Li Shangyin once claimed to be related to the royal family. Zhang Caitian's textual research confirmed that it was a distant imperial clan. But there is no official document to prove this, so it can be considered that this blood relationship between Li Shangyin and the royal family in the Tang Dynasty is quite distant. Li Shangyin affirmed his imperial clan status many times in his poems. However, this did not bring him any real benefits.
Li Shangyin is generally regarded as the most outstanding poet in the late Tang Dynasty. His poetic style is deeply influenced by harmony in syntax, composition and structure. Many critics believe that among the outstanding poets in the Tang Dynasty, his importance is second only to Du Fu, Du Fu and others. As far as the uniqueness of poetic style is concerned, he is not inferior to any poet. Those who appreciate Li Shangyin's poems and those who criticize him are all aimed at his distinctive personal style. Many poets in later generations imitated Li Shangyin's style, but none of them were recognized.
Judging from the theme of chanting, Li Shangyin's poems can be mainly divided into several categories:
Politics and reciting history. As an intellectual who cares about politics, Li Shangyin wrote a lot of poems in this field, and about 100 poems have been handed down. Among them, the more important works are Han Bei, Hundred Rhymes in the Western Suburb, and Two Poems about Teachers' Feelings. Li Shangyin's early political poems were mostly based on Chen's current situation, and their harsh tone of grief and indignation and sense of self-expectation reflected his mentality at that time. In poems about political and social contents, it is a feature of Li Shangyin's poems to borrow historical themes to reflect his views on contemporary society. Two poems in the Northern Qi Dynasty, Fuping Shaohou and Maoling, are the representatives.
Express one's feelings and recite things. Li Shangyin's career was bumpy all his life, and his ambition could not be realized, so he used poetry to dispel his depression and anxiety. Anding Tower, Mourning in Spring, Happy Garden and Du Gongbu Leaving the Clock are some of the most popular songs. It is worth noting that many seven-character poems in this kind of works are considered as important successors of Du Fu's poetic style.
Emotional poetry. The works that chant inner feelings, including most untitled poems, are the most distinctive parts of Li Shangyin's poems, and they are also the most concerned parts of later generations. Three more important poems, Jinse, Yantai Mountain and Bi Cheng, are similar to untitled poems. Herry Liu's five poems, A Note to Friends in the North on a Rainy Night, Going to Shu Dong after Mourning, Visiting the Snow through Three Views, etc. It embodies the artistic conception of another style of Li Shangyin's emotional poems.
Shi Li absorbed the strengths of predecessors, inherited the depression and frustration of Du Fu's Seven Laws, integrated the magnificence and richness of Qi Liang's poems, and imitated the ghostly fantasy of Li He's poems, forming his affectionate, lingering, aesthetic and delicate style. Shi Li is also good at using allusions and appropriate historical analogies to express hidden and unspeakable meanings.
His poems reflect his thoughts, and his basic thoughts of human nature basically belong to it, but he is pragmatic and has a certain critical spirit to Confucianism. He thinks it is unnecessary to be a teacher according to rules and regulations, and there is no need to make concessions to be a saint. He also has Buddhism and Taoism, and advocates taking nature as his ancestor.
Li Shangyin's poems have distinctive and unique artistic style, beautiful words and profound meanings. Some poems can be interpreted in many ways, while others are obscure. There are about 600 existing poems, especially untitled poems, the most prominent of which is his love poems. Li Shangyin is good at writing seven laws and five-character laws, and there are also many excellent works in seven-character poems. Ye Xie, a poet in the Qing Dynasty, commented on Li Shangyin's Seven Wonders in profound and graceful terms in his original poems, which is really unique in a hundred generations.
It is also his style of using allusions that forms his unique poetic style. According to Huang Jian's note, when Yang Wengong talks about gardens, every time Li Shangyin writes a poem, he will consult a large number of books, and the room will be scattered at sixes and sevens, which is compared to a rex offering fish. Wang Shizhen of the Ming Dynasty also said in a joking tone: Bawang Festival shocked Boao, and it was a mystery. Critics think that he sometimes uses allusions too much and makes obscure mistakes, which makes people unable to understand his poems. He once said: Yuxi was born with clear pronunciation and beautiful sentences. How dare she compare with others? I am dissatisfied with too many allusions.
Shi Zhecun believes that although the social significance of Li Shangyin's poems is not as good as that of Li Bai and Du Fu, Li Shangyin is the most influential poet in later generations, because there are more people who like Li Shangyin's poems than Li, Du Fu and Bai. Among the 300 Tang poems compiled by Sun Zhu, there are 22 poems by Li Shangyin, second only to Du Fu, Du Fu, Du Fu and Du Fu. This anthology of Tang poems is a household name in China, from which we can see its great influence on ordinary people.