CUI Rong Poetry

Cui Rong is one of the celebrated literati in the early Tang Dynasty, he gainedthe equal reputation with Du Shenyan, Li Qiao and Su Weidao, and they were knownas being the members of the group called “Four Friends of Literary Works”. CuiRong’s literary creations had great influence at that time, he not only wrote a lot ofgood poetries, but also compiled the “New Poem Form of Tang Dynasty” whichstandardized the scholars’ writing poems. Because it made specific requirements onthe poem writing both from the form and the content perspective, thus contributed tothe development and maturity of the regulated verses. Moreover, his literary workswere well known to the public for being gorgeous and elegant, which led him to starthis official career. He wrote a great number of solemn literary works featuring thecombination of parallelism and casualization. The emergence of these poetry featureswas inseparable from the background of Tang Dynasty which owned some of theliterary features of the early Wei&Jin Dynasty and meanwhile made positivedevelopment and innovation on such features.Cui Rong spent his major life in the period of Empress Wu Zetian, and he wasadmitted to start his official career due to his literary works. He prudently wrotepoetries to avoid being punished by ruthless policy and thus he was regarded as an“imperial writer” by some literary critics. However, his upright nature was stillexpressed in some of his literary works (e.g.“Admonish Guan Shishu”,“Broken TuDiscussion”, etc.). Cui Rong’s career life was not sooth and was demoted severaltimes, but he had a big social circle, apart from the other members of the “FourFriends of Literary Works”, he also cooperated with other well-known writers(e.g.Chen Zi’ang, Zhang Shue, etc.). Cui Rong had twice experiences of expeditionfrontier, and he was deeply impressed by the singular beauty beyond the Great Walland the cruelty of wars. These experiences of career life and expedition made hispoetry gradually mature and vigorous. Due to his excellent writing, Cui Rong wasselected to participate in the compiling of the books series “Three Religions ChuYing,” and was responsible for compiling “Chu Ying Scholars set” alone. The poetswhose works was selected into the poetry anthology were called “Chu Ying Scholars”.Cui Rong later compiled the “New Poem Form of Tang Dynasty” to make specific requirements regarding the form and content of poetry. The requirements in this bookreflected the role of Cui Rong in boosting the form of regulated verses and alsosummed up his literary views of “emphasis on the literary quality” and“expressingemotion from entity objects”. The content of his poetry had been extended to thedescription of the frontier, which not only enriched the poetry themes, but alsochanged the pompous and ornate poetry style in the past to some extent; the form alsofocused on the usage of sound duality law to regulate the poetry writing and thuspromote the stereotypes of recent poetry; scene description in the poetry wasmeticulous and the emotion expression was sincere and abundant. Poetry themes werediverse including the Ode expressing their inclination, the practical writing showinggreat powers, the Epitaphs and the Mourning Funeral Oration full of nature of historybiography. CuiRong could utilize various literary skills in a variety of literary genres,such as the use of Code and antithesis sentence, making the form neat, the contentimplication meaningful, clearly showing his superb skills of managing literary works.