Yuan Xingpei
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Bai Juyi's artistic achievements are prominently manifested in the poetic language. His language is simple and plain, and he is clever when he writes intentionally. Zhao Yi's "Ou Bei Shi Hua" has four volumes: "And its pen is as fast as scissors, as sharp as Kun Dao, and there is no hidden word. Work hard and exercise clean. It seems simple, but it is pure. " This passage just shows the advantages of white poetry.
This achievement is particularly evident in satirical poems. His satirical poems are all based on current affairs, and the beauty is more than excitement. This kind of poem is easy to confuse people, and the poet is in danger of political persecution. It is often deliberately obscure and difficult to find. This is the case with Ruan Ji's Yong Huai. Shan Li pointed out: "Although I am determined to ridicule, I tend to avoid writing. Under one hundred generations, it is difficult to measure. " Illustrates the degree of obscurity. Therefore, "Preface to Poetry" said: "If you are good at metaphor, you will suffer from deep consideration, and if you are profound, you will make a mistake." Tan Xing in Liu Xie's "Wen Xin Diao Long Bi Xing Pian" also said that "it is clear but not harmonious, so I will see it later". This situation lasted until the Tang Dynasty, and the poems of Chen Ziang and Li Bai satirized the current situation did not make full use of vague words. Bai Juyi inherited Du Fu's tradition of expressing current affairs and expressed political satire in plain language, which achieved excellent artistic effect. Feng Ban's "Miscellaneous Notes on Dull Songs" said: "Bai Gong's satirical poems are thorough and clear, straightforward, vivid and moving, and form their own family. The ancients had nothing to say and were built in Xiaoya. " Not for praise.
Strictly speaking, many of Bai Juyi's satirical poems are so-called fu style. For example, Chongfu denounced the drawbacks of the two tax laws. Daozhou citizens clearly wrote a letter to pay tribute to the "short slaves". Yinshan Road refers to Yan Yuanhe's new proposal in two years. They are all straightforward works about Chen Qi. Others in satirical poems are the so-called figurative poems. Although these poems have similarities and analogies, they are not obscure at all. "Black Dragon" uses the dragon god as a metaphor for the emperor and the fox and mouse as a metaphor for corrupt officials. The intention of criticizing corrupt officials is obvious. Eight Poems on Wood uses eight trees to allude to eight kinds of people. Although it is "catching the ears and making poets flourish", it satirizes predecessors and descendants, but it is also implicit and incomprehensible.
In addition to Bai Juyi's satirical poems, those poems with lyrical scenery also have this advantage. He seldom uses allusions, but expresses his inner feelings in extremely ordinary language. Kindness, naturalness and touching expression. Such as the famous "Qiantang Spring Tour":
From the north side of Gushan Temple to the west side of Jiating, the lake is just level with the embankment, with low clouds and waves on the lake. Several early orioles raced to the sunny tree, and their new swallows were carrying mud in their nests. Colorful spring flowers will gradually fascinate people's eyes, and shallow spring grass can barely cover the horseshoe. I love the beauty on the east bank of the West Lake, and I can't get enough of it, especially the white sand embankment under the green poplar.
The relaxed mood brought by early spring is almost always expressed in spoken language. The so-called indescribable scene, such as the present, deserves it.
Bai Juyi is not only unpretentious, but some of his poems can also stir up waves among unpretentious people. This is what those aphorisms look like. Lu Ji's "Wen Fu" said: "Keeping your word is a good warning. Although the speech is well organized, they must wait for this and implement it. " Bai Juyi is only good at using one or two epigrams to control the whole article, achieving the effect of seeing magic in plain. For example, the first sentence of 14 in "Light Fat" is all about the generosity of powerful people, and the last two sentences: "There is a drought in the south of the Yangtze River, and Quzhou people eat people", which vividly points out the nature of their exploitation. There are many similar examples, such as:
Take my warmth away, Mel. ("Heavy Fu")
A bunch of dark flowers, ten people bless. ("buy flowers")
This arm has been broken for 60 years, but one of its limbs has become useless. ("Xinfeng folding arm Weng")
Since ancient times, this injustice should not have happened. ("Bound Rongman")
People who don't know the cold should keep warm, take less clothes and make lichens. ("red carpet")
Pity that he is wearing thin clothes, but he is worried that charcoal can't be sold, hoping it will be colder. ("Selling Charcoal Weng")
Wildfire can't burn it out, but the spring breeze can revive it. ("Fu De Gu Caoyuan Farewell")
Some of these epigrams are at the end of the text, some are in the text, some are poems, and some are poems, all of which are very vivid and strong. It is worth noting that the warning of his epigram lies not in the strangeness of language, but in the forefront of conception. Sharp ideas expressed in plain language will not weaken the power of ideas, but will more easily enter people's hearts. Liu Xizai put it well: "Common words are easy, strange words are difficult, and this poem begins." . Strange words are easy, but common sayings are difficult, so this poem is also important. Xiangshan is often used strangely, which is not easy. (Introduction to Art) Some people describe Bai Juyi's poetic style as "willow", while others describe it as "Spring in Pinghu". They only saw his "simple and lovely" side, but ignored his profound warning side, which was not comprehensive.
