1, "Four Masters" explore the theme of poetry creation
The "Four Masters" were active in the Gaozong and Wuzhou Dynasties, and had a close relationship with the politics at that time. From the monopoly of Guanlong aristocratic military group in Zhenguan period to the recruitment of Han landlords in Wu Zetian period, the official selection system completely changed the pattern that poets were mainly court literati, and lower intellectuals entered the ranks of poets one after another. Therefore, the changes from the Tang Taizong Dynasty to the early Tang Gaozong and Wuzhou Dynasties have had an impact on the whole cultural field, which is essentially a change in the structure of the literati class. It is determined by their class background that the "Four Masters" can make the theme of poetry creation "from court to market" and "from Taige to Jiangshan desert". Looking at the development of the theme of poetry creation before the "Four Masters", we can easily find the relationship between them and the previous generation of poetry. Strictly speaking, the development of the theme of the "Four Masters" poems is only relative to the palace-style poems that have dominated the poetry world since the Six Dynasties, especially since the Tang Taizong Dynasty. In fact, the themes that the "Four Masters" can cover can be found in the poems of the previous generation. However, after all, the "Four Masters" have made changes that meet the development requirements of their times. Their inheritance and development in the field of subject matter are supported by a lot of creative practice, which provides a broad artistic expression world for the arrival of "the voice of the prosperous Tang Dynasty". Mr. Liu Kaiyang divided the four outstanding poets into lyric poems, landscape poems and chanting poems (selected Tang poems), while Mr. Luo Xiangfa divided the creative themes of Luo's poems into lyric poems, frontier poems, landscape poems and other works (including chanting poems).
2. The aesthetic pursuit of "Hongbo" by the "Four Masters"
The so-called "Hongbo" refers to the grand and broad emotional tone shown in literary works. In Preface to Wang Bo, Yang Jiong criticized the writing style of "The Dragon Theory is just emerging" and "Trying to be slim in structure, but actually carving". This kind of writing is "full of backbone and profound ignorance", which shows that Qi Liang has ideas. And praised Wang Bo's creation as "taking this as a mirror, taking his uncle and uncle, strong but not empty, just and moist." It has achieved "Linz to increase the monarch", "anti-Zhu Hongbo, the right of the monarch" and "the hero who is sincere and strong in thinking"
3. The "Four Masters" pay attention to the lyrical function of literature again.
Lyrical function is one of the most basic functions of literature. Due to the poison of formalism and the limitation of living environment and field of vision, court literati naturally cannot create literary works with "feelings in China are in words". The lyrical function of literature is not given due attention in their hands. The "Four Masters", especially He Luo, resumed their attention to the lyrical function of literature in their theoretical propositions and creative practice, which also constituted an important aspect of their literary innovation achievements.
4. The "Four Masters" adhere to the literary thought of paying equal attention to literature and quality.
Although the "Four Masters" criticized Qi Liang's shortcomings of focusing on rhetoric, demanding melody and piling up classics, they did not take a completely negative attitude in their creative practice, and basically followed the law of literature's own development, innovating in inheritance, and making the pace of literary innovation move forward steadily. In the poems of the "four great masters", the emphasis on words, rhythm and literary grace is to express the theme of the poem, not just to be gorgeous in form. Here, the use of words, rhymes and allusions are all in a subordinate position, and they are only means of expression, not the main content to be expressed, which is the essential difference between the "four great masters" and Qi Liang's poems. The fundamental reason for the abnormal development of formalism poetry style in Qi and Liang Dynasties lies in the poet's putting the cart before the horse with words, rhymes and events as the main body of expression, and he has no hope for this, and his spine is exhausted and his vitality is unknown. It is at this point that the "Four Masters" saw the crux of the drawbacks of Qi Liang's poetry and injected important qualities such as "Jixing" and "Feng Gu" into poetry creation, making it in a dominant position. In this way, the relationship between content and form, "quality" and "writing" has undergone qualitative changes compared with Qi Liang, which will inevitably promote the development and change of the forming factors in a direction conducive to the reform of writing style. Most of the words and sentences in the poems of the "Four Masters" were inherited and followed by Qi Liang, and some of them were even used as sentences. But as far as the overall effect of poetry is concerned, the "four outstanding poets" are far better than Qi Liang. Because Qi Liang has good sentences but no good poems, and the "Four Masters" inherit, follow and even use these good sentences in order to serve the rich and energetic ideological content they want to express, so as to achieve the artistic realm of "gentle" and "blooming". Lu's "Ancient Meaning Chang 'an" and Luo's "Imperial Capital" can be said to be typical examples of this inheritance. While inheriting the style of Qi Liang's poems, the poet gave full play to his own characteristics of being good at writing poems, making the already long poems longer, and surpassed Qi Liang in gorgeous rhetoric, meticulous composition, carved words and delicate description. However, their poems are magnificent and have great emotional power, which is incomparable to similar poems of Qi and Liang.
The poems of the "four great masters" also show the characteristics of innovation and development in inheritance in the application of dual poems, emphasis on phonology and service codes. All the poems quoted above have inheritance and development, which is obvious, so I won't go into details here.