Abstract

Bao Zhao’ Landscape Poems show significant artistic characteristics. The imagery is cold. The language is gorgeous and fluent. The rhetoric is numerous such as exaggeration, metaphor, antithesis, allusion, rhetorical question, repetition. The structure mode is unique, and it formed external structure that is narrative- lyrical (talk), and also formed an internal structure that is large and multi-angle. The artistic features of his landscape poems provided the reference for later generations.

1. Introduction

Bao Zhao’s composition of landscape poetry carries the tradition that can be traced back to Xie Linyun. Meanwhile, based on his own characteristics and aesthetical attitude, he also strived to achieve a drastically unstable effect as well as peculiar and sophisticated wording, attracting readers in an extremely exciting way. By doing so, Bao Zhao managed to not live in the shadow of Xie Linyun and developed his personal style. so he make exert tremendous impact on the development of landscape poems.

The imagery of Bao Zhao’s landscape poems is characterized by "cold". The so-called "cold" refers to the natural scenery in the poem, which makes the reader feel cold in physical and psychological terms. He always describe the bleak visage of winter. There are cold things such as heavy wind, frozen ice, frost in his verse. According to statistics, in Bao Zhao 27 poems of the landscape exists 16 poems which contain "cold", the proportion of 59.26% is a high number. The other cold imagery also appeared frequently in Bao Zhao’s landscape poems, such as "cream" appeared 10 times, "fog" appeared 12 times, "ice" appeared 6 times, others such as " Sun smoke, cool sea, Quiet clouds "and so on also used again and again. These imagery which were not included a trace of warm feeling or wide picture, but only in a single cold tone. Cold trees, cold wind, cold leaves, cold peaks, cold continents, cold land, cold airflow, cold ice, cold fog and cold frost, almost everything is cold with no vitality, just like cold wind towards you after reading his poems.

Bao Zhao’s landscape poem Starting From Changsong in a Snowy Day, that describes a picture like that wind shaked the earth, snow covered branches, and roads is narrow, rivers is frozen, Horses are frostbite when drinking ice water, pedestrians are trembling in the cold air and so on. All this make the whole world is messy. In the picture, if there was no body, only the snow, the wind, the roads, the horse, that could just froze here, the vast expanse of heaven and earth, this scene makes people feel disheartened. This was a unique view of the abacus in the description of the scenery, he often set the season in the winter, the location in the riverside. People both the visual and sensory feel cold, coupled with the winter desolate and barren background so that the poem infected with a layer of cold colors.

There are many beautiful and warm scenery in nature, such as the blue sky, bright flowers, golden sunshine...... but Bao Zhao did not choose these things. He just put the cold things into his landscape poems to impress his depression.

Bao Zhao's landscape poems show two tendencies: the first one, gorgeous and dense. He used slender or dense words carefully to organize his landscape verse that show his talent. Secondly, fluent and smooth. He used easy-understanding and simple and straightforward words or sentences to show the picture of the scenery that express his emotion.

Bao Zhao, who had great aspirations and ideal sprit, but he lives poor with the hierarchical society. So this kind of contradiction had been tortured him all the time. In order to prove himself and appreciated by the rulers, he tried his best to show his talent, he used literary quotation frequently in his landscape poems and would like to bring sophisticated words to modify his words and phrases. For example, in his landscape Climbing Mountain Lu, he prefers to use sophisticated brushwork and gorgeous words to describe the natural scenery. Every scenery in the Poetry, even accurate to one mountain or spring streams were all described after author’s careful consideration, which show us all kinds of images of Lu Shan. Zhong Rong praised Bao Zhao in his Grades of Poetry: "Bao Zhao is really good at describing the form of the landscape" ¹. Another example, Bao Zhao’s landscape poem Climbing Mount Lu and looking over Cross-hole, he make great efforts with exaggerated methods to build structure and depict the scenery. At the same time the poet connected the real landscape with myths and legends by using uncommon words, he described the clouds at the junction of the heaven and mountains, the spring which originated from the peak of hill, the cliffs on both sides and the strange shape of the rocks. In the whole process of painting, the poet put the scenery, which can be seen through the views of looking up the sky and lower his head towards ground respectively together so that the image of Lu Shan was vivid in front of us. Of course, the poet's spiritual temperament and the ability that make sentences make great effect to people. Therefore, Bao Zhao’s landscape poem shows the strange and fancy picture because of his efforts with its sophisticated and fine writing skills so as to bring us a new art to the poetry.

Bao Zhao always put his inner feelings, creative desire, experiences, social practice into his landscape poem. He had the political power to build a career, but as the reality it cannot to be achieved, in order to prove himself, he used the magnificent words that make his landscape poem to be decorated.

