Ouyang Xiu wrote more than 500 essays in his life, each with its own characteristics, including political essays, historical essays, notes, lyric essays and notes. Most of his essays are rich in content and magnificent, with a simple, natural, fluent and witty artistic style. The narrative is euphemistic and concise; The discussion is thoughtful, but full of internal logical power. Composite structures can be tortuous and very compact. The theory of cronies, the history of the New Five Dynasties, the biography of Lingguan, the admonition with Gauss, the preface to the drunken pavilion, the record of Fengle Pavilion, and the thousand watches of Longgang are all masterpieces that have been told through the ages.
Ouyang Xiu was also a pioneer in the creation of notes in Song Dynasty. His notes include Return to the Field, Pen and Pen. Articles are eclectic, lively and interesting, and often describe details and people. Among them, The Record of Returning to the Field describes the imperial legacy, official system, social customs and anecdotes of literati, and introduces his own writing experience, which is very valuable.
Ouyang Xiu's Fu is also very distinctive. The famous Ode to Autumn Sound uses various metaphors to describe the invisible autumn sound very vividly, making people seem to be audible. This paper changes the "metrical style" from the Tang Dynasty to "prose style", which is of pioneering significance to the development of Fu.
Ouyang Xiu's poetry is not as successful as prose, but it is also very distinctive. Some of his poems reflect people's sufferings and expose the darkness of society, such as eating bad people and answering Yang Zijing's long sentence to pray for rain. He also talks about current affairs in his poems, attacking corrupt politics, such as "Answering the son of a national scholar to comfort the south of the Yangtze River". Others, such as Qu Yu Wang and Qu Yu Re He, show the poet's sympathy for the fate of women and condemn the ignorant rulers for wronged the country. But what he wrote more and more successfully was poems expressing his personal feelings and scenery.
His poems are mainly influenced by Han Yu in art, and his works such as Stone in Lingxi, Shi Zhuan and Zishiping Song imitate Han Yu's fantastic poetic style. However, most of his works mainly study the characteristics of Han Yu's "writing with poetry", that is, argumentative and prose culture. Although he avoided the dangers of Han Yu with his natural and fluent poetic language, some poems are still too logical and lack vivid images.
Some of Ouyang Xiu's poems are gloomy, narrative, argumentative and lyrical, and their styles are close to Du Fu's, such as rereading The Collection of Dugu and Sending Du Qigong to Official. Other works are magnificent and bold, but close to Li Bai, such as "Lushan Mountain in Liu Zhongyun returns to Nankang in the same year". More lyrical works about the scenery are fresh and beautiful, or plain and tasteful, such as "There are thousands of trees in the Three Gorges, the moon is full in Sichuan, and an ape mourns" and "The snow disappears outside the door, and the flowers on the riverside are sunny in February" in Song of Cao Caochun thanking the West Lake. Generally speaking, his poetic style is still diverse.
Ouyang Xiu is also good at poetry. In Preface to Mei Poetry, he put forward the argument that "poor works are the last", which developed the poetic theories of Du Fu and Bai Juyi and had a great influence on the poetic creation of that time and later generations. His Poems on June 1st is the first poem in the history of China literature. It comments on poetry in a casual and intimate way and becomes a new form of poetry conversation.
Ouyang Xiu is also good at lyrics. The main contents of his ci are still acacia, drunken songs, cherishing spring and enjoying flowers. He is good at writing thirteen poems about picking mulberry seeds with fresh and light brushstrokes, depicting the natural beauty of Yingzhou West Lake, which is quiet, clear and full of emotion, just like elegant landscape paintings. In other words, "apricot blossoms are red and green hills are scarce, and pedestrians on the hillside rest under the mountain" ([Yulouchun]), people in the upper reaches of the levee rowed boats one by one, patting the spring water on the levee and descending to the sky. Qingyang building goes out to swing "([Huanxisha]) and so on. It is also a good sentence to write about scenery. Lyric writing is elegant and touching, with deep feelings. For example, the last two sentences of "Walking in the Sand", "The sorrow is getting farther and farther away, and the distance is like spring water", "Spring mountains are everywhere, and pedestrians are more outside", express their feelings very deeply through spring water and spring mountains. He still has something to say. Although he is old and complaining, he speaks his mind directly, showing his generosity and optimism. There are also some colorful words, although they are written about dating between men and women, but they are also simple and vivid; Of course, there are also some shallow and vulgar works. Ouyang xiu ink painting Ouyang xiu stone statue
Ouyang Xiu has made great achievements in Confucian classics, history and epigraphy. In the study of Confucian classics, he studied The Book of Songs, The Book of Changes and The Spring and Autumn Annals, and was able to put forward his own unique views regardless of what his predecessors said. Historical attainments are deeper than Confucian classics. He not only participated in the compilation of the 250-volume Book of the New Tang Dynasty, but also wrote the History of the New Five Dynasties, summarizing the historical experience of the Five Dynasties, in order to serve as a warning. He was diligent in collecting and sorting out stone products and inscriptions from the Zhou Dynasty to the Sui and Tang Dynasties, and edited them into a special archaeological data set-Jigulu.
Ouyang Xiu plays an important role in the history of China literature. He vigorously advocated the poetry innovation movement, reformed the formalism style of writing and poetry from the late Tang Dynasty to the early Song Dynasty, and achieved remarkable results. Because of his great achievements in political status and prose creation, his position in the Song Dynasty was similar to that of Han Yu in the Tang Dynasty, and he was "respected by all the scholars in the world" (Su Shi's Tales of Vulgarians). He recommended and guided Wang Anshi, Ceng Gong, Su Xun, Su Shi, Su Zhe and other essayists, which had a great influence on their prose creation. Among them, Su Shi's inheritance and development of the literary style he created is the most brilliant. After the Northern Song Dynasty and the Southern Crossing, many scholars praised his simple prose style. His writing style has always influenced the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties.