The reason why Li Bai can become a poet with fresh backbone and immortal spirit in the eyes of the world has a lot to do with Taoism.
Taoism, as a religion born in the local cultural field of China, has deeply influenced the literary creation of ancient China literati and poets since its birth, which is an important influencing factor for the rich content and theme of their literary creation.
Taoism was formed in the Eastern Han Dynasty. After hundreds of years of development and evolution, it reached a very grand situation in the Tang Dynasty. In the process of development and evolution, Taoism constantly struggles and exchanges with other local and foreign ideas to develop and improve itself; On the other hand, it developed to the upper class of society and gradually gained the support and belief of the ruling class.
The reason why the Tang Dynasty highly praised Taoism was precisely the coincidence of the development of Taoism itself and the development of social times. The rise of any emerging dynasty, in order to seek the social peace urgently needed in the early stage of dynasty development, is often inseparable from borrowing some ideological theory to control the whole social trend of thought.
Therefore, in order to seek stability and further development, Li's ruling class moved out the second child in the Tang Dynasty, and at the same time intensified its efforts to widely publicize Taoism, which made the ruling and opposition parties in the early Tang Dynasty generally keen on Taoist beliefs.
In addition, in the first year of Tianbao, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty advocated metaphysics and set up a "four-branch" to select scholars, taking Laozi, Zhuangzi, Wen Zi and Liezi as the examination contents.
Taoism received strong political and economic support in the Tang Dynasty, and naturally reached its peak in the Tang Dynasty, especially in poetry, which had a wide and far-reaching impact on society and literati creation.
As the backbone of Tang Wenhua, Tang poetry should be a typical symbol of Tang Wenhua.
Li Bai was a particularly outstanding romantic poet in the Tang Dynasty. Sima Zhen, a Taoist priest, once praised Li Bai and said that he "has a spirit that can drift with the gods."
Li Bai began to envy Taoism at the age of fifteen, and pursued Taoist practice devoutly until his later years. His life can be described as an indissoluble bond with Taoism. Looking at the relationship between Li Bai and Taoism in his life, it can be asserted that among the important poets in the Tang Dynasty, no one was so deeply influenced by Taoism and Taoism as Li Bai.
Li Bai once said frankly in the poem "Eight Poems of Feeling Xing": "At the age of fifteen, I never stopped."
It can be seen that Li Bai has been in contact with Taoism since very early and has been committed to the Taoist thought of wandering immortals.
Li Bai's early contact with Taoism has a lot to do with his birth environment. Li Bai lived in Bashu, the birthplace of Taoism, where Zhang Daoling, the founder of Taoism, founded Pentecostalism and preached for more than 30 years.
As the birthplace of Taoism, Sichuan has many Taoist temples, holy places, places and religious believers, presenting a spectacular scene of "five miles, one palace and ten miles and one scene", which occupies an irreplaceable position in local people and political life.