Abstract:

Ouyang Xiu advocated for the “Baizhan Style”, a poetic style that prohibits the use of common concrete imagery, with the intention of eliminating poetic flaws and establishing a new poetic trend. Mei Yaochen regarded Ouyang Xiu’s initiation of the “Baizhan Style” as merely a word game. Nevertheless, he actively employed the techniques of this style in his poems about rain and snow. Mei focused on the present and pursued the coexistence of the new and the old, that is to say, he sought innovation without discarding the old by actively absorbing and transforming literary heritage. In contrast, Ouyang Xiu and Su Shi valued competition. They selectively embraced the “past” and actively “bringing forth the new through the old”, thereby creating the future in the present. These represent two mechanisms for the evolution and development of Song Dynasty poetics. Influenced by this, Mei Yaochen’s poetic style was primarily characterized by “leisurely simplicity and plainness”, which in his later years tended toward the “peculiar”. Mei’s “leisurely simplicity and plainness” differed from Su Shi’s “plainness”, and his “peculiar” also diverged from the “splendid beauty” pursued by Ouyang Xiu and Su Shi.

Key words: Mei Yaochen, Baizhan Style, coexistence of the new and the old, leisurely simplicity and plainness