Three major types of traditional landscape poetry
In the spirit of traditional culture, the relationship between man and nature is harmonious. The vegetation, birds, animals, mountains, rivers and seas in nature are all in harmony with human emotions of joy, anger, sorrow and joy. They are all links and symbols for poets to express their emotions. "Bixing" in rhetorical techniques has always been one of the biggest features of Chinese literature. Traditional landscape poetry was born under the nurturing of this cultural spirit.
Chinese poets’ discovery of the beauty of natural landscapes is often determined by a certain thought. Due to the differences in the author's worldview, religious beliefs and views on nature, as well as the differences in observation angles, appreciation angles and aesthetic views of natural landscapes, there are three major types of traditional Chinese landscape poetry.
The first type: people’s appreciation of the beauty of natural landscapes based on moral spirit.
This kind of landscape and nature poems often use natural objects to express their noble character, innocent feelings and lofty ideals. It is the appreciation of all things in nature by people who are mainly based on moral spirit or the unity of man and nature. In the eyes of these poets, the reason why people appreciate natural landscapes is not only because of the beauty of natural landscapes themselves, but mainly because the spirit contained in natural landscapes conforms to a certain kind of human morality or spirit. A large number of landscape and nature poems by Du Fu, Cen Shen, Lu You, Xin Qiji, Chen Liang, etc., as well as Mao Zedong's "Niannujiao·Kunlun", "Qinyuanchun·Snow", "Qingpingle·Liupanshan", etc. are all of this type. It is a masterpiece of landscape and nature poetry. The authors of this type of poetry are often deeply influenced by the Confucian spirit of worldliness. They treat nature from a moral point of view, or use natural scenery as a symbol of purity and beauty and the externalization of the humanistic spirit, or The appreciation of natural landscapes is attributed to the expression of heroic sentiments.
The second type: the integration of people and nature based on the aesthetic spirit.
In the Chinese ideological tradition, Zhuangzi and Taoism are the most enamored of nature. "Tao" is the highest concept in Taoist theory. Its meaning can be deduced upward into a metaphysical cosmology, and downwardly it can be implemented into a theory of human nature, which can be experienced in real life. . With the rise of metaphysics in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, this ubiquitous "Tao" was concentrated in natural landscapes. Zhuangzi not only inspired people to discover the beauty of nature, but also made the natural landscape itself the embodiment of "Tao". Poets influenced by Lao-Zhuang's theory and Taoism, when creating landscape poems, often observe and gain insights from a purely aesthetic perspective, and integrate the natural landscape with the personal subject. Li Bai is an outstanding representative of this type of landscape poetry.
Chinese landscape poetry has a process of emergence, formation and development. In "The Book of Songs" and "Chu Ci", natural scenery has gradually become a lyrical means, but it has not yet become a direct object of aesthetic observation. During the Jin and Song Dynasties, poets regarded landscape as an independent aesthetic object, and landscape poetry was officially born. Xie Lingyun was the originator of landscape poetry. Xie Tiao followed one after another, and they occupied an important position in the development of landscape poetry.
The emergence of Li Bai opened up an unprecedented majestic and magnificent pattern of Chinese landscape poetry, and rose to a superb peak. In Li Bai's eyes, natural landscapes are no longer just objective aesthetic objects. When we read his poems, we feel that he has completely relaxed his body and mind in the mountains and rivers, and is unrestrained in the mountains and rivers. The mountains and rivers understand him, and he also understands the mountains and rivers.
In Li Bai's consciousness, there is a tendency of thinking of losing one thing and oneself. He saw himself in nature, saw his self-expansion and unlimited space for freedom, and saw the value and significance of his own existence. From the natural landscape, he pursues and obtains a kind of freedom and freedom without any restraint. Even his strong pursuit of achievements and the undisguised expression of his worldly aspirations and desires are inseparable from his natural personality type. When his wish could not be realized and he cried out in depression, "The road is like the blue sky, I can't reach it alone", he could only obtain spiritual liberation in the majestic mountains, beautiful waters, giant rivers and seas.
