I have briefly talked about Wang Wei's poems above, and I will continue to talk about Du Gongbu. Du Fu's poems are different from Wang's. The greatest thing about Gombo's poems is that he can write all his real life into them. Last time we talked about prose, we said that literature should be life. The new culture movement in the early Republic of China advocated new literature and advocated that literature should be biochemical. In my opinion, China literature is more humane than the West.
On the one hand, there are more aspects of life in China literature than in the West. Last time I talked about China's prose, Yao's Gu Zi Bian was divided into thirteen categories, each of which was aimed at life. Plus poems, words, songs, biographies, novels, etc. Different kinds of literature make China literature contain more life contents than western literature.
In the second aspect, China people can integrate the writer's real life into his works. This is rare in the west. Westerners write novels and plays, only describing the outside. China's literature mainly integrates his life into his works, which is the greatness of Du Shiwei.
As I said just now, according to Buddhism, it is best not to say a word, and naturally don't put yourself in it. This is the highest state. Du Shi, on the other hand, devoted his whole life to it. Confucianism put it in and Buddhism released it. The similarities and differences between Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism were not subtly revealed until the Song people talked about Neo-Confucianism. Leaving this aside, what I want to talk about now is that what Du Gongbu devoted in his poems is just his daily life, which is unremarkable and seems to be far from the truth. He put all the fragments of his life from Kaiyuan to Tianbao to Zhongxing in the Tang Dynasty, about himself, about his family and about the social country at that time, into his own poems, so later generations called his poems a history of poetry.
In fact, there is still not a word in Du Gongbu's poems. His loyal and patriotic personality is not really mentioned in his poems, but only mentioned simplicity. His poems speak highly of this point. When we read his poems, we will be inspired by his extremely high personality. It is precisely because he does not talk about loyalty and filial piety that he only puts his daily life in his poems, but there is not a word that is not the highest ideal of loyalty and filial piety and Confucian life. Without Du Gongbu behind Du Fu's poems, they would be worthless. If Du Gongbu is eager to express himself, but only stresses loyalty and filial piety to show what kind of truth he is, then this person is still a layman, and these poems will not be considered excellent. Therefore, the high realm of Du Fu's poetry lies in his beauty of every word.
We should read Du Fu's poems, preferably every year. Take his poems year after year to examine the background of his poems. We need to know the place, time and background where he wrote this poem, so as to truly understand the beauty of Du Fu's poem. Later, when talking about Du Fu's poems, we must talk about the true intention of each poem, sometimes it is a bit excessive. Some of them are misinterpreted. We must delve into the background of his poems, but if we try our best to research and get into misinterpretation, it will become boring. But if you ask for a poem, you don't care when and where it was written, that won't do either. You still need to know the year, place and background when he wrote this poem. As for the content of this poem and its true meaning, you don't have to ask too much, so as to get the real interest of its poem.
If you don't know the historical background of this poem, then you must know something about it. His poems before Tianbao are obviously different from those after Tianbao. His poems from Zizhou to Gansu are obviously different from his poems in Chengdu Caotang. It is different from his poems on the way out of the Three Gorges to Hunan. We have to take out all his poems and match them with all his life backgrounds, so that we can know what is good about his poems.
As long as China poets are Confucian, such as Du Fu, Han Yu, Su Shi and Wang Anshi, they can read their poems in chronological order. Wang's poems are very good, but if you read them all, you will feel inferior to Su Dongpo. This occupied a long time in Gong Jing's political career. Until his later years, he lived in Zhongshan, Nanjing. At that time, the realm of poetry was high, which was obviously different from before.
Su Dongpo's poems are great because he has never been politically proud in his life. He was down and out all his life, and all the twists and turns were seen in the poem. Reading Su Shi's poems for the first time. I left Sichuan all the way to Bianjing when he was young. I was very interested in reading it at first, but after reading it again and again, sometimes my works are a little annoying. For example, in this section of the West Lake, he lingers in the mountains and rivers, drinks all day and travels around the mountains. If he is in such contact, it is easy to make people feel a little tired. In this respect, Su Shi is not as good as Du Shi's Gao Zhuo. Because Du Gongbu is not as carefree as Dongpo in Xuzhou. It is good to read Su Shi's middle-aged poems separately, but it is boring to read them all the time. What's the point of living like this all the time? Su Dongpo's Confucian realm is not high, but in the harsh environment elsewhere, his personality is great, like his section in Huangzhou and later in Qiongzhou, Huizhou. Poetry was not bad at that time. However, once you are at ease, you won't do anything, and the poetic realm may sometimes stick to the rules. The strength of Dongpo's poetry lies in its lofty sentiments and interest. Its quietness is not as good as that of a king, and its loyalty is not as good as that of a king. When we read poetry, it is important that we appreciate it from the strengths of various schools.
