In the long feudal society of China, the fate of women is the most miserable, persecuted and poisoned the most. The poets of New Yuefu struggled with the old concepts of marriage, feudalism and ethics with a deep sense of contemporary care, and showed and excavated the unfortunate fate of women and its roots from many angles and levels, which attracted the attention of the world.
In the cultural process that has lasted for thousands of years, women have a position and contribution that cannot be ignored. Therefore, works of art with women as the theme have a long history and rich categories. However, the new Yuefu poets, who mainly express social unrest and people's sufferings, unconsciously put one of their creative focuses on the tragic life of women in that era, and reflected all kinds of tragedies of women under the feudal system in the form of poems, which is undoubtedly a phenomenon worthy of our attention.
First, the focus of the new Yuefu poets' creation
The so-called new Yuefu is a Yuefu-style poem that writes current events in a new style. Roughly at the same time as Han Yu, Meng Jiao and others, a group of poets set off a new wave of poetry with different directions. Its distinctive feature is to reflect social problems and criticize political abuses in the form of Yuefu, especially the new Yuefu, in order to achieve practical social effects. At the same time, in artistic expression, most of these poets try to improve the readability of their poems with simple language and natural and fluent meaning (this feature is just the opposite of that of poets in North Korea and Bangladesh). They include Zhang Ji, Wang Jian, Yuan Zhen, Bai Juyi, Shen Li and others. People used to call this new wave of poetry "New Yuefu Movement". [ 1]
Yuefu is an evolutionary concept, which started as the name of a music institution and later evolved into a poetic style. As a kind of poetry, there have been excellent works since the emergence and development of the Han Dynasty, and Yuefu was further popularized in the Wei, Jin and Six Dynasties and became a classical poetry style. After the Han Dynasty, there were two main trends in the creation of Yuefu poems: First, they mostly followed the classical poems, although there were some changes, but there were not many substantial and profound changes in the title and form, such as the works of Cao Cao and RoyceWong. This should be said to be the basic pattern and situation of Yuefu creation before Du Fu. Second, the theme of expression gradually broke away from the creative spirit of reflecting real life and describing people's livelihood in Han Yuefu. Especially in the Six Dynasties, the traditional spirit and creative style of Yuefu poems generally dried up. [2] These two tendencies will undoubtedly hinder the development of Yuefu poetry and suffocate its life.
In order to develop Yuefu poetry, we should not blindly imitate ancient topics and tunes, but must create new topics and write new ideas. Because of this, Du Fu's own Yuefu was highly praised by later generations. In this context, he took Bai Juyi as the leader and Du Fu from France as the writing principle, established the name of the new Yuefu, worked hard to create such poems, and completed the development from the ancient Yuefu to the new Yuefu, which is the so-called new Yuefu movement.
The declining reality of society, politics, economy and poetry creation has prompted Bai Juyi and others to take it as their responsibility to reform the style of poetry and cure the shortcomings of the times. It is in this complicated historical background that the new Yuefu set off a new wave of poetry, which was formed by the joint efforts of many poets such as Li Shen and Yuan Zhen. They were all active participants and made their own contributions. In this sense, they might as well be called "new Yuefu poets", and they sing and echo each other. Their works focus on expressing social unrest and people's suffering. They enthusiastically publicize their political opinions in the form of poems, reflect various serious social problems, and attempt to use poetry as a powerful political tool.
In the long feudal society of China, the fate of women is the most miserable, persecuted and poisoned the most. Through the description of women's life, the poets of New Yuefu show and excavate the unfortunate fate of women and its roots from multiple angles and levels. If Yuefu in the Southern Dynasties is a romantic song and Yuefu in the Northern Dynasties is a veritable "military music" and "battle song", then the new Yuefu sings more ancient women. As Bai Juyi said in Preface to Qin Zhongyin: "When Zhenyuan and Yuanhe are in harmony, if you are in Chang 'an, it will be sad to hear about it, because it will sing straight. "
Secondly, the new Yuefu poets showed the unfortunate fate of women.
1, a woman suffering from war
From the stories of four beautiful women to the discussion about disasters, women seem to have an indissoluble bond with politics and war. The eternal battle of Troy, legend has it, is for Helen, a peerless beauty who is "ashamed of flowers and closes the moon to sink fish and fall wild geese", which is the situation in western countries; In the East, in March, peach blossoms in ancient Chang 'an were all red, and plump women bathed in Huaqing Pool. Yang Yuhuan, the woman who bathed in Huaqing Pool, ruined half of the Tang Dynasty. Outside Gusu, Fan Li's good idea was to let his beloved beauty serve the monarch of an enemy country, and this enemy country was defeated by the service. That day, the story of a really kind beauty, Dixim, is said to be Mizhi's mother-in-law. At the age of sixteen, she learned to be charming, but after all, she is a "beauty with a thin life"; Wang Zhaojun, a southern girl who was graceful in the sandstorm outside the Great Wall, saved a dynasty and the world in peace. Women's power is indeed great, but they can't escape the fate of "water".
