Zhong Rong

Zhong Rong

Zhong Rong (circa 468-circa 518), a literary critic of the Southern Dynasty of China, was named Zhongwei. Yingchuan changshe (now Changge City, Xuchang, Henan Province) is a member of the Yingchuan Zhongshi, a famous family in Wei and Jin Dynasties. Qi daiguan went to situ Xing to join the army. After entering the Liang Dynasty, he successively served as Linchuan Wang Xing of the Chinese army, and Xi Zhonglang general Jin'an Wang Ji Shi. After the 12th year of emperor Liang Wu's Tianjian reign (513), he imitated the precedent of Han Dynasty's "nine grades on people, seven grades on scholars" and wrote a poem review monograph "Shi pin". Based on five character poems, the book divides 122 writers from the Han Dynasty to the Liang Dynasty into three parts: the upper, the middle and the lower. This book is recorded in Sui Shu Jing Ji Zhi, and its name is Shi Ping. This is because in addition to Pindi, it also comments on its merits and demerits. Later, it was named Shi pin. In Shi pin, Zhong Rong advocates wind power, opposes metaphysical language, advocates natural and harmonious rhyme, opposes artificial sound disease theory, advocates direct search, opposes allusion, and puts forward a set of relatively systematic standards for poetry evaluation.

Writing characteristics

While commenting on the artistic characteristics and styles of the writers of the past dynasties, Zhong Rong also put forward his own views on some theoretical problems in poetry creation and the universal abuses in the poetry world at that time. He objected to the prevailing trend of "following one's taste" and "having no basis for accurate poetry", and put forward a systematic comment on accurate poetry. Its emergence is closely related to the development of poetry creation at that time, the social fashion of chatting and Pindi characters.

literature

Criticism of historical maladies

In the preface to Shi pin and its comments, Zhong Rong came into contact with the following important creative problems

The first one is the sharp criticism of the two kinds of maladies in the development of poetry at that time, which are the accumulation of allusions and the deliberate pursuit of rhythm caused by the prevalence of the theory of four tones and eight diseases. Zhong Rong believes that poetry is originally the expression of the writer's true feelings under the influence of foreign objects, but "the son of high fat, shameful, embellished and groaning all night". One of the results of moaning without illness is the competition for allusion. Zhong Rong pointed out that the fashion of piling up a large number of allusions has made the poetry of "chanting emotion" almost the same as the book notes, which has seriously hindered the healthy development of poetry creation. His criticism is a step ahead of Liu Xie's in Wen Xin Diao Long Shi Lei. The second kind of expression of "noble son and grandson" or "chubby son and grandson" moaning without illness is that they deliberately pay attention to the sound sickness, "they must be precise, the folds are subtle, and they are dedicated to the mausoleum frame, so they make the writing more restrained and hurt its true beauty." Although Zhong Rong neglected that the beauty of rhythm is the inevitable requirement of the development of poetic art to a certain stage, his criticism is biased, but his opinion that poetry should be "tone adjusted", natural harmony is completely correct.

It explains the five character poem

Second, it explains the emergence of five character poetry in theory. Because the book of songs is mainly four character style, and the book of songs has been regarded as Confucian classics in the past, when the five character poetry has generally developed, replaced the four character poetry and became the dominant form of poetry in the Wei, Jin, southern and Northern Dynasties (seven character poetry has begun to form), due to the influence of traditional Confucianism, Theoretical criticism also shows a strong Orthodox conservative view on the form of Poetry: emphasis on four words and light on five words. For example, Zhiyu's "on the flow of articles" (collection of Arts and Culture) holds that "the rate of ancient poetry is based on four characters", "the rhyme of elegant sound is based on four characters; the rest of the poems are based on twists and turns, but not on the sound". Liu Xie's "Wen Xin Diao Long · Ming Shi" mainly discusses five character poetry, but it also says "four character orthodox style" and "five character Liu Diao", and does not recognize the due status of five character poetry in the poetry world. But Zhong Rong put forward that the form of four character is out of date, "every bitter article is complicated but the meaning is little, so it is rare to learn it in the past", while the five character poetry is in the ascendant, "the most important part of the CI is the works with taste", which is "the most detailed" in the fundamental characteristics of poetry, such as "pointing things to shape, writing things with poor feelings". This kind of discussion has opened up a way forward theoretically for the historical development of poetic form.

