Vietnamese poetry originated in the form of folk poetry and proverbs. Vietnamese poetic structures include six-eight, couplet of seven sextuplet of eight, and various styles shared with Classical Chinese poetry forms, such as are found in Tang poetry; examples include verse forms with "seven words (per line) for eight lines", "seven words (per line) for four lines" (a type of quatrain), and "five words (per line) for eight lines". More recently there have been new poetry and free poetry.
With the exception of free poetry, a form with no distinct structure, other forms all have a certain structure. The tightest and most rigid structure was that of the Tang Dynasty poetry, in which structures of content, number of words per line, lines per poem, rhythm rule determined the form of the poem. This stringent structure restricted Tang poetry to the middle and upper classes and academia.
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The musical nature of Vietnamese poetry manifests in the use of onomatopoeic words like "ri rao" (rustling), "vi vut" (whistling), "am am" (banging), "lanh canh" (tinkling), etc. Writing this kind of poetry demands analytical skills to dissect the compound words and succinct words. Therefore, sometimes by composing poetry, the poet easily falls into the state of associating between words of this meaning and words of another, word play that Vietnamese poetry is particularly rich in.
Imagery, or the use of words to create images, is another fundamental aspect of Vietnamese poetry. An example of imagery can be found in the national epic poem, The Tale of Kieu by Nguyễn Du (1765–1820)[1]:
Cỏ non xanh tận chân trời
Cành lê trắng điểm một vài bông hoa
Due to the influence of the concept of visual arts in the times of the poet, Nguyễn Du usually employs "scenery description" style in his poems. Simple scenery, accentuated at certain points, gently sketched but irresistible. Another line by Bà Huyện Thanh Quan
Lom khom dưới núi tiều vài chú
Lác đác bên sông chợ mấy nhà
Or Nguyễn Khuyến:
Ao thu lạnh lẽo nước trong veo
Một chiếc thuyền câu bé tẻo teo
Sóng biếc theo làn hơi gợn tí
Lá vàng trước gió khẽ đưa vèo.
Or most recently Trần Đăng Khoa in Nghe thầy đọc thơ
Em nghe thầy đọc bao ngày
Tiếng thơ đỏ nắng, xanh cây quanh nhà
Mái chèo nghiêng mặt sông xa
Bâng khuâng nghe vọng tiếng bà năm xưa
These images are beautiful and tranquil, but they can also be non-static and lively. When objects are described in poetry, they are often personified. Using verbs for inanimate, insentient objects is akin to breathing life into the objects, making it lively in the mind of the reader. For instance, Tran Dang Khoa wrote in "Mặt bão":
Bão đến ầm ầm
Như đoàn tàu hỏa
Bão đi thong thả
Như con bò gầy
Or in Góc Hà Nội
Nắng tháng tư xỏa mặt
Che vội vàng nỗi nhớ đã ra hoa
...
Thành phố ngủ trong rầm rì tiếng gió
Nhà ai quên khép cửa
Giấc ngủ thôi miên cả bến tàu[2]
Such lines contain metaphors and similes. Humorous metaphors are commonly seen in poetry written for children. Examples are these lines that Khoa wrote at 9 years old in Buổi sáng nhà em:
Ông trời nổi lửa đằng đông
Bà sân vấn chiếc khăn hồng đẹp thay
...
Chị tre chải tóc bên ao
Nàng mây áo trắng ghé vào soi gương
Bác nồi đồng hát bùng boong
Bà chổi loẹt quẹt lom khom trong nhà
However, these also appear in more mature poets’ work. For example Nguyễn Mỹ in Con đường ấy[2]:
Nắng bay từng giọt - nắng ngân vang
Ở trong nắng có một ngàn cái chuông
Or Hàn Mặc Tử in Một Nửa Trăng
Hôm nay chỉ có nửa trăng thôi
Một nửa trăng ai cắn vỡ rồi
Particularly, the metaphors in Hồ Xuân Hương poetry causes the half-real, half-unreal state, as if teasing the reader as in [[Đánh cờ
Quân thiếp trắng, quân chàng đen,
Hai quân ấy chơi nhau đà đã lửa.
