Lu Ji and the Evolution of Literary Consciousness in Wei and Jin Dynasties

Yu Hao Min

Executive summary? After the era of Cao Pi ended, China's literary consciousness continued to evolve in depth in theory and practice. Lu Ji connects the preceding with the following, revealing the characteristics of literature, exploring the laws of creation, establishing aesthetic standards, and exploring personal emotional world and pursuing artistic expressiveness in creation, thus effectively promoting the process of evolution. The intersection of Lu Ji's literary theory and creative practice shows the historical trend of literary consciousness.

Key words? On the creative practice of Lu Ji's conscious literary theory

When literature got rid of its vassal status and gained an independent existence in social ideology, it strode into the ideological era. In the history of China literature, such an era originated in the late Han Dynasty, with the great changes in social ideology as the background and the impact of relatively free and liberated cultural thoughts as the driving force, which awakened people's own consciousness and also awakened people's literary consciousness. From the accumulation of literary consciousness in anonymous ancient poems to Cao Pi's era, there have been a series of unprecedented phenomena such as attaching importance to literary value, discussing system style, putting forward aesthetic requirements and evaluating the quality of works. Literary creation also sublates its own purpose and devotes itself to human expression and the creation of beauty. This is quite like what Lu Xun said, close to the western "school of art for art's sake" [1]. Of course, the historical significance of the two is incomparable. The conscious era of literature is a revolutionary process in which literature breaks the shackles of traditional functional concepts on creation and seeks full development according to its own laws. After taking a brilliant first step in the era of Cao Pi, it continued to evolve in depth and entered a new stage in the Western Jin Dynasty. To borrow Lu Xun's expression, it was the "Lu Ji era". Because both in theory and practice, the land rover can carry forward the past and effectively promote the evolution process. As far as its historical contribution is concerned, it is actually a horse of Cao Pi. This paper intends to examine Lu Ji's literary theory and creative practice from this angle, trying to reveal the historical trend of literary consciousness.

Literary theory connecting the preceding with the following.

Literature develops through constant practice, understanding and grasping. The attempt to raise literature from perceptual knowledge to rational grasp can be said to be an important symbol of its transition from comfortable stage to conscious stage. Lu Ji's "Wen Fu" is such a landmark attempt, which systematically discusses the creative process and its regularity and complexity for the first time. In fact, in the era of Cao Pi, rich creation has provided the possibility for this discussion. I think the reason why history chose Lu Ji lies in the inevitability of the evolution of literary consciousness. Lu Ji's exposition is based on the fact that literature increasingly shows its ontological form. During the pre-Qin and Han dynasties, literature was submerged in its utilitarianism. Literary criticism at the turn of the Han Dynasty began to pay attention to the subjectivity of literature, but the evaluation of writers such as Qu Yuan, Sima Qian and Fu still focused on the relationship between the ideological tendency of the creative subject, character cultivation and the function of the works. During the Han and Wei Dynasties, the prosperity of lyric literature and the progress of artistic forms made people further explore the relationship between the personality temperament of the subject and the style of the works, and gradually saw the existence of literary ontology through the surreal aesthetic level of the works. In Cao Pi's Dian Lun Wen, from literary style to stylistic theory, the news that literary criticism is moving from subjectivity to ontology is revealed. But the atmosphere has just begun, and many problems have not been discussed in depth. With the re-prosperity of literature in the Western Jin Dynasty, the discussion on style has moved from abstract generalization to concrete analysis, such as Fu Xuan's "Preface", Huangfu Mi's "Preface to Sandu Fu" and Zhiyu's "Farewell". On this basis, it is an inevitable trend to further break through the limitations of each individual and enter the ontology level. Wen Fu came into being. It not only briefly discussed the