Together with Liu Xie's Wen Xin Diao Long, Shi Pin written by Liang Zhongrong in the Southern Dynasties represents the highest achievement of literary criticism in the Qi and Liang Dynasties. Zong Baihua once said in Aesthetic Walking: "China's masterpieces of art and literary criticism, Sheikh's paintings, Yuan Ang's and Wa Shouwu's paintings, Zhong Rong's poems and Liu Xie's Wen Xin Diao Long are all produced in the air of these lively people." It can be seen that the period when poetry came into being was the period when China's literary theory criticism was unprecedentedly active.
Zhong Rong once talked about the origin of his poems in the Preface to Poetry, saying: "It is not worthwhile to judge nine people and break seven people in the past. If poetry is a skill, you can understand it better. " It can be seen that "taste" can be traced back to the evaluation of characters at the earliest, because natural metaphors are often used in the evaluation of people, so in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the taste of algae words began to shift from the evaluation of characters to the appreciation of natural beauty and artistic beauty. At the same time, because of the literary and artistic creation in the Qi and Liang Dynasties, there were also situations of "quasi-attachment", "not showing advantages and disadvantages" and "no quality". Zhong Rong's direct purpose in writing Poems is to "distinguish turbidity and benefit diseases" and show the advantages and disadvantages, ranking first. Zhong Rong's "pin" can be understood as a verb or a noun: as a verb, it means tasting and tasting. It is a personal feeling, which is related to the specific experience of the individual; It is also a further feeling of feeling, that is, to taste and aftertaste specific experiences; Is the beginning of aesthetic feeling; There is also the meaning of distinction or distinction, in which the essence is taken, so there are top grades and bottom grades, and there are three grades and nine grades. The result of discrimination is a "product" in the noun sense. Zhong Rong generally divides the poets of five-character poems into three categories, one category is one category, and each category is subdivided according to different styles, so the structure of his theoretical text is On Poems of Three Categories. This is the "classic" of the stylistic structure of Shi Pin. The styles of these three kinds of poems can be summarized as "national style", "Chuci" and "Xiaoya". The poems of "National Style" are gentle and full of literary changes. Zhong Rong divided them into two schools: the simple school (the school of classical poetry) and the gorgeous school (the school of Cao Zhi). The category of "Chuci" pays attention to the expression of individual experience and individual emotion, represented by Li Ling. "Xiaoya" class raised personal feelings to philosophical thinking, and the sense of hardship became more prominent. This school lends a person alone. This is the "latitude" of the stylistic structure of Shi Pin.
Shi Pin is the earliest monograph on poetry in China, which is close to pure literary criticism. Different from Wen Xin Diao Long, Shi Pin focuses on five-character poems. Zhong Rong believes that five-character poems are "the most detailed and incisive" and that "people who have made many works have a taste". The book is divided into two parts: the general introduction (preface) and the text. Generally speaking, this paper discusses the essence of poetry, the history of five-character poetry, the standards and methods of appreciating poetry, and puts forward some important theoretical concepts. The text takes "quality" as the warp and style category as the weft, forming a relatively perfect theoretical framework. It evaluated 23 five-character poets (including unknown authors of ancient poems) from Han Dynasty to Southern Dynasties/KLOC-0, discussed their advantages and disadvantages, and decided their grades.
An important poetics in Preface to Poetry. It contains the following important poetic viewpoints:
First, the theory of "chanting temperament". Zhong Rong has a profound understanding of the relationship between poetry and people's feelings, and puts forward:
The beast of Qi is touching, so it shakes its temperament and dances.
According to the candle, there are all kinds of splendor, and the spirit only waits for it, and you can say it with it. Moving heaven and earth, feeling ghosts and gods, not close to poetry.
These words show that poetry originates from "Qi". "Qi" is first of all a natural and physical qi, which acts on external things to make it change, on people to form air, and on literature to form literary, physical and spiritual spirit. The creative subject feels the changes of external things and produces emotional turmoil in his heart, thus forming poetry. So through this sentence, we can see Zhong Rong's view on the essence of poetry, that is, poetry expresses people's feelings and is the product of people's feelings. "Moving heaven and earth, feeling ghosts and gods, not close to poetry." Explain that poetry can turn into human feelings in turn. This sentence originally came from The Preface to Poetry, but there is also a sentence of "positive gain and loss" in The Preface to Poetry, which Zhong Rong deleted, because "positive gain and loss" has the color of political enlightenment, which shows that Zhong Rong particularly emphasizes the poet's own emotional world and personality quality. It is precisely because Zhong Rong emphasizes the true feelings and naturalness of natural feelings that he opposes the metaphysical poems with "reasonable words" and the use of too many allusions in his poems.
