Wang Ji (585?-644), a native of the late Sui and early Tang dynasties, his hometown of Longmen, Daizhou, his ancestral home was Qi County, Taiyuan, and the family "Sixth Crown", he was the younger brother of Wang Tong of the Late Sui Dynasty and the uncle of Wang Bo of the Four Jies of the Early Tang Dynasty.
<h1>Biography</h1>
Wang Ji's life boils down to three divisions and three hiddens:
At the age of 15, he traveled to Chang'an and was called a "fairy boy" by the heavy minister Yang Su.
During the Sui Dynasty,Ying Xiaolianju (孝廉舉), he was given the title of secretary, and soon after he was sick and went to the official, he later asked for the title of Liuhe Cheng of Yangzhou, and was impeached for alcoholism and abandoned the official.
This is one thing and one hidden
At the end of the Sui Dynasty, he went to Hebei to attach himself to his friend Ling Jing, and entered Chang'an after the defeat of Dou Jiande's army.
In 622, the fifth year of the tang dynasty's new establishment, he was requisitioned as a menxia province to be edicted, and enjoyed the name of "Doujiu Bachelor".
In the early years of Zhenguan, he said that he resigned due to illness, which was probably related to the impeachment of Hou Junji by his brother Wang Ning.
This is two shi two hidden
In 637, due to his family's poverty, he went to the election, and heard that the Taile Department of Sjiaoge was good at brewing wine, and asked for the name of Taile Cheng.
Jiao Ge and his wife died one after another, there was no good wine to drink, and once again hung up the crown and returned to the field.
This is the three shi three hidden
Living in seclusion in the countryside, calling himself Donggaozi, not asking about the world, entertaining himself with gin wine, and giving poetry to speech. Following the example of Tao Yuanming, he wrote "The Biography of Mr. Wudou" and "The Tale of Drunken Town". He also posthumously recorded the Jiaoge winemaking method and wrote a volume of "Wine Classic", summarizing the brewing techniques of his predecessors and writing a volume of "Wine Recipes".
Wang Ji changed the word "no merit" for himself, which originated from "Zhuangzi" "Gods and men have no merit, saints have no name", which means "there is a way to oneself, no merit to the time", which can also be said to be a true portrayal of his life. Wang Ji was classified by the old and new Tang Dynasty books into the "Hidden Column Biography". The American sinologist Yuwen Soan described Wang Ji as "an eccentric drunkard, a stubborn hermit, and a self-sufficient farmer."
<h1>Evaluation of works</h1>
After his death, his close friend Lü Cai collected his poems and compiled them into five volumes of the Donggao Subset, which were deleted by Lu Chun in the Middle Tang Dynasty and supplemented into three volumes after continuous searches by later generations. Wang Ji 's inscription of songs and poems, with the intention of the work", the poetic style of "true and shallow", is inconsistent with the main theme of the court advocated by Tang Taizong at that time. Coupled with the fact that "only the high position is lower", he has been wandering on the edge of the officialdom for a long time, so that his reputation in the Zhenguan literary circle with a strong atmosphere of power and wealth is not strong.
From the macroscopic scale, the overall achievement of Tang Dynasty poetry is low, which has always been ignored by poetry critics, and even not regarded as an integral part of Tang poetry.
In the past fifty years, it is better to say that it is the head of the Tang Dynasty than the tail of the Six Dynasties.
Then Wang Ji, who was born at that time, naturally found it difficult to enter the mainstream of Tang poetry and was not taken seriously for a long time.
Smell a lot
Ming Dynasty Yang Shen's "Poetry of Sheng'an":
Wang Wugong, sui people into the Tang, the hidden festival is both high, the poetry is also prosperous, Gai Wang, Yang, Lu, Luo Zhi indiscriminate, Chen, Du, Shen, Song Zhixian whip, and people rarely know it.
"And few people know it", a talented man who has achieved a lot of achievements has become a non-famous poet.
Until the 1980s after the founding of New China, the five-volume collection of Wang Wugong's handwritten works copied by Chen Shiwanqingxuan in the Qing Dynasty was sorted out and discovered by scholars. The five-volume edition has reappeared in the sky, which can be called a major event in the field of Tang poetry. The number of poems in existence of Wang Ji has increased from less than 40 to more than 100, triggering the world's re-examination of the life of this early Tang poet and the reappraisal of poetry art. Non-famous poets began to become less famous.
The Collected Works of Wang Wugong (Five Volumes) (Han Lizhou School), Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, 1987