Usually we describe a person who was very talented before, and then he was exhausted, and he would say that this person was "exhausted by Jiang Lang". So who is the "Jiang Lang" referring to here?
This "Jiang Lang" is talking about Jiang Yan, a famous politician and writer of the Southern Dynasty. Jiang Yan (444-505), ziwen tong. It is said that Jiang Yan was a very talented "prodigy" when he was a child, he was able to write poetry at the age of six, he was proficient in the Five Classics at the age of eighteen, and he was famous for his literary talent, and his works such as "Hate Endowment" and "Other Endowments" written in his youth were praised as ancient qiwen. Unfortunately, in his later years, Jiang Yan's poetry creation was no longer good, so people regretted that his talent had been exhausted.
River flood image
The Book of Liang mentions: "Drowning is less than the article, and the late festival is only slightly retreated, and everyone is said to be exhausted." As for the origin of this idiom, the Nanshi Jiang Yan Biography provides a more detailed beginning and end:
Drowning less to the article to show, the late festival to think of a slight retreat, yun for Xuancheng too punctual return, the first Po Zen Ling Temple Zhu, night dream a person called himself Zhang Jingyang, said: "Before a horse sent with a brocade, now you can see it." A few feet into the arms of the drowning probe, the man exclaimed, "That must be cut and cut." Gu Jianqiu chi said: "The remaining few feet are useless, and the king will be left behind." "Self-drowning articles are not enough. After tasting yu Ye Ting again, Mengyi's husband called himself Guo Pu, saying: "I have a pen in Qing for many years, and I can see it back." "In the arms of the drowning detective, he received a five-colored pen to teach it. Later, there was no beautiful sentence for the poem, and it was said that it was exhausted.
Zhang Jingyang is Zhang Xie. Zhong Rong mentioned "three Zhangs" (Zhang Zai, Zhang Xie, Zhang Kang) together with "Erlu" (Lu Ji, Lu Yun) and "Two Pans" (Pan Yue, Pan Ni) and "One Left" (Zuo Si) in the "Poetry" as a representative of Western Jin Dynasty literature, and set Zhang Xie's poems as shangpin. Guo Pu was a famous alchemist and literary scholar, especially known as "You Xian Poem".
Guo Pu statue
Zhong Rong's "Poetry of Qi Guanglu River Flood" uses the "Guo Pu" version:
At the beginning, the flood of Xuancheng County, Sui su Ye Ting, Meng Yimei husband, calling himself Guo Pu, said drowning: "I have a pen in the Qing for many years, I can see it back." "In the arms of the flood, I received a five-colored pen to teach it." After that, it was a poem, no longer an idiom, so the generations of Jiang Lang were exhausted.
Translation of Poems, [Liang] Zhong Rong, translated by Zhou Zhenfu
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The characters involved in the two versions are different, but the internal thinking is the same: the most famous literary predecessors at that time gave Jiang Yan a unique literary talent in a romantic "dream" way, and when they took back the "five-color pen" that carried this talent, Jiang Yan's talent also disappeared.
This legend and the idiom that came from it were so widely circulated that when later generations mentioned Jiang Yan, they would think of "Jiang Lang Cai Exhausted", often ignoring that he was a representative literary master of that era. In fact, although he bears the name of "Jiang Lang Cai exhausted", if he gives the Fu family and even the literary scholars of the Southern Dynasty a seat, Jiang Yan can definitely enter the "first echelon". Jiang Yan is also a prolific author, creating a large number of articles and poems that have been handed down to the present day, in addition to a large number of piao body endowments represented by the "Hate" and "Other" erfu and the pseudo-ancient poems represented by the "Thirty Miscellaneous Pieces", there are also riot body endowments and landscapes, wandering immortals, chants, and gift poems, as well as a large number of political official documents.
Jiang Yan's literary attainments mainly lie in rhetoric and poetry, the most famous of which are "Hate Endowment", "Other Endowment" and "Thirty Miscellaneous Poems", all of which are included in the "Anthology". Jiang Yan is a famous artist in the history of southern dynasty rhetoric, especially good at writing "sorrow", "Hate Endowment" and "Other Endowment" can be called the collection of "sorrow" throughout the ages. These two masterpieces lay out the comparison, write about the hatred of ancient and modern times and the separation of men and women, focus on the two situations of "hate" and "farewell" and the extremely sad feelings born of touching the scene, and imitate these two strong emotions through various touching scenes.
