Cang Lang Shi Hua And The Construction Of Ming Dynasty's Poetics

Cang Lang Shi Hua by YanYu in the Southern Song Dynasty is an important poetic works of ancient Chinese literary criticism. The later poetics had been obviously influenced by this woks.Many of the Ming Dynasty's poetics based on the Yan Yu' made further development. Mr. Fang Xiaoyue once evaluated Cang Lang Shi Hua like this:"It is surprised that his small book prounced so greater influnces. Ming Dynasty's scholars from Li Dongyang to Wang Shizhen were influnced by the poetics of Yan Yu, though their extensions of Yan Yu's poetics were different from person to person"①.Some of the Ming Dynasty's poetics based on Yan Yu's established their own opinions such as back- to- the ancient ideology.They agreed to Yan Yu's view of "The first righteousness" and put forward the slogan that "Prose need to learn from Qin Han Dynasty's;Poetries need to learn from Tang Dynasty's", in order to restore ancient ways of poetry creation. Others raised their views by expressing approval or opposition to Yan Yu's poetics, in order to assert their own poetics such as Hu Yinglin.He pointed out the theory that "Han Wei Dynasty's poetries did not rely on enlightenmenf"of Yan Yu's was not exactly accurate and put forward that "It was incorrect that Yan Yu always evaluated Wei Dynasty's poetries the same as the Han Dynasty's". He thought that Wei Dynasty's poetries were not better than Han Dynasty's and believed that "Poetry's style declined along with the time changed". Visiblely, Yan Yu's poetics had an significant impact on Ming Dynasty's.This paper discusseses important role of Cang Lang Shi Hua on Ming Dynasty's poetries,mainly based on influences of Cang Lang Shi Hua on Ming Dynasty's poetries.In our point, Ming Dynasty's poetics problem were influnced by Cang Lang Shi Hua mainly including the relationship between "emotion "and "style ",the theory of poetry distinguish and the theory of Xingqu (the theory of Aesthetic Delight).Ming Dynasty's poetics that the relationship between "emotion "and "style " were affected and inspired by Yan Yu's theories that "poetries were used to express the author's feelings ", "think highly of the best rules of poetry creation" and so on. Ming Dynasty scholars paid attention to the feeling expression of author,such as Xu Zhenqing's concept of "emotions determine works'style" and Du Mu's view of "talent". In addition, Poetry School of Wu Zhong's Zhu Yunming and Zhu Chengde equally valued the author's feelings. In the way of poetry's rules leraning, Xie Zhen pionted out: "Yan Canglang believed:'Imitating the best part,we can learn the better part;Imitating general part, we can only learn the worst'"①. He thoght the best ways of learning were mainly to learn from predecessors. Ming Dynasty's scholars expressed different views on Yan Yu's related poetics.Ming Dynasty's "the theory of poetry distinguish" was manily influnced by Yan Yu's view of "The first righteousness","Han Wei Dynasty's poetries did not rely on enlightenment" and "The evaluations of poetries were influnced by era". Li Mengyang considered:"Although the ancient tone vanished in Tang Dynasty, Tang Dynasty's tone could be be singed by musical Instruments from that time.However, pepole in Song Dynasty overly cared the principle, Tang Dynasty's tone also vanished "②.Dominator in Ming Dynasty carried out the "Li Theory" which began from Song Dynasty and suppressed people's thinking.Moreover, "Tai Ge Ti" lack of vitality hardly reflected the author real individualized feelings, so Ming Dynasty's poetries proposed unsophisticated and vibrant previous works which included the nature of "The first righteousness".The Ming Dynasty's theory about Aesthetic Delight inherited and developed Yan Yu's.They explored the connotation of the theory of Aesthetic Delight, studied ways to creat poetics images and indeed found some concrete and practical techniques of poetry creation. Wang Tingxiang said:"Poetry image should be clear, not blurred. One can see the imagine of moon in water and shadow in the mirror, but can not touch them "③. He explored the image of Aesthetic Delight directly refered to Yan Yu's theory. Xie Zhen stressed that we could achieve wonderful Poetry Realm through "the obscure ways ". Hu Yinglin was aslo extremely in favor of Yan Yu's theory of "Aesthetic Delight". He proposed "Xing Xiang Feng Shen" to explian Yan Yu's theory of "Aesthetic Delight". Of course when they quoted from Yan Yu's views to establish or discuss their theories, sometimes they only saw one aspect of Yan Yu's poetics. So there may be some problems in their theories. As "Soul Theory " which advocated poetries should be far from confucian ritual and not limited to moral feelings to express one's emotion.It produced a number of adverse effects; "Style School " overmuch emphasised methods and eventually leaded to the imbalance bewteen "feelings"and "style".Cang Lang Shi Hua had a significant impact on Ming Dynasty's poetics.