A brief analysis of the images of "returning birds" and "autumn" in Tao Yuanming's poems shows that Tao Yuanming's poems have eternal vitality.
First, the image of returning birds:
The most striking image in Tao Yuanming's poems is the image of "returning birds", which symbolizes Tao Yuanming's seclusion. By placing his heart on birds, he established an aesthetic realm of yearning for "the naturalization of human beings", which reflected his pursuit of simple natural philosophy. At the same time, Tao Yuanming also pointedly pointed out how intellectuals find their own unique spiritual home in the alienated society.
In Tao Yuanming's group poem "Returning to Birds": "Wings return to birds and go to the forest in the morning; Deep in the table, near the clouds. The wind is not harmonious and the heart turns over; Gu Zhuo sang, and the scenery obscured Qingyin. The wings return to the birds and fly away with Xiang; Although I can't swim; See Lin Qingyi. If you meet a cloud, you will return. The road is sincere and long; Sex is complete. Wings return to birds and wander in the forest; Think of heaven, like old habitat. Although there is no previous lover, but the voice is very harmonious. In the evening, the air is clear and carefree. Wings return to birds, feathers are cold, and you can't swim through the forest. The morning breeze is refreshing, and good voices make friends. Ya once laughed at Shi, and he has worked hard. "
It is through his early and late return that Tao Yuanming metaphorically describes his experience from entering WTO to leaving, as well as the process of complicated and contradictory mood and emotional exchange. This poem fully reflects the author's infinite feelings for the rest of his life after the robbery, and shows the author's childlike heart and his pursuit of true love.
Second, the image of autumn:
Autumn is poetic, and different poets have different interpretations of autumn, giving it different or even opposite connotations. Some people praise its withering and desolation, such as Du Fu. In the poet's pen, in fact, every feeling related to autumn, autumn colors and autumn scenery is so bleak and heavy.
Some people think that autumn is full of joy and vitality of harvest, such as Wang Wei. Autumn is "moonlight in the pine forest and crystal stone in the stream". The sound of bamboo calls the washerwoman to return, and the lotus leaves are collected in front of the fishing boat. "It is so charming, and people and things are so harmoniously combined. In Tao Yuanming's place, autumn gives people another feeling: "Under the hedge of picking chrysanthemums, you can see Nanshan leisurely." "Happiness is another realm of life. In his works, autumn is a realm, which is the sustenance of the poet's own feelings and personal life. There is no sadness of Du Fu, no joy of Wang Wei, only an optimistic and open mind after vicissitudes of life, giving up the honor and disgrace of the world and entertaining myself.
Tao Yuanming's poems, although there are no works that can really be called landscape poems, have not traveled around like Xie Lingyun. However, his influence on later generations' landscape poems is no worse than Xie Lingyun's, especially the hermit thought embodied in his poems is the representative of ancient poets in China.
Tao Yuanming's poems, for him, are as calm and fresh as autumn. "Tao Yuanming has actually become a symbol of the value of a traditional cultural model." In Tao's poems, finding one's own spiritual home with returning birds as the main image has become a symbol of the spirit of intellectuals, and it is also a typical and influential way for China intellectuals to return to nature, which has laid an eternal artistic paradigm for China literature for more than a thousand years.
Tao Yuanming is a detached person with specimen significance, which has exerted a lasting and far-reaching influence on China literati with strong political complex for thousands of years. Intellectuals in China are a social group integrating culture, government affairs and ideology, and there is a highly divided crisis in their high integration. This internal crisis needs an expression, and it is this expression that makes Tao Yuanming's positive significance stand out.
Lin Yutang said in "The Feast of Life" that "Tao Yuanming represents a strange feature of China culture, a strange mixture of meat specificity and spiritual arrogance, that is, a strange mixture of spiritual life that does not flow in lust and material that does not flow in lust. In this mixture, the senses and the mind live in harmony. "
Indeed, this "new home" created by Tao Yuanming, which is characterized by rural areas and the unity of spirit and flesh, has great magnetic force for China intellectuals who are eager to be detached and struggling in officialdom, so that their divided personalities are strongly shocked and their tired souls are deeply comforted, and the streams in their hearts can flow freely on this land.
In the process of modernization of our world, the lack of faith and the rapid expansion of secularization and materialization of human beings have impacted the spiritual home of human beings. Tao Yuanming's spirit of pursuing a "new home" with the perfect combination of "spirit" and "body" provides heterogeneous richness for the development of intellectuals' own personality and tension for the development of society to a certain extent.
When political power or market value threatens the value of knowledge, art, human feelings and dignity with its expansibility, it can maintain the great cause of human spiritual civilization and urge people to pay more attention to people's spiritual life and build a better spiritual home while developing material civilization. This is the enlightenment given by Tao Yuanming's exploration and thinking on the meaning of intellectuals' life! In addition to material desires, the human soul longs for sublimation.
Postscript: Some people say that Tao Yuanming's life is a tragedy, a historical tragedy created by the feudal era. Here, we don't talk about class issues, because we can't look at our predecessors from a limited perspective and evaluate their ups and downs with our personal experience. In my opinion, it is extremely inappropriate to look at the contribution of poets from the perspective of class, and the wealth they left us cannot be measured by specific figures.
Therefore, we only discuss here why Tao Yuanming's poems have eternal vitality, and explore this precious historical wealth he left to our Chinese nation!