Interpretation of the Wutai poetry case and Huangzhou words

The so-called poetry is in terms of the respective themes and styles of the poems, and this difference between the two bodies of poetry has almost become common sense. This common sense, in turn, affects people's understanding of the respective fields of application of poetry, as evidenced by a lawsuit that Su Shi encountered.

The style su Shi accused of satirizing the new law in the Wutai poetry case was all poetry, not a single word. Obviously, in the case of political ethics, only solemn poetry can be competent, feminine words can only be avoided, and perhaps words have never entered the scope of the case-handling personnel to collect evidence. The Wutai poetry case is a major event in Su Shi's life, there are many materials, this article does not intend to antecedents and consequences, but from a more interesting perspective to investigate.

The Japanese scholar Seiya Uchiyama, "Media and Truth: The Literature of Su Shi and the Scholars and Doctors Around Him," argues that poetry cases are largely related to the emerging engraving and printing media. Since the Reign of Emperor Renzong of the Northern Song Dynasty, the engraving and printing industry has flourished in an all-round way, and previous writers (such as Ouyang Xiu) basically published poetry collections after their deaths, and Su Shi was the first poet to achieve cooperation between contemporary literature and print media. Su Shi received a strong blessing from the print media, and the influence of speech was greatly improved. At that time, the reason why Yu Shitai wanted to impeach Su Shi may not only be because he wrote many poems criticizing the government, but also because those poems were published by various media and widely disseminated this social phenomenon, from the perspective of the imperial court, the impact was very bad! The Wutai poetry case thus became the first case in which publications were used as evidence.

After the Wutai poetry case, Su Shi was demoted to Huangzhou. From the third to seventh year of Yuanfeng, Su Shi lived in Huangzhou for five years, and some scholars pointed out that during this period, Su Shi's creation showed an obvious phenomenon of "more words and fewer poems", and this article intends to use Wang Wenxuan's commentary, Kong Fanlidian's "Su Shi Poems Collection" (zhonghua bookstore first edition in 1982) and Zou Tongqing and Wang Zongtang's "Su Shi Ci Chronicle Annotations" (zhonghua bookstore first edition in 2002) to count the number of su shi huangzhou poems, which is verified.

According to the "Su Shi Poetry Collection", Su Shi has 2623 poems, including 2352 chronicle poems and 170 Huangzhou poems, accounting for 7% of the chronicle poems and 6.5% of the total number of poems; according to the "Su Shi Ci Chronicle Proofreading", Su Shi has 331 poems, including 292 chronicle words and 78 Huangzhou words, accounting for 27% of the chronicle words and 24% of the total number of poems. From another point of view, Su Shi's chronicle poetry creation period from 1059 to 1101, where 43 years, calculated by the total number of chronicled poems, an average of 55 poems were written per year, and 34 poems were written every year during the Huangzhou period; Su Shi's chronicle creation period was from 1064 to 1100 years, and all 37 years, calculated by the total number of chronicle words, the average number of words written per year was less than 8, while the annual writing of words during the Huangzhou period reached 16. In summary, during the Period of Ju Huang, there were still more poems than words in absolute comparison, but from the perspective of Huangzhou in Su Shi's entire creative career, it can be considered that the statement that "more words and fewer poems" is reasonable.

The reason for the phenomenon of "more words and fewer poems" can be reasonably speculated. Su Shi became a frightened bird with a lingering heart because of the Wutai poetry case, and he had a psychological obstacle to writing poetry, and in the book Qi Zhimu written with friends during his time in Huangzhou, he often said to the poet seekers that "do not repeat the work" and "dare not do it", and also summed up the lesson of "the beginning of life's literacy troubles". But the words are different, not only write themselves, but also sing and send gifts with friends, Su Shi's attitude towards poetry is different, in fact, it is still due to the concept of "poetry and poetry", of course, Su Shi does not think that words must be charming, but words are game, pastime, and will not cause trouble, so "making small words does not hinder".

Despite this, behind the Huangzhou words is still the Wutai poetry case. Huangzhou writes many dreams, such as "life is like a dream" ("Nian Nu Jiao"), "everything is a dream at the end, rest, tomorrow's yellow flowers and butterflies are also sad" ("Nanxiangzi"), "the world is a big dream, life is several autumn cool" ("Xijiang Yue"), "laughing and laboring a dream, three years of detention" ("Drunken Penglai"), these dreams are probably more disillusioned with reality. The "ethereal lonely Hong" of "Picking up all the cold branches and refusing to perch, lonely sandbar cold" ("Bu Operator") portrays the sensitive psychology of alienation, trepidation, uneasiness, coldness and fear after being hurt. In the face of injury and disillusionment, there is not much that people can do, or withdraw from reality, "the boat has passed away, and the river and the sea have the rest of their lives" ("Linjiang Immortal"), or to reconstruct the value of daily life with broad psychological hints, "a smoke and rain for a lifetime, and there is no wind and rain and no sunshine" ("Dingfeng Wave"), "Attentive last night three more rain, and have to float a day of coolness" ("Partridge Day"). When YuanFeng learned of the news of the amnesty in the seventh year, Su Shi's last poem written in Huangzhou was still saying "Return to Xi, where do I return" ("Man Tingfang"). The real liberation from the influence of the Wutai poetry case and the restoration of spiritual order were after Su Shi left Huangzhou: "This peace of mind is my hometown" ("DingfengBo"), "Full of Huizhou rice, fine and Yuanming poems" (Huang Tingjian's "Bao Zi Zhan and Tao Poems").

In the spring of the seventh year of Yuanfeng, Emperor Shenzong of Song personally wrote an edict transferring Su Shi, who was living in Huangzhou, to Ruzhou. The road from Huangzhou to Ruzhou was not easy, first the young son Su Yu, born to Wang Chaoyun, died on the way, and because of the shortage of road fees, the family stayed in Changzhou and Sizhou for a long time, and the Spring Festival was spent in Sizhou. Su Shi went to take a bath in a temple in Sizhou and wrote two poems", which was previously called "Yi Xian Zi", because it was originally the legend of Liu Chen Ruan Zhao's Tiantai Encounter Immortals, Su Shi felt that the original name was customary, and changed it to "Ru Meng Ling":

(i)

Limescale He once suffered from each other, and looked closely at both. Send words to the back of the people, and do your best to swing your elbows. Light hands, light hands! The layman was originally unstainted.

(ii)

Self-purification can purify the other, and I sweat and breathe. Send a message to the bathers, and play in the flesh. But wash, wash! Bow down to everything on earth.

At the end of the year of leaving Huangzhou, writing such a word about bathing should be symbolic, to imply that the Wutai poetry case and the dirt smeared on his body during the Huangzhou period were removed, right? When Dongpo changed "Reminiscences of Xianzi" into "Dream Order", did he also remember the dreams he had written during his time in Huangzhou?

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