On Tian Xi's Poetic Thoughts

Tian Xi, an honest official in early Song Dynasty, is well known in today's academic circle not because of his rarely-discussed poems but because of his splendid ancient Chinese and ci-fu. However, he is a representative for bai-style poets in early Song Dynasty and his poetic thoughts are unique. As for poetic content and function, he advocated a combination of mirroring reality, serving politics and expressing emotions; as for poetic aesthetics, he emphasized both elegance and gorgeousness; as for poetic style, he praised colorful style but never looked down upon other styles; as for poetic skills, he stressed natural writing but never refused to learn from various sources; as for poetic language, he saw advantages in either fluency or brevity; as for poetic genres, he valued both ancient and contemporary poems, etc.. These poetic thoughts are of highly theoretical value and reflect his open-minded literary view. Meanwhile, he puts these poetic thoughts into practice by creating poems. He partially puts bai-style poems in early Song Dynasty back into balance, which tended to go to extremes in leisurely content, linguistic simplicity, fluent expression, etc.. As a representative for bai-style poets, Tian Xi's poetic thoughts and his practice greatly enrich later generations' understanding of bai-style poems in early Song Dynasty.