The theory of "style" before and after the "seven sons" inherited "poetry" continued to advocate retro, and Hu Yinglin also advocated retro, which is based on the investigation of the history of China's poetry. Hu Yinglin believes that China's poetry creation and his thoughts have gone through a process of change since ancient times. First of all, "style changes", and poetry has experienced changes in four words, Sao style, five words, seven words, regular poems and quatrains; Secondly, judging from the way of creation, the classic of elegance is profound and unchangeable through the ages. Ancient poems are specialized in images, songs must be performed by talents, the subject is the law, and quatrains are the character of the wind. In addition, as far as aesthetic characteristics are concerned, The Book of Songs is gentle and gentle, Li Sao and Nine Chapters are very strong, Jian 'an works are magnificent, the works of the Six Dynasties are exquisite, and the regular poems of the Tang Dynasty are beautiful and have their own characteristics.
However, Hu Yinglin believes that the development of every style is "prosperous and declining", and the so-called "poetic style declines and replaces it". Hu Yinglin's poetic theory was deeply influenced by Wang Shizhen, and his "style" was generally inherited from Wang. "Ge" can be simply described as the implicit style of poetry. However, the "generational decline" here is not that the poetic style is getting worse from generation to generation. Hu Yinglin believes that the "ancient meaning" represented by China's poetry is the highest style of poetry. With the development of the times, this "ancient meaning" gradually declined and was replaced by a new style. So "life" refers to the decline of "ancient meaning" in poetic style. Hu Yinglin is by no means a retrogression in literature. To be exact, the development of poetry is generally on the rise. "Poetry" also said, "Up and down for thousands of years, although the life has passed, the quality of the text remains the same, but the result is the same, salty and beautiful." (Similar to Hegel's "The End of Art") However, a careful study of poetry reveals that its internal development is still a wave-like evolution with ups and downs, and tends to be "salty and beautiful". In his view, "as for the Tang Dynasty, poetry is ready, but as for the absolute style, it is poor." Song people changed poetry into ci, and ci flourished poetry. Yuan people changed their words into songs, and the songs flourished and the words declined. Ming people did not follow in the footsteps of Song and Yuan Dynasties. "It's not about work, it's about work." Poets in Han and Tang dynasties pay attention to originality, each with its own tone, so don't follow the teacher. However, when Zhou Wen is ready, the world doesn't have to be created later, but it should follow the example of the ancients and be good at many things. As the saying goes, "the ancients only did it, and I did it." Therefore, Hu Yinglin called the poems and songs of the Ming Dynasty "Yuan Yue Song, Han and Tang Dynasties", which is a poem. The poem also reveals the reason for this change: Heaven's wealth is outside, and talents are inside. Hu Yinglin's view on the development and change of poetry reflects his absorption of the "change" view of the public security school and his revision of the theory of unchangeable patterns.
Hu Yinglin advocated that poetry should be based on its true colors. The word "true colors" contains many meanings, such as the style characteristics of poetry, the style of the times and the specific style of writers' works. At the same time, he put forward two poetic standards: "Chinese poetry is qualitative, natural and seamless, so it is the best in ancient and modern times"; "The quatrains in the prosperous Tang Dynasty are exquisite and meaningful, with no work to see and no trace to find." If the tone theory of poetry means that poetry writing can be traced, then the essence of Han and Tang Dynasties is "both form and spirit". Here, the evolution of Hu Yinglin's poetic theory from "style" to "verve" is revealed. However, excellent poems are all changes from "style" to "spirit", and beginners must be "upright" and "with a long history" in order to achieve "verve".
? Correspondingly, Hu Yinglin's poetics also follows this path. Beginners should first "learn from others' strengths", starting from the canon and "learn from others' strengths". However, there is a "law" in learning poetry, but it is not simply plagiarism: when learning, you should "learn its meaning without learning its words." After mastering the method of writing poetry, it will enter the stage of "enlightenment" (which is obviously influenced by Yan Yu's "wonderful enlightenment" of "using Zen as a metaphor for poetry"). The so-called enlightenment is a "naive self-disclosure" that transcends specific rules and regulations. However, "although poetry is understood, it still needs to be studied deeply", and "understanding" is not the end of learning poetry, but only a stage of learning poetry, which will eventually be integrated-both from the inner desire and without losing the statutes, as he said in Du Fu's poems: "Du Gong's works are really called changing, and those with great ability do not know how to change the topic; It's easy to see, but hard to see. Change is more dangerous than the main reason; If it is changed, God will do whatever he wants with the will of God. "
? Although the author has made a relatively fair evaluation of every poet and his poems, Cao Zhi, Du Fu and a few others are the most respected. It should also be mentioned that Zaben systematically discusses and lists ancient poetry collections, which is of great reference value to modern people.