Wu Rong's poetic thoughts are most directly reflected in his Preface to Zen Moon Collection for Guan Xiu. In the first half of the preface, he described his views on poetry, and in the second half, he described Guan Xiu's behavior and his friendship with Guan Xiu. His article wrote:
Fu's poets praised the good, while the evil was stung by the wind. You can't have both, the rhyme is very sharp, and the civil puppet is not angry. What's the point? Since the elegant way to rest, those five-character and seven-character poems were all sentenced and arrested. If there are restrictions, the narrative of the performance will be endless. Songs are different from poems. However, if you don't know what this poem is about, you can get the meaning. Take unusual language for example, the language is interesting and the meaning is good. There are many people who can sing, dance and write poems in China, led by Li Taibai, who has a high spirit and does not lose the way of singing. After that, Bai Letian wrote 50 satirical articles. At that time, he was very eloquent. Yesterday, Zhang Qian wrote five poems, and he was an educator. Not bad. As for Li Changji's origins, they are all first-class, and his writing style is not between the fairy tales of the bridal chamber, so he has forgotten it. In recent years, scholars have been immersed in each other and have never changed. Alas! This is also a custom. A gentleman's heart is full of sorrow, in a word. He is so obsessed with words that he can't act on enlightenment.
Based on this passage, we can sort out three important thoughts of Wu Rongyu's poems:
Re-praise irony
From Wu Rong's 30 1 poems, we can find that those poems expressing praise and irony appear in almost all kinds of themes. For example, the poems mentioned above, such as Giving Rewards, Leaving a Southern Beijing with Thirty Rhymes to Become a "xianggong", Sending a Beauty Master and Giving a Song to Chu Shi, are all works that practice "praising goodness", such as Giving a cursive song to a gifted scholar, Seal Slips, Li Shu Customs, and Cao Xian is unconstrained. There are monks in the south of the Yangtze River who are famous for their light. The good wall of others has been waved, and it has flowed for three or five lines in the blink of an eye. Pick like a hook, pick like a dial. Inclined like a palm, back like a mold. There are countless critical satirical works such as "going on a tour", such as the poem "Feelings of Jinqiao", which expresses his criticism of the court's misjudgment of the situation and reckless use of troops, and also reveals his anti-war thought of wanting to make peace with foreigners. Others, such as "Two Poems of Huaqing Palace" and "Four Poems of Huaqing Palace", are more ironic, such as one of its "Four Poems of Huaqing Palace":
There is no deer sea and no waves in the Central Plains, and the phoenix flag is lucky. Today, the Forbidden City is lonely and quiet.
The poem mentioned that the emperor was lucky, but it actually satirized the Anshi Rebellion. Ming Chengzu and the imperial concubine rushed to Shu, and Tang Xizong rushed to Shu in the evening because of the Huang Chao Rebellion. The repetition of similar situations makes Wu Rong's satire more real and profound. In the category of "praising people and things", poems such as "Twenty-six Rhymes of Watching Mosquitoes" and "Selling Flowers Weng" also contain profound satire, such as the poem "Singing Rain":
The loyalist disturbs people more than thieves, and the general is afraid of death and only guards the city. How can you worry that the court is slow and the officials are turning again? Mars's plot made him suffer greatly, but Dou Wu's plot failed. Are you worried that civil servants will be shelved and cultural and educational undertakings will be bleak today?
In his poems, he expressed his deep concern about the rebellion of officials against the people, the generals' fear of death, the eunuchs' rebellion and the cronies' rebellion, and he was also worried about the situation of poor loyalty and poor culture and education. Poetry can be traced back to the tradition of The Book of Songs, and Wu Rong attaches great importance to "elegance and morality", which shows that Wu Rong has Jing Zong's Confucianism. Under such a value ideology, it coincided with the chaos in the late Tang Dynasty. Wu Rong's poems really fit the concept of "promoting good and satirizing evil" and are quite eye-catching.
The value of practical enlightenment
Wu Rong emphasizes the practical value of satire in poetry, which shows that he attaches importance to the practical enlightenment function of poetry and he respects satire. In the preface of Zen Moon Collection, he mentioned that Bai Letian's Fifty Ironies refers to Lotte's New Yuefu, which Wu Rong described as "an extraordinary performance of a period". This kind of satire is the most important part of Bai Letian himself. Wu Rong even agreed with Zhang Wei that Le Tian was listed as an "educator in a broad sense", which showed Wu Rong's appreciation of the mass function of Lotte's poetry education. For example, Wu Rong's poem "Flower-selling Weng" criticizes the monopoly of the rich on spring scenery. It is made by imitating the title and idea of Lotte's "New Yuefu-Selling Charcoal Weng", but its content is more effective than Lotte's "Ten Poems of Qin Zhongyin-Buying Flowers", and its satire is more tortuous and euphemistic, but it points directly to the center of gravity. In order to realize the function of educating the masses, the vulgarity and vernacular of poetry are very important. Although Wu Rong has practical educational thoughts, he did write many poems with strong irony and practical value. However, if we use poetic language to measure the effect of educating the masses, Wu Rong is probably minimal. His modern poems are elegant in language, and attach importance to artistic expressions such as temperament and allusion, which follows the aesthetic literary style of the late Tang Dynasty. Although his poems are not brilliant, they are very literati. Like Luo Yin, Du Xunhe and Nie, he has the same inner contradictions and pains. The difference is that Luo Yin and others' poems are vulgar and simple, while Wu Rong's poems are more elegant and refined, showing more sadness. However, this does not mean that Wu Rongquan has no works in plain language. The use of some works or words in his classical poems shows a vulgar and plain style, such as shouyangshan:
Shouyangshan is lying on the Yellow River, where two people have starved to death. Different people make mistakes in the world, and brothers are self-righteous.
