The dialogue between dragons
The theory of "verve" advocated by Wang Shizhen, a famous poet in the early Qing Dynasty, is an influential theory in the poetry theory in the Qing Dynasty, which mainly advocates the implicit artistic style and requires poetry to have an extra flavor; Pursuing the artistic realm of clearing and elegant; Take the prosperous Tang Dynasty as the priority, and demonstrate the poetic charm of Wang Wei and Meng Haoran. Wang Shizhen's idea originated in the period when the Qing Dynasty entered the country with relative stability and severe ideological imprisonment, which had great limitations of the times. It overemphasizes the nothingness of poetry, resulting in certain abuses; So it was criticized by some people at that time. Among them, Zhao Zhixin, Wang Shizhen's nephew, criticized it most vividly and fiercely.
Zhao Zhixin's "Talking about the Dragon Record" was written specifically for Wang Shizhen's "verve theory". This book puts forward some valuable realistic poetics, some of which can also hit Wang Shizhen's point. For example, he thinks that there should be someone in the poem and opposes the writer's being divorced from reality and being disease-free. There should be something outside the poem, emphasizing the ideological content and educational function of the work; Form should serve the content, and it is opposed to simply pursuing language skills regardless of the content of the work. However, some of our contemporary theorists have belittled the value of Wang Shizhen's "verve theory" and exaggerated Zhao Zhixin's achievements, so much so that they are suspected of arguing for Zhao Zhixin. Zhao Zhixin's poem is called "Talking about the Dragon Record", the first of which is a dialogue between dragons. This dialogue was conducted among Hong Sheng, Wang Shizhen and Zhao Zhixin. Hong Sheng thinks that poetry, like a dragon, is not a dragon if it is lacking and incomplete. Wang Shizhen believes that poetry, like a dragon, can't see its tail at the beginning, or just show a claw and a scale in the cloud, and it won't show the whole body in any way. The dragon with all the people mentioned by Hong Sheng is a sculpture and painting dragon, not a dragon. Zhao Zhixin retorted: "The dragon's flexion and extension change, and there is no fixed body. Those who are in a trance refer to its scales and claws, and the dragon's head and tail are intact, so it is now there." If you stop at what you see and think that the dragon is there, the carver will have to resign. " In fact, there is nothing profound about these words of Zhao Zhixin. However, some contemporary commentators think that these words recognize the relationship between poetry and reality and are in line with the realistic tradition of China's classical poetry.
In fact, Wang Shizhen attaches great importance to the artistic principle that "less wins more", which is implied. His so-called "poem is like a dragon, seeing its head but not its tail, or showing a claw and a scale in the cloud" is a vivid metaphor. And Zhao Zhixin heckled the dragon "from beginning to end in good condition, so it is now there", but it was a bit like a rubber column. Wang Shizhen just thinks that poetry is like a "dragon flying in the sky", and it is difficult to measure its beginning and end. He does not deny the existence of the "dragon". What he pursues is the distant realm of "there is a aftertaste in the sentence and a meaning in the article". These arguments are in contact with the relationship between artistic expression and realistic theme, which is more in line with artistic laws.
A few years ago, our literary theory put too much emphasis on the relationship between literature and reality, and mechanically evaluated works based on whether they reflected real life. In the study of ancient literary theory, this standard is also mechanically applied. Literature is a reflection of real life, but it is by no means a mirror reflection, but a reflection through the initiative of many intermediary links, so the relationship between literature and reality is by no means as simple as a straight line. Wang Shizhen's speech also attaches great importance to the importance of life experience and the truth of details. However, he used "God" to express his thoughts everywhere, compared poetry to "dragon" and called the artistic effect of poetry "verve", which made his theory seem lost. But we can't praise Zhao and suppress Wang because of this.