Study On Bai Juyi's Literary Interpretations Of Classics

Bai Juyi was one of the famous literati of the Tang Dynasty and one of the representatives of the New Yuefu Movement.Influenced by the study of fighting notes and commentaries about the sentences and phrases and anti-floating Chinese style in the Middle and Late Tang Dynasty,he used Literary Interpretation of Classics to interpret classics such as Confucianism,Buddhism,and Taoism to integrate three religions.The literary interpretation of classics has had a profound influence on the ideological composition of the late Tang Dynasty scholars such as Bai Juyi,Han Yu,and Liu Zongyuan,and has played an important role in the academic transformation of the Tang and Song dynasties.Literary Interpretation of Classics(hereinafter LIC for short)refers to a classics interpretation mode,which is used to express personal thoughts,emotions,and experiences through context quotations and interpretations of classics by using various genres of broad literary works as the carrier and using literary thinking methods.Different from Neo Confucian Classical Hermeneutics which was built in the Han Dynasty,focusing on notes and commentaries about the sentences and phrases as the main form,laying particular stress on exegesis of characters and things,and emphasizing to interpret classics from politics and religion angles,LIC pays more attention to elaboration of righteousness,reasons and expression of emotion,and has more free and open style.As it is free from notes and commentaries about the sentences and phrases,and extends the space of interpretation of classics,LIC plays a positive role in promoting new theories and new ideas.In the era of Neo Confucian Classical Hermeneutics declining,as the main mode to interpret classics in the middle and late Tang Dynasty,LIC played an important role in the formation process of individual and social thoughts.LIC had always existed in the Chinese classics interpretation tradition,but it was unprecedented in the Middle and Late Tang Dynasty.There were two reasons for this:First,after the Five Confucian Classics enacted,Neo Confucian Classical Hermeneutics in the Tang Dynasty gradually became learning of memorization,and lost vitality on the classics interpretation and innovation of ideas and theories.In the time when notes and commentaries about the sentences and phrases were unpopular,Neo Confucian Classical Hermeneutics which occupied the core position of classics interpretation,was gradually abandoned.Intellectuals in the middle and late Tang Dynasty urged a new mode of classics interpretation to generate new theories and new ideas,so as to solve the problems of spiritual confusion and messy social order at that time,and this created conditions for the prevalence of LIC.Second,the imperial examination system took classical thoughts as the examination content and poetry,fu,appointment,judgment and so on as a form,which closely linked classics with literature.Since the reign of Empress Wu,with the prevailing of selecting talents by poetry and fu,in a social atmosphere that can be called a “literary worship”,literature had become the main intermediary of interpersonal communication.Also,literature and literati had gained a high status.The social and cultural background of the Tang Dynasty also gradually turned from Confucianism to literariness.With the rise of ancient prose in mid Tang Dynasty,literature ideas of attaching equal importance to both literary forms and contents i n the early stage of the Tang Dynasty had got its revival,and then people gradually started a new trend against frivolous and gorgeous writing style.Therefore,literature harmonized with Confucianism again.In the context of this era,LIC dominated by the scholars in the Tang Dynasty gradually replaced the prevailing Neo Confucian Classical Hermeneutics mode and became the dominant form of classics interpretation in the middle and late Tang Dynasty.As a famous literati in the Tang Dynasty and a representative of the new poems movement,Bai Juyi was also influenced by this trend,and LIC became his main mode to interpret Confucianism,Buddhism,Taoism classics.By investigating Bai Juyi's quotes,explanation and absorption of Confucian,Taoist and buddhist classics,we can see LIC focus on expression of personal opinion,and interpret in a free and open style.As he attached great importance to express personal opinion,when interpreting classics,Bai Juyi usually paid less attention to the original meaning of classical articles and previous comments,but interpreted the literal meaning to straightly get the righteousness.This interpretation mode was consistent with DAN-ZHAO school's style,that is to say,giving up commentaries for classics and being original in conception.It helped to cast off notes and commentaries about the sentences and phrases and through classics interpretation to generate new theories and new ideas,but it was easy to make the classic texts