The third type: people who rely on religious spirit to observe the nature of mountains and rivers.
Like Taoism, Buddhism also has the intention of loving nature, and Buddhism has also had a huge impact on landscape poetry. One of Zhao Pian's "Three Poems of Ciyun Fanshidao Dragon Picture" said: "It's a pity that the lakes and mountains are the best in the world, and most of the scenery belongs to the monk family." An ancient poem said: "There are many famous mountain monks in the world." These poems all tell a basic fact: Buddhism has a very close relationship with nature.
The mature period of Chinese landscape poetry was in the Liu and Song Dynasty in the fifth century AD, and the representative figure was Xie Lingyun. Xie's poems were influenced by Buddhism and often regarded mountains, rivers and land as the incarnation of the Buddha's shadow. Different from Taoism, which observes nature from an aesthetic perspective and integrates the personality subject with the nature of mountains and rivers, Buddhism does not adopt an attitude towards nature, but rather observes and observes quietly; unlike Confucianism, which adopts a moral perspective What is different about the treatment of nature is the "virtue" embodied by Buddhism in nature. It does not develop ethical aspects, but only serves as a metaphor for the vastness of Buddhism. What Buddhism experiences in nature is a kind of religious happiness.
. Most of the landscape poems written by poet monks, Zen monks and poets deeply influenced by Buddhist thought in the past dynasties can be classified into this type.
Xie Lingyun and Landscape Poetry
The landscape poetry of the Song and Qi Dynasties replaced the metaphysical poetry since the Eastern Jin Dynasty, which was the first important change in the development of poetry in the Southern Dynasties.
In the Jin and Song Dynasties, agriculture in Jiangnan developed greatly. The material living conditions of the gentry landlords were better than in the past. More garden villas were built. He Jiali lived a leisurely life of talking about mystical principles and climbing mountains and rivers in the Jiangnan landscape environment. In their conversations, there often appeared some famous sayings that used the natural philosophy of Lao and Zhuang to praise the mountains and rivers of the south of the Yangtze River. Due to the influence of this trend, some landscape poems began to appear in the popular metaphysical poems at that time, as confirmation or embellishment of metaphysical theories. Of course, even if a few dull landscape poems are embellished with metaphysical poems that are "plain like moral theory", they cannot change their boring and boring appearance. It was not until the late Eastern Jin Dynasty that a few poems focusing on depicting landscapes and scenery appeared, such as Xie Hun's "A Journey to the West Pond", which began to bring a little fresh air to the gentry poetry world shrouded in a mysterious atmosphere. In the early Liu Song Dynasty, Xie Hun's nephew Xie Lingyun continued to explore the poetic realm in this direction, created a large number of landscape poems, and made new artistic creations, finally establishing the dominant position of landscape poetry in the gentry poetry world. As a result, landscape poetry was transformed from a vassal to a great power, while metaphysical poetry was reduced from a great power to a vassal. Although this is basically just an innovation in subject matter and art, it is actually a step forward in the history of poetry development.
Xie Lingyun (385-433) was originally from Yangxia, Chenjun (near today's Taikang, Henan), and lived in Kuaiji (now Shaoxing, Zhejiang). He was passionate about political power. In the Liu and Song Dynasties, he felt that his privileged position was threatened, his political desires could not be satisfied, and he felt resentful. Later, he simply resigned and returned to Kuaiji, where he built large villas, dug mountains and dredged lakes, and often led hundreds of servants and disciples to explore interesting places to relieve political dissatisfaction. Most of Xie Lingyun's landscape poems were written after he became the prefect of Yongjia. In these poems, he used gorgeous and exquisite language to describe the natural scenery of Yongjia, Kuaiji, Pengli Lake and other places. Xie Lingyun could not forget political power in his life, but he did not have noble ideals in politics and life. Traveling around the mountains and rivers is just to seek sensual satisfaction besides sex and pleasure, and to cover up his passion for power and position. Therefore, although his landscape poems can describe some external scenery, it is difficult to see his inner thoughts and feelings.
