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| How to Become a Successful Poetry Critic: A Study of Poetry Critic Yu Ji and His Poetic Concepts |
| Wu Jun |
| Institute of Literature, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing 100732, China |
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Abstract Being eulogized as “a brave warrior”, “a Tang person copying the calligraphy of the Jin Dynasty”, “a three-day bride“ and “a Sophisticated Official of the Han Court”, Yu Ji’s comments on the “Four Schools of the Yuan Poems” did not just list four style characteristics but offered a comparison of the aesthetic impressions of two kinds. In this way, the poetic advantage embodied in the “Sophisticated Official of the Han Court” is conveyed. The advantage was an elegant and eclectic standard for poetic criticism. Yu Ji compares himself to “a Sophisticated Official of the Han Court”, with the connotation of a metaphor of poems and persons, but the function of a metaphor in poems is transferred from the metaphor on persons, which is related to the specific poetic contexts since the Song and Yuan Dynasties, and it reflects the critic’s critical attitude. Commenting on the poems from the perspective of being “a Sophisticated Official of the Han Court” needs the following three requirements, i.e., first, the critics have high poetic literacy and are proficient in poetics; second, critics should take the initiative to assume the responsibility of “the suzerain of the literary world” and have a rigorous and serious attitude on criticism; the third is fairness. Therefore, Yu Ji compares himself to being “a Sophisticated Official of the Han Court”, which embodies three internal theoretical connections between his poetry criticism and poetics orientation: first, Yu Ji regards poetry learning as a piece of specialized knowledge, which is the basis for his poetic criticism, and learning poetry or learning poems in ancient times can also show the specific path of its poetic approach; the second is that Yu Ji, as the suzerain of the literary world, differentiates and analyzes the notion that “the speech of peace is difficult to be beautiful”, “and seeks a theoretical basis for the sound of the prosperous age”, which is also the embodiment of his critical attitude, poetic stand, and criticism method; the third is that Yu Ji’s critical thinking mode is “compromising”, which is the origin of his poetic ideas, and it in turn affects the effect of his poetic criticism.The foundation of Yu Ji’s commentary on poetry lies in learning from poems of ancient times. To him, the first way to learn from poems of ancient times was to regard poetry as knowledge and choose the model of learning, with the approach of learning poems of the Tang Dynasty first and following the poems before the Tang Dynasty. The second way was to cultivate emotions and make changes in temperament from the study of ancient poems, and finally act on the poems in an approach of studying The Book of Poetry first and then studying The Book of Poetry onwards until the Tang Dynasty poetry. The characteristic of Yu Ji’s poetry lies in “learning”. The former is external and belongs to the study of skills; the latter is internal and belongs to the study of self-cultivation. The two logical paths are consistent with Du Fu’s Poetry, and they are regarded as the whole of poetry in terms of legitimacy and affection. “Poems written when the mood is at peace are not beautiful” is the key to theoretical problems and the biggest theoretical difficulty that Yu Ji as a poetry critic and an advocate of the prosperous poetic style has to face, and it is also the embodiment of his critical attitude and poetic standpoint. On this issue, the method used by Yu Ji to criticize poetry is to distinguish the relationship between poetic achievements and life situation, and believes that the poet’s achievement has nothing to do with the situation, but lies in the poet’s own inner cultivation and talent. Secondly, Yu Ji advocates that poets actively adapt to the times, and poems present a style that is in line with the individual and the times. The thinking mode of Yu Ji’s commentary is “compromising”, with an emphasis on the appropriate “degree”. Influenced by the “compromising” thinking, Yu Ji emphasized that the poet should observe objects by standing in the middle. Therefore, he believed that all poetic styles exist objectively and do not need to be reconciled. What needs to be adjusted is the temperament and spirit of the creative subject. This poetic concept is obviously influenced by Neo-Confucianism. The eclectic critical thinking and poetic speaking style runs through all aspects of Yu Ji’s poetics, and is widely recognized for its fairness.In a word, from the perspective of Yu Ji as a poetry critic, we can have a more profound and in-depth understanding of Yu Ji’s poetics in the logical clues by comparing himself to the “Sophisticated Official of the Han Court”.
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Received: 08 March 2022
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2023, Vol. 53 
