There have been many analyses of the moon image in Li Bai's poems, but most of them focus on its cultural connotation, artistic characteristics and emotional sustenance. When reading through Li Bai's poems about the moon, it is worth noting that the poet took pains to invite the moon into his poems, and he is also trying to narrow the distance between the "moon" in the sky and the "me" on the ground. In his works, the moon is no longer just a lonely moon, but more full of life modality, close to people, close to people.
The moon hangs in the sky.
Moon image in poems before Tang Dynasty
When the moon enters poetry, it begins with the Book of Songs. The Book of Songs Chen Feng Yue Chu begins with the moon and describes a beautiful woman in the moonlight. "The moon is beautiful and people are awkward"; Among the 19 ancient poems of Han dynasty, "the bright moon shines on my bed in the sky"; Later, Cao Zhi wrote "There are several tall buildings in the bright moon, and time drifts", Cao Pi wrote "The bright moon shines on my bed, and the night when the Milky Way flows west is still young", and Tao Yuanming wrote "The dawn is prosperous, and the bright moon is brought home"; Su Yang in the Sui Dynasty wrote: "On a moonlit night, the mountains are covered with mist." ...
Before the Tang Dynasty, the moon image appeared in poetry as the background of scene description, or set off the lonely atmosphere, or missed people or the past. The moon hangs high in the air, and the moonlight is scattered everywhere, which makes the moon an emotional sustenance of the lyric subject of poetry. This is the evolution of the emotional meaning of the moon image. From Qu Yuan's novel to Zhang's "Moonlit Night on a Spring River" in the Tang Dynasty, another road of philosophical thinking triggered by the moon was opened and continued.
In the hands of Li Bai, it greatly enriched the emotional sustenance of the moon image in poetry, and also made the moon hanging high in the sky "fall" to the world more. The rich moon image is full of romantic feelings in Li Bai's poems, and its elegant poetic style, self-rich subjective experience and magical and magnificent poetic landscape are inseparable from the eternal moon in the sky.
The bright moon is the most beautiful ideal embodiment in Li Bai's mind. He used this bright light to create a noble paradise, but in this poetic realm, he narrowed the distance between the moon and "me" again and again. Reading Li Bai's poems, we can feel that the moon is very high and far away, but we are dating someone.
Moon image in Li Bai's poems: blind date with people
1. In space: The moon is everywhere.
The moon is in the sky, people are on the ground, and there will always be endless space distance between the moon and people. Li Bai's closeness to the moon is first manifested in his efforts to shorten the space distance between man and the moon by various means: "The moon is like a mirror, and the sea clouds are as dim as a palace" and "Emei Mountain falls in the autumn, reflecting the flat Qiang water", that is, putting the reflection of the moon in the rivers and seas, so that the distant moon in the sky can be turned into the moon in the river within reach; "Oh, let a man with spirit take risks where he likes, and never point his golden cup at the moon empty!" And "I only hope that when the song is right for the wine, the moonlight always shines on the golden urn" turns the moon in the sky into a shadow in the cup and drinks the bright moon with the wine; "People swim on the moon, and ships sail in the air", relying on fantastic imagination to reach the moon by boat; "We are all lofty distant thoughts. If you want to go to the sky and embrace the bright moon," you will go further.