Summer Wood's Clear Shade: Random Notes on Song Poetry

Author: Hong Liang / Country: Mainland China
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2000-08-01
Features: The news of Wang Yu's transfer (a form of exile with conditional relocation) to Jiuzhou (now Yuncheng, Shanxi) arrived, but Wang Yu showed no joy. Instead, he self-mockingly wrote a poem: "Alas, my footsteps turn like tumbleweed, following the custom of being transferred near Shaanxi. It's like a parrot kept by a family, moved from an old cage to a new one." Even when recalled to the capital, in "To Snow for Jia," he sympathized with the refugees: "You see the hungry outside the door, often frozen to death in ditches ands," but also severely criticized himself: "Why do I waste my time on literary pursuits, singing praises to the emperor like a clown?" He was exiled twice more and served as the governor of Chuzhou (where Ouyang Xiu was also exiled) and Huangzhou (where Su Shi was also exiled). Both he and his successors spent difficult years there, leaving behind immortal poems. Although he lamented: "Four times exiled in two years, my hair has turned gray. Though I hold a fifth-rank official position, it has exhausted my unbreakable will. When will I be able to retire to the countryside and thank for the nourishment?" (from "Hearing Crows"), when his friend Ding Wei advised him to change his "arrogant and upright" nature to adapt to customs and avoid exile, he scoffed at it as "judging right and wrong by success or failure, and choosing friends or foes by the warmth of the times." This integrity—"When one's body is constrained, yet the path cannot be bent; though exiled a hundred times, what loss is there?" (from "Three Exiles")—inspired scholars of the Song dynasty. Lin Chao wrote, "Huangzhou spans my Song," and Su Shi, in "Portrait of Wang Yuanzhi and Preface," praised him as "Wang Yuanzhi, with bold literature and straightforward principles, stands alone in the world." Huang Tingjian also wrote, "Wang Yuanzhi is like the Dizhu (a towering rock in the Yellow River)." The term "Dizhu" was undoubtedly the highest praise in Huang Tingjian's arrogant style. Beyond referring to his character, it likely also alluded to Wang Yu's literary works, which resisted decline and lacked the thin wit and weak ambition often seen in the late Tang and Five Dynasties.
Why could Wang Yu, among the early Song poets who learned from Bai Juyi's simple and natural style (such as Xu Xuan and Li Fang), also admire Du Fu, claiming "My poetry imitates Du Zimei," "Du Zimei's collection opens a new world," and "Who can pity that my tastes align with Du and Li and Han and Liu's prose and Du and Li's poetry?" This likely stemmed from his humble background and turbulent career. This "simultaneous admiration for Du" allowed him to refine Bai's style with Du's conciseness and subtlety, correcting Bai's looseness, directness, and ease. His poetic achievements far surpassed those of other early Song poets. Of course, apart from learning from Bai and Du, Wang Yu also innovated, which was tied to his experiences, personality, and temperament.
Let's look at his poem "Village Walk" from his exile in Shangzhou:
"
Horses tread the mountain path, where chrysanthemums are just yellow,
Trusting the horse, my mind wanders freely in the wild.
Countless ravines echo with evening sounds,
Silent peaks stand motionless under the setting sun.
Pomegranate leaves fall, dyed crimson,
Flax flowers bloom, fragrant as snow.
Why do I suddenly feel melancholic after singing?
The village bridge and trees resemble my homeland."
Some considered "Silent peaks stand motionless under the setting sun" the highlight of the poem. Mr. Qian Zhongshu also highly praised this line, believing that though the peaks are "silent," they also seem to imply that they once could speak, had spoken, and wanted to speak, but now were suddenly "silent." (from "Selected Songs of the Song Dynasty") However, what moved people more were the middle and final couplets. After the vivid sounds in the second couplet, the third couplet presents vivid colors, not only contrasting hues but also the poet's fondness for ordinary flowers and fruits, showing his ability to adapt to his surroundings. Later, during his exile in Huangzhou, the poet shared a similar sentiment:
"Recalling seeing peonies in the western capital,
Even a slight lack of color makes my heart heavy.
Now, in this desolate mountain city,
Even the drum flower's bloom delights me" (from "Poems of Qian'an Prefecture").
