The first thing involved here is the evaluation of Tao Yuanming. In this regard, Mr. Lu Xun said: "Tao Yuanming is great because he is not completely silent" ("The topic is undecided"), which is a very accurate comment, so we won't go into details. Secondly, it also involves an evaluation standard. Tao Yuanming's pastoral poems are lyric poems. As a lyric poem, the ways and means to reflect reality are naturally different from Du Fu's narrative poems such as "Three Officials" and "Three Farewells". It mainly reflects real life through subjective feelings, but it is vivid. Moreover, every poet's life experience and ideological character are different, so that he often adopts different themes when reflecting his life. We can't simply accuse the poet of not reflecting a certain aspect of life, but should start from the poet's creative reality and examine what kind of social reality he reflects in what way, so as to draw a more realistic conclusion. The unique significance of Tao Yuanming's pastoral poems lies in that he started from his life practice of "giving everything", chose a theme that the previous generation of poets had never used, and expressed his feelings about social life from the unique perspective of pastoral life. From the sketched pictures and ordinary life scenes, we can not only see the self-image of a poet with different local conditions and customs, but also peep into some aspects of social reality at that time through the poet's joys and sorrows.
Most of Tao Yuanming's pastoral poems were created after "casting a crown and spinning the old city". Although he "naturally loves autumn mountains", he doesn't want to die in the countryside. In his youth, he was "eager to escape from all over the world and fly in Philip Burkart", eager to do something like his great-grandfather Tao Kan. However, the turbulent times in which he lived (Life and Death) prevented him from realizing his ideal of "being of great benefit to his life". He has no noble door to rely on, "sex is just clumsy and there are too many things" ("Yan Zi et al."). Although he stepped into the official career more than once, he always felt "ashamed of his ambition" and resigned quickly every time. The experience of being an official and retiring several times contains the pain that his ideals and ambitions have repeatedly hit a wall. Whenever he is indignant at the dirty darkness of the officialdom, his heart will inevitably ignite nostalgia for rural life: "A quiet garden is good, and the world is good!" "Tian Yuanri's dream has been separated for a long time!" Finally, he chose the life path of "laying the soil for security" and resolutely brushed his clothes back. His pastoral poetry creation is based on such a life experience.
Obviously, Tao Yuanming's seclusion has the positive significance of resisting reality. His pastoral poems also show a deep hatred for the official life that is getting rid of the stench, and contain the deep affection that "although it is not far from being lost, it is not yesterday" (Gui Xi Ci). Therefore, he often described rural scenery and rural life as opposites of officialdom and official career. This is particularly evident in his early poems in seclusion. For example, the first song of "Return to the Garden":
Few people do as the Romans do. Their nature is to love nature. Fall into the dust net by mistake, thirteen years. Birds in cages are often attached to the forests of the past, and fish in ponds yearn for the abyss of the past. I want to open up wasteland in Minamino and keep my humility to the fields. The house is surrounded by about ten acres of land, thatched cottages. Willow trees cover the eaves, and peach trees cover Li Lieman in front of the hospital. The neighboring village of the neighboring village is faintly visible, and there is smoke in the village. Dogs bark in deep alleys, mulberry trees crow at the top of chickens, households are clean and miscellaneous, and empty rooms are more idle. Trapped in a cage without freedom for a long time, I finally returned to the forest today.
In the poet's pen, the countryside is so beautiful and quiet: surrounded by peaches, plums, elms and willows, there are several huts, and the distant villages are faintly visible, with light smoke curling up; Occasionally, a few crows and dogs bark from the deep alley. Everything here is so different from the noisy and dangerous officialdom. No wonder poets are as glad to be back to nature as "fish in a pond" and "bird in a cage". In the idyllic countryside, the poet "cultivates and sows, but he is still reading my book", "He will pitch to the end of the universe, and he will not be happy" (Reading Shan Hai Jing is the first). Just as birds find refuge in the midsummer shade, poets also find their home in farming and reading. Although this kind of life is lonely and poor, the poet is intoxicated by this carefree interest after he has experienced the official career of "tired from service and lonely in the middle of the night" and prostrated himself on others.
It is precisely because of his hatred of reality that "the market will drive the heart of easy progress", Tao Yuanming repeatedly sang the purity of rural scenery and the simplicity of rural life: "The mountains are clear and shallow, so you can lick my feet. Lu (Lu) My newly cooked wine was greeted by only a chicken waving near the door (the fifth time in "Returning to the Garden"). If there is wine, you can think about it. Farming goes back to hometown, and leisure needs acacia. Acacia wears clothes, talks and laughs, and is insatiable "("Migration "second). Similar compliments abound in his pastoral poems. In these poems, there is an atmosphere of peace and tranquility.