When his poems involve thoughts, he always uses some philosophical and Buddhist words to decorate the appearance. He has rich knowledge of metaphysics and Buddhist scriptures, so it is very effortless to decorate. Liu Xie's "The Literary Heart Diaolong? Emotions and Cai Pian" said that "the ambition is profound, but it is full of Gao soil; the heart is concerned with machine affairs, but it is false about the outside world." Although it is mainly a criticism of those literati who pretend to be noble in the Jin Dynasty, it is also for Xie Lingyun. The same applies. The so-called "landscapes are not enough to entertain his emotions, and names and principles are not enough to relieve his worries" accurately points out the fundamental weakness of his landscape poetry. This is the reason why most of his landscape poems cannot achieve a blend of scenes and a complete style. However, because he described the mountains, rivers, morning glow and sunset he witnessed in verse, he did bring a fresh breath to the poetry world at that time. In terms of art, he also opened up a new situation in which Southern Dynasties poetry advocated sensuality. In general, , Xie Lingyun was the first poet to reverse the style of Xuanyan poetry and create the landscape poetry school. After him, many landscape poets such as Xie Tiao and He Xun in the Southern Dynasty, Meng Haoran and Wang Wei in the Tang Dynasty appeared one after another. They enriched the field of poetry with their beautiful landscape poems. Xie Lingyun was another poet who used all his strength to carve verses. , in this regard he also laid a certain foundation for the new style poetry of Qi and Liang Dynasties.
The issue of landscape poetry
The discussion of the issue of landscape poetry focuses on three aspects, namely, the class nature of landscape poetry, the emergence and development of landscape poetry, and the evaluation of landscape poetry.
Judging the class nature of works such as landscape poems is a relatively complex issue, which involves relevant theories such as literary history and literary criticism. It can be summarized into three situations: First, it has obvious class nature and The second is that although the class characteristics or class tendencies are not so obvious, after careful analysis, its class character can still be clearly judged from the work itself. The third is that some landscape poems sing or praise the beauty of landscapes throughout the poem. It does not express and reveal the author's opinions and feelings about society and life, or although it does reveal some of the poet's subjective feelings, it is relatively obscure and tortuous, and it is difficult to judge which class of thoughts and feelings it belongs to, such as Wang Wei's "Mulan" They are "Chai", "Luan Jia Lai", Xie Lingyun's "Climbing the top of Mount Lu and looking at the Qiao", Li Bai's "The Expedition to the Lu Pavilion at Night", etc.
For the first two situations, everyone’s opinions are basically consistent in affirming, judging and explaining their class nature. There are two different opinions on the third situation:
One thinks that this type of landscape poetry simply describes part of the beauty of nature, or the author only writes about his momentary feelings about a certain scene. , what is given to readers is only the reflected beauty of nature. It is difficult to see the class nature of such beauty, and it is also difficult to explain it with the concept of class. The concept of class cannot be interpreted arbitrarily. Things that do not necessarily belong to the class category, such as people's certain love for natural landscapes, are all distinguished by the concept of class or attributed to the feudal scholar-official class and arbitrarily denied or To belittle, specific works need to be analyzed in detail. For example, Xie Lingyun's poem "Climbing Mount Lu and Looking at the Peaks from the Top" is about an inaccessible jungle canyon where the sun and moon are invisible day and night, and are covered with frost and snow in winter and summer. If we were to comment on this poem entirely according to our today's aesthetic taste, such a scene would seem too lifeless. It would be better to have a little sunshine or traces of human activity, or at least a goshawk. But there is such a scene in nature, and it seems that the poet did not write this poem because he particularly liked it or disliked it. Since he saw this kind of scene, and this kind of scene is rare, he used Words describe it. We may have reasons not to appreciate such poetry, but this should not prove that what it expresses must be the taste of the scholar-bureaucrat class, and it is even difficult to see that it must belong to a certain class
Another One opinion is that this type of landscape poetry has a class character. Many commentators have analyzed this point of view from the perspective of subject, object and aesthetics of creation. For example, Li Zhengping's article "The Class Nature of Landscape Poetry and Scenery Painting"[4] emphasized the role of the creative subject.
