Tao Yuanming is the pioneer of pastoral poetry.
In his pastoral poems, his boredom with dirty reality and his love for quiet pastoral life can be seen everywhere. In Returning to the Garden, he described officialdom as a "dust net", compared being in it to "catching birds" and "pond fish", and compared retiring from the countryside to rushing out of the cage and returning to nature.
Because he has practical labor experience, his poems are full of the joy of laborers, showing thoughts and feelings that only laborers can feel, such as the third part of "Returning to the Garden": "Peas are planted at the foot of Nanshan Mountain, and the grass is full of bean sprouts. Get up early in the morning to get rid of weeds, and come back with hoes in the moonlight at night. The narrow path covered with vegetation, the night dew wet my clothes. The clothes are not covered, but the wish is not violated. "
The poet was disappointed with the reality and was forced to return to poetry to build an ideal society. Peach Blossom Garden poetry is a reflection of his ideological tendency.
Tao Yuanming's poems are good at expressing directly with simple language and sketching techniques, which makes people feel natural, cordial and sincere, without any traces of artificial carving, and guides readers to appreciate the leisurely and diluted feelings and enter the artistic conception created by the poet.
In the history of China literature, Tao Yuanming was the first to write a large number of poems on rural scenery and rural life. His pastoral poetry created a new school of classical poetry, which was highly praised by poets of past dynasties and even regarded as "the fundamental principle of poetry"