The difference between Tang poetry and Song poetry is: the "main emotion" of Tang poetry and the "reasoning" of Song poetry.
Different times have formed different people and created different poems. The passionate one is the Tang Dynasty, "If you don't see it, the water of the Yellow River comes up from the sky and rushes to the sea and never returns"; the Song Dynasty is the plain and thin one "I don't know what life is like everywhere, it should be like a flying dragon falling into the snow mud". Different atmospheres reflect different eras. Tang poetry is the poetry of poets, while Song poetry is the poetry of scholars. That is to say, Tang poetry focuses on depicting images and images, expressing emotional thoughts through the depiction of images and images. Related to this feature, Tang poetry has a clear artistic conception, emotions are embodied in images, the language is concise, and the expression is implicit and thought-provoking. For example, Li Bai's "Looking at Lushan Waterfall": "Purple smoke rises from the incense burner under the sun, and you can see the waterfall hanging in front of the river in the distance. It flows down three thousand feet, and it is suspected that the Milky Way has fallen from the sky." It describes the image of the waterfall itself, showing people the specific details of the waterfall. The situation reveals his love for Lushan Waterfall. Song poetry focuses on directly expressing emotions and thoughts, and the description of "images" is secondary. Therefore, Song poems tend to be more argumentative, their language is not as concise and concise as Tang poems, and their expressions are not too subtle.
Of course, this does not mean that there is an absolute difference between the "main emotion" of Tang poetry and the "reasoning" of Song poetry. Tang and Song poetry are in the same vein. Discussing in poetry began with Du Fu and Han Yu in the Tang Dynasty; and good Song poetry expresses rationality and interest in vivid images. The value of the Song Dynasty lies in the fact that there is a cause and a revolution, which creates a situation of confrontation between the two peaks. Wang Wei's "Rewarding Zhang Shaofu" "In his later years, I just like to be quiet and don't care about anything. I have no long-term plans, and I know nothing about returning to the old forest. The wind blows the pine trees, and the moon shines on the mountains and plays the harp. You ask the poor to understand, and the fishermen's songs are deep in the pond. "The poet only narrates and describes the scenery, the wind in the mountains, the moon in the wind, and playing the harp, all of which can lead to enlightenment." The final answer was a non-answer, which was thought-provoking. Reasons are embedded in the scenery and the meaning is hidden in words. This is the characteristic of reasoning in Tang poetry. For the reasoning characteristics of Song poems, we can look at Huang Tingjian's "Two Poems on the Second Rhyme of Replying to Bin's Old Sickness and Starting to Play alone in the Amusement Park" (Part 1): "Everything has the same origin, and worrying too much is a Zen disease. There are new poems to eliminate boredom, and forgetting to tread the rabbit trail." The lotus comes out of the mud, showing the joyful nature. The small stand is close to the fragrance, and the heart is calm in the evening. "Compared with the previous poem, the two poems actually have the same meaning, but the writing method of Huang's poem is more thorough and the reasoning is more thorough. In the final sentence, when it comes to implicitness, it is not as good as it is. Tang and Song poems each have their own characteristics in reasoning poems, as well as landscape poems. Cen Shen of the Tang Dynasty wrote "Song of White Snow to Send Magistrate Wu Back": The north wind blows the white grass on the ground and folds, and the sky is full of snow in August; suddenly like a spring breeze coming overnight, thousands of pear trees bloom; they scatter into the bead curtains and moisten the curtains, The fox's fur is not warm and the brocade quilt is thin; the general's horns and bows cannot be controlled, and the guards' iron clothes are too cold to wear; the vast sea is covered with ice for hundreds of feet, and the gloomy clouds condense thousands of miles away; the army prepares drinks for the returning guests, playing harps, lutes, and qiang flutes; one after another the snow falls from the camp gate, The wind blows and the red flag does not turn over due to the cold; I see you off at the east gate of Luntai, but when you leave, the mountain road is covered with snow; you are nowhere to be seen on the winding mountain road, and there is a place for horses to walk in the sky above the snow. Although this poem has complex syllables and short stanzas, it is as descriptive as possible, but it is coherent and rhythmical, changing the rhyme and rhyme several times to create pauses, and the steps are in time. Among the Song poems, Su Shi's "Hundred Steps to the Flood" (A Long Flood Fighting Falls to Life and Jumps into the Waves) imitates the metaphorical technique in Han Yu's "Preface to the Scholar Sending Stones". It is completed in one go, making people overwhelmed; and there is no change of rhyme in the middle, which has a strong tendency to go straight down. The beauty of poetry is combined with the fluency of writing. It can be said that the writing skills are improved compared to Cen's poetry, but it is inevitably less urgent and lacks the grace of Tang poetry.
The Tang Dynasty was a golden period for the development of poetry. Tang poetry not only surpassed Song poetry in quantity, but also had more material than Song poetry. But can it be said that Tang poetry is better than Song poetry? The answer is no, both have their own characteristics. Tang poetry is won by rhyme, so it is elegant, yet noble and ethereal; Song poetry is won by meaning, so it is powerful, yet noble, profound and penetrating. The beauty of Tang poetry lies in the love words, so it is plump; the beauty of Song poetry lies in the spirit and bones, so it is thin and strong. Tang poems are like peony and begonia, and the flowers are blooming; Song poems are like winter plums and autumn chrysanthemums, with a subtle rhyme and cold fragrance. Tang poetry is like eating lychees, one of which fills the cheeks with sweet fragrance; Song poetry is like eating olives, which feel astringent at first, but leave a lasting aftertaste. For example, when building a garden, Tang poems are like stacking stones to cut ponds and building pavilions; Song poems are like pavilions and pavilions decorated with sparse carved railings. On the sides of the water and stones, there are also famous flowers and plants. For example, when traveling through mountains and rivers, Tang poetry is like looking at a distant peak, full of awe-inspiring mood; Song poetry is like looking for tranquility in a meandering stream, with a cold and cold scene. The disadvantage of Tang poetry is that it has a smooth outline, while the disadvantage of Song poetry is that it is astringent and dull. Although among the Tang poems, there are also those who come from the Song school, and among the Song poems, there are also those who closely resemble the Tang people. However, when it comes to their comparison, this is the case.