1. Su Shi
Su Shi (1037-1101), named Zizhan and Dongpo, was from Meishan (now Sichuan). He was born in a relatively poor family of scholars. His father, Su Xun, became an official through studying. Influenced by his father, he embarked on the same path. When he was young, he "study the classics and history, and wrote thousands of words a day" (Su Che's " Mr. Dongpo's epitaph").
At the age of twenty-one in the second year of Renzong Jiayou's reign (1057), he was appreciated by Ouyang Xiu and passed the imperial examination. In the sixth year of Jiayou's sixth year, he should speak out and give advice and be awarded the title of Judge of Fengxiang Mansion in Dali Temple. He began his bumpy career as an official in the Magistrate's Office.
When Su Shi first entered his official career, it was an era when the political and social crises in the Northern Song Dynasty began to be exposed and the calls for reform among scholar-bureaucrats became increasingly louder. He was quickly involved in this wave. During Jiayou's sixth year of countermeasures, he published discussions on reforming bad governance, and later put forward the suggestions of "enriching wealth," "strengthening the army," and "selecting officials" in "Treatise on Ideology and Governance." However, Su Shi, like Ouyang Xiu, adopted a relatively moderate attitude towards political reform. The so-called "things will be easy to achieve if the law is followed, and the people will not be alarmed if things are gradual" ("Zha Zi" on the policy of the Debate Examination Hall), which shows that he hopes that the reform will be carried out in the future. It is implemented under conditions that cause drastic changes, and mainly through the conscious efforts of all social strata to adjust and improve morality to change the decline of society.
Therefore, when Wang Anshi implemented the new law and implemented reforms starting from changing the political and economic systems, he and a large number of literati such as Ouyang Xiu stood against the new law and became involved in upper-level political conflicts. During Wang Anshi's administration, Su Shi took the initiative to request external transfer. He first served as a judge in Hangzhou, and later served as magistrate of Mizhou, Xuzhou, Huzhou and other places.
Wang Anshi's resignation as prime minister in the ninth year of Xining (1076) actually showed that the new law failed due to its own flaws and external resistance. The debate between those opposed and those in favor of the new law has since become more associated with the power struggle among the ruling class. In the second year of Yuanfeng, Su Shi, who was serving in Huzhou, was suddenly arrested and imprisoned on the charge of attacking the court's new law in his poems. This is the famous "Wutai Poetry Case". Although Su Shi was later rescued from prison and demoted to Huangzhou (today's Huanggang, Hubei Province) as deputy envoy of regiment training, he suffered a heavy blow mentally from this despicable literary prison. While in Huangzhou, he called himself Dongpo Lay Buddhist, wandering in the mountains and rivers, seeking liberation in Lao Zhuang and Buddhist Zen.
After the death of Shenzong, Zhezong succeeded to the throne, Empress Dowager Gao listened behind the curtain, and the political situation underwent major changes. Sima Guang and others who originally opposed the new law entered the court and took up important positions, and the new laws were abolished one by one. Therefore, Su Shi was called to Beijing and held the posts of living scholar, Zhongshu scholar, Hanlin scholar and Zhigao. However, Su Shi originally affirmed some parts of the new law, so he did not agree with Sima Guang and others' practice of blindly "exchanging one for the other" and advocated "the school should weigh the pros and cons and take into account the director's strengths" ("Zha Zi on the Policy Questions of the Debate Examination Hall" "); and his behavior, as he himself said, "has a strong receptive nature, is too clear in black and white, and makes it difficult to get along with others" ("Lun Bian Jiang Hidden the Defeat of the Constitution"), so he had conflicts with those in power. The differences have intensified and developed into sharp contradictions in politics, academics and even morale and partisanship. He was in a situation of being "angry" and "suspicious", and was attacked by people including the "old party" and Luozhong Neo-Confucianists, so he had to ask for a transfer out of the capital and go to Hangzhou.
