Huang Tianji & Dong Shangde: There is a new chapter in the interpretation of the poem "Three Hundred Years of Tang Poetry"

At the sharing meeting of "Three Hundred Years of Tang Poems", the keynote speaker Huang Tianji (middle), the guest Dong Shangde (left) and the host Zhou Peiwen chatted about "how to really read Tang poems".

Editor's Note

Around the "World Book Day" on April 23, the Ministry of Culture of Nandu Metropolis Daily planned a series of activities of "Nandu Reading Month", specific activities include dialogues with famous writers and scholars on the Internet, writers sharing in the WeChat group of Nandu Book Club, video recommendations of classics jointly participated by more than a dozen famous artists, and "Nandu Book List" recommended books in the form of book lists.

Among them, Liu Liangcheng talked about "Bemba", Yan Hong said "Dream of the Red Chamber", Lin Weihui and Luo Tao said food writing, and Pompeii talked about "Wujiang Introduction" 4 sharing activities, which have been published in the "Reading Weekly" of this newspaper on April 24. In this issue, scholars Huang Tianji and Dong Shangde, writers Shi Zhongshan, Yuan Ling and Yuan Yuan will share the essence of the lecture, which will bring the 2022 "Nandu Reading Month" series of activities to a successful end.

On April 24, the Nandu Book Club hosted two heavyweight guests in the live broadcast room. Professor Huang Tianji, author of "Three Hundred Years of Tang Poetry", a well-known expert in classical literature research, and professor of the Department of Chinese of Sun Yat-sen University, and Professor Dong Shangde of the Department of Chinese of Sun Yat-sen University had a dialogue on the new book "Three Hundred Years of Tang Poetry - Poets and Their Poetry Creation", with the theme of "How to Truly Read Tang Poetry".

Tang poetry is the pinnacle of classical Chinese literature and the treasure of Chinese civilization. There are many people who study Tang poetry in contemporary times, but there are not many people who have a deep understanding of Tang poetry, and even fewer scholars who can understand an era through Tang poetry. Professor Huang Tianji, a well-known expert in classical literature, recently published a new book, "Three Hundred Years of Tang Poetry - Poets and Their Poetry Creation", which presents the essence of the poetry of the Tang Dynasty by interpreting the 35 representative works of 32 poets of the Tang Dynasty. After the book was published, it not only received attention from the academic community, but also was deeply loved by the majority of readers. The book is not only a literary appreciation book, but a research work with academic and research ideas, which is quoted from the side and strives to restore the original meaning of poetry for readers with the clearest and true historical materials, and at the same time, it is in-depth and simple, leading readers to appreciate the poet's creative intention and the spiritual outlook of Tang poetry with a plain and delicate style.

Professor Dong Shangde compared the "Three Hundred Years of Tang Poems" with the "Three Hundred Poems of Tang Dynasty" and "Selected Poems of Tang", and he believed that "Three Hundred Poems of Tang" was arranged according to the "body" and had no time context, while "Three Hundred Years of Tang Poems" although only 35 were selected, it covered the thread of the rise, decline and change of Tang poetry. Li Panlong's "Selected Poems of Tang" in the Ming Dynasty adheres to the principle of "poetry must flourish in the Tang Dynasty" and despises the poetry of the middle and late Tang Dynasties, while in the "Three Hundred Years of Tang Poetry", the poems of the middle and late Tang Dynasties account for 16 poems, and its length is large enough to see Teacher Huang's emphasis on the poetry of the middle and late Tang Dynasties and his grasp of the development of poetry. All in all, in the overall structure of "Three Hundred Years of Tang Poetry", although only 35 poems are selected, they constitute a tension of time and space, taking into account the time span, and present the essence of the various stages of the Tang Dynasty.

Talking about the Tang Dynasty poet Li He, Professor Huang Tianji chose the "Golden Copper Immortal Ci Han Song" for interpretation, showing his unique insight into Li He and his poetry. He pointed out that the images of the ghosts and monsters in Li He's poems are actually the expression of the poet's inner feelings and are a kind of sustenance. The poet Li He borrowed the allusion of the golden bronze immortal Cihan, and then pointed out his identity as the "grandson of the tang kings" in the preface, showing his sense of crisis of self-identity, which is worthy of the reader's attention. Professor Huang Tianji especially pointed out that he believes that Li He defines the golden bronze immortal as a female figure in the poem, and uses the tone of female narration to implicitly express his worries about the political situation of the Tang Dynasty and his pessimistic attitude towards life.

The transcript of the lecture is the essence

The popularization and popularization of classical culture

Host: This "Three Hundred Years of Tang Poems" is in-depth and simple in the interpretation of poetry, which not only involves a lot of academic professional knowledge, but also is plain and funny, which can be described as elegant and popular, and to a certain extent, it has contributed to the popularization and popularization of classical culture. What is Professor Wong's opinion on this?

Huang Tianji: When I was in school before, the old gentlemen used the practice of the ancient critic school, more from the perspective of sensibility to understand a poem, with their own experience, their own feelings to analyze the work. When I was in college, it was common to divide literary and artistic works into ideological and artistic works, believing that ideological nature was the first and artistry was second. Looking back at the previous practice now, I think it is inappropriate. Ideology and artistry should be integrated, and together affect the whole of literary and artistic works.

Now, as researchers, I think that we not only need to know what this poem is going to write and where it is good, but also how he wrote it and what techniques he used to write it, so that we can truly understand where his artistic and ideological combination is good, so that we can inherit the essence of ancient literature and ancient culture. Learn from the past to the present, and that's it.

