On the Techniques of Couplets in Qing Dynasty (Ⅳ) —— Application of Form

Zhang

Couplets are antithetical literature, and the basic characteristics of couplets are discussed in the General Introduction to Couplets: the antithesis of words and the harmony of melody reflect the core idea of this style.

The philosophical source of couplets is undoubtedly the binary concept of Yin and Yang in China's philosophy. His antithesis embodies Laozi's thought of "one yin and one yang is the Tao", and his harmonious language embodies the principle of "harmony is precious" in Confucian moral practice, thus giving birth to the function of couplets.

Body function is a very important concept in China's traditional philosophy. Body refers to the most fundamental internal nature; use refers to external function. Both Laozi, the ancestor of Taoism, and Confucius, the sage of Confucianism, had incisive discussions on body and use. Therefore, the influence of body and use on China traditional culture is very long. Cui Jing, a Yi-ology scholar in Tang Dynasty, combined "style" and "use" to explain it. He said in the Book of Changes: "Everything in the world is tangible. In terms of form, there are some useful things. The body is both form and quality. Users are also a wonderful use in form and quality. " The body is the actual form, and use is all the functions of the form. Taoism is about how to be a man and how to be a man. "Cohesion Biography" says: "Yin and Yang combine virtue, but they are rigid and soft." "Cohesion Upload" said: "Show benevolence and hide it." Confucianism still talks about the body and the knowledge of how to do things. "Xunzi Guo Fu" says: "Everything is different from the universe, unsuitable and useful." Taoism explores heaven and advocates understanding from abstraction, while Confucianism explores "human nature" and attaches importance to starting from subtleties; Taoism focuses on questions, while Confucianism focuses on morality. Although there are many differences between Taoism and Confucianism, they both pay attention to "body use", and the purpose of feeling, experiencing and understanding the world and life is not contrary. Therefore, the thoughts of Taoism and Confucianism influenced the history of China a few years ago, and also moistened China's literary thoughts. Liu Xie expounded the law of China literati using Taoism to find their roots in "Wen Xin Diao Long Yuan Dao Pian". "Wen Xin Diao Zong Long Jing Pian" describes the way that China literati applied Confucianism to practice. Both Tao Yuanming and Liu Xie showed the moral fashion of China literati around the practice of literature.

In the Qing dynasty, most of the couplet families were well-read people, deeply influenced by the thought of Confucianism, Taoism and pragmatism. Therefore, through the phenomenon, we can completely see the long-standing pragmatic way of couplet family in Qing Dynasty from these two lines.

First, the Qing Dynasty couplets writers were good at dialectical thinking and pursued a distinctive style of couplets.

Literature is a reflection of thinking activities, and couplets are no exception. Dialectical thinking is a main way of thinking in China's literature, and its philosophical origin is the thought of "existence, difficulty, difficulty, long and short, high and low, sound without sound" in Tao Te Ching. Seeking unity in opposing ideas and exploring the universe and the noumenon of life have many typical examples in the couplets of the Qing Dynasty, such as:

Ministry-agency alliance

People can't be bullied, and they are often worried about being angry with the people;

It is not easy to be an official, but I am willing to push kindness to thousands of families. -Wei Yuan

In this pair of couplets, the author uses several pairs of opposing concepts: people and officials, bullying and behavior, worrying and wishing, and being cruel and kind. Combining with his own personal experience, the author shouted the slogans of "People can't be bullied" and "Officials can't do it easily" with the sentence of "People are rich, people are easy to abuse, and heaven is hard to bully" in Song Taizong's Shi Jieming. Another example is:

Shanghai Yuyuan Deyue Building Lian

Although the building is high, it has passed;

Small pool can send the bright moon. -Tao Shu

Undoubtedly, couplets are also landscape paintings, but they are different from ordinary landscape paintings. It uses two adjectives, one is tall, the other is small, and the other is a verb, which forms a picture of clouds and the moon on the ground. The meaning expressed is very rich. First, it is the dialectical thought that "the feet are shorter and the inches are longer", that is, although the building is high, it can't stop the clouds flying around the head; Although the pool is small, it can send the moon to people's eyes, which is both physical and useful. Reading it makes people have a deeper understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of everything in the world. Second, the static floor pool and the dynamic cloud and moon form the unity of opposites, creating a vivid picture, which is the combination of painting and reason, and really deserves our careful taste. Another example is:

Yangzhou Shi Kefa Cilian

Born with faith in the country;

After my death, I have been waiting in Wuxiang. -Yan Baoyong

This is the author's couplet praising Shi Kefa, a national hero in the late Ming Dynasty. Relying on the opposition of life and death, the couplets use the legendary allusion that Shi Kefa's mother dreamed of Wen Tianxiang and gave birth to Shi Kefa, and the sentence "I will do my best before I die" in Zhuge Liang's "Teacher's Watch", expressing the author's infinite admiration for Shi Kefa and the enduring thought of Confucianism to the country and people.

We live in a life that combines the law of unity of opposites. How to achieve unity in opposition and feel the effectiveness of all things in seemingly contradictory but interdependent and changing time and space is a problem that people should think about. In other words, how to infiltrate China's inexhaustible Taoist thoughts into couplets and make his works full of vitality is a deep-seated problem. Only by keeping the deep-seated problem-"use" in mind can the obvious rhythm and writing-"style" come alive in his works.

Second, in Qing Dynasty, couplets were willing to return to nature and cultivate themselves by couplets.