Thọat mới vào chàng liền nhảy ngựa,
Thiếp vội vàng vén phứa tịnh lên.
Hai xe hà, chàng gác hai bên,
Thiếp thấy bí, thiếp liền ghểnh sĩ.
Or in Ốc nhồi
Bác mẹ sinh ra phận ốc nhồi,
Đêm ngày lăn lóc đám cỏ hôi.
Quân tử có thương thì bóc yếm,
Xin đừng ngó ngoáy lỗ trôn tôi.
The "tứ" (theme) of a poem is the central emotion or image the poem wants to communicate. "Phong cách" (style) is the choice of words, the method to express ideas. Structure of the poetry is the form and the ideas of the poems combined together.
As in most metrical systems, Vietnamese meter is structured both by the count and the character of syllables. Whereas in English verse syllables are categorized by relative stress, and in classical Greek and Latin verse they are categorized by length, in Vietnamese verse (as in Chinese) syllables are categorized by tone. For metrical purposes, the 6 distinct phonemic tones that occur in Vietnamese are all considered as either "flat" or "sharp". Thus a line of metrical verse consists of a specific number of syllables, some of which must be flat, some of which must be sharp, and some of which may be either.
Like verse in Chinese and most European languages, traditional Vietnamese verse is rhymed. The combination of meter and rhyme scheme defines the verse form in which a poem is written.
Âm (sound) is the conjugation of one or many vowels together. Similar sounds, regardless of consonants standing before or after or the effect of tone on the high and low notes of sound, giving the rhythm of the poem. For examples, simple sound like:
or compound sound:
The following classification of sounds is extracted from the “System of sounds in Vietnamese” (A very short history of Vietnamese literature, Duong Quang Ham)
| Types of tone | Symbol | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Flat | level hanging |
|
| Sharp | tumbling (~) asking (?) sharp (') heavy (.) |
|
| sharp (') heavy (.) |
especially for sound that ends with consonants ch, p, và t |
Syllables are considered to rhyme when they have similar sound and tone (either flat or sharp). Rhyme is an important element in Vietnamese poetry.
Use of rhyme (vần) in Vietnamese poetry is largely analogous to its use in English and other European languages; 2 important differences are the salience of tone in the acceptability of rhyme words, and the use of back rhyme. Rhyme connects lines in a poem together, almost always using the final syllable in a line, and sometimes including syllables within the line.
Rhyme words must share the same tone:
Rhyme can be “rich” or “poor”:
Examples of 2 lines using prime rhyme
Vietnamese poetry makes use of both end-rhymes and internal rhymes in various stanzas. Stanzas linked by end-rhyme include these rhyme schemes:
| Bữa nay lạnh mặt trời đi ngủ sớm, | |
| Anh nhớ em, em hỡi! Anh nhớ em. | A (flat rhyme) |
| Không gì buồn bằng những buổi chiều êm, | A (flat rhyme) |
| Mà ánh sáng đều hòa cùng bóng tối. | B (sharp rhyme) |
| Gió lướt thướt kéo mình qua cỏ rối; | B (sharp rhyme) |
| Vài miếng đêm u uất lẩn trong cành; | C (flat rhyme) |
| Mây theo chim về dãy núi xa xanh | C (flat rhyme) |
| Từng đoàn lớp nhịp nhàng và lặng lẽ. | D (sharp rhyme) |
| Không gian xám tưởng sắp tan thành lệ. | D (sharp rhyme) |
Lines and stanzas may also be linked by rhymes in the middle of the line (“back rhyme”), which has no common analogue in English: the last word of one line rhymes with a word in the middle of the next line as in the Lục bát (“six-eight”) stanza, where the last word of the six-word line rhymes with the sixth word of the eight-word line; for instance in The Tale of Kieu:
Điệu (rhythm), is created by the sounds of selected words and cadence of the lines. Music in the poetry is constituted by 3 elements: rhyme, cadence and words. “Six-eight” folk song is a form of poetry rich in musical quality. • Echo of rhyme (a)- Flat rhyme creates a feeling of gentleness and smoothness
(b) – Sharp rhyme creates a feeling of roughness, motion, awakeness.