The creation of this theme should be represented by Du Fu among the poets in New Yuefu. The creation of new Yuefu began with Du Fu, and Yuan Jie and Gu Kuang developed. Bai Juyi is the epitome of women's tragic fate. As early as before and after the An Shi Rebellion, Du Fu used Yuefu poems to criticize reality. Poems like "Car Shop" have already involved the tragic fate of women, either because of the heartbreak and sadness that "they followed you, crying, tugging at your sleeve and wailing into the sky" when his parents and wife left to bid farewell; Either "the husband wears armor and the woman stays at home", and the bride will suffer from "after three months of war, a letter from home is worth a ton of gold". Or "I heard that most of the killers on the Hanshui River were women in the loyalist army" and were trampled by nonhuman people. Even the elderly old woman in Shihao village has to say, "Although the old woman is weak, please come back at night." It's really "why cry!" Alas, "an old lady cried on the road, and her clothes were on the list at the end of last year." No wonder some people can't bear the sadness of fate. Suddenly, they heard the old woman hanging from the beam. How many women with negative wages, widows without complaints! Du Fu saw many local women in Kuizhou, who were still unmarried in their forties and fifties. They live by chopping wood and paying the rent, so he wrote "Negative Pay Bank" to thank them for their hard work and sympathize with their misfortune. Du Fu even used poetry instead of remonstrance. In Wu Lang Again, he persuaded Wu Lang not to stop the old woman from playing dates because she was "a woman without food and children". Du Fu not only sympathized with the difficulties of these women, but also understood their hearts, and even shed tears for her pain. [3] Chen Tao's "West Longxi Westbound" vividly depicts the tragedy of war. The second part of West Gansu is as follows: "Swear to sweep the Huns regardless of their health, and 5,000 minks mourn Chen Hu. Poor riverside bone, still a dream girl. " It is really heartbreaking and painful to say "person" instead of "soul" here. Thousands of soldiers who are missed by their wives day and night have become dead ghosts on the battlefield, but their families are still missing and waiting to return. How miserable and desolate it is!
2. Women ravaged by rulers
Bai Juyi's poetry works have always been famous for profoundly reflecting social real life. In particular, his early works, such as Qin Zhongyin and New Yuefu, are rich in materials and sharp-edged, boldly exposing many political abuses and unreasonable phenomena in the society at that time. Some of his poems touched sharply on the women's problems at that time, and sent out helpless sighs and sighs such as "You should know that women suffer, so don't despise each other from now on" and "Life is not a woman's body, and a hundred years of happiness is left to others". With a very sympathetic attitude, the poet truly described the painful life and tragic fate of women under the oppression of feudal society and mercilessly lashed out at the cruel feudal system that destroyed and oppressed women. I especially sympathize with those maids who are forced to destroy their youth and happiness. For example, the word "harem" says: "Three thousand ladies-in-waiting have a rouge face, and there are no tears in a few spring months?" Bai Juyi not only sympathized with maids, but also regarded maids as a social and political issue, thinking that "it is a waste of money to provide food and clothing in the world;" Next, you are separated from your relatives, suffering from claustrophobia and resentment ("Please put my wife in the harem"), and ask Xianzong to try his best to put it away. Therefore, in the Seven Virtues Dance, he praised the "Three thousand women leaving the palace" of Emperor Taizong, and in the poem "Crossing Zhaojun Village", he even reflected the people's resistance to the choice of maids: "Up to now, the women in the village have been burned to scars." Based on this understanding and sympathy, the poet wrote the famous Shang Yang White-haired Man. In the poem, the maid-in-waiting tells all her experiences from entering the palace to her later years, and focuses on the desolation and abnormality of her evening scene, which specifically shows the destruction and pain she suffered. Through the description of her life situation, the tragic fate of "there are concubines in the palace, and there are three thousand rare beauties" is vividly and generally displayed, and the evil behavior of feudal emperors to kill innocent women is exposed. There are many poems describing maids in Tang poetry, but few are so vivid. "Living in an empty room makes autumn nights longer" exposes the cruel fact that maids live claustrophobic lives and accuses the evil of this system, so it is of social critical significance. Bai Juyi's poems sympathizing with the fate of ladies-in-waiting include not only Shang Yang's White-haired Man, but also works with the same theme, including the Tomb Concubine in Xinle Fu. This is a poem that exposes the sin of feudal rulers who let palace maids guard the mausoleum for the emperor all their lives. Compared with Bai Juyi's Shang Yang White-haired Man, Yuan Zhen's Palace: "In the faded old palace, peonies are red, but no one comes to see them. The ladies-in-waiting are already white-haired, arguing about the grand occasion of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty. "