systematic styles of various styles, but also focused on the creation, conception, layout and revision, which reflected the in-depth development of literary consciousness in theoretical form. Later, in the second half of Liu Xie's "Wen Xin Diao Long", the creation was clearly discussed from all aspects, which was that "the essence of literature is based on local machines" [2], so its discussion was more comprehensive and in-depth on the basis of literary prose. From Cao Pi to Liu Xie, literary criticism changed from style to noumenon, from shallow to deep, and the evolution track was obvious, among which Lu Ji was in the key position of connecting the preceding with the following. Observing the noumenon of literature and attaching importance to the objective existence of the laws of literature itself also shows that the understanding of literature has improved to a new historical height. When literature is regarded as a tool, it will be despised once it fails to achieve the expected function of society. Yang Xiong criticized Li Yan's ci-fu for its satirical and admonitory nature, which changed his attitude towards ci-fu, denouncing it as "a teenager who carves insects and seals" and "a strong man does not do it" [3], which typically reflected the traditional view of literary function. Cao Pi thought that literature had its own value and was a breakthrough and transcendence of tradition, but it was still immature like a newborn in theory. For example, the single-line poem in Dian Lun Wen is a subject, which highlights its independent position, but at the end of the four subjects, there are still traces of taking it as the last skill; He also advocates the theory of literary spirit, emphasizing that writers have the innate temperament and talent to form the style of their works and create artistic value in their creation, and regards literature as the creation of artistic personality. However, the statement that "it is impossible to achieve it by force" shows that they lack a certain understanding of the laws of literature itself and the writers' dynamic grasp of it. Lu Ji corrected this problem in "Wen Fu", and listed poetry and Fu as ten major styles, revealing the essential characteristics of their emotional objects: while not excluding the influence of writers' natural factors on the success or failure of their works, he affirmed the existence of "Wen Fu and literary laws", believing that grasping them is not only a theoretical problem of "knowledge", but also a practical problem of "ability", which means that with the evolution of literary consciousness, people began to These theoretical opinions are of historical significance to the literary theory of the Southern Dynasties. The theory of writing style summarizes the increasingly subdivided writing styles into two categories, which are roughly equivalent to pure literature and miscellaneous literature, and reveals the essential characteristics of the former more clearly on the basis of Lu Ji's Beautiful Love. For example, Yi Yun Jr. said: "A person as excellent as a writer must be full of flowers, courtiers, lips and kisses, and emotions" [4]. It is worth noting that the first seven styles of prose are rhyming, while the last three styles are blank. Referring to the style of Liu Xie's essays, it can be said that the trend of writing has been predicted, so "the charm of love" has also become a generally accepted aesthetic concept about pure literature in the Southern Dynasties. For example, Wang Yun called Xiao Tong's works "chanting spirit, not just thinness." Regarding the emphasis on the law of creation in Wen Fu, Liu Xie gave full play to its connotation, and clearly put forward the idea of "mastering art and mastering articles", and further explained that mastering the objective law of creation should be combined with the author's subjective creative emotion in order to write good works. The so-called "step by step, wait for the situation, keep pace with the times, and move correctly" [6]. The discussion of Lu Ji also reflects the progress of literary aesthetic concept. Literary creation is a perceptual aesthetic creation activity, which is destined to move from the beauty of "nature" in childhood to the beauty of "human voice" with rich feelings. The first to consciously conform to this historical trend in practice is not the extravagant and ruthless Han Da Fu, but the ancient poems at the end of the Han Dynasty praised by Shi Pin as "soft and sad". Dian Lun Wen is theoretically embodied for the first time. Cao Pi believes that "literature is based on qi", and on this basis, he advocates that "poetry and prose are beautiful". However, his statement is