Yue fu (traditional Chinese: 樂府; simplified Chinese: 乐府; pinyin: yuèfǔ) are Chinese poems composed in a folk song style. The term literally means "Music Bureau", a reference to the government organisation originally charged with collecting or writing the lyrics. Note that the use of fu in yuefu is different than the other Chinese term fu, referring to a type of poetry or literature: although homonyms in English, the other fu (traditional Chinese: 賦; simplified Chinese: 赋; pinyin: fù) instead refers to a rhapsodic poetry/prose form of literature.
The lines of the yuefu can be of uneven length, reflecting its origins as a type of fixed-rhythm verse derived from now lost folk ballad tunes; although, later, the five-character fixed-line length became common. The term yuefu covers original folk songs, court imitations and versions by known poets (such as those of Li Bai). As opposed to what appears to be more of an authentic anonymous folk verse which was collected by the Music Bureau, verse written deliberately in this style, often by known authors, is often referred to as "literary yuefu". However, as a term of classification yuefu has a certain elusiveness when it comes to strict definition.[1] Furthermore, the literary application of the term yuefu in the modern sense of a classical form of poetry seems not to have had contemporary application until considerably after the end of the Han Dynasty, thus adding a certain historically ambiguity as being applied after the fact. Indeed, the use of the term yuefu to generically refer to this form of poetry does not seem to appear until the late fifth century CE.[2]
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The word Yuefu came first into being in Qin Dynasty (221 BC – 206 BC). Yue (乐) means "music", fu （府）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. After then people called poems which were composed in this folk song style yuefu.
The yuefu of the Han Dynasty are highly regarded in the history of Chinese poetry. It inherited the realism traditions of Shi Jing (The Book of Odes), "feeling of funeral music, causes behind the affairs". Folk Songs in Musical Department in Han Dynasty created all kinds of characters to mirror every part in the society at that time vividly and visually. The predominant characteristics among are the series of callipygas all with the character traits of beauties, diligence, kindness, adamancies while no effeminacies at all. However, they also have the lively thumbprints besides those common traits.
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.
The Tang Dynasty is an important era in the literary history of China. The poets in Tang Dynasty wrote a series of new poems in great variety and profoundness with the old titles of yuefu of Han Dynasty. Many famous poets (Li Bai, Du Fu, Baiju Yi etc.) participated in the creation. Different from poems with five characters per line or the seven-character per line poems, the pattern of Yuefu is quite free though the topics are fixed.
In Han Dynasty: Mulberry By Road (陌上桑)， Armed Escort (羽林郎), White Hair Intonation (白头吟), Thinking is Being (有所思), The Old Soldier's Return (十五从军征), The Peacocks Fly to the South and the East (孔雀东南飞),
In Tang Dynasty: The moon at the fortified pass (关山月)， Songs of Fort （塞上曲）