Deconstruction and Subversion of Traditional Poetics——a description of the lyrical poems of Wen Tingyun

From the traditional view of poetics, the academic circles has given an assessment of Wen Tingyun's lyrical poetry in a such a description of his style as either being rich in colors with soft fragrance with lack of depth of true feelings, or being deep, beautiful, grand and concise. However, in the historical background of late Tang Dynasty while the social structure was under great changes, Wen Tingyun, as the first poet in Chinese literary history to devote himself to the writing of lyrics, had deconstructed the tradition of classical Chinese poetics. Instead of seeking to express the poet's own ideals and feelings as in the traditional style, the poet no longer wrote with subjective passions since his poems were mostly composed to match with the off-hand performances of the singing and dancing of feasts. With the subjective emotions of the poet himself retired, objective scenery had been employed for decoration as the best means to foil the image of characters in his works. Thus the characteristics of decoration became an important feature of Wen lyrics. In addition, Wen also deconstructed the traditional style with the attention to express the cares and worries of the contemporary age. With a peculiar passion for creation, the traditional expressive poet retired so that an objective view was formed in a new linguistic state without an overflow of the feelings of the poet. As a result his lyrics were filled with objective images piled up in clusters. His anti-traditional insight was able to lead him to the focus on the form, the creation of which was of great significance to the development of lyrics.