not clear enough and his theory needs to be improved. Although Jian 'an literature is based on temperament and emotion, Cao Pi himself failed to explain the relationship between qi and emotion. Qi, as the basis of various styles, is not the essential feature of poetry and fu. Moreover, he did not discuss the generation of emotions in literary creation and how to modify emotions to make works gorgeous. Lu Ji's "Wen Fu" further clarified: "Poetry is beautiful because of emotion and clear because of style." In view of the tendency of the confluence of poetry and fu in Wei and Jin Dynasties, these two sentences can be said to be intertextual, which not only summarizes the characteristics of literature, but also reveals the historical trend of aesthetic creation. Lu Ji still stands at the height of theory, focusing on the formation mechanism of emotional and interesting aesthetic style. He absorbed the reasonable core of the traditional "sense of things" theory, and thought that the writer "looked at the four seasons and sighed, looked at everything and thought about disputes", and the block in his chest was caused by the search for the four seasons, which produced creative passion. Then, through conception and imagination, "the feelings are hazy and fresh, and things are clear and progressive", creating an aesthetic image of blending scenes. It is of great significance to introduce natural scenery into the creation of beauty here, which not only shows the conscious concern for the unity of subject and object in aesthetic creation, but also points out a concrete way for creative practice, that is, to have feelings in things, so that the writer's personal feelings can be better expressed through concrete and sensible images. At the same time, the "shape difference" of things also leaves a place for the use of essays. Giving literary images a beautiful form requires various expressive skills. Lu Ji's ideas of "knowing is wonderful", "commenting on words is elegant" and "iteration of sound and sound" all point to the forging of language art, among which "knowing is wonderful" is mostly interpreted as ingenious conception. I think it should belong to the writing level of "grasping the meaning" in the narrative structure of Wen Fu, which is comparable to the choice of words and sentences and temperament. Meaning and things are integrated into images, which convey the emotional connotation of meaning completely and vividly through poor forms and things. This is the so-called "cleverness" in language expression, so predecessors interpreted it as "filial piety" [8]. Later, Shen Yue said that Sima Xiangru's poems were "shaped like clever words", Zhong Rong commented that Zhang Xie's poems were "shaped like clever words", and Liu Xie said that "things are based on emotion, so words must be clever and beautiful" [9], which is also evident from the relationship between language and things. Lu Ji's aesthetic view of emotion and talent had a great influence on the literary theory of the Southern Dynasties. Liu Xie's "Wen Xin Diao Long" specially set up two chapters on emotion and talent to explain the relationship between things, emotion and talent. Zhong Rong's Poems holds that "things are touching and make people full of energy", and advocates that literary creation should "write things with poverty" and "dry them with wind and moisten them with Cai Dan". Both of them are descendants of Lu Ji. From the perspective of creative practice, from Liu Song's landscape poems to Qi Liang's poems about objects, the pursuit of artistic, literary and melodic scenery has become a popular aesthetic orientation in the Southern Dynasties. All these show that Lu Ji's rational grasp of literary beauty has played an important role in the process of literary independence and artistic progress.

Creation with good feelings

Practical literature is human studies. The awakening of human nature has brought literary consciousness, and real life has increasingly become the theme of literary expression, and the emotional world full of social life experience has been continuously explored in breadth and depth. Inspired by literary consciousness, Lu Ji, corresponding to his theory, richly expressed human themes in his creation: either lamenting the shortness of life, or hurting the hardships of life, or telling the sadness of the journey, or expressing people's sorrow. Ancient poems are full of these thrilling emotional contents at that time, and the concept of propriety, righteousness and morality can't stop them from gushing out. Its emotional appeal evokes sadness and breaks the traditional line of defense. It is sadness without injury and resentment