Chinese ancient poetry

月落乌啼霜满天，江枫渔火对愁眠。

姑苏城外寒山寺，夜半钟声到客船。

--------《枫桥夜泊 张继》

Ladies and gentlemen:

Good afternoon! Today is my turn to give you a speech, and the topic of my speech is: Chinese ancient poetry.

Our traditional culture has enjoyed a high level of civilization. And Chinese classical literature is a part which can’t be neglected in it. In my opinion, for all of those beautiful words, Chinese ancient poetry may be the most beautiful spray.

According to the book named “China's appreciation of poetry”, the history of poetry could extend to long years ago after the emergence of language. Early poetries and song are inseparable, and most of them are five-word poetries. In Tang Dynasty, Chinese ancient poetry has developed into the most prosperous period. The book named “The complete of Tang Dynasty” said 2300 poets or even more have written 52000 poems. And during that period, there were many famous poets as LI Bo, Du Fu which has achieved unprecedented success. This is what can’t be done in the other Dynasties.

Chinese ancient poetry have the most important feature, the truly feelings.

Overall, there are four kinds in it, realism(现实主义),romanticism（浪漫主义）, frontier poetry(边塞诗歌)，and pastoral poetry（田园诗歌）. Some of them are expression of homesickness, and some are expression of friendship, love, and ideal and so on. “Although we reside in far corners of the world, having a good friend is a kin to having a good neighbor\" (海内存知己、天涯若比邻). It is said by Wang Po in Tang Dynasty and expressed a strong friendship between his friend and himself.

Nowadays, many foreigners are interested in Chinese ancient poetry. They translated them into English. Many U.S. presidents had referenced to Chinese ancient poems during their visits in China. According to “Wen Wei Newspaper”, Former U.S. President Richard Nixon referenced a poem of Chairman Mao in his visit in china. “ Ten thousand years are too long; seize the day, seize the hour！”(一万年太久，只争朝夕). Form it we can see that Chinese poetry have a great influence in the world now.

In the end, I want to say, both Chinese poetry and foreign poetry may be the most beautiful followers in humans’ culture. What we need to do is inheritance and development.

That’s all, thank you for listening!