The Influence of "Picking Lotus" on Ci and Fu in the Early Tang Dynasty

Lotus Picking Fu is one of the three most representative essays, which describes lotus picking activities in different scenes and expresses the sadness of different characters. The genre belongs to four or six parallel prose, and at the same time it is flexibly combined with the form of Sao prose. The language is beautiful without losing vitality, which overcomes the habit of elegant style in Qi and Liang Dynasties. Different from the previous poems about objects, although it is called the ode to picking lotus, it does not take the description of lotus as the main body of the article. The protagonist is the poet's own feelings and ambitions, not a simple physical or lyrical fu. This is the key point that distinguishes it from other parallel prose. The predecessor's evaluation of this article is: "It provides a rich and useful reference for the evolution and innovation of Tang Fu."

Keywords Wang Bo; Picking lotus; Early Tang dynasty; The characteristics of prose;

Tang Fu is an important stage in the development of China's Ci and Fu. Both the number of works and their ideological core are insurmountable peaks in other dynasties. As a special historical period, the creation of Ci and Fu plays a connecting role in the early Tang Dynasty. On the one hand, it is necessary to get rid of the disadvantages of Ci and Fu in the Han, Wei and Six Dynasties, on the other hand, it is also required that writers in the early Tang Dynasty actively explore new ways for the format and genre of Ci and Fu in the middle and late period. For a long time, in terms of artistic achievements and ideological core of his works, Wang Bo has been regarded by many literary critics as the first of the four outstanding figures in the early Tang Dynasty. This can be seen from Du Fu's poem "Wang Luo Contemporary Style". As one of the most representative poets in the early Tang Dynasty, Wang Bo's articles have the characteristics of connecting the past with the future. As a celebrity of an era, Wang Bo's works are, in a sense, a beacon to reverse the writing style of the era. This paper attempts to analyze the characteristics of lotus-picking fu and its influence on the fu in the early Tang Dynasty.

Innovative stylistic form

"Lotus picking" is a common production activity in Jiangnan. Because of the particularity of its labor scene, it is favored by poets-running water, green leaves, red flowers, beautiful and lively girls and light boats, which constitute a unique and wonderful picture of the south of the Yangtze River. The history of the poet's description of lotus picking can be traced back to Qu Yuan's poem "Make lotus flowers as clothes and pick hibiscus as clothes", which is probably the earliest poem describing lotus picking activities.

Similarly, there are many differences between Xiao Yi's ode to lotus picking of Liang Yuan Emperor and Wang Bo's ode to lotus picking. Xiao Yi's description of picking lotus mainly shows the joy and graceful posture of picking lotus. "You can move, seaweed can hang, the ship can move and open. Erqi's slender waist was tied, and he slowed down. In early summer and late spring, leaves are tender and flowers are early. I am afraid that I will laugh when I touch the skirt, and I am afraid that I will fall down and close it. " This season's handsome men and beautiful women have shaken the tenderness in the boat's heart. The stork-shaped painting boat is winding slowly, and the bird-shaped glass is frequent. The aquatic plants refused to leave with paddles, while the duckweed moved away and let the boat go. Beautiful women swing their delicate waist, but when they want to do it, they stop and look back several times to express their feelings. Summer has just begun, and spring has not yet dispersed. The fresh lotus leaves set off the newly blooming lotus flowers. Laugh in a low voice for fear of getting wet, and hold on to the skirt for fear of the boat capsizing. Xiao Yi's language is exquisite, vivid and expressive, which outlines word for word the joy of picking lotus and the ambiguous atmosphere between boys and girls. The overall style is graceful and soft. The author describes it from the perspective of God. This poem does not directly express the author's feelings, but praises the picture in front of him. The poet in the painting has disappeared, including all his footprints and feelings. Xiao Yi's poem of picking lotus is the representative of lyric poetry in Qi and Liang Dynasties. On the whole, the content is narrow and the pattern is small.

