"Founding Ancestor" Mei Yaochen

The Southern Song Dynasty poet Liu Kezhuang revered Mei Yaochen as the "founding ancestor" of Song poetry, and another Southern Song poet, Lu You, was even more admiring of Mei Yaochen, writing in the poem, "Li Du does not repeat the work, Mei Gongzhen is magnificent" and "suddenly passed through the Yuanhe work, and the sovereign alliance is dominant". Lu You has mentioned "The Body of Mr. Wanling" many times, and his "Mei Sheng Yu Farewell Collection Sequence" is even more admired. Later, poetry critics such as Fang Hui, Hu Yinglin, and Xu Xueyi received similar praise for Mei Yaochen.

Mei Yaochen was born more than 70 years after Song Xing, and was a poet who achieved outstanding achievements in the poetry circle of the early Song Dynasty. With a deep family origin and a conscious sense of innovation, Mei Yaochen has extensively taught and forged his own great words after breaking through the barriers of Xikun, and gradually formed a diversified style. Mei Yaochen's poems are mostly scattered, and after several compilations, there are more than 2800 extant poems, far more than Ouyang Xiu, Fan Zhongyan, Su Shunqin and others in the same period.

In terms of themes, Mei's poems are rich in content: there are both lingering rewards and songs, as well as inscriptions and gifts that pay attention to the war on the frontier; there are both leisurely lyrical short chapters and long stories of feelings that care about the people's livelihood and suffering; there are both deep feelings between friends and friends, as well as exquisite depictions of customs and worlds. His poem "East Creek" reads:

When you go to the East Creek to see the water, it is late to take the boat to the lonely island.

There is idleness on the shore of the wild sleep, and the old tree has flowers and no ugly branches.

The short puffs are like scissors, and the flat sand and stone are net in the sieve.

Although the love is not tired of it, Bo Twilight returns to the car and is tired.

The poet strolled and wrote about the beautiful scenery of the water town and his own leisure, among which "the wild sleep bank has leisure, and the old trees have flowers and no ugly branches" has always been praised. The two sentences seem to be written scenes, but in fact, in a strong contrast, they show the author's surging and difficult to choose contradictory mood. The whole poem is bland, but there is strangeness in lightness and taste in lightness.

Mei Yaochen is obsessed with natural beauty, so he depicts the beauty of landscapes and rivers everywhere, "the river sails are beautiful, the bamboo house rain is even sound", "the low clouds are open, the heart is happy to vomit in the moon", "the green mountains turn with the house, and the distant water flows to the door". In his pen, the beautiful scenery of Shanyin, Huiji, Yuyao, Xuancheng, Lushan and other beautiful scenery have poured into the pen, "The wind and things in the world are good, mo out of Wu and Yue", "Want to pan the creek boat, the road Chang'an can be adapted", "My heart is zhaoting water, see the bottom without a ruler to find"...

Mei Yaochen treats people with sincerity and gentleness, attaches special importance to social travel, "friends in the world in ordinary life, often seeking morality". The northern Song Dynasty established a state, and Yan Wen cultivated martial arts, which gave the literati plenty of time to feast and sing. Until his later years, the poet still deeply missed the friendship at that time, "Jingluo traveled well, and the years were deep", "When he was in Luoyang, he traveled to the best", "Luoyang jiaoli, more than half of it has withered". "Luoyang" has become a beautiful complex inscribed by Mei Yaochen, where most of the people who are like-minded and down-to-earth in the world are like-minded and down-to-earth people, such as Qian Weiyan, a predecessor of the literary world, Ouyang Xiu, who holds both political affairs and literature, Yin Shilu, who is a literary talent and a talented double practitioner, and others such as Xie Chen, Jiang Xiufu, etc., are all temporary masterpieces and are grand views.

Of course, the most representative of Mei Yaochen's ideological value is his poetry with realistic themes. Mei Yaochen always pays attention to the people's livelihood and suffering, "everyone who is two thousand stones, only in the persuasion of cultivation and spinning" "The son of heaven is worried about the people, and the deeds are urgent to persuade Sang". He wrote in the poem "Guan Li Jia":

The day has been long, and the beginning of the rush has begun.

When you come, you will be dewy and return to the moon.

One belly is still very hungry, and a hundred skeletons are more than diligent.

I was powerless to cultivate and read the books of the ancients.

The poet fully demonstrates the hardships and poverty of the peasants' farming, and another poem, "The Potter", strongly exposes the shortcomings and injustices of society:

The pottery is covered with soil in front of the door, and there are no tiles on the house.

Ten fingers do not stick to the mud, scales live in the building.

In stark contrast, the whipping indignation is palpable. For example, poems such as "Village Hao", "Tian Jia Yu", and "Poor Girl of Ru Tomb" profoundly reflect the hardships of the life of the Tian family in the Northern Song Dynasty.

Not only that, Mei Yaochen always cared about the situation, eager to devote himself to the pen and serve the country, and poems such as "The War of the Ancient Plains", "Wen Yin Shilu Went to Jingzhou Curtain", and "Sending Yongxing to Invite Xia Taiwei" fully demonstrated his traditional Confucian feelings. Feeling the urgency of national defense, Mei Yaochen also devoted himself to commenting on "Sun Tzu", Ziyun "on the soldiers and saying that the sword is thirty autumns", which is difficult for other poets to look back on.

Looking at the entire Poetry Circle of the Song Dynasty, Mei Yaochen's creative achievements were not the greatest, so why did posterity respect him as the "founding ancestor" of Song poetry? Because Mei Yaochen led the transfer of the poetic style of the Song Dynasty with his unique and rich creative practice, "opening the face of the Song poetry generation". Mei Yaochen emphasized the abandonment of the flashy and empty poetic style, advocating the inheritance of the tradition of the "Book of Poetry", paying attention to society, reinvigorating the style and elegance, "because of the excitement of things, because of the prosperity of things" and "the slight life of the poor, the words out of the liver and gallbladder", thus showing realism. At the same time, Mei Yaochen wrote poems advocating "plainness", he said that "in the middle of the poem, the plain can be imitated" and "the poetry has no present and ancient, only to create plain".

The establishment of this bland poetic style has opened up the precedent of "Song tone" and has also become the overall style characteristic of Song poetry. Yuanren Gong Xiao once commented: "To go to the habit of floating is to transcend the extremely bad of kun body; the way of preserving the ancient and the faint is outstanding before everyone else." "Scythe is true.

(The author affiliation is Shilong Middle School, Dongguan City, Guangdong Province)

China Teachers Daily, November 6, 2019, 16th edition