The tragic career of Li Shangyin
Li Shangyin, also known as Yishan, was a famous poet in the Tang Dynasty of my country. His life was a life of striving for success, but also a life of ups and downs.
Li Shangyin lost his father when he was nine years old. The hardships and severe reality of life caused him to develop a depressed mental state. Seventeen-year-old Li Shangyin was appreciated by Linghuchu, the governor of the Tianping Army, and was invited to join the shogunate as an inspector. Linghuchu not only taught Li Shangyin to write parallel prose memorials which were extremely popular at the time, but also continued to support Li Shangyin. Li Shangyin was extremely grateful and once wrote a poem: "Since the passing of the clothes in the middle of the night, I didn't admire Wang Xiang when he got the sword."
In 833, the poet went to the capital for the first time and failed in the examination, which dealt a great blow to the poet. For a period of time after that, he lived a life of seclusion and seeking Taoism in Yuyang Mountain and Wangwu Mountain in Henan Province.
In 837, the poet passed the Jinshi examination with the help of Linghu Chu. In 838, Wang Maoyuan, the governor of Jingyuan, hired Li Shangyin to join the shogunate and made him his son-in-law. Unexpectedly, this brought great misfortune to Li Shangyin.
In the late Tang Dynasty, there was a fierce struggle between the Niu and Li factions in the political arena. Linghu Chu is the backbone of the Niu Party, and Wang Maoyuan is on the list of the Li Party. Although Li Shangyin did not participate in party struggles, he was deeply cultivated by Linghu Chu, and he was Wang Maoyuan's son-in-law. So the people in Niu's party thought he was ungrateful, and the people in Li's party did not accept him. Li Shangyin inexplicably became a victim of party struggle and fell into the abyss of pain. Li's political ambitions were shattered like a bubble. Li Shangyin's untitled poem is an expression of this unspeakable hardship with its far-reaching, thoughtful and touching style.
Since then, Li Shangyin has been ups and downs in the waves of party struggle. Although he has entered several shogunate offices, he has been unable to realize his political ambitions. In 852, the poet's wife passed away, and the sentimental poet once again suffered great mental torture, and even wanted to be born out of the world. The combination of the poet's worries about the country and his personal unfortunate life gave his gloomy and desolate poems a layer of pessimism.
In 858, this poet who once had great ambitions but had a rough life died in loneliness with deep regret at the age of forty-seven.
Li Shangyin’s tragic life ended in a hurry. The wandering life at the end of the world provided the poet with a lot of material and gave birth to many moving poems. But the dark reality, the depressed mood caused by the difficulty in realizing his political ambitions, and the pain of losing his father in his early years and his wife in his middle age made the poet end his life prematurely. Influenced on his poetry, his poetry always has a decadent mood and obscure atmosphere, and uses allusions and eccentric expressions, and even casts a religious (mainly Taoist influence) color, bringing A strange and cold artistic conception. Li Shangyin was unable to sing a magnificent song throughout his life, and his song of life ended prematurely. It is really a regrettable tragedy.