Chapter 26 Preface to "An Introduction to the History of Medieval Literature"

Preface to "An Introduction to the History of Medieval Literature" Doing literary history, like doing all history, has a big difficulty, which is to choose historical materials that can represent the times.People who do general history record the enthronement and death of several emperors in each era.The rise and fall of several powerful officials, the start and end of several wars, and a "history" has been written.But this kind of history, in our eyes today, is a waste of energy and ink, because the facts they choose cannot represent the changes of the times, cannot describe the advancement and retreat of culture, and cannot describe the living conditions of the people.For example, when remembering the era of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, historians only ask us to remember the many meaningless Liang, Tang, Jin, Han and Zhou Dynasties, Gaozu, Zhuangzong, Sejong... and Jingnan, Wuyue, Southern Tang... and so on.But if we write a "New History of the Five Dynasties" today, we should know that instead of memorizing the lineage of the emperors of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, it is better to study Qian Liu's water conservancy in Zhejiang Xing or Wang Shenzhi's ethnic and cultural development after he entered Fujian. Influence; instead of scolding Feng Dao for being shameless, it is better to study the history of the nine classics engraved by the government; " and "Old History of the Five Dynasties" have good and bad words and strict meaning and law. It is better to find new historical materials about people's livelihood culture from the works of people at that time.Fan Zhongyan's anthology, inadvertently, records the price of rice in Jiangnan during the Five Dynasties, which is a really important historical material.In the Dunhuang Grottoes, not many years ago, Wei Zhuang suddenly discovered a long poem in vernacular that recorded the famine in the north in detail, which is also a really important historical material.Compared with this kind of real historical materials, any rigorous historical biography, any cheerful comments and praises have become worthless!

The same is true for literary history.People in the past regarded Ci as "poetry", and they no longer looked down on them; ditties and dramas were even less important.As for "fiction", it is even more despised.In the past thirty years, a reaction has unknowingly taken place.The Wang family of Lingui and the Zhu family of Huzhou advocated the reprinting of Song and Yuan anthologies, the Liu family of Guichi and the Dong family of Wujin reprinted many drama legends, and the Miao family of Jiangyin and the Luo family of Shangyu reprinted several novels written by Song people.The prices of word collections and dramas on the market have gradually risen, and have become even more expensive recently.People in recent times have been influenced by Western literature, and they are gradually able to respect and appreciate novels.This shift in atmosphere has added countless rare historical materials to literary historians.The easy availability of ci collections makes us particularly aware of the value of ci in the Song Dynasty.

The reprinting of plays has given us many new insights into the literature of the Yuan and Ming Dynasties.The discovery and admiration of ancient novels have gradually enabled us to have a somewhat correct understanding of the civilian literature of the past 800 years.We now know that Dongpo Valley’s poems are far less representative of the times than their ci; It represents the era; the ancient prose of Fang Bao and Yao Nai is far inferior to, and can represent the era.Therefore, our views on the history of literature have to undergo a revolution. There are still many old-fashioned people who are always a little skeptical about the overthrow of orthodox literature and the admiration of novels and dramas.But this is because they are limited by their prejudices and refuse to open their eyes to study the facts of literary history.

