China's ancient poems are rich in content and diverse in style. In a dazzling array of poetry galleries, some are fascinating because of their "interest". For example, Su Shi's famous four-line "Topic Xilin Wall" wrote:
Looking at Lushan Mountain from the front and side of peaks and valleys, from far, near, high and low places, Lushan Mountain presents various faces. I can't recognize the true face of Lushan Mountain because I am there.
This is a mystery poem, but it is lively and interesting. Su Shi used the analogy of being in Lushan Mountain to explain a very profound truth: if a person is trapped in a specific environment or event and can't get rid of it, he can't fully and objectively understand the truth of this environment and event, and often tends to be one-sided and subjective. Later, "I don't know the true face of Lushan Mountain, but I am only in this mountain" almost became a common idiom. This is what our ancient tradition calls a poem full of "rational interest".
The word "interest in reason" was first put forward by Song people. Bao Hui said in the article A Comment on Zeng's Poems: "The ancients wrote poems carefully and didn't write much. When a poem comes out, it is the best in the world, with interesting form and clear form, and the object is in the state of things. " Bao Hui believes that any poem can achieve "interest" as long as it has a good "form". "Rational interest", as its name implies, is to be rational and interesting. This problem is closely related to the characteristics of Song poetry. Influenced by the trend of reception studies and Han Yu's "taking literature as poetry", the difference between Song poetry and Tang poetry lies in its emphasis on reasoning. In the Ming Dynasty, Li Mengyang once said that "Song people were in charge of reason" (Preface of Poetry Collection). However, too much emphasis on reasoning may make poetry boring, produce conceptual shortcomings, and even damage and ignore the image thinking characteristics of poetry. However, writing poems with the abstract thinking method of writing general theoretical articles will cause some poems influenced by Taoism in the Song Dynasty to become the rhyming body of quotations and handouts in Neo-Confucianism. Then, how to make poetry focus on reasoning without violating the special laws of art itself? This will unify the reason and interest in poetry and achieve a harmonious realm. The so-called "interest" is aimed at the artistic characteristics of poetry and requires poetry to arouse readers' aesthetic interest. Yan Yu said in Cang Shi Hua Bian: "Poetry has different interests and has nothing to do with reason." In fact, it is not to deny "reason", but to emphasize that only "reason" cannot be regarded as poetry, and poetry must also be "interesting"
Many writers and artists in ancient China believed that poetry was "interesting" and could not be trapped in "obstacles" or "mortar". The so-called "reasoning obstacles" and "reasoning mortar" refer to those works in reasoning poems that violate the special laws of art and lose aesthetic characteristics. Hu Yinglin in the Ming Dynasty said in his poem: "Cheng Shao likes to reason, but he is bound by reason and obstacles." This means that Cheng Hao's, Cheng Yi's and Shao Yong's poems are just dry lectures on Neo-Confucianism, lacking beautiful images. A Qing poet Shen Deqian once quoted Du Fu's poems and Shao Yong's poems for comparative analysis. He said:
Du Shi: "If the mountains and rivers are waiting, the flowers and willows are selfless." "The fish in the deep water is in bliss, and the birds in the forest know each other." "The heart of water is indisputable, and it is too late for the cloud to care." Everyone is interested in being sexy. Shao Zi said, "When the sun first moves, everything is lifeless." Make a poem out of reason.
Du Fu wrote some truths he learned from his specific life experiences. In his poem After Travel, he realized that nature is selfless from beautiful scenery and beautiful flowers. In the poem Autumn Wild, I realized that people can live and work in peace and contentment only if there is clear politics. In the poem "Jiang Ting", we realize that nature runs according to its own laws from "the flow of water" and "the existence of clouds". Knowing this, people's idea of not competing and flying naturally disappears. These truths cannot be expressed by abstract concepts and reasoning. However, Shao Yong's poems are purely neo-Confucianism dogma, which shows that everything begins in Yang and nothing is born. Such poems have no beautiful image, and obviously fall into the "rational fence" and have no "rational interest".