Secondly, Zhong Rong's sense of things contains the meaning of real life. The reason why the poet's temperament is shaken should be the touch and feeling of nature and social life on the poet. He said:
If it is spring breeze, birds in spring, autumn moon in Qiu Chan, summer rain in Xia Yun and Leng Yue in winter, all poets will feel the four seasons. Jiahui will send poems to relatives and leave poems to blame. As for going to the country, Han concubine resigned from the palace. Or the bone is horizontal and the soul is flying. Or negative ge wai garrison, kill the public side. When the guest's clothes are stuffed, the widow's tears will flow out. Or a scholar who thanked her for going out to Korea. It is good for a woman to have a young moth, and then she looks forward to dumping her country. How can all kinds of responses, the soul of feeling, and non-Chen poems show their meaning? Why not Long song? Therefore, as the saying goes, "Poetry can be resentful." It is nothing more than poetry to let the poor live a comfortable life and make seclusion boring.
This passage fully shows how strong the emotional impact of real life experience will be on the poet, and the poet's creative impulse is also produced after observing foreign things and experiencing life. In his life experience, Zhong Rong particularly emphasized "resentment", which developed from Confucius' theory of "appreciating the scenery and blaming the masses". However, Confucius' "resentment" is related to "being a father" and "being a monarch", which contains a certain color of political education. Zhong Rong's "resentment" is completely an individual's mental pain, more precisely, it is a kind of "parting from resentment" that Zhong Rong led Qu Yuan into exile, respected the monarch and resigned from the Han Dynasty, recruited a husband to go through customs, and mourned in the boudoir. For example, this shows that this resentment of parting can only be expressed by singing loudly. Poetry can therefore "make it easy for the poor and humble to live in peace and live in seclusion."
Third, the theory of "direct reading" and "natural English purpose". Zhong Rong advocates that nature is the highest aesthetic principle in poetry creation, and puts forward the theories of "seeking the purpose directly" and "natural English purpose"
As far as talking about family ties is concerned, why is it expensive to use things? "Thinking of you like running water" is not only the immediate goal; "High platform hates Taiwan", which is just what you can see; There is no reason to "go to the first place in the morning"; "The bright moon shines on the snow" reveals the classics and history. Throughout the ancient and modern times, most of them are true, and they are all straight.
The so-called "direct search" means looking for good words and expressions directly from the emotional feelings of things ("things" refers to the natural scenery and world experience mentioned above), rather than looking for words and expressions in previous allusions or poems. The creation of poetry comes from the inspiration of "things" and the stimulation of "feelings". Zhong Rong cited four examples of poems to show that they are not from books such as allusions and classics, but from "direct search". In fact, this is to advocate expressing true feelings in simple and natural language. On the contrary, a poem that likes to use ancient books for allusions and words loses its "natural English purport". Zhong Rong further specified:
When Daming and Taishi were in office, almost all articles were copied from books. Close to Ren Fang, Wang Yuan and other places. Words are not expensive, strive for new things, come to the author, and immerse yourself in customs. Therefore, there are no empty words in the sentence and no empty words in the language. However, the purpose of nature is not worth it. If a word loses its height, it should be added with meaning. Although it is thanks to geniuses and scholars, it is also reasonable.
The essence of the theory of "seeking for the purpose directly" and "natural English purpose" is the same, which mainly includes the following connotations:
Emphasize sincere feelings. Since poetry is mainly lyrical, it should be sincere and cannot have false emotional expression; Poetry is about expressing feelings. In order to express sincere feelings, we should oppose the school of writing (the school of using classics) and the school of temperament, and focus on lyricism. He said: "It is better to make up for falsehood than to look at the past and the present. They are all seeking directly." "Direct search" means writing scenery and expressing feelings directly without borrowing classics. The theory of "seeking directly" is the core of Zhong Rong's literary thought. Zhong Rong advocates that poetry should be "direct", that is, direct lyric narration, which provides a theoretical basis for later generations to oppose formalistic poetry style. Zhong Rong's theory of direct search reveals three characteristics of artistic thinking in poetry creation: directness. Direct dialogue with things in the intuitive perception center, without the intermediary of logical reasoning; Visualization. Because the perception of foreign objects does not need to be expressed by concepts, but more by images. This makes image thinking included in "direct search"; Fit. In the process of direct search, the subject and object directly talk and blend into one, and the emotion of the creative subject is in harmony with the object to be expressed, so it can be "dancing".