Dong Shangde: In my opinion, "Three Hundred Years of Tang Poetry" is not only an interpretation of poetry, but also an interpretation of "poetic law". Teacher Huang's emphasis on creation is, to some extent, deeply influenced by Russian literary and artistic theory. Belinsky, Chernyshevsky, Dubrovey Paov, etc., they talk about creation, analysis and creation, and always closely integrate creative theory and creative practice. It can be seen from the works of classic Russian writers and critics that their analysis is not only meticulous, but also macroscopic, macroscopic and microscopic. Teacher Huang's "Three Hundred Years of Tang Poems" is microscopic in terms of individual pieces, but on the whole, these 35 poems converge through the three hundred years of Tang poems, reflecting the structure and clues of time, and also reflecting Teacher Huang's theoretical accomplishment as an expert in literature and classical literature.

For contemporary young people, what we need to do is to establish and cultivate their artistic feelings, guide them to understand the true meaning of art, and teach them how to put art into their own three views.

Inclusive and blended Lingnan learning style

Moderator: Teacher Huang, you have made many contributions to lingnan cultural research in recent years, is there any intrinsic relationship between research in this field and your consistent academic research? In addition, in recent years, Lingnan academic circles have gradually formed a consensus, believing that there is a difference between the north and the south in the academic research style, and even the reference to "Lingnan learning style", and you have a very vivid metaphor for this "fan shark fin soup, smelting a furnace together", please talk about the specific connotation of "Lingnan learning style".

Huang Tianji: To be honest, I haven't done enough in theoretical research. But I can probably summarize that many comrades now also agree that the "Lingnan study style" is that on the one hand, it is fierce, on the other hand, it is calm. Lingnan culture, if it is from a literary point of view, from Zhang Jiuling to Qu Dajun in the early Qing Dynasty, especially a group of poets in the early Qing Dynasty, everyone is basically "majestic" in poetry creation. Lingnan culture does have this characteristic.

The most typical is that Liang Qichao put forward a slogan, and he has a sentence that has a deep influence on me: "The pen is often with feelings." Writing political papers, writing argumentative essays, that is a kind of writing. But to write a thesis with feelings, feelings are literary things. How can we merge discussion and feelings into one, and blend into one? Inspired me. I think this is a common feature of Lingnan people: tolerance and integration. For example, I am from Guangzhou, my favorite thing is to eat porridge, raw fish porridge, and the first porridge, etc., and the first porridge is miscellaneous, there is everything in it.

We like to mix, we like to blend. The impact of my acceptance section is relatively deep. For example, when I studied the problem of "artistic conception" in the book "Poetry Creation", I was influenced by the physics teacher to link the so-called "field" problem of physics - the "field" of the magnetic field. So I melted the physics into it.

I think Lingnan people are from tolerance to integration. There is both a fierce side and a calm side. There is theoretical thinking, there is also image thinking. I think this may be a special feature of Lingnan culture, where all kinds of arts are gathered and put together. I can't say it's the best, but there's such a feature anyway.

An open and inclusive atmosphere of the Tang Dynasty

Host: The so-called recitation of his poems, knowing his people, feeling his world, thinking about his weather. When it comes to Tang poetry, it is easy to think of the "Sheng Tang meteorology" in Tang poetry, which was first proposed by Yan Yu in the "Canglang Poetry", and "Sheng Tang meteorology" refers to the stylistic characteristics of Sheng Tang poetry. It is manifested in the works of most writers of the Sheng Tang Dynasty, and it shows a difference from the poetry of the early Tang Dynasty and the middle and late Tang Dynasties. I would like to ask the two teachers to give an example to talk about the "prosperous atmosphere".

Dong Shangde: "Sheng Tang" is actually a synonym for a stage in the history of the Tang Dynasty, and everyone must not be misled by the word "Sheng". The so-called "Sheng Tang" is nothing more than the Kaiyuan Tianbao, that is, the decades of the Tang Xuanzong era. In the past few decades, on the one hand, national strength has been increasing and the economy has developed. But at the same time, because of the continuous expansion of the territory, there are still frequent wars on the border. Otherwise, why are there poems by Gao Shi and Cen Shan? Therefore, "Sheng Tang Meteorology" is not just "singing the praises of the prosperous world", you can read Li and Du to know.

The "Sheng Tang" as I understand it is actually this group of poets, who can dare to show their inner conflicts and dare to expose social problems, so this batch of excellent poetry works has emerged. There is a certain reason for the Ming Dynasty to say that "poetry will flourish in the Tang Dynasty", because this batch of works has jian'an wind bones. Not many people use this word now, and in the past, Mr. Lin Geng used it more. I think we have to reflect on it, because you have to respect the facts, the direction of history is going up and down, and I think it is necessary to look at this period dialectically.

Huang Tianji: During the Sheng Tang Dynasty, I think that my thinking was also relatively open, which is a very important reason for the prosperity of poetry before and after The Kaiyuan Tianbao. It is not entirely determined by economic development. The economy of the early Song Dynasty and the middle and late Ming Dynasty were very prosperous, but such meteorological poems could not be written. The Tang Dynasty is very special, that's why I say that Tang poetry cannot be copied and cannot be surpassed. This is also why Chinese called "Chinatown", we have Chinatown in the United States, not called "Mingren Street" and "Qingren Street", but called "Chinatown". The Tang Dynasty is indeed an era in China that is worth studying and reflecting on.

Written by: Nandu reporter Zhou Peiwen Intern Zhou Zhengying Zhao Wantong

Video: Zhang Jingwei