Ouyang Xiu (65438+August 20071-1September 22, 072) was born in Yongfeng, Jizhou (now Yongfeng County, Ji 'an City, Jiangxi Province) for four years in Jingdezhen. [2]
Song Renzong Tiansheng eight years (1030), Ouyang Xiu was a scholar, experienced Renzong, Yingzong and Zongshen dynasties, and was a bachelor of Hanlin, a Tang dynasty, and participated in the discussion of state affairs. After his death, he gave it to a duke named Chu. posthumous title was called "Wenzhong", so he was called Ouyang Wenzhong.
Ouyang Xiu was the earliest literary leader who created a generation of literary style in the literary history of Song Dynasty. He, Han Yu, Liu Zongyuan, Su Shi, Su Xun, Su Zhe, Wang Anshi and Ceng Gong are also called "eight masters of Tang and Song Dynasties", and Han Yu, Liu Zongyuan and Su Shi are also called "four masters of literature through the ages". [3] He led the poetry innovation movement in the Northern Song Dynasty, and inherited and developed Han Yu's ancient prose theory. His high achievements in prose creation and his correct theory of ancient prose complement each other, thus creating a generation of writing style. Ouyang Xiu not only changed the style of writing, but also innovated the style of poetry. In historiography, there are also high achievements. [3] He once specialized in "The Book of the New Tang Dynasty" and independently wrote "The History of the New Five Dynasties". There is a collection of works handed down from ancient times by Ouyang Wenzhong. [4]
1072 On September 22nd, Ouyang Xiu died at home at the age of 66.
Literary achievements
essay
The poetic innovation advocated by Ouyang Xiu is essentially aimed at the style of writing in the Five Dynasties and Kunxi style in the early Song Dynasty, but Ouyang Xiu's literary theory and creative practice are very different from those of retro literary critics since Liu Kai. Before Ouyang Xiu presided over the literary world, the style of writing represented by Kunxi style was severely criticized. Ouyang Xiu opposed "imperial academy Style" and "Quincy Style".
Ouyang xiu's sitting posture
Ouyang Xiu's sitting posture [2 1]
Ouyang Xiu has a new view on the relationship between literature and Taoism. First of all, Ouyang Xiu believes that Confucianism is closely related to real life. [22] Secondly, Ouyang Xiu pays equal attention to literature and Taoism. [23-24] In addition, he also believes that the text has an independent nature. [25] This idea of paying equal attention to literature and Taoism has two meanings: one is to regard literature as important as Taoism, and the other is to regard the artistic form of literature as important as ideological content, which undoubtedly greatly improves the status of literature. Liu Kai and others called on Han Yu to pay attention to his own orthodoxy, while Ouyang Xiu paid more attention to inheriting Han Yu's literary tradition.
Ouyang Xiu loved ancient Korean and Liu prose since childhood. Later, when he wrote ancient prose, he followed the example of Han and vitamin, but he didn't blindly worship ancient prose. He absorbed the literary talent of Han and Liu's ancient prose, but abandoned their strange interest and metaphysical tendency. [26] At the same time, Ouyang Xiu did not completely deny the artistic achievements of Pian Tiwen, but also praised Yang Yi and others for their "erudite writing and powerful free writing". In this way, Ouyang Xiu not only corrected the bias of Liu Kai and Shi Jie in theory, but also corrected some shortcomings of Han and Liu's ancient prose, which established the correct guiding ideology for the poetry innovation in the Northern Song Dynasty and opened up broad prospects for the development of ancient prose in the Song Dynasty.
In his early years, Ouyang Xiu studied the prose of Zhuanli and studied Korean carefully in order to take the exam, which laid a good foundation for the future writing of ancient Chinese. After he met in Luoyang, he consciously learned from Yin the concise and accurate techniques of ancient Chinese, mainly ancient Chinese, but also paid attention to the diversification of forms. Ouyang Xiu's attitude towards writing is extremely serious, and he often revises it repeatedly before finalizing it. His profound knowledge and hard practice have made outstanding achievements in his prose creation.
Ouyang Xiu's prose is rich in content and diverse in forms. Whether it is discussion or narration, it is to do something and feel it. Some of his argumentative essays were directly related to the political struggle at that time. For example, in his early years, he co-authored the book "Advice" with Gauss, exposing and criticizing Gao Ruo's despicable behavior in politics. He is clear about right and wrong, honest and stern, and full of political passion. Another example is "The Theory of cronies" written in the Qing Dynasty, which clearly put forward the argument that "a villain has no friends, but a gentleman has them", effectively refuting the fallacy of political enemies and showing the integrity and extraordinary courage of innovators. This kind of article has positive substantive content and is a model of the organic combination of practical function and artistic value of ancient prose. Ouyang Xiu's other argumentative essays are not directly related to real politics, but express the author's profound thoughts on history and life, such as some prefaces in History of the Five Dynasties, summarizing the historical lessons of the Five Dynasties, clearly expressing the author's praise and criticism, and the historical view that the rise and fall of a country lies in personnel rather than fate. Another example is his preface to the collection of friends, which not only comments on the literary achievements of friends, but also expresses his feelings about life and death, ups and downs, not for writing.