After that, he was transferred to local official offices in Yingzhou, Yangzhou, and Dingzhou while being constantly attacked and framed.
Zhezong took charge of the government after the death of Empress Dowager Gao. In order to show his opinion and authority, he reversed the situation and announced that he would inherit Shenzong's tactics and appoint bureaucrats who claimed to uphold the new law to attack the "old party". So Su Shi was included in the list of punishments, demoted again and again, and finally demoted to Lingnan and Hainan Island. It was not until the third year of Yuanfu (1100) that Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty came to the throne and granted amnesty to Yuanyou's old party. He returned north and arrived in Changzhou the following year. Due to the torture of long-term exile and the hardship of traveling long distances, he became ill. There is a collection of poems and essays "Seven Collections of Dongpo" and a collection of poems "Dongpo Yuefu".
Su Shi has always played a strange role in the many years of political struggles and power struggles in the mid-Northern Song Dynasty. Just as his concubine Chaoyun said that he was "out of place" (Fei Gun's "Liangxi Manzhi"), he would not please the old party or the new party when they came to power. But it is here that a fundamental aspect of his character is reflected.
Su Shi studied classics and history since he was a child, and was deeply influenced by Confucian ideals. He "worked hard and had the ambition to live in the world" (Su Che's "Mr. Dongpo's Epitaph"). Throughout his life, he always dared to stick to his own opinions on the country's political affairs, regardless of whether his opinions were correct or not, "nothing was hidden in his words" ("Hangzhou Calling Back the Beggar County"), "regardless of personal injury" (Song Xiaozong) "Preface to the Imperial Collection"), refused to be a smooth bureaucrat, did not follow blindly, did not show favoritism, and always maintained the spirit of distinguishing between black and white and being consistent between appearance and inside. While serving as a local official, he always cared about the sufferings of the people and worked hard to promote benefits and eliminate disadvantages. As a scholar-official with a strong sense of social responsibility, he has a firm and persistent character.
On the other hand, Su Shi, who had experienced many years of official turmoil and life frustrations, also clearly saw the inevitable darkness, meanness and danger in political struggle, and felt the helplessness of life. Therefore, he pursues transcendent liberation from Lao-Zhuang philosophy and Buddhist Zen philosophy. He views Lao-Zhuang philosophy on the sufferings and joys of life and the right and wrong of the world from the standpoint of infinite time and space, which is consistent with the "normal mind" of Zen Buddhism. ” Combining a life attitude of dealing with all changes and following nature, we can achieve personal peace of mind.
When all kinds of misfortunes strike, he treats them with a broad-minded macro-psychology, treating all these as temporary phenomena in the changing flow of everything in the world; he is unwilling to suffer from this, but more in "such as" Seeking beautiful and comforting things in life. For example, when he was demoted to Lingnan, which was a far-off place at that time, he chanted: "If you eat three hundred lychees a day, you will live a long life as a Lingnan native."
("Eating Lychees") It is exactly The manifestation of this attitude towards life. There is no doubt that Su Shi's above-mentioned psychology actually contains a deeper sorrow than the sorrow generally expressed directly, including the elements of self-narcosis and joy in suffering. This kind of psychology weakened the intensity of passion in his literary creation, but at the same time it also It should be noted that this is not only a product of the culture of the times, but also reflects the grand sentiments of observing society and life from a more lofty standpoint and dealing with personal misfortunes.
Su Shi's friend and poet monk Shenliao wrote in "Elegy to Mr. Dongpo": Eguan Zhengwa stood in Tan Cong, which shocked the country's scholars. However, wearing a Ge scarf and carrying his staff and shoes, he will pick up the children with kindness. It summarizes Su Shi's personality and spirit from two aspects. He is both solemn and peaceful. He not only adheres to the personality ideal of scholar-officials who are active in the world, upright and abiding by their beliefs, but also maintains the personality ideal of scholar-officials who pursue transcending the world and pursuing an artistic realm of life and spiritual realm. He integrated the two into one, cleverly It effectively solved the contradictions between advancement and retreat, joining the world and emerging from the world, society and individuals, which have always been entangled in the minds of scholar-officials, and fully expressed them in their literary works. Su Shi provided a model for later literati who lived under similar social conditions, and thus gained their universal respect.
