摘要
THE traditional Chinese couplet is an artistic combination of poetry and calligraphy.A couplet,as the Chinese-yinglian or duilian-for this duo implies,is composed of a pair(fu)of antithetical lines of poetry that are inscribed on strips of paper pasted to the door jambs(ying)either side of a house entrance,or engraved on a
THE traditional Chinese couplet is an artistic combination of poetry and calligraphy. A couplet, as the Chinese - yinglian or duilian - for this duo implies, is composed of a pair （fu） of antithetical lines of poetry that are inscribed on strips of paper pasted to the door jambs （ying） either side of a house entrance, or engraved on a plaque and hung above it. The two lines follow specific syntactic rules： They have the same number of characters, an identical meter, and inverse tone patterns where the meaning of every two corresponding characters is related. Tbey are written, in ancient Chinese style, from right to left in vertical columns.
