I believe that if anyone now says that the decline of classical Chinese poetry began with Su Shi, it may be ridiculed by many people and labeled as "not too ancient Li Taibai" and "unpopular poet Li Shangyin". But it is interesting to note that this argument emerged from the Song Dynasty and continued until the late Qing Dynasty.
What is more interesting is that the people who hold this argument are not lonely and unknown in history, they are also well-known literary figures in ancient and modern times, and are respected by modern people, such as Yan Yu, the author of "Canglang Poetry", and Li Qingzhao, a famous female lyricist.
Yan Yu: Su Shi's method of writing poetry directly led to the decline of poetry
The Southern Song Dynasty literary theorist Yan Yu was hailed as "the first person to poetry in the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties", and his dissatisfaction with Su Shi was very obvious, and he pointed out bluntly in the "Canglang Poetry":
"The poems of the beginning of the country still follow the Tang dynasty... To the eastern slopes and valleys, they began to think of themselves as poetry, and the wind of the Tang Dynasty changed. ”
This sentence is very heavy, in the Poetry Circle of the Song Dynasty, Yan Yu was a hardcore "Tang fan", and the Zong Tang faction believed that the poetry of the Song Dynasty was inferior, and the node of its qualitative change was in the emergence of Su Shi, Huang Tingjian and others, and poetry began to go astray.
To explain the origin of Yan Yu's concept, we must first talk about what the Northern Song Dynasty poetry circle was like before Su Shi.
The two dynasties of Tang and Song were not continuous, and there was a five-generation and ten-kingdom in between, which experienced a division for more than 70 years. The continuous war not only caused a slight fault in culture, but also made literary creation silent for a long time.
After the Reunification of the Song Dynasty, the society became more and more stable, and the literary circle regained some vitality, and the literati at this time admired the Tang style very much and inevitably imitated it in creation, so the "Three Bodies of the Early Song Dynasty" appeared.
The so-called "three bodies of the early Song Dynasty", namely "white body", "late Tang body" and "Xikun body". The "white body" imitated Bai Juyi's shallow and approachable style, which was the mainstream at that time; the "late Tang style" imitated the qing bitter poetry style of hermits such as Jia Dao and Yao He, while the "Xikun body" imitated Li Shangyin's complicated and rich style.
At that time, many literary people actually had traces of imitation, such as the literary leader Ouyang Xiu also imitated the style of the Tang Dynasty and HanYu, and these literati were mostly proud of it. In addition, there are also the style of science poetry, the style of Taixue poetry, etc., but the quality is not high, and the influence is limited.
However, Yan Yu believes that the imitation of Tang poetry by these poets is the wonderful purpose of Tang poetry, and the starting point of their creation lies in the word "interest". In fact, although the imitation traces of these works are more obvious, they do have merit, and Yan Yu's point of view is also very reasonable. He admired the realm of Tang poetry such as "antelope hanging horns, no trace to seek", and it is indeed a high aesthetic pursuit of classical poetry.
But the emergence of Su Shi made the creation of classical poetry go another way, and even to a certain extent, this also became the beginning of the parting of Tang poetry and Song poetry.
Yan Yu summed up the poetry methods of Su Shi and others very well, namely:
"Take words as poetry, talent as poetry, and argument as poetry."
The style of this kind of poetry was different from the "rational interest" of the time, and it was more like writing poetry in the way of creating articles. Just like the side quotation of the article, the poem must also be "the word must come from". This style began with Su Shi and was carried forward in the "Jiangxi Poetry School" represented by his disciple Huang Tingjian, and its influence almost penetrated the classical poetry circles that followed.
However, it should be pointed out that yan Yu is only attacking this method of creation, not the poetry works of Su, Huang and others. He also admits that this method can write good poetry, but the purpose of its creation has changed, and the genre of poetry has begun to deteriorate.
Therefore, Yan Yu put forward a very important point in poetry appreciation:
"Poetry has different materials, non-Guanshu also; poetry has different interests, non-Guan Li also."
To put it simply, it is to think that poetry is an independent and special genre, and that it should maintain its own characteristics in both content and form, rather than borrowing from genres such as articles.
If Yan Yu's criticism of Su Shi in poetry creation is quite rational, then Li Qingzhao and others' criticism of Su Shi in song poetry creation is much more "mean".
Li Qingzhao: Su Shi can't write lyrics at all, and his works are not classy
In the Southern Song Dynasty, Yu Wenbao recorded such a story in the "Record of Blowing Swords", saying that there was a scene of Shi Shan song, and Su Shi asked him: "How can my words be like Liu Qi?" Liu Qi's was Liu Yong, the gentle lyricist, and that person's answer made Dongpo desperate. He said:
Liu Lang Chinese words, only seventeen or eighteen girls, holding the red tooth plate, the song "Yang Liu An Xiao Feng Remnant Moon";
Bachelor's words, Su Kansai Han, copper pipa, iron plate, singing "Great River East Go".
This story has been interpreted by many people as Liu Yong and Su Shi have their own styles, gentle and bold, but in fact, it is not, this is a kind of irony of Su Shi's words.
It is generally believed that "words" may have originated in the Middle and Tang Dynasties, which is an entertainment style that appeared in conjunction with the "Yanle" that emerged at that time. The so-called "Yan music" refers to the music that is different from the national "gagaku", which combines the instruments of ethnic minorities in the north and plays an entertainment role in informal occasions.
On such occasions, the lyricists are basically "seventeen or eighteen girls". Therefore, the "Kansai Han" that this person said could sing Su Shi's lyrics, in fact, he was saying that Su Shi's writing "words" was really bad, and even could not be called "words" at all.
Coincidentally, Li Qingzhao also held this view, believing that Su Shi's words were not words at all, but "poems that do not read well", and even more incosistant rhythms.
It has to be said that Li Qingzhao pointed out an important drawback of Su Shi's composition, that is, it does not conform to the rhythm of the word, and this is also related to Su Shi's lack of sound rhythm.
In fact, Su Shi is mainly famous for poetry, and the time to learn to write words is relatively late, and his poems are "poetry for poetry", and when composing words, he is "using poetry as words", so although the number of Su Shi's so-called "bold words" is small, it is extremely difficult to imitate. By the time Xin abandoned the disease to make bold words, he had already put on the cloak of "elegance", which also meant the gradual maturity of the "bold" faction in the word world.
The characteristics of Dongpo words were not only criticized at the time, but also plagued later generations of lexicographers.
When Zhu Xiaozang of the Qing Dynasty compiled the "Three Hundred Songs of Song Ci", he originally included the words of Su Shi's "Nian Nu Jiao Chibi Huaigu", after all, this work was extremely high in both the degree of singing and the literary quality. However, when later revising this anthology, Zhu Xiaozang still deleted it from the "Three Hundred Songs of Song Ci", an important reason is that it does not fit the rhythm, although the content is excellent, but there are still some shortcomings in the form.
From the perspective of the development of words, Su Shi's style of the Haofang line is generally not very accepted, not only the later Haofang poets are decorated with "gentleness", such as the "horizontal extinction" style of the Yang Xianzi school in the early Qing Dynasty, which is also quite different from the Dongpo word. In general, Su Shihao's style of words has no successor.
For example, the poetry immortal Li Bai is acceptable for becoming a masterpiece with the transcendence of personal emotions, but with words, talents, and discussion as the center, there are fixed creative methods that cannot be imitated, and this phenomenon itself has revealed that there are indeed some drawbacks in Su Shi's poetry works, and the criticism of him by Yan Yu, Li Qingzhao and others is still justified.