Vietnamese poetry

Vietnamese poetry originated in the form of folk poetry and proverbs. Vietnamese poetic structures include six-eight, double-seven six-eight, and various styles shared with Classical Chinese poetry forms, such as are found in Tang poetry; examples include verse forms with "seven syllables each line for eight lines," "seven syllables each line for four lines" (a type of quatrain), and "five syllables each line for eight lines." More recently there have been new poetry and free poetry.

With the exception of free poetry, a form with no distinct structure, other forms all have a certain structure. The tightest and most rigid structure was that of the Tang Dynasty poetry, in which structures of content, number of syllables per line, lines per poem, rhythm rule determined the form of the poem. This stringent structure restricted Tang poetry to the middle and upper classes and academia.

The first indication of Vietnamese literary activity dates back around 500 BCE during the Dong Son Bronze-age civilization . Poetic scenes of sun worship and musical festivity appeared on the famous eponymous drums of the period. Since music and poetry are often inextricable in the Vietnamese tradition, one could safely assume the Dong Son drums to be the earliest extant mark of poetry.

In 987 CE, Do Phap Than co-authored with Li Chueh, a Chinese ambassador in Vietnam by matching the latter's spontaneous oration in a four-verse poem called "Two Wild Geese". Poetry of the period proudly exhibited its Chinese legacy and achieved many benchmarks of classical Chinese literature. For this, China bestowed the title of Van Hien Chi Bang ("the Cultured State") on Vietnam.

All the earliest literature from Vietnam is necessarily written in Chinese (though read in the Sino-Vietnamese dialect). No writing system for vernacular Vietnamese existed until the thirteenth century, when chữ nôm ("Southern writing", often referred to simply as nôm) — Vietnamese written using Chinese script — was formalized. While Chinese remained the official language for centuries, poets could now choose to write in the language of their choice.

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