I wrote an article earlier, and a friend asked me if Su Shi was among the top four Chinese poems, and asked me to exclude him. Later, I read many comments and although they had different opinions on which of the top four poets they were, they generally had no objection to excluding Su Shi and Xin Qiji from the top four poets.
It can be seen that most friends have the same opinion.
But this does not mean that Su Dongpo's poetry is not good, but that he is really capable. He is a leader in poetry, prose, traditional Chinese painting, calligraphy, and philosophy. Compared with his lofty status in these aspects, he created little or even nothing in poetry. This is not to say that his writing is not good, nor is it his personal fault, but that in the Song Dynasty, the rise of Ci Pai gradually replaced the daily function of poetry. This is the so-called "confluence of poetry and poetry" - and the initiator of this behavior is That is our great Mr. Su Dongpo.
This also established Su Shi's key position in the history of Ci Pai. However, his poems only reflected his literary talent and thoughts, and did not make any major achievements in poetic style and style.
To see how someone’s poetry is, you need to read a lot of his works from different time periods. In the early Song Dynasty, there were some people who were not as good as Su Xin in terms of literary talent, but they put forward theories on the reformation of poetic style and guided Ouyang Xiu's poetry restoration movement, such as Mei Yaochen (I forgot one). Their poems were not so vivid, But their guiding role is more important in the history of poetry than Su Shi and Xin Qiji.
To give another simple analogy, it is well known that Xin Qiji is the pinnacle of Song Ci poetry and even the entire history of Chinese Ci poetry. However, when we mention the three giants in the history of Ci poetry, they are Liu Yong, Su Shi, and Zhou Bangyan. What happened to Xin Qiji? Why? Liu Yong developed Xiaoling into a long tune and broadened the style of Ci Pai; Su Shi incorporated poetry into Ci and broadened the theme of Ci Pai; while Zhou Bangyan organized all Ci Pai and became a master, which we call "Lao Du in Ci" - this kind of The perspective is from the perspective of the development of Ci Pai style. Although personal artistic achievements are not as good as Xin Qiji, he can become a key figure by playing a key role at critical moments.
Although there are many schools of poets in the Song Dynasty, there are Xikun style (inherited by Li Shangyin), Taixue style that opposed Xikun style's obsessiveness, Xiangshan style (inherited by Bai Juyi), and Jiangxi poetry school (inherited by Bai Juyi). Du Fu), as well as the Four Spirits School of Poetry and the Jianghu Poetry School, there is a vast landscape, but how many poets can we remember now? Probably Wang Anshi, Su Shi, Huang Tingjian, Lu You, Fan Chengda, and Yang Wanli. Among them, the Northern Song Dynasty was more popular than the Southern Song Dynasty, so the Song Dynasty poets had to choose the three giants, namely Wang Anshi, Su Shi, and Huang Tingjian. If we want to create a pair of peerless heroes, Huang Tingjian will be eliminated, leaving Wang Anshi and Su Shi.
So, you see, Su Shi thought his poetry was average, but in fact, his level was already firmly ranked second among Song poems.
This has nothing to do with literary talent. His literary talent is high, but it is too scattered, and he has obviously achieved higher achievements in other fields.
Su Shi’s literary achievements are like a sky full of stars, and poetry is just the least bright one among them.
When Wang Anshi was young, he looked down on poetry and regarded it as a late skill, but his literary talent was adequate. Even "Two Songs of the Ming Concubine", which uses poetry to talk about things, is definitely a leader in ancient style. After he retired and lived in seclusion in the mountains, his poetry style began to move towards the style of Tang poetry, and his half-life experience added a sense of indifference to his artistic conception. Therefore, Wang Anshi's Jing Gong style in his later years became a pure world of Song poetry that was not contaminated by Neo-Confucianism. In this way, he occupied the highest peak of Song poetry, which is just like Tang poetry.
Song poetry was invaded by Neo-Confucianism, and Ci Pai occupied the entertainment position of the lower class. Poetry drew a clear line between it and the common people both subjectively and objectively, and lost the creative source of enthusiasm in life. So Song poetry is like a stern-faced beauty from Kochi, looking at you from a distance and penetrating your soul - beautiful, but not pleasing to the eye.
Under this environment, the characteristics of the most emotional and sexual poetry of the Tang Dynasty cannot be expressed as a whole - if the emotion of the poetry is light, it will naturally lose its flavor.
Let’s look at some of Su Shi’s most popular poems: “Only because I am in this mountain”, “A moment of spring night is worth a thousand pieces of gold”, “A duck prophet with warm spring water”, “A pear tree weighs a begonia”, all of them are in Be reasonable.
This is a typical feature of Song poetry.
Who likes to listen to sermons? How can you make people want to listen to it? Vivid, metaphorical, and subtly explain your own truth in a way that ordinary people like to hear and see.
And this is what Su Dongpo, who is humorous, optimistic and talented by nature, is best at doing.
The most widely circulated poems of Su Shi that ordinary people can remember are all works that are easy to understand, vivid and interesting metaphors.
He uses exquisite language to reason, while Tang poetry uses natural language to express emotions.
This is where Tang poetry is superior to Song poetry, and why Wang Anshi's half-mountain style poems are better than Su Shi's poems.
Therefore, compared with the poets of the entire Tang Dynasty, Su Shi's poems were at a disadvantage. This disadvantage was not caused by literary talent or character, but by the influence of the literary style of the times, the history of poetry and poetry. natural development trend.
Song poetry is also a peak in the history of poetry, but it will always be below Tang poetry. Otherwise, how can we say "Tang poetry and Song lyrics"?
However, compared with those who came later, especially the creators of modern ancient poems, Su Shi's poems can already be regarded as the works of heaven and man.