Also, Bao Zhao’s landscape poem shows the simple, natural and smooth language style. This kind of work was mainly to reflect his travel experience and express his feelings. When he travels alone, and get along with himself, he does not need to compliment others, nor does it need to use elegant words to say something. He only needs to use his straight words to express his inner pain and helplessness. ³Such landscape poems including On the Way to Jian Kang, Starting From Houzhu, Looking From Qiyang. Fang Dongshu, a famous writer in Qing dynasty praised his works: "He just simply describe the scenery he saw and express his emotion, which make the language to be fluent and nature" ³. Indeed, in his landscape poem, the first step was to directly write scenery, then narrative, and lyrical. The landscape poem can vent out their own experience, the feelings of homesickness, unspeakable loneliness and sorrow in the journey. The language was simple and straightforward, smooth and harmonious, which can transform his depressed feelings and the sadness into a simple and straightforward landscape painting.

Bao's language style greatly changed the writing style of landscape poetry, make the language from beauty, solemnity, and detail to simple, natural and fresh. Bao Zhao's fresh language creation was reflected with his large number of Yue fu poems which language is simple, straightforward and that can express their feelings straightly. This bold attempt was successful, which break the elegant aristocratic five-character landscape poetry restrictions and enrich the language of his own poetry. Of course, his language style had a great impact on the later writers, such as Xie Tiao, Shen Yue and other poems.

So, Bao Zhao’s landscape poem have showed gorgeous, dense language style and smooth, fluent language style that make him to be the successor of the previous generation of writers. He dared to break through the predecessors’ creative mode, and try new ways to create, which show us the different language style of landscape poetry.

In the creation of landscape poetry, Bao Zhao used a variety of rhetorical devices, including exaggeration, metaphor, duality, rhetorical question and repetition and so on.

Exaggeration is on the basis of the real life, the writer to expand or shrink some of the characteristics of things in art with rich imagination. This rhetoric can reveal the essence of things totally. Bao Zhao's Landscape Poems used this method, such as Climbing Mountain Lu, Climbing Mount Lu and looking over Cross-hole, Climbing Xiang Lu Peaketc. So in this way, the writer deliberately describe the image of Lu Shan mountain became higher, more, Longer and deeper. Bao Zhao who had seen the real face of Lu Shan mountain described vividly the feature of high, dangerous and steep of Lu Shan with his extraordinary imagination and exaggerated rhetoric methods. This was the reason why Bao Zhao can successfully transform the landscape poems with exaggeration methods.

Rhetoric, a book written by Chen Wangdao. He defined rhetoric in two aspects that is the idea and context. The idea refers to the writing of the matter and the meaning. The context includes: the purpose of writing is to persuade people even make people understand or debate with someone; who said to whom, who wrote to whom; when, where, under what circumstances to write an article. ⁴ I agree with this statement, in different places, different audiences and different scenes, Bao Zhao's landscape poems used a different degree of exaggeration to express different ideas and emotions. In the early poems of landscape, in order to win the attention of the rulers, he used exaggerated language showing literary talent. Through the history of the precipitation and the vicissitudes of life, the landscape poems was no longer so spirited, but the appropriate ordinary exaggeration also makes people feel deep, because it was Bao Zhao's personal experience, this feeling also in our readers heart, which can arouse specific impression with the resonance.

Metaphor, which is based on the similarities between things, with a thing to describe another thing, in order to make clear the characteristics of the other things, this rhetoric can make the sentence more vivid and more images. Bao Zhao's Landscape Poems used this technique extensively. For example, in his poem Climbing Mount Lu and looking over Cross-hole, the tiger's teeth were compared to mountain peaks to illustrate the steep peaks and sharp; In addition, in the Visting Mount Yuan Stone Chambersilk, fabrics was also compared to the mountain to illustrate the smooth and beautiful of mountains. These vivid and figurative metaphors both leave a deep impression and an unforgettable aesthetic experience on the reader. Only those lively, appropriate, imagine and intended meticulous metaphor had the most expressive power. Bao Zhao widely used such vivid and novel metaphors, adding color to his landscape poems.

