Beijing, March 17 (CCTV) -- China's 5,000-year long history has bred a profound national culture; classic poems with a long history are enduring treasures in the long river of history. How do we deal with our classic poems? How to inherit and carry forward our own national culture? In the program "Chao Hua Xi Shi" of the Voice of China of the Central Radio and Television Corporation, the host Su Yang interviewed Zhang Wei, a contemporary Chinese writer and vice chairman of the China Writers Association, and talked about the significance and value of literary creation in combination with his new work "Five Poets of the Tang Dynasty".
Zhang Wei, a contemporary Chinese writer and vice chairman of the China Writers Association
Classical literature education needs to be "made up"
Su Yang: In terms of poetic monographs, you have published a total of six books, and some people have commented that these six books are a system, so as far as this system is concerned, do you have a pre-idea and plan?
Zhang Wei: I don't have a complete plan in advance, but I think that my generation is relatively lacking in two aspects, one is foreign languages, and the other is education in classical literature. Both of these aspects need to be "made up", and in recent years, more has been done, that is, for classical literature "make-up lessons". I published the lecture record "Notes on Chu Ci", and later in a more in-depth reading, I found that classical literature was unfathomable, and the content that needed to be understood was rich and profound. And because I was going to give lectures in college, and the crowd of people was very diverse, I discussed with everyone in class and deepened my learning through discussion. Over time, these six books came into being.
Moderator Su Yang
Writers should return to their amateur state
Su Yang: I noticed that you rarely evaluate any work or contemporary literature, but instead continue to publish your own books on long poems and cultural studies.
Zhang Wei: There are many voices in the evaluation of literary works at any time, there are praises, questions, and criticisms, especially in the Internet age, evaluation is more convenient. But since I am not a critic of contemporary literature, although I sometimes talk about contemporary literature, I basically think about some issues on my own, and rarely involve the works of specific writers.
My time division, one in college lectures and the other in my personal writing, these two jobs can be intertwined. I think that the author's creation is best to return to the amateur state, I do not advocate professional writers to be fully professional, this state of work is good, but the creation needs passion and impulse, and needs to have a sense of life. From this point of view, amateurism is more normal. So I especially like the state of having a job in my life, having an impulse at work, and then throwing myself into creation like a "retreat.".
The story of the "Five Poets of the Tang Dynasty"
Wang Wei: Large scale and small scale
Su Yang: In "Five Poets of the Tang Dynasty", what criteria do you use for the order in which the poets are listed?
Zhang Wei: The "five poets" are Wang Wei, Han Yu, Bai Juyi, Du Mu, and Li Shangyin, and are sorted according to the age of birth. In fact, I attach great importance to these five poets, but there is a difference between them, and this difference exists objectively and is also my personal aesthetic feeling.
For example, Wang Wei, as a Buddhist, his poems are very ethereal, distinctive, and easy to understand. Because of this, his poems are easily accepted by the public in form and emotion, and they are relatively easy to disseminate. Therefore, Wang Wei's status and popularity are very high. Although Wang Wei is a poet I admire very much, the individualization of poets does not mean that they cannot be compared with each other, so if we study the literary content and ideological content of Wang Wei's poems longitudinally in the history of literature, considering the problem of size and scale, the poet I prefer may be Han Yu.
Su Yang: When you introduced Wang Wei, you mentioned the influence of the Villa and his mother, so the external environment should have a certain impact on people who love literary creation. Don't know if this understanding is accurate?
Zhang Wei: You are quite right, a writer must first stabilize himself, and he needs to have a focus and a point of strength. Although suffering itself is a spiritual treasure, he has no time and conditions to write when he is suffering. On the one hand, Wang Wei's mother influenced him to move toward Buddhism, which played a decisive role in the Zen in Wang Wei's poems.
On the other hand, I write about the influence of the Villa on Wang Wei, because living here is the most stable time in Wang Wei's life, he wrote about the process and joy of running the Villa in the poem. Moreover, although Wang Wei did not have a long poem, he had a relatively long time of operation and enjoyment of the Villa, so the Villa of The River can be seen as a substitute for the materialization of Wang Wei's long poems.
Han Yu: Confucianism's wisdom and courage
Su Yang: Han Yue may be more in line with the ideals in the hearts of traditional literati, because he not only writes well, but also does a good job in all aspects, especially the establishment of military merit, which is not available to ordinary literati. I can see your admiration for Han Yu, but you still have reservations about his poetry, right?
Zhang Wei: You are very right, the character I admire most in the "Five Poets" is Han Yu. I didn't know much about Han Yu, and I had the impression that he was an old-fashioned bureaucrat, but when I plunged headlong into the ocean of Han Yu's words and thoughts and learned about his life experience, I immediately liked him. He is cute, straightforward, impulsive, and as simple as a child, but when he steps into reality, he has a strong sense of initiative. I think Confucianism is divided into "orthodox Confucianism" and "pseudo-Confucianism." "Pseudo-Confucianism" refers to the vulgarized Confucianism that has been transformed by the feudal ruling clique. And "Zheng Confucian" is a person represented by Han Yu who has spent his life maintaining the pure texture of Confucianism. From Han Yu's poems, we can also see his bravery and purity. Moreover, Han Yue has ideological and political and military talents that ordinary literati do not have, and even if many people have such talents, it is difficult to display them. However, in his short life, Han Yu achieved great success in the military field and thus ascended to a high position. However, he was not suitable for politics, because he was quick to speak and upright, so he had a short time in a position and frequent transfers.
