On "Jiuseng" Style Poems——A Discussion on the Decline of Five-characters Eight-lines Poems In Song Dynasty

Jiuseng(meaning nine monks literally in Chinese) refers to a poet group in the early North Song dynasty.The poems by these poets are typical monastery Style Poems.These poems usually depict landscape to evoke lofty inspiration from the reader.Jiuseng Style Poems imitate the style of Jia Dao and Yao He,and are nearly all five-characters eight-lines poems with monotonous syntax.If these style poems could not find their own unique characteristics,they could only be labeled as offshoot or even copycat of former style poems.In this sense,the creation and development of this style poem is worth researching and bears great significance.