In his fourth year of seclusion, his hometown was burned down and his life fell into extreme poverty, but he lived in poverty and happiness. In the last few years in Yixi, the court recruited him as an official. In the third year of Yuanjia, Tandaoji, the secretariat of Jiangzhou, advised him to go out of the mountain. He kept a festival and refused to be an official. Obviously, Taoism played a leading role in this period.
Tao Yuanming was the most outstanding poet in the Han, Wei, Southern and Northern Dynasties. Tao poems 125, mostly five-character poems. From the content, it can be divided into three categories: drinking poems, chanting poems and pastoral poems.
This article was written in the second year of Song Yongchu (42 1), when Tao Yuanming was 57 years old. He refused to cooperate with the upcoming regime of Emperor Wu of Song and was dissatisfied with the dark political reality. At the same time, he wrote this article because he is close to farmers and understands their desire to pursue an ideal society. This article is the preface of "Preface to Peach Blossom Garden Poetry", which can be written independently.
The author of this story was asked to make it up. He lived in the war-torn environment at the end of the Eastern Jin Dynasty and lived in seclusion in the countryside for a long time. He had a deeper understanding of the reality of the countryside and a personal understanding of the people's wishes, so he conceived his ideal society-Xanadu. But the author clearly sees that such an ideal society could not be realized under the conditions at that time.
(2) This ideal society shows the author's yearning and longing for equality and happiness for everyone without exploitation and war.
The pursuit of a better future is a beautiful wish and sustenance, so it cannot be realized.
How to evaluate Tao Yuanming
As a hermit in the troubled times at the end of the Jin Dynasty, it is conceivable that Tao Yuanming often interacted with Buddhism in Lushan Mountain in his later years, but their thoughts are not necessarily the same. Anyone who has carefully studied Tao's poems and knows the poet's life will know that Tao Yuanming is an atheist with a quiet appearance and a warm heart to help the world. When I was a teenager, I was ambitious, accepted Confucianism and hoped to make contributions. However, after being an official for a period of time, the reality disappointed him. He didn't want to go along with the people in power, so he chose a road to retire and return to the fields.
At this time he was influenced by Zhuangzi's philosophy. Because he had never lived in the countryside before, he had personally participated in labor and had contact with the working people, so he inevitably got some new feelings and inspirations in his thoughts. Therefore, when the Jin Dynasty advocated the old style of writing, he was able to create a new form of landscape pastoral poetry with unique style, which made great contributions to the history of China's poetry development. He never forgot this world from his "ambition to escape from the four seas" in his youth to his "ambition to stay in the world" in his old age. His masterpiece "Peach Blossom Garden" handed down from ancient times is precisely his vision for a society where everyone is self-reliant and friendly, and there is no distractions and poverty in reality. Even analyzing his seclusion and drinking in the background at that time contains the significance of expressing some dissatisfaction and resistance to the dark rule at that time.
Of course, Tao Yuanming was, after all, a scholar-bureaucrat who lived in the feudal society more than a thousand years ago. There are many negative things in his thoughts and poems, such as living in poverty, eating, drinking and avoiding the world. However, due to his class preference, literary critics and poets of later generations pay more attention to appreciating and praising his characteristics in this respect, which is regarded as the essence of Tao's poetry.
In fact, this is a misinterpretation of Tao's poems. As a generation of poets, Tao Yuanming has been ignored before and after his death, and later distorted and misunderstood for a long time. Now it is time to give a correct and comprehensive evaluation and appreciation of Tao Yuanming and his poems.
Shen Deqian said in "Talking about Poetry": "Jin people are more open-minded, with words of anxiety, self-improvement, contentment, grief, happiness and peace of mind."
Su Dongpo once commented on Tao Yuanming: "If you want to be an official, you must be an official, and it is not suspicious; If you want to be hidden, you will be hidden instead of looking for it. When you are hungry, you will buckle the door and beg for food; When you are full, welcome guests with chicken and millet. "It is true that there is wisdom in ancient and modern times." People attach importance to truth, so does poetry, which comes from people's truth, which is the main reason why Tao poetry has enduring charm.
In the words of Lu Xun, "Tao Qian is great because he is not completely silent".
Liang Qichao once said when evaluating Tao Yuanming, "Nature is his loving companion and always smiles at him". As he said, Tao opened a channel between nature and philosophy, and reached a reconciliation between the suffering of life and the purport of nature. Even the most common rural life scene shows an infinite and meaningful beauty in his works.
Tao Yuanming's "truth" is mainly reflected in two aspects: first, his love for nature; One is the sorrow of life.