逆境不气馁，顺境不懈怠。读书是最好的充电，让自己充实起来。当我读到上海古籍出版社1979年11月版的《中国历代文论选》时，深深被元好问的《论诗三十首》所打动。这位辽金时代的大才子，其文采刚好用八个字概括：“词倾峡水，笔扫秋虹”。
首先，元好问是个有节气的爱国者。元好问（1190—1257），字裕之，太原秀容（山西忻县）人。他曾在遗山（今山西定襄县境）读书，师从著名的学者郝天挺，因此自号遗山山人。出身诗书门第，又受到良好的教育。怀有一颗爱国心。27岁时，蒙古军南下，他从山西流亡到河南。他三十二岁时，也就是金宣宗兴定五年（1221）考举中了进士。做过南阳及内乡的县令。后官至行尚书省左司员外郎。蒙古灭金后，他和北方人民共同遭受到空前灾难，激起强烈的爱国思想。金亡不仕，致力于搜集金代史料，编成《中州集》和《壬辰杂编》等书。
其次，他是一个有杜甫遗风忧国忧民现实主义诗人。元好问生活在金元交替、江山易主、改朝换代的动荡时期，备尝家亡国破、颠沛流离之苦。因此，他写了不少直接反映现实的诗篇。金哀宗天兴元年（1232）正月，蒙古军围困汴京。十二月，粮尽援绝，哀宗出京。次年正月，兵败，退守归德（今河南商丘县）。这时元好问任左司都事，居围城中，目击时艰，沉痛写下了《壬辰十二月车驾东狩后即事》诗五首。“惨淡龙蛇日斗争，干戈直欲尽生灵。高原水出山河改，战地风来草木腥。精卫有冤填瀚海，包胥无泪哭秦庭。并州豪杰知谁在，莫拟分军下井陉。”（引自《中国古代文学作品选》江苏人民出版社1979年月第一版第122页）抒发了他面对创痍满目、京城被困的残局一筹莫展，悲愤难伸的伤痛。字里行间，流露对金室衰亡真挚的哀惋。汴京陷落后，他被蒙古军驱遣到聊城，沿途见闻更让他悲愤填膺，写出了更激动人心的诗篇：“道旁僵卧满累囚，过去旃车似水流。红粉哭随回鹘马，为谁一步一回头。白骨纵横似乱麻，几年桑梓变龙沙。只知河朔生灵尽，破屋疏烟却数家。”（《癸巳五月三日北渡三首》引自同上书第123页）金亡后，百姓生活在水深火热之中，他沉痛写道：“去年夏秋旱，七月黍穗吐。一昔营幕来，天明但平土。。。。。。。”反映了对蒙古统治者无视百姓死活，把稻田填平修路的野蛮专横，表达了人民的愤懑心声。
再次，元好问是一个论诗喜爱淳朴自然，反对雕琢华艳的严谨诗人。他的《论诗绝句三十首》系统地表明了他的文学主张。他喜欢陶渊明的淳朴自然，反对夸多斗靡：“一语天然万古新，豪华落尽见真淳。南窗白日羲皇上，未害渊明是晋人。”（引自上海古籍出版社1979年11月版《中国历代文论选》第215页）他认为好的诗歌应该是清新豪放，能够表达诗人情怀和远大的抱负，所以他推崇这样的诗歌：“慷慨歌谣绝不传，穹庐一曲本天然。中州万古英雄气，也到阴山敕勒川。”（引自同上书215页）他主张原创，反对模仿和投机取巧寻捷径，批评唐人庐仝号玉川子诡异的创作风格：“万古文章有坦途，纵横谁似玉川庐？真书不入今人眼，儿辈从教鬼画符。” 他更推崇赞扬苏轼和黄庭坚的豪放诗歌和诗风：“奇外无奇更出奇，一波才动万波随。只知诗到苏黄尽，沧海横流却是谁？”（引自同上书216页）他推崇李白“笔底银河落九天”，韩愈的“江山万古潮阳笔”，而不满孟郊的穷愁苦吟。推崇曹氏父子及刘琨等人的粗犷深沉的诗风，鼻斥温、李新声的柔靡。他认为杜甫的“画图临出秦川景，”是因为“眼处心生句自神”只有细心地观察和体验生活，才能笔底惊风雨，诗成泣鬼神。因此他对那些只在家中闭门觅句的陈师道之流讥讽道：“可怜无补费精神”。他主张真诚，反对伪饰：“心声只要传心了”而批判那些“心画心声总失真，文章宁复见为人”的虚假伪饰的不良创作倾向。《中国文学史》对元好问的评价说：“元好问这些意见是针对文坛时弊而发，具有重大的现实意义。同时，他这种以诗论诗的形式对后代影响也很大。”（见《中国文学史》卷三，人民文学出版社，游国恩、王起、萧涤非、季镇淮、费振刚主编，1979年11月版。第162页）
再其次，元好问是一位辽金时期最杰出的诗人。他的诗词歌赋“词倾峡水，笔扫秋虹。”我最喜欢他的一首诗是《游黄华山》“湍声汹汹转绝壑，雪气凛凛随阴风。悬流千丈忽当眼，芥蒂一洗平生胸。雷公怒击散飞雹，日脚倒射垂长虹。骊珠百斛供一泻，海藏翻倒愁龙公。”（见《中华诗词》元好问《游黄华山》） 写景写得如此壮观，韵律工整，想象奇特，似看到“飞流直下三千尺”李白的影子，但是却不同于李白。他的词作也代表了金词最高成就。如《木兰花慢 游三台》、《水龙吟》、《水调歌头》等。
1257年元好问病逝。但是他为我们中华民族留下了宝贵的文化遗产。他的诗论在今天仍有现实意义。他主张淳朴自然、反对华丽雕琢，主张真诚，反对伪饰，主张细心观察体验生活，反对闭门觅句，主张原创，反对模仿和投机取巧，主张豪放，反对柔靡，对今天的诗歌以及文学创作仍有指导意义。特别是他爱国的气节和为人民代言的现实主义创作风格，依然让我们景仰，激励我们做一个有气节的中国人，做一个能为人民代言的中国人。
Words like Water Pour Out From the Gorge, and His Pen Could Sweep the Autumn Clouds—Reading Yuan Haowen
By Wang Yongli
A great man can be self-abnegated when adversity comes, and neither is slack when prosperity comes. Reading is the best way to recharge and enrich yourself. When I read Chinese Ancient Theory, published by Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House in November 1979, I found that Yuan Haowen's Thirty Songs of Poetry was very interesting and was deeply moved by it. He was a greatly talented person of the Liao and Jin era. His works can be defined with the phrase: Words like water pour out from the gorge, and his pen could sweep the autumn clouds.
Yuan Haowen (1190-1257) was a patriot. His pen name, Yuzhi, was from the Rong-Xiu of Taiyuan (Xin County, Shanxi). He was reading in Yishan (now Dingxiang County, Shanxi Province), under the guidance of the famous scholar Hao Tianting, therefore named himself like a mountain person of Yishan. He came from a family of scholars and received a good education so had a patriotic heart. At the age of twenty-seven, when the Mongolian army invaded the south, he was exiled from Shanxi to Henan. When he was thirty-two years old, during Jin Dynasty Emperor Xuangzong’s fifth year, the year of Xingding (1221) he successfully passed the imperial examination and became a Jinshi (a successful candidate in the highest imperial examinations). Yuan Haowen became a magistrate in Nanyang and Neixiang County. Later he was promoted to official of the Left Secretary Chancery. After Mongolia conquered Jin, he and the northern people suffered unprecedented disaster, arousing his intense patriotism. He refused to be an officer for Yuan Dynasty, instead dedicating himself to collecting historical materials and editing them into Zhongzhou Selection, Renchen Series and other books.
