Duilian (poetry)

Duilian
Pillar duilian outside the Nantian Temple (瓦硐南天廟) in Penghu, reading the eulogy of Guan Yu, to whom the temple is devoted.
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	對聯
Simplified Chinese	对联
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin duìlián Bopomofo ㄉㄨㄟˋ   ㄌㄧㄢˊ Wade–Giles tui4 lien2 IPA [twêɪljɛ̌n] Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization Deui lyún Jyutping Deoi3 lyun2 Southern Min Hokkien POJ Tùi-liân Tâi-lô Tuì-liân
Vietnamese name
Vietnamese alphabet	Đối liên Câu đối
Chữ Hán	對聯
Chữ Nôm	句對
Japanese name
Kanji	対聯
Hiragana	ついれん
Transcriptions Revised Hepburn Tsuiren

In Chinese poetry, a duilian (simplified Chinese: 对联; traditional Chinese: 對聯; pinyin: duìlián^ⓘ) is a pair of lines of poetry which adhere to certain rules (see below). Outside of poems, they are usually seen on the sides of doors leading to people's homes or as hanging scrolls in an interior. Although often called Chinese couplet or antithetical couplet, they can better be described as a written form of counterpoint. The two lines have a one-to-one correspondence in their metrical length, and each pair of characters must have certain corresponding properties. A duilian is ideally profound yet concise, using one character per word in the style of Classical Chinese. A special, widely-seen type of duilian is the chunlian (simplified Chinese: 春联; traditional Chinese: 春聯; pinyin: chūnlián), used as a New Year's decoration that expresses happiness and hopeful thoughts for the coming year.