The Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279) was the peak period of the development of Chinese poetry history. In order to have a more objective and in-depth understanding of the development and evolution of Ci during this period, we are not afraid of being superficial and try to make a preliminary review of this period of Ci history.
The Southern Song Dynasty was a relatively independent dynasty in Chinese history, and it had extremely close ties with the Northern Song Dynasty that preceded it. This is the logical starting point for observing and interpreting the history of the Southern Song Dynasty. Regrettably, the Southern Song Dynasty failed to shoulder the sacred mission entrusted to it by history. It failed to safeguard its own independence and territorial integrity, let alone raise the banner of recovering the occupied territories of the Northern Song Dynasty and achieving national reunification. The expanders gave in step by step, and finally retreated to the South China Sea. The monarchs and ministers of the Southern Song Dynasty, who had no righteousness and disobeyed the Qin Dynasty, died by crossing the sea. This is both sad and sad, and it also makes people sigh.
The Southern Song Dynasty perished because it continued to implement the Northern Song Dynasty's compromise and surrender line, violating the logic of history and repeating the same mistakes. Ci, which was one of the poetic forms at that time, was just the opposite. The Southern Song Dynasty Ci was not only dazzling in its exploration of the art of poetry, but also reached the pinnacle of the history of Ci. . Not only did it have a majestic and enlightening effect at the time, but it was also an extremely brilliant page in the entire history of literature.
From the perspective of the entire process of the development of Chinese Ci, it has generally gone through four different historical stages: the rise, the peak, the decline and the revival. The rise: Tang, Five Dynasties, Northern Song Dynasty, about 370 years; the peak period: the Southern Song Dynasty, more than 150 years, and the remaining poets were less than 200 years; the decline period: Yuan and Ming Dynasties, about 370 years; the revival period: the Qing Dynasty, more than 260 years. . It is the huge existence and various aspects of Ci in the Southern Song Dynasty that pushed the creation of Ci to a historical peak. According to preliminary statistics, the "Complete Song Ci" compiled by Tang Guizhang contains 1,494 poets and 21,055 poems. Among them, the number of poets in the Southern Song Dynasty is about three times that of the poets in the Northern Song Dynasty. This is according to the statistics of Nanjing Normal University's "Complete Song Ci" retrieval system (including Kong Fanli's "Supplement to the Complete Song Ci"). . Not only that, the Southern Song Dynasty also saw the emergence of many famous poets who made great contributions and influences in the history of literature, such as Li Qingzhao, Xin Qiji, Jiang Kui, Wu Wenying, and Wang Yisun and Zhang Yan in the late Song and early Yuan Dynasties.
As far as the development of Southern Song poetry itself is concerned, it has generally gone through four different historical periods. For the convenience of description, we summarize these four periods as: the transformation period of the Ci world, the peak period of Ci history, the deepening period of Ci art and the harvest period of Song Ci. Of course, the boundaries between these four periods are not absolute, and there are some obvious overlaps and overlaps. The naming of the period may not be accurate, but it is used to summarize the main characteristics of a period.
First of all, it is the transformation period of the CI world. The transformation mentioned here mainly guides the process of the poets quickly adapting to the environment and coordinating themselves. The "Jingkang Incident" brought endless disasters to the world. The poets at that time also followed the Song Dynasty to the south. Many poets were among the exiles and experienced the baptism of blood and fire; the patriots in the court also rose up to save the country; the Yuanrong generals who were responsible for defending the country They stood up and fought on the battlefield; the people in the occupied areas rose up one after another. "The ambitious people eat the meat of Huns when they are hungry, and drink the blood of Huns when they are thirsty for laughter and talk" has become the main melody and the strong voice of the times. The Southern Song Dynasty could have taken advantage of this great opportunity to gather strength to save the defeat. However, the Southern Song Dynasty only wanted to escape. Then it clearly stated its established policy of compromise and surrender, and committed many stupid things that caused pain to its relatives and pleasure to its enemies. . Patriots who originally had a strong belief in counterattack and restoration of the country were puzzled by this, until they lamented that "the will of God is always difficult to ask." Some poets began to calm down and questioned and criticized the court's compromise and surrender route and the resulting consequences, expressing directly or euphemistically their anxiety and sorrow about the country's future. Other poets, out of righteous indignation and despair, screamed at the forest springs and indulged in poetry and wine, reflecting from another side the anguish of having great ambitions and no way to declare their country. This is a brief outline of the transformation period of the Southern Song Dynasty Ci poetry. The time starts from the "Jingkang Rebellion" to the 32nd year of Shaoxing, Emperor Gaozong of the Song Dynasty (1162), when Xin Qiji went south, which is about 35 years.