Ouyang Xiu's narrative also has substantial contents in words, such as historical prose such as History of the Five Dynasties, and even pavilions, eulogies, inscriptions and other works have substantial contents, such as Fengle Pavilion, which describes the historical story, geographical environment and even customs of Chuzhou in detail. Another example is the "Dragon Steel Clamp Watch", which is to recall the good words and deeds of parents. The details are exquisite and lifelike, and this effect can never be achieved by empty words.
Ouyang Xiu's prose has a strong emotional color, and his political essays are full of speeches and emotions. The history paper is deep and full of emotions; Other essays pay more attention to lyricism, sincere sadness and joy, and the harmony between emotion and literary talent. For example, there are only a few strokes in the preface to shimi poetry. Shi Mi's performance, Shi's down-to-earth temperament and their misfortunes stand out from the paper, and the author's admiration and regret for the two men and his feelings about the passage of time and personnel changes also penetrate between the lines, which is touching. In Ouyang Xiu's works, the practicality and aesthetics of prose have been fully demonstrated, and the three functions of narrative, discussion and lyric of prose have also been highly organically integrated.
Ouyang Xiu
Ouyang Xiu
Ouyang Xiu also made great contributions to the development of prose style. His works have various genres, each of which is suitable. Besides ancient prose, Ci Fu and Si Liu are also his good styles. First of all, Ouyang Xiu reformed the previous generation's parallel prose fu and metrical fu, removed the dual provisions of parallel prose and rhyme restriction, and changed it into a single prose fu, thus creating a literary fu. His masterpiece Qiu Deng not only partially retains the formal characteristics of parallel prose, regular poetry and parallel prose, but also shows the tendency of lively and smooth prose, which enhances the lyrical meaning of Fu. Ouyang Xiu's successful attempt is of milestone significance to the establishment of literary form. Secondly, Ouyang Xiu also made some innovations in the four or six styles. In the early Song Dynasty, the four or six styles all followed the old system of the Tang Dynasty, while the Kunxi scholars strictly followed the "thirty-six styles" of Li Shangyin and others. Although Ouyang Xiu also abides by the old system of writing official documents in four or six styles, he mostly adopts a single-line prose style and seldom uses story idioms, thus injecting new vitality into this style of writing. His works "Qian Suizhou" and "Two Tables of Begging Officials in Cai Zhou" are both excellent works in the Song Dynasty.
Ouyang Xiu's language is concise and fluent, and his style of writing is euphemistic, creating a new style of simplicity and naturalness, which is unique in addition to the elegance of Korean and the rigor of Liu Wen. For example, in the opening paragraph of Zuiweng Pavilion, the language is plain and smooth, crystal clear and smooth, concise and harmonious, understated, and there is no sense of stagnation and embarrassment. Deep feelings, accurate comments, expressed in a euphemistic and implicit tone, eloquent and thoughtful. This approachable style of writing is obviously easier to be accepted by readers, so it has broad development prospects, which is proved by the development of prose in Song Dynasty.
Ouyang Xiu's creation enriches the genre of prose and makes its function more complete. Ouyang Xiu's high achievements in prose creation and his correct theory of ancient prose complement each other, thus creating a generation of writing style. [3]
The ancient prose movement in the Northern Song Dynasty led by Ouyang Xiu was a complete success, which ended the situation that parallel prose dominated for 600 years since the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and provided a new type of ancient prose that was convenient for argumentation and lyrical narration for 900 years after the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties. Ouyang Xiu also became a master writer. [27]
curie
Ouyang xiu's sideways portrait
Ouyang Xiu's sideways portrait [28]
Compared with Yan Shu's ci, Ouyang Xiu's ci mainly follows the old road of five pronouns, but has more new elements. Although his ci works did his best, [29] stuck to the traditional concept of ci creation, [30] but as the first generation of literary school, he also made some innovations in his ci works. This is mainly reflected in two aspects: first, it expands the lyric function of ci, and further expresses my life feelings with words along the direction pioneered by Li Yu's ci; Secondly, it changed the aesthetic taste of Ci, and opened up in the direction of popularization, echoing Liu Yong's Ci from a distance.
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 famous "Chao Zhongpu Pingshan Hall" (Pingshan railing leaning against the clear sky) shows his handsome 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. [3 1] So, I wrote some gorgeous words with "secular spirit", some were vulgar, and some contents and artistic conception were healthy, such as Nan Gezi (golden mud with chicken bun) and Chun (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.
