How "bad" is Qianlong's poem?

How many poems does Gan Long have? Rotten? woollen fabric

Among the national leaders in China, the emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty loved to write and write.

Gan Long is not only an expert on snacks, but also the person who wrote the most poems in the history of China. According to statistics, there are 43,584 poems written by Gan Long, which is almost equal to a complete Tang poem.

For such an achievement, Qianlong himself is quite proud. In the last year of his life, he proudly declared: "I look forward to nine years. What are the accumulated articles that are different (equal) from the poets of the whole Tang Dynasty? Isn't it just a story of Yilin? " 」

It's a pity that the Story of Yilin written by Gan Long went bankrupt completely in the contemporary era. When we talk about Qianlong today, whether the speaker really has the ability to distinguish literature or not, his poems and tastes have become a laughing stock.

How bad are Qianlong's poems? What's the main problem? How to criticize him in the right posture?

Where are Gan Long's poems rotten?

Gan Long has a lot of bad poems, which is the common sense of most literature and history lovers. It's just that his poems are rotten, but there is a long-term lack of positive answers, and most popular explanations are difficult to establish.

For example, some so-called Qianlong poems that have been circulating on the Internet for a long time are regarded as evidence of their poor level:

One, two, three or four, five, six, seven or eight.

Nine dollars, ten dollars, eleven dollars, all of which have fallen out.

You can see the sawtooth of the city wall from a distance, and you can see the sawtooth of the city wall from a distance.

If you turn the city wall upside down, you won't see it above, but you will see it below.

In fact, these poems can't be found in the Complete Works of Leshan Hall and the Collection of Imperial Poems by Qianlong. They are just fictional jokes and have nothing to do with Qianlong.

Another way to look at it is to start with quantity. Intuitively, since there are so many poems written by Qianlong, the quality is naturally unsightly.

Yang Wanli, a great poet in the Southern Song Dynasty, wrote more than 20,000 poems in his life. In his later years, Lu You wrote poems as a diary. More than half of the nearly 10,000 poems handed down from ancient times were written by high-density old people, and even left a failure of "washing feet and going to bed really fast".

Lu You has always been a patriotic poet, but patriotic themes only account for a small part of his poems.

However, their status is still far beyond those little poets who have worked hard all their lives. It can be seen that the number of creations is not necessarily related to their overall level.

So, where are the rotten poems of Qianlong?

To answer this question, we need to use traditional poetics to examine a large number of his poems. For a long time, only Tan Yi Lu by Qian Zhongshu has made professional comments on this.

Qian Zhongshu

Qian Zhongshu pointed out that the technical characteristics of Ganlong's poems include "putting sentences in place", entanglement and piling up of sentences. His fiercest criticism of Gan Long was directed at his abuse of function words: "Emperor Gaozong of the Qing Dynasty also used prose as poetry, which encouraged procrastination and made people sick"; "Those who are sour and those who regard literature as the ugliness of poetry are all six episodes of the Qing emperor. 」

Why does Qian Zhongshu hate Gan Long so much? How does the abuse of function words affect the artistry of his poems?

This should start with the concepts of "language assistance" and "writing like poetry".

In traditional literature, "function words" and "language help" refer to words that have no practical significance and are used to strengthen emotional and logical relations, such as "zhi", "Hu", "zhe", "ye", "qi", "or", "suo" and "yi". Before the Middle Ages, it was most common in prose styles such as historical biography, strategic theory, preface and postscript.

Function words are widely used in Preface to Lanting Collection.

Poetry in the early Tang Dynasty seldom used function words in couplets. After the mid-Tang Dynasty, the theory of "taking prose as poetry" rose and advocated writing poetry in prose sentences, and its application scope gradually expanded. In this kind of poems, function words can strengthen mood and cohesion logic, and make narration and discussion smooth. Such as Su Shi's "Cang Cang Shu Zui Mo Tang", one of the top grades:

Life begins with literacy, but you can forget your name.

Why use cursive script to praise speed? It's sad to open the book.

I laugh every time it tastes good. When did you get this disease?

It is fun to say that fun is fun, which is no different from a leisurely trip.

But here in Qianlong, "taking literature as poetry" was completely read as a crooked scripture.

