Su Shi is like an inexhaustible spiritual rich mine, the more mining the more abundant and more profound, which is not only reflected in his open-minded and optimistic attitude towards life to give future generations a deep understanding, but also in his abundant poetry for the endless nourishment of future generations, the study and praise of Su Zi has become and will continue to become an eternal cultural topic. Mr. Liu Shaoxiong, a distinguished professor at National Taiwan University and an expert in poetry, wrote "Eight Lectures on Su Zi", which profoundly expounds and thoroughly reveals the main characteristics of Su Ci and the subtle relationship between Su Zi and life, vividly paints and truly shows the cultural image of Su Shi, and provides an important reference text for current readers to understand the art of Su Ci that has been crowned for thousands of years.
▲"Su Shi Ci Eight Lectures"
Written by Liu Shaoxiong
Published by CITIC Publishing Group in June 2021
Su Shi is the founder of the bold school in the history of Chinese poetry and the unveiler of the development of Song Ci into a new historical stage. Words from the Tang Dynasty to the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms to the early Northern Song Dynasty, has always belonged to the "Yanke" with low status, and su Shi applied the creative concept of poetry to the words in the Northern Song Dynasty, which not only gave the words more literary and artistic, but also fundamentally improved the cultural status of the words. Su Shi, who is unique in the world, has become a master of the founding school and a generation of literary heroes by expanding the theme of words, breaking through the rhythm of words, and innovating the style of words, and Su Ci has undoubtedly become a precious artistic heritage in ancient Chinese culture. Since the Fall of the Song Dynasty, Su Ci has always attracted scholars of later generations to uninterruptedly relieve and explain, for more than 900 years, the study of Su Ci has evolved into a major hot spot and a prominent science of Chinese culture, according to incomplete statistics, there are more than 140 monographs on the study of Su Ci in modern and contemporary China, especially with the comprehensive heating up of political, economic and cultural research in the Song Dynasty in recent years, the popularity of the study and exploration of Su Ci on both sides of the strait with the same root has also risen sharply, and Liu Shaoxiong's "Su Shi Ci Eight Lectures" is a masterpiece that has emerged in this cultural background. Liu Shaoxiong has been engaged in the research and teaching of Dongpo Ci, Erli Ci, Halal Ci, and Jiaxuan Ci for more than 30 years, and has published academic monographs such as "Discussion on The Relevant Lexical Topics of the Jiang Wu Elegant Lexicography of the Southern Song Dynasty", "Huitong and Adaptation- A New Interpretation of Dongpo's Poetry--", "Between Reading and Writing- Learning Word Teachings", "New Theory of Lexical Style and Historical Outlook", and "The Flow of Sentience- Classic Dongpo Words". This "Eight Lectures on Su Shi Ci" is a text version of the Su Shi Zi lecture notes opened by Liu Shaoxiong at National Taiwan University, and is a Su Ci monograph that the author has adjusted and supplemented and revised on the basis of the lecture draft of the general education class "Dongpo Ci".
The book "Su Shi Ci Eight Lectures" has a large system and rigorous style, and is divided into eight chapters in structure: "Word Style and Human Feelings", "Deepening of Word Feelings", "Development of Word Context", "Feeling of Time and Space", "Choice of Style", "Reflections on Traveling", "Poetry and Lyricism" and "Drifting and Returning", each chapter uses multiple interrelated time dimensions and word as ontology, and outlines and expounds the stylistic characteristics of Su Words and the intrinsic relationship between words and the author's fate, thus enlightening readers to understand why Su Shi chose words such as this "micro-trail". Rather than poetry to express the spiritual world. For example, in the first chapter, "Word Style and Human Feelings", the author sorts out and compares the different forms of poetry in different periods of the Tang and Song Dynasties, puts forward unique insights into the stylistic meaning of words, and then expounds the text attributes and aesthetic characteristics of words as a lyrical genre in a more in-depth manner, pointing out that "the rhyme of words is formed by a combination of a feeling of rising and dying and a rhythm of melodious rhymes, and its main tone is not long, life is fleeting, and this love is unswerving", emphasizing that "words are good at expressing spring feelings, poetry is longer than autumn feelings; words more express women's feelings, The poems express the sentiments of the disciples more"; for example, in the second chapter, "The Deepening of the Sentiments of Words", the author takes Su Shi's entire creative process in Hangzhou as the scripture, takes the relief and comment on the theme words of Hangzhou as the weft, systematically analyzes the background and connotation of the lyrics from the four aspects of writing scenery, reward, homesickness and farewell, guides the reader to recognize that each poem is a reflection and refraction of Su Shi's situation and state of mind at that time, and gives birth to a wonderful feeling that the long moon breeze that Su Shi saw in Hangzhou will also blow his own wonderful feeling. For Su Shi, life can have shortcomings, but the words cannot be imperfect; although fate often teases Su Shi, su Shi has never perfunctorily composed words, and lyrics are not only the main content of Su Shi's life, but also an important reason for Su Shi to survive. In view of this, Liu Shaoxiong, who has always adhered to the principle of "not reading Song words, not enough to talk about feelings", in this book, closely links Su Shi's life and the ups and downs of the eunuch sea with the words created in different periods, analyzes and clarifies the relationship between Su Shi's life situation and the ideological meaning of the words and the artistic style, especially to clarify the subtle or explicit changes before and after the creation of the words, so that the reader feels how Su Shi's words are gradually improved and perfected while enduring the hardships and refinements of the world, and finally achieve perfect transcendence. In turn, he became the leader and leader of the Song dynasty. Integrating life experience and poetry creation, by looking back at personal encounters to dissect the meaning of words, along such a line of thought, readers can follow Su Shi's ups and downs, wind and rain of the fate of the boat, to observe how a generation of lexicon step by step into the vast and profound artistic realm, in other words, through understanding Su Shi's life to understand the meaning of his words, this is the core and theme of the book.