Due to the praise of Baishi Ci in Zhang Yan's "Etymology", there was even a saying in the Qing Dynasty that "the family has a white stone and the house is in Yutian"? Zhu Yizun: "Jingti Tang Ci Preface", Shi Zhecun edited "Ci Ji Preface and Postscript Collection", Chinese Social Sciences Press 1994 edition, page 543. historical phenomenon. The shortcomings of Baishi's Ci are that the subject matter and the life aspect reflected are too narrow, and the style of Ci is relatively monotonous. But this does not prevent him from becoming the second great poet after Xin Qiji to reach the peak of poetry history.
After Jiang Kui, the second poet who made a huge contribution to the deepening of the art of poetry is Wu Wenying. Wu Wenying never held an official position in her life. She traveled between Suzhou and Hangzhou for a long time, and lived the life of a Qing guest and aide. She died of hardship in her later years and has 340 poems in her collection. "Mengchuang Ci" has far-reaching meaning, dense conception, profound writing style, and sometimes deep and melancholy thoughts in the transcendence, showing a unique style that is very different from other poets. However, the evaluation of "Mengchuang Ci" has been historically high and low, with a huge gap. The achievements of "Mengchuang Ci" are mainly reflected in the artistic skills. He was born after Jiang Kui and was also born out of Zhou Bangyan, but he was able to go his own way and follow a completely different path from Jiang Kui. Not only did he inherit and develop the beauty and profundity of Qin Guan, Zhou Bangyan and others, but he also approached the Tang Dynasty. The arrangement and overprinting of pictures in "Dream Window Ci", as well as the jumps, transitions and sudden connections of the shots, quite capture the essence of Wen Tingyun's "deep and beautiful Hong Yue". The figures of Li He and Li Shangyin are also clearly visible in his poems. His words can break the limitations of time and space, boldly drive all things in the world, and gallop rich artistic imagination. He can also abandon traditional conception methods and make certain words have the structural characteristics of modern Western stream of consciousness. Generally speaking, his words emphasize creation rather than imitation, and focus on association instead of statement. This makes "Mengchuang Ci" present a distinctive feature that is very different from others, and creates a kind of transcendent, profound and beautiful. Deep style of writing. Zhou Ji commented on "Mengchuang Ci" and said: "The best ones are the skylight and cloud shadows, swaying green waves, and they are endless to watch. The pursuit is far away." ("Jie Cunzhai's Miscellaneous Works on Ci")? Edited by Tang Guizhang: "Ci Hua Cong" "Editor", Volume 2, Zhonghua Book Company 1986 edition, page 1633. In "Summary of the General Catalog of the Complete Collection of Siku", "Poets have Wenying, just as poets have Li Shangyin"? [Qing Dynasty] Yong Rong et al.: "Summary of the General Catalog of the Complete Collection of Siku", Volume 2, Zhonghua Book Company, 1965 edition, No. 1819 pages. The statement is not a baseless judgment. Some critics even believe that Wu Wenying has surpassed Li Shangyin. However, because "Mengchuang Ci" is too jumpy, coupled with too dense use of allusions and excessive abstraction, it inevitably suffers from some stacking and obscurity, which has affected the spread of "Mengchuang Ci". But this does not prevent Wu Wenying from being the third great poet to reach the peak of the history of poetry after Xin Qiji and Jiang Kui.
If we say that Xin Qiji’s contribution is mainly reflected in the development and perfect combination of patriotic and bold poetry ideas and art, and thus completed the transformation of the aesthetic vision of the history of poetry, changing the historical pattern of euphemistic poetry dominating the world , then, the contribution of Jiang Kui and Wu Wenying is mainly reflected in enhancing the ideological connotation and artistic expression of graceful words through the deepening of word skills, so that the graceful words can not lose their true character in the process of leaning towards bold words and interpenetrating into each other. . The creations of Jiang Kui and Wu Wenying show that the tradition of graceful Ci and the poetic form of Ci have strong vitality. They will not lose their own characteristics and be eliminated in the trend of using poetry as lyrics or text as lyrics. Jiang Kui and Wu Wenying maintained the purity of Ci and enriched the artistic skills of Ci, which provided them with inexhaustible artistic experience for their future graceful Ci (including bold Ci). It is from this perspective (that is, the peak state of Ci art) that we can draw the following conclusion when looking at the poetry world of the Southern Song Dynasty: Xin Qiji, Jiang Kui, and Wu Wenying are three of them, and they all stand at the pinnacle of the history of Ci. The peak not only shocked the time, but also illuminated future generations. Almost all poets from the late Song Dynasty to the early Yuan Dynasty and afterward were shrouded in the shadow cast by the Southern Song Dynasty, the peak of the history of poetry. No matter how much development and changes they made in their poetry creation, they could not surpass Xin and Jiang. , Wu (of course, including the great poets of the Northern Song Dynasty), the scope covered has never been able to get out of their shadow. Therefore, the deepening period of Ci art is still the continuation and development of the peak period of Ci history. This period lasted from Jiang Kui's rise to the world of poetry to Wu Wenying's death.
