Su Shi 's Friendship And Literature

During the lifetime of Su Shi, his interactions with others connected with literature, can be divided into three types, including the interactions with his "Relatives and Countrymen", "Friends and Colleagues" and "Religious disciples". Su’s interactions with his "Relatives and Countrymen", were most connected with Su Zhe and Wen Tong, with whom Su Shi had many literary "Talking in a rainy night" appointments, which inspired Su Shi so much that this image is often found in his works, and can indicate the course of Su Shi’s ideas of "Returning’home’". Wen Tong was Su Shi’s brother and friend, his bamboo paintings inspired Su Shi to explore and summarize his theories of the arts, during which their friendship strengthened. Su’s interactions with "Friends and Colleagues", were most connected with Huang Tingjian and Qin Guan, they communicated and discussed poetry and ci with Su Shi profoundly. In poetry writing terms, many of Su and Huang’s poems, which were written to each other in a specified rhythm, were works just to show off themselves, however, there are some good poems that really expressed their inner emotions and true friendship; In the field of Ci, Qin chose a different path compared with Su’s, but the core and style of Qin’s ci changed in later times, which reflects the influence of Su Shi. Su’s interactions with the "Religious disciples", were most connected with two Buddhists, namely Dao Qian and Fo Yin. Dao Qian, a monk and poet, inspired Su Shi to add some elements of Zen to his poems. In return, Su Shi gave Dao Qian excellent suggestions,and his serious and fair comments about Dao’s works provide the critics with the needed material nowadays. There are few data left today about Su Shi’s interactions with Fo Yin, but we can find many records of their interesting stories in pseudohistory and anecdotes, and all of these are verified by some official history. Therefore, it gave rise to the stories based on them in the popular literature of the coming ages, and this particular kind of "interactions" became a very good material for writers. It is also a special way of showing their relationship and literature interactions.