Li Duan, a native of Zhaozhou, Hebei Province, is one of the top ten talents in Dali. Born in the first year of Tianbao, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, this Tang poet, like the other nine gifted scholars, lived in a special era in the Tang Dynasty. Every time I mention the Middle Tang Dynasty, I have to say the Anshi Rebellion. Although this history is only eight years, it makes the prosperity of the whole Tang Dynasty disappear. The eight-year war is not a long time for a prosperous time that once enjoyed unprecedented prosperity and dominated the world. In the early days of Tang Xuanzong's reign, he made great efforts to govern, but in the later period of his rule, Tang Xuanzong indulged in debauchery all day, and the court was dominated by some mediocre corrupt officials, so the Tang Dynasty lost its original national strength in just eight years. Life experience has created a poetic style. Because of this, the poetry circle in the middle Tang Dynasty was also covered with a thick layer of dust in this special era. Poets who lived in the Dali period lost their lofty aspirations and romantic feelings in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, and their poems were full of loneliness and confusion, and their contents were more narrow and restrained. Many scholars even called the poetry circle in the middle Tang Dynasty "the decline of strength". It's just that this evaluation is somewhat derogatory. During the transition period from the prosperous Tang Dynasty to the middle Tang Dynasty, the top ten gifted scholars born in Dali still created a new theme of Tang poetry with their distinctive group style. ? Especially among these ten people, Li Duan is a representative figure. He has quick thinking, makes good use of poetic images and explores new poetic themes. He is the most popular among 10 gifted scholars, and even called "gifted scholar among gifted scholars" by later generations. What has Li Duan experienced in his life? In the numerous historical documents of the Tang Dynasty, there is no detailed record about Li Duan's date of birth and death, and his life experience is quite brief, so we can only find out his life from his poems. Li Duan, born in the flourishing age of Kaiyuan, spent his boyhood in Songshan, Luoyang, where he studied Taoism. When the Anshi Rebellion broke out in his teens, he had to follow his father to settle in Lushan Mountain. It was not until the second year of Dali that he had the opportunity to go to Beijing to take the imperial examination, but unfortunately he did not win the bid. Later, I stayed in Beijing and met Lu Lun, Qian Qi and others. They went in and out of the giants together, wrote poems together, and became famous in Beijing together. People call them "Top Ten Talents in Dali". During this period, Li Duan became famous, but what really made Li Duan famous in the world was that he wrote poems for the princess in Xufu. At this banquet, only Li Duan wrote the most neat poems, and Princess Xu was overjoyed. She also gave Li Duan one hundred gold silks, which won Li Duan a great reputation. ? In the fourth year of Dali, Li Duan presented poems to Yuan Zai's brothers, hoping to get their support and recommendation. In the end, he got his wish. After that, Li Duan worked as a school bookkeeper in Chang 'an. Over the years, Li Duan has frequent contacts with rich and noble families, so his poems are paid by some chanting poems, which are needed for banquets, not his real style of Tang poetry. During his years in Chang 'an, he looked forward to being in a temple, which turned the theme of his songs into Buddhism, because his position had not been promoted for many years, and the bottom even meant seclusion. In a poem he gave to a friend, he wrote: "Laoshan left the veteran temporarily, and the grass came back." Sure enough, Li Duan returned to his former residence in Hengshan to live in seclusion, calling himself a "friend of Heng Yue". During this period, a poem has the characteristics of a hermit. But I can still see that Li Duan is still unwilling to let go of his desire for fame and fortune. Although he is in the Jianghu, his heart is in the temple. Soon, Li Duan ended this period of seclusion and resumed his post as Dongchuan our time. ? In the middle of the founding of the People's Republic of China, with the death of Li Duan, ten gifted scholars gradually declined. Li Duan's death is an indelible shadow for their literati group. With his death, the top ten talents in the middle Tang Dynasty withdrew from the poetry circle. There is little information about Li Duan's life, but from his life story and songs, we can see that Li Duan had a natural and unrestrained idleness before he became an official, and he was in good condition after he became an official. He once wrote an autobiography, which vividly outlined his wandering life. Realistic works record the real society. Li Duan lived in such an era when the prosperous dynasty collapsed. He only enjoyed the prosperity and tranquility of the Tang dynasty, and the reality made him face the suffering. In this era full of suffering, his works are quite different from those of poets in the prosperous Tang Dynasty. In Li Duan's works, although most of them are paid for seclusion, we can still see many realistic works. Although it is difficult to compare with Du Fu, there are many good poems that can touch the world with true feelings. This part is the true essence of Li Duan. The eight-year Anshi Rebellion cost the Tang Dynasty blood. The people in the city were ravaged by the rebels and thousands of people died. Even after the rebellion, people still remember it clearly. Broken walls, especially broken walls destroyed in the war, is the most direct painful memory. This war-torn work