The study of poetics in the Tang Dynasty entered the Ming Dynasty, with great development and prosperity. Ming people punished the abuses of Song and Yuan poetry and called for the restoration of "the voice of the prosperous Tang Dynasty", which led to the abnormal prevalence of antique style in poetry creation. Although this has brought adverse effects on creative practice, it has also promoted people's research and analysis of Tang poetry, summed up historical experience and lessons, and set off a wave of Tang poetry research.

The first model of Tang poetics in Ming Dynasty should be Zhang Gao's Collection of Tang Poems. This book * * * 90 volumes, compiled 5769 poems from 620 schools (954 poems were picked up in 10 volume), and compiled in addition. It is divided into four categories, namely, the beginning, the truth, everyone, famous artists, wings, martial arts, positive change, reverberation and sidestream, and each category has a narrative theory. According to the explanation of "giving inferences by analogy" in the book, the division of these nine items is related to two aspects: "There were times in the Tang Dynasty" and "the articles were superior". As far as the former is concerned, "generally speaking, the early Tang Dynasty is the beginning, the prosperous Tang Dynasty is authentic, famous artists and wings, the middle Tang Dynasty is martial arts, and the late Tang Dynasty is a positive change, with lingering sounds and outsiders as a sidestream", that is, the historical stages and origins of Tang poetry are reflected in the taste. On the other hand, as a poet in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, there are differences between authenticity, great masters, famous artists and wings, and the same author in the late Tang Dynasty also has differences between positive change and echo, which shows the similarities and differences of contemporary products. From this point of view, Jian Zhen's Tang poetry is a well-organized work. Although its guiding ideology originates from Yan Yu's Poetics and Yang Shihong's Tangyin, its textual research method is more specific and accurate. Through this combination of "times" and "interests", the process of the rise and fall of Tang poetry is no longer limited to the outline division of "five styles" and "four tang style", but presents the vertical evolution of various poetic styles and the horizontal connection between writers in the same period, forming a complex and vivid road map, and the division of Tang poetry can be suddenly penetrated. Therefore, if the theoretical basis of Tang poetics was originally laid by Yan Yu and popularized in the form of Yang Shihong's Tang Yinji, then a complete system can only be built in Gao Yun's hands. It is not unreasonable that this book can have a great influence on future generations. The so-called "in the late Ming Dynasty, pavilions and pavilions took this book as the Sect, and later Li Mengyang and He Jingming imitated the prosperous Tang Dynasty, which was called the rise, and its embryo was expressed here" (Summary of Tang Poems and Pinhui in Sikuquanshu).

However, we should see that although the anthology of Tang poetry is based on Yan Yu's poetics, it is slightly different in its trend. On poetry, Yan Yu focuses on "interest" and pays attention to the poet's own "wonderful understanding"; The reason why he admired poems in the prosperous Tang Dynasty was precisely because "people in the prosperous Tang Dynasty were only interested" and "just blindly understood". However, Yan Yu also knows that there are many factors that constitute poetry, not just the "fun" side, so he wants to talk about techniques such as system, gree, meteorology, syllables, and harmony. Moreover, in order to strictly divide different categories of poetry, he particularly emphasizes that learning poetry should start with distinguishing styles, which brings insurmountable contradictions to his theoretical system. Although Gao Yun quoted a lot of Yan Yu's words in his comments on poetry, what he devoted himself to was, after all, on the side of heterogeneous system. There are many names listed in the Collection of Tang Poems, which also aims to make it "unique, knowledgeable, elegant and knowledgeable" and "learn the way of Tang Poetry" (Gao Yun's Collection of Tang Poems). Therefore, Gao Yun's view of Tang poetry is more realistic and narrower than Yan Yu's. He focused on distinguishing the number of scholars and analyzing the "metaphysical" aspect of Yan Yu's poetic theory, while relatively ignoring the "metaphysical" end of Yan Yu's poetic theory. The study of Tang poetry in Ming Dynasty embarked on the track of "Style Theory", while Gao Kun was at a turning point.