The final couplet, as Japanese scholar Yoshikawa Koshijiro noted, "If in the past, the poet felt melancholic because the scenery of the foreign land was different from his homeland, but in this poem, though also melancholic for missing home, he expresses through the foreign scenery 'resembling my homeland' a broad-minded attitude that the foreign land can be treated as home." (from "Overview of Song Poetry," translated by Zheng Qingmao)
American scholar Stuart Sastry, in his article "Can Followers Surpass the Originals? Song and Tang Poetry," first mentioned that "Song poets wrote poetry amidst the shadow of Tang poetry," then pointed out six main strategies for later poets to carve out their place:
1. Imitation and supplementation;
2. Correction from the opposite perspective;
3. Identification with predecessors;
4. Pointing out predecessors' predecessors;
5. Elevating oneself to the source of poetry and encompassing predecessors in isolation;
6. Integrating predecessors into poetry according to one's own interpretation, replacing or surpassing them.
Considering the inheritability of literature, the fifth strategy is the most difficult. Creatively, the second and sixth strategies are more notable. Zhang Yong's poetry belongs to the second, while Wang Yu's "Village Walk" falls under the sixth, which Sastry described as: "Purifying predecessors, surpassing them, fully developing their techniques to depict the present scene, and rewriting the original works with one's own language—all are ways to resist the tide of Tang poetry without being swept away." (The quote is translated by Mo Lifeng, from "The Quest for the Goddess")
"Riding alongside the Ganshan, my horse chews the scenery as it walks,
And kicks three wild pears into five." (Poetic imagery by Taiwanese poet Luo Fu) On this mountain path where chrysanthemums are just beginning to yellow, and with the leisure of riding freely, the freshness and vigor of Song poetry are transmitted. Qin Guan once said, "Each person has their own limits. Du Zimei's poetry is unparalleled in ancient and modern times, but his prose is almost unreadable; Zengzi once was renowned for his prose, but his poetry was often unsatisfactory. This is hard to explain logically." Chen Shidao said, "Su Mingyun was not good at poetry, Ouyang Xiu was not good at fu, Zengzi was weak in rhyming verse, Huang Lu was verbose in prose, Su Ziyang's ci was like poetry, and Qin Shaoyou's poetry was like ci." They were students of Su Shi and also studied under Zeng Gong. Qin Guan "early joined the school," (from "Eulogy for Zengzi") and Chen Shidao "once burned incense to pay respects to Zeng Nanfeng" (from "Passing Sixi Hall"). Students daring to critique their teachers was a sign of their growth, and also reflected the customs of the time. Whether the critiques were accurate was another matter. From the cultural background of the Song dynasty, which had many versatile and well-rounded writers, these critiques might also have included Qin Guan and Chen Shidao's regrets that their teachers could not excel in all fields.
Modern Qian Zhongshu summarized: "A literary debate raged until the Qing dynasty, and most critics agreed that he (Zeng Gong) won." He believed that among the Eight Great Masters of the Tang and Song, "his poetry was far better than that of Su Xun and Su Zhe, and his seven-character quatrains had the style of Wang Anshi." (from "Selected Songs of the Song Dynasty") Yuan dynasty Fang Hui agreed: "Zengzi's poetry swept away the style of Kun School, free of deliberate carving, simple and vigorous, forming his own unique style." (from "Qingkui Lüshu") This perfectly matched a line in Zeng Gong's "Song of Mingfei": "Even brushwork leaves traces like this, how much more so for intangible arguments."
