Li Bai's Exploration of the Moon World
Xu Dagui
As a talented poet, Li Bai's moon poems contain great personality strength and profound philosophical spirit, which has completed the transformation of the moon from a natural object to a personality will and raised the theme of the moon in China ancient literature to a new height. In Li Bai's moon world, there are both the physical realm with elegant soul and the "my realm" full of the author's personality will. The blending of the physical world and my world presents a unique beauty of artistic conception, and Li Bai in the moon world permeates this physical world with his unique romanticism, which embodies the poet's pursuit of ideals and light.
Keywords: Tang poetry; Li Bai; Moon poems; The realm of things and me; Moon love complex
Just like Tao Yuanming's "Ju" and Lu Fangweng's "Mei", Li Bai's "Yue" blends the poet's style and becomes the embodiment of the poet's ideal. The moon inspired the poet, enabling him to observe and understand the world and gain a unique perspective and feeling. According to statistics, there are no fewer than 300 poems about the moon in Li Bai's poems. "The wine has no taste of the moon, and the scenery has no beauty of the moon." Under the influence of Li Bai, the moon has become colorful: in terms of time, there are autumn moon, Gu Yue, Han moon and so on. In terms of ranking, there are Qin Diyue, Xiao Xiangyue, Yue He and so on. He compared the moon to a flying mirror, a Yaotai mirror and a white jade plate, and described it as a flat moon, a wide moon, a lonely moon, a long moon and a half-round autumn. He can go to the moon, get drunk, walk, take the moon, collect the moon, send the moon, and he can even get credit. The moon inspired Li Bai's endless interest and inspiration in poetry. Li Bai's moon poems contain great personality strength and profound philosophical spirit, which completed the transformation of the moon from a natural object to a personality will, and promoted the theme of the moon in ancient China literature to a new height. In short, in Li Bai's moon world, there is not only a smart and elegant physical environment, but also a "my environment" full of the author's personality will. The blending of the material environment and my environment shows the unique beauty of artistic conception, and Li Bai in Moon World permeates this material environment with his unique romantic spirit, which embodies his unremitting pursuit of ideals and light.
First, Li Bai's Moon World
First of all, Li Bai's moon poems created a beautiful and moving beauty of the material world. The moonlight described by Li Bai is always beautiful. "From Jinling upstream to the mountain to play with the moon and Tianmen Mountain to send the master book of Jurong Wang", "Cangjiang upstream, white wall to see the autumn moon. The autumn moon shines on the white wall, as white as snow in the mountains. Described the night scenes of the riverside and Baiqiang Mountain, and deliberately highlighted the scene of autumn moon. The mountains in the night were originally dark, but at this time, the reflection of the moon was as bright as snow. This sharp contrast between light and dark makes people feel that the night is particularly deep and the Baibi Mountain is particularly prominent.
When poets describe moonlight, there is always water. The moon is reflected in the lake or accompanied by rivers and streams, and moonlight, water and light are intertwined to make each other interesting. For example, "Send Wei Wan, a native of Wuwangshan, back to the palace": "Wanheyan set up a mirror lake. Beautiful beyond description, the river is clear and muddy. People swim around the moon and ships sail in the air. " This lake is like a mirror, in which everything in the universe is reflected. Boating under the moon, the reality of the lake shore is blurred by the moonlight night. The upside-down landscape in front of me competes with the poet's traditional habitual thinking. The poet feels that he is hallucinating, wandering in the air and swimming to the moon. If the poet enters the fairy mirror, his poems also show "fairy spirit", and his sense of attachment, heaviness and dependence on the earth is gone. The poet's soul and even the reader's mind are also free to wander to the moon, showing an extraordinary realm.
Secondly, thinking and environment are harmonious. While describing the beauty of the material environment, Li Bai paid attention to integrating it with the author's subjective "meaning", which made the poetic environment harmonious and unified inside and outside, giving people endless interest and meaning. This constitutes the "heterogeneous isomorphism" between the moon and man. The moon is no longer an objective moon, but a natural humanization. Taken together, Li Bai's poems can be divided into the following categories:
1. Express your heroic and unrestrained personality.
As a symbol of light and truth, the moon is fascinating in Li Bai's works. Climb Mount Tianmu like a dream: "And the bright moon shines on my shadow, and I come to Yanhe." Another example is "boating at Donglumen": "Teach Mingyue to go by boat, why not go to Tunxi?" The poet regards boating under the moon and traveling in space as the endless pleasure of life. Poets love the moon and even catch it in the sky, such as Uncle Yun, a farewell book from Xie Tiao Building in Xuanzhou: "We are all proud and want to embrace the bright moon in the blue sky." When the poet drinks the bright moon alone and is drunk to three points, it is even more heroic to ask for the moon by drinking wine, with emotional jumping and exaggerated language. You Bao has a poem saying: "Alas, the immortal died, which is a lifetime of English. Riding against the wind, catching the moon and riding whales. " It vividly summarizes Li Bai's heroic and free-spirited personality characteristics.
