In ancient China, poetry was a very important literary genre, among which landscape poetry was a very important form of existence. It can be said that without landscape poetry, China’s poetry culture would be much bleak. When it comes to landscape poetry, there is one person who has to be mentioned, and he is Xie Lingyun.
Portrait of Xie Lingyun
Xie Lingyun was a famous poet in the Southern and Northern Dynasties. He was a descendant of Xie Xuan, a famous general in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. During the Eastern Jin Dynasty, he was hereditary to the title of his ancestor Kang Le Gong. Later, he held many important positions. After the Liu Song Dynasty and the Jin Dynasty, Xie Lingyun also suffered a disaster. First, his title was reduced, and later he was killed by the then Emperor Wen of the Song Dynasty. He was only 49 years old. Although Xie Lingyun died very early, his style of being indifferent to fame and fortune and indulging in landscapes still had a great influence on later generations.
Xie Lingyun was born into a very noble family. He was a child of a famous family at that time. He was raised in a Taoist temple in Qiantang when he was a child. It is estimated that this also had a certain influence on Xie Lingyun's later calm temperament. Influenced by his influence, he had read extensively since he was a child and could write poems at a young age. When he was eighteen years old, he was granted the title of Duke Kang Le. When he was twenty years old, he officially became an official and held many official positions. However, Xie Lingyun's His mind was not on being an official, but on the mountains and rivers. In order to make it easier to travel around the mountains and rivers, he also specially designed a removable clog. When going up the mountain, remove the front teeth, and when going down the mountain, remove the back teeth, so that it is easy to go up and down the mountain. convenient.
Later, Emperor Wu of the Song Dynasty Liu Yu replaced the Eastern Jin Dynasty. Xie Lingyun was even less interested in power. The court urged him several times to become an official before he was willing to go. However, after taking office, he still did not do anything serious. , thinking about traveling around all day long, maybe it would be okay if it was just like this, but when the court wanted to arrest him, he dared to resist arrest, and even later conspired to rescue him when he was exiled, so Emperor Wen of Song Dynasty also allowed Emperor Wen of Song Dynasty to rescue him again. He couldn't bear it and killed him.
Xie Lingyun's famous quotes
Xie Lingyun wrote quite a lot in his life. Although not many of them are good poems, there are many famous quotes. His unique style is in It was very rare at that time. He used his concise words to bring a unique freshness to the poetry world where metaphysics was flourishing at that time. Next, I will take you to appreciate some of Xie Lingyun’s classic quotes.
The famous poet Xie Lingyun
The most famous poem of Xie Lingyun's life is "Spring grass grows in the pond, and the willows in the garden turn into songbirds" in his "Climbing the Pond and Going Up the Floor". These two poems have always been It has been praised by countless people. At first glance, these two sentences are very ordinary. There is nothing unique about them. The words are simple and the scene described is also very ordinary. However, if such scenes are viewed together in the whole poem, they will become more interesting. We can see the unique charm of these two sentences. According to the poetic context, Xie Lingyun was recovering from a serious illness at that time. Compared with such a bustling scenery, Xie Lingyun was more touched by the vitality of this relatively simple spring. Moreover, the poetry style at that time was still known for its gorgeous rhetoric. In such an environment, such fresh sentences naturally stand out and are loved by readers.
"The bright moon shines on the snow, and the new wind is strong and sad." Originally, the bright moon should be relatively soft and calm, but the following sentence changed the context of this poem. It was cold and freezing. , the cold moonlight shines on the thick snow, giving people a high and gloomy feeling. This is a visual feeling, followed by an auditory experience. The wind is howling, and the word "jin" expresses the fierceness of the wind. Moreover, the howling of the wind is like a cry, which is more in line with the author's mood, and the readers can't help but feel a gloomy and sad mood.
Xie Lingyun's Landscape Poetry
Throughout the history of Chinese poetry, Xie Lingyun is an indispensable figure. He played a very important role in the development of Chinese landscape poetry. The pioneering landscape poetry integrates natural beauty into poetry, making landscape an important theme of poetry.
Portrait of Xie Lingyun
Chinese poetry has always been based on freehand brushwork, and few things were depicted as the theme of poetry. Before that, Tao Yuanming was a famous poet. Tao Yuanming is a pastoral poet and an outstanding freehand poet. For Tao Yuanming, writing poetry is just an expression of life, so there are not so many words and sentences describing landscapes in his poems. They are still mainly about the blending of scenes. By Xie Lingyun's In his hands, the landscape poem began to formally take shape. The beautiful scenery of Shangshui became the theme of the poem, and realistic writing became the center of the entire poem. Xie Lingyun did not let go of any beautiful scenery, and included every detail in the landscape. , every beautiful and gorgeous outline is presented in front of the readers.