However, Wang Bo's Lotus Picking Fu does not describe a single lotus picking scene, but describes the grand occasion of lotus picking from many angles and directions. First of all, I always write about Jiangnan women picking lotus: "Jin Fan Ying Pu, Luoyi fills Sichuan. Fly the Mulan painting and sail the lotus boat. Ask the son where to go, and gather lotus in the secluded pool. " Compared with the gentle blue boat and gentle and cautious girl under the exquisite brushwork of Emperor Liang Yuan, the girl picking lotus in Wang Bo's works has a more natural and unrestrained temperament, showing the characteristics of a bright and powerful woman in the Tang Dynasty. "English" means the width of the brocade sail, and "Sai" means the number of people picking lotus. "Flying" and "Driving" vividly describe the urgent and capable movements of lotus pickers. Then I wrote lotus picking in different scenes, and then I wrote lotus picking in different scenes: "Princess Hidden in the Golden House, the Lost Maid in the Xuangong" picked lotus because "I cherish the old age and don't know how to hurt the king"; There is a saying that "Zhu Gong is a teenager and a son under the door", "I am anxious to swear and worry about my pet", picking lotus; There are "princes and nobles who make the demon couple live in Shicheng and entertain their friends in Jingu" and pick lotus flowers; There is a "wife righteous south, women believe in Soochow", because "the gentleman wants things suddenly, and the lover wants to go on an expedition"; There are "advocating women's swings" and "I would like to thank you for inviting children, thinking about dressing up and following you". There is "Your Son, Wang Sun" for "looking forward to Zhu Bei's new gift and looking for Dongxi" to pick lotus; Then he kept writing "Picking Lotus". Although it is the signboard of the water town, it is popular all over the world. I feel extremely sad and happy. I am listening to Zheng Ya. "From each paragraph, Wang Bo's language style of describing lotus picking activities of different characters is slightly different with the change of characters' identities. However, on the whole, the language in this paragraph is gorgeous and moving, but it does not lose its charm. The style is orderly and full of energy.

Second, genre changes.

According to the Book of Old Tang Dynasty, "In the second year of Shang Dynasty, I crossed my toes to save my father, and I went out to see the meaning of" Lotus Picking Fu ",which was very beautiful." The beauty of Fu on Picking Lotus is not only reflected in the choice of words and sentences, but also in the special genre of this paper. There are a large number of "Xi" characters in "Fu for Picking Lotus", such as "The embroidered building is covered with green feathers, and the Yao pond is covered with trees and green boats", "The cave is full of purple waves and the mountains are full of green water". Or summer rain embarrassed, cold and awkward. This is the syntactic style of Wang Bo's absorption of Sao-style Fu, and his application of "Xi" to the narrative has played a role in easing the tone and aggravating the tone. As far as this article is concerned, the usage of Sao style fu is generally used in sentences describing scenery. "Xi" is not only a hazy barrier between various images, but also the boundary of the whole picture. Since the publication of Li Sao, Sao-style Fu has emerged one after another, but until the early Tang Dynasty, there were not many writers who really understood the essence of Sao-style Fu and combined it perfectly with their own works, except the four masters of Han Fu. Wang Bo as

At the same time, picking lotus poems preserved the legacy of parallel prose in the Six Dynasties. For example, "there is a young man in the palace, who is a son of the family. Cuifa moth eyebrows, red lips and white teeth. Above Fu Fenlan Hall, in the house of stealing fragrant peppers. Also after the title, I vowed to admire my pet. I'm worried about the treasure I gave and the color I played with. Xiulou, Qingyu tent, Zhou. Clean up the mess and go with the flow. The pool is wide and the algae is thin, and the Pukou is narrow and flat. Blowing the guardian's radial halberd, pick up the list of women. Back to the water, the color of dusk, pick up the lotus and autumn. I would rather be happy than die and sit in my seat for a long time without complaining. " The article is mainly composed of four or six sentences, paying attention to the neatness of the confrontation. This is the inheritance of the legacy of parallel prose in the previous dynasty, and also the development of CET-4 and CET-6 styles. But Wang Bo didn't insist on a formal request. Form serves the content, and Wang Bo mainly uses its temperament here. Sacrificing content and ideas and pursuing gorgeous or quaint forms and rhetoric of parallel prose is one of the important reasons for the rigidity of parallel prose in the Six Dynasties. For example, Xie Zhuang, Yan Yanzhi and others like to use old sayings to express their feelings (such as Yuefu). Since then, others have followed suit, so that the piles are few and varied, difficult and boring, until Wang Jian, Ren Fang and Wang Rong reached the peak. By the early Tang Dynasty, prose was still based on parallel prose and further developed in the direction of four-body and six-body. Wang Bo, as one of the most outstanding poets with the most literary ideals in the early Tang Dynasty, naturally realized this. As a historical work in a special transitional period, Fu on Picking Lotus inevitably has the genre characteristics of the previous generation. However, the four-six style is not synonymous with rigidity. On the contrary, in Wang Bo's case, it once again makes use of the characteristics of parallel prose, such as alternating four or six styles, opposing every other sentence, flat style and sonorous phonology, which makes the article appear swaying and harmonious.