• Cadence of lines: Cadence refers to the tempo, rhythm f the poem, based on how the lines are truncated into verses, each verse with a complete meaning. It is “long cadence” when people stop and dwell on the sound when they recite the line. Besides, in each verse, when reciting impromptu, we can also stop to dwell on shorter sounds at verses separated into components, which is called “short cadence”
• Cadence in poetry, created by the compartmentalization of the line and the words, similar to putting punctuations in sentence, so we pause when we read Nhịp (4/4) - (2/2/2/2)
• Musical quality of words: according to linguistics, each simple word of Vietnamese is a sound, which can be strong or weak, pure or muddled, depending on the position of the pronunciation in the mouth (including lips, air pipe and also the openness of the mouth) One word is pronounced at a position in the mouth is affected by 4 elements constituting it: vowel, first consonant, last consonant and tone. Hence words that have
Then when the words get pronounced, the sound produced will be pure, high and up. On the other hand, words that have
And “down” tone: hanging, tumbling and heavy tones then the word pronounced will be muddled and heavy
The purity of the words punctuate the line, esp words with rhyme most essential to the musical quality of the poem
Punctuating words and rhymes words in these lines are almost elements that make up the echo and the purity, creating a cheerful music, expressing an innocent mind and sunny disposition of this lad here
Sound “iếc” in 2 words “biếc” và “tiếc” rhyming here has 2 “up” vowels (iê) toether with up tone but rather truncated by the last consonant “c”, are known as “clogged sound”. These sounds, when read out loud, are associated with sobbing, hiccup, the music is thus slow, and plaintive, sorrowful. Hence, “iec” is particularly excellently rhymed, to express most precisely the heart-wrenching regret of the boy returning to his old place, meeting the old friends, having deep feelings for a very beautiful girl, but the girl was already married.
Sometimes to preserve the musical quality of the folklore poem, the sounds of the compound words can have reversal of positions. Like the above folklore, the two sounds “tha thiet” are reversed to become “thiet tha”, because the 6-8 form of the poem only allows for flat rhyme. Poetry or folksongs often have “lay” word, whereby due to the repetition of the whole word or an element of it, “lay” word, when pronounced, two enunciations of the two words will coincide (complete “lay”) or come close (incomplete “lay”) creating a series of harmony, rendering the musical quality of poetry both multi-coloured and elegant
Poetry rule: Flat rhyme is denoted with B, sharp rhyme is denoted with T, rhyme with no particular rule will be denoted by a blank Though rhyme rule is stated as above, word 1, 3 and 5 are allowed to not follow the rule sometimes. That exception is called :nhat, tam, ngu bat luan or “1,3,5, no rule” word 2, 4, 6 must follow the rule as in “2,4,6 follow rules”. Blanks do not follow rules.
| Line number | Rhyme | |||||||
| 1 | B | T | B | |||||
| 2 | B | T | B | B | ||||
| Word number | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Exception Once in a while, we come across poets that like to break the rule of the second word of “six-word” line, non-flat rhyme replacing flat rhyme as usual. “six-word” line is also divided into 2 verses. For example the two lines in The Tale of Kieu, the word “cot” belongs to non-flat rhyme, but it is located in the position of a flat
| Line number | Rhyme | |||||||
| 1 | Mai | cốt | cách, | tuyết | tinh | thần | ||
| 2 | Mỗi | người | một | vẻ | mười | phân | vẹn | mười |
| Word number | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
“two seven” means a couple of seven-word line is followed by a couple of “six eight”. The song of the wife of a soldier by Dang Tran Con is translated by Doan Thi Diem into modern language in this form. In the first seven-word line, the third word is a non-flat rhyme, fifth is a flat rhyme, seventh is a non-flat. In the second seven-word line, third word is flat rhyme, fifth is non-flat rhyme, seventh is flat rhyme. The next “six-eight” lines follow the usual rule.