In the context of the Southern Dynasty Gate Valve society, Jiang Yan was not from the Gaomen clan, his father was only a county order, and he lost his father in his early years and was orphaned and poor in his youth, which seemed difficult to have the opportunity to be promoted at that time. As a young man who is arrogant and proud, but always faces the sense of crisis and fear of "drinking and swallowing", depressed and ending, Jiang Yan, like Bao Zhao, another literary figure in the Liu Song Dynasty, represents the difficult situation of Hanmen Shuzi in the aristocratic society of the Southern Dynasty, thus writing a typical image and typical emotion with universality from the perspective of personal encounters, thus containing strong appeal and resonating with countless Cold and Micro scribes. Sui and Tang dynasty literati often referred to Jiang Yan and Bao Zhao together, and the two of them shared the name of "Jiang Bao Body". For example, Yang Jiong wrote in the preface to Wang Boji: "Followed by Jiang and Bao Zhishu. Du Fu's "Gift to Bi SiYao" also has: "Circulating Jiang Bao's body." Bao Zhao's masterpiece "Eighteen Songs of Difficulty in The Road to Be Traveled", the generosity, tragedy, depression and unevenness contained in it are consistent with the spiritual core of Jiang Yan's cifu, and "Jiang Bao's body" swept away the popular Mannerisms and the mesmerizing sound of nothingness in the literary circles at that time, and became the essence of the poetry of the Southern Dynasty.
"Bao Zhaoji School Notes", [Southern Dynasty Song] Bao Zhao, Ding Fulin, Cong Lingling Proofreading Notes
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Jiang Yan's poetic talent is not inferior to his talent, especially good at imitating his predecessors, and the proposed works have reached a superb realm of both divine forms and forms in terms of themes, asanas, syntax, language, ideological content and poetic style. Jiang Yan's most famous poem is a group of pseudo-ancient poems, "Thirty Miscellaneous Poems", which was selected into the "Anthology" to become a representative work in the "Miscellaneous Imitation Category", and is also regarded as a model of pseudo-ancient poetry. "Thirty Miscellaneous Poems" simulates thirty excellent poems of the Han, Wei, Jin, and Song dynasties, especially the Liu Song poets. Li Shan's note: "This system of Jiang Zhi is not to directly learn its body, but also to use its text. ”
What is valuable is that Jiang Yan's pseudo-ancient poems are not just simple imitations, but cleverly borrow the strengths of the families for their own use. In the simulation process, he added his own personal understanding, injected complex personal emotions, and truly achieved spiritual communication with the simulated object, which is a higher level of creation than simple imitation.
The poetry theory of the past also has a high evaluation of this group of pseudo-ancient poems, such as Zhong Rong's "Poetry" jiang yan and Wang Wei and Xie Shuo and said: "Wentong poetry is generally mixed, good at imitation, strong in Wang Wei, and achieved in Xie Shuo." Ye Shi mentioned it together with Tao Qian and Yu Xin: "The river flood is not shallow, and the color and sound are all precious." Pick out Tao Qianxu's predecessors, and Tim Lai Yuxin is a newcomer. Yan Yu's "Canglang Poetry", which is quite harsh on poetry, also affirmed: "Pseudo-ancient only Jiang Wentong is the longest, quasi-Yuanming is like Yuanming, quasi-Recreation is like Kangle, Pseudo-Zuo Si is like Zuo Si, and Pseudo-Guo Pu is like Guo Pu." ”
"Xie Shuo Collection Of Proofreading Notes", [Southern Dynasty Qi] Xie Shuo wrote Cao Rongnan School Notes
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Notes on Tao Yuanming's Collected Notes, written by Yuan Xingpei
Tao Yuanming Collection Notes ¥98 Purchase
Similar to Jiang Yan, Yu Xin also simulated the Nguyen book "Eighty-Two Poems of Yong Huai" and created the "Twenty-Seven Poems of Pseudo-Yong Huai", a group of pseudo-Nguyen poems with rich themes and far-reaching meanings. Among the poets of the Southern Dynasty, Yu Xin belonged to a very special one, with the experience of "going from the south to the north". Yu Xin followed his father to Xiao Gang's court since childhood, and later became a representative writer of palace literature together with Xu Ling, who compiled the "Jade New Yong", and his literary style was called "Xu Yu Body". Later, because Liang was destroyed by Western Wei, he stayed in the north, and held an important position in Northern Zhou after the Northern Zhou Dynasty Wei, and eventually died in the north. After experiencing the destruction of the country and the death of the family and being forced to enter the north, yuxin's literary style has undergone tremendous changes, and the beautiful wind of washing Shi Liang and the generous and sad "Yong Huai Poem" were written after entering the north.