The combination of Sao Style Fu and Liu Si Fu is Wang Bo's choice. On the one hand, the object described in Fu for Picking Lotus is seven sad and happy parting pictures with lotus as the background. By describing seven scenes to start the article, it is obviously inspired by Jiang Yan's Biefu. In the picture, the golden princess, Zhuo Gong teenager, future teenager, scholar, attractive wife and prostitute all have close activities with Lotus. At the same time, it is necessary to describe a large number of objective pictures to express the inner activities and life scenes of the characters. The advantages of Sao style fu, such as easy lyricism and cadence, perfectly meet the needs of content and genre. The symmetry of the four-six-body form arranges many sentences describing the scenery well, and with the harmonious rhythm, it reduces the boredom of reading, so that readers can enjoy the visual scene and feel the feast of hearing. Not sticking to one pattern, combining content and form skillfully and using them flexibly are the success of Fu on Picking Lotus, which is also a valuable inspiration for contemporary writers and future generations. This practice is consistent with Wang Bo's literary ideas. "Wen Chang variant, for microstructure, for micro-sculpture. Blending golden jade, dragon and phoenix, chaotic Rayna Sue; The video calls beauty eccentric and false; Backbone pro, strength is not heard. " Young Wang Bo once made such a remark that hit the nail on the head, and he has been doing it himself ever since. The poem "Picking Lotus" is a typical example.

It is worth mentioning that Wang Bo also put forward the model of "space relativity" here. In this paper, there are two opposing spaces, one is "Fengchi" and the other is "Zeguo is in the water area and represents the people". This "binary opposition" model has opened up a new space for the ci-fu model.

Third, the transformation of social functions.

Since its birth, Wen Fu has been endowed with the mission of "expressing things". Liu Xizai, a poet in A Qing, said: "Fu is different from poets in that there are fewer poems but more feelings, fewer voices and more words." Fu prose has the rhythm of poetry, but its length is different from that of poetry; Fu also has the descriptive function of prose, but it requires more than the format of prose. Generally speaking, Fu is characterized by "prose conveying ambition and writing ambition with things". That is, to express subjective feelings by describing objective things. The predecessors' Erjing Fu and Luoshen Fu are the representatives.

Wang Bo's poems about picking lotus have inherited the creative aim of "expressing feelings with things" of predecessors, but from the perspective of content proportion and lyric methods, "lotus" is only a secondary position in the poems about picking lotus. Expressing inner resentment and ambition is the author's main purpose.

Wang Bo was born into a noble family. As a branch of the Wang family in Taiyuan, his great ambition is the task entrusted to him by his family glory. However, due to the court's strong suppression of the aristocratic forces, the intention to promote the bachelor of the poor family, and its own behavior angered the upper class, the opportunity to return to the court as a literary attendant is very slim. Fu on Picking Lotus was written when he was demoted for the second time. On the way to save his father, the chance of returning to the court was very slim, and the author's anguish can be imagined. At the beginning of Fu on Picking Lotus, he put forward such a view: "The Erqi family is a knowledgeable scholar. The empty song of Zao River is rippling because of Zhang's stagnation. The candle in the bay is rotten, but it is repaired in the field. In the waters, Zeguo is the country and the river is the sea. " This means that lotus is such an expensive plant that it should only live in palaces, not be collected in all rivers and lakes. Connecting with the author's life, it is understandable that Wang Bo compares himself to a lotus flower. There are two opposing concepts in space, one is "Fengchi", that is, the imperial court; One is "the water is the country, the river is the sea", representing the people. Lotus should not grow in the folk, but as a talented "lotus", it should not live in rivers and lakes, but should grow in the court. Then seven different scene descriptions related to lotus picking are introduced. The first six scenes describe different joys and sorrows, and the seventh directly tells the story of the literati describing the lotus (that is, representing themselves). From the second part, emotion is the focus of Wang Bo's description, and lotus flowers and picking lotus flowers are only the background of the story. That is, the description of another plant also meets the requirements of the article. It can be seen that the author has reduced the proportion of "things" here to a very low level, and lyricism has become the protagonist of the article. The author compares himself to the lotus flower, and alludes his emotions to the joys and sorrows, with the lotus flower as the background. This is not a simple lyrical mode, but the subjective emotion of "parting" as the main body, and the original object of praise has been diluted into the background of prose. The objective chanting of things is drawn by subjective emotional expression, which is an innovation of the mode of "chanting things-lyricism" and breaks the inherent writing mode.