It is pointed out that although the intuitive objects depicted by landscape poets and landscape painters are nature without consciousness, their depictions are not rigid, blind, photographic copying, but through a series of thinking activities, the artist develops a sense of beauty in nature. , is only the foundation and starting point of his creative process. When he enters the creative process, the relationship between beauty and thinking, consciousness and emotion becomes broader, deeper and more complex. Therefore, every scene painting and every landscape poem is the product of the artist’s observation, insight and then thinking and understanding of the object. It is the result of artistic processing through selection, generalization and typification - the artist’s thinking and Consciousness controls one's own creation. The class nature of a work is often reflected in unique ways such as "humanized nature" - allegory, symbolism and metaphor, as well as "emotional intensity" and "picture effect". Therefore, judging its class nature should be related to the nature of the author's aesthetic consciousness and the motivation and intention of creation, and connect the artistic feelings and certain concepts aroused by readers during the appreciation process.
In the article "Are there any landscape poems without class nature?" [5], Sun Ziwei said. It focuses on the importance of the relationship between creation and aesthetic subject. He believes that there is no landscape poem that purely objectively describes natural scenery. Landscape poetry is not a pure copy of natural scenery. It is a subjective reflection of natural scenery, a combination of scenery and emotion. The dialectical unity of natural beauty and the poet's aesthetics and aesthetic ideals. Even if some works do not directly reveal the author's feelings about society and life, but express his love for nature, in a class society, this love is also class-specific. Therefore, it is impossible to have a special kind of landscape poetry without class nature. From the two aspects of the complexity and particularity of the unique art form of landscape poetry and painting, the article demonstrates the class nature of such works. It is pointed out that landscape poetry and painting are directly based on the production struggle and class struggle in social life. The class nature of the literary and artistic works (such as novels, dramas, essays, etc.) that describe the objects is more obscure and tortuous. As a work of art, landscape poetry only objectively and directly expresses the natural scenery, and the author's thoughts and feelings are permeated in the natural scenery. This determines the class complexity of landscape poems and paintings due to their short form and limited capacity, as well as the objectivity (subject matter) and form (often only a few or dozens of sentences). Characteristics determine their class specificity. Although they contain the author's thoughts and feelings, they are not expressed directly and strongly, but are covered by the image of the scenery, and the depth of expression in the works is also limited. What you see is often just the state of emotion, and you cannot understand anything deeper. Therefore, the class tendency of this type of work mainly lies in the beauty of the artistic image of the work, which is also the main basis for judging its class tendency. Xu Wen finally pointed out that for landscape poetry and painting, we should not make unrealistic demands, nor should we insist on "politics", impose "meaning" and other biases, or use "extension" methods to the poems. Looking for "class nature" can only be a misinterpretation of the class nature of landscape poetry and painting.
Discussing the class nature of landscape poetry will naturally involve the emergence and development of landscape poetry. This issue has been clarified. In the discussion, many people discussed the basis and conditions for its production from the perspective of literary history, but everyone's opinions were different.
Zhu Guangqian's article emphasized the role of negative social factors in the emergence and development of landscape poetry. He believed that the emergence of landscape poetry in the Jin and Song Dynasties was due to the Han ruling regime's partiality in Jiangzuo, social and economic turmoil, and drastic changes in the social foundation. It is related to the time when the thoughts of Buddha and Lao were at their peak. On the one hand, these situations have affected the scholar-official class to which the poet belongs, who are restless and yearning for seclusion. They occupy mountains and rivers, build manors, pay attention to health care and travel around the mountains and rivers. In addition, the ruling class is internally strife with each other, and many people hold the idea of ??"transcendence". , so indulging in mountains and rivers has become an important way for them.
Appreciation of the beauty of natural landscapes cannot be exclusive to a certain class, and class distinctions cannot be used to simply belittle or deny works depicting natural landscapes.