The characteristic of Gao Shi's frontier fortress poems is that they are vigorous and tragic. His poems are mainly about quality, majestic and simple.
Gao Shi was lonely and poor, and had the spirit of a knight-errant. He traveled in the Liang and Song Dynasties and worked hard to support himself. Coupled with his bold and upright personality, his poems reflect a broader level and have a profound theme. Gao Shi's psychological structure is relatively extensive and his personality is straightforward, so most of his poems express his feelings directly, or contain narratives and discussions, and rarely use metaphors.
For example, "Yan Ge Xing" points out the national crisis at the beginning, highlighting the tense atmosphere: "The smoke and dust of the Han family are in the northeast, and the Han generals will resign their homes and destroy the thieves."; at the end, he directly comments: "You have not seen the battlefield. The battle was hard, but I still remember General Li! "It contains both ardent expectations and deep sighs, implicit and powerful.
Gao Shi’s poems focus on people rather than natural landscapes, so they rarely describe pure scenery. They often include descriptions of scenery when expressing emotions, so the scenery bears the mark of the poet’s personal subjectivity.
In "Yange Xing", "the desert is poor and the grass is declining in autumn, and the solitary city is fighting at sunset with few soldiers" to outline the desolate scene. The desert, withered grass, solitary city and sunset are used as parallels to form a picture full of subjective emotions. , which highlights the bravery and tragedy of the soldiers who continue to fight even more intensely.
Gao Shi’s language style is simple and clear, without any elaboration. For example, one of the two poems of "Farewell to Dong Da": "Thousands of miles away, the yellow clouds are white and the sun is shining, the north wind is blowing the wild geese and the snow is falling. Don't worry about the road ahead. No one in the world knows you." In terms of technique, it seems that there is no effort at all, and the words follow the meaning. It comes out without any deliberate rhetorical embellishment.
About Gao Shi
Gao Shi (about 704-about 765), courtesy name Dafu and Zhongwu, Han nationality, was born in Bohai County (now Jingxian County, Hebei Province) in the Tang Dynasty. Later he moved to Songcheng, Songzhou (now Suiyang, Shangqiu, Henan). A famous frontier poet in the Tang Dynasty, he once served as the Minister of the Ministry of Justice, the Changshi of Sanqi, and the Marquis of Bohai County. He was known as Gao Changshi in the world.
Gao Shi and Cen Shen are both known as "Gao Cen", and there are "Gao Chang Shi Ji" and other works handed down from generation to generation. His poems are powerful and unrestrained, and are filled with the enterprising and vigorous spirit of the times unique to the prosperous Tang Dynasty. . The Five Sages Temple at Yuwangtai in Kaifeng is dedicated to Gao Shi, Li Bai, Du Fu, He Jingming and Li Mengyang. Later generations collectively called Gao Shi, Cen Shen, Wang Changling and Wang Zhihuan the "Four Frontier Poets".