2. Express your feeling of loneliness
Li Bai was frustrated all his life and was repeatedly hit in reality. "Yu Hu Yin" says: "Three cups of sword dance autumn moon, suddenly singing and crying." He drew his sword and danced under the drunken moon, singing and crying. How tragic! "High light flashing; My thoughts are getting deeper and deeper. I lift the curtains and look at the moon with a sigh. "In Sauvignon Blanc, I use metaphors to describe the painful mood after being forced to leave Beijing. Another example is "Sleeping at Niuzhushan at night to remember the past": "I watched the autumn moon on the deck and thought of the old general Xie in vain." Facing the bright moon, the poet feels infinitely lonely, his political ambition cannot be realized, and there is nowhere to find a bosom friend in the world. Nautilus Island is full of indignation and complaints about the unreasonable phenomenon that the dark society does not attach importance to talents.
3. Show your noble and bright qualities
The moon is a symbol of sublimity and brightness, which coincides with Li Bai's innate nature, that is, "there is an instinct for longing and pursuing bright things, so the moon is the embodiment of Li Bai's ideal" [1]. Drinking the bright moon alone: "until, holding up my cup, I asked the bright moon to bring me my shadow and make the three of us." "I sang. The moon encourages me and I dance. My shadow is rolling behind. " The poet galloped in his imagination, intending to welcome the bright moon as his companion, which showed the poet's purity as the moon and his moral integrity beyond worldly customs. In the realistic contradiction between the poet's "birth" and "entry into the WTO", probably only Mingyue can communicate with him spiritually.
The moon is a symbol of pure friendship.
Li Bai often expresses his feelings through the moon in his friends' poems, which shows the purity and loftiness of their friendship. The poet wrote in "Crying for Love": "The bright moon does not return to the blue sea, and the white clouds are all worried." Li Bai compared Chao Heng, a Japanese friend, to the bright moon, and compared Chao Heng's death in the sea to the moon's sinking into the blue sea, expressing his sincere condolences to his friends. Li Bai heard that his friend Wang Changling was demoted, and expressed infinite concern and sympathy in "I heard that Wang Changling moved to Longbiao Kiln to the left": "I am worried about the bright moon, and I will go with the wind until Yelangxi." In poetry, sending the bright moon is a very unique way to express concern for friends, and at the same time, using the bright moon to symbolize the purity of yourself and your friends.
Express your feelings of parting and missing.
In ancient times, the moon was one of the germinal images of parting. In Xie Zhuang's Yuefu in the Southern Dynasties, there is a saying that "a beautiful woman walks away from the dust, and there is a bright moon in a thousand miles". The bright moon is eternal, but things are changeable, which inevitably breeds feelings of missing. Many of Li Bai's moon-watching poems not only express the homesickness of husband and wife, but also express deep sympathy for the suffering of the people on the other side. Such as "Yi Dao": "A bright moon hangs in the capital, ten thousand hammers wash away, the autumn wind blows my heart, and I will go to the Jade Pass forever. Oh, when will the Tatar army be closed, and my husband will return from the Long March! "By describing the feelings of women smashing clothes for their loved ones on a moonlit night, they expressed their deep nostalgia for their expeditionary husbands. On the other hand, Guan Shanyue described the feeling of homesickness at the sight of the moon. "The bright moon rises from the mountains in the sky, in the infinite haze of the sea of clouds. Thousands of miles to the wind, blowing Yumenguan battlements. "
In Li Bai's moon world, on the one hand, the poet renders the moon as the background, thus constructing a detached and quiet physical environment for poetry; on the other hand, the author's "emotion" and "reason" permeate the physical environment. As Mr. Buddha said in "A Study of Wang Guowei's Poetics": "Any artistic realm, as a product of refining and sublimating some beauty of life and nature, has infiltrated the poet's own will implicitly or explicitly." "The so-called' pure objective poet' and pure' no self' actually do not exist." Therefore, what is certain is that Li Bai's moon poems never take the moon itself as the theme of the whole poem, but take the moon as the material and place his rich and complex emotions on it. This is not accidental, but has its profound ideological and life foundation.
