Ouyang Xiu's early political thoughts reflected the interests of the small and medium-sized landlord class and had a clear understanding of the serious economic, political and military crisis at that time. Advocate with Yan and others to get rid of accumulated disadvantages, be broad, simple and innovative. In his later years, with the improvement of social status, his thoughts gradually became conservative, and he resisted and ridiculed some new laws of Wang Anshi. But more realistically, Sima Guang and others have different attitudes.
Ouyang Xiu plays an important role in the history of China literature. As the leader of the poetry innovation movement in Song Dynasty, his literary theory and creative achievements had a great influence on that time and later generations. In the early Song Dynasty, in the temporarily peaceful social environment, the poetic style advocated by the aristocratic literati group flooded the literary world, which was flashy and meaningless, but it was all the rage. In order to correct the shortcomings of Quincy's style, Ouyang Xiu strongly advocated ancient Chinese prose. He loved reading Han Yu's collected works since he was a child. After he became an official, he personally revised Korean and published it all over the world. He studied Han Yu's literary view and advocated Ming Dow's practical application. He emphasized the decisive role of Tao in writing and believed that Tao was the content, essence, form and tool of writing. Pay special attention to the cultivation of Taoism, and put forward that "literature" should be brilliant, "scholar" should be a teacher, and teachers should enrich themselves with "Tao" But he also corrected some of Han Yu's prejudices. In the interpretation of Tao, he regards the real thing as the concrete content of Tao, and opposes "abandoning everything and being irrelevant" and "talking without telling the truth". In dealing with the relationship between "Tao" and "Wen", it is advocated that "Tao" and "Wen" should be paid equal attention, and "Wen" must obey "Tao", but it is not that "a virtuous person must have words". Many examples are given to illustrate that "from the perspective of poetry and historical records, one can't be a scholar." Pointed out: "Words carry things, and words modify words. What you believe and say can be seen by the whole world. " The so-called "keeping your word" means that the content should be true, the language should be literary, and the content and form should be unified. This is Ouyang Xiu's basic argument about creation. His idea was warmly endorsed by others, such as Mei and others. Later, in the official exam (invigilator), candidates were encouraged to write simple and fluent ancient Chinese. Anything that is empty, flashy or wins by strangeness is excluded. At the same time, he promoted and trained Wang Anshi, Ceng Gong, Su Shi, Su Zhe and other new writers. In this way, the poetry innovation movement he advocated won a decisive victory.
Ouyang Xiu's achievements in literary creation are highest in prose. Su Shi commented on his article and said: "On Taoism, it is like Han Yu, on books, like Lu Zhi, on chronicles, like Sima Qian, and on poetry, like Li Bai." However, although Ouyang Xiu admired the profundity of Korean and Wang Yang was arrogant, he did not follow suit. His prose is concise and fluent, narrative reasoning, beautiful expression, lyrical scenery, fascinating, strange and flat, and a new face of literature. Many of his political works, such as Ben Lun, The Original Disadvantages, A Letter of Advice from the Old Secretary, The Theory of cronies, etc., adhere to their own thoughts of "Ming Dow" and "Practicing the World", closely link with the political struggle at that time, criticize the current disadvantages, have sharp thoughts and clear language, and show a mind of rectifying the current situation and saving the world. He also wrote a lot of lyric and narrative prose, mostly mixed with scenes and swaying. His works, such as Secretly Performing the Preface of Poetry, Preface of Poetry, Preface of Poetry by Su, mourn the old friend and recall the past, which is touching. His works "Fengle Pavilion" and "Zuiweng Pavilion" are written slowly, tactfully and tortuous, with beautiful words and fresh style. In a word, whether he satirizes the world, mourns the past, or comes to the scene in person, he fully embodies his artistic personality of calmness, generosity and integrity.
Ouyang Xiu also made great achievements in poetry creation. He "takes prose as poetry" Popular and fluent. Some ancient poems are not poetic, but some modern poems are both interesting and meaningful. In content, some of his poems reflect the pain of people's lives at that time. It has certain social significance. For example, in answering Yang Zijing's long sentence of praying for rain, he described the social reality of "the military and horses have not moved, single spark can start a prairie fire" and "the civil office is often empty"; "Eating Bad People" revealed that officials "drink official wine and coke every day". And the unreasonable phenomenon that people "spend winter and spring without porridge at the bottom of the kettle". But his purpose in writing these poems is clear: "Because Yin Jun told me widely, I took the advice and collected poems for me." In order to persuade the ruling class to improve politics and maintain feudal order. Other poems mostly express the poet's life feelings, such as "Thrushcross Birds": "A hundred tones follow, the mountains are red and purple; I realized that it is better to sing freely in the forest than to listen to the golden cage. " Write about the yearning for nature and free life.
Ouyang Xiu is not only good at writing poems, but also has new ideas from time to time. Later generations collected them into a book called Poems on June 1st. Guo Shaoyu, a modern man, said: "The name of poetic talk originated from Ouyang Xiu, that is, the style of poetic talk, and it can also be said that it originated from Ouyang Jia." (Textual Research on Song Poetry) Ouyang Xiu's poetics changed the previous practice of focusing on Lu's comments, important examples, practices or techniques, but was eclectic and refined. When he commented on poetry, although he did not abolish carving, he advocated returning to nature. In particular, he praised Mei's theory of "Italian new language workers", which pointed out the direction for the development of Song poetry.
Ouyang Xiu also occupied an important position in the early Song Dynasty. He wrote many words, most of which are similar to The Flower House. Most of them are about love and parting between men and women. But the style is high, the skills are skillful and there are many artistic treasures. For example, the last two sentences of "Walking on the Sand", which everyone is familiar with, say, "There are more amateurs in the spring mountains", and it is profound and subtle, giving people a novel and unique feeling. Another example is the first two sentences in Chao Zhong's mistake: "Pingshan fence leans against the clear sky, and there are both mountains and colors." Because the author is meticulous about things, it seems to be written casually, but in fact it is infinitely vivid. Without perfect works, he can't reach this artistic realm.
In addition, Ouyang Xiu also broke the strict metrical form of Fu style and wrote some essays. His famous Ode to Autumn Sound is comparable to Su Shi's Ode to the Red Wall, which has been circulated for thousands of years.
Ouyang Xiu's works are numerous, rich in content and remarkable in achievements. In addition to literature, Confucian classics has unique insights, epigraphy has pioneering power, and historical achievements are particularly great. His only son, Ouyang Fa, once made a statistic, and there are nearly 20 kinds of books, of which only 13 are included or preserved in Sikuquanshu. The current collection of Ouyang Wenzhong's official documents and the collection of Wen Zhong 153 in Sikuquanshu are relatively complete, and the fifth volume in the appendix is relatively complete.