Xin Qiji, known as the Dragon of Ci, once wrote, "Young people don't know the feeling of sorrow, so they forcefully describe it in order to compose new words." Literati need years of accumulation before they can write works that will amaze the world. , writing poetry for the sake of writing poetry often backfires.
Good poetry is willing to live but be higher than life. It may not be full of gorgeous words. Ordinary language can also express a soul-stirring philosophy.
For ancient writers, a genius-level poet like Li Bai is hard to come by, and perhaps only one will appear in hundreds of years. Yu Guangzhong once praised Li Bai: "The wine enters the intestines, and the seven One part turned into moonlight, and another three parts roared into sword energy, and when he spit it out, he was half of the Tang Dynasty."
It sounds a bit exaggerated, but in fact Li Bai deserves such a high evaluation. Without Li Bai, the poetry world of the Tang Dynasty would have lost a lot of luster. His boldness and unrestrainedness are all reflected in his poetry.
Some poets almost never leave their pens, creating dozens or hundreds of poems, but none of them are widely circulated. It’s not because they don’t work hard, but because they lack talent and inspiration. . There are also some poets, although the number of their works is very small, because of their high quality, they spread instantly, are sought after by the world, and remain classics after thousands of years.
For example, Zhang Ruoxu's "Spring River with Flowers and Moonlight Night" is even praised as a single poem that covers the entire Tang Dynasty. Two sentences in it, "Life is endless from generation to generation, but the river and moon are only similar every year", which seem ordinary. After reading it, I felt endless aftertaste. To be fair, this poem has a very high gold content, and Zhang Ruoxu became famous because of it.
Today I will introduce a poet from the Song Dynasty. He has fewer works than Zhang Ruoxu. He can be called the laziest poet in history. He only left two poems in his life, but they have become masterpieces through the ages. The poet's name is Su Lin. Maybe you have never heard of it. After all, compared with Su Shi and Li Qingzhao, Su Lin's reputation in literature is so small that it can almost be ignored. However, his two poems cannot be ignored and are often mentioned. On the side of the mouth.
"Fragmented Sentences" - Su Lin
The tower near the water gets the moon first,
The flowers and trees facing the sun are easy to spring.
Originally this poem had no title, but was added by later generations. Judging from the genre, it is neither a rhymed poem nor a quatrain. Some people even suspect that this poem should have four sentences, but it does not. For various reasons, only two sentences have been preserved. Under what circumstances did Su Lin get inspired to write such a beautiful poem?
"Qing Ye Lu" of the Song Dynasty records in detail: "Fan Wenzhenggong Town, Qiantang, all the officers were recommended, but Su Lin, who was alone on inspection, did not see the record, so he wrote a poem: The first to get the moon is near the water, and the flowers and trees in the sun are easy to see. "Spring." The "Fan Wenzhenggong" here refers to Fan Zhongyan, who was an official in Qiantang at that time and had a high official position.
Fan Zhongyan promoted talents only, and did not avoid relatives when promoting talents. His subordinates worked hard and met the conditions for promotion and salary increase. Those who met the conditions for promotion and salary increase were all promoted, except Su Lin. It turned out that Su Lin had outstanding talents and was conscientious in his work. Due to the special nature of his work, he was sent to other places on business trips all year round and did not meet Fan Zhongyan often.
A few years later, Su Lin saw that his colleagues who had similar positions to him had basically been promoted and had salary increases. Some were several levels higher than him, and even people with far less ability than him had become him. My boss feels very unbalanced inside. Su Lin was more face-conscious and didn't want to directly recommend himself. He was worried that doing so would be counterproductive. After thinking about it, he finally came up with a way to get the best of both worlds.
Fan Zhongyan has great literary talent, and his "Yueyang Tower" is famous all over the world. Su Lin took the initiative to write "The first to get the moon is the tower near the water, and the flowers and trees in the sun are easy to spring", and asked him to ask for advice on poetry. Fan Zhongyan commented. Fan Zhongyan understood at a glance that Su Lin was complaining about his unsatisfactory official career. After a period of observation, Fan Zhongyan thought that Su Lin had good abilities, so he promoted him.
Nearly a thousand years have passed, and Su Lin’s 14-character "Juanju" has become a household name, and its meaning has become wider and wider. Some people use it to describe love, and some use it to describe career.