without anger. It not only comes from the tragic aesthetic taste with the strongest aesthetic consciousness at that time, but also comes from an awakening consciousness of the conflict between individuals and society. In Lu Ji's quasi-ancient poems, you can feel a beating heart that shocks you, and hear the sad melody played on the sad heartstrings with excited fingers. For example, A Farewell to the Altair makes homeless women cry in despair in the twilight, which makes people feel that the world is indifferent and the seasons are fast. It was written by Lu Jizeng that Twilight Can't Meet, which is in sharp contrast with the legendary meeting of Cowherd and Weaver Girl on Tanabata. It vividly writes that the short life has passed through the endless pain brought by society, and highlights the human sorrow with the ruthlessness of time and space. People's theme and sad melody are saturated with his personal life experience. His works describe the road of life and express his feelings, unlike the traditional criticism of "shallow purpose, no temperament" and "shallow writing purpose, but his works are discredited" [10]. The regional historical consciousness and cultural mentality caused by the long-term separatist regime, the family status of Jiangnan and the political achievements of Dongwu famous officials have planted a strong sense of home and country and the ideal of fame and fortune in Lu Ji's heart. The changes of the times make them form complex psychological contradictions under the stimulation of different environments. Lu Ji struggled in the pain of this contradiction all his life, and literature became the propaganda of life pain. Shortly after Wu's death, he wrote a four-character poem "To My Brother Dragon" in chapter 10, which expressed the grief of family subversion and separation of flesh and blood. In the preface, it is clearly stated that "pretending to be a poem is a way for him to express his grief". The desire to revive the lintel drove him to take the heavy step of a scholar who died in the state of Wu, quit his family business, embarked on a difficult journey of pursuing fame and fortune, and then fell into uncontrollable contradictions. In creation, on the one hand, it is "going to Luo Daozhong" and "asking what's the matter, the world network treasures me. On the one hand, it is Long song's anxiety that "only I hate fame and fortune, and bamboo silk has nothing to say". However, his official career is not up to standard, which makes him describe the ups and downs of his fame with the hardships of a wanderer. He deeply felt that "the sky was not made, and the year was overcast", lamented that "life is not easy", and at the same time revealed the guilt of "I long for honesty, but I am ashamed of ancient and modern times". He used poems for loneliness and poems for friends to express his seclusion thoughts in order to comfort himself. But more is to express nostalgia for home and country, sadness for life, and vent inner pain. For example, in the preface to returning home, it is said that "I am afraid that the army will change, but the old wishes will be violated, and I am angry when I think about returning home." In Fu, I wrote about his loneliness in Beijing and Luoyang. "Sorrow is self-feeling, and worry is touching things. "In Ode to the Past, he lamented the collapse of his church structure and worried about the barren hills of his city." The pain of the death of his country and his family still struck his heart until he was puzzled. The decline of his old relatives made him feel dying, and he couldn't help but feel "sad from it". He thought that he would make a guest appearance in front of fame and fortune for a lifetime, but he deeply said such words as Howl. Lu Ji's works carried him. These intertwined feelings enrich the theme of people and strengthen the sad melody. Lu Ji's short and heavy life constitutes the background color of his emotions and the tone of his works. The dusk frequently described in his poems can be said to be the most concentrated tragic projection image. For example, A Sense of Time greatly renders the gloomy feeling of space and the fleeting feeling of time in the twilight. The former became a sinister symbol of the current situation in the poem "Garden Kwai". "Ceng Yun has no warm liquid, but severe frost has cohesive force", which shows his feelings about the political darkness in Luo Jing. The latter, on the other hand, put forward the sadness of "feeling that it is too late for the imperial concubine" in "Homesick Fu", lamenting that "human nature is too short" and voicing his own life sorrow. Lu Ji's generous elegy is not as vigorous and