In order to advocate the five character poetry, Zhong Rong also discussed the origin and historical development of the five character poetry. Although there are some inaccuracies in the discussion, there are some excellent opinions.

My own opinion

Third, Zhong Rong put forward his own views on some important issues in poetry creation: first, he put forward the "taste" of poetry more clearly after Wen Fu and Wen Xin Diao Long. In the preface to Shi pin, he thinks that only poems with taste can "make those who taste endless, and those who smell it move their heart"; in the first volume of Shi pin, he also puts forward "make people taste, and be tireless". This includes two meanings: one is that only poems with taste can be called good poems; the other is that it emphasizes the "Xing" of poems and believes that good poems should be "full of text but full of meaning". The theory of poetic flavor was not only accepted and developed by many later people, such as Sikongtu, sushi and Wang Shizhen, but also became the common requirement of poetry and literary creation. 2、 On the principle of "true beauty". It emphasizes that poetry creation should be true and beautiful. "True beauty" means that poetry creation should have sincere and strong feelings rather than false moaning without illness. It is also said that "natural beauty is rare for human beings". It can be seen that "true beauty" is closely related to the nature in artistic expression. 3、 He put forward that poetry creation should "create shape by referring to things and write about things with poor feelings", which requires a good combination of "poor feelings" and "writing about things", which is consistent with the viewpoint in Wen Xin Diao Long. In addition, his view on the theme of poetry is a big step forward than his predecessors.

Writers' artistic schools and comments

The fourth is about the artistic schools and comments of writers. Focusing on the style characteristics of writers and works, Zhong Rong attached great importance to the inheritance and development relationship between poets of past dynasties and the distinction between different artistic schools, and put forward a more systematic view. He not only created a new way for the study of style change, but also made some concise and insightful comments on specific writers and works. For example, the characteristics of Ruan Ji's poems are as follows: "words are in the eyes and ears, feelings are expressed in the form of eight wasteland", "self-motivated and lofty, with a lot of emotional words, Jue Zhi Yuan Fang, and it's hard to find interest", etc. However, because he did not pay much attention to the decisive influence of the writer's life experience on the writer's style, and he did not carefully consider the diversity and complexity of the writer's thought and art, he usually only focused on some similarities of different writers in a certain aspect to study the similarities and differences of their poetic styles. Therefore, in most cases, the study of his style schools is not only important Chaos, and many far fetched, caused a lot of criticism later.

Although Shi pin has historical limitations, it is still an important and influential work in the history of Chinese literary theory and criticism.

Publication of works

The earliest extant editions of shipin are collected by song zhangruyu's Qunshu kaosuo, which was published in yuansha Academy in 1320, and the more common editions are Jinzhuo secretary, xuejintaoyuan and Shihua of past dynasties. Chen Yanjie's recent works include notes on Poetry (1927, revised at the beginning of 1961), notes on poetry in Zhongji room (published in 1928 as the fourth kind of Yu Lou Series) and Xu Wenyu's notes on poetry. Cao Xu and others have made great achievements in the study of Shi pin.

Relative members

Grandfather: Zhong Ting, the word method show, after Wei Xiangcheng prefect, Yingchuan County Duke.

Father: Zhong Dao, the meaning of the word, was a member of the central army of the Southern Qi Dynasty.

Elder brother: Zhong Yi, whose name is Changyue, joined the army in Nanliang Prefecture and wrote biography of good officials.

Younger brother: Zhong Yu, whose name is Ji Wang, is Cheng of Yongjia County in Nanliang.

Chinese PinYin : Zhong Rong