五言詩由漢末發軔,民間樂府敘事詩得風氣之先,且產生了不少優秀的故事詩。文人五言詩興起后,抒情逐漸壓倒敘事。文人的文化傳統與知識素養,又使得辭章、藻飾較方便地參與抒情,辭藻的中心色彩逐漸顯現。隨著抒情詩情感力度的消弱,辭采更為凸顯。兩晉南朝,詩歌的事、情等內容層面都進一步乏弱,藻采上升為詩歌最重要的藝術追求。文學自覺的深化,具體落實為對文學形式美的追求。正是在敘事——抒情——藻采這一發展路徑中,聲律作為形式美的極致,順勢而生。審視漢魏至六朝五言詩的演變軌跡,敘事、抒情的消長,作為原動力,對文學史的重要作用,有必要引起充分注意。

Because of the birth of five-character poetry at the end of the Han dynasty,the folk yuefu narrative poetry led the trend and produced many excellent story poems. When literati five-character poetry rose, lyricism gradually overwhelmed narration. With their cultural training and knowledge cultivation, literati brought poetry and prose as well as embellishments into lyricism; as a consequence, rhetoric gradually emerged as a central element of poetry. As the emotional strength of lyric poetry decreased, literary grace became prominent. In the Jin dynasties and the Southern dynasties, both the narrative and emotional aspects of poetry further weakened, whereas a flowery writing style rose as the supreme artistic pursuit of poetry. The deepening of literary consciousness was concretized as the pursuit of formal beauty. In this development path, starting from narration, going to lyricism, and ending up with a flowery style of writing, rhythm became the ultimate symbol of formal beauty. When surveying the evolution of five-character poetry from the Han and Wei dynasties to the Six dynasties, it is necessary to pay attention to the importance of the waxing and waning of narration and lyricism as a primary impetus to literary history.