2. Bai Juyi
Bai Juyi (772--846), whose courtesy name was Letian and whose name was Xiangshan Jushi, was another outstanding realist poet in the Tang Dynasty after Du Fu. A native of Taiyuan, he was born into a family of officials. His great-grandfather, great-grandfather, and grandfather were all officials. His father was a court official, Xiangzhou Biejia, and Dali Shaoqing. He was given many gifts to the right servant of the Minister of Punishment. Because both his ancestors and father were officials in Henan, he lived in Henan. Bai Juyi was born on the 20th day of the first lunar month in the seventh year of Emperor Dali of the Tang Dynasty (AD 772) in Dongguo Mansion, Xinzheng County, Henan Province. Wuzong died in Luoyang in August of the sixth year of Huichang (846) at the age of 75.
When Bai Juyi was born, Li Bai had passed away for 10 years and Du Fu had also passed away for 2 years. The times need great poets, and Bai Juyi was at the right time. Because he came from a scholarly family, he was extremely smart since he was a child. He learned to write poetry at the age of five or six, and could distinguish rhyme at the age of nine. In addition, his family and society gave him great stimulation and supervision, so he studied very hard in his youth. Later, recalling his study situation at that time, he said: "I had classes on poetry during the day, classes on books at night, and poetry classes every now and then, without skipping sleep, so that my mouth and tongue developed sores and my elbows became calluses." In his youth, he once lived a wandering life as a refugee. , have an understanding of all aspects of society. These reasons created Bai Juyi, an outstanding poet.
Not long after Bai Juyi was born, war broke out in Henan. Li Zhengji in Pu Town separatized more than ten states in Henan, and seeing that the chaos would continue, Bai Jigeng, who was promoted from Pengcheng County Magistrate to Xuzhou Biejia, sent his son Bai Juyi to the south to escape the chaos. He ran away from home to seek refuge at a young age, and then traveled north and south, preparing for hardships. So when he was 15 years old, he wrote a quatrain that recorded his true feelings at that time: "How do you feel about losing sight of your hometown? The Chushui River and Wushan Mountain are more than ten thousand miles away. Today, because you are visiting your brothers, I write a book with a few lines of hometown tears." Later, he sent another poem to him. The Seven Rhymes of Brothers and Sisters is also well written and has always been praised by people. The poem goes: "After the war in the countryside, the bones and flesh are scattered on the road,... When you look at the bright moon, you should shed tears, and your hometown will be the same in five places overnight." These poems show Bai Juyi's living conditions and psychological feelings at that time. The dispersion of his family members can also reflect the degree of social unrest and displacement of people at that time. Bai Juyi spent his boyhood in such an environment.
When Bai Juyi was 16 years old, he had already written many good poems that could be handed down from generation to generation, the most famous of which is the five-character rhyme poem "Farewell to Fu De Gu Yuan Cao". It is said that Bai Juyi first arrived in Chang'an and visited the old poet Gu Kuang. When Gu Kuang heard that his name was Juyi, he joked: "The rice in Chang'an is expensive, so it may not be easy to live in Chang'an." When he read the poem "The wild fire cannot burn it out, but the spring breeze blows it again", he greatly appreciated it and said that there is such a thing. Writing is not difficult when living in Chang'an. This poem truly shows Bai Juyi's extraordinary talent.
