Why is The Book of Songs a realistic work and Li Sao a romantic work?

Recommended time of culture and art certification group: 20 17-09-22.

Physically speaking, the characteristics and influence of The Book of Songs are mainly manifested in the following aspects:

First, lyric poetry in The Book of Songs is the mainstream. The Book of Songs is almost all lyric poems except the epic poem in Daya and several chapters in Xiaoya and Guofeng. Moreover, from the perspective of the maturity of poetry art, the level of lyric poetry is obviously higher than that of narrative poetry. And Homer's epic in ancient Greece, which is roughly contemporary with The Book of Songs, is completely narrative. Just as Homer's epic laid the development direction of western literature with narrative tradition as the main one, The Book of Songs also laid the development direction of China literature with lyric tradition as the main one. China's later poems are mostly lyric poems; Besides, lyric poetry has become the main style of China literature.

Secondly, the poems in The Book of Songs, except for a few, fully reflect the real world, daily life and daily experience. There is hardly a mythical world that transcends the human world with fantasy, and there is no special image and experience of gods and heroes (this is the basic material of Homer's epic). There are some joys and sorrows about political turmoil, spring ploughing and autumn harvest, and love between men and women. Later, China's poems and even other styles were characterized by daily life and reality. Daily life, daily events and people are always the central materials of literature.

Thirdly, in connection with the second item mentioned above, The Book of Songs has obvious political and moral color as a whole. Whether it is mainly produced in the upper class of society or in the folk, there are a considerable number of poems, which are closely related to current affairs and politics and criticize the improper behavior and moral corruption of rulers. Although its significance mainly lies in maintaining a reasonable degree of rule and giving people more relaxed living conditions, it is of course valuable for the development of society.

Caring about social and political morality and daring to criticize the corruption of the ruling class should be said to be the Excellence of the Book of Songs. But this problem should be viewed from two aspects. As we analyzed with examples in the last section, this kind of criticism completely stands on the position of socially recognized principles, which fundamentally plays a role in maintaining the stability of the existing order, but it cannot but restrain individual desires and freedoms. Take the poem Rat as an example, it may be a criticism of the extravagant life of the ruler, or it may be a gradual destruction of "etiquette". Regardless of the author's intention, poetry is applicable to both phenomena.

To talk about the influence of this feature of The Book of Songs on later generations, we must first explain that the politics and morality of The Book of Songs have been strengthened through misinterpretation in later generations. Poems that do not directly reflect political and moral issues originally include many love poems, which are all interpreted as works that praise or criticize political and moral issues in the Preface to Han Shi Mao. Therefore, The Book of Songs has become a Confucian moral textbook.

Later poets inherit the characteristics of The Book of Songs and pay attention to social and political morality, which should also be analyzed from two aspects. On the one hand, advocating this feature can correct the excessive tendency of gamification and aestheticism of literature and carry forward the social function of literature; On the other hand, if we overemphasize this point, it will inevitably hinder the diversified development of literature and inhibit the free expression of emotions.

Fourthly, the lyric poems in The Book of Songs are generally restrained when expressing personal feelings, so they appear peaceful. Like Xiang Bo's criticism of "slandering people" and Xiang Mouse's criticism of people who have no manners, their attitude is fierce. However, such examples are not only rare, but also can not be said to be purely "personal feelings", because the author is defending social principles and relying on the collective strength to reprimand a few "bad guys." For example, incorrect rain, the turn of October, the first month and so on. Because the object of criticism is most people, they are already afraid and uneasy. As for expressing personal frustration, war-weariness, homesickness from the army, and even love between men and women, there is generally no strong sorrow and strong joy. The inevitable result is that the lyrics of The Book of Songs are mostly known for their sadness. It is worth noting that the poems of China's descendants are also more common in expressing emotions-sadness.

Restrained feelings, especially sad feelings, are very subtle. It doesn't gush out like strong grief and anger and strong joy, but it is euphemistic and tortuous, ups and downs. Therefore, The Book of Songs is characterized by its lyrical detail and profound meaning. This feature also profoundly influenced China's later poems.

