"Extremely splendid, returned to plainness." After poetry surged like a waterfall in the Tang Dynasty, Song poetry was relatively more like a river that had been artificially patched and repaired. It was originally unruly and unruly. The torrent of poetry here changed into a regular, peaceful and docile one.
Mr. Qian Zhongshu once said such a cautionary saying: "It is said that when Alexander the Great of ancient Greece was in the East Palace, whenever he heard the news that his father had won a war in a foreign country, he would be worried and fearful. The whole world has been conquered by him, and there is no place for a hero like himself to be used in the future. Poets who came up in the era of great poetry creation must have similar feelings. Of course, the world of poetry is boundless, but, The wider the territory occupied by the predecessors, the more manpower and material resources the successor would have to expand the territory, and the farther the expedition would be, otherwise he would at most be a defender and could not be regarded as a king who carried forward the previous achievements. Achievements are not only an inheritance passed on to future generations, but in a sense, they can also be said to be provocations to future generations, choosing them to compete and see if they can catch up from behind, break records, or do the same thing and come up with new ideas. If you cannot accept this kind of provocation, then this inheritance will easily bring disaster to your descendants and create greedy and lazy dandies. It is a great blessing for the Song people to have Tang poetry as an example. The poets of the Song Dynasty learned to be good and strive for excellence in technique and language; at the same time, with this good example, they also became lazy and indulged in the laziness of imitation and dependence. "(Preface to "Selected Poems of the Song Dynasty")
< p>Although Mr. Qian was not very satisfied with the above argument, Mr. Qian also made this succinct and vivid comment on the basic situation of the Song Dynasty: "The Song Dynasty cleaned up the messy separatist situation of the Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties, and was able to maintain it for a relatively long time. The unity and stability of the period, so the Yuan Dynasty is said to be the "last three dynasties". The Song Dynasty was far less powerful than the Han and Tang Dynasties. We only need to look at a poem title by Lu You: "At midnight on May 11th." "I dreamed of conquering the country in person and returning to my hometown in the Han and Tang Dynasties";... In addition, the broad and excessive imperial examination system opened up the way to become an official, and the complicated and complicated administrative agencies increased the number of official positions, and the bureaucratic class in the Song Dynasty became It was larger than that of the Han and Tang Dynasties. It is said that "the area of ??prefectures and counties is not wider than before, but... the officials are five times that of the old ones"; the "redundant officials and excessive expenses" in the Northern Song Dynasty have become "out of control"If we do not use the same ruler to measure history, we will find that the reasons for the success and failure of each dynasty are different. When the Han and Tang Dynasties were prosperous, there were no strong enemies in the surrounding areas. However, at the beginning of the Song Dynasty, it faced successive attacks from the Liao, Xixia, Jin, and Yuan states established by the ethnic groups in the north and northwest. Even if they paid tribute and became vassals, the country would inevitably be destroyed. Death. Therefore, although the Song Dynasty was an important development stage in Chinese history, talking about it will always make future generations shake their heads, frown, and feel sad. But from another perspective, there is a completely different view. For example, the famous historian Mr. Chen Yinke believes: "The culture of the Chinese nation has evolved over thousands of years. It reached its peak in the Zhao and Song Dynasties, then gradually declined, and will eventually revive." ("Jinmingguan Collection Series 2"· Deng Guangming's "Preface to the Textual Research of Official Chronicles of Song Dynasty")
From the perspective of cultural history, it is even more reasonable. Since the "An-Shi Rebellion" in the Tang Dynasty, there were first vassal towns and then the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. The central power existed in name only, and the country's power collapsed. Therefore, Han Yu advocated Confucianism, traced back to the Confucian orthodoxy from the "Ancient Literature Movement", and pioneered the "Neo-Confucianism of the Song and Ming Dynasties". There were also Er Cheng and Zhu Xi who gave lectures in academies to remedy the bias of imperial examination education and enable the systematic continuation of Chinese culture. and revitalization. Bai Juyi's approach to Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, and his understanding of the rational way of life and attitude, had a profound influence on the literati of the Song Dynasty and later generations. The "three religions" of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, which are the mainstream trends of Chinese thought and culture, were integrated through the "Lunheng" system started in the Northern Dynasty, and achieved "integration" in the Song Dynasty.
Some people say that poetry has been completed by the Tang people. If future generations are unwilling to do so, they will have to find another way out. The Song people did exactly that. On the one hand, they "translated literature into poetry" and opened up the way of "poetry lectures", treating poetry as articles; on the other hand, they "played with unrestrainedness" and found other ways, so they wisely chose to regard the Tang and Five Dynasties as "poetic remainders". "The gadget "Xiao Ling" took it over and developed it into a new and more complex literary form. This is the "Song Ci" that will be famous for future generations.