Therefore, let the eternal know your heart, because I am noble and righteous, not expensive. Elves grow in white clouds, so they should be full of laughter at all times.
The words in this poem are plain and simple, and there are no incomprehensible allusions or metaphors. It tells the story that Uncle Chen Boyi refused to eat Zhou Su and starved to death in shouyangshan. "Two people in the world have starved to death" and "You should eat dead people with a smile at any time" are even more vernacular. The whole poem borrows shouyangshan's memory of the ancients, and expresses the spirit that a minister should value righteousness over body. Another example is the above-mentioned "Song of Giving a Cursive Book to a Master": "The seal script is simple, the official script is common, and the sage of the grass is unconstrained. There are monks in the south of the Yangtze River, who are famous for their talents, and they can be crazy if they only manage purple hair. And "Song of Master Guangli": "It is very difficult to transform people's hearts, and it is even more difficult to transform their own hearts. People's transformation can be limited by the process, and self-transformation must have its own will. Whoever has the will in his heart will benefit from it today. Thirty years ago, when I was a teacher, I saw how to learn cursive from a pen. All these are simple words and simple sentences.
As a poet with a strong Confucian color, Confucianism emphasized the idea of saint education, which had a certain influence on Wu Rong. It is precisely because of the Confucian political education and the thought of helping the people through the world that Wu Rong never ran away in the situation of the country in the late Tang Dynasty, and finally died in the office of the Hanlin.
Respect the reality and reject the strange wind.
In the preface to Zen Moon Collection, Wu Rong also expressed his dissatisfaction with Li He's poetic style, such as "carving steep and flying literary talent" and "the beauty of the wedding candle is beyond words". He believes that "a gentleman's heart is arrogant and his words are beneficial", and so is poetry. So, it has nothing to do with education. Therefore, for Li He's "Double Love and Autumn Water Light", it is a good interpretation. A piece of fragrant silk is scattered on the ground, and the jade hairpin is silent and tired, gorgeous and fragrant, or like "calling stars and ghosts to Xin cups and plates, and the mountain rhyme is cold when eating." In the end, the south sun is low and the bay is flat, and the immortals grow harmoniously. This kind of poetry of immortals and ghosts is very exclusive. Wu Rong often expresses his homesickness, and his poems are indifferently quiet, implicitly revealing the bleak charm, such as Two Homesick Poems after Rain:
The birds have been singing all night, but the rain has not stopped. Try your best to return to happiness, and you should be more worried about parting.
My family travels for dinner, so the country is in Cangzhou. I can't sleep when I hear this. It's quiet at home.
The whole poem takes the description of hearing as the main axis, and writes that Wu Rong heard mountain birds, drizzle and homesickness during his journey. The homesickness emerged under the catalysis of these sounds, which made him sleepless all night. Another example is "Forgot Flowers":
When the red flowers were all gone, it was bleak and I didn't forget my worries. A few flowers are as red as spring, and spring worries are human intestines.
This poem is about forgetting flowers, but it is full of worries. It is in this strong contrast that Wu Rong's worries are exposed. From this perspective, Wu Rong is sad. His disappointment and regret over his lost life experience and hopeless service to the country are reflected in his poems. He focused his vision on himself and the small world he saw and heard around him. In this small world, he showed desolation, indifference, self-mockery, contradiction and other emotions. Unlike Li He, who is sick and sad because of his poor fame, his poetry performance has entered a "ghost domain". Wu Rong, either because he is in the same column as Han Wo, who created the "fragrance style", and once served as an academician, or because of the aesthetic atmosphere in the literary world, also has some more gorgeous works, such as Han Wo's Untitled Three Poems and Daoyuan Rhyme. In addition, such as the poem "I want to see makeup":
Hazy till dawn, vaguely distinguish the residual makeup. At the beginning of the month, the flowers were still hidden in the fog.
Eyebrows are all green and the forehead is half yellow. Turn to the golden screen and invade the pillow light.
There are cicadas, temples, no swallows and no hairpin. How to persist in the dream before the Twelve Peaks.
Describe a boudoir embroidered pavilion witnessing a beautiful scene of a woman putting on makeup the night before in the early morning, which is in tune with the "fragrance body". However, there are less than ten such works by Wu Rong, and the number is quite limited. Scholars have always compared Wu Rong with Han Wo and Tang, thinking that his poetic style is beautiful, which is obviously unfair. In addition, from his friends, it is not difficult to find that he attaches importance to the concept that literature should serve reality. His friends, such as Luo Yin, Pi Rixiu and Lu Guimeng, all advocated exposing the darkness of society and telling the disadvantages of the times. His poems are vulgar, simple and superficial, and his attitude towards politics and society is even worse than Wu Rong's. Looking at Wu Rong's poems again, his allusions often quote books such as The Book of Songs, Historical Records and Zuo Zhuan. It can be inferred that his thought is based on classics and history, which are two departments that directly serve feudal politics. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand Wu Rong's emphasis on the role of poetry in praise, satire and realistic education.