passionate as Jian 'an literature because of the comprehensive factors of the times and environment, but it sings his own flesh-and-blood feelings, echoes the inner shocking vibrato, is the conscious practice of his "destiny" theory, and embodies the literary development trend of creating for life, for self and enhancing individual feelings since Cao Pi's time. Cao Zhi said that he was "elegant and generous", and most of his later works were "angry youths" [11]; Ruan Ji's poems express his feelings of "being troubled and sad alone" [12]. The literature of the Western Jin Dynasty pays more attention to the exploration of personal life and emotional experience, such as Zuo Si's resentment against the door society and Pan Yue's deep mourning for his dead wife, which are full of strong personality. Because Lu Ji can stand on the height of theoretical consciousness, this aspect is more fully demonstrated. Driven by Taikang literature represented by him, people tend to regard literature as a declaration of life depression and have their own feelings in their works. For example, most of Xie Lingyun's landscape poems are similar to those of Wei and Jin Dynasties. The so-called "metaphysical ending" is often a piece in the author's chest because of the trigger of scenery and "generous life management" [13]. Lu Ji's travel poems, expressing the sadness of his life experience, were naturally valued in the Southern Dynasties. For example, Jiang Yan's Miscellaneous Poems imitated Lu Ji's Poem of Returning to Luo, which shows the influence of such poems on Dayu. In Yu Xin, the literary leader of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, his influence can still be clearly seen. Yu Xin's masterpiece "Jiangnan Fu" poured out the pain of his life experience and the pain of his motherland. Lu Ji is mentioned many times in the Preface, which is not only similar to their life experiences, but also lies in the inheritance of their creative purpose and literary concept. For example, the preface says that "chasing this poem, talking in words, is not without danger and suffering, mainly based on sadness." Literature is the creation of beauty. From the ancient poem "Wen Wen Yi Li" to Cao Zhi's "Ci Picking Hua Mao", it shows that the creative subject began to consciously pursue the aesthetic power of the works to enhance the lyrical effect. Lu Ji's creative efforts have achieved the "beauty" advocated by himself, while the modern interpretation has cleared up the previous misinterpretation of "beauty" and regarded it as a wonderful metaphor for the overall style of the work [14]. In creation, Lu Ji always mobilizes various expressive skills and rhetorical devices to strengthen emotions and achieve the overall aesthetic effect. For example, Gu Yanxian, to Business, vividly depicts the appearance of the erotic rain by means of description, antithesis, metonymy, truthfulness, elegant words, etc. After accumulating enough momentum, it effectively jumps out of the last sentence, "Nothing is impossible when you talk about it", and combines the deep affection for your hometown with the emotional images of groups, which constitutes the artistic conception of the poem and gives people an overall aesthetic feeling. Zhong Rong's Poetry called Lu Ji's five-character poem "magnificent", and so did other works. Luji also attached great importance to the acoustic effect of language, and put forward the aesthetic requirement of "sound iteration" for the first time in theory. Due to the lack of reference materials about melody at that time, we can't grasp his pursuit in practice. However, in some poems, such as Far Building Heaven, Once in the Dark, A Journey to Bitter Cold, and The Mysterious Ape Tanan, it seems that we can see traces of intentionally using homophonic words repeatedly. Lu Ji's artistic pursuit is various, which has played a guiding and promoting role in artistic progress, such as the beauty of objects, the iteration of sounds, the shaping of landscape poetry language, Yongming's weight and temperament, etc. But in the past, some critics criticized Lu Ji for "establishing an exclusive family" because they failed to grasp the internal pulse of literary consciousness in this pursuit. For example, the poem "Special Group Battle" by Liang and Chen is its "origin" [15]. In fact, Cao Pi advocated that "poetry should be beautiful", and beauty and accident were closely related in the eyes of the ancients [16]. The book Wen Xin Diao Long Mei Ci discusses duality, and the arrangement of even sentences can really give people a whole and rich aesthetic feeling, which has a certain thickness for description and publicity. In "Wen Fu", Lu