In order to reform the maladministration and implement the new policy, he made a bold move, vigorously defied the public opinion, and with the support of the emperor, expelled one political enemy after another from the center of power, expelled him from the court, and exiled the border.
He discovered the ills of implementing the New Deal, disregarded his personal gains and losses, wrote to the people, opposed the New Deal, angered the emperor who was bent on reforming and implementing the New Deal, and was eventually relegated to the barbaric land of southern Xinjiang.
They are political enemies. However, when the edges and corners of power are worn away and their respective political views are set aside, they become good friends who appreciate each other and sing poetry and harmony.
They are Wang Anshi, the leader of the "Xining Reform Law", and Su Shi, the protagonist of the "Wutai Poetry Case".
Wang Anshi and Su Shi have a common identity - poet, and they are both great poets. Between these two great poets, there is a complex political relationship and the intersection of life, but together they have built a monument of the times - Song poetry.
In the book "Mo Lifeng Lectures on Song Poetry", Mr. Mo Lifeng, a senior professor of liberal arts at Nanjing University, vividly told us many little-known stories of Song Dynasty poets, and at the same time, carefully analyzed the deep reasons why Song poetry can follow tang poetry and be unique.
Later generations' cognition of Wang Anshi stemmed more from the "Xining Transformation Method" he led, and often ignored his other identity - a poet. Even if you know something about his poems, most of them stay in verses such as "Spring breeze and the south bank of the Green River, when will the bright moon shine on me" and "One year old in the sound of firecrackers, the spring wind will send warmth into Tu Su". In his book, Mr. Mo Lifeng tells us that Wang Anshi not only carried out a huge reform movement, but also was one of the pioneers of the poetry style of the Song Dynasty.
"The willow leaves are green and dark, and the lotus flowers are red at sunset." Thirty-six Pi Chunshui, Bai Tou wanted to see Jiangnan. "Thirty years ago here, my father and brother took my things. Today, I come back to Baishou, and I am fascinated to find the traces of the past. This is a six-character poem written by Wang Anshi, "Titled West Taiyi Palace Wall Two Songs". Compared with the five or seven words poems, the six words poems lack the sense of change of single and two tones and steps, and appear monotonous and dull, so the Tang and Song poets rarely wrote six words of poetry. The Song Dynasty poet Hong Mai once said: "To compile the Tang Dynasty's absolute sentences, it is difficult to believe in seven words and seven thousand five hundred poems, five words and two thousand five hundred poems, and six words less than forty." It can be seen from this that six-word poems are difficult to write well. However, the two six-character poems written by Wang Anshi were evaluated by the modern literary scholar Chen Yan as: "The soul of the absolute generation, jinggong poems should be pressed with these two volumes." ”
When the great scholar Su Shi Su Dongpo saw these two poems in the Western Taiyi Palace, "after looking at them for a long time, he said: 'This wild old fox spirit is also.'" 'Rhymes with it'. Su Shi called Wang Anshi "Wild Old Fox Spirit", which means that he is omnipotent, which is a great poet's sincere admiration for his contemporaries. Su Dongpo sighed in the second rhyme poem: "Smell the mouth of Wuyi Lane, and now the tobacco is obsessed." ”
The author also lamented in the book: "Political differences will cause people to have antagonistic emotions, but the poetry masterpieces of 'absolute soul destruction' can narrow the distance between the soul." ”
When Su Shi lamented Wang Anshi's omnipotence and wrote down the poems with his pen, he seemed to have forgotten the pain of the "Wutai Poetry Case" that he had suffered because of his resistance to the "Xining Change". I think at the beginning, Su Shi was degraded to Huangzhou, alone, without relatives, how desolate! At the time of loneliness, Su Shi found a begonia on a small earthen mountain, reminding him of his hometown of Shudi, thousands of miles away. Because the begonia flower is a famous flower in Shu. Seeing the flowers homesick, he poured out his full sorrows to the begonias:
"The land of Jiangcheng is full of grass and trees, and only the famous flowers are bitter and lonely. Yan Ran smiled between the bamboo hedges, and the peach and plum manshan were always vulgar. He also knew that creation had a deep meaning, so he sent a beautiful person in the deep valley. ...... It is not easy to get a thousand miles, and the hook flies to fix the bird. The end of the world can be read, and this song is sung for a drink. The Ming Dynasty woke up alone, and the snow fell one after another! ”
The poem is as long as the poet's nostalgia. Here we will only select the first two paragraphs to share with you. Relative to such famous sentences as" such as "I don't know the true face of Lushan Mountain, only because I am in this mountain" and "When is the bright moon, ask the wine to the blue sky", it may be that Su Shi's poem is not well known. However, Su Shi attached great importance to the poem he wrote when he was extremely depressed, and regarded it as a work of pride in his life. As the saying goes, "the political arena is frustrated, and the poetry world is proud."
In fact, not only is Su Shi's political career bumpy, but the political strongman Wang Anshi is not like this!
"It is difficult to get drunk and easy to wake up, xiao ge is tragic and majestic. The years of light ruined Zhu Yan's old age, and the cultivation of white in the world occurred. Three acres of unfinished mansions, one body is still walking by everyone. How much can a poor worm horn be? Independence and mere conflict. ”
In this poem, Wang Anshi issued a strong sigh of "it is difficult to open the embrace, and the song is tragic and strong". In order to realize his long-cherished wish of changing the law and striving to become stronger, he worshipped him for the second time, was repeatedly slandered, his deeds were not accomplished, and he ended up in the countryside, watching the cause he had struggled for all his life lose and in vain, how depressed he felt! However, the red dust has no way out, there is still poetry in the heart, freed from the shackles of politics, thrown into the embrace of poetry, is not a new realm of life! Leaving aside the political embrace of the two people who have the world in mind and worry about the country and the people, their position in the history of Tang and Song dynasty literature alone is enough to be admired.