Second, Li Bai in the moon world
Zong Baihua, an aesthete, pointed out: "The poet is alert. He can understand human physics, grasp the reality of world life and spread wisdom. This is the crystal-clear wisdom gained through deep experience. But a poet should be drunk and dreaming. From dreams to poets who lead a drunken life, we can temporarily get rid of the secular, extraordinary and close, and deeply fall into a confusing and mysterious situation in this world life. " [2] It can be seen that Li Bai in the moon boundary can not only be awake, but also comprehend human physics with wisdom, lead a drunken life and dream of death, and get rid of the secular temporarily, showing a specific romance and detachment. Xie Mian once said, "Outstanding poets have created miracles that others cannot perceive or can't perceive uniquely." [3] There are not a few ancient poets who entered poetry by the month, but the number and coverage of Li Bai's monthly poems are indeed unmatched by other poets. In fact, this feature has a lot to do with Li Bai's complex personality and Confucianism's generosity and kindness to the world. When the ideal of saving the world cannot be realized, inner loss and confusion and anxiety about life will come together. At this time, his loss of self-worth in real life can only be compensated in nature. While indulging in landscapes, the moon has won the favor of poets with its unique charm.
Next, take Ask the Moon and Drink Alone with the Moon as examples to analyze the basic characteristics of Li Bai's personality in the moon world.
When does the bright moon rise in the sky? I stopped my glass and asked now. The moon will never reach the moon, but it is very close to the people. Green smoke as bright as a mirror is flying in the palace, emitting cold light. But when you see the night coming from the sea, would you rather know that it is going to the clouds? The moon is on the white rabbit's back, autumn and spring, and who is the neighbor of Chang's lonely life? Now people are not seen in Gu Yue, but in this month they took the ancients. The ancients said, if people are running water, they look at the bright moon. Just look at the glass and sing loudly, and the moonlight can grow in a golden cup.
The first sentence of the poem "Drinking the Moon" is an eternal question, which shows the poet's yearning for the moon. The word "abstinence from drinking" is a portrayal of the poet's infinite longing for modality, and it is clearly a somewhat drunk problem. The bright moon hanging high in the sky always gives people the feeling that "people can't climb the bright moon". When you have no intention to pursue it, it will be reluctant to part with Wan Li. Three or four sentences, one cold and one hot, write the wonderful feeling that the moon is far and near from people, at arm's length, mysterious and amiable. Then, the poet described the beautiful scenery of the bright moon, which triggered the exploration of life philosophy: life is short and painful, with endless ups and downs and loneliness. Things have changed, and people are not omnipotent. But let me, on my green slope, raise a white deer, sing a song about wine, forget everything in the world and invite the bright moon to accompany me. How rich life is! Although life cannot enjoy life forever, its spirit and reason can enjoy the universe forever. As long as the bright moon is always with us and we forget everything in the world, life will be as vast as the blue sky and as free as the bright moon. There is Confucian ideal of saving the world in Li Bai's thought, but after the disappointment of entering WTO, the poet, under the influence of Taoist thought of "inaction" of Laozi and Zhuangzi, re-conforms to the call of personality liberation, pursues a carefree and comfortable life realm, and even often shows some gorgeous and magnificent fairy worlds in his poems. But people can't become immortals after all, so the poet has a sense of anxiety that time has changed and his achievements have failed. At this time, the eternal moon became the object of the poet's talk about wine. In the world of moon and wine, poets can temporarily escape and pursue temporary happiness.
If Drinking Poison to Quench Thirst is the poet Li Bai's exploration of the core of self-life, his recognition of self-existence and his soaring spirit of yearning for infinite time and space, then Soliciting the Bright Moon is the poet Li Bai's enlightenment under the moon, experiencing the loneliness in the world and seeking spiritual conversion.
Flowers in the next pot of wine, no friends, drink alone. Raise my cup, I invite the bright moon, which brings me its shadow and makes us three people. The moon doesn't know how to drink, but the shadow in front of it is behind. I have to mingle with them and enjoy the happiness of spring. The song I sing is bright and wandering, and I dance the shadow before wandering. Wake up and be happy together, and disperse after drunkenness. I am willing to stay with them forever and forget the harm of friendship, just like the Milky Way.
Shadow is "me other than me", which exists and disappears with life, so it is easy to arouse the reverie of sensitive poets. The poet is obviously acting alone, but he is biased towards three people, which makes him more unique; However, the poet was not knocked down by loneliness, but shouted "Cheer for me at the end of spring" with his unique detachment and made a romantic and heartless trip with the moon. This is a universal sense of bereavement and a continuation of Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi's thoughts. However, because Li Bai regards the moon as the condensation point of philosophy, it shows the spiritual harmony between the subject and the moon, highlights the poet's desire to transcend reality and yearn for eternity, and makes poetry full of rich natural charm in philosophy. Loneliness and enrichment, ruthlessness and sentimentality, transience and eternity have all turned into silver brilliance in the moonlight rhyme.
It should be said that Li Bai lives in all kinds of charms. At one time, he was a Taoist priest who sought immortality in the Five Mountains, at another time he was a madman who "the son of heaven never got on the boat", at another time he was a drinker who drank 300 cups at a time, at another time he was a chivalrous man who mowed grass and killed people, and even had many negative and decadent tendencies. But in either case, the basic characteristic of Li Bai's personality is unchanged, that is, romantic detachment. As mentioned above, it is precisely because of his romanticism and detachment that Li Bai in the moon world overcame the heaviness of the real society and his loneliness, so that he was immersed in the world, and was outside the world, as round as the moon.