After arriving in Chang'an and being praised by Gu Kuang, Bai Juyi sometimes lived in Chang'an and sometimes elsewhere. He went to Xuzhou, Xiangzhou, Hangzhou and other places, and made friends with some poets, which really started his career. career as a poet. He passed the provincial examination at the age of 27. The following year, he was appreciated by Cui Yan, the governor of Xuanzhou, and sent to Chang'an to take the examination. In the 16th year of Zhenyuan (800), when he was 29 years old, he ranked fourth and became a Jinshi. He passed the exam at the same time as Yuan Zhen. He met Yuan Zhen and became close friends from then on. In the spring of the year when he was 32 years old, Bai Juyi was awarded the title of School Scholar, and he entered the official career. At the age of 33, he moved from Luoyang to the Qin Dynasty and lived in Weishang, about a hundred miles away from Chang'an. When he was 35 years old, he was dismissed as the School Scholar. He was also awarded Zhouzhi County Lieutenant. The following year, he was transferred from Zhouzhi County Captain to serve as a Jinshi examiner and supplement the Jixian Academy's school management. In the winter of this year, he was awarded the Hanlin Bachelor's degree. Around the same time as the Imperial Academy, he married Yang Yuqing's younger sister. In the third year of Yuanhe (808), he worshiped Zuo Shiyi.
Li Jifu, who was the prime minister at the time, was dissatisfied with Niu Sengru and others who criticized the government, and he was either deposed or demoted. Bai Juyi, who was first appointed as the Supplier, published "On the System of Personnel" and made extremely inappropriate remarks about arbitrary demotion. As a result, he offended Li Jifu and his son Li Deyu, and unfortunately fell into the whirlpool of the political struggle at that time.
In the following decades of partisanship between Niu and Li, Bai Juyi was always squeezed out by Li Deyu, which determined that his career would not be smooth throughout his life. During his tenure as Shishi, he devoted himself to his duties and repeatedly reported on current affairs, which inevitably made the emperor or powerful officials dissatisfied.
In April of the sixth year of Yuanhe (811), due to the death of his mother, Bai Juyi and Ding You lived in Weicun, and his beloved daughter Jin Luanzi also died in this year. After living in Weicun for more than three years, Bai Juyi was poor and sick. His friend Yuan Zhen often shared his salary to help him. In the winter of the 9th year of Yuanhe (814), he was awarded the title of Dafu to Prince Zuo Zanshan. Later, he was ordered to arrest Wu Yuanheng, the assassin of Wu Yuanheng. After the imperial edict, he was demoted to Jiangzhou Sima. This consecutive demotion was a major blow and lesson to Bai Juyi, which caused great changes in his thinking. In order to avoid misfortunes and avoid suspicion, "no longer speak out in astonishment", "no words will be spoken from now on about worldly affairs". In Jiangzhou, he called himself a "reduced man from the end of the world" and made his living by traveling the mountains and rivers and composing poems. He admired Tao Yuanming and hoped to become a reclusive poet. He also turned to Buddhism in an attempt to seek liberation from Buddhism. In short, being demoted to Jiangzhou Sima was a major turning point in Bai Juyi's life.