"Yuzishan Collection Notes", [Northern Zhou] Yu Xin written by [Qing] Ni Fan Notes Xu Yimin School Point
"Xu Ling Collection School Notes", [Chen] Xu Ling by Xu Yimin School Notes
"Notes on the New Yong of Yutai", [Chen] Xu Ling, ed. [Qing] Wu Zhaoyi, Note Cheng Yan, Delete and Supplement Mu Kehong, Point School
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Similar to Yu Xin's experience is Wang Zhen. Wang Zhao, a famous minister of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, also entered the Northern Dynasty after the Western Wei Dynasty destroyed Liang, and has not returned to the Southern Dynasty since then. In the Northern Zhou Dynasty, Wang Zhen was named after Yu Xincai, and most of the surviving poems were composed after arriving in the north. Later, the Chen Dynasty in the south made good friends with the Northern Zhou, and many people who lived in the north were allowed to return to their homeland, but Yu Xin and Wang Zhen never returned for life.
"Wang BaoJi School Notes", [Northern Zhou] Wang Bao by Niu Guihu Proofreading
So, let's return to Jiang Yan: as a talent whose literary achievements are obvious to all, why does Jiang Yan only have the name of "exhausted talent" in the eyes of future generations?
To find out the truth of this problem, we first need to understand Jiang Yan's life experience.
Jiang Yan was born in the late Song Dynasty and died in the early Liang Dynasty at the age of sixty-two. He experienced several political storms in his life, and gradually entered the core circle of the nobility of the Southern Dynasty from the han disciples, and went through the three dynasties of Song, Qi and Liang. When Jiang Yan was young, he taught the Five Classics to Liu Zizhen, the king of Liu Song's Shi'an, so he entered the career, and at the age of twenty, he began his political career from Liu Ziluan, the king of Liu Song's Xin'an, and after several ups and downs, most of his posts were final. The later Qi Gao Emperor Xiao Daocheng summoned Jiang Yan as a subordinate during the late Song Dynasty, and Jiang Yan wrote a number of important documents for him in the process of Xiao's claim to the throne, which gradually became highly valued. After the Song Dynasty of Qi, Jiang Yan was gradually promoted, and successively held important positions such as Zhongshu Shilang, Shangshu Zuo Cheng, and Yushi Zhongcheng. At the end of Qi, Emperor Xiao Yan of Liangwu raised an army, and Jiang Yan once again attached himself to the new dynasty. After entering Liang, he remained in a prominent position, and when he died, he was promoted to the rank of Grand Master of Jin Zi Guanglu and was given the title of Li Lingbo.
Portrait of Emperor Xiao Yan of Liangwu
From this point of view, Jiang Yan's life experience can be clearly divided into two stages, the later period of official fortune and prosperity is completely different from the poverty and hardship of the early years, and most of his works that are widely known to posterity were written before the Song and Qi early Yongming, that is, when the early career path was not revealed. Reading Jiang Yan's most accomplished poems, we can find that these works mostly reflect his bumpy life and emotions, and resentment and melancholy are the two themes he focuses on, which stem from his early years. In a large number of literary works by Jiang Yan, we can see the typical image of a very talented and cynical hanshu youth, who witnessed many unfair things in the world, so unevenness was ming, which is the characteristics and style of his masterpieces "Hate Endowment", "Other Endowment" and pseudo-ancient poetry. The tragic fate of the literati and the indignation that arose from it, coupled with the objective motive of seeking progress through articles, made the young Jiang Yancai think of a fountain of thoughts. After achieving fame, he lost the situation he needed to create, so it was difficult to write good works. It can be said that perhaps Jiang Yan is not "exhausted", but "quit writing" after the change of thought and identity.
"Notes on the Collection of Jiang Wentong", [Ming] Hu Zhiji Notes Li Changlu and Zhao Wei Point School
Liu Xun proposed in the "Wenxin Carved Dragon And Chronology": "The change of literature is stained with the world, and the rise and fall of the world is related to the chronology. It can be seen from the literary figures of the Southern and Northern Dynasties such as Jiang Yan, Bao Zhao, Yu Xin, and Wang Bao that during this period, the relationship between literary creation and the times, or with social reality, was indeed very close. The Southern and Northern Dynasties are famous in The chaotic era in Chinese history, the whole country has been divided for a long time, and the "world changes" have also contributed to many new changes in the field of literature; and from a social point of view, the Southern Dynasty has largely inherited the door valve system of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and the antagonism between the scholars and the Shu ethnic group has become an important feature of this period, and the unfairness of the Hanshi is reflected in literary creation, which has become a feature of literature in this period.
"Wenxin Carved Dragon Proofreading (Full Text)", [Southern Dynasty Liang] Liu Xun by [Qing] Huang Shulin Note [Qing] Li Detail Supplementary Notes Yang Mingzhao Proofreading Notes
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