Su Yang: My experience is that "righteous Confucianism" is to take one thing as a belief and fully devote itself. For example, Han Yu, his boldness and humor have been played to the extreme, if there is a little selfish distraction, it may not be loved by the world.
Zhang Wei: I think there are three sentences to explain the meaning of "orthodox Confucianism". The first sentence is what Confucius said about "the benevolent person loves others", which is the core and basic content of "righteous Confucianism"; the second sentence is Mencius's statement that "the people are precious, the king is light, and the society is secondary"; the third sentence is confucius's "The tao is not good, and the sea is floating on the fence", which now means to go to the vast desert world to find the truth. Sometimes these three strips are stripped out of one, and none of them can be called "zhengru". But these three points were implemented vividly in Han Yu's body. Because he is not for personal self-interest, but for the ideal, for the faith, to spend his life to implement it.
Bai Juyi: Between both good and good
Su Yang: Let's talk about Bai Juyi, it seems that there is more controversy about him in later generations, because everyone does not know a lot of information very well, and can only read in general. So can you tell me how you think of Bai Juyi as a person?
Zhang Wei: It will be interesting to compare poets such as Bai Juyi and Su Dongpo, who at the beginning also violently attacked social injustice and exposed the darkness of society, and he believes that this practice has a powerful and powerful impact on social life, which is valuable. He also believed that the poetry written at the grass-roots level was the most advanced poetry of literary aesthetics. According to this standard, his two long poems "Long Hate Song" and "Pipa Line" are representative works, but these two poems are not the best works, and can only be regarded as the expression of personal emotions in the face of social life.
Bai Juyi is also a person who knows how to avoid danger, so he can end well. He did not value the feelings expressed in the process of preserving himself, but this kind of text was the most valuable thing that everyone thought Bai Juyi had in his life. And those works with a strong realist style, I think these works can exist as poetry in a broad sense, not as pure poetry.
Du Mu: Noble prince
Su Yang: So if you compare Du Mu and Han Yu, can you tell us about it?
Zhang Wei: There is a certain difference between the origins of the two people. Han Yu lost his father at an early age and his family was poor, so he struggled little by little from the bottom of the folk. Du Mu was born noble, his grandfather was the prime minister, and Du Mu studied national events from the beginning. The two people's childhood and adolescence experiences, the people they interact with, and the world they have seen are completely different, so their minds, struggle processes and personalities will be different.
In general, Du Mu's personality could not bear hardships, so he went to work in the shogunate, and because of his grandfather's relationship, the people in the shogunate took good care of him, so his life belonged to the life of an aristocratic youth. This kind of life made him have a lot of alternative feelings, so he has many seven-word poems that embody his life experience as representative works. I think that the study of literature is very complicated, we can not simply say which type is better, we are more willing to sum up the relationship between literature and society and life, summarize the relationship between political civilization and material civilization, and are willing to find out some regular things and summarize them.
Li Shangyin: Sensitive and respectful
Su Yang: In "Five Poets of the Tang Dynasty", the most prominent feeling that you give me is to talk about historical figures and literary works, and I often express your opinions, which I find very shocking. For example, in the "Twenty-three Lectures of Li Shangyin", there is a lecture called "Min and Zun", I think we live in the current situation in 2022, and the psychological state of "Min and Zun" is still widespread.
Zhang Wei: Poets are born very meticulous, but after they have been nourished for a long time in the life of poetry books and words, they will become sensitive and self-respecting, and sometimes the action will be simple, and the action in the heart will be clear but the action in reality is not direct. For example, Li Shangyin befriended the prime minister, but he was always cautious in asking the prime minister to do things, and finally accumulated a lot of misunderstandings and contradictions.
Many people think that thousands of years ago, human nature and today's human nature are very different, but this is not the case. Because objective life is constantly changing, in order to cope with objective life, human nature must produce countermeasures, constantly rehearse, and evolve in the times. But in fact, human nature has not changed much from ancient times to the present.
Face the text, face life, restore life, and create literary value
Su Yang: Will practical research have an impact on your common sense and creativity?
Zhang Wei: I think that simple knowledge and the greatest common divisor sound very smooth and easy to get everyone's approval, but it is not in line with the actual situation. I am not denying the university curriculum and the existing literary history, but they are more about reaching the greatest common divisor, transforming it into a general knowledge and basic framework. However, we can't just stop at general education, when we delve into the text and the life of the poet, we find it very complicated, we have to face more unknowns, a stronger sense of depth. So I think we have to go back to the truth, face the text, and only by facing the text can we face life, can we restore life, and can we create the value of literature.
In my work, utilitarianism drove me to read ancient Chinese poets, which is the reason for entering. Slowly, I have discovered that it is inevitable that any subject, category or art of any nation will be open to the world and widely absorbed, especially in today's digital age. But on the other hand, we must base ourselves on the cultural soil of our own nation, our novels, essays, and dramas all have their own national traditions, but modern poetry is still based on the West as a model. This made me doubt my own poetry creation, so I had to study a lot of classical Chinese poetry and draw nourishment from it, so that modern free poetry would be transformed. Whether this thing will succeed or not will remain to be tested by time.
Producer: Bai Zhonghua
Moderator: Su Yang
Editor: Wang Xin Yin Yukun