Shan Shui
山水

Qianxun CHEN
cqx931@gmail.com

Shan Shui

Rules of Wujue

Jueju(绝句) is a style of classical Chinese poetry that grew popular in the Tang Dynasty. Jueju poems are always quatrains, with each line consisting of five or seven syllables. The form used in this work is Wujue(五绝), the five-syllable form.

Tone patterns (平仄) are common constraints in classical Chinese poetry. The four tones of Chinese—level (平), rising (上), departing (去), and entering (入) tones—are categorized into level (平) tones and oblique (仄) tones. If tone patterns are used in poetry, the pattern in which level and oblique tones occur in one line is often the inverse of a that of line next to it.

One of the possible tone patterns of Wujue is shown below:

OOLLO
LLOOL
LLLOO
OOOLL

(O-Oblique; L-Level)