The translation of excerpts from ancient literary theories is as follows:
Preface to Mao Poetry says: Poetry is the expression of people's emotional will, which is contained in their hearts and expressed in language. Emotions are stirring in your heart, just express them in the language of poetry.
Words are still endless, so we continue with a sigh. Before sighing, we opened our throats and sang. We are still not satisfied with singing, so we dance unconsciously.
The original text of Excerpts from Ancient Literary Theories is as follows:
Those who choose poems in Preface to Mao Poetry have their own aspirations. Have ambition in your heart and speak like a poem. Emotion moves in the middle and is shaped by words. Sigh if you don't talk enough. If they are not enough, they will sing. If they are not enough, they will dance without any help.
Appreciation of selected works of ancient literary theory
Preface to Mao Poetry is the first monograph on poetry theory in ancient China. It puts forward many important opinions on the basic characteristics, content classification, creative principles, expression techniques and social functions of poetry, and is a programmatic document of orthodox literary thought in feudal times.
The Creative Background of Selected Ancient Literary Theories
As an ancient collection of poems, The Book of Songs spread to the Han Dynasty and has become a kind of knowledge with various factions. Qi (biography of Yuan Gusheng), Lu (biography of Shen Gongshuo) and Han (biography of Han Ying) all became official schools from the standpoint of official schools, and they all belong to modern literature schools.
After Mao's poems came into being, they belonged to the ancient prose school. Until the end of the Han Dynasty, their knowledge was not officially recognized, but spread in society through folk knowledge. According to legend, Confucius deleted the poem and awarded it to Shang Bo (that is, Xia), and the business was the order. Later, Lu got Mao Heng, Lu got The Biography of Old Training, and Zhao got Fang Zhouzi. At that time, people called Evergrande Mao Gong and Ji Xiao Mao Gong, so they called Shi Mao.
According to Wei Yuan's On Similarities and Differences between Qi, Lu, Han and Mao, all three poems died in an orderly way, except the preface to Mao's poems. The 305 articles in this edition of Shi Mao have a small preface, which introduces the author or writing background before each poem and discusses the theme and intention of the poem. Among them, there is a long text behind the preface of the first article "Guanju", which was later called "Preface to Mao Poetry" or "Preface to Poetry".
There have been different opinions about the author of Preface to Mao Poetry for a long time, among which there are two influential opinions: one holds that Preface to Mao Poetry was written by Confucius' disciples and found in Zheng Xuan's poems; It is said that it was written by Shihong. See The Scholars in the Later Han Dynasty.
Today's academic circles tend to think that the Preface to Mao Poetry was not written by one person, but was mainly written by scholars before the middle of the Western Han Dynasty, which may also contain elements that Mao poets in the Eastern Han Dynasty expounded and benefited from.