A Study On “Emphasizing Content” Of Wu Qiao’s Poetic Theory

“Content” has always been a very important concept in the history of Chinese poetics.After the creative transformation of some poetic theorists,“Content” has gradually evolved into “Emphasizing Content” in the history of poetry,including both creation theory and Principles of criticism and appreciation.At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty,there was a dispute between content and form in the field of poetry.In order to better unify content and form,Wu Qiao transformed the “poems expressing the will” and based on the“Emphasizing Content”.He puts forward the theory of “Content is to dominate”,which is not only an answer to the dispute between “truth and elegance” in poetry,but also a summary of the theory of “Emphasizing Content”.Wu Qiao wrote Weilu Shihua in his later years,which is about 100,000 words.The poem has a complete system and unique thinking.It includes some poetic thoughts of the previous generation and his own poetic views.It can be described as a collection of poetry.It had a certain impact on that time.In this book,Wu Qiao focused on criticizing the poems of “words but no intentions”,emphasized the dominant position of “meaning” in the poems,and proposed the theory of “Emphasizing Content”.Wu Qiao’s “Content is to dominate” is essentially a further development of Confucian “poems expressing will”.Compared with Confucian poetics which emphasized social and political morality,this book began to pay attention to the expression of temperament and took meaning as the noumenon of poetry.So poetry creation started from “emotion” and “meaning”.In the specific creative process,“mainly with meaning” uses “knowledge” as the generating mechanism,and “emotion” is generated by using the sense of “circumstance” to“heart”,which then rises to “meaning”,so the “intention” of poetry “Sense” is actually the coexistence of sensibility and reason.Emphasizing the "meaning" of poetry actually means paying attention to content and emotion,but Wu Qiao did not ignore the form either.He emphasized the combination between words and content,and tried to express the most sincere emotion with the most elegant form.And he tries to use “the metaphor of wine and rice” to express that the appeal of poems and essays to people are different.In order to unify truth and elegance,Wu Qiao pushed Bixing to a higher position.He not only regarded Bixing as a creative method,but also pointed out the intersecting nature of “Xing”.This interpretation is undoubtedly a comparison.An innovation of Xing.Wu Qiao’s poems are governed by “intention”.He thought “bixing” as the standard,and his poem based on implicit and profound thinking.He pointed out that the model of ancient poetry creation was Du Fu’s poems,and he analyzed the gentleness and family feelings of Du Fu’s poem.Furthermore,he pointed out that Li Shangyin was a model among the scolars like Du Fu.The obscurity of Yishan’s poems was due to its profound ideas.Wu Qiao regarded Li Shangyin as a famous poet in the late Tang Dynasty,which undoubtedly examined Li Shangyin’s position again in the history of poetry.Affected by the background and academic environment of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties,Wu Qiao strongly advocated Confucian poetry,deliberately broke the Ming Dynasty’s retro poetic system,and incorporated the “gentle and sincere” poetry education into the “intentional general” poetry system.In this chapter,the “meaning as the main general” was further elevated to the status of poetic ontology.To a certain extent,it reversed the bad poetry style of “emphasis on speech and neglect of meaning” in the Ming Dynasty,and restored the orthodoxy of poetry.Under the guidance of the concept of“gentle and honest”,Wu Qiao especially praised the poems of Du Fu,Li Shangyin and late Tang poetry.The poetry circle of the Qing Dynasty once again set off a trend of learning Du Fu and the great controversy over Tang poetry,and made certain contributions to the study of Du Fu poetry in the Qing Dynasty,To a certain extent,it promoted the in-depth development of poetics research,improved the status of late Tang poetry,and showed unique poetic interest.