A Song dynasty scholar, Luo Daojing, once compared Chen Shidao (styled Licang, also known as Wuyi, styled Houshan Jushi) and Qin Guan's writing styles: "Shanshui said, 'Chen Wuyi seeks verses behind closed doors,' while Qin Shaoyou writes poetry with a brush before guests.' This means that when Chen Wuyi had poetic inspiration, he would lie in bed wrapped in blankets, groaning for days before completing a poem; Qin Shaoyou, however, wrote poetry spontaneously at banquets." (from "Helin Yulu") In short, Qin Guan wrote freely, like a "genius type," close to Su Shi; Chen Shidao painstakingly crafted his poems, like a "labor-intensive type," resembling Huang Tingjian. Chen Shidao himself wrote in a letter to Qin Guan's younger brother Qin Guo: "I initially learned from five masters in poetry, but since I loved it from a young age and never grew tired of it, I have written thousands of poems. Upon meeting Huang Yuzhang, I burned all my drafts and studied his style. My poetry is Huang Yuzhang's poetry." Regarding his creative attitude, he seemed even more serious than his teacher, without the tendency of Huang to write casually to display erudition and skill. After finishing a poem, he would hang it on the wall and sit or lie down, reciting and revising, sometimes taking ten days to finalize it, and discarding poems that were never satisfactory." (from Xu Du's "Queshoubian")
Contemporary Ye Mengde described a more famous scene: "It is said that Chen Wuyi, whenever he got a line while sightseeing, would immediately lie down on a bed, cover his head with a blanket, and hate the sound of people, calling it an 'inspiration bed.' His family knew this, so they would chase away cats, dogs, and even young children, sending them to neighbors. He would only dare to return to normal after finishing the poem." This meditative and single-minded creative attitude could be explained by his impoverished life, solitary personality, and downward social status.
For years, he lived in constant hunger and in a leaky house with frost flying in. His wife was indeed virtuous, yet she never let it affect his poetry. When his father Guo Gai was transferred to Sichuan as a censor, pressed by livelihood, he had no choice but to take his wife and children to Sichuan. Only three years later, when he became a professor in Xuzhou, did he bring them back. The poem "To My Three Sons" was written at that time:
"Once gone, we forget each other;
Once near, we cannot bear it.
Children are already before me,
But their faces are barely recognizable.
Overjoyed, I cannot speak;
Tears dry only to smile once.
I know it's not a dream,
But my heart is still unsettled."
In the "Letter of Gratitude for the Position of Professor in Xuzhou," he said: "This fifth-rank salary is enough to support my family of ten mouths. To bring back my wife and children, to gather our spirits, to support the old and carry the young, to make us somewhat human, to eat well and wear warmly, to delay our deaths slightly." Whether in poetry or prose, reading it makes one emotional. Thus, later critics praised this poem: "It flows from an overflowing nature, and its profound language matches it." (from Pan Degu's "Yangyi Zhai Shihua")
He believed that "the greatest danger for a scholar is falsity" (from "Preface to Zhang Shan"), so he shamelessly spoke of his hardships. For example, "Fame cannot save my hungry stomach," "Poverty has led to many debts in poetry, and wine is useless in extreme sorrow," "Often stuck, I think of moving, but hardship makes me regret coming." Thus, Ji Yun praised: "Houshan's poems are full of true words." Lu Wenshao said: "His scenes are all true scenes, his emotions are all true emotions, so he can move people's emotions, making them linger and reflect endlessly." Contemporary Chen Zhensun called him "natural in his charm." What does "natural charm" mean?
"Books are enjoyable to read when read with ease, but guests you expect never arrive.
Worldly affairs often go awry like this, how often does a joyful heart open a hundred years?" (from "Quatrain")
"Common people cannot be driven away, but pleasant guests require effort to invite.
Worldly affairs are often like this, why should my life be filled with joy?" (from "To Huang Chong")
The same sentiment.
Several couplets also read:
"Hair short, worries hasten its white,
Face aging, wines it red."
"Years left, I hate the passing of time,
Sick eyes fear the arrival of spring."
"When the time is peaceful, the news is true,
But I worry about the truth of the news."
"A hundred years of white hair, a single autumn wind."
"After the rain, autumn becomes clear,
Returning clouds let the moon shine."
"Mountains are quiet, clouds form crowns,
Rivers are empty, the moon prints eyebrows."
"Human affairs arise from today,
Cold flowers only carry the fragrance of last year."
"Still have old friends on the cold bed,
Can it bear to dream of the distant sea?"
"On the ninth day, the clear cups white hair,
Ten years as a guest have betrayed the chrysanthemum."
"Snow is about to fall but not yet falling, winter presses spring."
"Cap tilted, frost invades the temples,
Poetry is wonderful, so it doesn't matter if the stone becomes an intestine."
"With three rivers pouring from the pen,
A separate spring blooms in the heart."
"Water flows across Bian and Si, stretching to the sky,
Mountain people from Qing and Qi dazzle the eyes."