Gan Long loved prose syntax in his poems, and almost all poems in his later years used function words. However, the use of this technique has nothing to do with the aesthetic feeling of language, such as the following works in the Collection of Imperial Poems (empty word is bold):

Shen Xiu advised me not to write poetry. I know poetry is not poetry.

However, after several banquets, I spent my leisure time.

With a secretary, there is nothing in the past.

There is only one person, saying that it is only the husband?

However, it can only be so, and sincerity is also good.

Just stay here a little longer and be tolerant.

There's no need to beg me before it's a mess

There are many good things, but they are not good things.

This dynasty governs the river, together with Jin Fuzi Sule.

More urgent than Jin and Fu Tu.

As far as it is concerned, it is unparalleled.

Just close the three dams. Too confident?

These things, which only appear in the form of poetry, are either as boring as village cadres' speeches, or as "so much" and "too confident", which makes people see through the embarrassment of forcibly making sentences. No wonder Qian Zhongshu called it "taking writing as the ugliness of poetry" and criticized it deeply.

Why did Ganlong write this poem?

In fact, the abuse of function words is only the epitome of the collapse of Qianlong's poetic style.

China's poems are good at describing images and integrating feelings with scenery, which largely determines the poetic quality of a poem. However, in the poems in the late Qianlong period, the description of images was completely marginalized, and there were no images in many works. Even the works of flower viewing in Kwun Tong are written in a running account, putting on airs and complaining:

Last August and September of the villa, Gui Xianju later observed it.

Autumn is as late as yesterday, and Guiju pities two negative periods.

Without Chi Pan, he lived poetically and knew the years in detail.

Tomorrow, yesterday and today, I will not live. When I am old and strong, I will be more tired.

It is said that fresh people are ashamed to look at him, but they have not forgotten me.

In pairs, I would like to sing the wind and dew.

However, Qianlong was confident in this writing, and even publicly declared that "chanting all day long does not involve scenery, so we should pay attention to our daily life when chatting in seven words." 」

Knowing this, it is not difficult to understand why Gan Long abused function words and why his works were severely criticized.

Because Qianlong doesn't care about creating artistic conception at all, he just writes his feelings into five-word or seven-word sentences, and can only use a large number of function words to organize syntax and rhyme. Such poems are naturally poetic.

His feelings are nothing more than hard work, love for the people, modesty and introspection, concern for people's livelihood and other fixed routines. The content is monotonous and boring, the grammar is bad, plus the wholesale output of dozens of songs a day and the attitude of feeling good about yourself, it is hard not to be rejected.

Another hobby of Qianlong is to write poems on various cultural relics or artifacts, especially without self-knowledge. The picture shows Fuchun Shan Jutu? A part of Zi Ming Juan was identified as a fake in modern times, but it was regarded as genuine by Qianlong.

In addition to the above viewpoints, there are people who attack Qianlong's literary level by saying that "Ci Chen takes the place of pen". However, since the works in The Collection of Imperial Poems are so unbearable and the rotten methods are highly similar, it is meaningless to investigate whether individual poems are polished by poets or ghostwritten by poets.

Moreover, these characteristics, which are regarded as bad poems by modern people, are actually the result of Qianlong's intentional pursuit.

The Evolution History of Decadent Poetry

Unlike most people's prejudices, Gan Long received a top education in Chinese studies since childhood, but there were many standard works when he was young. For example, the following ancient poem is his work when he was a prince:

Autumn sun and autumn wind rise, and Qian Shan Wanshan receives red and purple.

Nanyuan is flat and cold, and gauze is in the sky during the day.

Autumn stopped when I was old, and I haven't been to Nanhaizi for many years.

I think of the old tour again. Is it really fun to watch the hunting heart?

When Qianlong was a prince, he dressed up as a scholar.

When Qianlong was a prince, he dressed up as a scholar.

In fact, Ganlong's poems completely follow the deteriorating law.

Some researchers read Ganlong's poems on New Year's Day every year in chronological order, and found that Ganlong's attitude towards poems in his early years was quite different from that in his later years. In the first few years after he ascended the throne, he wrote very few poems. After ten years of Qianlong (1745), the number of poems increased gradually every year.

Gan Long's early style is more similar to the traditional court poems in Tang Dynasty, and the above-mentioned characteristics of bad poems are more obvious in his later works. Twenty years later (1755), it was discovered that his habit of abusing function words became more and more serious. The worst poems written by Qianlong are almost all his later years.