Following the mainstream view of China's academic circles, Su words are roughly divided into three categories, namely, bold style, Kuangda style and gentle style, and its early words are put into deep expanse, tragic and majestic, just like the river waves breaking the embankment, the mountains and the sea, most of them belong to the flamboyant kuangda style; and the later works are ethereal and timeless, simple and elegant, just like Gui Fulan fragrant lungs soaked in the spleen, basically belong to the gentle style, for a long time people pay more attention to and appreciate the Su words of the flamboyant kuangda style, and the Su words that really belong to the flamboyant kuangda style are few, It accounts for only about one-tenth of the Su word. Su Ci's boldness and exuberance is to integrate passionate emotions into the words to highlight the author's perseverance and hard-working spiritual temperament, and Liu Shaoxiong also holds this view in the book. Su Shi's writing is directly related to his life experience, and it is precisely in the poignancy and sentimentality of "life is different" and "years drifting", Su Shi gradually finds spiritual dependence and spiritual settlement. "Eight Lectures on Su Shi's Words" is based on the understanding of Su Shi's search for the key to inner detachment from the lyrics, from the style to the context, from the context to the personality, from the shallow to the deep dissection and unveiling of the transition of the Su word with the passage of time, both the easy-to-understand theoretical interpretation, but also the emotional exertion that touches people's hearts, especially the vivid and delicate exposition and annotation of many words, which is a kind of deepening and sublimation of the original Su Zi. Words are like people. Su Ci is not so much extravagant as it is broad, just as Su Shi often imagines things from narrow to wide, and deduces from bad to good, so he can write such ancient famous sentences as "a smoke and rain and let you live a peaceful life" and "this peace of mind is my hometown", and his attitude towards life can become a model for future generations of literati: calm and calm, free to retreat, and not to be insulted. Su Shi was obsessed with poetry, and poetry also cared for Su Shi. Liu Shaoxiong focuses on the social value and personality significance of Su Zi by taking stock of the development process of words, the difference between the characteristics of words and poems, and the emotional trajectory and life traces of Su Shi, as the author writes in the book, "Su Shi is often able to transform his career with a relatively positive attitude, seek internal balance in reason, and then show a more open mind." The most famous of course in Su Ci is "Water Tune Song Head", a sentence "I hope that people will be long-lasting, thousands of miles together", deeply expressing the expectations and longings of the wanderers who have left home, as written in the book, "It is not only beautiful in words, emotional ups and downs, but more importantly, it conveys a warm and hopeful feeling, relieving the hearts of many people." Perhaps the most melancholy thing in Su Ci is the poem "Jiang Chengzi Yi Di ZhengYue Twenty Night Dream": "Ten years of life and death are two vague, do not think, unforgettable ... It is expected that the intestines will be broken every year, the night of the bright moon, and the short Matsuoka. The meaning of sorrow overflowed into words, and posterity read Su Shi's true feelings and joys from "Jiang Chengzi", while Liu Shaoxiong expressed his own opinion: "His mourning for his dead wife is not only a deep remembrance of the gap between life and death, but also a mourning of a vainly lost youth and ideals." This undoubtedly conveys the humanistic consciousness and modern spirit in the poem.
In addition to analysis and interpretation, the book "Su Shi Ci Eight Lectures" also has a feature and advantage, that is, the text expression of the book is elegant and smooth, the language narrative is beautiful and affectionate, coupled with the different length of sentences, the rhythm is slow, rich in a strong sense of rhythm, and the beauty of humanities, the beauty of art and the beauty of human nature, which to a certain extent has a certain relationship with the fact that this book was born out of the lecture notes of the teaching plan. Liu Shaoxiong's devout love for Su Ci has been immersed in the long songs and short gifts of Su Ci over the years, and he has subtly endured the indoctrination and contamination of Su Ci, so the book is fluent in writing and coherent in context, which is very suitable for reading.
Author: Liu Jinxiang
Editor: Zhou Yiqian
Editor-in-Charge: Zhu Zifen
*Wenhui exclusive manuscript, please indicate the source when reprinting.