Seeing the Truth after Exhaustion —— Life Ideal in Tao Yuanming's Poems
Back to the garden, the first part
Few people do as the Romans do. Their nature is to love nature. I sneaked into the official career network and have been away from the game for more than ten years.
Birds in cages are often attached to the forests of the past, and fish in ponds yearn for the abyss of the past. I want to open up wasteland in Minamino and keep my humility to the fields.
The house is surrounded by about ten acres of land, thatched cottages. Willow trees cover the eaves, and peach trees cover Li Lieman in front of the hospital.
The neighboring village of the neighboring village is faintly visible, and there is smoke in the village. Several dogs barked in the alley, and the mulberry tree was barked by a rooster.
There is no dust and sundries in the yard, and the quiet room is comfortable and leisurely. Trapped in a cage without freedom for a long time, I finally returned to the forest today.
Tao Yuanming was influenced by his family background and Confucian classics when he was a teenager, and he had the ambition to help the world. However, due to the existence of the gate system, it is impossible for a poor civilian to break through the monopoly of the gate gentry on high-ranking positions. Under such circumstances, it is difficult for Tao Yuanming's ideal to become a reality, and his ideal dream will inevitably come to nothing in reality.
Tao Yuanming didn't become an official until he was twenty-nine, but all he did in his life was offer wine, join the army, and be such a small official. Not only can he not show his ambition to help the world, but he is also not allowed to lower himself and deal with some officialdom figures in vain.
By the time he was thirty-nine, Lao Tzu's thoughts and reclusive social habits, which had influenced him for many years, had brought about a qualitative change in his thoughts. He said: "A teacher has an inheritance, but he is not poor. I hope it is difficult to catch, and I want to be diligent. " It can be seen that the disillusionment of the ideal of "Tao does not spread" made him turn to farming, self-sufficiency and self-entertainment for peace of mind. Since then, he has been working for Peng. Just when he took office for more than 80 days, he mailed it all over every county and was told by the staff to plunge in. He sighed: "I can't bend over to the children in the village for five buckets of rice." From then on, he ended his career efforts and hesitation, and returned to his old job without hesitation, leaving a story for future generations. After retiring, Tao Yuanming wrote a set of five poems entitled "Returning to the Garden", which described the beauty of rural scenery and the simplicity and loveliness of rural life and expressed his happy mood after retiring. This is the first song. Let's talk about Tao Yuanming's life ideal with the appreciation of this poem.
There are many reasons for Tao Yuanming's resignation, but the ideological contradiction is probably the most fundamental. Politically, he didn't have to go because he was hit hard like Qu Yuan, and he didn't have nowhere to live because he was secretly excluded like Jia Yi. The reason why he retired as an official is mainly because of his "heart for service", his love for nature and the irreconcilable contradiction between Ren Zhen's frankness and the ups and downs of officialdom. In the end, Tao Yuanming decided that seclusion was the only way to realize his ideal of life, so he resolutely returned to the field to live in seclusion. Of course, in the early days of returning to the field, Tao Yuanming's understanding of the countryside was not comprehensive enough, at least he had naive illusions about the future. The countryside he described is quite ideal. In this way, we can easily find his life ideal from his poems.
Generally speaking, the poet's ideal in life is to "fix the truth" and "be humble", conform to nature, liberate human nature and restore the truth of society. This poem uses a very simple pen and ink, with a light touch. While writing about the poet's joy of breaking away from the shackles of officialdom, returning to the rural areas and breathing the fresh air there again, he naturally showed his feelings of freedom and liberation in the lively and quiet picture.
The first sentence, "No rhyme, naturally love Qiushan." It is said that he was born with the charm of loving nature, which is incompatible with the secular world. In this way, the contradiction is revealed at the beginning of the poem.
"Falling into the dust net by mistake, thirty years." These two sentences describe his wrong choice in the previous paragraph and also summarize his career as an official. A bird with the unchangeable charm of "natural nature" is bound to hit a wall in a dirty and kitsch net. Under such circumstances, he will naturally "learn from the past without remonstrating, and those who know it can pursue it." It's a long way to go in Xiu Yuan, and I feel that today is not yesterday "(Tao Yuanming's Return to the Cloud). "Thirty years" obviously exaggerates the facts, but the poet's description of the shackles of his short official career as "thirty years" clearly shows his extreme aversion to staying in the officialdom and his reflection and summary of "straying into the dust net".
