1. Romanticism, Realism and Idealism
Open any review of ancient Chinese poetry and you will find an indisputable fact: there are two major schools of Chinese ancient poetry, romanticism ism and realism. In fact, not only ancient poetry, but other literature also has the same two schools. Those who are specifically divided into romanticism and realism are modern people, or to be more precise, foreigners and not the poets themselves, because they themselves do not have this awareness. The reason why they do not have this awareness is because of the life and style they live. The influence of their thoughts. The main schools of thought in ancient China were Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, and this is also reflected in ancient Chinese poetry. Chinese ancient poetry can also be divided into three schools: Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. The current names are realism, romanticism, and idealism. If divided according to this, Qu Yuan, Tao Yuanming, Li Bai, etc. should belong to the Taoist sect. Why do you say that? First of all, let’s talk about the Taoist school in China. The main idea of ??the Taoist school is that “Tao follows nature.” Rather than saying that the way is natural, it is better to say that it is my own way. In fact, they cannot stand the reality, but they are not willing to actively participate in changing the reality themselves. Here, including Qu Yuan is a bit unfair to him, and he feels a bit forced. However, they did not mean to ask him to seek death. It's not that reality cannot tolerate them, but that they never tolerate reality. Therefore, what we see is that they are not concerned about society, full of passion, and law-abiding, but they are self-degenerate, unwilling to make progress, and idle daydreams. For example:
Drinking alone under the moon
Li Bai
A pot of wine among the flowers, drinking alone without any blind date. Raise a glass to invite the moon, and look at each other to form three people. The moon doesn't know how to be happy, but its shadow follows me. For now, the moon will be shadowed, and we must have fun until spring.
My singing moon lingers, my dancing shadows are messy. They make love together when they are awake, but they separate when they are drunk. We will travel without mercy forever, and we will meet each other in Miao Yunhan.
Han Yu, Du Fu, Lu You, etc. are from the Confucian school. In fact, in ancient China, Confucianism and Taoism influenced ancient Chinese politics and thought just like the Democratic Party and the Democratic Party in the United States. Different from Taoism, Confucianism pays more attention to the suffering of the people and social reality. If everyone were like Taoists, it would be difficult for society to progress. Because nature has always obeyed the laws of nature, but as expected, nature has always been nature. The beast obeys nature, so the beast is still a beast. The current Darwinism of Westerners is actually the law of nature. The reason why it has not been proposed until now shows their backwardness. In fact, our ancestors have proposed it a long time ago, and even if they didn’t mention it, they would still perfect it. Liu Yuxi, a poet of the Tang Dynasty:
The way of heaven is in nature, and it is used to deal with strength and weakness; the way of man is in the legal system, and it is used in right and wrong.
Here we see that the laws of nature only apply to nature, and the law of the jungle is observed, while humans use the legal system and abide by the rights and wrongs. So if Taoism focuses on nature, Confucianism focuses on society. Here is an example:
Poor girl
Qin Taoyu
Pengmen did not recognize Yiluoxiang, so he hurt himself even if he wanted to ask a good matchmaker. Who loves fashion and high style, but pity the times when they are frugal in dressing up.
Dare to praise the skills of the needle with all ten fingers, and do not draw the eyebrows into elongation. I hate spending money every year to make wedding clothes for others.
There is also a school of Buddhism, which is Buddhism. This school seems to be ignored because few people can pay attention to them, and they are unwilling to let others pay too much attention to them. However, they have a great influence in history, especially in ancient Chinese poetry. Weight, this can be reflected in ancient poetry. For example, there are many descriptions of these people in Li Bai's poems. Many of his friends were monks. Su Shi often interacted with monks, and there are many of them in his poems. But what’s interesting is that Buddhist poets seem to have no place in ancient Chinese poetry. When we look at Tang poetry, not a single one is written by a monk. When we travel, we will find another situation. Many famous mountains, rivers, ancient temples and temples are full of nostalgia and endless aftertaste because of Zen poems. Here is an example:
The body is like a bodhi tree, and the mind is like a mirror.
Wipe it frequently to avoid dust.
This was written by a monk named Shenxiu, and another monk named Huineng wrote:
Bodhi has no tree, and a mirror is not a stand;
There is nothing there, so where is the dust?
The sixth realm of reading poetry
When we read ancient poems, due to different levels, the realm that each person reaches is also different. We know that Wang Guowei divided reading ancient poetry into three realms, while Feng Youlan divided human thought into four realms, and here I will divide it into six realms. Scientists have studied the sixth sense of human beings. I think people also have the sixth sense when reading poetry. The so-called first state is just knowing and knowing, but not knowing what it means is like knowing a person but not knowing his character. The second state is that you are already familiar with its meaning, but do not know its background and do not know why the poet wrote this poem at this time. The third realm is to be familiar with the poem, the poet, and the era in which the poet lived. At this time, when we read the poem, we will understand the poet's situation.
Then the fourth realm is that we understand the poet, just as the poet understands us, and we can have heart-to-heart communication with the poet. At this time, when we read poetry, we are not just reading, we are exchanging ideas with the ancients. In fact, in this realm, the poet's thoughts deeply affect us. The fifth realm can no longer be called a realm. It should be called the fifth sense, or the third senselessness, which means almost no sense at all. In this state, our eyes will no longer focus on a certain poet, but on a poet of a school of thought, such as Romanticism, not Li Bai. We should not only appreciate good poetry, but also enjoy it; we should not only comment on it, but also feel it. So what is the sixth realm? It's like when you encounter a question that you don't know how to solve in an exam and you are confused, you have to rely on your sixth sense at this time. If your sixth sense is good, you will be able to get it right. If the essence of the poet has been absorbed completely and become a part of oneself, it will be the same even if a person in this realm only reads one poem in his life, then this is the sixth realm. It's like the ancients who wrote poems and kept them. For example, Cao Zhi's seven-step poem:
Boil the beans to burn the pods, and the beans weep in the cauldron; they are originally from the same root, so why fry each other in a hurry.
2. Realism: It advocates objective observation of real life, accurate and detailed description of reality, and true representation of typical characters in typical environments. Source: The Book of Songs; Representative writers: Du Fu, Bai Juyi, Lu You, etc.
Romanticism: Good at expressing the passionate pursuit of ideals, using passionate language, peculiar imagination, exaggeration, and mythical stories to create images. Source: "Chu Ci"; representative writers: Qu Yuan, Li Bai, Li He, Gong Zizhen, etc.
3. Tradition can be divided into realism tradition and romanticism tradition. The tradition of realism was pioneered by the Book of Songs, and later carried forward by generations of poets from the Yuefu and Jian'an poets of the Han Dynasty, Du Fu and Bai Juyi to the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. Features: A true reflection of real life and people’s wishes. The romantic tradition was created by Qu Yuan, and was inherited and carried forward by outstanding poets such as Li Bai, Li He, Su Shi, Xin Qiji, Lu You, Gong Zizhen, etc. Characteristics: Good use of rich imagination, exaggeration, symbolism and other techniques, focusing on expressing subjective feelings.