In the prosperous Tang Dynasty, Meng Haoran was a poet as famous as Wang Wei, and he was also good at writing natural landscapes. He was born and died earlier than Wang Wei, but he became famous after Wang Wei. In others' eyes, Meng Haoran is a real recluse poet. Li Bai said, "Master, I cheer you from my heart, and your reputation has risen to the sky. In the rosy youth, you gave up the importance of hats and chariots and chose pine trees and clouds; Now, whitehead. " ("A Word to Meng Haoran") In fact, Meng Haoran was not unintentional. Like other poets in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, he has a strong desire to save the world and use the world. Because of the different living environment and temperament, Meng Haoran and Wang Wei are different in poetry creation and artistic style. His pastoral poems are closer to his own life, and the words "Yu" and "I" often appear in his poems. Such as "Passing through the Old Village": "Prepare chicken rice for me, old friend, you entertain me on your farm. We look at the green trees around your village and the pale blue of the distant mountains. " For example, climbing the Wild Goose Mountain with friends: "The world is reincarnation, and the past and the present are reincarnation. The glory of rivers and mountains remains unchanged, and this trace can be proved. " The description of scenery in Meng Haoran's poems is often a part of his living environment, with the characteristics of improvisation and true carving. Meng Haoran's poetic language is natural and pure, which is reflected in beauty. Comparatively speaking, it seems to be more simple than Wang Wei's poems and closer to Tao Yuanming's extravagant poetic realm. Meng Haoran has traveled many times in his life, preferring to swim in the water. He wrote many landscape poems in the process of roaming wuyue water town by boat. When he meets the scenery, he often writes from a height, lingers from a lonely place, and inadvertently touches the scene, forming a dull and far-reaching poetic realm of Ming Xiu. Natural plainness is the style feature of Meng Haoran's landscape poems. Although there are neat even sentences in his poems, such as "there are trees like a row of grass on the horizon, and boats on the river like a full moon" ("Autumn Mountain to Zhang"); "The wind blows the leaves on both sides, and the moon crosses me and sails alone" (a berth in Tonglu to a friend in Yangzhou). But I didn't mean to be a model mountain, just improvise. Throughout his poems, most of them are written in a single line, completed in one breath, without a trace of description; Beauty flows away naturally, diluting leisure, and working without looking for a job. Wang Wei and Meng Haoran enjoyed a high reputation and great influence in the poetic circles of the prosperous Tang Dynasty. Cui Xingzong called Wang Wei a "contemporary poet" (preface to rewarding Wang Wei), and Wang Shiyuan said that Meng Haoran's five-character poem was "the best in the world" (preface to Meng Haoran's collection).
(The above content is taken from Yuan Xingpei's History of China Literature)