Characteristics of Tang poetry
1. Large number. During the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, "Complete Poems of the Tang Dynasty" was compiled, containing more than 48,900 poems. Books in the Tang Dynasty were mainly copied by hand. Eight centuries later, nearly 50,000 works have been handed down, indicating that these works have withstood the test of the times.
2. A wide range of authors. They range from emperors and generals, to traffickers and foot soldiers, to Buddhist advocates, to senior citizens, to children of several years old, as well as foreign authors. Among them, 691 have personal albums handed down to the world (according to Ming Dynasty statistics).
3. Diverse themes. Tang poetry has written about all aspects of social and natural phenomena such as politics, economy, war, religion, court, officialdom, imperial examinations, marriage, family ties, friendship, travel, nostalgia, landscapes, pastoral, animals and plants and other social and natural phenomena. As Wen Yiduo said: "Wherever words are used in life, they write them in the form of poetry, to the extent that everything can be included in poetry."
4. Complete system. Yuefu, ancient poetry (including five-character, seven-character, miscellaneous, and four-character), quatrains, and rhymed poetry have all developed and matured in the Tang Dynasty, and a large number of excellent works have appeared. There are also people writing in the Chu Ci style, and some poems give birth to the genre of "ci".
5. Skilled in technique
(1) Rich in image, free and bold imagination
Reflecting social life through artistic images is the basic foundation of art law. Poetry sings about life and expresses true feelings with the help of specific images. In most poems, the main image is that of the lyrical protagonist (usually the poet himself). For example, Li Bai's "Farewell to Meng Haoran in Guangling":
My old friend bid farewell to the Yellow Crane Tower in the west, and fireworks descended from Yangzhou in March.
The shadow of the lone sail in the distance is gone in the blue sky, and only the Yangtze River can be seen flowing in the sky.
There are many sceneries and images here: old friends, Yellow Crane Tower, fireworks, solitary sails, blue sky, Yangtze River, skyline, etc. But it is obvious that the main image in the poem is not them, but the poet standing by the river looking at the sky and the earth when bidding farewell to his friend Meng Haoran to Guangling.
Artistic conception is an artistic realm in which scenes are blended together. It cannot be called artistic conception if it has feelings but no scene, or has scene but no scene. In fact, the expression of emotions requires certain scenes to be displayed. Excellent poets always find ways to condense thoughts and feelings into certain life pictures, so that people can perceive and grasp them through concrete and perceptible life pictures. When writing poems, if you do not pursue the artistic conception in your conception, but just express empty sighs, or meticulously copy the actual scenery, even if the scenery is described very realistically, it will not produce poetic flavor.
Scenario blending is only an image feature of artistic conception. Whether it is the feelings hidden in the scenery, the scenery in the feelings, or the combination of scenes, they cannot be regarded as the entire artistic conception. A wonderful artistic conception must not only have the image characteristics of a blend of scenes, but also a mixture of virtuality and reality, with infinite charm.