Duilian

In Chinese poetry, a duìlián (对联, simplified)(對聯, traditional) or antithetical couplet is a pair of lines of poetry pasted on the sides of doors leading to people's homes. The two lines correspond in their metrical length and some properties of each character, such as meaning and tone. The ideal for a duilian is to have few words but deep meaning. For this reason, they use one character per word, as in much Classical Chinese.

Requirements

A Duilian is only considered as such if the following rules apply:
#Both lines must have exactly the same number of Chinese characters.
#The lexical category of each character must be the same as its corresponding character.
#The tones need to be in order. Usually, this means if one character is of the first or second tone, its corresponding character must not be of the first or second tone.
#The meaning of the two lines need to be related, with each pair of corresponding characters having related meanings too.

History

Originating during the Five Dynasties, flourishing during the Ming and Qing dynasties, duilian have a history of more than a thousand years.

ee also

*Couplet