Xie Lingyun's landscape poems were fresh and elegant, and caused a huge sensation at that time. Only then did everyone realize that poetry can still be written like this, this new style of "fading temperament and widening voice" Characteristics began to become a trend in poetry writing at that time, affecting the poetry style of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and even had a certain impact on the subsequent prosperous Tang Dynasty. At the same time, because Xie Lingyun's poems pay more attention to the description of scenery and are independent of the poet's emotions, they are not able to achieve the state of blending scenes like some poems. At the same time, they also have their own style and characteristics in structure. They are generally based on Writing about travel first, then writing about experiences, and finally expressing emotions formed a unique pattern. This naturally led to the suspicion of procrastination, so Xie Lingyun's poems also received a lot of criticism.
In general, Xie Lingyun made a huge contribution to the creation and prosperity of landscape poetry, which made landscape poetry an independent poetry form after the Southern Dynasties and had a profound impact on later generations. .
The characteristics of Xie Lingyun’s landscape poems
are well known. Xie Lingyun is an important poet in Chinese history. Before him, landscapes appeared as embellishments of poetry, and he was the first to create large-scale creations with landscapes as the theme. He used exquisite and delicate words to The beautiful scenery of nature is integrated into poetry, and he is an important pioneer of Chinese landscape poetry. Let's briefly analyze the characteristics of Xie Lingyun's landscape poetry.
Xie Lingyun’s Landscape Poems
First of all, the Wei and Jin Dynasties were a time when metaphysics flourished, and the creation of landscape poems was also done in a metaphysical way. Landscapes are what poets use It is a prop to appreciate the interest of metaphysics, and Xie Lingyun himself also has good attainments in the fields of Lao Zhuang, Buddhism, etc., so the words of Buddha and Lao often appear in his poems. Therefore, it can be said that Xie Lingyun’s landscape poems have not escaped the shackles of the times. , and has a deep imprint of Wei and Jin metaphysics. However, what is worthy of recognition is that there are very few sudden metaphysical statements in his landscape poems. Basically, the metaphysics and scenery are well combined, so they are not obscure at all.
From the perspective of artistic characteristics, Xie Lingyun’s works are very beautiful. Simple scenes present beautiful artistic conceptions through his depictions. Some of these artistic conceptions are delicate and refined, some are deep and beautiful, and so on. And enough to make readers immersed in the scene. When later people praised his landscape poems, they often mentioned a sentence: "Like hibiscus emerging from clear water, it is naturally lovely." It can be seen that the main artistic feature of Xie Lingyun's landscape poems is that they are fresh and natural, without gorgeous words or pretentious sentences. , after careful taste, it appears more pure and natural.
Looking at many of Xie Lingyun's landscape poems, although it is inevitable that due to the limitations of the times, some of them are careless in tailoring and lack of preparation, and they also pay too much attention to the blending of metaphysics, so they are somewhat difficult to understand, but Despite their shortcomings, many of Xie Lingyun's landscape poems still occupy a place in the history of Chinese poetry with their elegant and refined style.
Xie Lingyun at the end of the year
Xie Lingyun created a lot in his life and had many classic works. "At the end of the year" is one of the outstanding poems. In this five-character poem, Xie Lingyun cleverly combined his own The combination of emotion, external scenery and profound philosophy perfectly reproduces the mood and desolate environment at that time.
Xie Lingyun's calligraphy at the end of the year
Xie Lingyun's life was relatively difficult. Although he came from a good background, it was already the late Eastern Jin Dynasty, and he was replaced by Liu Song not long after, and Xie Lingyun's ancestor Those who made great contributions to the Eastern Jin Dynasty naturally became the target of Liu Song's attacks. Judging from the time, this poem should have been written in the later years of his life. At that time, he was not only jealous of the court, but also could not tolerate all kinds of sycophants. The chaos in his government also led him to resign from office several times. This unsatisfactory career and the difficulty in realizing the value of life led him to write this poem on a windy winter night.
The first two sentences of the whole poem express his emotions straight to the point. Xie Lingyun skillfully used the phrase "I am sleepless, as if there are hidden worries" in the Book of Songs to lament that I can't sleep at night, and my heart is so sad. There is the pain of sadness. This kind of hidden worry is not only the simple worry about oneself getting old and being ruined in life as mentioned below, but also the complex emotions of not being able to pursue the past, not getting what one wants, changes in personnel, etc. .
The three or four sentences are the scene that the author saw when he was insomnia. The bright moon shines on the snow, and the strong wind howls violently, just like the cry of grief. This scene coincides with The author was in a similar state of mind at that time, so the sadness and uneasiness in the author's heart are even more evident. The last 5 and 6 sentences express the author's sadness about the impermanence of the world and the passing of time through the remaining power of "accumulated snow" and "shuo wind". This kind of human life is so easy to Passing away, the depression of the changing years and the sorrow of the beauty's unrequited ambition are also the themes of poets throughout the ages.