Ouyang Xiu was a famous writer and historian in Song Dynasty. His prose is plain, euphemistic and tortuous, and he is an advocate of the ancient prose movement in the Northern Song Dynasty, and one of the "eight masters in Tang and Song Dynasties".
In content, the highest achievements are Tao, politics and Ci. In style, the highest achievements are remembering, writing, preface and discussion. There were not many lyric articles in the early Northern Song Dynasty. Ouyang Xiu created a large number of essays, such as Zuiwengting Ji and Qiushengfu, which had a far-reaching impact on the development of Wang Anshi, Su Shi and even the prose of Ming and Qing Dynasties. Although the achievements of Ouyang Xiu's poetry can't be compared with the above, it has made great contributions to correcting the "Kunxi style".
His poems pay great attention to reflecting people's lives and state affairs, such as Eating Bad People. Ou Shi is also good at expressing his magnanimous mind and broad-minded spirit. His masterpieces include Answering Yuan Zhen and Farewell to Cao Ge in the West Lake in Spring.
The artistic features of European poetry are the "Li Bai style" side of poetry, the dull, fresh and lasting emotional charm of Tang Dynasty, and Han Yu's emphasis on discussion, culture and discussion.
Ouyang Xiu's ci mainly writes romantic banquets, hurting spring grievances and other themes, with deep and beautiful style, gentleness and charm, and profound meaning. Like Yan Shu, he inherited the style of five pronouns and was influenced by Feng Yansi's Ci. However, European words also have their own personalities. For example, compared with Feng and Yan, it is pioneering in subject matter. Lakes, mountains, customs, and time sequence are all included in Ci, and their ci styles are also diverse.
Ouyang Xiu had ups and downs in his career and was demoted three times. His official career is not as smooth as Yan Shu's, and he has a deep understanding of the vicissitudes and dangers of officialdom. Although there are not many words to express this emotion, after all, they show a new creative direction, that is, words can be used not only to write traditional types of lovesickness and hate, but also to express the author's unique life experience and mentality. His masterpiece "The Hall of the Mountain in the North Korea" (the railing of the mountain leans against the clear sky) shows his natural and unrestrained and broad-minded personality. This optimistic and open-minded attitude towards life and his creative way of expressing his feelings in words had a direct impact on Su Shi later.
Ouyang Xiu is vigorous and resolute in political life, upright and upright, courageous and resourceful. His poems and some "elegant words" show this side of his character. And his daily private life, especially when he was young, was quite romantic and unrestrained. So I wrote some colorful words with "secular spirit", some of which were vulgar, and some of them were healthy in content and artistic conception, such as Nan Gezi (golden mud with a chicken bun) and Yujiachun (night pillow meddling). This kind of words reflects an aristocratic tendency that is different from the pursuit of language beauty in five pronouns, but close to the aesthetic taste of the public.
Ouyang Xiu praised and recommended young talents with real talent and practical learning, which made a large number of young talents who were still unknown at that time stand out and become famous for later generations. Not only literary giants such as Su Shi, Su Zhe and Ceng Gong, but also great scholars such as Zhang Zai, Cheng Hao and Lu Dajun are all famous for Ouyang's knowledge, vision and mind. His life was full of peaches and plums, and Bao Zheng, Han Qi, Wen Yanbo and Sima Guang were all admired and recommended by him. Five of the "Eight Masters of Tang and Song Dynasties" came from his family in Song Dynasty, and they were all famous for their costumes.