Great Song Dynasty Writer

Chapter 46: Plum Blossoms

In the next few days, Lu Beigu reported to the Transport Commissioner's Office on time every morning.

Because he goes out early and comes back late, he almost never sees Li Pan who lives in Qingyang Palace. Li Pan is taking advantage of his time to socialize and probably has no time to care about him at this time.

When Zhao Yan was busy with official duties, he would let him study under the plum tree in the yard. Whenever he had time, he would personally teach him, explaining in detail everything from the rhyme and rhythm to the origins of the allusions.

Lu Beigu's poetry and prose skills also made great progress from "knowing nothing" to "having some understanding".

Seeing his rapid progress, Zhao Yan increased his homework. In addition to studying the exemplary works in "Wenyuan Yinghua" every day, he also asked him to write a short essay, which he had to complete within a time limit and he would correct it word by word.

Although Lu Beigu still felt it was difficult, he was no longer as confused as he was at the beginning. At least he could barely follow the rhythm, and his use of allusions became more accurate.

The "three times of refining words" in Zhao Yan's "three times method" is very useful. After roughly understanding the pronunciation and rhyme of the words, Lu Beigu also became sensitive to many problems with words, and gradually began to easily judge whether there were obvious problems with the prosody of the words.

Zhao Yan also began to teach him how to complete the steps of "establishing the idea once and refining the words twice".

It sounds a bit mysterious, but it actually means memorizing the template first, then choosing the template with the corresponding format according to the different assignments, and then filling in the content.
Of course, having said that, it actually requires repeated training to become familiar with how to operate it.

After Zhao Yan's rigorous training, although Lu Beigu's writing skills were not yet outstanding, at least he rarely made obvious mistakes in the basic use of allusions and rhythm.

Don't think that you haven't made much progress. Sometimes, exams are not about being good, but being bad. When everyone's level is very bad, as long as you are not that bad, you are already outstanding.

The common characteristics of students in the county school are: rote memorization of calligraphy, painstaking effort in writing essays, improvisation of policy papers, and nonsense poetry and prose.

Moreover, this characteristic is also very common among students in state schools.

For example, Zhou Mingyuan.

Although he didn't get the admission quota two years ago, he was able to pass the imperial examination. Regardless of whether it was due to his extraordinary performance, his results must have been among the best in the provincial school.

But no matter how perfect his calligraphy was, or how profound his meaning was, he was not good at writing poetry and prose.

why not?
There was something that Zhao Yan said, which was not entirely to comfort Lu Beigu, that is, "the literary spirit is permeated", which is commonly known as "literary talent".

When a "talented" person is performing on the spot, as long as he is in good condition, the words he thinks of and what he writes will be much better than others.

To use an extreme example, an ordinary person thinking hard for a year is not as good as Li Bai who wrote casually after drinking.

So what can I do? No way.

This kind of thing is a gift of talent, not acquired effort.

If there is, there is, if there is not, there is not.

It is precisely because Lu Beigu has talent, understanding and knowledge that Zhao Yan is willing to train him. For a genius, skills are the easiest to master. What is feared is not the content with skills, but the content without skills.

Of course, finding a good teacher who is willing to teach you the correct techniques is also a necessary condition.

If the teacher is not good, or is unwilling to teach, or what he teaches is wrong, then it is definitely better not to learn.

After extensive training in writing fu, Zhao Yan also began to gradually teach Lu Beigu how to write poetry.

That afternoon, Zhao Yan seemed to be at leisure. He took out a volume of Zhaoming Wenxuan① and said, "Today we will not discuss fu, but the origin of poetry."

"Liu Yanhe once said, 'Poetry is about holding, holding human nature. Three hundred shades of truth, the meaning is pure.' Tell me, what is the 'eye' of poetry?"

Lu Beigu pondered for a moment: "But is it the highlight of the poem?"

"That's wrong." Zhao Yan shook his head. "The key to poetry isn't the lines, but the meaning. For example, in Wang Wei's poem 'A lone smoke rises straight across the vast desert, a round setting sun rises over the long river,' the key lies in the words 'straight' and 'round.' Not only does it accurately describe the object, it also conveys the desolation of the frontier."

"Let's practice the 'test poems' commonly used in the state examinations. I'll set the topic, and you'll improvise. Try to figure out if you can use the technique of 'poetic eyes.'"

Zhao Yan paused for a moment, then pointed to the old plum tree in the courtyard and said, "Let's use 'plum' as the title, a five-character poem, and limit the rhyme to 'xian'."

Lu Beigu sat upright, thought for a moment, and then began to write.

"Fu Demei"

Frozen buds break the frost first, their branches reflecting the morning sky. Fragrance floats on thousands of snow-capped trees, their shadows cast in a stream of smoke.

The jade bones and ice are the soul, and the moon on Solitary Mountain is the letter.

Don’t say spring is late, the clear air fills the world.”

To be honest, and I'm not bragging, after writing this poem, Lu Beigu was shocked by himself.

