The essence of Suiyuan Poetry Talk is its aesthetic thought of "the theory of spiritual nature", as Mr. Qian Zhongshu said: "It is often simple and harmonious, which is not only a medicine stone at that time, but also enough to attack mistakes for future generations." Yuan Mei also commented that "there is still room for expressing one's own opinions and revealing the hidden light of virtue" (Building a House with Bi). Looking at the poetic theory of Suiyuan Poetry, the main purpose is to emphasize the conditions that the creative subject should have, which are mainly manifested in the three elements of true feelings, personality and poetic talent, and based on these three points, some specific viewpoints are born, thus forming a poetic theoretical system with true feelings, personality and poetic talent as its connotation. Here is a brief introduction:
First, the theory of true feelings. Shi Hua believes that the poet's creation must first have true feelings. As the saying goes, "a poet does not lose his childlike innocence", only when he has true feelings can he have the impulse to create: "Love is endless, and yěnyn turns into poetry." As a lyric art, poetry should naturally "write its own temperament", holding that "all people who preach poetry have spirituality, regardless of piling up" and opposing replacing spirituality with textual research. In Shi Hua, in order to oppose Shen Deqian's pseudo-Daoism, the poem "Expressing the love between men and women" was particularly emphasized. In view of the vivid feelings of poetry, the aesthetic function of poetry is the main one: "The sage said,' Poetry can flourish' because it is the easiest to infect people." It is good to emphasize that "poetry can enter the heart and spleen", so as to oppose the concept of "poetry teaching" in the name of "dynamic discipline"
Second, the theory of individuality. Shi Hua also thinks that the poet's creation needs individuality. As the saying goes, "You can't write a poem without me", and there is another saying, "People without me are puppets". Highlighting "I" means emphasizing the role of the poet's unique nature, temperament, aesthetic ability and other factors in his creation. Because there is "I", so the artistic conception requires originality. The so-called "careful solo and self-creation" can express one's own spirit, "create new ideas and express one's own views" and write excellent works that are far from the Jews. Different poets have different personalities and naturally form different styles. Shi Hua advocates the diversification of style. Poetry is like a flower of nature, spring flowers and autumn chrysanthemums, each with its own show ... inaction is the first and second. Therefore, Wang Shizhen's verve poems neither praise nor belittle, pointing out that "there is only one ear in poetry" and "poetry need not be like this, so we should know this realm". The Book of Songs also focuses on criticizing the imitation of "metrical theory" from the seven scholars of Ming Dynasty to Shen Deqian and the last stream of Song School: "The seven scholars of Ming Dynasty have limited opinions on poetry, but they don't know the modern people." "If you know your temperament, you will have a rhythm, and the rhythm is not separated from your temperament." "Deliberately take the cold path of the Song people and ask the beggars to move."
Third, the theory of poetic talent. "Spirit" refers to both temperament and pen power, which is characterized by quick thinking. "Poetry Talk" holds that "the way of poetry and prose lies in talent, and a wise person can understand it at a finger". Yuan Mei paid attention to poetry and talent, but he didn't give up school. So he pointed out that "anyone who reads more books is an important thing for a poet, so he must have a lot of books." It's just that the purpose is not to replace spirituality with scrolls, but to "help me with dignity." Therefore, Yuan Mei opposed Weng Fanggang's mistake of copying books as poems, and criticized "the poems of scholars are unpleasant to read". Based on poetic talent and spirituality, Shihua attaches great importance to the inspiration phenomenon of "inspiration" and "prosperity" produced by spiritual people when creating ideas, and advocates "the most beautiful nature", that is, art expresses nature without modification. Because of this, he especially appreciates the ballad of "thinking of women, being quiet and cunning". However, Yuan Mei did not object to people's merits, especially the literati poem "If people's merits are not extremely high, they will naturally not come; Although the cloud is natural, it must be won from people. The so-called "a hundred attempts become soft." This theory is quite artistic dialectics. As for the artistic image of poetry, we advocate "qi" or "interest", that is, flexibility, vividness and touching, because "poetry is not interesting, such as wooden horses and mud dragons, which only increase people's annoyance". If we want to be "qi" and "interesting", we need vivid and vivid language. "Always stand on paper, not paper"; The expression technique is mainly sketching, "blindly sketching vividly", and it is opposed to "filling books, filling paper, and boasting profoundness" so as not to stifle the vitality and interest of poetry. However, if the allusions are "unfilled" and "appropriate", it is not excluded.
"Stone Flower" has the advantages of "brainstorming", but at that time, some people criticized it for "overcharging" and it was not unreasonable. The reason is that Yuan Mei sometimes failed to strictly implement his criteria for selecting poems. He once admitted that one of the "seven diseases" in poetry selection-"favoring one's own friendship and obeying others' demands"-"I can't avoid the rest", so boring entertainment works in poetry talk are not uncommon. However, some of the selected "love poems" are also unhealthy and lost to meanness, such as the "love poems" recorded by my brother Xiang Ting. Occasionally, there will be a scandal like "two men in love" in the chronicle, which I appreciate very much. In addition, Yuan Mei also believed in the so-called "poetic prophecy" and chose many songs to promote superstition and idealism. Most of the quotations in Shi Hua do not indicate the source, and sometimes the quotations are full of fallacies and have not been revised. These are all defects of Shihua. However, Zhang Xuecheng criticized Suiyuan's poetry talk in his works such as History of Literature and Poetry Talk after Bookstore Engraving, saying that "poetry has completely lost its purpose", "making things up, trapping teenagers in jail, confusing people in boudoir pots, quoting ancient songs and saying that writing is treacherous", and "teaching sinners" are purely feudal guardians.