Six quatrains were written in the second year of Shang Dynasty (76 1). The first three poems comment on the author, and the last three reveal the purpose of the poem. Its spirit is interrelated and an inseparable whole.
On Yu Xin's Six Poems. Du Fu once said in Spring Memories of Li Bai that "opening a house is fresh and beautiful". In this poem, it is pointed out that Yu Xin's later articles (also referred to as poems and fu) are more mature in style: "Yu Xin's articles are older and more mature, and his brushwork is vertical and horizontal." Lingyun, a healthy pen, is not only good at "freshness". The "modern people" in the Tang Dynasty who told Yu Xin what to do, laughed and scolded him, enough to show his ignorance. Therefore, "former sages are afraid of future generations" is just a kind of irony.
The second and third poems are about four outstanding figures in the early Tang Dynasty. Poetry in the early Tang Dynasty has not completely got rid of the habit of painting algae in the Six Dynasties. In the second song, "being frivolous for writing" is a cynical remark about the "Four Masters". Shi Bing's Du Suozheng explains this poem in this way: "The style of saying four words was the fashion at that time, but people who scoffed at it have not stopped yet. I don't know that the name of the second Cao was destroyed, and the writings of the four sons were not abolished, such as rivers flowing forever. "
The third song "Even if" is Du Fu's accent, and "Wang Lu's calligraphy is not as coquettish as Han Wei's" is what people laugh at the Four Masters (Lu Wang refers to the Four Masters in the poem). Du Fu quoted their words to refute, so the last two sentences had such a turning point. This means that, even so, Si Jie can master such magnificent words as "The Story of Long Hu Wen" with the talent of vertical and horizontal cooperation, and their works can stand the test of time.
The intention of these three poems is obvious: the first poem says that people should see the whole, not just one aspect and ignore the other. The second one says that the evaluation of writers cannot be divorced from the conditions of their times. The third song points out that although the writers' achievements are different, they have their own characteristics and do not hide from each other. We should evaluate it properly and be good at learning from our predecessors from different angles.
These views are undoubtedly correct. But the significance of these three poems goes far beyond this.
Wei-Jin period is a transitional stage of China literature from plain to brilliant. During this period, Li Ci and melody developed rapidly, and the poet made great achievements in the exploration of poetic forms and language skills.
This created conditions for the overall prosperity of Tang poetry. On the other hand, there was a bad tendency in the literature of the Six Dynasties to emphasize form over content, especially after the appearance of the court of Qi and Liang Dynasties, the poetic style became more decadent and powerless.
Therefore, the acceptance and criticism of the Six Dynasties literature by the poets in the Tang Dynasty is an extremely arduous and complicated subject.
When Qi Liang and Yu Feng were still ruling the poetry circles in the early Tang Dynasty, Chen Ziang first put forward the idea of restoring ancient ways, followed by Li Bai, and completed the task of cleaning up and destroying the depression. The trend of "serving the people of China but keeping their feet on the ground" has been reversed, but some "descendants" and "Ercao" who have no opinions and take their ears as their eyes have gone to the other extreme. They seek for sound and shadow, but they want to completely deny the literature of the Six Dynasties and point the attack at Yu Xin and the four outstanding figures in the early Tang Dynasty.
Yu Xin summed up the literary achievements in the Six Dynasties, especially his poems with neat sentence patterns and harmonious rhythm, as well as lyric poems written in poetic language, which played a direct leading role in regular poems, Yuefu songs and parallel prose in the Tang Dynasty. In the eyes of Tang people, he is the most representative modern writer, so it is easy to focus on him. As far as the four outstanding poets in the early Tang Dynasty are concerned, although they are not satisfied with the "official style" based on "strange charm", their main contribution is the inheritance and development of the artistic skills of the Six Dynasties and the establishment and consolidation of the modern poetry system. This has also become an excuse for those who are "good at the ancient times and close to the ancient times" to say that they are "not as coquettish as the Han and Wei Dynasties".
How to evaluate Yu Xin and the four outstanding poets was the focus of debate in the poetry circle at that time. Du Fu grasped this key point and expressed his views in the last three poems of Six Jueju.