Compared with the poorly rhymed "Water Dragon Song" he sang not long ago, he can now finally make no mistakes in rhythm.

The significance is so great that it is comparable to improving from singing out of tune to being able to sing in tune right after formally learning to sing!

"——It seems that you can still improve through learning!"

Lu Beigu felt very happy. It was normal to make mistakes when one did not understand the rhythm. Now that he understood it, he would not make mistakes anymore.

However, he still checked it carefully.

First of all, the tone of the tone is flat and oblique. Starting with "仄仄仄平平，平平仄仄平" is completely in line with the pattern of starting with 仄 and ending with 平. The first word of the last sentence, "莫", is a slightly wider tone of the oblique tone, but it also falls into the category of "one, three, and five are not important", so there is nothing wrong with it.

Looking at the rhymes again, of the four rhyme words "天、烟、剑、间", the first three are normal, and the last one "间" has a slight flaw. However, if we count it by the rhyme of the adjacent rhymes, it is the same as the rhyme of "人生不相见，动如参商". There is no big problem. In fact, it is mainly because he likes the word "人间", and he can't think of a more suitable replacement for the time being.

Looking at the poem as a whole, except for the slightly loose tone of the first word in the last couplet, the other tones completely conform to the norms of five-character regulated verse, and the parallelism is particularly exquisite. It can be said that it has reached a normal level in terms of rhythm, especially the couplet "Fragrance floats on thousands of snow-capped trees, shadows fall on a stream of smoke", which still has the style of Tang poetry.

"The art of poetry is like polishing a piece of paper, and your progress is very obvious."

After seeing this, a hint of surprise flashed in Zhao Yan's eyes.

Lu Beigu's progress is really too fast!
This kind of learning talent is almost visibly strong!

You know, a few days ago, Lu Beigu was still very confused about the prosody and rhyme of poetry and often made mistakes, but after a few days of intensive training, he has now become quite good at it.

For ordinary students, a few months is the least they can say to reach this level!

Therefore, Zhao Yan also began to like this adopted apprentice from the bottom of his heart.

"When Ouyang Yongshu wrote the poem 'The Thrush', he altered the four characters 'a hundred chirps, a thousand voices' dozens of times before achieving the exquisite quality of the second half, 'adapting at will.' Your use of the characters 'broken' and 'floating' today has captured the true meaning of the three essentials of a test poem, but the 'key point' still needs refinement."

Afterwards, Zhao Yan picked up his pen and made slight modifications, changing the third sentence to "Jade bones condense into icy soul, sleeping on the solitary mountain embracing the moon."

"Do you understand why this change is necessary?"

Lu Beigu pondered for a moment and said, "It's probably better to change it to '凝'. It not only complements the rhythm, but also uses the dynamic to condense the static, which is in line with the idea of ​​'the thought expresses the subtle meaning, and the text is full of subtle details' in Liu Yanhe's 'The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons'."

"Not bad, you have understanding."

After praising it, Zhao Yan continued, "As for changing 'the moon makes paper' to 'sleeping with the moon', it is, firstly, to personify the plum blossom, and secondly, to use Lin Bu's idea of ​​'sparse shadows slanting horizontally', to give the plum blossom a solitary and lofty appearance, avoiding the directness of the word 'paper', and making it more implicit and profound."

What is a famous teacher? This is a famous teacher!

Not only does he have a high level of literary proficiency, but when he is correcting a poem, just changing a few words can elevate the overall quality of the poem. He can also explain the intention to you clearly so that you can understand and learn it.

"The student has learned his lesson." Lu Beigu said.

"Okay, let's stop here for today."

Zhao Yan's expression relaxed. He was no longer in the serious tone of teaching, but chatting casually.

"I heard your family is in Gulin, but have your ancestors lived here for generations? Did your father or grandfather ever enter the government?"

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① "Zhaoming Wenxuan", also known as "Wenxuan", is the earliest extant collection of poetry and prose in China. It was compiled by literati organized by Xiao Tong, the eldest son of Emperor Wu of Liang in the Southern Dynasties. It includes more than 700 poems and prose by more than 130 authors during the 800 years from the Zhou Dynasty to the Liang Dynasty. Because "Zhaoming Wenxuan" has rigorous selection of materials, pays attention to rhetoric, and strictly distinguishes the boundaries between poetry and history books, most of the selected works are elegant, so it has always been regarded as a literary textbook for ancient literati.

② Examination poems, originated in the Tang Dynasty, are a type of poetry commonly used in the imperial examinations, also called "Fu De Ti". It is named after the word "Fu De" that is often placed before the title. Bai Juyi's famous "Fu De Gu Yuan Cao Song Bie" was written when he was sixteen years old in order to practice the examination poems. Examination poems are mostly five-character six-rhyme or eight-rhyme parallel regulated verses, which were one of the examination contents for the Jinshi examinations from the Tang Dynasty to the early and middle Song Dynasty. It was cancelled during the reign of Song Shenzong. The time in the book is exactly the common examination poem style for the poetry topics in the imperial examinations.

(End of this chapter)