Third, explore the poet's "moon complex"
The reason why Li Bai has such deep feelings for the moon comes from his "moon-loving complex". The formation of this complex is not only inseparable from the accumulation of traditional history and culture, but also related to Li Bai's unique psychological tendency.
From the perspective of cultural history, the moon became the object of ancestor worship in ancient times. At the latest in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, there was moon worship in China. In the six belief systems of heaven and earth, luna, as one of the sects in heaven, enjoys sacrifice. After the Qin and Han Dynasties, Yue Bai's folk customs were obviously manifested in the Mid-Autumn Festival every year. In addition, the moon's hidden posture, full moon, eclipse and virtual image in the middle of the month further stimulated people's imagination, and folk legends about the moon spread, further deifying the moon, such as "the Goddess Chang'e flying to the moon", "WU GANG cut down trees", "Moon Jade Rabbit" and "Moon Toad".
These myths reflect the ancient people's worship and praise of the moon. Interestingly, in the cultural tradition of China, the legendary luna always appears as a perfect and pure woman with all kinds of tenderness. On the one hand, the moon appears at night, crystal clear and turbid compared with the sun; On the other hand, it also places people's yearning and nostalgia for motherhood. In the history of human development, too much turbulence makes people exhausted, so people leave more memories and nostalgia to the ancient matriarchal society, praising the warmth and femininity of a vanished society, which leads to the formation and development of female aesthetics. People are constantly returning to the spirit, pursuing the feminine spirit of Yue's culture, and creating a flexible atmosphere opposite to the true spirit of Sun God. Therefore, the moon has become a symbolic image of primitive women worshipped by human beings.
This series of traditional history and culture accumulated in Li Bai's heart and became the cultural heritage of the poet Li Bai's infatuation with the moon. So, when he was frustrated and lonely, the moon became his spiritual home, and the dialogue between the poet and the moon began. By questioning the moon and personnel, the poet realized a thorough understanding of life, society and the universe.
Secondly, Li Bai's love for the moon is also closely related to his psychological tendency.
As a talented poet, Li Bai has the temperament or behavior of a ranger, a drinker, a hermit and a Taoist. On the one hand, he accepted the Confucian thought of "being good for the world" and demanded "helping the poor" and "ensuring peace"; On the other hand, Taoism, especially Zhuangzi's thought of independence, returning to nature and pursuing nature had a far-reaching influence on Li Bai. Sometimes, he even mentioned Zhuangzi above Qu Yuan. Moreover, Li Bai tried to establish a reputation by learning Taoism. He lived in seclusion with Yuan Danqiu, Kong Chaofu and Taoist Wu Yun, and finally became an official on the recommendation of Wu Yun. In addition, Li Bai was deeply influenced by Taoism in Li Tang. Therefore, it is the strong Taoist thought in his thinking form that finally leads the poet to fall into the arms of "falling in love with the moon". Although, as a medieval scholar, he would give priority to Confucianism, "Li Bai gave priority to Taoism in his personal feelings and feelings" [1]. Because Taoist thought pursues the immortality of the subject, the rapidity of flight, the supernatural, and the relativity of "being or not", Li Bai's unique psychological tendency is formed: transcendence and unsuitability.
Because the moon is eternal and ubiquitous, compared with the limitation of human behavior and the brevity of life, the moon has a fixed character that transcends time and space, which conforms to the poet's inner psychological tendency. So he wrote a poem like this: "Today, the Xijiang Moon once shone on the people in Wushi Palace." "Today, people don't see Gu Yue, but this month, they shone on the ancients." "Last night, there were jade hanging in the west of the city." Secondly, because the moon is high in the air, out of reach, and the shape of the moon is either as bright as a jade plate or as curved as Wu Gou, this change in rain or shine also reflects a meaningful formal beauty, which is easier to stimulate people's imagination and is not fixed. This is also in line with the poet's psychological tendency, and the uncertain rise and fall of the moon has caused the poet's * * * song. For example, "I don't know the moon when I am young, so I call it a white jade plate." I also suspect that the mirror of Yaotai flies at the end of the blue sky, "Acacia is like a bright moon, unattainable", "Although you can hold it, you can't swim in a quiet place" and so on. All these factors made him embrace the bright moon wholeheartedly regardless of everything.
To sum up, in Li Bai's moon world, the poet and the moon are isomorphic, because the moon creates a blurred and romantic realm; Because of the moon, the romantic temperament of the creative subject is full of brilliance. Li Bai and his moon poems, like Wu Gou in the sky, convey the feelings of the world (including poets).