"Modern people" in "Love the ancients at all costs" refers to modern writers, such as Yu Xin and Si Jie. Du Fu loves the past but not the present, because "clear words and beautiful sentences must be neighbors". "Neighbor" means homophonic. In Du Fu's view, poetry is the art of language, and "clear words and beautiful sentences" cannot be abandoned. What's more, Yu Xin and Si Jie not only have "clear pronunciation and beautiful sentences", but also have the side of "Lingbi" and "Longji", so he advocates eclecticism: advocating ancient tunes and adopting new sounds, and keeping ancient and modern poems in parallel. "Today's people love the ancients, and beautiful sentences in plain language must be neighbors" should be understood in this sense.
However, it is pleasing to the eye to learn from the Six Dynasties and blindly pursue "clear words and beautiful sentences" such as "jade playing with orchids, brighter colors", but the style of writing is gentle and shallow after all; If you want to surpass your predecessors, you must be magnanimous, do what you can and hunt whales in the blue sea; See the charm of flying in a rigorous physique; Not confined to space, not confined to temperament, calmly in statutes, God is outside the rules. In order to achieve this artistic realm, Du Fu believes that it can only be achieved by "stealing and bending". Because Chu Ci is brilliant, it is the immortal ancestor of the poet. Only by following the Qu and Song Dynasties in the Six Dynasties can we, as Liu Xie said, "think strangely without losing its truth, play with China without falling into reality, and then cough and vomit after it" ("Wen Xin Diao Sao"), so as not to follow the frivolous and gorgeous footsteps of Qi Liang.
Du Fu's thought of inheriting and criticizing the literature of the Six Dynasties is mainly manifested in "never being vain" and "benefiting from many teachers instead".
The last poem of Six Juequatrains has different views from those of the predecessors. The "former sages" here generally refer to the successful writers of the previous generation (including Yu Xin and the four great writers). To "carry on the family line" is to follow suit. "Carrying on the family line" is the root cause of "failing to reach the sages". The crux of the fallacy of "false body" lies in replacing creation with simulation. If truth and falsehood are mixed, falsehood can be confused with truth, so it should be "cut differently" Creation and conformity are the dividing lines between Du Fu's truth and falsehood. Only by giving full play to creativity can we express ourselves, write our own temperament and write real literary works. This is the reason of Yu Xin's "spirit of writing" and the "declining river" of the four outstanding men. On the contrary, picking people's teeth and getting close to people will inevitably have no vitality. Pile up words, step by step, after the dust, of course, it is illusory; And talking about the excellent service of Han and Wei, isn't it illusory? In Du Fu's mind, there is only the difference between true and false, and there is no difference between ancient and modern.
"Don't cut off your fake body" and "turn to benefit from multiple teachers" are two sides of the same question. "Don't cut off your fake body" and emphasize creation; Transfer to Multi-Division focuses on inheritance. The relationship between them is dialectical. "More teachers are your teachers", that is, you can do anything without a teacher. This statement has several meanings: it is omnipotent, so it can take advantage; Without a regular teacher, I am not confined to a family. Although I have inherited and used for reference, it does not hinder my creativity. This is a ... Only on the premise of distinguishing the true from the false can we determine who to learn from and what to learn from, and truly "learn from many teachers." The second is. If you want to be self-taught, you should be good at learning other people's achievements from different angles, and at the same time, you should abandon useless things. Third. On the basis of attaching equal importance to criticism and inheritance, Du Fu's spirit of "learning from many teachers" and "cutting away the illusory body" lies in creation, blending the past and the present in one furnace and casting great words.
Although Liu Jueju mainly talks about artistic issues, it is inseparable from Du Fu's overall creative spirit. "Stealing the Song Dynasty" and "Pro-elegance" in his poems are the guiding ideology of his creation and the purpose of his poems.
These six short poems are essentially the summary of Du Fu's practical experience in poetry creation and the general outline of poetry theory. It involves a series of important theoretical issues related to the development of Tang poetry. It is unprecedented to make such a big comment in such a small poem. The poet sees the meaning of things like a spring, and tells them with a relaxed and humorous solemn brushwork, mixed with Zhuang. Li Zhonghua said that Du Fu's "Don't find another way" was here. Obviously, the reason why this poem is labeled as "the play is six quatrains" is because I don't have to waste my breath.