From the establishment of the Northern Song Dynasty to the 70' s and 80' s of Zhao Heng Dynasty in Song Zhenzong, Song poetry basically followed the style of Tang Dynasty. The main schools are Bai Juyi style represented by Wang Yucheng (954 ~ 100 1), Ye Wei (960 ~10/9), Lin Bu (968 ~ 1028) and Yang Yi. As far as personal achievements are concerned, Wang Yucheng is the greatest. He was the first poet in Song Dynasty who advocated learning from Li Bai, Du Fu and Bai Juyi, and wrote many poems describing the sufferings of the people. As far as genre is concerned, the Quincy style with beautifully carved sentences and allusions has the greatest influence. 165438+In the early 1920s and 1930s, it dominated the poetry circles.
During Zhao's retro period, young writers such as Ouyang Xiu, Mei (1002 ~ 1060) and (1009 ~ 1048) opposed parallel prose and advocated ancient prose, but at the same time they jointly opposed Yang Yi and unilaterally pursued smoothness. During this period, Mei sympathized with the sufferings of the people, such as Tian Jiayu and poor women. Su Shunqin reflected Song Ting's social problems of poverty and weakness, such as "feeling that the south of the city is forever uncle" and "Qingzhou is defeated"; Ouyang Xiu Exposes Government Corruption, Cai Xiang (10 12 ~ 100). The unique argumentative and prosaic features in Song poetry were also formed at this time.
In the second half of the 20th century 165438+ during the period of innovation, Wang Anshi and Su Shi successively dominated the poetry world, and the creation of Song poetry reached its first peak. There are many differences between Wang and Su in their political opinions and poetic opinions, but their tireless spirit of innovation and personal style are in the same strain. Wang Anshi's famous works, such as Fei Ming Qu and Wu Jiang Ting, bring forth the old and bring forth the new in traditional themes, give full play to the characteristics of the Song Dynasty, and have endless aftertaste after reading, which is recognized as a masterpiece beyond similar works in the Tang Dynasty. Su Shi, on the other hand, took poetry as his word, and at the same time advanced Ouyang Xiu's and Mei's "taking literature as poetry" to the point of "creating a grand view of a generation before the atmosphere". Su Shi's poems are bold and unconstrained, touching the ground and giving birth to spring, full of innovative spirit. The seven metaphors in his famous sentence "Hundred Steps of Flood" are the best natural portrayal: "Like a rabbit walking an eagle, a good horse betting on thousands of feet slope, the string breaks off the column, and lightning flies over the ball." Some short poems written by Wang and Su deliberately seek novelty, such as Wang's Boating in Guazhou and Su's Topic Xilin Wall, etc., or express people's whimsy with fresh images, or make people think deeply with rich philosophies, which have been passed down for a long time and added a lot of brilliance to Song poetry.
Other important poets in this period were Huang Tingjian (1045 ~105) and Chen Shidao (1053 ~ 1 1), who were also trained by Su Shi, but their poetic styles were different from those of Su Shi.
In Huang Tingjian's poems, there are so-called methods of "turning stone into gold" and "thoroughly remoulding oneself", aiming at "bringing forth the old and bringing forth the new" without losing the pioneering spirit of the Song Dynasty's innovation period. Later followers took this as stereotyped writing, forming the Jiangxi Poetry School, which had a great influence between the Northern and Southern Song Dynasties. Song poetry once again embarked on a formalistic road of imitating predecessors and only tossing about in writing skills and phonology. Until Nandu, Chen (1090 ~ 1 138) and others changed from the early Jiangxi poets' preference for Du Fu's poetic temperament to learning Du Fu's spirit of worrying about the country and the people and his desolate and gloomy style, which reflected the patriotic feelings of intellectuals at the beginning of the national disaster, and the stagnation of Song poetry was improved.
In the early Southern Song Dynasty, resistance to the enemy and the Northern Expedition became the major themes of poets' performance, and a large number of patriotic poems emerged, making Song poetry a model that surpassed the previous generation and had a great influence on later generations in this respect, which was the main contribution of this period. Zhongxing poets, represented by Lu You, got rid of the shackles of Jiangxi poetry school and established their own style. Lu You's Enjoying Military Music, Yang Wanli's Zhai Adult (1 127 ~ 1206) and Fan Chengda's (1193) pastoral poems. In addition to patriotism and the war of resistance, the life of the lower classes in rural areas is also their theme. The language of poetry also tends to be popular, natural and colloquial. Yang Wanli's "vivid expression", Lu You's simplicity and Fan Chengda's understanding, including the simplicity of Neo-Confucianism poetry represented by Zhu, all make the poetry of this period show a different look from the previous generation and Tang poetry.
