Bai Juyi's famous saying in his realistic poetics theory that "articles should be written in time, songs and poems should be written for things", the core idea that his poems must serve politics, and the literary viewpoint that his poems reflect reality are all relished and deeply studied. This is just a superficial understanding of the contradictions, gains and losses between Bai Juyi's Nine Books and Yuan Zaju and other realistic poetic theories. Bai Juyi once said his writing purpose in "Preface to New Yuefu": "Do it for the monarch, minister, people, things and things, not for the text." The poet clearly combined being a monarch with being for the people. This view of the poet is inseparable from his Confucian orthodoxy. Bai Juyi's political thought is complicated, and critics have always pointed out that his thought is the unity of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. Due to his background, education, social status and life practice, Confucian orthodoxy occupies a major position in his thoughts. Confucianism has the following aspects: loyalty to the monarch and respect for the king, patriotism and love for the people, initiative and passivity. Bai Juyi said: "If you are poor, you will be immune to it, and if you are rich, you will help the world." However, Confucianism belongs to the ideology of the feudal ruling class and is based on it. In the history of China's ancient literary criticism, Taoism and Legalism have always opposed literature and art, and they hate literature and art deeply, so they want to completely eliminate it. Confucianism, since its ancestor Confucius, has always advocated literature, because literature can "promote, view, group and complain", "what the father does, the monarch stays far away" (The Analects of Confucius Yang Huo), and can "be filial, virtuous, beautiful, civilized and change customs" (Preface to Mao Poetry). In the final analysis, literature can serve politics and rulers. Of course, Bai Juyi can't get rid of this influence. He said: "saints touch people's hearts and the world is at peace." Touching people, don't worry about feelings, education, voice and benevolence. Poet, root affection, Miao education, Watson, true meaning "("Wu Yu Jiu Shu "). Poets are well aware of the characteristics of poetry: it can prove that it can help the ruling class influence people's hearts and rule the world. He also said, "The sage knows things because of his words, based on six meanings, based on sounds and based on five tones. Sound has rhyme and meaning has classes. The rhyming association is smooth, and the words are smooth and easy to enter; For example, you will see it. When you see it, you will find it easy to make friends. As a result, the pregnancy is big and deep, the penetration is small and dense, and the ups and downs are harmonious. Huang San, the five emperors, who walked straight and bowed his head to reason, took this as a big handle and must have thought it was a treasure. " The poet believes that as long as poetry "takes six meanings and five tones as the latitude", it can communicate the feelings and relations between the rulers and the people, and it can "connect up and down, and be harmonious from sadness to joy". In this way, social contradictions can be reconciled, the rulers can "intersect from top to bottom and be happy from the inside out" ("Material 69 Policy"), and the rulers can bow down and sit firmly in the golden palace. In order to "make the upper and lower levels harmonious and make the rulers govern with their sleeves down", Bai Juyi not only proposed to serve the monarch, but also put forward a series of measures accordingly: he actively suggested organizing poetry collection, so that the emotions of the lower level reached their peak and the emotions of the upper level were released. To achieve "those who waste repair it, those who lack it make up for it" and "those who have good politics, know it from below, teach it at the expense of others, and smell it from above" ("Sixty-nine Strategies"), so that the emperor will no longer be blocked by eyes and ears, surrounded by villains, and become a fatuous king. He said very profoundly in the poem "The Poets of New Yuefu Scavengers": "Juntang is a thousand miles away, and Junmen is a nine-heavy team. I can't see the movement in front of the door clearly because of my smelly ears. Corrupt officials do harm to the people without fear, while treacherous officials protect the king without fear. Don't look at the last years of Hu Hai, King Li, and the ministers are good for you and bad for you. " Bai Juyi's loyalty to the monarch is very obvious. We don't need to hide anything from his realistic poetic theory. We shouldn't look down on him just because he wrote so many allegorical poems that deeply exposed the evils of the ruling class and deeply sympathized with the working people, or avoid talking about him as a monarch.
However, Bai Juyi is a great realistic poet after all, and his orthodoxy also has the heart of loving the people. He will never forget the hard life he tasted when his family was poor and his father died young, nor will he forget the sufferings of the people he saw when he was wandering in his youth and hear them groan under heavy pressure. He has deep sympathy for the people and is determined to speak for them. In For the King and the People, he emphasized the people. He bravely shouted "only songs can make people sick, may the emperor know" (a poem written for no one), "but I don't know when to avoid hurting people" (a poem written for Tang Qu) and "don't be afraid of the anger of powerful people, but also be afraid of being laughed at by relatives and friends" (a poem written for no one). Conscious and brave, he is willing to be the voice of the people and sing out their inner pains. He is the first person in the history of China's poetry.
