1. Pastoral poetry: Describe the natural and quiet pastoral scenery and natural and simple pastoral life. This is the poet's idealized artistic realm. It reflects the poet's quiet and carefree life interest and carefree and detached state of mind, and also denies the dark reality and ugliness of officialdom at that time. For example, Returning to the Garden [less and less vulgar rhyme], Being in the Wild], Drinking [Building a House in a Humanistic Environment], The Home Book of What Country, etc. He expressed his experience of farming life and his love for labor, which reflected the poet's deep friendship with farmers. Such as "Returning to the Garden" [Planting Beans in Nanshan] and "Harvest Early Rice in Xitian in September of Gengxu New Year". Describing the hardships of his own life and the depression in the countryside reflects the real world outside the poet's idealized realm. Such as "Complaining Poems and Chu Tunes to Show Pang Zhushu Deng Zhizhong", "Returning to the Garden" and "Begging for Food".
2. Poetry and epic: Tao Yuanming's poems are similar in content to epic, and epic is also a poem, which inherits the poetic traditions of Ruan Ji's epic and Zuo Si's epic. The main content of poetry is to express one's thoughts, feelings and ambitions. Some show the ideological contradiction between ideal and reality, joining the WTO and being born; Some worries about the realization of the value of life express the anguish of ambition that is hard to pay; Some reflect the noble character of not colluding with the dark reality and sticking to personal integrity; Others express their anger in the form of "King Kong glaring". Such as drinking, antique style, miscellaneous poems, singing about poverty, singing about Jing Ke, reading Shan Hai Jing, etc. Most of them fall into this category.
3. Others: Tao Yuanming's official poems are his works during his official period, mostly describing the hardships of being an official, his boredom with being an official and his longing for seclusion. Such as "The First Town Army Joins the Army" and so on. Most poems are about friendship between friends. If you answer Pang to join the army, bid farewell to Yin Jin. In addition, Tao Yuanming has some philosophical poems. Like "together"
Artistic achievements of Tao Yuanming s poems;
1. Plain and natural, mellow and meaningful artistic style. The theme and content of Tao Yuanming's poems are close to ordinary daily life, and the images of poems often take things that are often heard in self-study, express their feelings directly, sculpt them honestly, and use good words. The profound meaning of Tao Yuanming's pastoral poems is only to express the artistic image and artistic conception of the poems with faint sketches and true feelings, but it is magic in plain and beautiful in simplicity. Zhu said: "Yuan and Ming's poems are plain, out of nature." (Zhuzi School) Su Shi said that his poems are: "Quality and reality, but richness and reality." ("Book with Su Zhe") also said: "Dry outside and paste inside, which seems light and beautiful." (Comment on Liu Han's Poem on Dongpo Inscription and Postscript) Yuan Hao asked about his poem: "A word is natural and eternal, and luxury is exhausted." In addition to this basic style, there are some poems called "King Kong's Glaring Style" by Lu Xun ("Two Essays on Jie Ting", the title of which is undetermined). Zhu also talked about his uninhibited side: "Everyone says that Tao Yuanming's poems are unremarkable. According to some people, he is proud of it, but he is bold. " The person who shows his true colors is an essay "Jing Ke Fu". How can ordinary people say such a thing? "(Zhuzi school)
2. Sublime, unconventional and natural artistic realm. The images in Tao Yuanming's poems seem unremarkable, but they create a lofty and unconventional artistic realm. The main idea of his poems lies in freehand brushwork, in expressing his mind, interest and understanding of life, while the description and narration of scenery is only for meaning. Many of Tao's poems have reached the natural artistic realm of the unity of things and me, subject and object, emotion, scenery and reason.
3. The colors are natural and the language is concise and vivid. Tao Yuanming's poems are not just ornamentation, but use simple and natural language and sparse brushwork to concisely outline vivid images and convey profound meanings, so as to achieve the artistic effect of freehand brushwork and vivid expression. He is good at refining the spoken language in daily life into poetry, which is full of strong flavor of life. He often uses metaphors, symbols, sustenance and other techniques, even if he uses allusions, it is colloquial.
Tao Yuanming's life
Tao Yuanming (365? ~ 427), also known as Qian, with bright characters, was born in Chaisang, Xunyang (near Jiujiang, Jiangxi).
Tao Yuanming lived in a very complicated political environment at the turn of Jin and Song Dynasties. His great-grandfather Tao Kan was a fu master in the Jin Dynasty. My grandfather was a satrap, and my father probably had a lower official position. He died in Tao Yuanming's childhood. In a society that attaches importance to the door, the status of Taoists is different from that of gentry such as Wang and Xie, but it is also different from humble. Tao Kan, who was born in poverty, was ridiculed as a "villain" and regarded as a person with usurper ambition. It is conceivable that the political situation of his descendants is quite embarrassing.