In the late Southern Song Dynasty, there were no more important poets. "Yongjia Siling" and "Jianghu Poetry School", who were active in the poetry circle successively, were Jia Dao and Yao He poets who followed the old road of late Tang Dynasty in the early Song Dynasty and wrote some fresh and readable works. But on the whole, Song poetry, like the political situation at that time, was in a state of turmoil and went from bad to worse. It was not until the end of the Song Dynasty that Wen Tianxiang and other patriots became famous for their songs of justice that condensed blood and tears, and Song poetry finally shone brilliantly in generate.
Regarding the characteristics of Song poetry, it is generally believed that the most important thing is argumentative and prosaic culture. "Poetry is based on literature", some poets in the Tang Dynasty, such as Han Yu, have started, but those who have become a generation of poetic styles based on this standard, from Ouyang Xiu, Mei and others to Wang Anshi, Su Shi and Huang Tingjian, have reached the extreme. From "taking poetry as the text" to "taking poetry as the theory", the reason why Song poetry is unique and forms its own style under the influence of powerful Tang poetry is deeply rooted in the times. During the Northern Song Dynasty, from the Qingli New Deal to Wang Anshi's political reform, the political reform and the factional struggle that followed it have always been the main concerns of intellectuals. At the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, the main battle and the main peace divided the ruling and opposition scholars into two completely different factions. Most poets have the dual identities of bureaucrats and intellectuals. "Talking about current affairs and striving for glory" is the common feature of this group of poets. Secondly, in the Song Dynasty, Confucianism changed the old habit of Tang people sticking to the annotations of the previous generation, doubting the classics and confusing the past, and interpreting the classics with their own will, which became a trend. Scholars who have been bureaucratized have been added as scholars. The so-called argumentative people are mainly caused by these two special backgrounds.
There is another feature in the discussion of Song poetry: interest in rationality. The so-called rational interest refers to the philosophy of life embodied in poetic images. The cultural root of the formation of interest in reason in Song poetry is not mainly Neo-Confucianism, but the Zen machine of Buddhism. The most interesting representative works in Song Dynasty were mostly written by Wang Anshi, Su Shi and their followers Huang Tingjian and Chen Shidao, whose philosophical thoughts had formed their own system before the formation of Neo-Confucianism. For example, Su Shi's "Two Rhymes, Giving Old Poems": "If spring comes, there will be no return to the flood unless you follow the old path. I hope the teacher is really like a bright moon, and no one will meet in the urn. " That is, it originated from the ode to the vinegar-headed monk fighting machine front contained in the biography of the eminent monk.
In addition, there are two unprecedented characteristics in the two Song poetry circles, one is the emergence and formation of poetry factions, and the other is the emergence and popularity of "Poetry Talk" as a way of poetry criticism. There are many schools in the Song Dynasty, which are related to the stimulation of Buddhist sects and complicated political party struggles. For example, at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, Lv Benzhong (1084 ~ 1 145) wrote the "Sect Map of Jiangxi Poetry Society", and Huang Tingjian listed 25 people as follows, so there were the so-called three schools of Jiangxi poetry, just like the "Fa Si" of Zen Buddhism. All the people on the list are self-motivated and have the same smell. As for the difference of literary views, it leads to the poet's portal views and strict barriers, which has an inherent causal relationship with "poetry talk"
Since Yan Yu's Cang Shi Lang Hua in the Southern Song Dynasty, there have been serious differences in the evaluation of Song poetry, until two schools of "respecting Tang" and "worshiping Song" were formed in the literary history. Generally speaking, Tang poetry focuses on emotion, while Song poetry focuses on rationality. From an artistic point of view, many works of Song poetry lack vividness, beautiful music and weak appeal, which are its shortcomings. From the perspective of cultural history, Song poetry found a new way under the condition of complete rhythm and ingenious images in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, which provided an example of contemporary significance for the development of modern poetry and was the success of Song poetry.