In addition, it needs to be said that although the lyric of The Book of Songs is generally peaceful, it is still sincere and moving, and there are many lively, cheerful and interesting works. Confucianism in later generations said that all the works in The Book of Songs were written for political and moral purposes, but it could not erase the appeal of those lyric works, especially love poems. Therefore, in the era of feudal autocracy, when the moralization tendency and moralization tendency of literature are too serious, poets will also play the authoritative banner of the Book of Songs and demand that their feelings be properly, at least moderately recognized. He Jingming's Preface to the Bright Moon is an example. In "The Peony Pavilion" written by Tang Xianzu, Du Liniang of the boudoir read Guan Ju and longed for love, which is another example. The above mainly discusses several important features of The Book of Songs from the aspects of content, ideological tendency and lyrical features. These characteristics had a profound influence on China's later literature. Let's briefly introduce the characteristics of The Book of Songs from the aspects of language form and expression techniques. The influence of these aspects is different.

The basic sentence pattern of The Book of Songs is four characters, and sometimes there are various sentence patterns from two characters to nine characters. However, the proportion of miscellaneous sentences is very low. Only a few poems are dominated by miscellaneous words, such as Vatan. Based on the four sentences, it can be inferred that the musical melody of singing the Book of Songs at that time was relatively stable and simple. After the Han Dynasty, four-character poems appeared intermittently, but they are no longer an important form of poetry. On the contrary, it is widely used in special poetic styles such as ci fu, ode, praise, ode, admonition and topic.

The Book of Songs often adopts the form of overlapping chapters, that is, between repeated chapters, there are only a few changes in word meaning and literal meaning, resulting in the effect of singing and sighing. This is a feature of folk songs, which can strengthen the expression of feelings. Therefore, it is most commonly used in folk songs such as "National Wind" and "Xiaoya", but rarely appears in political poems such as "Ode to Ya" and "Xiaoya". A typical example, such as Nan Zhou Mix:

Pick and choose, pick and choose. It's a short story to pick up flies and collect them.

Pick and choose and say a few words. Pick and choose, fine print.

Pick and choose, Kan Kan and talk. Pick and choose, make a fool of yourself.

The whole article consists of three chapters and twelve sentences, with only six verbs changed. It not only describes the picking process, but also shows a lively atmosphere through repeated rhythms, which seems to have the flavor of chorus and rotation. Fang Yurun, a man of the Qing Dynasty, said, "Suddenly I heard that the women of the Tian family were in the plain and the sun was shining, and the songs were answering, and the lingering sound was lingering." (The Book of Songs Primitive Man) There is also a lot of room for imagination, but the aesthetic feeling of overlapping epaulettes and repeating sentences is really touching. After the decline of four-character poems, this form was abandoned and can only be seen occasionally. It is often seen in modern songs. This can't be called "influence", but it is related to ancient and modern times.

As a ballad, in order to obtain the aesthetic feeling of phonology, the Book of Songs uses a lot of words such as disyllabic, overlapping rhyme and overlapping words. In the rules of ancient Chinese, these words are mostly adjectives, so they are also helpful to express tortuous and obscure feelings and depict fresh and beautiful nature. For example, in the first chapter of The Book of Songs, Guan Ju and Guan Guan (overlapping words) describe the sound of waterfowl, graceful (overlapping rhyme) represents the beauty of ladies, staggered (double voice) describes the state of aquatic plants, and tossing and turning (overlapping rhyme) describes the situation of being unable to sleep because of lovesickness.

In The Book of Songs, a large number of expressive techniques (especially the beginning of each poem) are used to strengthen the image of the works and achieve good artistic effects. The so-called "Fu" is interpreted by Zhu as "telling the truth" in Shi Zhuan. This includes general statements and layout statements. Generally speaking, except for a few examples such as July, there are few sentences with arrangement in National Wind. There are many large and small scenes in Ya, especially epic. The basic feature of Ci and Fu in Han Dynasty is a large number of expositions. Although there are still many connections between The Book of Songs and Han Fu, it is not unreasonable to say that its original factors originated from The Book of Songs. Poetry in The Book of Songs started with Xing and influenced the folk songs of later generations.