Su Shi: Creating a New State of Ci Poetry

Compared with poetry of the Tang Dynasty, ci poetry of the Song Dynasty is more exquisite in form and more refined in structure. Therefore, most ci poems of the Song Dynasty are skillful, meticulous, graceful and exquisite works. Su Dongpo changed the soft and mild style, and created a new fashion and pattern of ci poetry of the Song Dynasty as grand, unrestrained and magnificent as the great river flowing eastward.

Su Shi began his official career at the age of 25, served as governor of Mizhou and Hangzhou, and was demoted to be an official in Huangzhou and Huizhou. Generally speaking, Su Shi was always amid party struggles of the Northern Song Dynasty in his lifetime, made no great political accomplishment, had a mediocre official career, and felt more disappointment than exaltation.

Small Portrait of Dongpo, painted by Zhao Mengfu in the Yuan Dynasty

However, Su Shi became a literary phenomenon and could be called a flag of literature in the mid Northern Song Dynasty. In terms of literary opinions, he clearly opposed the bad literary styles in the late Tang Dynasty, the Five Dynasties and the early Song Dynasty, including some new abuses brought by the Classical Prose Movement, put forward many new aesthetic views of positive significance, and made important contributions to the development of literature in the Song Dynasty.

Su Shi made outstanding achievements in poems, essays and ci poems, but his most important contribution was innovation and breakthroughs in ci poetry. Su Shi's achievements in ci poetry were higher than his achievements in poems and essays. First, Su Shi attached great importance to the literary genre of ci poetry theoretically. Though many excellent ci poems were written before Su Shi, people did not understand ci poetry correctly and were far from deeming ci poetry as a literary genre. Most people "composed ci poetry to given tunes" and deemed it as an unorthodox school of "mocking and playful" poetry. Even Ouyang Xiu called "composition of ci poetry to given tunes" as "skill of little worth." However, Su Shi held an original opinion. He clearly thought ci poetry and poetry were both literary genres of equal status. Ci poems were "poems consisting of long and short lines," and Su Shi "took poetry as ci poetry" in his creation. This view and practice of Su Shi played an important role in the establishment of ci poetry as a literary genre and the development of creation. It can be said that after Su Shi, people paid less attention to the formal differences between ci poetry and poetry, ci also became a genre of poetry in the broad sense, and ci poetry and poetry entered the field of literature as equals. This was a breakthrough of epoch-making significance in the history of China's poetry development.

Second, Su Shi pushed ci poetry of the Song Dynasty to an unprecedented brand new height and state in terms of contents, forms, skills and styles. On the one hand, Su Shi fully expanded ci poems' contents to include patriotic feelings, life philosophy, historical stories, concrete objects, travels, Buddhist doctrines, visits to mountains, departure, mediation on the past, mourning for the dead, rural sentiments and pastoral scenery, and greatly broadened the scope of life and art for ci poetry creation. Liu Xizai, a literary critic of the Qing Dynasty, called Dongpo's ci poems "can express all things and describe all things." Apart from expansion of contents, Su's ci poetry also reached a deeply moving state in terms of expression of emotions. Riverside Town written by him to mourn for his deceased wife is an example:

Ten boundless years now separate the living and the dead, I have not often thought of her, but neither can I forget.

Her lonely grave is a thousand li distant, I can't say where my wife lies cold.

We could not recognize each other even if we met again,

My face is all but covered with dust, my temples glazed with frost.

In deepest night, a sudden dream returns me to my homeland,

She sits before a little window, and sorts her dress and make-up.

We look at each other without a word, a thousand tears now flow.

I must accept that every year I'll think of that heart breaking place,

Where the moon shines brightly in the night, and bare pines guard the tomb.

Here, there are both tender feelings between the husband and wife and boundless melancholy about life; both lonely and sad feelings revealed after the wife's death and his courage to face the miserable and bleak life. This short ci poem contains graceful, unaffected and moving expressions full of twists and turns with lingering charm.

Third, Su's ci poems formed an independent style, and under its influence and push, the school of spectacular bold and unrestrained ci poetry was formed. Before Su Shi, the "graceful and restrained" style of ci poetry was dominant. Su's ci poems changed this situation, brought a powerful new trend to the circles of ci poets, diversified ci poetry creation methods other than those of creating graceful and restrained poems, and strengthened ci poetry creation. Su's ci poems are bold and unrestrained in all aspects. Historical stories, descriptions of people, depictions of concrete objects, images, momentum and scenes in Su's ci poems all reflect the intensity of emotions, the rhythm of words and the profoundness of meanings. The boldness, unrestraint and solemnity of Su's ci poems are moving. Charm of a Maiden Singer - Memories of the Past at Red Cliff is a classic representative of the bold and unrestrained style of Su's ci poetry:

The endless river eastward flows;

With its huge waves are gone all those

Gallant heroes of bygone years.

West of the ancient fortress appears

Red Cliff where General Zhou won his early fame

When the Three Kingdom were in flame.

Rocks tower in the air and waves teat on the shore,

Rolling up a thousand heaps of snow.

To match the land so fair, how many heroes of yore

Picture of the Red Cliff, painted by Wu Yuanzhi in the Jin Dynasty, shows the scene of Su Shi and his friend drifting about on a boat at the Red Cliff.

Had made great show!

I fancy General Zhou at the height

Of his success, with a plume fan in hand,

In a silk hood, so brave and bright,

Laughing and jesting with his bride so fair,

While enemy ships were destroyed as planned

Like castles in the air.

Should their souls revisit this land.

Sentimental, his bride would laugh to say;

Younger than they, I have my hair turned grey.

Life is but like a dream.

On moon, I drink to you who have seen them on the stream.

"The endless river eastward flows" is a beginning with great momentum, bringing readers to the sky of the glorious, magnificent and stormy history. Su Dongpo with the deep emotions and sharp eyes of a politician commented on national affairs and appraised people. Time, space and language all changed with the poet's flow of thought. There are lines with great momentum such as "Rocks tower in the air and waves teat on the shore, rolling up a thousand heaps of snow" and murmurs such as "I fancy General Zhou at the height of his success, with a plume fan in hand, in a silk hood, so brave and bright, laughing and jesting with his bride so fair." They are powerful and unstrained like a heavenly steed soaring across the skies, not limited to one type, reflecting the charm of Su's bold and unrestrained ci poems in a classic manner.

Su's bold, unrestrained, unconventional and original ci poems opened new space for development of ci poetry of the Song Dynasty, and made special contributions to further establishing ci poetry's status in the history of literature. Under the influence of Su's ci poems, the bold and unrestrained school of ci poetry was formed in the Song Dynasty. Huang Tingjian (1045-1105), Chao Buzhi (1053-1110), etc. carried forward the style of Su's ci poetry in the Northern Song Dynasty, and Xin Qiji (1140-1207) in the Southern Song Dynasty developed the bold and unrestrained style of Su's ci poems and brought about a more magnificent situation. It needs to be pointed out that the outstanding achievements and huge influence of Su Shi's bold and unrestrained ci poems do not mean his denial of the graceful and restrained school's ci poems. Su Shi himself also wrote many graceful and restrained works. This just shows that to establish a new style, it is most important to break with the original pattern boldly and be good at pioneer new trends.