Yuan Haowen was one of the realistic poets who inherited the style of Du Fu. Living in the alternating, turbulent period, changing from the Jin Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty, he suffered pain from family damage and a ruined nation. He wrote many works directly reflected this reality. In the first lunar month, during the first year of Tianxing (1232) Emperor Aizong of Jin was besieged by the Mongolian army at Bianjing. In the twelfth month the city ran out of food supplies and without reinforcements the emperor had to flee from the capital. The following year in the first lunar month, Jin was defeated and retreated to Duide (now Shangqiu County, Henan). At the time, Yuan Haowen was the official of the Left Secretary Chancery in the city, so he witnessed the storm, and wrote the five poems of "The Record of December ". He described as follows "The snake and dragon are fighting horrifically in the day, killing and slaughtering all creatures. Water from the plateau changes mountains and rivers, and the wind from the killing fields makes the grass and woods smell of blood. The mythical Jingwei tries to fill up the sea with pebbles (a symbol of dogged determination), but Bao Xu cries in the Qin court without tears (Bao Xu, an officer of Chu State, went in 506 to the Qin court crying for help. He cried for seven days and nights and finally made the Qin troops save the Chu State). Who knows where the hero of the state is now? Don’t divide the troops in two to reach the city of Jingxing." (From Selected Works of Ancient Chinese Literature, Jiangsu People’s Press, 1979 first edition, page 122.) He expressed his nonplussed feelings facing this helpless situation of the Mongolian army besieging the city, destroying houses and buildings. In the poem he expressed his pain, grief and indignation as well as his love for the Jin Dynasty. After the fall of Bianjing the Mongols drove him to Liaocheng. What he saw along the road made him feel more grief and indignation, so he wrote poem: "Alongside the road lie stiff and motionless many prisoners, while decorated vehicles pass like a stream. Girls dressed in pink skirts weep following the Uighur horses, for whom do they look back to step-by-step? The white bones are as messy as knots, in only a few years the hometowns become wild sandy land. Hearing that livings no longer exist there, I see sparse smoke coming from several shabby huts." (“Third day of the fourth month, Guisi Era, Three North Ferry Poems” from the same book, page 123) After the fall of the Jin Dynasty, people lived in dire straits. He lamented: "Last summer and autumn was a drought, in July the corn sprouted ears. One evening the Mongol troops put camps in the field, the next morning the farmers found that all the corn fields had become flat earth." This reflects that the Mongol rulers ignored the means of people and turned the fields into roads in a brutal despotic manner. The poem expressed the people's anger.