Let's look at Bai Letian's poems again. Lotte poetry has its advantages. However, it is easier to see the shortcomings than Dongpo's poems if he reads all his poems in one breath against the chronicle. He lived in Luoyang in his later years and said to himself all day, "Comfortable! Happy! I don't want to be an official anymore. " Such a poem is boring to read in one breath. Such a realm, whether it is poetry or life, is by no means the highest realm we call it.
Life in Du Gongbu is different. When I was a child, I went to Chang 'an to see Zhumen's wine and meat stink, and the road froze to death. For example, in "Two Ways", he revealed that he saw the dissolute life of the palace at that time, and so on. He had been running around until his death, which really made his poems reach the highest level. Once upon a time, people said, "Poetry is poor and backward." Poverty is the poverty of this person. When you are poor, there is really no road ahead. If you refuse to take the road ahead of him, you must take the poor road. The road looks rugged, but it is a road. Only if you are so poor can it be valuable.
Just like Qu Yuan, there is no road ahead, but Qu Yuan refuses to go, preferring to go to a dead end. Therefore, Qu Yuan's Li Sao is the highest model of poor and backward workers. His disciple Song Yu is not, so Song Yu will not be poor. Therefore, Song only studied Qu Yuan, not his life. Moreover, Song Yu's articles are not as good as Qu Yuan's.
Now let's go back to Lu Fangweng. Weng Fang was also a great poet. He has never forgotten his ambition to revive the Central Plains in his life. Before he died, he wrote a poem entitled "Julian Waghann concentrated in the north, but don't forget to tell him about the sacrifice of his family". It is at this end that I can imagine that the realm of poetry is as high as possible.
Throughout his life, Weng Fang traveled from his hometown to Sichuan when he was young, and then returned to his hometown from Sichuan, which is also seen in the poem. The poems in his later years correspond to his diary. Sometimes one song a day, sometimes two or three songs a day, or even more songs, are all spring, summer, autumn and winter, circulating all year round, and so are the rural areas. He is a bit like Tao Yuanming. You can't find much interest in reading one or two of his poems. But when you read his poems with his age, especially when he is 780 years old, you feel that his arms are healthy and his heart is calm and plain, which is really admirable. At the same time, he can't forget the national justice and express the greatness of poetry, which is here. Unfortunately, he wrote the most poems. He seems to be interested in writing poems, but he has no ups and downs in Du Like Palace, which is his shortcoming. If some of his poems were deleted, this collection of poems by Lu Fangweng would be better.
I like Zheng Ziyin best in Qing poetry. He is from Zunyi, Guizhou, and has never been a senior official. He lived in his hometown all his life. His greatness lies in his feelings. He is a dutiful son. He built a garden on his mother's grave, and he never forgot her in his poems. On Han Changli in He Shi. Han's poems are full of twists and turns, but in Ziyin's poems, they can reveal sincere temperament. Especially 450, the older the better, he will never forget his mother. There are characters in the poem and people with temperament. Poetry like that is extremely rare.
Li Taibai's poems are good, because he likes Taoism and likes to talk about the origin of Zhuang and Lao. You don't need to read a poem by chronology. He doesn't want to devote his life to poetry. Even his own life wants to surpass this world. This is equivalent to reading Zhuangzi, and we don't have to test his background. His lofty realm lies in his extraordinary life. You can't understand some of Li Taibai's poems without studying the background. But Li Shizhen's strength is not at this point.
No matter how old we are, we can read the poems of He Wang. When reading the poems of Du Gongbu, Han Changli, Su Dongpo and Lu Fangweng, they all devoted their lives to poetry more or less. So it is better to read their poems according to the chronology. Of course, Zheng Ziyin's life is not rich enough, but he has also become a very high poet. He also incorporated himself into this poem. It is not unusual for him to read one poem after another. But spring has come, plum blossoms have blossomed and the mountain stream has come back to life. At that time, he missed his mother again. Read his complete works year after year. Since his mother died, he has built a grave and a garden on it. He planted plum this year and bamboo next year, and wrote it down year after year, always remembering his mother year after year. Then he talked about the whole family from his mother, and then talked about other things. It can be seen that his filial piety and deep affection in the poem also followed. His poems are superior to Gui Youguang's prose. Gui Wen can also write about affection, but it is not as profound as Zheng Ziyin's poems.
(This article is selected from Talking about Poetry in Qian Mu's Essays on China Literature. )