Mingyue should know me and meet me in a foreign land year after year. Once called "Not every helper can do it" by Mr. Lu Xun ("From Help to Bullshit"), "On Poetry with Fate" is the most famous poet in Qing Dynasty. Author Yuan Mei (17 16- 1797) is from Qiantang, Zhejiang. After four years of Qianlong (1739), he chose Jishi Shu to join the Imperial Academy, and after seven years of Qianlong (1742), he was released to the south of the Yangtze River. As a "master of SAO altar", Yuan Mei has been in charge of politics and literature for 50 years. His poetic theory of "the theory of soul" was popular in Ganjia (1736- 1820), which swept away Shen Deqian's theory of archaizing and Weng Fanggang's unhealthy tendency of taking textual research as poetry, and made the poetry circle in Qing Dynasty look brand-new. Poetry with the Garden is a work compiled by Yuan Mei to publicize his aesthetic thought of "the theory of soul".
Song Renxu? He said: "Poets, distinguish syntax, prepare for the past and the present, remember virtues, record differences and correct mistakes." ("Xu Yanzhou's Poetry Talk") Therefore, poetry talk works mainly focus on comments, notes, or textual research. Generally, they are short essays. Of course, Suiyuan Shi Hua is also an essay, but its main content is to collect and record poems of spiritual nature and expound the poetic theory of "spiritual nature", with notes in the middle, which is different from previous poems. Its purpose is to demonstrate its theory by collecting and recording a large number of poems about the theory of the soul, or to collect and advocate outstanding works of contemporary people based on its aesthetic thought. This book * * * has 26 volumes (Shihua 16, Shihuabu 10), with nearly 570,000 words, and its scale is indeed unprecedented.
The essence of Suiyuan Poetry Talk is its aesthetic thought of "the theory of spiritual nature", as Mr. Qian Zhongshu said: "It is often simple and harmonious, which is not only a medicine stone at that time, but also enough to attack mistakes for future generations." Yuan Mei also commented that "there is still room for expressing one's own opinions and revealing the hidden light of virtue" (Building a House with Bi). Looking at the poetic theory of Suiyuan Poetry, the main purpose is to emphasize the conditions that the creative subject should have, which are mainly manifested in the three elements of true feelings, personality and poetic talent, and based on these three points, some specific viewpoints are born, thus forming a poetic theoretical system with true feelings, personality and poetic talent as its connotation. Here is a brief introduction:
First, the theory of true feelings. Shi Hua believes that the poet's creation must first have true feelings. As the saying goes, "a poet does not lose his childlike innocence", only when he has true feelings can he have the impulse to create: "Love is endless, and yěnyn turns into poetry." As a lyric art, poetry should naturally "write its own temperament", holding that "all people who preach poetry have spirituality, regardless of piling up" and opposing replacing spirituality with textual research. In Shi Hua, in order to oppose Shen Deqian's pseudo-Daoism, the poem "Expressing the love between men and women" was particularly emphasized. In view of the vivid feelings of poetry, the aesthetic function of poetry is the main one: "The sage said,' Poetry can flourish' because it is the easiest to infect people." It is good to emphasize that "poetry can enter the heart and spleen", so as to oppose the concept of "poetry teaching" in the name of "dynamic discipline"
Second, the theory of individuality. Shi Hua also thinks that the poet's creation needs individuality. As the saying goes, "You can't write a poem without me", and there is another saying, "People without me are puppets". Highlighting "I" means emphasizing the role of the poet's unique nature, temperament, aesthetic ability and other factors in his creation. Because there is "I", so the artistic conception requires originality. The so-called "careful solo and self-creation" can express one's own spirit, "create new ideas and express one's own views" and write excellent works that are far from the Jews. Different poets have different personalities and naturally form different styles. Shi Hua advocates the diversification of style. Poetry is like a natural flower, spring flowers and autumn chrysanthemums, each with its own show ... inaction is the first and second. Therefore, Wang Shizhen's verve poems neither praise nor belittle, pointing out that "there is only one ear in poetry" and "poetry need not be like this, so we should know this realm". The Book of Songs also focuses on criticizing the imitation of the "tone theory" from the seven poets in Ming Dynasty to Shen Deqian and the last stream of the Song School: "The seven poets in Ming Dynasty commented on poetry, but they don't know the present people, and they have different opinions." "If you know your temperament, you will have a rhythm, and the rhythm is not separated from your temperament." "Deliberately take the cold road of the Song Dynasty and ask beggars to move."
Third, the theory of poetic talent. "Spirit" refers to both temperament and pen power, which is characterized by quick thinking. "Poetry Talk" holds that "the way of poetry and prose lies in talent, and a wise person can understand it at a finger". Yuan Mei paid attention to poetry and talent, but he didn't give up school. So he pointed out that "anyone who reads more books is an important thing for a poet, so he must have a lot of books." It's just that the purpose is not to replace spirituality with scrolls, but to "help me with dignity." Therefore, Yuan Mei opposed Weng Fanggang's mistake of copying books as poems, and criticized "the poems of scholars are unpleasant to read". Based on poetic talent and spirituality, Shihua attaches great importance to the inspiration phenomenon of "inspiration" and "prosperity" produced by spiritual people when creating ideas, and advocates "the most beautiful nature", that is, art expresses nature without modification. Because of this, he especially appreciates the ballad of "thinking of women, being quiet and cunning". However, Yuan Mei did not object to people's merits, especially the literati poem "If people's merits are not extremely high, they will naturally not come; Although clouds are natural, they must be contested by people. The so-called "a hundred attempts become soft." This theory is quite artistic dialectics. As for the artistic image of poetry, we advocate "qi" or "interest", that is, flexibility, vividness and touching, because "poetry is not interesting, such as wooden horses and mud dragons, which only increase people's annoyance". If we want to be "qi" and "interesting", we need vivid and vivid language. "Always stand on paper, not paper"; The expression technique is mainly sketching, "blindly sketching vividly", and it is opposed to "filling books, filling paper, and boasting profoundness" so as not to stifle the vitality and interest of poetry. However, if the allusions are "unfilled" and "appropriate", it is not excluded.
