Hunan shihua 滹南詩話

Hunan shihua 滹南詩話 is a poetry critique written by Wang Ruoxu 王若虛 (1174-1243), courtesy name Congzhi 從之, style Yongfu 慵夫, from Gaocheng 藁城, Hebei. He was a subject of the Jin empire 金 (1115-1234). Apart from this book, he also wrote the critical commentaries Wujing bianhuo 五經辨惑, Lunyu bianhuo 論語辨惑, Mengzi bianhuo 孟子辨惑 and Shiji bianhuo 史記辨惑. His collected writings are called Hunan Yilao ji 滹南遺老集.

The Hunan shihua employs a casual, essay-like style to assess poets, poetic schools, and poetry criticism, while also discussing poetic theory. It falls into the category of discursive poetic commentaries (lun citi shihua 論辭體詩話). The work comprises ninety entries in total. The first of the three juan addresses Tang-period 唐 (618-907) poetry, while the remaining two focus primarily on poetry of the Song 宋 (960-1279) era.

The book's central principle in discussing poetry is "authenticity" (benzhen 本真). The word ben 本 "root", which he also calls yi 意 "meaning", refers to the content of poetry. The expression zhen 真 "genuine" also refers to content but emphasises the concreteness of expression. In other words, the content of poetry must align with the truth of life and convey genuine thoughts and emotions. He proposed that poetry is "valuable when it does not lose authenticity" (gui bu shi zhen 貴不失真), and regarded the authenticity of sorrow and joy, arising from human feelings and nature as the "true principle of poetry" (shi zhi zhengli 詩之正理).

These ideas summarise, from both positive and negative perspectives, the creative experiences of Tang and Song poets such as Bai Juyi 白居易 (772-846), Han Yu 韓愈 (768-842), Su Shi 蘇軾 (1037-1101), and Huang Tingjian 黃庭堅 (1045-1105). They also carry forward the view of his uncle, Zhou Ang 周昂, who believed that in writing, meaning (yi) was the master, while words and characters were its servants (ziyu wei zhi yi 字語為之役). He likens the relationship between a poem's content and form to that of "master" and "servant": content must command form, and form should serve content. Otherwise, form will become "unruly and hard to control" (ba hu nan zhi 跋扈難制), and may even "enslave its master" (fan yi wei zhu 反役其主). In this way, Wang aptly resolves the problem of the relationship between form and content. As he put it: "If the carving is too excessive, it harms the whole; if the contrivance is too deep, it loses the essence" (diao zhuo tai shen, ze shang qi quan. jing ying guo shen, ze shi qi ben 雕琢太甚，則傷其全。經營過深，則失其本).

He further emphasised that the content of poetry was a fundamental issue in the entire process of creation, the "essence" (ben) of poetry. Wang Ruoxu sharply criticised the formalist literary style prevalent at the time. However, this does not mean he disregarded form. Some criticisms, for instance, are directed at Huang Tingjian's poetry from the perspectives of grammar, rhetoric, and the use of allusions. This shows Wang's strong concern for formal techniques, but his central focus remains on the single word "authenticity" (zhen), never separating form from content. The Hunan shihua honours Bai Juyi and Su Shi while criticising Huang Tingjian, offering a pointed critique of the Jiangxi School of Poetry 江西詩派. It states that Bai‘s poetry “gives form according to things” (suiwu fuxing 隨物賦形), fully and delicately reflecting human thoughts and feelings, so that it "penetrates the very liver and spleen" (ru ren gan pi 入人肝脾) of the reader. Su Shi is praised as "a dragon among writers, whose principles illuminate all things, whose energy swallows the nine provinces, free-flowing and unrestrained" (wen zhong long ye, li miao wanwu, qi tun jiuzhou, zongheng benfang 文中龍也，理妙萬物，氣吞九州，縱橫奔放). By contrast, Huang Tingjian's poetry "has strangeness but no subtlety" (you qi wu miao 有奇無妙), "flaunts learning as if it were richness, and reworks the stale as if it were new" (bu zhang xue wen yi wei fu, dian hua chen fu yi wei xin 鋪張學問以為富，點化陳腐以為新). The reason he fell short while striving to follow Su Shi is that he lacked what was entirely natural, as if "flowing directly from the liver and lungs" (ru fei gan zhong liu chu 如肺肝中流出). In this way, the Hunan shihua reveals the fundamental differences in poetic style among Bai, Su, and Huang. It particularly condemns the metaphors of "seizing a body and exchanging its bones" (duo tai huan gu 奪胎換骨) and "turning iron into gold" (dian tie cheng jin 點鐵成金), criticising them as the craftiness of literary plagiarism.

The descriptive catalogue Siku quanshu zongmu tiyao 四庫全書總目提要 comments that the Hunan shihua draws a clear distinction between realism and formalism. However, its critique of Huang Tingjian and the Jiangxi School holds progressive significance. Nevertheless, it is excessively harsh by entirely dismissing the Jiangxi School's contributions and disconnecting Huang Tingjian from Du Fu 杜甫 (712-1770), which is somewhat biased. Overall, though, the Hunan shihua remains an outstanding representative work of Jin-period poetic criticism.

The Hunan shihua is part of Wang Ruoxu's collected writings, and is also found in the series Siku quanshu 四庫全書, Jifu congshu 畿輔叢書, Sibu congkan 四部叢刊, and Lidai shihua xubian 歷代詩話續編. A modern edition was published in 1981 by the Zhonghua Shuju Press 中華書局. The edition of 1962, published by the Renmin Wenxue Chubanshe 人民文學出版社, includes Huo Songlin's 霍松林 commentaries and annotations.