① The theory of soul was directly inspired by Li Zhi's theory of childlike innocence, which was a concrete manifestation of the struggle against Neo-Confucianism in literary theory at that time. After the middle of Ming Dynasty, with the collapse of feudal autocracy and the rise of capitalism, the academic and ideological circles launched a criticism and struggle against Zhu Cheng's Neo-Confucianism. Li Zhi pointed out in his masterpiece Childlike Heart that the greatest feature of Confucian Neo-Confucianism is "falsehood", while he advocated "truth" and opposed the falsehood and false stories of dummies with real people. He advocates that literature should write "childlike innocence", that is, "sincerity", which is "a childlike innocence" that has not been influenced by hypocritical Neo-Confucianism. He believes that the essence of writing "childlike innocence" in all literary works in the world is to express "true feelings" and oppose describing "false feelings" bound by Confucianism. This laid the ideological and theoretical foundation for the theory of soul. Li Zhi's closest Jiao □, under the influence of his childlike innocence, once clearly pointed out: "Poetry is not where it belongs, but where human nature originated." (Preface to the Collection of Elegant Entertainment Pavilion) advocates that poetry creation should be "flowing freely from the chest" (writing), "coming from nature" and "speaking in Tao" (Preface to Zhu Langzhai's Poems). If you don't feel it, you won't get excited (preface to the collection of elegant entertainment pavilions). Tang Xianzu is a dramatist who highly respects Li Zhi, and he is also consistent with Li Zhi in literary thought. Tang Xianzu emphasized "emotion" and opposed "reason". He thinks that "sentient beings are unreasonable, while rational ones are ruthless" (Shuo Wen), pointing directly at the preaching of Zhu Cheng's Neo-Confucianism, "Preserve justice and destroy human desires". Tang Xianzu's "emotion" is actually "spirit". For example, in the preface of Yun Xuan's Quotations, he praised the article "People with unique spirituality are the ears of dragons". As the disciples of Li Zhi and Jiao, the "three-element theory" of public security advocated by Yuan Zongdao, Yuan Hongdao and Yuan Zhongdao came from this. Yuan Mei emphasized the spirit of nature, and to some extent inherited the anti-Neo-Confucianism tradition of his predecessors. In "Answering Shen Da Zong Bo's Comments on Poems", he objected to commenting on poems with gentleness and sincerity, and thought that "gentle and sincere teaching poems" was "Confucius' words, which had no basis in reading classics". In the article "Answering Li Shaohe's Letter", he clearly said: "When Confucius talks about poetry, who can be trusted, who is optimistic, who is optimistic, who is a group, who hates; An untrustworthy person is gentle and honest. "He believes that writing poems with tenderness and sincerity will inevitably hinder the expression of authenticity. Starting from the spirit of advocating nature, he also boldly affirmed the love poems between men and women. Contrary to the Taoist theory of "lewd operation", he thought that "yin and yang couples are also the ancestors of colourful poems" (Re-writing with Shen Dazong Bo). This has obvious rebellious significance to feudal ethics, especially to Zhu Cheng's Neo-Confucianism. The theory of soul requires that poetry can freely express the poet's personality and truly reflect the poet's own desires and feelings. This is the result of the initial demand for personality liberation caused by the germination of capitalist factors after the middle of Ming Dynasty, which was of progressive significance at that time.
(2) The theory of soul is also aimed at the ideological trend of opposing retro simulation in the literary and art circles at that time. The retro-ism advocated by the seven poets in the Ming Dynasty brought serious consequences to literary and artistic creation, and made poetry generally fall into a dead end of imitation. In Childlike Heart, Li Zhi put forward the question "why poetry should be ancient in the Selected Works and why prose should be pre-Qin", and thought that writing "childlike heart" would be a powerful attack on retro literary thought. It was the police school that further developed Li Zhi's thought and put forward the word "change", pointing out that literature of each era has its own characteristics and must be original to be a good work. Yuan Hongdao's creative principle of "changing with poverty" in the preface to Xue Taoting's Collection is fundamentally different from that of the former and the latter seven scholars. The thought of "change" of the public security school is based on the theory of soul. Because both poetry and prose are spiritual expressions, and spirituality is shared by all people, and different people in different times are different, so the standard of commenting on literary works should be to look at the true spiritual performance and not to look at the pros and cons of the times. As Wang Fuzhi said: "You can't borrow what the soul owns, so you can't open a convenient method for the humble to borrow." (□ Zhai Shihua) Retroism in the Yuan Mei era was not as rampant as that in the Ming Dynasty, and the rest was inherited by Shen Deqian's model theory. Therefore, Yuan Mei sharply criticized Shen Deqian's tone theory from the perspective of the theory of soul. He clearly pointed out in "Answering Shen Da