Yuefu

The word yuefu came first into being in Qin dynasty (221 BC – 206 BC). Yue () means "music", fu () means "bureau": put together yuefu means "Music Bureau". Yuefu is particularly associated with the Han poetry of the Han dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD), and became a royal government-managed music involving collecting, writing or performing folk songs and ballads in 112 BC. Afterwards, people called poems composed in this folk song style yuefu. ==Music Bureau yuefu==

The yuefu poems of the Han dynasty have been held in high regard over the history of Chinese poetry. The Han yuefu tradition inherited the traditional realistic approach of the Shi Jing's, "feeling of funeral music, causes behind the affairs". Folk songs collected or written by the Musical Department in the Han dynasty were typically done from the perspective of a certain set of personas—vividly and visually mirroring the perceived typical characters of people whose lives mirrored the different social roles which typified the society of the Han dynasty. ==Literary yuefu==

Han dynasty During the last century or two of the Han dynasty, the poets of the time were noted for writing "literary yuefu", that is yuefu inspired by or imitating the Music Bureau pieces. Jian'an During the Jian'an period at the end of the Han dynasty and into the Three Kingdoms period yuefu continued to be written. Often, the yuefu appearing in Jian'an poetry more personally emotional than the Music Bureau pieces. Six Dynasties During the Six Dynasties era, a form of yuefu using regular five-character quatrains (or paired couplets) similar to the jueju appears in the Midnight Songs poetry. ==New yuefu==

During the Tang dynasty certain poets wrote a series of new poems in great variety and profoundness influenced by even sometimes to the point of recycling the old titles and themes of yuefu of the Han dynasty. The poets behind this "new yuefu" style included many famous poets, such as Li Bai, Du Fu, Bai Juyi, and Yuan Zhen, who participated in the development of this new style and the creation of various individual poems inspired by and inspirational to it. The patterns of new yuefu can be quite free or can take the form of five characters per line or the seven-character per line poems; however, the topics are often conventional. Similar to the ballad tradition of the earlier yuefu, many of the Tang yuefu are spoken in the voice of some persona, often that of a hunter, a peasant girl, or a soldier at the frontier. Similarly, the subjects and themes of the Tang yuefu vary from simply providing song lyrics, to engaging in social satire or criticism, literary exercise, lamentations at the departure of friends, attempts to visit not-to-be-found-hermits, and romantic love in relationship to singing "girls", dancers or other professional entertainers, or the feelings of or for the ladies of the palace harems. The Yuefu style of poetry persisted into the late Tang Dynasty and was used by poets such as Nie Yizhong (聶夷中), Du Xunhe, and Pi Rixiu. ==Main compositions==

Han dynasty, Three Kingdoms, and Northern and Southern dynasties "Mulberry By Road" ()， "Armed Escort" (), "White Hair Intonation" (), "Thinking is Being" (), "The Old Soldier's Return" (), "The Peacocks Fly to the South and the East" () and "Shang Ye" (). Tang dynasty by Li Bai and the genre. == References==