After Gao Kun, Li Dongyang further promoted the transformation of Tang poetry into style theory. Gao Kun only showed the tendency of style theory in the process of appreciating the poems in the early Tang Dynasty, while Li Dongyang formally put forward the call of stressing the style and style of poetry. He said: "Poetry must have eyes and ears. The eyes are dominant and the ears are dominant. " He also said: "Try to take poems that you have never seen before, that is, you can know the style of the times. If you don't lose one tenth, you will gain. " (For details, see Huailutang Poetry Talk.) This is an obvious stylistic idea. So, how to identify different styles of poetry? In his view, although all poems are the same in level tone and tone, they still show different tones due to different words and sentences. Under the conditions of their respective times, "the quite clear tone is that the Tang Dynasty is the Yuan Dynasty". Based on this understanding, he made a detailed analysis and research on the pattern of Tang poetry. For example, it is easy to use real words in poetry, but it is difficult to use function words. In the prosperous Tang Dynasty, people made good use of space, and the sound of opening and closing, melodious twists and turns were all here. If used improperly, it will be very weak and slow, and will no longer vibrate. It should also be a profound warning. "He added:" The rhyme of five or seven words in ancient poems is flat and even, but Du Zimei uses many rhymes, such as Yuhua Palace and Ai Jiangtou, which can also be seen. Its tone is ups and downs, vigorous and powerful, and unique. Looking back at those people who only use plain words, I feel very weak and lifeless. ..... If this is used too much and is too blunt, it is wrong and must be given up. "(ditto) If he thinks that Li Bai and Du Fu's poems are Gongdiao, Liu Changqing's poems are up-regulated, and Han Yu's poems are angular; It is said that rhythmic poetry can reflect the ancient meaning, ancient poetry cannot involve rhythmic tones, and Yuefu long and short sentences must conform to the sounds of nature, and so on. These arguments are meticulous. At this point in the analysis of Tang poetry, it is easy for people to grasp and copy, but it also inevitably loses its grand spirit.

During the Hongzhi and Hongzhi years, the retro trend of thought represented by the "former seven philosophers" flourished, and the theory of Tang poetry style was carried forward unprecedentedly. "Poetry will flourish in the Tang Dynasty, but not in the Tang Dynasty" (Biography of Li Mengyang in the Ming Dynasty) became a good thing for a while. The "First Seven Scholars" also inherited Yan Yu and Gao Kun's views on Tang poetry, but they were more obsessed with style and had a narrower vision. Although Yan Yu's On Poetry teaches people to learn the poems with the first meaning, it does not absolutely exclude the poems in the middle and late Tang Dynasty, but thinks that "there are one or two poets in the late Tang Dynasty who can enter the prosperous Tang Dynasty", and even thinks that some poets in the Song Dynasty are close to the prosperous Tang Dynasty (see the chapters on poetry criticism and poetry discrimination in Cang Lang Shi Hua). Gao Yun's Collection of Tang Poems strictly divides the evolution of Tang poetry, but he calls the middle Tang poetry "following the Tang Dynasty" and changes the middle and late Tang Dynasty (changing without losing its correctness), which also reflects the intention of not abandoning it completely. Li Mengyang and He Jingming, on the other hand, advocated that "poetry inherited from the middle Tang Dynasty, and everything was abolished" (see Preface of Biography of Wen Yuan in Ming Dynasty), and further argued that the five-character ancient poetry had become tone sandhi in the Tang Dynasty, and "there was no way out" and "it was necessary to find it from the Han and Wei Dynasties" (Preface of Sea Collection by He Jingming). This narrows the inherited poetic tradition to a very small scope, which is not conducive to the multi-faceted development of Tang poetics. Of course, they also made some discussions on the poetic style, such as the so-called "sparse before dense, half-wide and half-thin, actually empty, and satisfied with the overlapping scenery" ("He's Book Again"), although inevitable, it is not without reference value for the analysis of Tang poetry.