Here we will talk about the problem of "plain and vulgar". Su Shi said in "Sacrifice to Yangliuyu": "The suburban island is thin and the yuan is light and white." What is vulgarity? Su Shi did not explain, but from the perspective of future generations, it is nothing more than two aspects: ci vulgarity and meaning vulgarity. In other words, what Zhang Jie said in "Poems of the Old Cold Hall" is that "his words are shallow and his qi is low and weak". There are many people who object to this statement, such as Zhang Zi, Wang Ruoxu and Ye Xie. Among them, Ye Xie's statement is the most fair. He said: "Bai Juyi's poems can be passed down to an old woman, but I don't think this statement is completely correct." Looking at its collection today, there are many people. Su Shi said it was' superficial and unchangeable, so it was easy to read'. ..... However, there is a sense of purpose and profound sustenance. Such as "heavy fu", "not being an official", "hurting friends" and "hurting homes". , shallow meaning, meaning slightly, is also a powerful thing. ..... white vulgarity and elegance are also among them, not mediocre. " (The second part of the original poem) Ye Xie didn't generally affirm or deny it, but treated it analytically, which is a fair attitude. Among Bai Juyi's more than 2,800 poems, some are superficial and some are profound. His satirical poems in his early years generally achieved the unity of shallowness and warning, and there were many excellent works in his later years. As far as his satirical poems are concerned, it is a great contribution to the art of poetry to write in such a popular and simple way.
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Bai Juyi's artistic achievements are also highlighted in narrative poems. China has few narrative poems, especially long ones. Bai Juyi not only developed narrative skills in satirical poems, but also wrote two long narrative poems with complete story lines, Song of Eternal Sorrow and Pipa Xing, which made indelible achievements.
Bai Juyi's narrative poems are not only narrative, but also lyrical. If Du Fu's narrative is mainly lyrical, then Bai Juyi can be said to be mainly narrative combined with lyricism. The Preface to Qin Zhongyin says: "There is enough sorrow among the hearers because they sing it directly." It is said in "Wounded Tang Qu" that his poem is "a sad thing". It can be seen that he is not a purely objective narrative without emotion. He attaches great importance to the role of emotion. He said, "If great men's feelings are useless, they must be moved by feelings, and then sighed by songs in the form of poems." He also said: "those who touch people's hearts don't put feelings first" and "the poet's feelings have roots", all of which show that Bai Juyi has not rejected lyric subjectively. Judging from his poems, his successful works all show sympathy for the people and indignation against the rulers in narration.
There are several different ways to combine narrative and lyric in Bai Juyi's poems. One is that there are no lyrical sentences in the poem, but there are feelings between the lines of the narrative, such as Charcoal Man and Rehmannia Picker. Another kind of poetry is to replace the lyricism of the characters in the poem with the tone of the first person. For example, "Shang Yang White-haired Man" is to pour out inner bitterness for a maid-in-waiting of Shang Yang. This traditional theme of palace resentment is common in the quatrains of the prosperous Tang Dynasty. It is more convenient for Bai Juyi to write a Yuefu poem and express his feelings in the first person. For example, "the autumn night is long, the night is long, the sky is unknown, the shadows on the wall behind the lights are lingering, and the rustle of dark rain hits the window." "The warbler's voice returns to Yan, and I don't remember the year when I went to Qiu Lai in spring. Just look at the deep palace and the bright moon, and the object is round four or five hundred times. " These poems not only explain her lonely life for decades, but also show her inner desolation and sadness, and the narrative and lyric are well combined. In addition, this kind of first-person writing has also been successfully used in poems such as Xinfeng Brokeback Weng, Bin Rong Man, Chong Fu and Du Ling Cuo. Bai Juyi also has a poem that expresses his mind directly after the story is told. This is the writing of "death as a sign of ambition". Watch the wheat cutting, the village living in the bitter cold, the new cloth and the red carpet are just like this. For example, at the end of the red carpet, he said, "Do you know the satrap of Xuanzhou? A foot of carpet, a thousand ounces of silk, the ground does not know that cold people should be warm, so take less lichen. " Is quite powerful.
