Song poetry wins with meaning, which is profound and thorough, and the beauty lies in strength. However, it is too ostentatious to learn, pays attention to the source of words, likes gossip and allusions, and loses its elegant beauty, which is detrimental to the artistic conception. Song poetry is often innovative, innovative, detailed and thorough, lacking naive interest.
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. The vast majority of poets have the dual identities of bureaucrats and intellectuals. "Talking about current affairs and striving for talent" is the common feature of this group of poets. Secondly, Confucianism in the Song Dynasty changed the old habits of Tang people who stuck to the previous generation and doubted the classics and confused the ancient times, and became an atmosphere. Scholars who have been bureaucratized have been added as scholars. The so-called argumentative people are mainly caused by these two special backgrounds.
The argumentative nature of Song poetry has another feature: interest in reason. 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 first article in Qian Zhongshu's Talking about Art is "Poetry is divided into Tang and Song Dynasties", "Tang poetry is good at expressing meaning and rhyme, and Song poetry is good at reasoning with bones and muscles". 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, One of the Laws and One of the Old Poems": "Where does spring come from? It's not returning to the flood, but stepping on 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, Ruben wrote the Sect Map of Jiangxi Poetry Society, which listed 25 people below Huang Tingjian, 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"
Qian Zhongshu commented on the Song people: "It is a great fortune and a great misfortune for the Song people to follow the example of Tang poetry. Poets in Song Dynasty saw this good example, learned to be good, and will strive for perfection in skills and language. At the same time, with this good example, they are lazy and indulge the inertia of imitation and dependence, that is, they are trying to imitate their predecessors. " [1] Since Yan Yu's Cang Shi Lang Dialect 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. Qian Zhongshu commented on Song poetry in "Preface to Selected Poems of Song Dynasty": "Song poetry still has a defect, which is fond of reasoning and discussion; The truth is often shallow. " 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.