Poems | Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung
All the poems in this volume are written in classical Chinese verse forms. Those which carry the subtitle "to the tune of . . . " belong to the type of verse called tzu. The rest are either lu or chueh, two varieties of the type shih.
The tzu originated in the Tang Dynasty (A.D. 618-907) as lines sung to certain tunes. Each tune prescribes a strict tonal pattern and rhyme scheme, with a fixed number of lines of a standardized varying length. Names like Chin Yuan Chun, Pa Sa Man, etc. indicate not the themes of the respective poems but the tunes to which they are written.
Lu and chueh are the two forms of the shih, which, after inchoate beginnings in preceding ages, became fully established in the Tang Dynasty. With a strict tonal pattern and rhyme scheme the lu or lu shih consists of eight lines of either five or seven characters each; the third line should be matched to the fourth and the fifth to the sixth in both sound and sense. The lu shih in this volume are of the seven-character kind. The chueh or chueh chu consists of four lines of either five or seven characters each. It is a sort of truncated lu, but the third and fourth lines, though still counterpointed in sound, need not be antithetical in sense. The chueh chu in this volume are of the seven-character kind.
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