The Confucian tradition accepted by Li Bai is not orthodox in the strict sense, but more Taoist elements, both chivalrous and strategists. Li Bai has been wandering between being an official and being a high dancer all his life. When he was young, he studied Ren Xia, learned the way to seek immortality, saved the country and helped the poor, and retired after success was his early life ideal. Its ideological source is also manifested in not seeking small officials, being conceited about worldly affairs, and unwilling to take the road of taking the exam as an official. Instead, I hope to learn Taoism by seclusion, throw poetry, do the right thing, and make a big splash. This has gone beyond the category of being an official, which is advocated by Confucianism, and is mixed with the thoughts of Taoism and strategists. His arrogance, stubbornness, arrogance, contempt for etiquette and wealth probably originated from Zhuangzi, while his romantic poetic style and exaggerated and magnificent expression are very similar to the metaphor of "vanilla beauty", probably from Qu Yuan. Such a complicated ideological background is probably the root cause of his dual personality. He vividly expressed his distress that he could not be used by the king, and said, "The road is as vast as the blue sky, but there is no way out before my eyes." He was surrendered by the imperial court, and he got carried away: "Laugh at heaven and destroy the earth. Are we Artemisia people? " While throwing poems and articles, he flatters politicians, while boasting lofty and despising powerful people. This serious attitude towards life, that is, "the first mouse has two heads", is unacceptable to China's traditional moral concept and should be criticized by future generations.
Among the images created by Li Bai, the most distinctive ones are the flying Dapeng, roaring rivers, towering peaks and waterfalls running down. These "all have extraordinary spirit, expressing Li Bai's passion of breaking through the shackles and pursuing freedom in a tortuous way, which shows his elegant and unconventional style" (On the Style and Image of Du Li's Poetry by Yuan Xingpei). Taoism advocates broadmindedness, elegance and metaphysics, and often attracts people with fantastic ideas, which is fully reflected in Li's poems. His personality is wild, arrogant, passionate and full of passion and fantasy, so his poems are bold, magnificent, evasive and self-promoting, which embodies a strong subjective personality spirit and distinctive personality color.
In Li Bai's poems, there are two most obvious points, one is pride and the other is resentment.
The so-called "pride" is the pride of his character, his aloof, and his contempt for powerful people. Its images of Dapeng, rivers, dangerous peaks and waterfalls, as well as the white hairs like "Three thousands of feet" and the deep pools like "thousands of feet" are grotesque and stand out from the crowd, far exceeding the imagination of ordinary people. His pride is reflected in his pursuit of immortality, and his pride is reflected in letting Yang Guifei grind ink and let Gao Lishi take off his boots. His pride can reach the point where "the son of heaven called instead of getting on the boat, calling himself Brewmaster", which is unmatched by anyone except Zhuangzi throughout the ages. His resentment also started from this. Everyone crowded out, the son of heaven was angry and resentful, his career was blocked, and his ideals were shattered. His worries are three thousands of feet white hairs, and his poems began to despise powerful people, vent their grief and anger, and fight against fate, which became an important part of Li Bai's poems. It is not difficult to see that Li Bai has a strong narcissistic complex and a complex of abandoning his wife from Li Bai's masterpieces, such as Difficult Road to Shu, Entering Wine and Climbing Mount Tianmu in a Dream. When Li Bai was young, he regarded himself as a peerless wizard, which was the capital of his arrogance and the source of his pain. In other words, he is proud of his inexperience and resentful of his pride. This is the established path of life and poetry creation of countless literati like Li Bai in the past dynasties, and it also makes their personality and style immortal.
Talking about Du Fu, Du Fu claimed to be Confucian, and he claimed to be Confucian all his life. The spirit of Confucianism's entry into the WTO and the theory of benevolent government have created the main theme of worrying about the country and the people in Du Fu's poems. Du Fu's heart is often filled with the humanitarian spirit of sympathy for others, which makes him have a deep understanding of the sense of hardship, the spirit of benevolence and the way of loyalty and forgiveness advocated by Confucius and Mencius. Expressed by poems with strong feelings, it gives people a feeling of moving and spiritual baptism. This makes him a poet idol in the eyes of China traditional intellectuals and the embodiment of Confucian cultural ideal personality. The Confucian spirit in Du Fu's poems has a great influence on later generations, and its significance is beyond the scope of poetry history. In fact, the so-called poetic saint also contains a moral saint. As the spiritual idol of later poets, he always adhered to the spirit of Confucianism, and his influence in the history of thought was no less than that of his poetic art.
As a poet with great political aspirations, his sense of responsibility always exists in his mind, which makes him unable to forget the reality. So once there are factors that make his sense of hardship appear in reality, his feelings of worrying about the country and the people will remain. The most impressive of Du Fu's poems is the song "The Hut is Blown by Autumn Wind", which says: "There are thousands of spacious buildings, and the poor in the world are happy, and the wind and rain are as peaceful as a mountain! Oh! Suddenly seeing this house in front of me, it is enough for me to freeze to death alone! " This kind of self-suffering, putting oneself in others' shoes, thinking of other people's suffering, and then preferring to be poor, instead of the thoughts and feelings of the poor in the world; In the history of China literature and even the whole history of Chinese civilization, Du Fu is probably the only noble sentiment who has been suffering from poverty and illness, but never forgets to care about the changes of the world. Compared with the sacrifice of stone to feed the tiger, Fan's "worrying about the world first, and enjoying the world later" is even more shocking and moving. This heartfelt cry and lament, this unprecedented feeling of compassion, fully embodies the spirit of benevolence, compassion and sense of hardship in the core of Confucianism.