Appreciation of Tao Yuanming's "Drinking"
●Original text
The house is in a human environment, without the noise of cars and horses. When I ask you how you can do it, your mind is far away and you are biased. Picking chrysanthemums under the eastern fence, you can leisurely see the Nanshan Mountain. The mountain air is getting better day by day and the birds are flying back and forth. There is a true meaning in this, but I have forgotten to explain it.
●Background introduction
Tao Yuanming (365～427) was a native of Chaisang, Xunyang. Tao's poems use his writing style to dilute the distant past and write about pastoral life and the scenery in the ruins, opening up a new realm for poetry.
There are twenty-two poems in the "Drinking" group, and this is the third one. There is a small preface at the beginning, indicating that they are all works written by Drunken. They were not written in one moment and have no internal connection. They were written in an independent way. This song mainly expresses the taste of seclusion life. After working, after drinking and getting drunk, under the glow of the sunset, in the shroud of the mountains, picking chrysanthemums on the east fence and looking at the Nanshan Mountain in the distance. The sentiment at this time is so profound and eternal! A major feature of Tao's poetry is its simplicity, in which feelings and emotions are integrated and inseparable. He often uses words such as "forgetting" and "forgetting" to block the exploration and revelation of the laws of emotion and reason. This may be a manifestation of poetry's return to nature.
●Commentary from Professor Cheng Yuzhu of the Department of Chinese Language and Literature of Peking University
The host Tao Yuanming lives in the countryside and is a hermit who does not care about the world. He can have a profound impact on Chinese literature and even become a Can you talk about the spiritual destiny of later generations of scholar-officials? Can you talk about his position in the history of Chinese literature?
Cheng Yuzhu and Tao Yuanming have a very prominent position in the history of Chinese literature. It can be said that every one of his more than 120 poems is very, very good. We can say that poetry on many themes before the Tang Dynasty only reached its peak in the Tang Dynasty. For example, among frontier poems, landscape poems, and farewell poems, there is only one very special phenomenon, that is, pastoral poetry was created by Tao Yuanming, and it was Tao Yuanming who pushed it to its peak. We say that there were many pastoral poets in the Tang Dynasty, such as Wang Wei and Meng Haoran, and there were some pastoral poets in the Song Dynasty, such as Fan Chengda and Yang Wanli. So many pastoral poets in the Tang and Song Dynasties should say that the pastoral poems they created were all under the shadow of Tao Yuanming's pastoral poetry. It can be said that none of them surpassed Tao Yuanming's pastoral poetry. Therefore, Tao Yuanming's pastoral poetry is a very valuable asset in the history of Chinese literature.
He was born in 365 AD and died in 427 AD. Life can be divided into three periods: before the age of 29, he was mainly studying. From the age of 29 to 41, he came out to be an official and then went into seclusion. It was a period of repeated official seclusion. When he was the county magistrate in Pengze, his superiors came to inspect his work. His subordinate scribes said, "Hurry up and put on your clothes and hat before going to greet him." He sighed and said, "I can't bow down to a village boy for five buckets of rice." So he hung up his crown and left. This spirit of unwillingness to bend for five buckets of rice is the pride of our Chinese intellectuals, and it has influenced generations of intellectuals. Like Li Bai, he said, "An Neng can defeat the powerful and make me unhappy." This kind of spirit is very valuable. Then after he hung up his crown and retired to the countryside, he lived in seclusion in the countryside, and spent his later years in the countryside. He has a very good relationship with the villagers. When he has wine, he invites the elderly people next door to drink with him. When he doesn't have wine, he knocks on other people's doors and asks if they have wine at home, so this is very straightforward. of. Moreover, he also personally participated in physical labor. He wrote in a poem: "Bean planting is at the foot of the southern mountain. The grass is thick and the bean seedlings are sparse. In the morning, I clean up the wasteland and filth, and I return home with a lotus in the moon. The road is narrow and the grass and trees are long. The evening dew touches my clothes; my clothes are stained by the hoe." It’s not a pity, but it’s true.” This “wish” is generally understood as the wish to return to nature, but I think there is another explanation besides this, that is, this wish is the wish for a good harvest. I think that as long as there is a good harvest, it doesn't matter if the clothes get wet. This understanding may be closer to ordinary people, and it does not affect the greatness of Tao Yuanming's image at all. Tao Yuanming was very straightforward in character. He himself said, "There is little luck in adapting to the secular world, and his nature is to love mountains and mountains." He liked nature and straightforwardness very much. There is a very typical example. He doesn't know how to play the piano, but he always has a stringless harp at home, which is the harp without strings. When he gets happy, he picks the harp. Without the strings, there will definitely be no sound. , there is no sound, don’t want this sound. "But if there is interest in the piano, why bother with the sound of the strings." That is to say, as long as there is interest in the movement of the piano, there is no need for the sound of the sub-strings. This is very interesting. One of his favorite things in life is wine and the other is chrysanthemums. These two points are very prominent, and both of them are vividly reflected in the fifth chapter of "Drinking".
