Love and Affection - Xu Ling's "Jade New Song"

Xu Ling's "Yutai Xin yong" is a collection of love poems with women as the main body, written during the reign of Emperor Wu of Liang. The meaning of the name "Yutai" is oldly said to be a metaphor for the chastity of a woman, and the works in the book have vivid descriptions of whether it is a woman's natural beauty, clever makeup, gorgeous clothing, or lingering feelings, sad and joyful marriages, and all aspects of daily life.

In addition, the different identities and encounters of the women they chanted have a broad social background and profound humanistic connotations, showing us the real living conditions and rich emotional world of ancient women.

Women's life, women's feelings, women's femininity, women's voices, appreciation and admiration for women, portray the love and love between men and women. Such a collection of poems about women, a treasure book of love, and a beautiful movement have important value and unusual significance in the history of literary history and aesthetic development.

Interestingly, however, although the readership is female, this collection of poems subverts the traditional way of collecting works by female authors, including a large number of 658 poems by male authors of the Southern Dynasty, accounting for 80% of the total, and examining women from a male perspective, including a large number of male authors we know.

Traditional poetry by female authors is roughly divided into: traditional poems of grievances, gift poems, poetry of chants, and poems for female friends. From the male perspective, women are roughly divided into three types: complaining women, prostitutes, and palace women.

When male writers portray resentful women, they focus on shaping female characters through women's crying, with sympathetic brushstrokes, reflecting the tragic fate of women, appreciating women's tenderness full of grief and deep sorrow, women's crying and sorrow can more trigger men's love and pity, such as Cao Zhi's "Abandoned Women's Poems" in "Collecting tears and sighing, how to bear the gods", the heroine was abandoned by her husband because of childlessness, leaving sad tears.

Male writers rarely mention such bold and sober-minded women as "the string can be broken, and the heart is the most difficult to stay" ("Self-Harm for Ji Ren"), how can we talk about daring to love and dare to hate, independence and autonomy?

It can be seen that most male writers do not agree with such a female view, under the strict class concept of male as the mainstay, women are only male appendages, the husband is not on the side, it should be "thinking of the jun to make people old, Xuan che is late" (ancient poem "Ran Ran Lonely Bamboo") full of sadness, waiting for the husband to return.

The husband is looking for a new love, the wife is abandoned, it seems that she can only "deeply rise to the bottom of the world, and the tears are not a single one." In vain, the concubines work hard, and in the end they don't know", self-pity, immersed in endless grief and unable to get out. They cannot dominate themselves autonomously or do not have the consciousness to dominate themselves.

The literati of the Southern Dynasty could not escape the idea that although these writers had sympathy, such sympathy did not help women in prison, and could only increase their troubles and sorrows, and failed to change the status quo.

Male writers have slightly different attitudes toward prostitutes, and in feudal patriarchal societies, women's status is inferior, and prostitutes are at the bottom of society. They are often alone, their faces have passed, their fate is tragic, and they have no choice but to "sit and live with tears" ("The Twelve Rhymes of Prostitution Grievances") as a tool for men to play, and male writers are also full of sympathy and compassion for such women, but this sympathy is also more or less mixed with the situation of some male writers themselves, and they are also falling to the end of the world and can't help themselves.

In the context of the writer and them have something in common, in terms of thought and emotion, they can naturally empathize with each other, so male writers will also go in and out of the place where the prostitute is located, find spiritual comfort, and write poems to express emotions.

In the feudal hierarchical society, the most unequal relationship between the monarch and the palace women, on the one hand, the monarch requires the palace women to maintain chastity, on the other hand, the monarch harem beauty three thousand to meet their own selfish desires, the payment and return of women in the palace are completely disproportionate, this deformed relationship makes the women in the palace pain, and the palace poetry naturally becomes an important part of the theme of women's poetry.

In the "Jade New Wing", there are all sympathetic chants about Empress Chen, Ban Jieyu, and Empress Zhen's abandonment of favor, such as Liu Yun's "Nagato Complaint" depicting Empress Chen's sorrow; after Ban Jieyu wrote poems calling herself "Tuan Fan", she was often the object of chanting, such as Jiang Yan's "Ban JieYu", and also Empress Zhen's "Tang Shangxing" was often portrayed by Shen Yue and others after she was injured.

In general, the lack of encounter with the literati is related to the spiritual loss of abandoned women, thinking women, and prostitutes, so they do not hesitate to portray them in pen and ink.

Criteria for evaluating women from a male perspective: young girls of good age, outstanding appearance and posture, gentle and obedient personality, subtle and shy, virtuous and virtuous, and abide by women's morality. This is also the female standard that has been respected by the public for thousands of years, but the criteria for the evaluation of these women are determined by men, women who are masculine, women are pleasing to themselves, not pleasing themselves, and the idea that women are deeply attached to men and survive is not so easy to shake, which is also an important reason for the popularity of "Jade New Song".

In terms of appearance, men's standards for beauty are also similar: beautiful eyes, willow leaf eyebrows, red lips and white teeth, and good faces: Fu Xuan's "There are female beautiful songs" "There are female fragrances, lifting the east box." The moth's eyebrows are divided into green feathers, and its eyes are clear. Dan's lips are flamboyant and his teeth are beautiful"; Lu Ji's "Yan Ge Xing" "beautiful eyes Yang Yuze, Emei like Cuihan." Fresh skin is moist, and the color is edible."

In terms of personality, we must be meek and virtuous, obey the husband, and abide by the three principles and five constants: "Fear the king without clothes, and weave at night as a window" (Wang Monk and Child, "With Sima Zhishu, Smelling the Neighbor's Night Weaving").

It can be seen that under the feudal patriarchal social system, women are solidified as male appendages, a "marionette", which is also a manifestation of sadness in "Jade New Yong". "Jade New Wing" uses the banner of female themes, but in fact, it is in the service of consolidating the status of men.