The concept of style theory of Tang poetry reached its climax in the "first seven schools", and its imitation influence on retro poetry creation was increasingly fully exposed. During the reign of Jiajing and Qin Long, the sequela of the "Last Seven Scholars" re-emphasizing the model theory had to be slightly changed. Among the "Last Seven Scholars", there are indeed people like Li Panlong who insist on "Poetry falls from the sky, and there is no sufficient view" (biography of Li Panlong in Ming Dynasty), but there are also some insightful remarks. For example, Xie Zhen, a poetic theorist, argued that learning poetry should not be confined to a fixed number of books, but should be "married in the traces of the ancients, like bees picking flowers for honey, with different tastes" (Four Kinds of Poems). It must be pointed out that the "ancients" he regarded as models mainly refer to 14 famous artists in the early Tang Dynasty. They did not go beyond the barriers of traditional stylists, but advocated eclecticism and self-satisfaction, which seemed to be slightly better than the imitation of Li and Du. Another leader, Wang Shizhen, also put forward the slogan "To be a teacher, you should have high skills and learn from others", and said: "People in the world often talk about Xijing and Jian 'an, so they are careless and grateful, as if they don't know anything. Regardless of the governors at that time, that is, Qi Liangxian's tune, Du Li changed his style, and he could recover himself; After the town is far away, cover it with a square ruler. "(Yiyuanyuan) is still critical of the poems after Zhenyuan, but it is also different to study the Han and Wei Dynasties by adopting the fine tune of Qi Liang and Du Li's reform, and singing Selected Poems with the" first seven scholars "(five ancient schools). In his later years, Wang Shizhen even thought that the poems of Song and Yuan Dynasties had merits. The key lies in "making good use" (see Wang Shizhen's Preface to Selected Poems of Song Dynasty). All these places show the turning point of the poetics of the Tang Dynasty, laying the groundwork for the next stage of historical changes.

After Wanli, with the new development of social life in the Ming Dynasty, the anti-antique "theory of soul" represented by Gong 'an and Jingling rose in the literary world, and the Tang poetics system of style theory was shaken. On poetry, spiritualists emphasize the word "change", advocate that "generations have ups and downs, but the laws are not consistent, each has its own differences and each has its own interests" (Yuan Hongdao's Preface to Short Poems), and oppose learning poetry to excel in Tang Dynasty. Yuan Hongdao, the leader of the public security school, said: "Tang has his own poems, so there is no need to choose the style;" There are poems in the morning, in the morning, in the middle and in the evening, so it is not necessary to be early or prosperous; Li, Du, Wang, Cen, Qian, Liu, Bai, Lu and Zheng all have their own poems, but Li and Du don't use them. So is Song Zhao. ..... But why should it be high in ancient times? Why are you humble to this day! " He also explained the reason why poetry must be changed according to the viewpoint that "the law was made by my poverty", pointing out that it was precisely because of the bad habit of combining poetry in the Six Dynasties that people in the early Tang Dynasty corrected it with beautiful poetic style; Liu Lihua turned into a light fiber, and when she was in the Tang Dynasty, she was corrected to be wide; Wide produces rough, and the middle Tang dynasty turns to love. Too real and vulgar, the poems in the late Tang Dynasty tend to be deviant; But the pursuit of strangeness is too much, and the realm is getting narrower and narrower. Therefore, in the Song Dynasty, Europe, the Soviet Union and others should try their best to explore the world of poetic countries. "Everything is received in things, everything is said in law, everything is in love, everything is taken in the environment, and there are rivers. "This is not because Song people are unwilling to follow the example of Tang people, but precisely because Song poetry inherited Tang poetry and formed its own statutes (see preface to Xue Taoting's collection). It is obviously a great breakthrough to discuss the evolution of poetry by breaking through the boundaries of early, prosperous, middle and late Tang and Song Dynasties.

Follow the public security and Jingling School. Jingling poets oppose imitation, advocate the spirit of nature, and approach the public security school. However, in view of the fact that police officers are dedicated to their own use and their poems are easy to read, they put forward the goal of "seeking the truth of ancient poems" (see Zhong Xing's Preface Poems). The so-called "true poetry", according to them, is the spirit of the ancients, which is different from the physical appearance of "the former seven sons". Because of this, they often regard Jia's famous works (mostly vigorous and elegant works) that people were familiar with at that time as superficial and decadent, and flaunt their "single feelings" by visiting poems, and finally fall into a deep and lonely magic road. Zhong Xing and Tan's Gui Shi embodies the purpose of their school's discussion on poetry, and the General Catalogue of Sikuquanshu is criticized as "the theme is subtle and mysterious, stirring up a little strange words to thank Yuan" (the summary of the third Gui Shi in the Collection), which hits the nail on the head. Let's look at the Tang poems selected in this book. Among them, Li and Du Duo were recorded by Wang Wei, Meng Haoran, Chu Guangxi and Liu Changqing. In the middle and late Tang Dynasty, they were rewarded by Meng Jiao and Jia Dao all the way, which shows that they are praying for the future. Therefore, although Jingling and the police both start from the theory of spiritual essence, their fates are different. The poetic theory of the Gong 'an School became the forerunner of the study of Song poetry in Qing Dynasty, while the view of Tang poetry of Jingling School constituted the transition from the first seven scholars to Wang Shizhen.

