The yuefu poetry of the Han dynasty, conventionally referring to all poems reput-
edly collected by the Han Music Bureau, is one of the earliest poetic modes to
have had a major impact on the later Chinese lyrical tradition. In Han times, the
fu (rhapsody or rhyme-prose) was the dominant literary genre and arena in which
the major court poets exercised their talents, while yuefu poetry, aside from ritual
hymns, was basically ignored. Nonetheless, yuefu verse came to be juxtaposed with
the fu as one of the two most conspicuous literary genres in the Han. To properly
understand yuefu poetry as a genre, one must investigate its history, themes and
content, literary conventions, and stylistic characteristics. Critical issues regard-
ing this genre also include the origins and historical date of the establishment of
the Music Bureau, the classification of yuefu, the authenticity of the extant yuefu
poems, and authorship. Are yuefu poems folk ballads of simple provenance col-
lected by the imperial court, or are they simply literati imitations by anonymous
authors or court musicians? Despite these controversial issues, yuefu verse occu-
pies an unshakable position in Chinese poetry.
Due to the several contradictory statements by the Han historian Ban Gu (32–
92) in the Han shu (History of the Han Dynasty), generations of scholars had be-
lieved that the Music Bureau was established by Emperor Wu (Han Wudi [r. 140–
87 b .C.e.]). However, in 1976 a bell inscribed with the word yuefu was excavated
around the periphery of the tomb of the first Qin emperor, Qin Shi Huang,1 and
this archaeological find has proven beyond doubt that the bureau was, at the latest,
founded in the Qin (221–206 b.C.e.). Although Emperor Wu probably did not
originate the institution of the Music Bureau, he certainly was the first ruler to
greatly expand its functions, which included providing music for court ceremonies
and state sacrifices and allegedly collecting folk songs. The bureau was abolished
by Emperor Ai (Han Aidi [r. 7–1 b.C.e.]) in 7 b .C.e. because Confucian scholars
had complained about the licentiousness of the regional songs and music, which
had been brought into the bureau for court entertainment.2 The extant Han yuefu
corpus includes two major types of songs: the first is ceremonial and sacrificial
hymns, and the second is popular songs written mainly in pentasyllabic lines on a
great variety of topics. The former is verifiably Han, since they are recorded in the
Han shu. But the latter, attributed to the Han period, is preserved only in post-Han
sources; thus it is difficult to substantiate whether these songs were originally col-
lected by the Han Music Bureau or written by Han authors. The concept that the
ruler could view the customs of his subjects and thereby learn their state of mind
❀ 4 ❀
Shi Poetry
Music Bureau Poems (Yuefu)