is reflected in the works of poets in the middle Tang Dynasty, and there are naturally some poems in Li Duan's works to express the situation and pain in that war-torn era. For example, his song Answer for the Old People in the Village: "After the dust storm in Luo Jing, the fireworks in the village were scattered. Teenagers have lost their homes. What do they want in their twilight years? Cry on the river at night and walk home in the snow in cold weather. You shouldn't see it when you know it. As soon as I said it, tears filled my clothes. " It directly reflects the pain and misfortune brought to innocent people anyway. ? In his works, the world can see the barren fields, displaced teenagers and old people in No Country for Old Men, but can't see when this disaster will end. His grief and indignation were not expressed in many colorful words. Every sentence is simple, but it shows the most cruel side of war all the time. Besides realism, Li Duan is unique in that he is good at describing the cruelty of war from the perspective of women. "Vegetarian Guide, Smelling Women Crying": "A woman at the top of the mountain wept for Xiang Qiu Cloud at night. I said that my husband died in the war. Come and meet the old general. " It is such a poem. There is a crying woman in this poem. She heard from the old man that her husband had died in the war. The whole poem came to an abrupt end with only four simple sentences left. He never expresses his feelings in his poems, but it makes readers feel that his words are endless. People have to feel the pain caused by the war. She showed the scene of a woman losing her husband in plain words, which made the world clearly feel what the woman was crying about. Li Duan's poems are not uncommon. From these works, we can still feel his indignation at years of war. This kind of realistic poetry is really lacking over the years. Patriotism is mentioned in frontier fortress poems. Li Duan is also a scholar who cares about the world, so his patriotism is reflected in frontier fortress poems. Guan Shanyue, Duguan Mountain and Song of Rain and Snow are all poems describing the frontier fortress scenery. The wet dew, frost, bonfire and Tianshan Mountain in these poems are all common images in frontier fortress poems. Li Duan, a scholar, hated his patriotism in the face of the loss of the frontier and the sufferings of the people. There is nothing he can do, like those border guards, to make meritorious deeds by killing the enemy and recover lost ground. Therefore, he can only express his sadness in his heart by writing poems and express his desire to make contributions to the frontier. ? In this troubled times, Li Duan also went to the frontier fortress battlefield, and most of the frontier fortress poems he wrote were seen with his own eyes on the battlefield. It is because of the cruelty of the frontier fortress battlefield that Li Duan was able to generously express his willingness to go to China in frontier fortress poems, and firmly believed that heroes would win. In frontier poems, Li Duan is also good at attacking reality with allusions. He hates the real society where black and white are reversed, satirizes the incompetence of the imperial court, and hates the impermanence of things. These works are far higher than entertainment, and they are all excellent works in his poems. The landscape in his eyes has a unique charm, which can be seen from Li Duan's poems when he lived in seclusion in the mountains. In fact, since Li Duan was a teenager, Li Duan's poems were not only deeply influenced by Confucianism, but also blended with Buddhism and Taoism. Before going to Chang 'an, Li Duan had been to Songshan Mountain to seek immortality, and later lived in seclusion in Lushan Mountain and Hengshan Mountain. While wandering as an official, he also lived in seclusion in Huqiu pastoral area of Hangzhou. In his later years, he studied under Jiao Ran and converted to Buddhism. Among the top ten gifted scholars, only Li Duan lived in seclusion for the longest time, so he wrote so many poems about seclusion in the mountains. ? It's just that although he hides in the mountains, he doesn't have an official heart. Most of his landscape poems are lyrical by scenery, lamenting that he has no talent. Reading Li Duan's landscape poems, we can see his anxiety, his dissatisfaction with reality, his sadness and his helplessness in being forced to retire. Compared with a real hermit, Li Duan lived in seclusion because his career was bumpy and things were difficult. His seclusion is not because of his love for the countryside, but because of his helplessness. He pinned all his grief and indignation on his landscape poems. For example, "I know there is no way out, I want to go back to the old people"; Another example is "I am worried about the high Tang Dynasty and the Chu Palace in the clear autumn". Li Duan's landscape poems reveal the landscape in the eyes of the literati in Dali period. Literati living in this era can't escape the worldly troubles. In the prosperous Tang Dynasty, the literati wrote landscapes, all of which were quiet and beautiful, and wrote their own inner peace and indifference. However, Dali people can't do this. They use scenery to express their dissatisfaction with current events and their grief for their homeland. Even if the attainments of landscape poetry are high, it is not the landscape poetry of the prosperous Tang Dynasty, let alone the landscape poetry of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. They have lost the ambition of the Tang Dynasty in the past, and the only thing that can be given to them in this era is the different mentality that suffering has given them. References:
A study of Li Duan's poems-also on Li Duan's poetic style and aesthetic style.