Yuan Haowen was also a rigorous poet and advocated that poetry should honestly follow nature, against the polished flowery style. He expressed his literary idea system in his book On Thirty Jueju Quatrains (Jueju, a poem of four lines each containing five or seven characters, follows a strict tonal pattern and rhyme scheme). He loved Tao Yuanming's honest nature and was against fustian and pompous style: “One phrase is so natural that makes our immutable time become new, after luxurious falls you see truth and purity. The south window becomes white as the day begins, it does not matter that Tao Yuanming is Jin or not." (Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, November 1979 edition of Chinese Ancient Theory, page 215.) He believed that good poetry should be fresh and bold, and express the poet's feelings and lofty aspirations, so he highly praised honest poems: "Generous songs never run out, and the songs of yurts come from nature. The heroic lofty sentiments of Zhongzhou eternally reach the Chile Chuan, Yinshan." (From the same book, page 215.) He advocated original creation and was against imitation, gaining something by trickery, and shortcuts. He criticized Tang Lu Tong’s strange writing style: "Since ancient times, writing articles has been a smooth road, whether vertical or horizontal who does like Yuchuan Lu? The book cannot be read by modern eyes, he teaches his children to write something like scrawl handwriting." He more highly praised Su Shi and Huang Tingjian's poetry, with their bold and uninhibited poetic style: "Surprise after surprise and more surprise, one wave surges and ten thousand waves follow. I only know one poem to the end, one by Su Huang, he puts the sea in turmoil." (From the same book, page 216.) He respected Li Bai "letting stars fall down from the Heaven", and he loved Han Yu's "Eternal Chaoyang Pen", but he expressed his dissatisfaction with Meng Jiao's suffering writing. He praised Cao Cao and his sons’ articles, and Liu Kun's rough deep poetic style, but sniffed at Wen Tingjun and Li Xinsheng’s softness. He argued for Du Fu's "paint like the Qinchuan scene," because "looking and then writing comes from the heart, the words as marvelous as though they are from god." Only through careful observation and experience of life can a poet write something to make the rain surprised, and make the ghosts and gods sob. He therefore quipped against those who stayed in the home if Chen Shidao and his ilk, who tried to find some wonderful words for their poems: "What a pity it is! These works are nothing but totally wastes". He argued the "sincerity” was against camouflage: “the voice of the heart should express the heart’s meaning." He criticized those who "tried to express the heart’s voice but always totally distorted.” From one’s article he believed you would see his character, so he was against false pretense and adverse tendencies of creation. A History of Chinese Literature has a comment about Yuan Haowen: "Yuan Haowen’s opinions are directed toward thoughts of the malpractices of literary society, so have a practical significance. At the same time, how he commented on poems in the form of poem shows deep affection for his offspring." (See A History of Chinese Literature, volume three, People's Literature Publishing House, edited by You Guoen, Wang Qi, Shaw, Zhenhuai, Fei Zhengang, November 1979 edition, page 162.)
Yuan Haowen, finally, was the most outstanding poet of the Liao and Jin period. His poems and songs are "Words like Water Pouring out from the Gorge, and his Pen Could Sweep the Autumn Clouds.” I love his poem "Visiting Yellow Hua Mountain" very much. "The sounds of truculence turn the vast valley, the snowy air is cold with the wind. Suddenly a waterfall is suspended from a ten thousand li high cliff in front of my eyes, all annoyances are washed out of my chest. Angry thunder hits the flying hail, on the side, the sun shoots down a rainbow. One hundred boxes of pearls are pouring down, overturning the dragon who is hiding in the sea." (See “Visiting Yellow Hua Mountain" in Chinese Poems by Yuan Haowen.) He wrote of spectacular scenery, with prosodic, neat, strange imagination. I seem to see a similar imagination with Li Bai, "Flying current pours three thousand feet down", but unlike Li Bai his words also represented the highest achievement of Jin Dynasty. Some of his other good poems include "Magnolia Slowly Travelling Three Platforms", "Water Dragon Singing" and "Prelude to Water Melody”.
Yuan Haowen died in 1257, but left a precious cultural heritage for the Chinese nation. His poetry still has a realistic significance today. He advocates natural simplicity against magnificent sculptures. He advocates sincerity opposed to camouflage. He advocates careful observation of life’s experience, instead of sitting at home trying to find really great words. He advocates original creation, not imitation. And he advocates doing things by irregular ways, boldly and not softly. For today's poetry and literature he still offers guidance. His patriotism and integrity for the people's realistic writing style, has us in adoration, encourages us to be a person who can speak for the interests of the vast majority of Chinese people.
