The folk custom of posting Spring Festival couplets in China began in the Song Dynasty and prevailed in the Ming Dynasty. According to historical records, Zhu Yuanzhang, the Ming emperor, loved couplets. He not only writes by himself, but also often encourages his officials to write. One year on New Year's Eve, he sent a message: "A pair of Spring Festival couplets must be added to the door of public officials or scholars." On New Year's Day, I was very happy to see the Spring Festival couplets that complement each other. He went to a house and saw that there were no Spring Festival couplets on the door, so he asked why. It turns out that the owner is a castrated pig, and he is worried that he can't find someone to write Spring Festival couplets. Zhu Yuanzhang immediately wrote down the Spring Festival couplets of "splitting the road of life and death with both hands and cutting off the root of right and wrong with one knife" and gave them to this family. From this story, we can see that Zhu Yuanzhang vigorously advocated Spring Festival couplets, and it was precisely because of his vigorous advocacy that it promoted the popularization of Spring Festival couplets. By the Qing Dynasty, the ideological and artistic quality of Spring Festival couplets had been greatly improved. Liang Zhangju's monograph "Lian Lian Cong Hua" discusses the origin of couplets and the characteristics of various works one by one. Spring Festival couplets had become a literary and artistic form at that time.

Spring Festival couplets pasting method

Spring Festival couplets, if the upper and lower couplets are distinguished by suffixes, are as follows:

First, the ups and downs have the same ending, such as the Spring Festival couplets, "Everything goes well, and everything goes well every year." Only by grasping the context can we distinguish the upper and lower couplets.

Second, mutually assured destruction, such as the Spring Festival couplets, "Ma Ye is on the shore, what is the green palm?" Lotus pond, who punches the red fist ",know the word order to distinguish the upper and lower couplets.

Third, at the end of the Spring Festival couplets, "Sister, I think, brother, you are wrong." Only by understanding the logical relationship of couplets can we distinguish the upper and lower couplets.

Fourth, the Spring Festival couplets "The motherland is magnificent and the scenery in China is new" are the ending couplets with the upper part flat and the lower part flat, but this kind of couplets can not be distinguished by flat.

Sticking Spring Festival couplets to find the relationship between Spring Festival couplets and banners (horizontal approval). [ 1]

Historical origin

Spring Festival couplets originated in Fu Tao (rectangular red boards were hung on both sides of the gate in the Zhou Dynasty). According to the Book of Rites, the peach symbol is six inches long and three inches wide, and the words "Shen Tu" and "Lei Yu" are written on the mahogany board. "On the first day of the first month, I made a peach symbol for this family and named it Xianmu. All ghosts are afraid of it." Therefore, the Qing Dynasty's "Yanjing Shi Sui Ji" said: "Spring Festival couplets, that is, Fu Tao." In the Five Dynasties, in the court of West Shu, someone wrote couplets on peach symbols. According to the Records of Shu Family in the History of Song Dynasty, Meng Chang, a master of the later Shu Dynasty, ordered Zhang Xun, a bachelor, to write a poem on the mahogany board, "Because of his non-work, he claimed to write a cloud:' Come in the New Year, celebrate Changchun'", which was the earliest Spring Festival couplets in China. Until the Song Dynasty, Spring Festival couplets were still called "Fu Tao". There is a saying in Wang Anshi's poem that "thousands of households always exchange new peaches for old ones." In the Song Dynasty, the peach symbol was changed from mahogany board to paper, which was called "Spring Sticker". Ming Dynasty: Fu Tao was renamed Spring Festival couplets. In the Ming Dynasty, Chen wrote in Mao Yunlou's Miscellaneous Paintings: "The creation of Spring Festival couplets began with. Jinling, the imperial capital, suddenly issued an imperial decree before New Year's Eve: a pair of Spring Festival couplets must be added at the door of public officials and scholars, and the emperor will appear as soon as he leaves. "