A Study Of Wang Anshi's Yongwu Poetry

Though the composition of Yongwu Poetry dates back to the early Qin Dynasty, the concept of Yongwu Poetry as a category of poetry only came into being in Song Dynasty. The concept of Yongwu Poetry as shown in the compiling, illuminating of them by the ancient Chinese literati was quite general, and thus seemed to include various kinds of poetry. Nevertheless, we can still find among them a relatively specific definition of Yongwu Poetry, that is, Yongwu Poetry are poems in which mostly natural objects, such as birds, fish, trees and flowers, are depicted. This paper makes a distinction between Yongwu Poetry in a broad sense and that in a narrow sense. In its narrow sense, Yongwu Poetry limits the range of natural objects to be depicted and ensures the celebrating of these objects the main body in the poems, which characterize this kind. On the contrary, Yongwu Poetry in its broad sense does not have this limit on the range of objects to be depicted, but require the poet's macroscopic description of the object.The traditional requirements and standards of judgment for Yongwu Poetry are that fine Yongwu Poetry are good at expressing sentiment, and keeps its true meanings half revealed. Thus, poems without expressing certain sentiment were laugh at for they were like "riddles". To compose a fine Yongwu Poetry, the poet must know how to keep the balance between description of objects and expressing his sentiment. Expressing without description may be away from the point, while over description of objects runs the risk of making expressing unnecessary. It really needs flexible tactics...