Under the strong impact of the ideological trend of spiritual theory, there is also a trend of self-correction within the tone theory camp. In the poetics of the late Ming Dynasty, the schools describing "the former and the latter seven poets" mostly took the road pioneered by Wang Shizhen. Tu Long, who was listed as the "last five sons", once said: "Poetry changes with the times ... Those who are good at poetry should not only rely on the past to achieve the present, but seek their own abilities. On the Han and Wei Dynasties, when it comes to the Han and Wei Dynasties, there is no need to blame it for being inferior to the Three Hundred Articles; On the Six Dynasties, when it comes to the Six Dynasties, there is no need to blame it for being inferior to the Han and Wei Dynasties; On the Tang people, when the Tang people are welcome, you don't have to blame them for being inferior to the Six Dynasties. ..... Song poetry is a river, not as good as Tang, but it is not. " (On Poetry) Although we still hold the position of respecting the Tang Dynasty and belittling the Song Dynasty, we don't need to "learn from the past", which is far from the consistent thought of style theory. As for the reasons for the "no" in Song poetry, Tu Long pointed out in On Poetry that "Song people are good at discussing poetry" and "managing poetry with the past", which deviated from the tradition of "reciting and expressing temperament" in poetry before Tang Dynasty. Although it is not a new idea, it is different from the "first seven sons" who have specially divided the Tang and Song Dynasties from ancient times to the present.

At the same time, Hu Yinglin, who was also named as the "last five sons", wrote poems, and comprehensively summarized the changes of ancient and modern poems with the concepts of "poetic style replacing change" and "poetic style replacing decline", and his theory was more systematic and comprehensive. Although his focus is still advocating the prosperity of Tang poetry, he forgives every word from the middle Tang Dynasty to the next, because he sees the reality that poetry has to be changed. For example: "Yuan and then, poetry and Taoism are soaked late, and talents are self-defeating. If Changli is magnificent, Liuzhou is exquisite, dreams are grand, lotte is vast, and everyone is brilliant, it is almost shelved in the middle and late period of today. If your feet are firm and your eyes are sharp, you can read widely, which is enough to expand your mind and sponsor your pen. " He also said: "Gudongye, the method of Bo Xian, Changji Yuefu and Yuchuan Qu are all outstanding." He also said: "Handsome if Mu Zhi, lush if Ting Yun, profound if Yishan, dense if Ding Mao, are all sonorous in the late Tang Dynasty. ..... Today, people specialize in the Tang Dynasty, regardless of talents, but in recent times, they specialize in cases, and they have no fixed opinions. It is too arrogant. " Even for the Song people, he thought that "those who are talented are often mixed with those who are magnificent" and "those who learn from a wide range of views are enough to punish them". Here, we not only affirmed a large number of poets in the middle and late Tang Dynasty, but also noticed that he listed "talent" and "style" as two aspects of poetry creation, asking critics not to waste talent and emotion on the premise of paying attention to style. This is an important reason why he was able to absorb part of the middle and late Tang Dynasty and even the Song Dynasty, thus opening a gap in the closed system of style theory.