Another manifestation of the popularization of Ouyang Xiu's ci is that he borrowed and absorbed the expressions of folk songs such as "freeze-frame, couplets" and created two sets of "Fisherman's Passion" and "Drum Poems", which respectively recited the solar terms in December, and had a great influence on Su Shi's lyric chronicle by means of couplets. The other two poems, The Fisherman's Pride (Two Paddles at the Bottom of the Flower and Showing Water on the Lotus Leaf Field), describe the romantic joy and love distress of lotus pickers respectively, with fresh style and folk flavor. In the history of Ci in Song Dynasty, Ouyang Xiu was the first person to actively learn from folk songs, which also created a fresh and lively artistic style of his Ci, which was embodied in Ten Poems of Picking Mulberry Seeds. [3]
poetry
Ouyang Xiu not only changed the style of writing, but also innovated the style of poetry. He attached importance to the characteristics of Han Yu's poetry and put forward the poetic theory of "poetry is poor and backward". Compared with the thoughts of Kunxi poets, Ouyang Xiu's poetics undoubtedly contains the spirit of attaching importance to the content of life. Ouyang Xiu's poetry creation is guided by reversing the bad tendency of Quincy's style divorced from reality, which reflects the Song people's initial awareness of rectifying the poetic style in the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties.
There are some works with social reality as the theme in European poetry, such as The Man Who Eats Bad Grain, which exposes the unreasonable reality that farmers who grow grain can only satisfy their hunger with distiller's grains, while Bian Hu describes the unfortunate experiences of people in the border areas of Song and Liao Dynasties. The more important content of European poetry is to express one's life experiences or feelings and to chant historical themes. Because most of his poems contain deep feelings about life, they are essentially different from similar poems in Quincy style. For example, the play answers Yuan Zhen (the spring breeze is less than the horizon).
European poetry is greatly influenced by Han Yu, which is mainly reflected in prose techniques and the introduction of arguments into poetry. However, European poetry does not keep pace with the ancients, so it still has its own characteristics. Arguments in European poetry can often be integrated with narrative and lyricism, so Korean poetry is fluent and avoids its dullness. Such as "Farewell Song" on the scenery, rich in feelings. The prose technique of European poetry is not mainly reflected in syntax, but draws lessons from the narrative means of prose, such as "Shu Huai's feeling for Mei" to describe the banquet experience, which is thorough and won the beauty of ancient Chinese.
European poetry also learns from Li Bai, mainly because the language is fresh and fluent, and the unique euphemistic and relaxed style of European poetry has formed a graceful and restrained style, such as Song of Cao Cao Ode to the West Lake in Spring, which describes the feelings of Wan Li's good friends and his reluctance in his later years. Time and space span is very large, and his mood is also ups and downs. However, his writing style is very elegant, and his expression seems to be telling his family. Ou Shi's achievements are not as good as Owen's, but his style tendency is consistent, which is obviously a revision of Quincy's style. [3]
Other achievements
Ouyang xiu's calligraphy works
Ouyang xiu's calligraphy works
In the study of Confucian classics, Ouyang Xiu's study of Chunqiu has unique views. As a pioneering work, epigraphy compiled thousands of epigraphy artifacts and inscriptions from the Zhou Dynasty to the Sui and Tang Dynasties, and wrote more than 400 volumes in ten volumes, referred to as Jigulu, which is the earliest extant epigraphy work.
In historiography, Ouyang Xiu has made great achievements in historiography. He not only participated in the revision of the 250 volumes of the Book of the New Tang Dynasty, but also wrote the History of the Five Dynasties (the New History of the Five Dynasties), summarizing the historical experience of the Five Dynasties, in order to play a warning role. Ouyang Xiu's calligraphy is also world-famous, and his calligraphy is deeply influenced by Yan Zhenqing. Zhu Yue said, "Ouyang Gong works for others, and if he is a layman, he will be strong."
In agronomy, Ouyang Xiu visited all over the world, made a detailed investigation and summary on the cultivation history, planting techniques, varieties, flowering period and flower viewing customs of Luoyang Peony, and wrote a book, including Inflorescence and Explanations of Flower Customs. This book lists 24 kinds of peony, which is the first peony monograph with important academic value in history. [32]
In terms of genealogy, Ouyang Xiu created a folk genealogy, and wrote "Preface to Ouyang Xiu's Genealogy", which explained in detail the migration map of Ouyang Xiu's ancestors, that is, the context from Dayu to Yue royal family, and also described the process of Ouyang Xiu's migration to Jiangnan again after the Eight Kings Rebellion and its development in various parts of the south.