In these two spatial modes, Wang Bo in Jianghu has a strong yearning for the court. Among the protagonists of six emotions of sadness and joy, the "palace concubines" and the "minister of guard" both belong to the court, and their sadness and joy are opposite. The intersection of twilight and light hints at the author's hope: Yuji's sorrow that she is "easy to be late when she is old, which hurts the king" is consistent with Qu Yuan's Li Sao and the tradition of "vanilla beauty", expressing the disappointment and frustration that the author and Qu Yuan were forced to leave the court. The bodyguard life of "dying for pleasure at 30, sitting for a long time without complaining" is Wang Bo's ideal-to establish a dynasty with civilization, which is the direct expression of "always leading an honest and clean life in the ravine and always putting your heart on the king"

The social function of Wang Bo's Lotus-picking Fu has far-reaching influence. First of all, the main idea of "Fu on Picking Lotus" is to express one's own thoughts, which accounts for most of the length of the article. Although it is a body-shaped fu, it is quite different from previous works in praising and praising something. Subjective emotion and objective intention are completely integrated. Although its name is Fu on Picking Lotus, its main part is to write about sadness and joy, not to describe lotus, and picking lotus is only the background of this paper. This structure has changed the structure and purpose of chanting things.

Secondly, inherit and carry forward the creative technique of comparing things with people. In Seven Steps Poetry, Cao Zhi used beans and beans to compare his relationship with his brother. On the other hand, Wang Bo compared himself to a lotus flower, expressing his dissatisfaction with the present situation and his expectation for the future. This writing style was later used by Song Dynasty to create Poems of Autumn Lotus. It is worth mentioning that Song Hehe is also an aspiring young man, who wants to gain a foothold in the imperial court by virtue of his literary talent. The difference is that Song was a down-and-out scholar, but he succeeded. In the preface, he explained his reasons for writing: In the first year of God-given, Bachelor Yang Jiong invited him directly to the west of Los Angeles. After entering the cabinet, every time it is difficult to sing, go to the feather forest to fight, the people call the turtle contract, and set up the royal bridge west. Yaochi is crystal clear and red. Wrong, you can rent autumn from spring, see its life, see its glory, cherish its decline, and go to the end of your life without dying. If you are excellent, you can't get a glimpse of it. If Xiang was born in Xiaoxiang Dongting, Ao, that is, Wu Ji and Zheng Nu Wa Tong, their hearts have not yet been fulfilled, and they have all been accepted. I am entrusted by the Millennium, and I am with the breeze, and I am honored at some time and encouraged with you. I'm willing to sing for a long time, and it's also a long time to say "Qiu Shu Lianfu". The different growth environment of lotus is related to its completely different fate, which is consistent with Wang Bo's idea and method of creating lotus-picking fu.

In a word, Wang Bo's Fu on Picking Lotus has outstanding features in language features, genre and layout selection, social functions and so on. In the early Tang dynasty, such a special period of style change, it played a certain role in reversing the direction. It is very pertinent for predecessors to call it "the evolution and innovation of Tang Fu provide rich and beneficial reference".

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Dong Li. Where is the Lotus Born? —— A Study on the Creation Mode of Wang Bo's Poems on Picking Lotus and Ode to Things

Wang Bo, Jiang Qingyi, Wang Xiandu, Wang Zian [Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House]

Concha Joe. Chronology of parallel prose in early Tang dynasty

Tamia Liu Xiao Zixian's Parallel Prose Criticism

Gao Dong, Ruan Yuan, Vae. Tang Wen [Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House]

Ma, Huang Jun. History of ancient Chinese literature.

Zhao Youwen. Cao Zhiji proofreading