Ouyang Xun, also known as Yongshu, also known as Zuiweng and Liuyi layman. Luling (now a native of Shaxi, Yongfeng County). An outstanding writer and historian in the Northern Song Dynasty. He lost his father when he was four years old and his family was poor. His mother painted the ground with grass and taught him to write. Recite many ancient passages and turn them into poems, "the writing is unexpected." In the eighth year of Tiansheng's reign (1030), he became a Jinshi and served as a left-behind official in Xijing. In the first year of Jingyou (1034), he served as secretary of Zhennan Army Jieduzhang and official in charge of affairs. He offended the prime minister and was demoted. Ouyang Xiu wrote a letter to reprimand Si Jian Gao Ruona for not upholding justice and was demoted to Yiling County. In the first year of Kangding (1040), he was reinstated as the editor of Guange and compiled the general catalog of Chongwen. In the third year of Qingli (1043), he was appointed Youzhengyan and Zhizhigao. In the past five years, Du Yan, Fan Cuyan, Han Qi, Fu Bi and other famous officials were expelled from the court one after another. Ouyang Xiu Shangshu defended them. Because they were demoted to Chuzhou, they were later changed to Yangzhou and Yingzhou. In the first year of Huangyou's reign (1049), he returned to the imperial court and served successively as a Hanlin scholar and a compiler in the History Museum. He compiled the "New Tang Book" with Song Qi and others, and also self-edited the "Historical Records of the Five Dynasties" (i.e., the "New History of the Five Dynasties"). In his later years, he became the deputy envoy to the privy council and the prince's young master in charge of political affairs. Shenzong died at home in the fifth year of Xining's reign (1072), and was given the posthumous title Wenzhong.
Ouyang Xiu's early political thoughts reflected the interests of the small and medium-sized landlord class, and he had a clear understanding of the serious economic, political and military crises at that time. He advocated eliminating accumulated disadvantages, being lenient and simple in practice, and being economical in farming, and worked with Fan Cuiyan and other officials to seek innovation. In his later years, with the improvement of his social status, his thoughts gradually became conservative, and he resisted and ridiculed some of Wang Anshi's new laws; but he was more pragmatic and had a different attitude from Sima Guang and others.
Ouyang Xiu plays an important role in the history of Chinese literature. As a leader of the poetry innovation movement in the Song Dynasty, his literary theory and creative achievements had a great influence on that time and future generations. In the early Song Dynasty, in a temporarily peaceful social environment, Xikun style poems and poems promoted by the aristocratic literati group flooded the literary world. They were compiled in a flashy way and had no social significance, but they were popular for a while. In order to correct the shortcomings of Xikun style, Ouyang Xiu vigorously promoted ancient prose. He loved reading Han Yu's collected works since he was a child. After he became an official, he personally edited the Korean version and published it all over the world. He learned from Han Yu in terms of literary views and advocated the application of enlightenment. He emphasized the decisive role of Tao on literature, taking "Tao" as the content and essence, and "Wen" as the form and tool. Special attention is paid to the cultivation of Taoism, and it is proposed that "literature" should be glorious, and "scholars should be teachers of classics". Only teachers of classics can enrich themselves with "Tao". But he also falsely corrected some of Han Yu's biases. In his explanation of "Tao", he regards "things" in reality as the specific content of "Tao", and opposes "abandoning all things and not caring about the heart" and "talking too high but not the facts". When dealing with the relationship between "Tao" and "Wen", it advocates emphasizing both "Tao" and "Wen". It is believed that "Wen" must be subordinate to "Tao", but it does not mean that "a virtuous person must have words." . He cited many examples to illustrate that "from what has been passed down in poems and historical records, the person must not be a qualified scholar." It is pointed out: "Words are used to convey things, and words are used to cover up words. Words of faith can be expressed in the world." The so-called "words of faith" mean that the content must be true, the language must be literary, and the content and form must be perfect. unified. This is Ouyang Xiu's basic argument on creation. His proposition was enthusiastically endorsed by Yin Zhu, Mei Yaochen, Su Shunqin and others. Later, when Zhigongju (the person in charge of the examination for Jinshi), candidates were encouraged to write simple and clear ancient prose. Any work that was empty in content, flashy, or used weirdness to win the prize would be rejected. At the same time, he promoted and trained a generation of new writers such as Wang Anshi, Zeng Gong, Su Shi, and Su Che. In this way, the poetry innovation movement he advocated achieved a decisive victory.