The host asks you to comment on Tao Yuanming’s song "Drinking".
This poem by Cheng Yuzhu is a very good one. He begins by saying, "The house is built in the human world, without the noise of cars and horses." He built his house in the human world, but he couldn't hear it. When it comes to the noise of carriages and horses, then there must be "the noise of carriages and horses" "in the human realm". Why is there no "noise of carriages and horses"? He asked himself, "Ask you, what can you do?" That means I'm asking you, what's the reason for reaching this point? Next, he answered: "Pick chrysanthemums under the eastern fence, and leisurely see the Nanshan Mountain." This is Tao Yuanming's very famous poem about chrysanthemums. "Picking chrysanthemums under the eastern fence" means looking down. "Looking at Nanshan leisurely" means looking up. When "picking chrysanthemums under the eastern fence", you inadvertently raise your head to look at Nanshan. The beautiful Nanshan Mountain is Lushan Mountain, and Lushan Mountain in his hometown suddenly caught his eye.
Therefore, the word "see" is used very well. Su Dongpo once said: If the word "see" Nanshan is changed to "look at" Nanshan, all the spirit will be lost. Next, he said, "The mountain air is getting better day by day, and the birds are returning home." That is to say, the natural landscape in the mountains is very good in the morning and evening. In the atmosphere, the birds returned to their nests. Then from such a very natural and straightforward artistic conception, Tao Yuanming felt a certain situation in life. However, such a very delicate situation is difficult to express in words. It can only be understood but not expressed in words, so "I have forgotten my words in the attempt to argue."
What does the host’s poem mean to us today?
This poem by Cheng Yuzu is a very good poem. Its good thing is that the feelings are very sincere and everything is natural, especially "Asking you how can you do it, your heart is far away and you are biased" , "The mind is far away and is biased" has some inspiration for us today, that is, we live in a very modern and very noisy society today, and it is no longer possible for us to live in seclusion in the mountains and forests as we did in Tao Yuanming's time. In this very lively reality, as long as each of us keeps his mind away from some fame and fortune, some material pursuits, and some secular officialdom, then the place where we live will become remote, and our mood will also Become peaceful. We will also overcome some impetuous emotions and make ourselves very peaceful. This is very beneficial to our own life cultivation and the tranquility of our society.
The house is in a human environment,
and there is no noise of horses or carriages.
I asked you how you can do it.
My heart is far away and I am biased.
Picking chrysanthemums under the eastern fence,
Seeing Nanshan leisurely.
The mountain air is getting better day by day, and the birds are flying back and forth.
There is a true meaning in this,
I have forgotten my words in the attempt to argue.
This was written by Tao Yuanming, a poet of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, after he resigned from Peng Zeling and decided to live in seclusion. The poet shows his leisure life and detached state of mind by describing the beautiful scenery of the countryside.
The language of this poem is plain and simple, but it does not lose its charm. In a no-exaggeration way, using common language to write a refreshing state of mind, it seems natural and thought-provoking. The sentence "One word is natural and eternally new, and the luxury is pure and pure." This sentence expresses the language characteristics of this poem vividly.
Take scenery as the source of poetry, emotion as the edge of poetry, and reason as the end of poetry. The "heart" and "earth" in the first four sentences are exactly the relationship between the subjective spirit and the objective environment. As long as your mind is far away, you will not be disturbed by the hustle and bustle of the world no matter where you are. You, while picking chrysanthemums, admire the mountains, the people and the scenery blend into one. The mountain air at sunset and the returning birds form a beautiful scenery. It contains the true meaning of life, which cannot be expressed in words. The blending of things and myself means endless things.
The whole poem is fresh and natural, without any pretense, and expresses the poet's uncontested and contented feelings. Without his extraordinary character and clear understanding of life, how could he have such vast poetry. Desires Everyone has desires. People have unlimited desires, but people have different desires; people have boundless desires, but people have limited desires. You will have your desires at any age you live. Without desire there is no hope. But desire is the result of life, and people are the result of desire. Different people have different desires, and different desires create different people. The desire to establish must be righteous, and the desire to test must be fruitful. No matter how life is, the most important thing is to establish your desires. Whether it's blessing or misfortune, each of us must take control of it. It's just that the desire to divide is too much.
Desire is hard to fill, so don’t fall into it!