Abstract: In the traditional cognition,"poetry" and "history",which are good at lyricism and narration respectively,have their own play and complement each other.Since Du Fu,a poet of the Tang Dynasty (618-907) who was good at narrative and whose poets were praised as the "history of poetry",later generations have constantly matched various poetic styles with chronicles,biographies,records and other historical biographies,so as to enhance the documentary and narrative nature of poetry.It makes the theory of "history of poetry",with documentary and narrative nature,brilliant again since the Song Dynasty (960-1279).During the reign of Jiajing (1522-1566) in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644),Kong Tianyin summarized this style as "taking history as poetry" and "the unity of emotion and affairs".In particular,the poets who experienced social unrest and great chaos in the Ming and Qing (1636-1912) dynasties promoted narrative poetry in the process of inheriting the tradition of "taking history as poetry".The theory of "history of poetry" was also accompanied by questions and arguments about until the emergence of the theory of "history of heart" in the Qing Dynasty.On the one hand,"history of heart" not only emphasizes the lyric nature of poetry,but also takes into account the narrative performance,thus it combines "poetry" with "history";on the other hand,it regards "heart" and "emotion" as ways of special narration,emphasizing the function of poetry in narrating "heart",making it a kind of mental history in a certain sense and essentially emphasizing "the unity of emotion and affairs".Therefore,the theories of "history of heart" and "history of poetry" go hand in hand,and they influence the construction of historiography.Based on this,it’s easy to understand why Qian Zhongshu has proposed that "poetry contains history" and "history contains poetry".

Key words: history as poetry, narrative, lyric, history of poetry, history of heart