| Line number | Rhyme | |||||||
| 1 | B | B | T | |||||
| 2 | B | T | B | |||||
| 3 | B | T | B | |||||
| 4 | B | T | B | B | ||||
| Word number | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
The last word of the seven-word line rhymes with the fifth of the next seven-word lin, the last word of the lower seven-word line rhymes with the last word of the six-word line in the next “six-eight”. The last word of the “six-word” line rhymes with the sixth word of the “eight-word line. And the last word of the eight-word line rhymes with the fifth of the following seven-word line. However, the last word of the eight-word line can also rhyme with the third word of the seven-word line, changing the tone of the rhyme. Hence, the third word in the seven-word line can be either flat or non-flat
| Line number | Rhyme | |||||||
| 1 | B | T | ||||||
| 2 | B | T | B | |||||
| 3 | B | T | B | |||||
| 4 | B | T | B | B | ||||
| Word number | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
If second word is flat rhyme then the 4th word is sharp rhyme
| Line number | Rhyme | |||
| 1 | T | B | ||
| 2 | B | T | ||
| Word number | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
The converse is true
| Line number | Rhyme | |||
| 1 | B | T | ||
| 2 | T | B | ||
| Word number | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
However a lot of poems do not conform to the above rule:
Similar to four word poetry, it also has its own exceptions.
Using the last word, với cách with rhyme rule like vần tréo or vần ôm:
The influence of Seven word, four line in Tang poetry can still be seen in the rhyme rule of seven word poetry. 2 kinds of line:
| Line number | Rhyme | ||||||
| 1 | B | T | B | B | |||
| 2 | T | B | T | B | |||
| 3 | T | B | T | T | |||
| 4 | B | T | B | B | |||
| Word number | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Or more recently
| Line number | Rhyme | ||||||
| 1 | T | B | T | B | |||
| 2 | B | T | B | B | |||
| 3 | B | T | B | T | |||
| 4 | T | B | T | B | |||
| Word number | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Recently this form has been modified to be:
| Line number | Rhyme | ||||||
| 1 | B | T | B | ||||
| 2 | T | B | T | ||||
| Word number | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
This form of poetry has no specified rule, or free rhyme. Usually if:
| Rhyme | ||||||||
| T | B | B | T | |||||
| Word number | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rhyme | ||||||||
| B | T | T | B | |||||
| Word number | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
But there are always exceptions
To add melody to the eight-word, some poets find rhymes by making the word number eight of one line rhyme with the word number five or six of the next line.
Ca dao is a form of folk poetry that can be sung like other poems, and can be used to create folksongs. Cadao is actually a Sino-Vietnamese term. In Folk Literature book', Dinh Gia Khanh noted: In Confucis, chapter Nguy Phong, Article Vien Huu says: “Tam chi uu huu, nga can tha dao”- or “My heart is sad, I sing and dao” Book Mao Truyen says “"Khúc hợp nhạc viết ca, đô ca viết dao"- or” The song with background music to accompany the lyrics is called “ca”, singing acapella, or without background music is called “dao” People used to call ca dao as phong dao because the ca dao reflects the customs of each locality and era. Ca dao can consist of 4-word line, 5-word line, six-eight or two seven six eight, can be sung wholecloth, without the need to insert fillers like when people ngam the typical poetry. For example, take the following six-eights
Or:
Vietnamese ca dao is romantic writing that serves as a standard for romance poetry. The love of the labourers are expressed in ca dao in many aspects: romantic love, family love, love for the village, love for the fields, love for the work, love for nature. Ca dao is also an expression of the intellectual struggle when we live in society, or when we meet with nature. Hence, ca dao reflects the emotional life, and material life of human, the awareness of working and manufacturing…in the social, economic and political milieu in a particular historical period. For example, talking about self-control of “four virtues, three conformity” , women lament in songs:
Because their fate is more often than not decided by others and they have almost no sense of self-determination, the bitteness is distilled into poem lines that are at once humorous and painful:
Romantic love in the rural area is a kind of love intimately connected to rice fields, to the villages. The love lines serve to remind ourselves as well as our lovers:
The hard life, of “the buffalo followed by the plough”is also reflected in ca dao
A distinctive characteristics of ca dao is the form which is close to rhyme rule, but still elegant, flexible, simple and light-hearted. They are as simple as colloquial, gentle, succinct, yet still classy and expressive of deep emotions. A sad scene:
Or the longing, missing:
A girl, in the system of tao hon, who had not learned how to tidy her hair, had to get married, the man is indifferent seeing the wife as a child. But when she reached her adulthood, things
Ca dao is also used as a form to imbue experiences that are easy to remember, for example cooking experiences:
Phú means presenting, describing, for example about somebody or something to help people visualize the person or thing. For example:
Or to protest the sexual immorality and brutality of the reigning feudalism.