In addition, Wang Jian is also famous for his Hundred Poems of Palace Style, which describes the life of ladies-in-waiting. These poems are small and beautiful, exaggerating the luxurious life in the palace. Some of them are better and can give people a deeper impression, such as the following song: "I taught Gong E to sing all the words, but no one knows them in secret." I sing well in the building every day, and I don't ask who I learned it from. "This is an expression of the inner sadness of an old musician in the palace. She taught all the women in the palace and sang all the palace words. My own years disappeared in the process. Facing the young maid-in-waiting, she couldn't help sighing. The question at the end of this couplet is not only sympathy for the musicians in the palace, but also sympathy for the love between teachers and students on earth, expressing the inner pain of those who marry others. The original title of Joke Order is Joke in the Palace, so it can be seen that this book is a joke for kings, but Wang Jian uses it to write the sorrows and sorrows of the harem in the palace: "Fan, Fan, Beauty and (as a" companion ") hide their faces. Jade face gaunt for three years, who will discuss orchestral again? Orchestral, orchestral, relentless spring grass to block the road to the zhaoyang temple. "The description of the painful life of the court singer is very penetrating. The sentence "Who will save it" describes the boring and miserable situation after being abandoned; A turn of the "string tube" shows that although spring is coming again, the hope of calling for luck is gone, and the feeling of waiting and seeing is firmly on the paper.
3. A grieving woman
Zhang Ji's Yuefu poems reflected the social contradictions and the sufferings of people's livelihood at that time, described the tragic situation of women under the oppression of feudal system, and fully reflected the tragic fate of women: there were poor peasant women who were "too poor to rent, too poor to lose, and their husbands would not be buried in prison" ("Mountain Deer"), and there were boudoir who were "better to fight to death" ("Song of Farewell"). The ancient style is invincible, and the official language is well known. ("To Zhang Ji") "From the above works, Zhang Ji has his own uniqueness in expressing such themes. He wrote in the "Promotion Speech" that men from poor families are running around when they grow up, and women "hold Wu Kun's own tax money", so the couple can't get together. "Bitter Woman" describes the tragic scene of "my husband is fighting to the death in his belly, but my body is like a candle in the daytime" after the war. Besides, besides caring about the unfortunate fate of ladies-in-waiting, Bai Juyi also wrote poems such as A Silver Bottle at the Bottom of the Well, Mother's Farewell, Marriage Proposal, Taihang Road and Twill, expressing great sympathy for the tragic situation of social women, especially working women. For example, in Guan Tuomai, he wrote a poem, "My family lost taxes. Pipa girl in Pipa Travel is typical. "There are fewer and fewer chariots and horses in front of the door, and finally she married a businessman", which reflects the tragic fate of prostitutes at that time. A kind of sympathy and respect for the oppressed women made the poet naturally associate the fate of the pipa girl with his own life experience: "We are both unfortunate-we met at the end of the day. We understand. What is the relationship between acquaintances? . "Yuan Zhen's most famous poem is" Regret for the Past ",which is written with deep feelings and touching feelings. Among them, Regret for the Past looks back on his wife's hard life: "We had to pick wild vegetables for dinner and use dried Sophora japonica leaves as kindling", and laments that "this is a sadness that all mankind must know, but it is not like those who are poor together". Jie Yuan's poems about poor women and the desolation of going to the countryside reflect the poverty and displacement of women. Gu Kuang's poems about abandoned women are also good poems with practical significance, and the space is limited, so it is better to elaborate.