However, most poets in the Song Dynasty, including some poems written by Taoism, also noticed that the "reason" in poetry should be interesting. For example, in the Northern Song Dynasty, Cheng Hao once praised Shi's two poems: "I would like to talk to birds, and I will continue to make flowers and trees", which is "to describe awe". (See Letter from the Cheng Family in Henan Province) Volume 4 of My Talk in the Woods by Wu, a poet of the Song Dynasty, quoted many poems by Ye Shi, a materialist philosopher in the early Southern Song Dynasty, and pointed out that these poems all expressed certain "righteousness" with the help of concrete and vivid images. For example, three poems, one for Pan Dejiu, and the one titled "Self-cultivation Garden" by Wang all contain some kind of "meaning" with vivid images, which are not only easier for readers to understand, but also more profound than abstract reasoning. However, those well-known and interesting works in the Song Dynasty are not nearly illustrated poems in Neo-Confucianism. This is the historic title Xilin Wall mentioned earlier. In other words, those poems that are truly loved by everyone and have a high artistic level are those that are good at revealing some truth of life through concrete and vivid descriptions. For example, Su Shi's Mianchi Nostalgia:
What is life like everywhere? It should be like Hong Fei stepping through the snow. I accidentally left my fingers and claws in the snow, and Hong Fei was driving that complicated thing! The old monk is dead and has become a new tower. There is no reason to look at the old topic with a broken wall. Remember the rugged past? The road is long and the donkey hisses.
This is a poem written by Su Shi to his younger brother Su Zhe. It tells the story of the poet and his younger brother passing Mianchi County when they went to Beijing to attend the ceremony, living in a temple and writing poems on the temple wall. The first four sentences in the poem take slush as a metaphor, which illustrates a thought-provoking philosophy of life: due to the ups and downs of the world, the early experiences, ideals and ambitions are like slush claws, which makes people recall with emotion. At first glance, such a poem seems unreasonable, but after careful understanding, you will feel that it contains profound truth.
In the Song Dynasty, some poems were entirely landscape poems or lyric poems, but they often contained reasoning elements, and because of their profound and interesting reasoning, they became the "warning language" of the whole poem. For example, Lu You's poem "Tour Shanxi Village" wrote:
Don't laugh at the farmhouse music brewed in the muddled month. In the harvest month, the dishes for guests are very rich. There is no way to go because of the winding water flow in the mountains, and a mountain village suddenly appears in the willow-green flower bay. Xiao Gu followed the Spring Club and dressed simply and quaint. In the future, if you can go out in the moonlight, I will knock on your door at any time with my cane.
As far as the whole poem is concerned, it is a travelogue poem describing the pastoral scenery. However, the phrase "suspicious no way back, there is another village in the dark" is not only a realistic description, but also contains profound truth. Because of the profound philosophical content of these two poems, this poem has also been passed down through the ages. Another example is Su Shi's "Hui Chong Chunjiang Xiaojing" wrote:
Two or three peach blossoms outside the bamboo forest and ducks in the water first noticed the warm spring. Artemisia arenaria is full of short reed buds, which is the time when puffer fish want to fuck.
Judging from the description of spring scenery, this poem is not particularly outstanding. However, the phrase "The Prophet of Warm Duck on the Spring River" vividly writes a very common objective truth: Because ducks like to swim for food, they can first experience the coming of spring and the rise of water temperature. It tells us that only those who are in frequent contact with something and are most familiar with it can be most keenly aware of any subtle changes in it. It is "interest" that makes famous sentences in Su Shi's and Lu You's poems widely circulated.
Although the "rational interest" of poetry is mainly manifested in vivid and concrete images of beauty to express a concrete truth of life, it is not limited to this. Poetry with "rational interest" does not completely exclude "putting rational words into poetry". It is not absolutely impossible to write "rational language". The problem is to see the position and role of this "rational language" in the whole poem. If it is in harmony with the artistic image of the whole poem and is also an essential part of it, then this "rational language" can not only be "integrated into the poem", but also is often very necessary and indispensable. For example, Du Fu's famous sentence "From Beijing to Fengxian, 500 words" contains many arguments. For example:
When you give birth to Yao Shun, you can't help it any more. Nowadays, there is no shortage of corridors and temples. Sunflower is sunny, and its physical properties are hard to win. ..... Tong court points silks, which is from the cold girl. Whip her husband's family and gather in Miyagi Que. The sage is full of grace and really wants to live in the country. If I suddenly understand, will you abandon this thing?
Although these are abstract arguments and reasoning, we have no conceptual feeling when we look at them. On the contrary, we feel that they show Du Fu's lofty spiritual world of worrying about the country and the people very truly and affectionately. It is closely combined with the overall image of the whole poem and is one of the most important parts of shaping Du Fu's self-image.