Duality, someone taking the equal number of words and same structure of the phrase or sentence to show same or opposite meaning called antithesis, which can make the line in formal regularity, lively rhythm and prosodic harmony. Bao Zhao showed ingenuity in the use of duality in his landscape poems, for each poem written by him has duality in the line, not only quantity but also quality. According to the classification in Wang Li's Chinese Prosody of antithesis metrical verses, the antithesis in Bao Zhao's landscape poems can be divided into number pairs, color pairs, azimuth pairs, astronomy pairs, geography pairs, seasonal pairs, animal pairs and plant pairs. ⁵ Chinese language has a traditional aesthetic characteristics-focusing on the neat sentence. It reflects that the ancient people pursued the expression of symmetry beauty of language. The use of this figure of speech can enhance the momentum, expand the meaning of justice and get the audience's emotional response. It is widely used by Bao Zhao in his landscape poems, showing a useful exploration on its sound and rhyme.

The use of allusions is something that reference the comments that from the elders to express their own views, which means to express more rich content with fewer words. This requires the author’s accumulation of various aspects of knowledge which can be accurately applied in his work. Bao Zhao widely quoted allusions in his landscape poems. With his ultra-high techniques, he skillfully combined these allusions with his own verses to make his own words. Such as his landscape poems Boarding Huang Heji, which quoted the "Nongzhu", an allusions tells a story that a young man named Zheng Jiaofu who met a fairy in Han Gao. In this way, he expressed his homesickness. The use of allusions, on the one hand, is beneficial to enhance the vitality of the landscape poem, on the other hand also demonstrates Bao Zhao’s talent.

Rhetorical question is a kind of figure of speech that expresses the point of view in a doubtful tone, which is conducive to strengthen the author's point of view and enhance the momentum and persuasion of the statement. In Bao Zhao’s landscape poem, such as Starting from Chang Song in a Snowy Day, Climbing Mount Lu and looking over Cross-hole and so on were used for this kind of figure of speech. The vast majority are at the end of the poem while just a small part of the middle. Bao Zhao didn’t make meaning clearly, but ended with questioning verse. Thus, with brighter attitude and heavier tone, the general statement of positive or negative can be more powerful. For instance, in On the Way to Jian Kang, Visting Mount Yuan Stone Chamber, Looking over the River and so on, Bao Zhao put questions in deliberately in order to highlight the point of view and enhance feelings. The use of this figure of speech is closely linked with Bao Zhao’s own situation. Full of anger and grievances, he poured out his repressed emotions as well as the social criticism by using rhetorical question in his landscape poem.

Repetition means highlighting an emotion in order to emphasize a certain point of view and deliberately repeated use of certain words or sentences. Bao Zhao's landscape poems used this figure of speech in a small part of the verse. Such as the very special situation where the words "wandering" "guest", "new" ,"old" and other words used in Climbing Fan Chexian, he was to highlight and emphasize he was the wanderer, vagrant with nowhere to settle down. With "new" and "old" to be sharp contrast, it shows that one with new friends may ignore the old. This loneliness and sadness are implied in repetitive words. The reason that Bao Zhao focused on the word "guest" is that he was sensitive to miss hometown and families day and night as a wanderer. He was running around in order to seek office, but when it failed, he would be much more homesick so that he repeated "guest" and other words in the landscape poems.

In summary, Bao Zhao is a skilled poet, he can applied a variety of figures of speech to his landscape poems, bring the reader aesthetic pleasure both in the form and content.

There is a fixed structure in the writing of landscape. However, due to the different writing methods, poets can form their own unique writing style. Fang Dongshu once compared two structure mode in landscape poems of Bao Zhao and XieLingyun. He said:” Reading Bao Zhao's landscape poems carefully, you will find that the structure of the writing mode is not as clear as Xie Lingyun’s, but a combination of beginning, undertaking, transition and combining.” ⁶ It shows that the structure of Bao Zhao’s landscape poems is relatively stable, showing a kind of integration. This is related to his way of writing -his quick thinking, fast writing and will not slow down the rhythm of poetry for hesitation. Here we will analyze the structure of Bao Zhao’s landscape poems in terms of the inner composition and external form.

It can be divided into two categories about external structure of Bao Zhao’s landscape poems. The first category is the narrating- describing scenery-expressing emotions or arguing pattern, his landscape poems like in The Way to Mount Jing, Climbing Mount Lu, Climbing Mount Lu and looking over Cross-hole, Climbing Xiang Lu Peak, The Way to Jing Xian from Bai Ling, On the Way to Jian Kang from Xun Yang, Back Slogan, TO XunHesong and so on. For example, TO XunHesong firstly described the travelers tired of journey, then described the sight spread in front of him and finally expressed his homesickness. This kind of three-stage construction makes a distinction between the important and the lesser so that the whole poem had not caused much of a stir so far. But this is only a general classification. With research, it can be found that there are the differences in the same on external structure of the poems. With poems are about climbing mountain, the focus are different. His landscape poems The Way to Mount Jing mainly described Jian Kang’s scenery on the top of the hill while a few poems about Lu Shan that focus awesomeness and strangeness, taking the landscape as the main part. The narrating and scenery description is foreshadowing for expressing emotions or arguing. Different narration beginning and disproportionate scenery description lead to different emotions. Therefore, the narrative part and scenery composition are of considerable importance. His landscape poems such as On the Way to Jian Kang from Xun Yang, Back Slogan in which the narrative elements significantly be more. Like On the Way to Jian Kang, the first six sentences are the narration of the journey experience and the names of time and place converted are very fast. This is because all was well for that time and the poet eagerly kept hurry day and night. The middle words in the poem describes the scenery and expresses emotions in the final part, showing his homesickness from time to time. Narrating, describing scenery and expressing emotions closely integrated and complement each other greatly.