4. Weaver Girl without Cowherd
Wang Jian's poetic style is similar to Zhang Ji's, and Yuefu poems criticize reality and reflect people's livelihood. In particular, they describe the life in which women are the most diligent and busy sewing and ironing irons. For example, "Weaving a Window" is about a poor woman who has worked hard to spin yarn. "Shui Han's hands are brittle and her heart is anxious." But in the end, she will lose the government first, and the rest will be given to her mother-in-law, so she can't put on new clothes. Another example is "Song of Sending Clothes", which describes the sadness of a wife sending clothes to her husband: "I wish I could go home and not be buried, and I wish my concubine would send clothes for a long time!" It is also inhuman. The same is true of "Silkworm Ci": "I heard that the village urged weaving. Who should I go to? " This cold-blooded question is also full of hatred. "Brocade" describes the hardships of the weaver girls that "a shuttle is as heavy as a shuttle" and angrily rebukes the extravagance of the rulers: "Mo Yan Mountain accumulates endless days, and a hundred-foot-tall building sings a song!" Wang Jian's Poem of Wang Fu can be said to vividly show the unique traditional virtues and temperament of women in China. "Wangfu River is long, turned into stone, and does not look back. It rains every day, and pedestrians return to Yu Ying."
In the late Tang Dynasty, a group of realistic poets inherited the spirit of the new Yuefu in the middle Tang Dynasty. Representative figures are Pi Rixiu, Nie and Du Xunhe. Their poems are sharp-edged, pointing to the disadvantages of the times, and have also focused on women at that time unconsciously. Qin Taoyu's "poor girl" has also attracted people's attention because of the idiom "marry someone else": "She sews gold thread for other girls year after year." Although women from poor families have good temperament, good character and good needlework, they can make wedding dresses for girls from rich families every year because of their good needlework, but they are old enough to get married and can't get married. This poem depicts the mentality of poor women very delicately. Yuan Zhen's best Yuefu poem "Tanaka Ci" is full of angry words, which also reflects women's emotions: "Aunt's wife bears the burden of losing her official position, but it is not enough to sell a house." Among them, The Weaver Maid complained about the working women who "can't get married to solve the problem". The bottomless desire of the ruling class made them sigh at the spider in front of the eaves: "I envy him for weaving the web into the void!" " "This paper describes the tragic scene that working women are restricted from getting married and enjoying the happiness of human relations because of textile technology, and writes their painful feelings.
Thirdly, the new Yuefu poets explored the root of women's tragic fate.
1, Du Fu constantly explores the causes of the tragic fate of women and even people all over the world. He believes that, on the one hand, frontier wars and warlord melee destroyed production and caused people's death. With his poems such as Three Officials and Three Farewells, he profoundly revealed the harm that the comfortable rebellion brought to the people, such as "Although a strong woman plowed hard, both the east and the west plowed?" , especially women's mental pain, even "widowed" ("Bai Di"), exposing the conflict of interests between feudal countries and people; "Singing 500 words from Beijing to Fengxian" revealed that "silk was divided by the court and books were cold." After flogging the husband's family and collecting money for the city, he sighed that "the wine in Zhumen stinks and the road freezes the bones", expressing his inner anguish over the increasingly corrupt politics and the increasingly extravagant and fatuous rulers, which led to the increasing poverty and helplessness of the people. On the other hand, he believes that this is mainly due to the blackmail of the rulers. He wrote specifically about the exploitation of women in "Meeting": "The fern girl was picked from the stone, and the city lost her official position." In this regard, Yuan Jie also revealed it in The Thief Reveals Officials. This poem says "but the town is so small that thieves are spared" because "the people are so poor and so pitiful", and then points out sharply "Do you mean that your imperial envoys are not as good as robbers?" And "like a creature frying on a fire" We can see how the people's livelihood was ruined at that time and how heavy the government's exploitation was.
2. Bai Juyi deeply realized that "tyranny is fiercer than tiger" is the root of the hardships of many people, including women. He pointed out that people's poverty is due to "the indulgence of officials", "the monarch can't be frugal" and "uneven property, the combination of rich and poor". When the school librarian reached the full rank, he "closed the door for several months, thinking about current affairs" and wrote seventy-five articles of "Ce Lin", aiming at the disadvantages existing in economy, politics, military affairs, culture and education at that time, and put forward reform suggestions. Social reality and personal experience made the poet deeply feel the necessity of "pleading for the people". Therefore, there are five most prominent suggestions for him to be an admonisher, three of which are aimed at reducing the burden on the people: first, please reduce the rent of counties damaged by drought in Jianghuai area and change "harmony" into "discount", second, please select and release court officials, and third, please stop using troops in buffer towns in Hebei Province. In Du Ling Cuo, he exposed the cruel exploitation of the rulers more deeply, thus pointing out the root cause of farmers' bankruptcy.
