"Building a house should be people-oriented, without horses and chariots. What can you do? The heart is far from being biased. " These four poems are actually about the relationship between man and reality, that is, whether people living in reality can transcend reality. At that time, Taoism prevailed, preaching the "infinite" theory of life, saying that as long as people were properly nursed back to health, they could become immortals, not only in spirit but also in body. At that time, you could swim freely in the vast universe, swim in the clouds, or snorkel in the rivers and seas. In other words, the immortal's body and spirit transcend life and death and time and space. Tao Yuanming holds a negative and critical attitude towards this fairy tale. He realized that "wealth is not my wish, and the hometown of the emperor cannot be expected" ("Gui Xi Ci"), even if he later fell into a desperate situation in life, he would never go to the fairy world to seek spiritual comfort. So he didn't die, but abandoned his official position and returned to the fields instead of hiding in the mountains. In fact, the countryside he retired is "hidden" for officialdom, but it is not "hidden" for the vast rural reality, but is approaching step by step. This is one aspect. However, he believes that people's thoughts or spirits can purify themselves in isolation or be detached from reality. These four poems are about this truth. "Building a house is under human conditions" means living in the real society. "The noise of horses and chariots" generally refers to all kinds of annoying dust in the world, and it is also an image portrayal of the world vying for wealth. The reason why he lives in the human environment is that he can be "far-sighted". "Foresight" is to abandon the concept of wealth and splendor ideologically. When a person loses material desires and dusty thoughts, his spirit is far beyond this world. He said in the poem "Fire in June in Wushen": "Lingguan is lonely." In real life, people often have to let nature take its course; But people's inner world can be surreal or quiet. This fantasy of longing for spiritual surrealism and a popular saying at that time: "Live in the secular world, live in the sky" (the book of Jin, the story of seclusion) were all subjective wishes of people trying to get rid of their inner anguish at that time. However, in real life, it is actually impossible for people to stay out of real contradictions. To put it bluntly, it's just another way of saying that they discharge themselves or liberate themselves. This is the essence of the so-called "telecentricity".
"Picking chrysanthemums under the east fence, leisurely see Nanshan; The mountains are getting better and better, and the birds are back. " The poet picked chrysanthemums under the east fence, leisurely and carefree, and the weather was particularly good At dusk, everything in nature looks harmonious and pure; At this time, the poet is detached from the world, and his mood is integrated with nature! The phrase "picking chrysanthemums" here mainly highlights the poet's "carefree" state of mind; The phrase "mountain god" obviously contains the meaning of "many birds are happy and entrusted", and the taste of the two is the same. This harmonious combination of subjective mood and objective environment is summarized as "combination of artistic conception" or "confusion of artistic conception" by later generations. In poetry, this kind of resonance between subject and object is mainly manifested through the word "see". Su Dongpo said that the vulgar book is Looking at Nanshan, "then this article is boring"; And with the word "see", "the artistic conception is exhausted." Where's the secret? I think the word "see" is mainly obtained inadvertently, which can integrate "meaning" and "environment" with nature; The loss of the word "Wang" is mainly intentional, and intentional is unnatural, thus destroying the leisurely atmosphere of the whole poem.
However, judging from the artistic conception of poetry, the four sentences of "building a house" are detached, and the four sentences of "picking chrysanthemums" express "attending the meeting". What is the internal relationship between them? As mentioned earlier, Tao Yuanming's talk about detachment is limited to the individual's spirit or state of mind, that is, the so-called "telepathy." He believes that in order to protect his "heart" from the pollution of the world and the noise of "chariots and horses", he must make up his mind to give up the pursuit of fame and fortune, return to the countryside and live a life of farming. This is the only way to get rid of the bondage of secular spirit and liberate the mind. If people's state of mind can be purified to be as pure, harmonious and simple as nature, it will reach the most ideal spiritual realm, that is, the extreme of "telepathy". Four poems about "picking chrysanthemums" are an artistic realm in which "the heart is far away" reaches the extreme. It shows readers that people's subjective mentality is truly integrated with the objective environment of nature, and people's spirit is completely freed from boredom with the world. The poet picked chrysanthemums under the east hedge. Although his figure belongs to the real world, his mood at that time was "carefree" to a scene in harmony with nature. It can be seen that the first four sentences are to ask questions and give conclusive answers, and the last four sentences are to express the theme of the poem in concrete terms with the image of the poem.
"That makes sense. I forgot what I wanted to say." "Here" refers to the artistic conception expressed in the four sentences of "picking chrysanthemums". The "truth" of "true meaning" is associated with "nature" in the metaphysical concept, and "true meaning" is the interest of nature, which summarizes the essential characteristics of the artistic conception expressed in the four sentences of "picking chrysanthemums", so A Qing Wuqi said it was "the marrow of a piece" (Selected Poems of the Six Dynasties, Volume 11). From the poet's subjective point of view, picking chrysanthemums under the hedge is an understanding of the principle of cosmic life and an interest in nature. From the natural environment around Lushan Mountain in the evening, everything seems harmonious and full of vitality, which is the true nature. The poet's carefree feelings and the natural weather in front of him are all in line with the way of nature, so the subject and object will be in perfect harmony. In the poet's view, the wonderful truth can only be understood, but not expressed, so he said, "I forgot what I was going to say." The distinction between words and meanings is a basic theory in the study of metaphysics in Wei and Jin Dynasties. The so-called "get carried away" means that words and images are tools or means to obtain meaning, without which we can't obtain meaning. However, "words" and "images" are only phenomena, and "meaning" is the essence of things. Therefore, to truly understand the true meaning of "meaning", we should not stick to "words" and "images", but forget them. The word "truth" in this poem is understood by the poet from the concrete words and images shown in the four sentences of "picking chrysanthemums". He believes that "meaning" has been obtained, and the rest of the arguments are redundant; Otherwise, as "Zhuangzi's Theory of Everything" said: "The debater has not seen it." The more arguments there are, the more meaning will be drowned out by words and images. At the end of these two sentences, not only did the word "truth" break the meaning of the whole poem, but it also left endless meanings for readers to appreciate. This is probably what Wang Guowei called "the taste behind the words" ("Words on Earth").
The "true meaning" expressed by Tao Yuanming in this poem is the interest of nature, which is not only the concrete "nature" of pastoral poetry, but also the abstract "nature" of the poet's subjective spirit. Here, the description of pastoral poetry does not exist as a background to express the "nature" of the poet's mind; The two are indistinguishable in poetry. This artistic realm of "muddy meaning and muddy realm" is the unity of reality and ideal, objectivity and subjectivity, and finiteness and infinity. In a word, it is the dialectical unity of fiction and truth in poetry creation. It can produce special artistic effects with endless meanings.