On Gui Youguang's Poems

Gui Youguang's poetic achievement was overwhelmed by his reputation in articles so that he was thought to be incapable of writing poems.In the early Qing period,Qian Qianyi and Zhu Yizun spoke highly of his poems,which reflected foreign invasions in many aspects,cared about all social problems,especially focused on evils in the society by documentary writing to indicate the specific interest different from literary prose.As for characters,he was good at describing emperors,remarkable ministers and heroes.His poems tended to integrate history,reality and imagination into one,characterized by depth in history,thickness in imagination and height in realistic criticism.In terms of form,his poems were free of restraints.They are often Ze tonal rhyme or Ping tonal rhyme to Ze tonal rhyme.The rhyme changed flexibly in every two or three verses.His language is profound,magnificent and free.His poems inherited Tang and Song poetry.When in argumentation,his poems used the form and structure of prose,with the inclination of Song poems.When in free expression,his poems applied lots of rarely-used characters,reduplication,color words,and gorgeous words,which displayed his skillfulness.