3. The poet Zhang Ji profoundly criticized the oppression of women by feudal ethics. In Divorce with His Wife, he not only expressed sympathy for his abandoned wife, but also exposed the unreasonable and unfair factors in this tragedy. His first sentence, "No children, separation from the ancient system", directly pointed out the cause of her tragedy and was an unreasonable "ancient system". After bidding farewell to her in-laws, she wrote about their psychology of "regaining their doubts" to show that she is not in contradiction with her in-laws, and then described her hard work and housekeeping ability, more specifically showing the cruelty of this system, which not only destroyed a woman's heart, but also exploited her.
4. Yuan Zhen exposed the harm of collusion between officials and businessmen most profoundly and concretely. In Guessing the Guest, he profoundly exposed the mercenary nature of businessmen. They pursue the business philosophy of "selling fakes, not selling sincerity, but paying for fakes, and paying for fakes lightly". They made a lot of money by selling fake goods to farmers, and colluded with Hou Baiqing of Qi Huangong to consolidate their position.
Artistic features of female poems of Xinle poets.
1. Tragedy description of a specific era. Literary works are artistic forms that indirectly reflect reality and are expressed through language forms, and the new Yuefu poems are "taking sadness as joy, which stems from things". New Yuefu directly or indirectly inherited the fine tradition of "national style", mostly thinking of women, or abandoning their wives, or writing about marriage tragedies and wars, which directly reflected the tragic fate of women at the bottom of society. Compared with the previous generation, it is undoubtedly more active and thoughtful, obviously showing the spirit of resisting feudal oppression and deep sympathy for the fate of women. Irony is not for the sake of irony, but to attack tyranny for the sake of "benevolent governance" and expose negative things for the sake of maintaining positive things.
2. Bixing technique is varied and ingenious. Reading the female poems of the new Yuefu poets, we should not only see the ideological significance of the image itself, but also see the sustenance of the new Yuefu poets. For example, in Bai Juyi's Taihang Road, the preface points out that "husband and wife are used to ridicule the unfairness of the monarch and his subjects", and the poem also points out that "there are not only human husband and wife, but also modern monarch and his subjects". This kind of sustenance is obvious and can be seen at a glance; The other kind is implicit, such as Black Dragon Pool, in which it is pointed out in the preface that "corrupt officials are also ill", but there is no obvious description of corrupt officials in the poem, but the dragon god is compared to the emperor, the forest mouse fox is compared to corrupt officials, and the dolphin is compared to the people. The conclusion of the poem is that "the fox, the tiger and the tiger ate all the dolphins, but the dragon at the bottom of the nine springs didn't know?" Although it is not clearly written, readers can understand its meaning: corrupt officials have absorbed all the fat and paste of the people, does the emperor know?
3. The writing method of Fu is basically adopted. "The giver is also the one who tells the truth about Chen Qi." Take Bai Juyi as an example. In "Ling Du CuO", "Stripping the silk from my body, taking the millet from my mouth, and abusing people and things are wolves. Why do you have to run your teeth and eat human flesh!" Do you know the satrap of Xuancheng in the red carpet? A foot of carpet, 1200 silk! I don't know if cold people should be warmer, wear less clothes and make lichens! "All people have a good time, and they have a good time!
4. Use folk spoken language. The creative tendency of reflecting current events determines the popularity of female poems of new Yuefu poets. Only in this way can female poems be easily read and remembered, which is also the result of Du Fu, Bai Juyi and other new Yuefu poets learning from the people and directly absorbing their life language.
5. The object of description is more for elderly women. Because they have experienced more misfortunes, their fate is the most tragic, and their tragic life is the epitome of the tragic fate of ancient women. Its typicality is the premise and foundation to attract the creative vision of the poets in New Yuefu, and it is also a major feature of the female theme creation in New Yuefu.
To sum up, through the in-depth analysis of the representative works of the new Yuefu poets, this paper reveals how the new Yuefu poets show the tragic fate of women in their works with deep sympathy, fight against the old concepts of marriage, feudalism and ethics with deep concern for the present, and cry for injustice for women. Their poetic style is a reflection of the spirit of political practice. Through the reflection on the female tragedies and their fate in the works of the poets in New Yuefu, we can see that the poets in New Yuefu have revealed and excavated the unfortunate fate of women and its roots from many angles and levels, and both the density and the intensity are enough to attract the attention of the world. The purpose of rereading these works is not only to draw nutrition from their beautiful diction and lofty artistic realm, but also to learn the pragmatic composition spirit of the ancients-literary works should be highly integrated with real life, and they should truly reproduce and reflect life, thus affecting life. Only in this way can literary works impress readers, promote the progress of social spiritual civilization, have immortal life, transcend the boundaries of time and space and become classics.