Zong Bo's Poems": "Poetry is clumsy, but not modern"; Because "temperament meets, everyone has me." He also believes: "where there is temperament, there is meter, and meter is not outside of temperament." (Poetry in the Garden) He doesn't completely deny the meter, but advocates the natural and living meter based on temperament, not the dead meter that binds people's temperament. Yuan Mei is more valuable than the police, because it is not absolute. He believes that the ancients should also learn from their creations, but should not learn from the past. They should take their own spirit as the basic starting point: "there are ancient people who are prepared for danger in times of peace, but they have profound academic ability;" The pen is unprecedented, and the spirit begins. " (ditto) He advocates "multi-teacher": "Shao Lingyun: Multi-teacher is my teacher, not only for people who can teach, but also for village children. Every word, every smile, is my secretary. " He also resolutely opposes the popular view that poetry is judged by Tang poetry or Song ci, saying: "Poetry doesn't matter whether it is Tang or Song. The country names in Tang and Song Dynasties have nothing to do with poetry. Poets, each with his own temperament, have nothing to do with the Tang and Song Dynasties. If you treat the Tang and Song Dynasties as enemies, you will have a dead name in your heart, but you will not be complacent, and you will lose the original intention of the poem. ("Answering Shi Lan's Poems")
(3) Starting from the requirement of real and direct expression of feelings, the theory of soul advocates the natural, fresh, simple and smooth beauty of poetry art, and opposes carving chapters and sentences, piling up allusions and taking learning as poetry. The public security school emphasizes the truth, interest and lightness of poetry, which is the embodiment of "true spirit" They advocate simplicity and oppose lead China: "A husband's quality is still good, and he thinks that there will be fewer vermicelli without elegant decoration, but more vermicelli." (Yuan Hongdao's Introduction to Storing Manuscripts in Xing Suyuan) advocates that literary language should be close to spoken language: "In self-confidence, leave your mouth on your wrist." (Yuan Hongdao's "Xu Meizi's Mawang City Draft") "Words also represent the heart, and texts also endorse." (Yuan Zongdao's Thesis) However, the police faction has a superficial disease. Yuan Mei is different from the police. He argues that the beauty of nature can be achieved through algae decoration: "Bear's paw and leopard's fetus are the most precious foods. It is better to eat a vegetable than to eat it alive. Peony, peony, flowers are rich, and it is better to cut them than wild horseradish. If the taste is fresh and the interest is true, people must know this before they can talk about poetry. " ("Poetry with the Garden") emphasizes the plain nature through skill and tempering: "Pearls are not white, pure gold is not yellow, and beauty is as rotten as the morning glow. Although holding the bones of the immortals, they were also made up strictly. The bandits bathed in He Jie and didn't smell anything. Xi is covered with hair, but he doesn't care. If it weren't for Yu Hua, don't say goodbye to Feng Di. " ("Continued Poetry Cai Zhen") thinks that "poetry should be simple and unfortunate, but it must be simple and clever; Poetry should be rich, but it must be rich. " Ye Shushan was quoted as saying: "However, if labor is not extreme, it will not come naturally." There are also differences between Yuan Mei's theory of spiritual nature and that of the police. If Yuan Mei's "sex" is "emotion", then "god" is close to talent, such as "thinking with a pen depends entirely on talent", "people can be wood, poetry can't be wood" (ibid.), and "wood" is the lack of talent and spirit.
Advocates of the theory of soul are opposed to the trend of "dropping books" with learning as poetry. Zhong Rong criticized this tendency of "thanking genius and expressing knowledge" in Preface to Poetry. Yuan Mei clearly expressed his views when criticizing Weng Fanggang's theory of "losing the book bag". He pointed out that poetry mainly expresses the spirit, not "learning for textual research". If "copying a book as a poem by mistake", why write a poem? This is not to say that you can't use allusions in poetry, but you should not "take poetry as a textual research". Li Shangyin, for example, thinks that although there are not many allusions in his poems, they are all driven by talents and don't specialize in bricklaying.
④ The theory of "soul" takes whether the true feelings can be expressed as the standard to evaluate the quality of poetry, thus breaking the traditional feudal class prejudice that belittles folk literature and greatly improving the status of popular literature. Yuan Hongdao: "Today, the obedient girl sings" Broken Jade "and" Beating the Straw Stick ",which is still unknown. It is made by real people, so it is more authentic." Yuan Mei also praised The Book of Songs as "half-labor and half-thinking about women", and "women and women are ignorant of the village, and occasionally have a sentence or two. Li, although revived, must first be depressed "("Suiyuan Poetry "). They also attach great importance to opera and novels. They think that no matter whether they are bureaucratic doctors or literati women, as long as they can recite their true temperament, they are all good works.