乐府体咏史诗作为一种诗歌体式,从最初单篇零章的创作,到大规模地制作组诗乃至专集,有一个漫长的发展过程。现存最早以乐府命题的咏史组诗是元人王恽《读〈五代史记〉作古乐府五首》,随后有杨维桢的大力提倡和创作,铁门弟子张宪等吟唱赓和。继而是明人李东阳以如椽大笔写作《拟古乐府》,以乐府体叙古事、论古人、抒己见,纵横捭阖,使乐府新声嗣响诗坛,从者甚众,影响甚大。咏史乐府发展至清代,形成一种集大成的局面,仅是单独成卷的大型组诗和独立成集的专门诗集就多达百余种,在继承杨、李的基础上不断创新,繁盛空前。
The Yuefu poetry on history,a poetic style,has a long history of development,from singlepiece writings to large-scale writings in suites of poems or even in poetry anthology. Five Old Yuefu Poems after Reading ‘Wu Dai Shi Ji',written by Wang Yun of the Yuan Dynasty,was supposed to be the earliest Yufu poetry on history on record. Yang Weizhen promoted this poetic style with his own writings,who,was then followed by his disciple,Zhang Xian. However,it was Li Dongyang of the Ming Dynasty who wrote the wellknown Ni Gu Yuefu,in which the style of Yuefu was used to describe historical events,comment on people in ancient times,and express his own views,and it was him who deeply and widely influenced the world of poetry. The Yuefu poetry on history reached its golden age in the Qing Dynasty in that,on the basis of the writings of Yang Weizhen and Li Dongyang,hundreds of suites of Yuefu poems on history and Yuefu poetry anthologies were published and enjoyed great popularity.