For example, in the fifty-seventh year of Qianlong (1799), there is a famous saying: "There are only two towers left today, and when they are finished, they will be destroyed." If you are looking for Buddhist relics and silk hair, you don't know Manjusri Bodhisattva and Buddha. 」

Why are Qianlong's poems getting worse and worse?

Different from the general impression, Gan Long did not become an emperor and gave up his poetic art. On the contrary, he often wrote down his reflections on the old manuscripts in his poems. The change of his poetic style comes from long-term study and thinking.

His research objects are all celebrities in the history of literature: Du Fu, Yuan Zhen and Bai Juyi.

The poet whom Qianlong admired most was Du Fu, who paid tribute to him on many occasions. However, Gan Long's understanding of Du Fu's advantages is not the clever use of syntactic rules, but that each of his poems can reflect the political stance of loyalty to the monarch and patriotism. In contrast, Li Bai was criticized as free and loose: "What do you think of Du Li's inferiority and superiority? It's best to be comfortable and be a gentleman. 」

Du Fu has a kind of works, which are called "the history of poetry" because they reflect the historical events at that time, and are especially praised by Qianlong. In his later years, Gan Long said that his poetic aim was: "Ode to non-romantic words, and there must be poems in every major political code? Fang's History of Poetry is of great significance. 」

That is to say, the reason why Gan Long's poems only pay attention to narrative reasoning and ignore the description of artistic conception, and even write down the feelings of daily remembrance is the result of studying Du Fu's History of Poetry.

Another feature of the History of Poetry written by Gan Long in his later years is to attach a long footnote to the poems worthy of recollection, and specify relevant events in detail. As shown in the above figure, the footnote behind the sentence "Last year, green and yellow rose suddenly" is as long as 2 15 words.

In creative practice, Ganlong's favorite poets are Yuan Zhen and Bai Juyi, which is reflected in the large number of imitation works in his poetry collection.

There are 20 poems by Gan Long Zhui and Bai Juyi, and 9 poems by Zhui and Yuan Zhen * * *11; Title statement: There are 86 imitators of Yuan Zhen and 59 imitators of Bai Juyi, 10.

It should be noted that both Yuan Zhen's and Bai Juyi's poems are famous for their simple sentences and emphasis on political education, and they are known as "Yuan despises white customs".

Gan Long took this concept one step further, created his wholesale poetry method "freely choose rhythm and easily turn it into a hand", and repeated the poem like a document.

It is not difficult to find that Gan Long's motivation to learn from Du Fu and Bai Yuan is highly politicized. Gan Long wrote these lousy poems, not only to tell the politics of the Qing Dynasty in the form of poems, but also to let future generations see the merits of his life. He must not be the king of national subjugation like Li Yu.

Gan Long's sensitivity to the political nature of literature is reflected in the literary prison of 135 during his reign. In a poem by Hu Zhongzao, a bachelor of cabinet, there is a saying that "a person's heart is turbid, so it is clear", and Qianlong angrily denounced him for "adding turbid words to the name of the country, what is the heart!" "In the end, he will get a complete copy.

Therefore, in the face of this emperor who is obsessed with poetic theory but has a sense of honor and theoretical self-confidence, the only reasonable response that ci ministers can make is to praise the emperor's poetic level desperately.

For example, Ji Xiaolan, a college student, grossly touted:

"Since ancient times, I have never been richer than my emperor ... Based on the wisdom of saints, the wisdom of the mind is wonderful. When the cat arrives, it is born naturally. The beautiful sky like a cloud, the change is not bad, but the description of the state of mind, and nothing is complicated; Like a land of rivers and mountains, it's all the same, isn't it? 」

Qian Zai, Weng Fanggang, Liu Yong and others also created a large number of poems imitating the imperial style, and sang. When the emperor saw the ci writers scrambling to adopt their own writing skills, he would think that their appreciation was impolite and flattering, and he strengthened his determination to write bad poems.

However, Gan Long is by no means the last person who "takes writing as a poem, and words drag it down, which makes people sick". 1958, Guo Moruo wrote such a poem during his inspection in Zhangjiakou, Hebei:

The name of Tricholoma is well known all over the world. I don't know why it's called Tricholoma.

Originally from Zhangjiakou, there are many mushrooms on the mouth.