Huang Tingjian takes "immortality" as the high standard when discussing poetry, and to achieve this state, he emphasizes the need to read more. Only by "having thousands of books in your mind" can you "write without a trace of vulgarity." Huang Tingjian's emphasis on reading more is not to learn for the sake of learning, but has three main meanings: The first is to study seriously, widely absorb all the good things of the predecessors, and create and develop on the basis of comprehensive understanding. The second is as a kind of accumulation of knowledge, so as to increase the connotation and implication of poetry and strive to eliminate vulgarity. The third is the cultivation of subjective cultivation and temperament, cultivating a kind of temperament that is based on the basic spirit of Confucianism but is transcendent and unique. Only by being "not vulgar" can one write poems that are "out of the ordinary". One of Huang Tingjian's most famous poetic propositions, "turning iron into gold", is actually related to the subjective cultivation he emphasized. He said in "Reply to Hong Ju's Father": "Those who can write in ancient times can really cultivate all things. Even if they take the ancient people's statements and put them into calligraphy, it is like a magic pill that turns iron into gold." This passage is often criticized. It is believed that it refers to paraphrasing ancient statements, so it advocates copying and plagiarism. In fact, Huang Tingjian borrowed Taoist terminology, using iron as a metaphor for all things that have been cultivated as the material of poetry, gold as a metaphor for the finished product after enlightenment as poetry, and elixir as a metaphor for the poet's subjective thoughts and spiritual cultivation, so what he meant was that Excellent poets are good at using external things for their own use. The key lies in the poet's subjective thoughts and artistic accomplishment as the foundation that governs all things. With this foundation, even if you use the ancient statements, you can turn the old into the new.
Therefore, although Huang Tingjian intends to use the old to make something new, his focus is on emphasizing the poet's subjective ideological cultivation and artistic accomplishment