Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan are both advocates of the ancient prose movement, also known as "Liu Han", and are called "great writers" and "scholars of one hundred generations". They put forward the idea of "the unity of literature and Taoism" and opposed the trend of parallel prose since the Six Dynasties.
Han Yu lived in the revival period after the Anshi Rebellion in the middle Tang Dynasty, and it was not only the national rejuvenation. Confucianism, which was almost neglected in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, began to revive gradually with the efforts of Wang Tong, a great scholar in Sui Dynasty, and many of his disciples. Many of his disciples, including Xue Shou, Li Jing, Chen, Du Yan, Fang, Wang Jue and Du Ruhui, were all important ministers in the early Tang Dynasty. This laid the foundation for Confucianism to grasp the ideological trend of scholar-officials in the Tang Dynasty when Buddhism and Taoism flourished. However, in the prosperous time of the early Tang Dynasty, with an open mind, the consciousness of Taoism and Buddhism always occupied the superficial romance. It was not until Du Fu that the performance of Confucianism began to take off.
It was Liu Zongyuan's turn, Han Yu's turn to really advocate Confucianism, and the ancient prose movement in the literary world rose.
writing
Han Yu advocated Confucianism all his life and rejected the Buddha and the old. As the leader of the ancient prose movement, his way of "writing to carry Tao" is Confucianism. At the same time, he reformed the prose style, opposed "parallel four wives and six wives", advocated simple sentence patterns in pre-Qin prose, and paid attention to "fluent clauses" and "words must come out" He is the best essayist in the history of China literature after Sima Qian, and proudly ranks first among the "Eight Masters in Tang and Song Dynasties".
? The essence of Liu Han's ancient prose movement is based on Confucianism and advocates the value of literature in governing the country and helping the world.
And we know that once poetry and prose are promoted to the height of saving the country and the world, they will have achievements different from those of empty and boring works with small emotions.
Therefore, in Han Yu, after the Anshi Rebellion and the weak poetic style of ten gifted scholars in Dali, the poetry in the middle Tang Dynasty reached a small peak.
poetic sentiment
Han Yu's contribution to Tang poetry mainly lies in writing poems. This is mainly manifested in two aspects: form of expression and content.
After the Tang Dynasty, all kinds of genres, artistic conception and rhetoric were used on the ceiling by Li Bai and Du Fu, which later generations could not surpass. Therefore, those poems that came out during the Dali period followed the style of the Tang Dynasty, and there was no breakthrough.
No breakthrough is the greatest sorrow of poets and literati.
Han Yu has found his own way, and his prose is good. He can write poems directly in prose style. We see that his "Send Lutong" begins:
The function word "just enough" appears in poetry, which is completely prose language. In the eyes of great poets who cherish words like gold, this method is simply unreasonable. But this kind of innovation is used well, but it is flexible and changeable, which makes people shine.
At the same time, Han Yu also scattered culture in the content of poetry, breaking the inherent grammar of "connecting the past with the future" and creating a different way of writing poetry for future generations. For example, his seven-character poem "Moving to the Left to Show Grandnephew":
From the metrical point of view, this is a seven-character metrical poem that completely conforms to the law, and from the content, it seems to be roughly in line with the meaning of "connecting the past with the future", but if we carefully distinguish it, we can see that this is the narrative logic of the prose.
? Write down the demotion first, then fill in the reasons for being demoted, then write down the imagination or memories on the way to being demoted, and finally end with someone visiting.
This is a typical prose style.
In addition, when writing poems, Han Yu also likes to deliberately express his uniqueness with some cold and lonely words. To the extreme, it is surly, unsociable and even dangerous. And the artistic conception is therefore exposed and ghostly. Such as his famous "Rock" and long poem "Luhun Mountain Fire and Huangfu's Use of Its Rhyme (When Luhun is in Danger)", let's choose a few words to experience it:
Look, what does it say here? Although this poetic style was criticized, it still influenced poets Li He and Li Shangyin in the late Tang Dynasty, and formed an alternative style, which was spread all over the world.
In a word, Han Yu's influence on poetry can be said to be enormous. In prose, he closed the "right path" of Confucianism, and in poetry, he pioneered the use of prose into poetry, which had a great influence on Su Shi who later used poetry into ci, leading to the confluence of poetry, prose and ci.
Although it was finally divided, it was not divided and combined. Han Yu was the pioneer.