Wang Anshi, who likes to challenge difficulties politically, also likes to challenge the difficulties of poetry. In the book, Mr. Mo Lifeng told us a small story of Wang Anshi and Su Shi's "fighting poems".
After Wang Anshi saw the poem "Two Poems of the Book of the Snow Queen" written by Su Shi, he saw that the two poems were divided into "sharp" and "fork" rhymes, rhymed dangerously and strangely, and could not help but see the hunter's heart, and in one breath and made six snow poems that rhymed with the word "fork", which was really a veritable battle!
The ancients liked poetry and singing harmony, which is certainly a kind of communication pleasure, but it also implies the meaning of competing with each other and competing with each other. In the book "Mo Lifeng Lectures on Song Poetry", the author compares and comments on different levels between Tang poetry and Song poetry and the poets of the Song Dynasty.
The author believes that later generations have juxtaposed Tang poetry with Song ci, calling it the "Twin Peaks" in literary history. In fact, Song poetry also has its own unique style that is very different from Tang poetry, and its literary status is no less than the former. The author describes the difference between the two: "Compared with the Tang, the life paradigm of the Poets of the Song Dynasty has the characteristics of calmness, rationality, and down-to-earth, and is presented as a state of maturity beyond the restless stage of youth. Compared with Tang poetry, the emotional intensity of Song poetry is slightly insufficient, but the profundity of Si Li is unique. Song poetry does not pursue high magnificence, but takes plain beauty as the ultimate state of art, and these characteristics are rooted in the ideological and cultural background of the Song Dynasty. ”
In addition to the rational characteristics of Song poetry, there is also a characteristic that is completely different from Tang poetry: the vulgarity is elegant. In the words of Su Shi: "All street talk can be included in poetry, but people should melt their ears." In other words, the homely words that people usually say can be written into poetry, but the poet needs to make it vulgar. For the Tang people, the slang into poetry is a big taboo for poets, that is, a very small number of people such as Du Fu occasionally use slang into poetry, and even Liu Yuxi Chongyang Does not dare to use the slang "cake" character when composing poems. To this end, the poet Song Qi of the Song Dynasty also wrote a poem to ridicule him: "Liu Hao did not dare to inscribe cake characters, and falsely assumed the first generation of hao in the poem." ”
Compared with Liu Yuxi, who is elegant and avoids vulgarity, Su Shi seems to be simply too vulgar. Because he actually entered the poem with "Cow Arrow"! The word "Niu Ya" seems to us to be indecent, but if translated into modern characters, you will understand why it is indecent. Because, "cow ya" is what we modern people call "cow dung"! So, is This poem by Su Shi very vulgar? Let's read it first and then make up our minds.
Half drunk and half awake, Zhu Li asked Zhu Li, and the bamboo thorn vine was a fan step by step. But the cattle are looking for a way back, and the home is in the cattle pen to the west. ”
The meaning of this poem is roughly like this, when the poet was half drunk and half awake, he visited the homes of several Li friends, and when he returned, he walked faintly between the bamboo thorns and vines, and got lost. What to do? Follow the tracks of cow dung on the ground to find your way home, because the poet's house is just west of the bullpen and further west.
At first glance, the cow dung and cow pen are all in the poem, which seems to be very vulgar, and then carefully pondered, but seeing the simplicity and frankness of the poet is really respectable and lovely, there is no trace of tackiness. Why? Huang Tingjian, who is on a par with Su Shi and advocates "taking customs as elegance", gave an explanation: "If you look at it with the eyes of the law, there is no vulgarity or truth. If you look at it from the eyes of the world, nothing is true. "The so-called difference between elegance and customs lies in people's state of mind and perspective. The layman looks at the things as ordinary things, and the laymen look at the worldly things and can give birth to the yaxing.
Song poetry, which is characterized by both rationality and vulgarity, has set up a monument of the times because of its unique style. The founders of this monument are not only Wang Anshi and Su Shi, but also Mei Yaochen, who has a bland poetic style, Ouyang Xiu, who is gentle and gentle, Su Shunqin, who is bold and straightforward, Huang Tingjian, who is new and chic, Chen Shidao, who is simple and clumsy, and many outstanding poets of the Two Song Dynasties.
The rivers of history sometimes flow slowly, sometimes the waves rush. Those poets who have the heart of the country and the world, and have a beautiful poem in their hearts, have already flowed their lives into this river and gradually passed away. However, Song Shi, a monument in the history of literature, has not been eroded by the death of the founder and the erosion of the river, and has always stood majestically like a lighthouse at the head of the river where the smoke and rain are confused. The resounding names are also forever engraved on this monument, shining brightly.
"Whoever lives since ancient times has not died, and who has left Dan in his heart." The verses written by Wen Tianxiang with his life may serve as the best footnote to this monument.
"Mo Lifeng Lectures on Song Poetry" gives us an opportunity to see this monument up close. Let us, together with the author, walk into the Song poems, walk into the souls of those who have different personalities but are interesting, and receive a sacred cultural baptism.