Su Shi's prose is often "taking things as shapes" and "taking letters as pens", thus rendering a kind of emotional appeal.
Su Shi's Prose Creation
When discussing Su Shi's prose creation, we should first notice that his literary thought is significantly different from other people in the literary reform movement in the Northern Song Dynasty (this is not only related to prose). Of course, on the surface of the basic principles, Su Shi and Ouyang Xiu are consistent; In the preface he wrote for Ouyang Xiu's Collection of Jushi, he praised Ouyang Xiu's "learning from Han Yu and Mencius, learning from Confucius, emphasizing the way of propriety, music, benevolence and righteousness, and merging the avenues", and criticized the declining and decadent customs of culture and education in the Five Dynasties in Ouyang Xiu's Hanshu, both of which emphasized Ming Dow and pragmatism. But in fact, Su Shi does not regard the article as a simple tool to "carry Tao", nor does he think that the purpose of literature is only to explain Confucian moral concepts; He often uses circuitous methods to affirm the role of literature in expressing the author's life feelings, life experience and philosophical thinking, and affirms the value of literature as artistic creation. He pointed out that, as the ancients said, literature is "a writer who can't do what he can't do", "chores that touch his heart are sung with a sigh" (preface to the song of a river), and "endless things can be eaten endlessly and spit endlessly" (the title of Mizhou Justice Department). Although this is not a very new viewpoint, it affirms the individuality of literature to some extent. If we consider that Su Shi's thought is different from Confucianism, Taoism and Zen, but not "pure Confucianism", this understanding of literary individuality is more meaningful to break through the narrow scope of Confucianism and Taoism. At the same time, Su Shi attached great importance to the artistry of literature. In general, ancient prose often quotes Confucius' "concise" and opposes the artistic pursuit in article writing. Su Shi said:
Husband's words stop at expressing his feelings, that is, if he doubts, it will be very different. Seeking the beauty of things is like catching the wind and catching the shadows; Can you be a man who knows everything in his heart, but can you be a man who knows everything in his mouth and hands? Yes, you said so. ("Thank you for the teacher's book")
Confucius is openly misinterpreted here. Confucius' so-called "implication" originally only refers to clearly expressing facts and thoughts in words, while Su Shi regards the high artistic realm based on personal inner feelings as the requirement of implication. In these places, he went further than Ouyang Xiu, who also has artistic hobbies.
In the method of prose writing, Su Shi's most important point is "paying attention". Therefore, he not only opposes the article of "floating in cleverness and ignoring flattery and taking embroidery by mistake", that is, the parallel prose with gorgeous appearance and lack of connotation, but also opposes the article of "eccentric and unreadable", which is also consistent with Ouyang Xiu (see "Ouyang Neihan Lun"). Su Shi pays more attention to the free and changeable artistic style under the control of "meaning". Just as he commented on himself in Wen Shuo: "My writing is like a flood, rushing out in disorder and drowning in the ground, although it is difficult to travel thousands of miles;" And it is unknowable with the twists and turns of rocks and the shape of things. What is well known is often done in what it does, and often ends in what it can't stop. " I'm afraid this passage is not without complacency, but it is true that Su Shi's articles in the so-called "ancient prose" system, whether compared with Korea and Liu in the early stage or Europe and Zeng in the same period, are less artificial in pattern, structure and momentum, such as flowing clouds and flowing water, and are in line with his own emotional tone and personality characteristics.
Many of Su Shi's prose works are historical or political, such as The Book of the Emperor of God, Fan Zenglun, The History of the Later Han Dynasty, On Han Feizi, On Jiaxu, On Chao Cuo, Teaching War and Defending Strategy, etc. These arguments often have amazing innovations in common facts, cut in from unexpected angles of others and draw unexpected conclusions. The style of writing is natural and smooth, ups and downs, strong in strength and appeal. Fan Zenglun, for example, generally doesn't talk about Fan Zeng's merits and demerits, but expounds when he should leave Xiang Yu from the perspective of novels, and discusses how a scholar and counselor can "distinguish whether to stay or not". In this paper, old sayings are quoted, metaphors are inserted and exclamations are turned to make a short article full of waves. Another example is On Jia Yi. First, Jia Yi was criticized as talented but didn't know how to express it. It seems that his misfortune is due to his own fault, but in the second half, he turned to the question of how people should treat talents, which combined with the former into a complete theme and was written with ups and downs. In this kind of articles, some arbitrarily tamper with history to show wisdom, which is unreasonable. But in any case, it embodies the "literati" character of Su Shi's novels, which is much more interesting than the general discussion. This is an important reason why Su Wen is popular.
The above is not literary prose, but we can feel Su Shi's personality and talent from it. What can better represent his prose achievements are essays, travel notes, miscellaneous notes, fu and other emotional styles.