Some people accuse Tao Yuanming of describing rural life in his poems, which is not in line with the actual situation of Xunyang countryside plundered by war. Those who hold this criticism ignore a very prominent feature in Tao Yuanming's pastoral poems, that is, "poetry expresses its meaning", or "meaning" is poetry. This is what Yuan Haowen said: "Does this man write poems that go straight into the sky?" Zhang Jie also said: "Dogs bark deep in the alley and chickens crow at the top of mulberry trees", which originally meant leisure in the suburbs, not singing about the countryside. They all pointed out that the pastoral scenery in Tao Yuanming's works is the "meaning" in his heart. This "meaning" is essentially an ideal life realm pursued by the poet. Tao Yuanming is a man with rich spiritual life. His bitter experience in real life and the profound influence of Laozi and Zhuangzi's advocating nature gradually formed his own unique human physiological thought: he advocated Ren Zhen's complacency and thought that spiritual oppression and bondage were against nature, so he regarded officialdom and official career as "dust nets" and "cages"; He opposes fraud and hypocrisy, yearns for a simple and honest society and believes that people should be sincere and friendly. "When brothers, why flesh and blood ("Miscellaneous Poems "); He opposed the extravagant wind, thought that "agriculture is used to meet the needs of this Xi" ("He Liu Chai Sang") and advocated a simple and fulfilling life. In short, there is no violence, no falsehood, only simplicity, innocence, harmony and nature. This ideal state is very close to the rural scenery that he was familiar with and loved since he was a child. In the long-term poor and lonely life of farming and reading, the poet constantly excavates the inherent beauty of rural life from his own actual feelings in order to obtain spiritual support. Just as he learned the "true meaning" from "the weather is getting better every day, and the birds are coming back" (the fifth part of drinking), the poet also got spiritual satisfaction in this natural and simple pastoral life, such as playing the piano, reading, drinking, or growing vegetables, as if he had entered an ideal realm. So he said, "Speaking of forgetting the hairpin, it's really a pleasure!" (The first part of "What Country's Home Book")
In a word, Tao Yuanming's pastoral poems in his early years of seclusion often reflect reality in a special way. The pastoral scenery in his works is not only an ordinary scene in normal rural life, but also a washing of the poet's ideal life. These harmonious and natural pastoral poems, as the opposite of the dark reality of "eight tables are blurred and the flat land becomes a river" ("Stop the clouds"), reflect the poet's tireless pursuit of the ideal realm. At the same time, they are based on the poet's actual pastoral life, and the ideal of life is skillfully combined with the practice of unfamiliar words, which makes their pastoral poems have a special charm. When we understand the creative background and performance characteristics of Tao Yuanming's pastoral poems, we will not lightly criticize them for "whitewashing reality".
In addition, if we agree that writers can "reflect people's sufferings" in various forms, then we should admit that Tao Yuanming's pastoral poems, especially those in his seclusion in his later years, reflect the decline and ruin of the countryside to some extent. Such as "Returning to the Old Residence" and "He Liu Chai Sang". Especially after Tao Yuanming experienced the hardships of his life, many poems wrote about his increasingly embarrassing situation: "The fire is burning, and the moth is in the middle of the field." Wind and rain come and go, and the convergence is not full. Hungry in summer, sleepless in cold nights. Thinking about the crow in the evening, I would like to move to Wu in the morning ("Pang Zhushu Deng Zhizhong" complains about poetry and Chu tune); When you are weak, you will be hungry for a long time. Wheat is envied, who dares to be greedy for fat? If you are like a nine-meal meal, you will get tired of cold clothes in summer "("There will be a meeting ") and so on. Although Tao Yuanming was poor, he was a scholar-bureaucrat after all (Yan Yanzhi's Historical Records of Zheng Tao). He is still in such a miserable situation, so you can imagine how miserable the peasants are.
Although Tao Yuanming is known as "the master of hermit poets in ancient and modern times", he is actually very different from those hermits at that time. First of all, he really doesn't want to be an official. He sincerely "held a lonely heart until the end of his life, and the price in Xie Liang was in the market" ("The feeling of Confucianism is unfortunate"). Secondly, unlike the scholar-officials who advocated the theory of Xuansheng, he "cultivated crops in the clouds" (Xie Lingyun's Reading in Prison), but firmly put his life ideal and life path after retirement into the action of "devoting himself to his own capital". Therefore, describing the poet's feelings in labor has become an important content of Tao Yuanming's pastoral poems.
First of all, we can see his simple outlook on life and labor from his pastoral poems. As we all know, rulers have always despised labor. Since the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the scholar-officials have been "ashamed of doing business in agriculture" (Family Instructions of Yan Family Mianxue). Tao Yuanming, on the other hand, realized from his life that "all the pots and pans are exhausted, and winter goes and spring comes" (self-sacrifice). It is unrealistic for Confucius to say that "a gentleman seeks Tao without seeking food" and "worries about Tao without worrying about poverty". In the poem "Persuade Agriculture", he euphemistically criticized Confucius' attitude of not asking for cultivation and Dong Zhongshu's indifference to gardening, saying: "Shun Geng, Yu Geng, far away, eight strategies begin to eat." How can I "drag my hand" like my generation? In his view: "People's livelihood is diligent, but diligence is not lacking. Feast quietly and be happy all the year round? " Although it is impossible for him to realize that the poverty of the people is mainly caused by class exploitation, and "hard work" may not be "lack", he emphasizes that everyone should take part in labor from the ordinary and simple truth that "life belongs to the right path and food and clothing are guaranteed" ("Geng Xu's birthday in September"). This is really inspiring wisdom for people who are ashamed of agriculture-related affairs in ancient and modern times.
It is based on the understanding that "food and clothing should be disciplined, and farming should not be bullied by us" (the second part of Migration), Tao Yuanming began to take part in agricultural labor. The two poems "Tian She in the Spring of Guimao" faithfully recorded his excitement and fresh feelings when he first went to the fields.