A Research On Yan Yu’s "the Mirror Metaphor Theory"

"Analyzing poetics metaphorically with Zen" is a main method of poetic criticism in Yan Yu’s poetics. He not only introduces the way of thinking from Zen, but also uses Zen Buddhism terminology on the argument language. For example, he defined poetry’s beauty in Glorious age of tang as "Interest" and illustrated it with Zen term such as "the voice in the air, the color in the hue, the moon in the water, the shadow in the mirror", all this have expressed an artistic conception which is hazy, implicit and infinite in charm. The image like the moon reflected in water is often found in the Buddhist texts, the characteristics that they are fantasy and it is difficult to grasp are so suitable to express Buddhism advocates such as "all is untruth " that people from Buddhism Zen used to talk about them, it is used to compared to the nothingness of life and everything which is delusive.Yan Yu taken advantage of they characteristics that is hard to grasp and described the enormous appeal of poetic realm, it is proper.Yan Yu is deeply infected by Buddhism thought and Taoist ideas, he makes use of metaphor about mirror in his poetics to assimilate the beauty of art form in poetry created in Tang Dynasty, such as compared "moon in the water "and "image in the mirror" to perfect poem’s field that comprehend thoroughly. Actually before this, the metaphor about mirror has been widely used in ancient China. They not only have rich meanings, but also have varied usage. The main reason for this phenomenon is the diverse characteristics of mirror and the effect of the metaphor. The mirror itself has many characteristics, such as the characteristics of truthfully reflected object as the Chuang-Tzu said "reflect and not hide"; the characteristics of vanity; the characteristics of light and unpredictable.And this kind of rhetoric of analogy effect is obvious, it makes method of argument cryptic and implicative, it also makes something vivid when explain it. Good metaphors make the article good and it is popular for the general reader.Metaphor about mirror is a perfect combination made up of mirror with varied characteristic and metaphor which possess obvious rhetorical effect.When people use the variety characteristics of the mirror to illustrate thing and reason, various types of usage of Metaphor about mirror appeared.Open the Chinese and foreign literature, we can find the usages of metaphor about mirror, whether in prose fiction or in art theory. Except that, they showed variety, such as mirror or mirror image was assimilated to heart, works, person and nature, etc. The metaphor is rich and colorful. In our country, metaphor about mirror was more used in Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. In the three literature texts, the case of metaphor about mirror emerged in endlessly, and the number of example that compared the heart to the mirror is most abundant, because all they attach great importance to the heart cultivation. Though the thoughts of Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism is different, they accept the mirror features and like to use metaphor about mirror to express their thoughts. All this reflect the phenomenon that metaphor about mirror has used maturely and universally."An illusion" has the features of unpredictable and pays attention to show a kind of effect which is implicative and hazy. It is very suitable for using in heavy meaning school of literature and art performance, so it is common in the works of poetry and poetry theory that have performance of artistic conception. Yan Yu thinks the beauty of "interest" is through, but it is hard to described in detail and understand clearly the implicit mean and endless poetic realm. Therefore, metaphor about mirror appeared, it not only impresses a person the kind of familiar feeling, but also gives a person infinite image space. It has infinite aftertaste and is often talked about by later generations. This is simply one aspect that understanding from the poetic artistic conception. But when we contact all kinds of application of metaphor about mirror with his poetics proposition closely linked to the "interest", we can find that his metaphor of "an illusion " is actually could comprehend with his several other poetics together, such as the moment of reflecting corresponding instant of wonderful comprehend; mediating effect of mirror corresponding tool function of poetic language, etc. It has greatly enriched the aesthetic connotation of "an illusion". Contacting Yan Yu’s main poetics ideas with metaphors closely together is worthy of our attention and discussion. His metaphor about mirror has important significance and has a great effect on later generations, but at the same time, it also has some limitations and shortcomings. About this, we can know it by having some comparative analyses with other metaphor about mirror.