An important feature of this kind of prose is that its writing technique is more free than that of its predecessors. It often breaks the boundaries of various styles and habits, integrates lyrical, figurative, scenery-writing, reasoning, narrative and other components, and focuses on the feelings and associations in the chest, and writes with pens and letters. The structure of the article seems loose, but it runs through the meaning casually. Compared with the prose of Han Yu, Liu Zongyuan and Ouyang Xiu, it is simple in genre, clear in structure, more natural, elegant and relaxed. Shi Zhongshan's story, for example, first questioned Li Daoyuan's and Li Bo's explanation of the naming reason of Shi Zhongshan, then naturally turned to his own exploration process, and finally led to the argument that "it is impossible to judge whether something exists unless you see it with your own eyes and hear it with your own ears" and put forward a universal truth. I am the main part of the full text, and the narration, scenery writing and discussion are all natural. The last part of the discussion is only a light touch, and there is no tough stance that must teach people a lesson. The story of setting up a crane pavilion begins with the reason why Yunlong Mountain people moved to the thatched cottage and built the pavilion. Then we talk about the change of the mountain, the location of the pavilion, the four seasons, the scenery of Pengcheng, and the attitude of the owner's crane and crane flying. This is the name of the pavilion.
The next turn, from his own travel with the current officials of Binzuo, gave a sigh discussion, from the allusion of cranes to the interest of life, and from the story of Wei Yigong's good crane's national subjugation to the enviable hermit life, and finally ended with a song by Ren Shan, giving people the feeling of drifting away. The full text is only a few hundred words, but it is cadence, and the writing seems idle, but the meaning is smooth and complete. The same is true of the famous Fu on a Thousand Cliffs, which runs through the tour process and emotional changes in the time flow from night to early morning, integrating scenery writing, answering questions, quoting poems and discussing, completely getting rid of the dull form and structure of prose in the past. In Su Shi's essays, the most important thing is to express "meaning", that is, the author's feelings. Therefore, there are few similar articles, which always change with the meaning.
In terms of language style, Su Shi's prose is not as clumsy as Han Yu's and as relaxed as Ouyang Xiu's. He pays more attention to conveying his subjective feelings by capturing images, combining sound and color, and often embellishes some expressive new words. The sentence pattern is parallel prose mixed and scattered. Such as "Shi Zhongshan" in a paragraph:
At dusk, jathyapple Mingang and Michael came to the cliff by boat alone. Thousands of feet stand on the edge of the big stone, like beasts and ghosts, eager to fight with people, and the stork on the mountain is also startled by the voice of people. If the old man coughs and laughs in the valley, or says, this stork is also. ……
In the dead of night, the moon shines on the wall, the rocks stand tall and the birds sing strange songs. Between a few strokes, it is a gloomy and threatening realm. Another example is "The White Dew crosses the river, the water meets the sky, the reed is vertical, and the boundless land is at a loss", which describes people's feeling of being at a loss in the vast universe, while "The sound of the river, the thousands of feet is broken, the mountains are high and the moon is small, and the bottom is clear", and the impression of cold and desolate winter in Qiu Jiang is written in an extremely refined style. As mentioned above, influenced by Laozi, Zhuangzi and Buddhism, Su Shi often experiences life and observes nature through the infinite space-time framework of the universe. This kind of rational understanding actually exists in many people. Su Shi's genius lies in that he can find the best language form to express his specific feelings in a specific environment.
In addition, some of Su Shi's essays are also wonderful works with unique charm. Some works in his later years are especially concise and profound, with rich connotations. For example, The Book in My Ear describes my mood of looking around the sea when I first arrived in Hainan Island:
Cover the basin, the mustard floats in the water, and the ants are attached to the mustard, at a loss.
When the water dries up, the ants will leave directly. When they saw it, they cried and said, "I haven't seen my son for a long time. Do you know that there is a smooth road between pitches? " You can laugh when you see this.
This essay, which seems to be similar to Zhuang, has a deep sadness in the superficial humor and a cheerful feeling in the deep sadness, which makes people deeply moved after reading it. Another example is "Night Tour of Chengtian Temple". First, I confessed my little order of insomnia on a moonlit night. When I visited Chengtian Temple in Zhang Huaimin, I was still awake, so I went with you. There are only thirty words in the text:
In the moonlight, the courtyard is full of clear water, as clear as clear water. The algae and shepherd's purse in the water are the shadows of bamboo and cypress. Where there is no moon at night, there are no bamboos and cypresses, but few idle people are like us.
Bright moonlight scene, a feeling of emptiness and loneliness, emotion and scenery are integrated into physics and chemistry, which is meaningful. This kind of article has a great influence on the development of later essays.