Our life comes from nature, and our spirit should return to nature. Only in nature can we find our original self and find intangible fun. There are many couplets in Qing Dynasty that embody this transcendental thought. The authors are willing to return to nature and stay away from the noisy and impetuous vulgar life mentality, which is also an excellent teaching material for life and couplets, such as:

Chengdu Yong Shi Lou Lian

Flower bowls are fragrant for thousands of years;

Yunhe Lang lives on the first floor. -He's Ji Shao.

When the author wrote the poem "Lou", there was no poem, but he chose stationery, tea bowls, clouds, waves and other objects with obvious natural attributes to experience their wonderful use, enjoy the infinite interest of nature and pursue the realm of Lao Zi's inaction. How can a restless heart not calm down after reading such couplets? Isn't that what couplets do? Another example is:

Nanjing yuyuanlian

Sit down and have feelings for thousands of years;

When the window is safe, the Six Dynasties Mountain. Mo Youzhi

This couplet is also a masterpiece of paying attention to natural scenery and expressing lofty feelings. It shines on the eternal moon and witnessed the ups and downs of the Six Dynasties. There is affection in the seat and the window is safe. It is a scene, but it is actually a feeling. It expresses the author's mentality of returning to nature and pursuing harmonious, safe and stable social order and personal life after Taiping Army and Nian Army uprising. Another example.

Give him a present.

Thousands of hectares of Taihu Lake, seagulls and Tao Zhu are all in the same house;

On the second day of the month, the crane moved home with He Xun. -Zeng Guofan

He Bi is Zeng Guofan's favorite pupil. After he left office, he built a lakeside villa in Yangzhou, Jiangsu. Zeng Guofan presented a couplet for this topic. United language is also full of a return to nature. He used the allusions of Tao Zhugong who took a boat as his home and wandered the rivers and lakes, as well as the poems of Du Fu praising He Xun, a poet in the Southern Dynasties. With the help of seagulls and cranes, two animals that can refer to seclusion, he created a leisurely, quiet, unrestrained and romantic atmosphere.

Laozi's dialectical thinking has a profound influence on China literature, and his "singularity" view is one of them. The fifth and eighth chapters of Laozi introduce the concept of "strangeness" into literary creation. "Orthodoxy" refers to normality, balance and eternity, while "singularity" refers to abnormality, innovation and change. Everything in nature is strange, strange and positive, and strange and positive. It can make people get unlimited interest, which many people in Qing dynasty know well. So their description of nature is not only about scenery, but also contains infinite "Tao"-the way to be a man, the way to do things, and the way to do things.

3. Qing Dynasty couplets were content to express their interest and charm with indifferent feelings.

Everyone has feelings. What kind of feelings can be revered? Nothing is more stupid than indifference. In Qing Dynasty, couplets with indifferent feelings and couplets expressing things and life are everywhere. Please see:

Xiangyin zuoshi jiamiaolian

Reading thousands of wonderful books without practice is not literacy;

We should keep the family law for 600 years, have a good policy, or plow the fields.

Farming and studying is an ideal life of Confucianism, and it is also a concrete embodiment of Confucian indifferent feelings, but how to farm and study is of practical significance. The author clearly told me that reading alone is not practical, and that is not literacy. Like the reader's sentence reminds me of that famous saying: knowing without doing it will be difficult. There is no doubt that family law should be observed. What is the best policy? Cultivate the fields. What a simple idea and an ordinary move, but the author's indifferent feelings can be seen here. People who grow up in such a family must be useful talents at home and abroad. And isn't this kind of family full of the interest of life that we strive to pursue? Please have a look again:

Suzhou Shubi Mountain Villa Lian

The mountains and valleys are in my chest, and I naturally feel very comfortable when I look at the stacked stones and sparse springs.

In the summer in the garden, I am willing to take a piano and wine and travel to the suburbs. -Yu Yue

The name of this villa is independent. Therefore, it can only be equipped with clutch coupling. Yu Yue's couplet is a rare masterpiece. First of all, the author uses the word "ravine", taking into account the original intention and meaning, because since it is a villa, there must be mountains and rivers, and ravines are the spokespersons of mountains and rivers. At the same time, the meaning of mind and artistic conception contained in the word "gully" is also pointed out here. Really? The first compliment of the second mate has no horizon, and the next few words show the author's realistic attitude. Because of this, he can take the piano and wine to visit, because the scenery is satisfactory, and it is a tacit understanding for people to vote for the scenery. Without the mentality of following the trend, you can't write such a realm categorically. This is the essence of body use, and this is the interest and charm of couplets. We might as well look at another pair:

Shaoxing San tan yin yue Lian

Happiness is silent filial piety;

Too tasteful is a poetic book. -Liang

Looking at this couplet, I think of a problem-relevance, relevance is the purpose and the minimum requirement, and what is relevance-which is a kind of relevance (unique), but it is not suitable anywhere else. Is it a narrow concept? Shaoxing San Tan Yin Yue couplets can be hung in bookstores elsewhere. I think I'm not exaggerating. The bread here contains a feeling, and the size of the feeling can be seen here. In a word, the author's couplets can't just be hung on the moon in Santan, Shaoxing. This connection is about the bookstore, not "this one". Can you write such lofty feelings without indifferent feelings? This is probably the real soup, right

Tao is the original attribute of all things and the universal law of all things. Tao is the gateway to understand everything, which has both "body" and "use". There is no Tao without "body" and no Tao without "use". Literature based on Tao is the consistent thought of Confucianism and the eternal pursuit of Taoism. This is the starting point and destination of literature (including couplets). Laozi's "man should learn from heaven, heaven should learn from Tao, and Tao should be natural." Chapter 25 of Tao Te Ching is the law of all laws. Therefore, the unique key to the formation of couplets is to put the "body use" of couplets in a prominent position to reflect the "body use" of everything.