Further in this direction is Xu's debate about the origin of poetry. The main purpose of this book is also to analyze the changes in the origin of poetry, but in many places it breaks through the old pattern of stretching and narrowing to the right. For example, The First and Last Seven Scholars advocated that the five-character ancient poems of Han and Wei Dynasties should be authentic, and Li Panlong even publicly publicized that "there were no five-character ancient poems in Tang Dynasty" (see his preface to the selection of Tang poems), but this book thinks that "the five-character ancient poems of Tang Dynasty have their own tang style", which is characterized by applying Chen Chongchang and cannot be measured by the euphemistic and implicit style of the ancient poems of Han and Wei Dynasties. For example, when it comes to the variation of Yuan and later poems, the book emphasizes that this is "the strength of Yuan and other masters" and makes a comparative analysis: "Although there are great changes in Han and Bai five-character poems, they are free and easy, and each has its own extremes; Although Zhang and Wang Yuefu's seven words have turned from positive to negative, they are not perfect. " This is completely different from Gao Yun and others' efforts to classify Yuanhe's poetic changes into the category of "positive changes". What's more, he also defended the Song poetry that people despised at that time: "The Song master changed his mind, and ancient poems, songs, antics and arguments are his strengths. Because of this, his change of mind is endless and spans generations. Or if you want to talk about the Song Dynasty with Tang poets, you still want to explain the old in the words of the golden mean, but you can't explain the old in words. " It can be seen that Xu should not only maintain the authentic status of the prosperous Tang Dynasty, but also admit the historical rationality of the variation of poetry, and make up for the mistakes and take great pains. The style theory of Tang poetics has reached the limit of life, and the theoretical disintegration is inevitable.

The above focuses on the evolution of poetry theory. In fact, the achievements of poetics in Tang Dynasty are various. After the Song Dynasty, the Ming people compiled and sorted out the collected works of the Tang people on a large scale, and began to consciously compile and publish the collected works of some writers in order to preserve and spread them. For example, Fifty Tang Poems published during Hongzhi and Zhengde years and Hundred Tang Poems compiled by Zhu Jing during Jiajing years are important achievements of this period. If we say that before Jiajing, people were more keen on publishing the anthology of poets before Wanli, then after Wanli, people began to pay attention to compiling poems of people in the middle and late Tang Dynasty. A series of Tang anthologies collated and proofread by Jinmao Jigu Guguan reflect this achievement. The "school selection" in the Ming Dynasty was also quite developed, and nearly 100 kinds of books have been selected so far. Among them, there are many large-scale poetry collections, such as Yanwu Tang Poetry Record 170, Zhang Zhixiang Tang Poetry Selection 200, Wu Mianxue Four Tang Poetry Selection 190, Cao Xuequan Poetry Selection 100 and so on. Some works promote the theme of one school. For example, Gao Kun's Collection of Tang Poems and Zheng Sheng of Tang Poems reflect the views of early style theorists on the changes in the origin of Tang Poems. Selected Poems of Tang Poetry represents the idea of "Poetry must flourish in Tang Dynasty" of the former and the latter seven poets, and Zhong Xing and Tan's Gui Shi reflects Jingling's poems. There are also some reading materials that focus on analysis and guide appreciation, such as Tang Ruxun's Interpretation of Tang Poetry, General Comment on the Forest of Tang Poetry, Ang's Direct Interpretation of Tang Poetry and Xu's Classified Interpretation of Tang Poetry. These are all the rage and can be described as dazzling. Another feature of the book of the Ming Dynasty is the combination of comments. The comments on Tang poetry did not begin in the Ming Dynasty, but originated in Seven Poems Comments at the end of the Song Dynasty and Ying Sui at the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty. In the Ming Dynasty, due to the implementation of stereotyped writing, the study of Ci and Zhang was particularly prosperous, and comments became a common practice. At that time, celebrities such as Li Mengyang, Yang Shen, Li Zhi, Zhong Xing, etc. There are comments on Tang poetry handed down from generation to generation (some in the name of others), and the collected comments are also widely circulated, which has played a positive role in popularizing the reading and appreciation of Tang poetry. Finally, I would like to make a special mention of "Tang Yin Tong Qian" compiled by Hu Zhenheng in the late Ming Dynasty. This book * * * 1033, according to The Times, sorts out the poems of the Tang and Five Dynasties, and adds biographies and comments under the author's name, which can be called a collection of poems of the Tang Dynasty. Among them, Guiqian is devoted to the research data of Tang poetry, which is divided into seven chapters: style, method, comment, music, annotation, text and collection. It collected and sorted out the previous research results from various aspects, and made a preliminary summary of the classical poetics of the Tang Dynasty. The appearance of "Tang Yin Tong Qian" indicates that the study of Tang poetry will be transferred to in-depth discussion and systematic summary on the basis of a hundred flowers blooming in the Ming Dynasty, which is a historical responsibility that the Qing people should shoulder.