Cen Can (7 18? -769? ), a native of Jiangling, Jingzhou (now jiangling county, Hubei) or Jiyang, Nanyang (now Nanyang, Henan), a poet in the Tang Dynasty, was also called "Gao Cen" with Gao Shi.
Cen Can was born in a bureaucratic family. He studied at the age of five and became a scholar at the age of nine, because he was smart and wise early. In the third year of Tianbao (744), he was a scholar in Cen Can. After three years' election, he was given the command of Cao Jun and served as a government soldier. After that, he joined the army twice, first as the secretary of the Gao Xianzhi shogunate, my minister in Anxi, then as the judge of Feng Changqing shogunate, and my minister in the northwest court in the last years of Tianbao. At that time, Cen Can was a secretariat of history (now Leshan City, Sichuan Province), so it was called "Cen History". In the autumn and winter of 769, Cen Can died in Chengdu at the age of 52 (5 1).
In terms of literary creation, Cen Can's poems are good at seven-character quatrains, and he has a cordial feeling for frontier fortress scenery, military life and exotic cultural customs, especially frontier fortress poems.
Cen Can's works and poems are better than seven-character quatrains. [12] The poem is novel in artistic conception, fantastic in style, magnificent in momentum, rich in imagination, magnificent in words, passionate and full of romantic characteristics. The themes of his poems involve narrating ambitions, answering questions, landscapes and traveling, among which frontier poems are the most important-in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, Cen Can created the most frontier poems and made the most outstanding achievements.
Poetry type
scenic poem
summary
When I was a teenager, Cen Can's landscape poems were beautiful and elegant, similar to those of Xie Tiao and He Xun, but the language was strange and solemn, and the artistic conception was novel. For example, "The mountain wind blew the empty forest, whispering like someone" ("A trip in late autumn"), "The long wind blew the grass, and the wildfire burned the mulberries" ("I sent it to the owner of Kuang Liang"). In his later years, Cen Can's poems were confused and gradually lost. After entering Shu, the landscape poems have added strange and strong features, and the idea of seclusion has also developed in the poems.
Time segmentation
From the time point of view, his landscape poetry creation can be divided into five periods: Songyang seclusion period, Beijing departure period, two frontier periods, Guo Zhizhou period, and the history secretariat period. [ 13]
First, Song Yang lived in seclusion.
In the 20th year of Kaiyuan (732), 15-year-old Cen Can moved to Songyang (now Dengfeng County, Henan Province) and began to live in seclusion (unknown time). At this stage, Cen Can often absorbed a large number of bright and quiet images into his poems, and after natural dilution, his poetic style was fresh and pure. Especially due to the lack of life experience and wisdom, Cen Can's landscape poems at this time lack the understanding and original thinking of the vicissitudes of the world, and there is no subjective motivation to hide the mountains and rivers in order to get rid of the secular constraints. Therefore, the beautiful scenery written by Cen Can at that time was completely derived from the aesthetic intuition of childhood, which was a kind of pure aesthetics. [4] [ 13]
Second, in and out of Beijing.
In about the 25th year of Kaiyuan (737), 20-year-old Cen Can traveled back and forth between Beijing in order to become famous. At this stage, the change of life trajectory gave Cen Can a different aesthetic experience and enriched his poetry writing style. For example, poems such as "Cui Mingyun in Autumn in Gongbei" sweep away the simple way of describing the quiet environment, select noisy images with cool colors, and present a vast and desolate artistic conception in the vast space. Generally speaking, Cen Can's landscape poems have well completed the preparation and transition from landscape painting to frontier fortress landscape painting. [4] [ 13]
Third, twice out of the fortress period.
In the eighth year of Tianbao (749), Cen Can went to Anxi as the secretary of the shogunate; At the beginning of the tenth year of Tianbao (75 1), Cen Can returned to Beijing from the frontier fortress, which was the first time that Cen Can went to the frontier fortress. At this stage, Cen Can's landscape poems focus on describing the vastness of the realm, with deep homesickness between the lines, with sadness as the main tone. After that, Cen Can lived in seclusion for two or three and a half years, during which he wrote some beautiful and elegant landscape poems. These poems, like the copies of Cen Can's early Songyang landscape poems, reveal the aesthetic compensation that Cen Can sought after returning from the frontier fortress.
In the 13th year of Tianbao (754), Cen Can went to the fortress again. After entering the North Courtyard, Cen Can's ambition to serve the country was greatly inspired. With Feng Changqing's appreciation, Cen Can poured his heroic patriotism into the strange mountains and waters of the western regions, bringing many frontier wonders with inexplicable surprises, enjoying the beautiful scenery and realizing the high unity of the love of mountains and rivers and the love of the nation.
Generally speaking, the landscape poems created by Cen Can during his two voyages to the West (the landscape poems of the western regions) have a strong pioneering significance to China's traditional landscape poems. In terms of subject matter, Cen Can was the first poet to describe the scenery of the western regions widely, and really introduced the landscape of the western regions into the care category of landscape poems, injecting new descriptive elements into China's traditional landscape poems; In terms of style, Cen Can's landscape poems in the western regions injected heroic spirit into traditional landscape poems, and broke through the introversion of traditional landscape culture in China. These two aspects have had a far-reaching impact on later western region landscape poems.