"The caged birds miss the old forest, while the pond fish miss the old source". Here, the contrast between "captive birds" and "pond fish" is very clever. With the nostalgic features of "trapping birds" and "pond fish", the poet reproduces the inner anguish of leaving the vast world of nature and losing the space for free activities. Because the contradiction between subjectivity and objectivity, personality and the times is difficult to reconcile, the poet is seriously traumatized, and he clearly realizes that it is "wrong" and "wrong" to be an official for the sake of Lu, so he is tired of and despises being an official. At the same time, he will inevitably rise his attachment and yearning for his hometown and countryside, thus inspiring a breakthrough. In fact, such poems have existed since ancient times. "Birds fly back to their hometown, and foxes will die in the first hill" (Qu Yuan's "Mourning"), "Huma crosses the south branch of bird's nest with the north wind" (19 ancient poems) and so on. All of them are emotional, but the "old forest" and "old garden" in Tao's poems are dedicated to the quiet, beautiful and vibrant nature, which is consistent with his ideal of life.
"Open up wasteland in the south and return to the garden." The phrase "land reclamation" refers to participating in self-reliant labor, which is one of the specific contents of the poet's "frugality". In Tao Yuanming's view, there is no contradiction between working for food and clothing and practicing the ideal of life: "life belongs to the Tao, food and clothing are solid; Don't camp, but seek self-protection "(Tao Yuanming's" Harvest of Early Rice in Xitian in September when Geng Xu was old "). Therefore, the poet did not stop farming crops in his later years. As for the "clumsy" in the metaphysical concept, like "truth, simplicity and simplicity", it is connected with nature and often opposite to "cleverness". Therefore, "clumsiness" is naturally the poet's pursuit of adhering to nature, and poets often boast of their clumsiness, such as "rigidity and clumsiness" and "sincerity and absurdity will seize others".
The following ten sentences in Fang Zhai specifically describe the fun of being clumsy. Through the strong contrast between "garden field" and "dust net", the infinite spiritual pleasure of "returning to nature" is written. On the surface, these poems are very common and common things in the countryside, but in the poet's view, these humble rural experiences are completely consistent with his own ideal interest in nature. Ordinary things like "distant villages", "smoke from the kitchen in the market", "barking dogs" and "crowing chickens" create an extremely natural and pure atmosphere. No wonder the poet takes pleasure in poverty and is relaxed and happy. The poet summed up all these spiritual feelings in the last two sentences:
"I've been in a cage for a long time, and I'm back to nature."
It can be said that these two sentences are the ultimate embodiment of the poet's life ideal. "Returning to nature" is the poet's ultimate life ideal. It summarizes the main idea of the whole poem, which naturally breaks the topic and is really the finishing touch.
As far as poetry itself is concerned, its artistic style lies in the word "light and eternal" "Light" refers to the things written in the poem and the language used, which are very common. Such as "caged birds", "pond fish", "square houses", "grass houses", "distant villages", "street smoke", "dog barking" and "cock crow" are all heard and seen in rural areas. The whole poem feels like a desolate rural landscape painting. But this poem is not just "light". The genius of Tao poetry often lies in that "lightness" is by no means superficial, but that "lightness" can be "eternal". The meaning of "forever" is meaningful, and perhaps it can be said that it is far-reaching in artistic conception. Poetry is about the ideal and interest of "returning to nature". And "nature" itself is unadorned. In this way, the poet will never be as meticulous as Xie Lingyun, but "see the truth in luxury" (Yuan Haowen's On Poetry) and "not halal in every word" (Xin Qiji's Partridge Sky). Just as "simplicity" is the characteristic of Tao Yuanming's ideological character, simplicity is also the basic style of his poetic art.
In a word, "truth, simplicity and clumsiness" is the core of Tao Yuanming's life ideal and the essence of his aesthetic thought. His poems are "light" but "eternal", and Tao Yuanming himself saw the truth in the plain.