Fourth, "Poetry has three meanings". "Poetry has three meanings" is Zhong Rong's general requirement for literary creation. Zhong Rong said: "Therefore, poetry has three meanings: one is prosperity, the other is comparison, and the third is fu." Zhong Rong's theory of "three meanings" comes from the theory of "six meanings" in the preface to poetry, but it has new theoretical contributions. He changed the order of traditional Fu to Xing, highlighted the position of Xing and expanded the connotation of Xing. He said: "the text has done its best, but it is also prosperous; Because things are metaphorical, they are better than others; Straight books, fable writing, and fu also. " In today's words, Zhong Rong's "Xing" means that the language of poetry should be meaningful and meaningful, so it has surpassed the traditional view that "Xing" is a writing technique. After Zhong Rong's new explanation of "Xing", Si Kongtu in Tang Dynasty had nothing to say, Yan Yu's "Lingyang tune, no trace to ask" and so on. "Comparison" means that the narration of scenery depends on the author's own feelings; Fu is a direct statement and description of things, but it also needs to use meaningful language in writing. Moreover, it is necessary to comprehensively use the "three meanings", that is, as he said, "macro three meanings, use them properly, use them dry with wind, use them moist with Dan color, and make the tasters infinite and the listeners tempted". This is the most poetic and tasteful work. If only metaphor is used, it will hinder the poet's expression of emotion and the people who experience poetry to grasp poetry. If only fu is used, poetry will appear messy and rambling, and people who experience poetry will not feel it. Xing is based on "Xing" and is used with. With beautiful and vigorous style of writing and concise and powerful language as the backbone and beautiful words as the embellishment, we can write good poems that make listeners tempted and critics sing and sigh.
Zhong Rong emphasized that poetry creation must focus on "wind power" and at the same time "moisten with Cai Dan". Wind Power and Cai Dan are both the best works. In essence, the emphasis here is "Jian 'an Wind Power". Judging from his exposition of "Jian 'an Wind Power" and the examples cited, he set such a standard for "Wind Power": it has the characteristics of generosity and sadness, direct pursuit of nature, emphasis on spirit over form, and clear and concise language style. Zhong Rong's wind theory has become one of the theoretical weapons of Chen Ziang's poetry innovation movement, and its symbol is the weak poetic style that later generations oppose moaning without illness.
Fifth, the theory of "taste". Zhong Rong put forward the theory that "poetry has three meanings", and thought that the key to make poetry have "flavor" is to comprehensively use the writing methods of "Fu, Bi and Xing". How to use "three meanings" comprehensively? In the "three meanings", he put "Xing" in the first place and comprehensively applied it, highlighting the artistic thinking characteristics of poetry. He also said: "Red silk has three meanings. It is used properly. It is blown dry by the wind and moistened by Cai Dan, which makes the tasters infinite and the listeners tempted. This is the ultimate in the poem." Only in this way can we write works with "taste". Therefore, "taste", as an important measure of works, makes it a basic aesthetic category in ancient literary theory.
The essence of five words in literary words is that many works have flavor, which is why clouds are popular. Doesn't it mean that people who write the most meticulous things have bad feelings?
The original meaning of "taste" refers to the physiological pleasure obtained by satisfying the appetite. People in the pre-Qin period already felt the connection between the "taste" of diet and the "taste" of art (Confucius said that "Wen Shao doesn't know the taste of meat in March"), and the concept of "taste" was introduced into a large number of literary criticisms after Wei and Jin Dynasties. Zhong Rong's "Poetry" holds that poetry must have a beautiful taste, and only the works that make the tasters infinite and the listeners tempted are the "best poems". "Taste" became Zhong Rong's criterion for evaluating the beauty of poetry. Zhong Rong's so-called "taste" has two meanings: first, as a verb, taste, taste and extension mean appreciation, which is similar to the first meaning of "product"; Second, as a noun, taste, taste and aftertaste are extended to charm. In the process of "taste", the taster and the taster are integrated, and "taste poetry" can only be subjective, impressionable and perceptive, which finally develops China's impressionist literary criticism.
Zhong Rong was the first literary critic in ancient China who put forward the theory of poetry based on taste. His theory of "interest" also influenced the poetic artistic conception theories of Si Kongtu, Yan Yu, Wang Tutuo and Wang Guowei (such as Si Kongtu, Wang Tutuo's lasting appeal theory, Yan Yu's interest theory, Wang Tutuo's verve theory and Wang Guowei's realm theory, etc.). ).
After the Tang and Song Dynasties, Shi Hua became the largest number of works in China's ancient literary theory, which had something to do with the development of Shi Pin. Although the exact form of poetry talk began with Ouyang Xiu's Poetry Talk on June 1, Zhong Rong's Poetry Talk is still the originator of ancient poetry talk, so it is also called the originator of Poetry Talk on Hundred Generations. The direct way of thinking, the method of image criticism and the poetic category of literary theory it adopted had a far-reaching influence on the development and maturity of the poetic characteristics of China's ancient literary theory.