Ji asked his works to avoid being short and monotonous, and his creation of material feelings also consciously used parallelism for multi-level and multi-faceted description, striving to make the works rich in content and form, as if they could be played with countless voices. The western Jin literature represented by him is the inevitable result of the practice of "poetic beauty", which reflects the evolution of literary consciousness in practical form. Of course, parallelism is sometimes dull, and the ideal "overlapping couple" was not recognized theoretically until the development of Liu Xie's practice, but it promoted the pursuit of neat and symmetrical beauty in poetry by later generations, and finally led to the finalization of antithetical sentences in nearly physical rhythm poems. Another example is imitation. It is necessary to make a brief analysis of the predecessors' saying that Lu Ji "is bound to follow the past" [18]. Lu Ji's imitation of ancient poetry is the most important. In fact, it contains the understanding of the literary value of ancient poetry and the acceptance of its aesthetic consciousness. Because the times are too close, Jian 'an poets are in the agitation of the practical significance of ancient poetry, so they can't observe it surreally and calmly. In the Western Jin Dynasty, after half a century's test, it initially showed eternal artistic charm. Lu Ji first captured its literary beauty with the keen eyes of theorists and made great efforts to imitate it. This means that ancient poetry began to be respected and studied as a model of the new lyric genre of five-character poetry. Lu Ji tried to explore the law of emotional expression and aesthetic creation of five-character poems through imitation, which reflected his conscious concern for creation and communicated his theoretical spirit. In addition, imitation itself was mainly used as a way to learn the works of the previous generation in Wei and Jin Dynasties. Strictly speaking, it does not belong to creation, it is different from the similarity in creation criticized by Wen Fu, so it is not contradictory to the aesthetic requirements of innovation as the opposite of similarity. There are many original opinions and novel descriptions in Lu Ji's works, and even there are many witty remarks in his proposed works, which is consistent with the proposition of "attacking without breaking" in Wen Fu. Above, we put Lu Ji's literary theory and creative practice into the historical process of literary consciousness, and found that they are not contradictory as some critics think [19], but can be completely communicated. Although there is a gap between "knowledge" and "ability" that the landers themselves are aware of, their convergence shows the historical trend of literary consciousness. Interestingly, Lu Ji himself "obeys Confucianism" [20], but he can jump out of the fence of Confucianism in literature, keep up with the trend of literary development, show a sense of following objective laws, and make contributions to the evolution of literary consciousness needed by his times. Although his contribution has long been surpassed by history, his contribution to the development of literature is still outstanding in the history of China literature.

Note [1] Lu Xun's Wei and Jin demeanor and the relationship between his articles and medicine and wine. [2] Zhang Xuecheng' Literature and History Yi Tong Shide'. [3] Yang Xiong's "Fa Wu Yan Zi". [4] Xiao Yi's "Golden House Yan Zili". [5] ieee fellow's "The Funeral of Prince Zhaoming", "All Liang Wen" Volume 65. [6] Liu Xie's Wen Xin Diao Long General Shu. [7][ 17] Shen Yue's Song Xie Shu Lingyun Biography. [8] Fang Ting's "Zhao Ming Wen Xuan Da Cheng Wen Fu" is quoted from Zhang Shaokang's "Wen Fu Ji Jie". [9] See Biography of Song Xie Shu Lingyun, Poetry and Long Quan Fu of Wen Xin Diao. [10] See Chen Ruoming's Collection of Ancient Poems and Ci Poems, Volume X, and The Origin of Ancient Poems and Ci Poems in Shen Deqian, Volume VII. [1 1] White Horse See Cao Zhi's Preface to Historical Records of Wang Biao. [12] One of Ruan Ji's poems about nostalgia. [13] Xie lingyun's "Lu Ji Shan Chuan", "Selected Works of Mao Zedong", Volume 26. [14] See Zhou's The Significance of Lu Ji's Literary Fu, No.2 Literature, History and Philosophy, 1963. [15] The Source of Ancient Poetry Volume 7. [16] For example, Zhou Li Shimonoseki Jiao Ren notes: "Beauty, even". [18] Selected Poems of Cai Jitang, Volume 10. [19] See Lu Kanru's Essays on Classical Literature, Theory and Practice of Lu Ji's Creation, and Two Cases of Lu Ji's Literary Fu. [20] "The Biography of Jin Lu".

Original load: Yinshan Daily 1994/04