In Bai Juyi's view, serving the people and serving the monarch can be unified, and they are not contradictory. Poetry should not only serve the political interests of the ruling class, but also truly reflect the sufferings of the people and the injustice of the world, and expose the disadvantages within the ruling class. He believes that as long as the people's voices are written, the emperor in the deep palace will understand the people's living conditions and wishes, so as to adjust and improve political measures and reduce the people's burden. As a result, "make peace up and down, inside and outside Xu Yue". Poets are so kind and naive. In an era when the interests of the feudal ruling class and the masses of the people were fundamentally opposed, in the middle Tang Dynasty, when the ruling class was increasingly decadent, the national situation was declining and class contradictions were very acute, how could these two incompatible things be unified for the monarch and the people? "Helping others to be sick and happy" and "being at peace with each other and being happy at home and abroad" are just the poet's subjective good wishes.
The poet said so and did so. He wrote many allegorical poems that "only songs make people sick", exposed the darkness of society with that sharp and spicy pen, denounced the cruelty and greed of the ruling class, and wrote the sufferings of the people with sympathetic pen and ink. His satirical pen has always pointed to the supreme ruler-the emperor, and he condemned Tang Xianzong's luxurious life: "Why did the late king learn from the former king? Please look at the tree of Sui Dyke! " (Sui Ti Liu); He denounced the arrogance and extravagance of bureaucratic generals: "If you are full, you will feel at ease, and if you are drunk, you will benefit. It's a drought in the south of the Yangtze River, and people in Quzhou eat people! " (light and fat). He laughed at these despicable officials. "Do you know about the satrap in Quanzhou? -a carpet, inextricably linked, I don't know if the ground is warm and people are warm, so don't take it as lichen! " (red carpet). There are even more poems describing the sufferings of farmers. Ling Du CuO, see wheat cutting, selling charcoal Weng, Xinfeng folding arm Weng, cemetery concubine, white hair, etc. Or give a heavy sigh to the farmers who are burdened with exorbitant taxes and levies; Or grieve for the lonely old man who was robbed by the court messenger; Some wrote the people's resentment against the war, and some sang the sad songs of women who were crushed at the bottom of society and wasted their youth and beauty in vain.
It is precisely because in reality, serving the monarch and serving the people cannot be unified, so such poems are of course hated by the ruling class. The author himself described: "It is not appropriate to listen to the poems of the servants of Hehe, but many people have registered. It is unpleasant to hear a poem in which a servant is crying in a cave. When you hear Qin Zhongyin, when you look at the people around you, you will lose color. If you send a poem when you are in the garden, the authorities will be embarrassed. When you hear the poem "Village of Perillage", you will gnash your teeth if you hold an important military official. The rate can't be higher. " (Nine Books of Imperial Garden). In "Wounding the Tang Dynasty" (II), he also said that his poems made "all the noble people complain and angry, while the idle people are not arrogant." So he fell out of favor with the emperor. Under the attack of the collusion between eunuchs and old bureaucrats, Yuan He's poet of six years was demoted to Jiangzhou Sima. The poet also knows in his heart that his poems offend powerful people, so he says "it begins with an article and ends with an article" (nine books are the same). This is Bai Juyi's value and his glory. This major setback in his life itself eloquently proved that his "for the king" and "for the people" are not feasible. There is an interesting narrative in "Nine Books with the Same Yuan": "I heard that you have sent an army to stay in the Gorge and want to recruit prostitutes. The prostitute boasted, "I recited Bai Xueshi's Song of Eternal Sorrow. Why not be a prostitute with him?" Therefore, the price has been raised. "Bai Juyi didn't brag, that's the truth. His" Song of Eternal Sorrow "and" Pipa Trip "spread like wildfire all over the world. The prince, concubines, cowboys and horses were all scrambled to be summoned for questioning. Many of his poems have been praised by people for more than 1000 years, one of which is because of their high artistry.
However, Bai Juyi added: "The poems of today's servants are loved by people, but no one cares about miscellaneous laws and everlasting regret songs. When the time is heavy, the servant is light. " Why is there such a strange disunity? There are many reasons, but it is undeniable that there is also a question of whether the content and form of poetry are perfectly unified. Generally speaking, an excellent poet, whose poems can remain immortal, must pay attention to the unity of the artistic content and form of poetry, and so does Bai Juyi, who pays more attention to the content and form of poetry. He said: "Poets are rooted in feelings, Miao characters, Hua Sheng and true meaning." He also said, "Because of his words, he is based on six meanings, and because of his voice, he is blind to his five senses. It has rhyme and meaning, rhyme and association make it fluent, and eloquence makes it easy to enter ... ". He compared the process of writing poetry to the process of plant growth. The root is emotion, the seedling is language, the flower is rhyme, and the fruit is true meaning. This metaphor is very apt. The content should be expressed in form, and the feelings of poetry should also be expressed in language. Language must have a beautiful rhyme, so that "rhyme is harmonious and smooth, and words are easy to enter." Many of the poet's poems were written according to this requirement and became immortal masterpieces. On the relationship between content and form, he insisted on putting the content of poetry in the first place, demanding that language and form serve the content. He opposed the simple pursuit of "high palace rhythm" and "fantastic books" without content, and emphasized popular forms and simple language. He said: "His words are light and light, and those who want to see them are easy to distinguish; His words are true and incisive, warning those who want to hear them ... "He advocates simplicity and popularity in order to make poetry play a greater social role. Poets believe that as long as poetry has political significance and real content, even rough forms are better than those works with gorgeous emptiness and exquisite forms. This view is clearly stated in article 68 of the policy: "weeds are born in the valley, and those who harm the valley are also;" "Beautiful words are born in the text, and those who hurt the text are also. Therefore, farmers grow weeds, so they raise food; Wang deleted obscene words and cut beautiful algae, so he cited the article. ..... Give ci and fu combined with Jiong Huan's irony. Although it is wild in nature, it is adopted and awarded; Those who have false beauty and shame on the tablet, although beautiful, are forbidden. " The poet's point of view has some merits, especially "returning from the great calendar, the poetic style has changed at the beginning, and the spirit of openness and treasure has gradually drifted away." The poet lived only a few decades away from Dali's ten gifted scholars. Influenced by the ten talented people in Dali, the poetic style of escaping from reality and tending to form has not disappeared. The poet put forward the viewpoint of "respecting quality and restraining lewdness, being sincere and eliminating falsehood", which has great practical significance.
