chenghuan

 

The ancients made ready-made couplets for the different stems and branches of the sixty-year period in each reincarnation for selection and use every year. It should be said that this is an innovation, but it also has shortcomings. Since the 10 characters for Heavenly Stems and the 12 characters for Earthly Branches are limited in their ability to form words, the diction in the couplets of stems and branches is often awkward and the allusions are too idiosyncratic, making it difficult for most people to read.

 

  4. Make a zodiac couplet. That is, embedding the zodiac animals of this year (rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, etc.) in the Spring Festival couplets, such as:

 

Smell the chicken and dance

A prancing horse contends for spring

​

It is the tradition of couplets to use current events in couplets, and it is also the tradition of Spring Festival couplets. You can write about what happened in the past year, what is happening now, and what will happen in the future. These events are all related to the fate of the country and the people. We take the opportunity of Spring Festival couplets to express the concern of the masses.

Express your feelings through Spring Festival couplets. Some Spring Festival couplets don't seem to have any spring feeling or scenery, and they don't have any stems, branches or zodiac signs. They are just cynical works. This is because in the old days, some intellectuals lived miserable lives and were full of complaints and had nowhere to vent their complaints. When the New Year came, they would be moved by the scene and couldn't help but write and express their thoughts directly. like:

 

Rats disappear due to lack of food

Dogs sleep bravely because of the poor family

 

As you can imagine, the owner here is impoverished and has no one to rely on. Generally speaking, this kind of Spring Festival couplets have strong artistic quality.