Bai Juyi stayed in Jiangzhou for four years, then moved to Zhongzhou, and was called back in the 15th year of Yuanhe. When Xianzong died, Mu Zong succeeded to the throne and was granted the title of Zhongshu Sheren. Later, he paid homage to Shangshu's Master Kelangzhong, learned about the imperial edicts, and became a court official and transferred to Zhuguo. Bai Juyi's spirit was renewed again, and his poem said, "A fish in water can still move its scales, and a crane in a crane can still grow in spirit." However, because the factional disputes were still fierce at that time, not only could he not accomplish anything, but he was also "worried and vigilant all day long." Exclaimed: "There is a scorpion at the top to relieve worries, but there are traps at the bottom." Disappointment soon followed. He was afraid that he would be slandered by powerful people again and did not dare to stay in the court for a long time, so he asked for a foreign appointment. In the second year of Changqing (822), he was appointed as the governor of Hangzhou. He avoided the court where cronies were cruelly strife. From then on, his thoughts became further depressed. The poem says : "Whoever is famous and has exhausted all his benefits will never have peace of mind again." "It would be a shame to dare to resign, but you should be safe and sound." Let the prosperity and decline be left to fate, which means that you have forgotten the world. In order to get rid of the troubles in life, Bai Juyi entertained himself with prostitutes, music, poetry and wine. He kept prostitutes and indulged in drinking into his old age. Keeping prostitutes for fun began in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. It was more common in the Tang Dynasty, and it was most prominent in Bai Juyi. There are more than a dozen prostitutes whose names are known from his poems. He was addicted to alcohol. According to his own words, "he only lives in drunkenness" and "often drunkenly, staying awake all day long." Song people counted Bai Juyi's poems and said that he had "2,800 poems, and 900 poems for drinkers." That's why. , all to escape reality and self-anaesthesia. He also further sought spiritual sustenance and relief from Buddhism, and used Buddhist negative transcendental thoughts to anesthetize and comfort himself. "The Biography of Eminent Monks of the Song Dynasty" records that Bai Juyi paid homage to famous monks and inquired about the meaning of Buddhist teachings, and discussed the wonderful meaning of Buddhism with famous monks, mostly after he went to Hangzhou. Bai Juyi went on to fast and sit in the Taoist temple, and he has been a good Buddha since then. He often fasts for three long months, that is, sitting in the Taoist temple at home in January, May and September. Therefore, Bai Juyi is also a representative of ancient literati who worships Buddhism and is optimistic. Many people in the past dynasties have praised him highly. In fact, his worship of Buddhism was not a true devotion to Buddhism, but to relieve worries and seek liberation. It was a passive resistance to society, a kind of withdrawal, and a helpless choice in the social environment at that time. It was caused by the bumpy career and disappointment. After suffering many hardships, he devoted himself to releasing his family for sustenance. Bai Juyi's self-confession in "The Biography of Mr. Zuiyin" written in his later years says: "He was addicted to alcohol, indulged in playing the piano, and wrote obscene poems. He often traveled with drunkards, harp lovers, and poetry friends. When he was away from home, he lived in the Shi family." It can be seen that he first drank and had fun and then became a Buddha. He even doubted whether there really was a Buddha. At the same time, he also made alchemy and learned Taoism. Strictly speaking, Bai Juyi was not a true Buddhist believer. At the same time, his worship of Buddhism is also due to fitness reasons. This is the reason why he sometimes fasts and sits in the ashram while thinking about prostitutes, music and wine.
Although he was negative, kept prostitutes, indulged in drinking, and believed in Buddhism, during his tenure as the governor of Hangzhou, he made outstanding political achievements and cared about the suffering of the people. The most praised thing was the construction of Hangzhou lake embankments to store water for irrigation. In order to commemorate him, people named the embankment they built "White Embankment". In addition, six wells in the city were dredged to provide drinking water for the citizens.
In May of the fourth year of Changqing (824), his term in Hangzhou expired. In addition to the prince Zuo Shuzi, he was divided into Dongdu. So he lived in Ludaoli, Luoyang. After serving as an official for 20 years, he could not find enough money to buy a house, so he had to pay for it with two horses. This shows his integrity as an official. The next year, he was dismissed as the governor of Suzhou. He served as governor of Suzhou for only more than a year and was exempted from county affairs due to illness. Liu Yuxi resigned and became the governor of the state, and Liu and Bai returned to Luoyang together. A year later, Bai Juyi was transferred to the Ministry of Punishment and granted the title of Male of Jinyang County. At the age of 58, that is, in the spring of the third year of Yamato (829), Bai Juyi claimed to be ill and was exempted from returning. He was divided into the Eastern Capital as a guest of the prince and never returned. The governor of the state refused to worship him. He was changed to the crown prince and the young master and was assigned to the Eastern Capital. Due to his negative mood and health reasons, he no longer wanted to be an official. At the age of 60, his son Atui died, which was another blow to the poet. At the age of 73, he used his family's wealth to open the eight sections of Longmen's stone beach to facilitate boating. He died at the age of 75.