If they are willing to study the literary history of more than 2,000 years in a calm mind, they will know that there are many such precedents in the history of literature; The "National Style" in "Three Hundred Chapters" and the "Nine Songs" in "Chu Songs" are naturally the most obvious examples.But the most beneficial lesson is the history of medieval literature. What lessons does the history of medieval literature teach us? In the Western Han Dynasty, there were probably only two kinds of typical literature at that time: one was the prose of Zhou and Qin; the other was the Fu style of the south. Although "Sanbaipian" is respected as a "classic", four-character poems are no longer applicable) The former is interpreted as ancient proses below Sima Qian and Ban Gu; the latter is interpreted as Fu by Sima Xiangru and Zhang Heng.This is orthodox literature.However, during the Han Dynasty, many poems without titles suddenly appeared among the people.Later, it was collected several times by the government and used as various songs, and this kind of poetry got the category name of "Yuefu Geci".In this kind of civilian literature, there are really many wonderful literary works.For example, "Zhancheng South" in the advocacy song, "Orphan's Journey", "Women's Disease Journey", "Moshang Sang" in Xianghe's lyrics, and "Peacock Flying Southeast" in the lyrics of miscellaneous songs are all unique. Good works are far better than those extravagant and stupid Fu written by Sima Xiangru and Yang Xiong.Although there was such valuable civilian literature in the Han Dynasty, it seems that the literati at that time did not fully understand the status of Yuefu songs in literature.They still try their best to make the pile of obscure fu, but refuse to make the emerging folk poetry.Therefore, from the perspective of orthodox literature, we can only see that from Jia Yi's "Peng Fu" to Mi Heng's "Parrot Fu" has indeed become a continuous orthodoxy.But we now know that this line can only represent aristocratic literature and temple literature, but not the real living folk literature; it can only represent the imitated classical literature, not the living literature that changes with the times.It wasn't until the literary period of Huangchu in Jian'an, when Cao Cao and his son came out, that they boldly imitated and advocated the free and simple Yuefu poetry style.Since then, most of the poets have gone through a period of imitating the ancient Yuefu, so the value of the folk literature of the Han Dynasty has become clear to the world, and poems such as "The Orphan's Journey" and "Moshang Sang" have jumped from the folk literature to the top of the list. part of orthodox literature.Isn't this a very salutary lesson?

Go on.During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, northern China was completely under the rule of alien races in the north, and the culture of the Central Plains had to move to the south of the Yangtze River for refuge.During this period, two major lines of civilian literature emerged: one is the heroic literature of the new northern nations, such as "Zheyangliu Geci", "Langya King Geci", "Mulan Ci" and so on; the other is the southern ethnic literature His children's literature, such as the songs in "Midnight Reading", are generous and tragic on the one hand, and lingering on the other hand, all of which are full of the charm of common people's literature.However, the aristocratic literati at that time were willing to imitate the Yuefu of the Han and Wei dynasties on the one hand, although they also learned fashion; on the other hand, they did not know how to appreciate the living treasures in front of them. A new style of folk literature of the day.

So on the surface, we only see the classical literature of Jiang Yan, Yan Yanzhi, and Shen Yue, or the fake antiques of Su Chuo and others in the north, but not the real and valuable civilian literature of the North and the South.It wasn't until after Xiao Liang that the value of the folk new Yuefu was gradually recognized; the short and brilliant new literary style-this is the characteristic of the folk songs of the Six Dynasties, which is not found in the folk songs of the Han and Wei dynasties-has gradually become a fashionable poetic style .Since then, the folk songs of the Northern and Southern Dynasties - Yuefu Geci - have jumped from folk literature to become a part of orthodox literature.Isn't this a great lesson?

Therefore, when we do the history of medieval literature, the most important thing is to point out these big steps of ups and downs one by one, so that people know that there was a precedent for folk literature to be promoted to orthodox literature 1,500 years ago, and maybe it can give us a little comparison. The material may be able to break our stubborn views of keeping old and hating new. This "Introduction to Medieval Literature" edited by Mr. Xu Jiarui from Yunnan boldly adopts the viewpoint mentioned above, affirming that the most important part in the history of medieval literature is the literature of the common people at that time, so he puts the description of the literature of the common people in the main The place of aristocratic literature of this millennium occupies only a very uncrowned place.This kind of drastic method must be considered treasonous by some people.But in my personal opinion, Mr. Xu's basic concept seems to be very good.In any case, his book is always a pioneering book, which can provide many reference materials for those who are in favor, and some stimulating and introspective materials for those who oppose it.As for ideas for beginners, a book that outlines the main points and points out major trends and movements is better than a literary history that lists countless names and titles.

Any book that pioneers the way will inevitably have the problem of ignoring the details.Mr. Xu's book naturally has some minor flaws that can be pointed out.For example, he spent more than 2,000 words on "Neon Clothes and Feather Clothes Dance", while writing the literature of the Tang Dynasty only had 3,000 words.This is far too uneven.Another example is that when he narrated the Yuefu poems of the Han and Wei dynasties, he often explained each chapter in detail, but the peerless masterpiece "The Peacock Flying Southeast" only got one or two sentences of description: this is a bit inappropriate.We very much hope that Mr. Xu will revise and correct such small flaws in the reprint.

September 24, 1923 "Hu Shi Wen Cun Two Collections" Volume 4