دانلود کتاب Chinese Couplets 對聯

This is probably the first time that a collection. of Chinese couplets has been translated and published. The composition of antithetical couplets was for a long time a popular pastime in China and one can still see them adorning pavilions at scenic spots, pillars of temples, interior of restaurants, public places and private houses everywhere. Formerly it was a very common practice to send them to friends or relations on such occasions as marriage or birthday, or as Condolences to families of deceased persons. Even today the practice still prevails in Hong Kong where one may see at funeral services antithetical couplets written on white-cloth scrolls in eulogy of the virtues or merits of the deceased. In temples and shrines one also finds, beautifully engraved on pillars or long pieces of wood hung on walls, such literary compositions. Even in the Chinese mainland today, where old traditions were extensively renounced, this art has not died out, and newly composed couplets can be observed in many places serving various purposes. It is strange that so far no book on this literary genre - the exercise in words of a slow tempoed past surviving in a less slow tempoed present - has appeared in English.
Antithesis and parallelism in thought and speech, by virtue of their quality of symmetry, are aesthetically satisfying to the human mind. Thus it is not surprising to find these figures of speech embellishing the earliest recorded writings, making the thoughts contained therein the more easily memorized.