About What are the characteristics of the aesthetic style of Shengtang poetry

The Sheng Tang style is a term of literary criticism in the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, referring to the general style of poetry in the Sheng Tang period. In the Song Dynasty, Yan Yu's "Canglang Poetry" and other writings held Sheng Tang poetry in the highest regard, pointing out that Sheng Tang poetry is characterized by "both strong and powerful writing, but also rich and thick weather" (Reply to the Book of Wu Jingxian in Lin'an by Jishu), which was elaborated in his poetic discourses. Later, the Ming and Qing poetic theorists, following Yan Yu's words, often take the majestic and thick (sometimes called majestic) as the characteristics of Shengtang poetry, and call it Shengtang weather.

The majestic and muddy is indeed a characteristic of the poetry of the Tang Dynasty. The poetic styles of the Southern Dynasties and the early Tang Dynasty were generally characterized by softness and softness, and by the lack of a majestic atmosphere, which was abandoned by the poets of the Sheng Tang Dynasty. After the Sheng Tang poetry, some of the middle and late Tang poems, some of them are on the side of easy and soft, such as Dali ten geniuses, Bai Juyi, Jia Island, Yao He, etc., lack of majestic; some of them are on the side of robust, such as Han Yu, but due to the deliberate pursuit of the strange and dangerous, lack of muddy nature, so the majestic is really a Sheng Tang poems distinguished from the beginning of the Tang and the middle and late Tang poems of the prominent features. Yan Yu most respected Sheng Tang poetry, in the Sheng Tang poetry most respected Li Bai, Du Fu two big. In Canglang Poetry Review, Yan Yu described the poems of Li and Du as "like jin ji [鳷(zhī)], a bird of legend, which breaks the sea. (The great bird) breaks the sea, and the fragrant elephant crosses the river," in praise of its majesty. Yan Yu also emphasized that poetry should be written in a natural way, without showing traces of rhetorical axe and chiseling, so-called "like a gazelle hanging by its horns, without a trace to be found" (Canglang Poetry - Poetry Debate), and believed that Shengtang poems were outstanding in this regard. Yan Yu vigorously promoted the Shengtang poetry style, not only because the Shengtang poems are really well written, but also its era background. In the Song Dynasty, the most influential school of poetry in Jiangxi Province was based on some of Du Fu's late chapters and Han Yu's and Meng Jiao's poems, which were written in a lean and rigid style and lacked the beauty of natural compositions. In the late Southern Song Dynasty, the Yongjia Siling Poetry School, which was popular in the late Southern Song Dynasty, followed the methods of Jia Dao and Yao He, and its atmosphere was narrow and lacked a majestic and broad atmosphere. Yan Yu strongly advocated that poetry should be based on the Sheng Tang Dynasty, with the intention of criticizing contemporary poetic styles and making up for the shortcomings.

Saying that the poetry of the Sheng Tang Dynasty is majestic and thick, it is in terms of its overall features and main tendencies. Generally speaking, most of the poems in the Sheng Tang Dynasty are strong, but some of the poems, especially those of Wang Wei and Meng Haoran, have a light and leisurely style, which is not strong, although they are also natural. After all, this kind of poetry in the Sheng Tang poetry only accounted for a minority. The first is that the first is the first to be a "good" one, and the second is the first to be a "good" one.

The reasons for the formation of the Sheng Tang weather are twofold. One is the grandeur of the poets of the Sheng Tang Dynasty. Poets faced with a strong country, economic and cultural prosperity at that time, most of the broad-minded, spirited, hoping to build a career. They liked to describe the magnificent mountains and rivers of the motherland, the border of the magnificent scenery, the tension of the battle and their own lofty aspirations. They pursued the magnificent poetry of "whales and the blue sea" (Du Fu's "Playing for Six Extremities"). This formed the majestic style of Sheng Tang poetry. The second is the inheritance and development of the excellent poetic tradition of the previous generation. The poets of the Shengtang Dynasty tried their best to eliminate the frivolous poetic style from the Southern Dynasty to the Early Tang Dynasty, emphasized on learning from the ancient poems of Han and Wei Dynasties and the Lefu poems, and paid attention to carrying forward the excellent poetic style of the Jian'an era of the end of the Han Dynasty, which was bright and robust. From the inheritance relationship of poetry itself, the majestic character of Sheng Tang poetry, thanks to this.

Part of the Shengtang poetry, more fully reflecting the era of the Tang empire's strong period, but the Shengtang meteorology and the Shengtang era is not the same thing. The Sheng Tang in literary history refers to the two dynasties of Emperor Xuanzong and Suzong of the Tang Dynasty, which lasted about fifty years. In the late Xuanzong period, the country began to decline due to political corruption, and in the middle of the Anshi Rebellion, there was even more social upheaval, and people's livelihoods withered. However, the poems of the late Shengtang period, as represented by Du Fu, were still rich in eloquent and majestic features. For example, Du Fu's poem "Looking at Yue" was written in the early part of the Sheng Tang Dynasty, which certainly demonstrates his grandiose ambition to "reach the highest peaks and see the smallest mountains". His poem "Climbing the Ci'en Temple Pagoda with the Dukes", written on the eve of the An Shi Rebellion, expresses the precarious situation of the Tang Empire and the poet's concern, but it is still a majestic poem. In his later years, Du Fu wrote two poems, "Ascending a Building" and "Ascending to a High Place", which expressed the decline of the Tang Dynasty under the invasion of foreigners and the poet's feeling of being in his twilight years, but the realm is still majestic and expansive. There are many more examples of this kind. The poems of Du Fu in his later years were often hailed by poets of the Ming and Qing dynasties as masterpieces of the Tang Dynasty. Many poems written by Li Bai in his later years after the Anshi Rebellion also have a majestic style. In the latter part of the Tang Dynasty, the face of the times changed greatly, but the mentality formed by Li and Du in the early period did not disappear, and the bright and robust poetic style they pursued did not disappear, so they were still able to write a lot of eloquent poems.

The Tang Dynasty is the golden age in the history of Chinese poetry, and the Sheng Tang poetry is the peak in the history of Tang poetry. The weather of the Sheng Tang poems, characterized by majesty and mellowness, has a high aesthetic value.

The Sound of Sheng Tang

Refers to the Tang Dynasty from the Kaiyuan to the Dali period, the heyday of Tang poetry, which is called Sheng Tang by the stager of Tang poetry, with famous poets Wang Wei, Meng Haoran, Li Bai, Du Fu, Gao Shi, Cen Sen and so on. During the reign of Emperor Xuanzong Kaiyuan and Tianbao of the Tang Dynasty, until the outbreak of the Anshi Rebellion, the Tang Dynasty was a time of high social prosperity and rich artistic atmosphere. After more than a hundred years of preparation and gestation, Tang poetry finally reached its peak. Among the four stages of Tang poetry, namely, the beginning, the flourishing, the middle and the end, the Shengtang was the shortest, but its achievements were the most brilliant. During this period, not only did the great poet Li Bai appear, but a large number of talented poets also emerged. Many of the poems that have been popular and widely recited over the centuries were produced during this period. Passionate, bold and unrestrained, with a rich and intense romantic atmosphere, is the main feature of the poetry of the Sheng Tang Dynasty; and even the quiet and beautiful works, but also is full of anger, glittering. This is the envy of future generations, "the sound of the Sheng Tang Dynasty".