Tao Yuanming spent his boyhood in the countryside of Chaisang. "There are no improper customs, and their sexual love is autumn mountains" (the first part of Guiyuan) and "Young people are poor, and they are good at swimming six classics" (the sixteenth part of drinking) are the portrayal of life at that time. He often said that he had to be an official to make a living because his family was poor. This is true, but it cannot be ruled out that ordinary scholars have the motivation to make contributions. "I am eager to escape from all over the world, and I love Philip Burkart" (the fifth part of the miscellaneous poem) revealed the news. At the age of 29, Tao Yuanming served as a wine offering ceremony in Jiangzhou and resigned soon. Later, Jiangzhou was called the master book, but he did not take office.
In 398 AD, in the second year of Emperor Long 'an of Jin 'an, Tao Yuanming went to Jiangling and entered Jingzhou and Jiangzhou to secretariat Huan Xuan. At that time, Huan Xuan held the military and political power in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River, and he was ambitious to usurp gold. Tao Yuanming had the idea of seclusion again. The book Xin Chou returned to Jiangling for a night outing after a vacation in July, written in the fifth year of Longan (40 1), said: "Poetry and calligraphy are well painted, and the garden has no secular feelings. How to go as far as Xijing! " This winter, because Meng's mother died, I went back to Yang to offer my condolences. Great changes have taken place in the political situation since then. In the first year of Yuanxing (402), Huan Xuan entered Beijing in the name of a minister, making Sima Yuan Xian. In the second year of Yuan Xing (403), Huan Xuan usurped the throne and changed his country name to Chu. In the third year of Yuan Xing (404), Emperor Wu of Song set out to crusade against Huan Xuan, entered Jiankang and became the general of Zhenjun. He mastered the state power and brought a glimmer of hope to the rulers. So Tao Yuanming joined the army and became a general of the town army, Emperor Wu of Song. On the way to his post, he wrote "Initiating the Town Army to Join the Army with Qu Zuo". His mood is ambivalent. On the one hand, he feels that the time has come, and he wants to do something: "I will meet you when the time has come." On the other hand, I am attached to rural life: "Change with change and finally return to work." At this time, Liu concentrated on crusade against Huan Xuan and its remnants, and Tao Yuanming was afraid that it would be difficult to make a difference under the curtain of Emperor Wu of Song. In the second year of the first year of Andi (405), he joined the army as general Jianwei and served as Jiangzhou secretariat Liu. In August this year, he requested the removal of Pengze county magistrate. After more than 80 days in office, he resigned and retired on 1 1 month. The direct reason for resigning from the county magistrate this time is recorded in Song Shuzhuan: "The county sent Du You to the county, and the county official Bai said,' I should be bound to see him.' Qian sighed and said,' I can't bend over to the villagers for five buckets of rice! I was relieved of my post today. When he resigned, he put forward a deeper reason: "Go home, come to Xi, please leave me to travel, the world is against me, I can't ask for it any more!" "Tao Yuanming thoroughly realized that secularism was contrary to his nature of advocating nature, and he could not change his nature to adapt to secularism. Coupled with his disappointment with the political situation, he resolutely resigned and lived in seclusion.
Peng's death is the dividing line between two periods of Tao Yuanming's life. Previously, he had been choosing between the two social roles of a bureaucrat and a hermit. When he lived in seclusion, he wanted to be an official, so he had to retire. His mood is very ambivalent. Since then, he has strengthened his determination to live in seclusion and practice all the time, but his mood is still not calm: "Sun and Moon abandon people and are determined not to win." I am sad to read this, but I can't be quiet in the end. "("Miscellaneous Poems ") In his poems, he described the happiness of seclusion many times and expressed his determination to live in seclusion, such as" drinking this music without returning "(drinking);
"You have your place, and it's a thousand-year-old shop" (the fourth part of Drinking). This is of course his true feelings, but it is also a way of his firm determination. He didn't have a chance to be an official again in the later period, but refused. At the end of the Jin dynasty, he was asked to work as an assistant, but he didn't. Emperor Wu of song usurped gold to establish the song dynasty, and became more tired of politics. In the poem "Drinking Wine", he implicitly expressed his thoughts on this matter. In his later years, he was poor and ill.
"Jiangzhou secretariat TanDaoJi to wait, Yan lie barren with kindness. Daoji said,' Sages live in the world. Wherever there is no road, they hide, and wherever there is a road, they arrive. The child was born in the civilized world, so why bother? "Yes, I said,' I dare not look at sages if I dive, but I'm not that ambitious.' Knife Ji gave Liang meat and left. (Xiao Tong's Biography of Tao Yuanming) Yuan Jia of Song Wendi wrote a self-sacrifice four years before his death. At the end of the article, he said, "It's really hard to live, so what's death?" Alas! "
This became his masterpiece. After his death, his friends posthumous title called him "Mr Jingjie". His good friend Yan Yanzhi wrote an obituary for him, which is an important material for studying Tao Yuanming. Song Shu, Jin Shu and Heather all have biographies of him.