The Comparative Study On Meng Jiao's And Jia Dao's Peotry

In the "Funeral Oration for Liu Ziyu", Su Shi evaluated Meng Jiao's and Jia Dao's poetry, and called their general characteristics "Jiao Cold and Dao Thin". "Cold" and "Thin", without essential difference, refer to not only Meng Jiao, but also Jia Dao. They said that their poems displayed the characteristic of "ku yin (racking their brains in writing poetry)" style, so "Cold-Thin" and "ku yin" had much in common in terms of meaning, with different tunes rendered with equal skill. As two representatives of "ku yin" poets in the Middle Tang Dynasty, Meng Jiao and Jia Dao had the tendency of placing much emphasis on poetry's power of self-expression by means of subjectively lyric manner, and tried to stimulate individualized, artistic expression of pursuing odd yet different style in "Yuanhe Period". Meanwhile, there were differences in their lives, their attitude toward life, their selection of poetical form, and their idiosyncrasy for poetry writing. Meng Jiao's "ku yin" was not art for art's sake, but in the form of poetry reflected his own life in poverty and injustice suffered; Jia Dao's "ku yin" deliberately evaded the reality and took the stand-aside-with-arms-folded attitude towards society, thus assuming the eccentric and secluded genre. At the same time, the "ku yin" style that the two poets represented was the outstanding characteristic of individuality and peculiarity for pursuit of art in the circles of poets in the Middle Tang Dynasty, and had profound and far-reaching impact on the retro of imitating ancient poetry in writing style, and on the advocacy of doing good to society through Confucianism and Taoism later ages.