Although paying attention to "reason and interest" is an important feature of Song poetry, its origin is very early. There are three clouds in Yuan Mei's Poetry with the Garden: "Or the cloud:' Poetry is unreasonable. "To say otherwise." Elegance ":'Stop at Ji Xi'; Is it irrational to' advance if you don't smell it, and retreat if you don't remonstrate'? How wonderful is it? " These two sentences in "Elegance" are praises and praises to Zhou Wenwang. The last sentence appeared in King Wen, praising his efforts. There is a saying in Four Wonders that Wang Neng listened to the opinions of his subjects with an open mind and adopted suggestions. During the Six Dynasties, many poets used the metaphysical philosophy of Laozi and Zhuangzi to write poems. It has always been denied that metaphysical poems fall into the "barrier of reason", but successful poets like Tao Yuanming and Xie Lingyun often express "metaphysical meaning" in their poems, but this does not affect the artistic level of their poems. Liu Xizai, a Qing Dynasty man, said in An Introduction to Art: "Xie Tao has its own advantages in using rational language. Zhong Rong's "Poetry" says that "Sun Chuo's, Huan's and Yu's poems are all moral", which is boring. My husband is so reasonable! "This statement makes sense. For example, in the last four sentences of Xie Lingyun's "Stone House Returning to the Lake", the word "Hyunri" is written: "There is nothing wrong with acting rashly when something happens, be reasonable. Send a message and bring a visitor to try this push. However, this is what the poet felt and realized from the landscape scenery in the evening, which is inextricably linked with the beautiful and beautiful scenery descriptions such as "the forest is full of color, the sunset glow gathers, the lotus stacks reflect the prestige, and the grass depends on each other". As Shen Deqian said when commenting on Xie Lingyun's poem "Gu Ying Zhao Zi You Jing Kou Bei" in The Source of Ancient Poems, "It is all in the bone height to put words into the poem without feeling its rot. "The so-called' corruption' means falling into the' barrier of reason', and' high bones' means having' interest in reason'. Another example is Shi Tao's seventeenth poem "Drinking", which reads:
Orchids are born in the vestibule, containing smoked breeze; The breeze is blowing against the wind, and the weeds are fragrant. Go on, lose my old way, conform to nature or Per. Now that you are awake to go, be careful that the bird abandons the bow.
The second half of this poem is purely reasoning, but it has "the interest of reasoning" instead of "the obstacle of reasoning". What Tao Yuanming said is that we should retire from the dark officialdom and live in seclusion in the countryside. It makes the meaning of the first four sentences more vivid and deeper. Therefore, Wang Fuzhi praised this poem as "true poem" in "Selected Ancient Poems", and "a poem of reasoning must be so as to be worthy of the author".
Due to the prosperity of Buddhism in the Tang Dynasty, especially the widespread popularity of Zen thought, many poets often express Zen in their works. Put Zen theory into poetry, pay special attention to reflecting Zen, and should not pile up Zen words. Shen Deqian said in the preface to Notes on Poems in Xiyingzhai on the Interpretation of the Laws of Yushan: "Poetry is more expensive than Zen. Wang Youcheng's poems:' Water stops me from walking, sit and watch Yun Qi',' The wind blows the reeds, and I am the piano, the mountains and the moon'; Wei Suzhou's poems:' The sound of scripture is in the deep bamboo, and the high room covers the door',' The water is calm and the stone is silent. How can the two phases be excited, and the thunder turns into an empty mountain'; Liu Shi:' I went to Dongling in the cold month, and I was thinning bamboo roots',' Some guests left their planes when the flowers fell'; In order to realize the Excellence. "Examples of poems by Wang Wei, Wei and Liu Zongyuan. What he quoted embodies the ethereal spirit of Zen, but it is all in the vivid pastoral scenery. There are both Zen principles and attractive images of beauty, which are the integration and unity of the two. Similar to some poems written purely in Zen, such as Wang Wei's "Visiting the Zen Master in Qingliang Temple in Summer", "If you want to ask about benevolence and righteousness, you can know it from a distance. In the eyes of mountains and rivers, the world is in the dharma body, and so on, which is fundamentally different. Since the Anshi Rebellion in the Tang Dynasty, the trend of worshipping Confucianism has gradually developed. Du Fu often integrated Confucian principles into his own poems, and in the middle Tang Dynasty, with the advocacy of Han Yu and others, it developed further. These obviously have a profound influence on the formation and development of the characteristics of "reason and interest" in Song poetry. Therefore, we can say that the "interest in reason" in Song poetry is the inheritance and development of the tradition of "interest in reason" in China's ancient poetry.
After reading Cold Anvil
Tao's evaluation is acceptable, while Xie's evaluation is exaggerated. As we all know, Xie Shijing often has a mysterious tail; Tao poetry also has tangible disadvantages, but it is much less.
involve
1 Page 2 of the preface to Lu Reader
2. Ge's "There is truth in this statement, but I forgot what I said-also on the rational taste of poetry"