Tỉ is to compare. In this form, ca dao does not directly say what it means to say like in the phu, but use another image to compare, to create an indirect implication, or to send a covert message. For example:
Or
Or
Hứng (inspiration) originates from emotions, which can give rise to happy feelings or sad ones, to see externality inspires hung, making us want to express our feelings and situations.
Or:
According to Vũ Ngọc Phan, Ngưyễn Can Mộng[13]:
Rhymed verses in Vietnam is born of provers, then phong dao becoming melody, and chuong that can be sung. Six-eight literature, or two-seven all originate from here. The history of collecting and compiling proverbs, folk poetry and songs only started about 200 years ago. In mid-eighteenth century, Tran Danh An (hieu Lieu Am) compiled Quốc phong giải trào and Nam phong nữ ngạn thi. These compilers copied proverbs, folk poetry by vi:Nôm/Chinese transcribed Vietnamese words, then translated to Chinese words and noted, meaning to compare Vietnam folk poetry with Quoc Phong poems in Confucion odes of China.
At the end of the 19th century, beginning of 20th century, books about collected tuc ngu, ca dao written in Nom appear. Into 20th century, books collecting these heritages written in quoc ngu (Roman script) appear. Hence, it can be said that the six-eight form originated from proverbs and folk poetry. Rhyme is the bolded word. For example in The Tale of Kieu, when So Khanh tempted Kieu to elope with him out of lau xanh of Tu Ba:
Six-eight is usually the first poetic inspiration, influencing many poets in their childhood. Through the lullaby of ca dao, or colloquial verses of adults. Like:
Due to the gentle musical quality of six-eight, this form of poetry is often used in poems as a refrain, a link or connection, from rough to smooth, gentle as if sighing or praising. For instance in the Tiếng Hát Sông Hương by Tố Hữu
Or Trần Đăng Khoa in epic[17] Khúc hát người anh hùng
Variations in the six-eight are due to lines with different rhyme rules. Refer to the rhyme rule above.
As a result of the contact with Northern culture, especially the apex of Chinese poetry in Tang dynasty, tho Duong permeated in the Viet culture to become Tang poetry of Vietnam. At first, tho Duong Vietnam are written in Chinese language, then as vi:Hán Nôm/Sino-Vietnamese language and Vietnamese language .
The Vietnamese "free poetry" movement may have started from the poems translated from French by Nguyễn Văn Vĩnh, such as La Cigale et la Fourmi (from the fables of Jean La Fontaine) in Trung Bắc Tân văn (1928).
Poetry with no prosody, no rule, no limits on the number of words in the line, no line limits, appears to have been more adapted to a mass audience. .[18]
With the free poetry using the "dong gay" technique, presenting long lines and short, to create a visual rhythm, when read aloud, not according to line but to sentence, with the aim to hear properly the sound of each word. Visual rhythm is the most important thing, because through it, the reader can follow the analytic process to figure out the meaning of the poem. The word “free” can be understood as the escape from the restraint of poetry rules. The poets want to chase after his inspirations and emotions, using words to describe inner feelings instead of being constrained by words, by rules. They do not have to be constrained by criticism until they have to change the words, ideas until the poem becomes a monster child of their emotions. For example in Lưu Trọng Lư 'sTiếng thu
which later becomes Hữu Thỉnh trong bài Thơ viết ở biển:
Lẩy thơ is often known as playing and quoting The Tale of Kiều, a famous poetry play in folk culture dân gian