On ZHONG Rong's Poetic Criticism and Thought

ZHONG Rong's view on poetic criticism suggests that there exists certain unhealthy phenomenon in the circle of contemporary poets. That is, the acknowledged masters are by no means good examples for those who wanted to improve their writing skills, and the rapid increase of poetry writers would naturally result in general degradation in writing. The way out is to emulate outstanding poets in the past. ZHONG Rong treated with reservation the pursuit of rhyme and aphorism, two characteristics of Yongmin Style represented by XIE Tiao and SHEN Yue, and he did not think too much of their popular orientation. Neither did he appreciate the lowbrow of BAO Zhao, who was imitated by a great number of contemporary poets. What ZHONG Rong advocated is a highbrow aesthetic taste and the employment of fu (ode), bi (metaphor in poetry) and xing (poetic mood), with emphasis on the latter two types of writing styles, in order to achieve the combination of fengli and dancai.