Clear context and vivid twists and turns are another feature of Bai Juyi's narrative poems. For example, in "The Charcoal Vendors", the first eight sentences give a general introduction to the Charcoal Vendors, "The face is covered with dust and fireworks, the temples are gray and the fingers are black". Fourteen simple and affectionate words outline his appearance. "The poor man's clothes are just ordinary. He is worried about charcoal and hopes it is cold." The same simple and affectionate fourteen words express his heart. After this general introduction, the poet chose one of his experiences and described it in detail. From selling charcoal Weng to sending charcoal to the city, and then the charcoal cart was taken away by an imperial envoy, Bai Juyi described the process clearly with only eight poems, and the activities of the characters were like pictures, which were constantly displayed in front of him. Poem of the Temple in Youwu Town tells the story of a five-day mountain tour in the form of travel notes, with a rhyme of 130, but there is no sense of disorder and procrastination. Bai Juyi sometimes looks around the surrounding rocks and trees with amazing eyes like tourists; Sometimes it is like a guide, pointing out every place of interest in detail. Just like stop-and-go when traveling, Bai Juyi also interjects a description of the scenery from time to time, such as "the southeast moon is in the sky and the night is long." At the bottom of the pool, there is a gold plate written on it. Blue water gurgles day and night. Week goes around the mountain and looks like a green ring. Or paved for slow flow, or excited for running. "Beautiful words are naturally lovely. This poem is not as surprising as Han Yu's Nanshan poem, but it gives people a simple and successful feeling. It is a rare and good poem.
Song of Eternal Sorrow and Pipa Travel are the representative works of Bai Juyi's narrative poems. With the development of legendary novels in the mid-Tang Dynasty, many long narrative poems with story lines have appeared, such as Pipa Song of Lotus Palace by Yuan Zhen, Song of Everlasting Sorrow by Li Shen and Song of Thai Mother by Liu Yuxi. Song of Eternal Sorrow and Pipa Travel are the best two narrative poems in this batch.
Both Song of Eternal Sorrow and Pipa Travel have tortuous storylines and rich lyrical atmosphere. Their greatest artistic feature is that the narrative objects are realistic but not muddy, so they can contain meaningful feelings in beautiful descriptions. Song of Eternal Sorrow tells the love story between Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty and Yang Guifei, with detailed plot, reality and reality, and very delicate arrangement. Seeing that he wrote about the Anshi Rebellion, he explained the past with only one sentence: "Until the war drums, from Yuyang boom, the world shook." When writing about Yang Guifei's death, only two sentences were used to cover up the past: "Flower hairpin fell to the ground, no one picked it up, a green and white jade hairpin tassel, and a golden hairy bird", but Xuanzong actually wrote "The emperor couldn't save her, so he could only hide his face, and when he looked back later, it was a land of blood and tears". Writing about the exchange of blood and tears of Xuanzong is naturally more subtle and moving than writing about the imperial concubine falling in a pool of blood. The next sixteen sentences "pond, garden, palace, everything remains the same" are the most wonderful paragraphs in this poem. This passage uses scenery to render Xuanzong's lonely mood, which is true but not sticky. Let's write down "Tears fall from her sad white face, just like spring rain falls on pear flowers". A metaphor is better than many pictures. Places like this show Bai Juyi's superb artistic skills.
The description of music in Pipa Xing is unique. It is always related to the listener's feelings and the imagination caused by music. Described by a series of metaphors, people feel that there is a kind of sympathy between pipa girls and poets in that pipa sound. Bai Juyi not only writes audio, but also writes silently, and he is outstanding when he writes nothing. "Fall into deep sorrow and hidden lament, and there are more silent complaints than vocal ones." "The east ship is silent, the west ship is silent, and we see the white autumn moon entering the river." These two descriptions not only deepen the feelings, but also increase the changes of poetry, resulting in a distinct sense of rhythm.
Bai Juyi's artistic achievements are also reflected in portraying characters. Some poems are narrated around a person's experience. Xinfeng Brokeback Man, Binrong Man, Charcoal Man and White-haired Man all belong to this category. These poems focus on close-ups of individuals and events. The people in the poem have the same fate as the oppressed in general, but they also have their own unique experiences and personality characteristics, which can be said to be typical images. Although there are only a few such typical images in Bai Juyi's poems, it shows a new effort and a new direction. There are many people in Du Fu's poems, but his personality characteristics are not very clear, and the characteristics and achievements of Du Fu's realistic poems are not here. Bai Juyi developed a step on the basis of Du Fu, which made the characters' personality more prominent. "Xinfeng Folding Arm Weng" and "Military Vehicle Shop" are both against Yang's conquest of Nanzhao. "Military Vehicle Shop" introduces the heavy military service, the hardships of war and the people's anti-war sentiment through a pedestrian. This is a general introduction. Pedestrians are only introducers, not typical. Xinfeng folding arm Weng is not like this. He is one of the millions of people recruited by the "car shop" and a unique one. He broke his right arm with a hammer in a unique way to oppose aggression. He has his own unique pain and comfort, so it has a stronger typical significance. Bai Juyi reveals that the general writing method is very expressive through individuals.
(Excerpted from Bai Juyi's Poetic Proposition and Poetic Art, A Study of China's Poetic Art, Peking University Publishing House, 1987, with the title added by the editor).
selected poems