The above poetic theory is partially separated and directly expounded in Shi Hua; Most of them are combined with poems and essays. The poetic aesthetic thought of Shihua is the standard of poetry selection in Shihua, which is sublimated on the basis of poetry selection. Therefore, the content of Shi Hua is based on a large number of selected poems. Yuan Mei once said: "Everyone loves poetry as much as color, and every time he reads a beautiful sentence, it is like a peerless beauty reading it. Knowing that it was someone else's wife and daughter was nothing to me, but I didn't know it was hidden in the middle, so I couldn't help laughing. This "Poetry with the Garden" is also. " (Answer to Mr. Peng) shows the close relationship between his writing "Suiyuan Poetry Talk" and poetry selection. Poetry selection in Shi Hua has the following characteristics:
First, the criteria for selecting poems are strict. This is mainly manifested in the fact that "poetry" serves "words". Yuan Mei clearly pointed out: "I write poems and talk about them, and those who come from all directions with poems come like clouds, but they don't know about poems and don't choose poems. Choose poetry, and the best will be chosen. "Poetry" must have words to have poetry. "Its standard is that the selected excellent works describing the soul can confirm its theory of' soul'.
Second, the choice of poetry writers is quite extensive. Yuan Mei said, "I have heard a famous saying, which is recorded in a poem. I don't know who wrote it. " The winner is both a master of poetry and a nobody; There are both generals or generals and cloth clothes; There are monks and nuns and Tsing Yi teenagers. There are both married women and prostitutes; Regardless of gender identity, as long as the poem is good, it can be retained. In particular, Yuan Mei praised Yujia's works of caring for women, self-protection of villages, vendors and artisans, which are like "nature" and full of spirituality, and even praised them as "Du Li, though resurrected, must bow down first" and extracted them as poems.
Third, there are many selected female poems. In response to the bad habit of "commonly known as women are not suitable for poetry", Yuan Mei did the opposite, claiming: "I wrote" Poetry Talk "and recorded many aristocratic poems." There are many poems by female disciples, as well as a large number of works by unknown ladies, widows and even unknown prostitutes. Poetry Talk has been selected into the poems of five wives, daughters and daughters-in-law, and it is known as "flying generals in poetry", which is a prominent example. Yuan Mei is brave and resourceful.
Fourth, the selected poems are rich in themes. Although there are many works describing personal joys and sorrows in Shihua, there are also many good poems reflecting social real life, such as Cowherd and Weaver Girl, Self-mockery, which criticizes feudal ethics and kills life, and punctuation marks in Imperial Examination Eight-part essay, etc. It is worth mentioning that Shi Hua collected the anti-Qing deeds and poems of patriotic women in Ming Dynasty, such as the story of a Jiangyin woman killed by soldiers. Righteousness and heroism. In addition, a lot of love poems were selected, which also had certain anti-Tao significance at that time.
"Stone Flower" has the advantages of "brainstorming", but at that time, some people criticized it for "overcharging" and it was not unreasonable. The reason is that Yuan Mei sometimes failed to strictly implement his criteria for selecting poems. He once admitted that one of the "seven diseases" in poetry selection-"favoring one's own friendship and obeying others' demands"-"I can't avoid the rest", so boring entertainment works in poetry talk are not uncommon. However, some of the selected "love poems" are also unhealthy and lost to meanness, such as the "love poems" recorded by my brother Xiang Ting. Occasionally, there will be a scandal like "two men in love" in the chronicle, which I appreciate very much. In addition, Yuan Mei also believed in the so-called "poetic prophecy" and chose many songs to promote superstition and idealism. Most of the quotations in Shi Hua do not indicate the source, and sometimes the quotations are full of fallacies and have not been revised. These are all defects of Shihua. However, Zhang Xuecheng criticized Suiyuan's poetry talk in his works such as History of Literature and Poetry Talk after Bookstore Engraving, saying that "poetry has completely lost its purpose", "making things up, trapping teenagers in jail, confusing people in boudoir pots, quoting ancient songs and saying that writing is treacherous", and "teaching sinners" are purely feudal guardians.
After the publication of Yuan Mei's Poems with the Garden, "everyone from court officials to street vendors knows its value, and overseas Ryukyu people come to ask for its book" (Yao Nai's Epitaph and Preface to Yuan Suiyuan Jun); Although Shi Hua has lost its reputation, it is a household name, deeply rooted in people's hearts (Qian Zhongshu's Qin Yi Lu), widely circulated, and has always been valued by people. Spiritual poets regard it as the standard of poetics.