Among them are Yin Huan, Huang Xiaomai, Lou Cai, Li Penglao, who were influenced by Wu Wenying, and Zhu Shuzhen, another important female poet who entered the poetry world in the early days.
The fourth is the harvest period of Song poetry. The so-called "Jiehuo" is the final ending, result and harvest period of the Southern Song Dynasty poetry. If we compare the first three periods to spring plowing, summer plowing, and autumn harvesting, then the last remaining work is harvesting and storage. The harvest period intersects with the historical time before and after it. It spans two completely different historical eras at the end of the Song Dynasty and the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty. The content and style of artistic creation do not keep pace with the changes of dynasties and the transfer of political power. After a regime is overthrown, it can change its name and flag on the same day, but qualitative changes in literary content and style require a long historical period. The so-called imbalance between literature and political and economic development is probably one of its main symptoms. Therefore, the harvest period includes not only the first year of Duanping (1234) by Lizong of the Song Dynasty to the final demise of the Southern Song Dynasty (1279) in the second year of Emperor Bing Xiangxing (1279), but also includes the 16th year of Emperor Shizu of the Yuan Dynasty (1279) to the seventh year of Yanyou (1279) of Emperor Renzong of the Yuan Dynasty. 1320), that is, until the death of all the remaining poets of the Southern Song Dynasty.
In the thirty or forty years before the demise of the Southern Song Dynasty, the Yuan army continued to invade the south. However, the Southern Song Dynasty court did not realize that the day of collapse had arrived, and it was still in a state of civility and martial arts, living in drunkenness and dreaming. The sober courtiers and some scholars had a premonition of imminent danger. In order to enhance the awareness of national danger, they inherited Xin Qiji's tradition of patriotic and bold poems, shouted loudly in their works, and expressed great indignation against the ruling group. The works of Liu Kezhuang, Wu Qian, Chen Renjie and others all reveal to varying degrees the pride of taking the world as their own responsibility and the depression of being unable to serve the country.
In the fifth year of Xianchun (1269), the Yuan army attacked Xiangyang, fell to Xiangyang in the ninth year of Xianchun (1273), and fell to Lin'an in 1276. Three years later, the Yuan army defeated the last military force of the Southern Song Dynasty, and Emperor Bing threw himself into the sea. Most of the poets in the late Song Dynasty experienced the great changes of this era, and their hearts were left with wounds that will never heal. Therefore, in the thirty years or so after the demise of the Southern Song Dynasty, they always adhered to the anti-Yuan stance and remained in seclusion. In their works, they repeatedly chanted the pain and sorrow after the demise of the Southern Song Dynasty. They inherited the style of poetry pioneered by Jiang Kui. They were cynical about the times, sad and desolate, with obscure purports and profound suspense. They were uniquely innovative in the writing of poetry about things. They were the successors to Jiang and Wu in the era of graceful poetry. new developments in. Zhou Mi, Wang Yisun, and Zhang Yan are representatives of this school. They have great influence in the history of Ci and are important poets second only to Xin, Jiang, and Wu. There are also some poets, facing the demise of the Southern Song Dynasty, with awe-inspiring righteousness, they rose up to fight, knowing that it was impossible, and carried out a desperate struggle and fight in the midst of extinction. Their words are the roars of this struggle and struggle, such as the national hero Wen Tianxiang. Not only did he have poems, lyrics, and articles that shocked the time, but he also used his own life to compose an elegiac song that lasted forever. He lived a heroic life and died a heroic death. It should be said that Wen Tianxiang's poetic creation and his practical actions to resist the Yuan Dynasty and save the country left behind a heroic symphony that promoted national integrity after the demise of the Southern Song Dynasty. Also participating in the performance of this symphony were patriotic poets such as Liu Chenweng, Jiang Jie, Wang Yuanliang and Liu Jiangsun. The poetry world of the Song Dynasty and the Song Dynasty in the past 320 years has tightened its last curtain amid the echoes of this heroic symphony.