Gongti Shi, literally means Palace-Style Poetry, is a poetry genre popular in the
late Liang Dynasty (502-557) and the Chen Dynasty (557-589). According to
historical records, Xu Chi, who was also the companion to the prince in study,
initiated Gongti. Since it was popular in the palace, it got the name as Gongti
Shi (Palace Poetry).
The criticism to Gongti Shi generally
focused on that it had too much description about women's life and posture.
However, Gongti Shi did not only focus on women's life as a matter of
fact, but also there were a considerable number works that expressed personal
feelings and described beautiful scenery. Of those that described women's life,
only a small number were low in moral quality. Generally speaking, Gongti Shi
has a feeble and dismal style, but there were some readable poems with a
graceful and lucid style.
From the perspective of the development
history of Chinese poetry, Gongti Shi had its effects in two aspects. On
the one hand, the feeble style popular in the Sui Dynasty (581-618) and at the
beginning of the Tang Dynasty (618-907) was more or less influenced by Gongti
Shi; on the other hand, Gongti Shi attached much importance to the
rules and forms, which significantly propelled the development of the rhythmic
classic poems. Its beautiful wording and many citations also had some positive
influence on poems of the later generations. For instance, poems of Li He and Li
Shangyin in the Tang Dynasty (618-907) were distinctly influenced by Gongti
Shi in some way.