Judging from Bai Juyi's career, although he was an official for most of his career, it was never smooth and he was always in a state of worry, anger and uneasiness. As a poet, he has made great achievements. It can be said that he is famous in both the government and the public, even among women and children. Probably because of his wandering as a teenager and being demoted several times later, he was mostly a foreign official, had a wide range of experiences, and had a deeper understanding of society, which enabled him to become an immortal poet.
Bai Juyi's poems, as mentioned earlier, have been written very well since he was a boy. At the age of 16, the phrase "wild fire and spring breeze" has become a famous saying through the ages.
The most famous narrative poem "Song of Everlasting Sorrow", which can be called a masterpiece of ancient Chinese poetry, was written when he was 35 years old when he was a county captain in Zhouzhi. The poem is based on the popular story of Tang Xuanzong and Yang Guifei, fictionalized and vividly written. It is vivid and moving, and is considered by critics to be the best long poem in the Tang Dynasty. It occupies a prominent position in the history of Chinese poetry. In this poem, he dared to criticize Tang Xuanzong's debauchery. There are even phrases such as "The emperor of the Han Dynasty paid great attention to beauty and thought of the country" and "from now on the king will not go to court early". The following description of the deep affection between the two is both slightly ironic and full of pity. When talking about life, separation and death, his writing is very emotional. The whole poem rises from the twists and turns of the story, and is full of complex emotions. Reading it gives people great appeal.
Bai Juyi divided his poems into four categories. In addition to allegorical poems, there are leisure poems, sentimental poems and miscellaneous poems, most of which are also very good. Generally speaking, early poetry is more valuable than later poetry. Because of the treacherous life in his life, his later poems no longer had the edge they had in his youth and middle-aged years, which is very regrettable.
As a great poet and a talented poet, Bai Juyi's creative talents are multi-faceted. His poems are not only diverse in artistic form, but also diverse in ideological content and artistic style. One of the biggest characteristics of white poetry is that the language is easy to understand and clear, but at the same time, it has been refined over time and has undergone a lot of artistic processing. There has been a legend in the poetry world that an old woman also interpreted Bai poetry. In "Tongyin Tongzhao" by Ming Dynasty poetry critic Hu Zhenheng, Song Dynasty poet Zhang Wenqian once saw the record of Bai Juyi's poem manuscript and said that "most of the changes in the original work are not consistent with the original work." This shows that Bai Juyi wrote and revised poems diligently and seriously. . His poems have reached such an artistic level because the author has worked so hard to achieve them.
Bai Juyi's poems had been widely circulated during his lifetime and were very influential, which made him quite proud. Bai Juyi said in "Nine Books of the Yuan Dynasty": "Three or four thousand miles from Chang'an to Jiangxi, in rural schools, Buddhist temples, reverse journeys, and boating, there are often people who write poems about servants; common people, monks, widows, and virgins. Yuan Zhen also said about Bai Juyi's poems, "In the past twenty years, there were all kinds of writings on the walls of forbidden provinces, temples, post offices, and the mouths of princes, concubines, and horses." As for those who wrote copies of Mole Street and sold them in the market, or kept them for drinking and drinking, they were everywhere. "It is extremely rare for one person's poems to have such social effects in the contemporary era. Not only that, Bai Juyi's poems also gained great international fame and many foreign readers at that time. They were written and written in Japan, Silla (today's North Korea), Nichinan (today's Vietnam) and other countries. According to historical records, Emperor Saga of Japan at that time copied many of Bai Juyi's poems, hid them in his secret palace, and recited them secretly. The Khitan king personally translated the white poem into Khitan characters and ordered his ministers to recite it.
It goes without saying that Bai Juyi's poems have had a significant and far-reaching impact on the poetry of future generations. Bai Juyi's poems will always be loved by people all over the world and spread throughout the ages.
Reference materials: too many
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