The second category is describing scenery-expressing emotions pattern. His landscape poems like On the Way to Jian Kang, Climbing Fan Chexian, Boarding Huang Heji and so on. For example, there is no narrative elements in The Way to Jing Kou in ZhuLi, the first six lines consecutively describes scenes--the steeple trees, the interleaving rocks, the distant streams, the overlapping cliffs, the icy layer, the slanting birds which make up a bleak picture. The following is about the hard trip --with insufficient food in the severe winter and run around for life day and night. Then the poem comes to an end, although not directly to express unrecognized feelings, the implication lasts appeal. The first half of the whole poem describes the scenery while the latter part of is lyrical. The chill of the winter and the cold scene are appropriately consistent with the poet's depression.

Expressing feelings after scenery description or end up emotions with scenery description, is more direct and sincere in his landscape poetry. Bao Zhao's homesickness, the loyalty to the king, the travel of the sadness, fatigue of the campaign, the loneliness and other emotions are reflected in his landscape poems. The three-stage construction in his landscape poems has a similarity with Xie Lingyun’s, but the end is no longer Xie Lingyun’s style who realize the truth and strive philosophy. It shows he began to try to get out the norms of predecessors and looked for his own writing ideas and the appropriate structure. The most successful point of Bao Zhao's landscape poems is the direct describing scenery-expressing emotions pattern. With short space, harmonious scenery and free expression, these poems demonstrate Bao Zhao’s unique style and personality.

From the internal structure of Bao Zhao’s landscape poems, the horizon is relatively broad. He almost pay attention to the important points, with fine pen, multi-level and multi-angle to describe the scenery. In his landscape poems, "Million rooms", "thousand rocks", "a hundred years" and so on are majestic. There are mountains and valleys, winds and waves, dangerous peaks and steep walls, flying spring and other magnificent landscape of nature, accompanied by dynamic momentum, which shockingly appears in front of the readers.

There are conversions of different view between far and near, high and low in Bao Zhao’s composition. He not only described the far trees, but also the near water tunnel. He not only described the high clouds, but also the low earth. In addition, there are changes in the four seasons, as well as the sounds of insects and apes. Thus the framework of the entire space structure appears. All-round landscape mode-up and down, near and far and all around, showing the miracle and vast of Lu Shan from the different side. This is also an embodiment of poet's broad horizon and deep care about his country from one side.

Bao Zhao also used the combination of point-line-surface to organize his landscape poems, so that the structure of each poem can be with harmony and sense of wholeness. When described the sunset, it forms a point, the twist river forms a line, the plain lake forms a surface, smartly showing a perfect match among this three. When described a lonely bird flying in the sky over the dense quiet woods. The flying birds form a point in the entire screen in the formation, the trees forms a line, and the endless sky forms a surface. Point, line and surface set off each other--the point is the dynamic scene, line and surface forms the static background, with combination of movement and peace, the structure has clear distinctions. Finally the poem expresses the wanderer’s homesickness naturally. The combination of point-line-surface, from small to large, clearer layer by layer, so that the overall structure of the poem is complete.

So, Bao Zhao tried to make his landscape poems exquisite by many ways although its’ overall structure has no undulate. Whether from the external structure or the internal structure, Bao Zhao’s landscape poems can show the poet’s novel combination of skills and his own characteristics from all aspects. Poetry techniques like three-stage, two-stage, large field of view, multi-angle, combination of point-line-area, all these provide a reference for future generations in the creation of his landscape poems.

2. Conclusion

Bao Zhao's landscape poems show distinctive features, the imagery is cold, the language is gorgeous and fluent, the rhetoric is multiple and flexible, the structure mode is unique. His innovative and pioneering in the landscape poems have provided reference for later poets and located his place in the history of Chinese landscape poems.

Fund

Post-graduate’s Innovation Fund Project of Hebei University (X201705).

References