However, in the relationship between the content and form of poetry, the poet is a bit extreme. He emphasized the importance of the ideological content of poetry, but paid little attention to the artistic form. His satirical poems, such as Qin Zhongyin and New Yuefu, are all aimed at "only making people sick", and he is satisfied with "every article is true". As for the formal skills, he is "not seeking the rhythm of the palace, not seeking strange words", but expressing his own opinions. Similarly, poets use this extreme standard to measure the poems from Jin and Song Dynasties to Du Fu. Because of his excessive emphasis on the content, he demanded that all poems should have meanings, so beautiful and gorgeous sentences like "the afterglow scattered into enchanting scenes" were rejected because they didn't know its meaning. Even by his standards, even Li Bai and Du Fu's poems are nothing. "Poet, known as Du Li. Li Zhi's works are amazing, and people can't catch them. There is nothing wrong with asking them to be elegant. Du Fu's poems are the most, and there are more than one thousand that can be handed down. As for the poems that run through the past and present, they are full of rules and regulations, which are too generous. However, judging from Xin 'anli, Li Shihao, Tongguan Li, Lu Zi, Liuhuamen and other chapters, the sentence "All the doors are smelly with wine and meat, and the roads freeze to death" is only thirty or forty acres. Duchamp is like this, the situation is not enough. "This evaluation is really a bit too much. In the article Wen Xin Diao Long Cai Qing, Liu Xie has a subtle exposition on literature and quality: "The husband is weak in water and has a knot, the wood is solid and the calyx is vibrating, and literature is attached to quality;" Tiger and leopard have no text, then they are the same as dogs and sheep; Rhinoceros has skin, but the color is Dan lacquer, and the quality remains to be seen. " Bai Juyi ignored this point. He overemphasized "quality" and to some extent put "quality" and "literature" in opposition. Everything with quality is a good poem. On the contrary, anyone who pays attention to "prose" should go away. When he asked poetry to be written for the time and things, poetry only became a means of "reviewing current politics". He forgot "root feelings, Miao characters, Hua Sheng and true meaning", and forgot that ideological content must be revealed naturally through vivid images, not directly. Preach stiffly. It can also be seen from the poet's creative practice that this view hinders the improvement of the artistic quality of some of his works. Of course, many of his satirical poems are vivid, sharp and touching, and because of his simplicity and popularity, they have played a great role in the wide spread of his poems. On the other hand, due to the poet's excessive pursuit of political satire in poetry, he took writing poetry as an auxiliary means when he was an remonstrator, so that some of his satirical poems were too straightforward, lacking in poetry, and some were conceptual and abstract, which affected the artistic appeal. Perhaps this is why people love his Song of Eternal Sorrow, Pipa and some miscellaneous poems more.
Bai Juyi's view of valuing quality over literature also had a certain bad influence on realistic poets in the late Tang Dynasty. Realistic poets in the late Tang Dynasty directly inherited the tradition of Bai Juyi's new Yuefu movement and wrote a large number of satirical poems with weight, but most of them always made people feel that they were "qualitative" but "literary" and shallow and straightforward. No wonder some people criticized Du Xunhe, one of the representatives of realistic poets in the late Tang Dynasty, for "having 300 poems and only one couplet". There are only one couplet in 300 poems, which may be exaggerated and mean, but it also reflects their neglect of literary talent and skill.
It is undeniable that Bai Juyi's poetics has played a great role in promoting the later realistic poetry creation. His poetic style strongly influenced contemporary and future generations of poets and carried forward the fine tradition of realistic poetry. Bai Juyi left an indelible contribution in the history of China literature. However, it should be noted that his poetics is not perfect, and there are some defects and limitations. We should analyze and study it from the perspective of historical materialism, point out its gains and losses, and critically absorb it. This is our correct attitude to inherit the ancient cultural heritage.