Ouyang Xiu’s achievements in literary creation are highest in prose. Su Shi commented on his essays: "In discussing the Dao, he is like Han Yu, in discussing the origin, it is like Lu Zhi, in chronicling it, it is like Sima Qian, and in poetry, it is like Li Bai." However, although Ouyang Xiu admired the profundity, majesty and unbridledness of Korean writing, he did not follow suit. His prose is in-depth and out-of-depth, concise and fluent, narrative and reasoning, melodious, lyrical and fascinating, combining the strange and the ordinary, creating a new look in the literary world. Many of his political works, such as "Basic Theory", "Original Weaknesses", "Remonstrances of Senior High Commissioners", "On Clique", etc., adhere to his own ideas of "clear way" and "implementation", are closely related to the political struggles at that time, and criticize The current situation, sharp thoughts, and bright language express a kind of embrace of saving the world. He also wrote a lot of lyrical and narrative prose, most of which blended scenes and scenes in a variety of ways.
His "Preface to the Anthology of Shi Mi Yan Poems", "Essays on Sacrifice to Shi Manqing", "Preface to Su's Collected Works" and other articles mourn the deceased friends and reminisce about the past, which are profound and touching; his "Fengle Pavilion", "Zui The works of "Wengting Ji" were written slowly, with euphemistic twists and turns, beautiful words and fresh style. In short, whether they are satires on the world, memories of the past, or travels, they all fully reflect his calm, generous, frank and natural artistic personality.
Ouyang Xiu also made great achievements in poetry creation. He "uses writing as poetry". Popular and fluent. Some ancient-style poems do not seem to have a strong poetic flavor, but some modern-style poems use both metaphor and style, with scenes that complement each other and have meaningful meanings. In terms of content, part of his poems reflected the pain of people's lives at that time. It has certain social significance. For example, in "Reply to Yang Zijing's Long Prayer for Rain", it describes the social reality of "the military state's fortunes are rushing to spark fire" and "however, the people's houses are often empty"; in "Shizao Min", it is revealed that officials "drink official wine every day" Honest Cola". However, it is unreasonable for the people to "spend the winter and spring without rice porridge." However, his purpose of writing these poems is very clear: "Because the emperor gave him a gift to spread his theory, I collected poems for my admonishment." The purpose is to persuade the ruling class to improve politics and maintain feudal order. Some other poems mostly express the poet's life feelings, such as "The Thrush": "A hundred and thousand songs are moved at will, and the mountain flowers are red and purple, and the trees are high and low; I just realized that listening to the golden cage is not as good as the free singing in the forest." It was written. The yearning for nature and free life
Ouyang Xiu was not only good at writing poems, but also had new insights from time to time. Later generations collected them into a book called "Six One Poetry Talk". The modern man Guo Shaoyu said: "The name of poetry talk originated from Ouyang Xiu, that is, the style of poetry talk can also be said to be created by Ouyang." ("Song Poetry Talk") Ouyang Xiu's poetry talk has changed the previous poetry theory or emphasis. In Lu Ping's review, the emphasis may be on patterns, practice, or skill, but it is all-embracing and detailed. When he commented on poetry, although he did not abandon sculpture, he advocated returning it to nature. He especially praised Mei Yaochen's "new language skills", which pointed out the direction for the development of Song poetry.
Ouyang Xiu also occupied an important position in the poetry world of the early Song Dynasty. He created many poems, most of which are similar in content to "Flower Room", and mostly write about themes such as love between men and women, and the emotions of separation. But the style is high, the skills are skillful, and there are many artistic treasures. For example, the acclaimed "Traveling on the Shasha" has the last two sentences: "Wherever the plains are, there are spring mountains, and travelers are outside the spring mountains." It is written from the eyes of a missing woman, with profound affection and implicit meaning, giving people a novel and unique feeling. feeling. Another example is the first two sentences of "Chaozhongcuo": "The sill of the flat mountain leans against the clear sky, and the mountains are beautiful." Because the author has a deep understanding of things, he seems to write it casually, but it is infinitely expressive. Without perfect skills, it is impossible to reach this artistic realm.
In addition, Ouyang Xiu also broke the strict metrical form of fu style and wrote some poems. His famous "Autumn Sound Fu" is comparable to Su Shi's "Red Cliff Fu" and has been recited for thousands of years.
Ouyang Xiu wrote profusely throughout his life and made outstanding achievements. In addition to literature, he has unique insights into Confucian classics, pioneering contributions to epigraphy, and particularly great achievements in history. His only son Ouyang Fa and others once made a statistics and found that he wrote nearly twenty kinds of works, of which thirteen kinds were included or cataloged in "Sikuquanshu" alone. The current "Collected Works of Ouyang Wenzhonggong" and the "Collected Works of Wenzhong" included in the collection of "Sikuquanshu" are 153 volumes and the appendix is ??more complete.