lose sanctity and became materials to support personal opinions.On the other hand,owing to free and open interpretation style,Bai Juyi paid attention to free association and emotional expression hence lacking rigorous,meticulous theoretical analysis and frequently ignored the differences and contradictions between different classic s.Through free association,the classic articles with originally contradicted ideas had a relationship with each other,and being analogy,equal to each other and mutual interpretation occurred.LIC has the following advantages: firstly,it helps to break the barrier of the inherent interpretation;secondly,it can produce novel insights like “flashes”;thirdly,it is easy to understand,full of emotional,and easy to accept;fourthly,it can be used to relieve the tense contradiction between different classic s.The defects of LIC are listed as the following: first,the understanding of classic articles tends to deviate from the classic original meaning;second,classics often turn to be materials;third,it lacks rational and rigorous theoretical analysis;fourth,it ignores the practice of classical principles;fifth,it is difficult to form a system of new theories and new ideas.Because he mainly adopted LIC to interpret classics,Bai Juyi's thoughts mutually blended the Confucianism,Buddhism and Taoism,and had a loose structure.The vast majority of Bai Juyi's ideas were formed by the mutual influence of a number of classics and several schools,but a single classic or one school.Though the different sources of thoughts had differences and contradictions in contents,Bai Juyi resolved differences and contradictions through free association to achieve the unity of their forms,which means that Bai Juyi's thoughts had relatively complex contents and loose structure.He could freely access different ideas,in response to different reality situation and practical problems.LIC was adopted by Bai Juyi as well as most of the literati in the middle and late Tang Dynasty.As important characters of thought transformation of the Tang and Song Dynasty,Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan were included.In the middle and late Tang Dynasty when LIC was prevailing,there were some new ideas occurring,most of which developed at random,usually even being conflicted with the classics.In early stage of the Northern Song Dynasty,Ouyang Xiu as a representative of the scholars,continued using LIC and claimed “using the prose to express his views and pursuing to hand his work down”.However,Sima Guang,Wang Anshi,Su Shi,Zhou Dunyi,Cheng Yi and others began to consciously reflect on it trying to establish a more reasonable mode of classics interpretation.In the period of Southern Song Dynasty,Philosophical Neo Confucian Classical Hermeneutics replaced LIC,becoming a mainstream mode of classics interpretation,and thus academic transformation of the Tang and Song Dynasties completed.The academic transformation of the Tang and Song dynasties was completed in the positive source of classical thought and mutual reference and absorption.There was no doubt that LIC had broken the barriers between the classic s,broadened the horizon and promoted the integration of different academic ideas.In order to solve practical problems,different classics were interpreted and discussed in the same context.Although there were weaknesses in the mixture of ideas,less acc urate discussions,and even contradictions,the advantages and disadvantages of different classics were revealed at the same time,which created good conditions for the classics to learn from each other and absorb each other.Philosophical Neo Confucian Classical Hermeneutics in the Song D ynasty is sublation of LIC in the middle and late Tang Dynasty.It overcomes defects of LIC such as ignoring tradition,awkward analysis,no system and even self-judgment;on the other hand,it inherits characteristics of LIC such as focusing on personal experience and clear philosophical expounds,and conversing attention to life experience and emotion and putting emphasis on mind cultivation.Scholars of the Song Dynasty used Philosophical Neo Confucian Classical Hermeneutics to interpret the classics and paid more attention to the cultivation of mind,the analysis of righteousness,and the ability to practice.In a word,during academic transformation of the Tang and Song Dynasty,the transformation of classics interpretation is not directly from Exegetical Neo Confucian Classical Hermeneutics of the Han and Tang Dynasty to Philosophical Neo Confucian Classical Hermeneutics of the Song Dynasty,but with LIC prevailing in the middle and late Tang Dynasty as transition segment.Starting from classics interpretation mode,this study not only widens new field of vision to reasonably explain for us the characteristics of scholars' thoughts in the middle and late Tang Dynasty,but also provides a new train of thought to further study academic transformation of the Tang and Song Dynasty.