This sentence comes from Bai Juyi, the advocate of the New Yuefu Movement.
He said in "Nine Books of the Yuan Dynasty": "Since he came to the dynasty, he has grown older and read more and more things. Every time he talks to people, he inquires more about current affairs, and every time he reads history, he seeks more theories. , I realized that articles are written for the time, and songs and poems are written for the time."
"Articles are written for the time, and songs and poems are written for the time." This has two meanings: on the one hand, it is. It reflects current events, which is what the "Preface to Qin Zhong Yin" said: "I was in Chang'an during the Zhenyuan and Yuanhe periods. When I heard and saw it, some people were sad enough to sing about it." On the other hand, it is written for reality, which is the so-called "Bi Fu Shi Que" in "Yu Yuan Jiu Shu". The things reflected are not necessarily current events, but the purpose is to be realistic. Du Fu wrote many works in his life that faced reality and satirized current affairs, but he did not put forward any ideas for current affairs. Bai Juyi inherited the realist spirit of Han Dynasty Yuefu's "promoted by events". Starting from the social reality of the Mid-Tang Dynasty, he proposed that "articles are combined to be written for the time, and poems are combined to be written for the event." This is an extension of the theory of realist poetry. Great contribution.