Li Bai is so frivolous and confident that he won't change a poem after writing it. After all, when he was drunk, Li Bai was a fallen fairy. After waking up, Li Bai returned to the world. It would be self-defeating if he revised his poem again. It is precisely because Taibai's poems are original, but they may not meet the aesthetic standards of later generations, so later generations will revise them.
Li Bai's most classic long poem should be "Into the Wine", among which the most wonderful sentence is "sober people in the old days, sages are forgotten, and only big drinkers are famous forever". Through the comparison between sages and drinkers, it shows that Li Bai is full of arrogance! However, this version has been revised by later generations. In fact, the original work written by Li Bai is like this: "In ancient times, sages died, and only heavy drinkers are famous through the ages." Ancient sages were lonely when they were lonely, but it was crazy to "die" directly, so a change was also in line with values.
There is no doubt that Li Bai's most classic short poem is Thoughts on a Quiet Night. In fact, this simple quatrain without words has also been revised! The read-through version we see now is like this:
Thoughts?in?the?Still?of?the?Night
The foot of my bed is shining so brightly. Is there frost already?
I looked up at the moon and looked down, feeling nostalgic.
However, this version first appeared in Three Hundred Tang Poems edited by a scholar named Judge Heng Tang during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty. What was the previous version?
In some books compiled by the Song Dynasty devoted to the study of Tang poetry, such as Complete Works of Li Taibai, Yuefu Poems, Wanjuan of Tang Poetry, etc., Silent Night Thinking is written like this:
Look at the moonlight in front of the bed, will it have frost? .
Looking up at the mountains and the moon, and sinking again, I suddenly remembered home.
The same is true of books compiled by people in Yuan and Ming Dynasties, except that Zhao Huanguang, a scholar in Ming Dynasty, changed the third sentence from "looking up at the mountains and the moon" to "looking up and finding it was moonlight" when sorting out 10,000 Tang poems. During the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, the first sentence of "looking at the moonlight before bed" in Shen Deqian's Tang poems was changed to "the foot of my bed is so bright" and the third sentence remained unchanged; Finally, during the reign of Qianlong in Qing Dynasty, the retired scholars in Hengtang collected two schools of reforms and replaced "Kan" and "Shan" at the same time, which led to the version we are familiar with now.
Of course, we simply compare the differences before and after, and find that the revised version is more popular, but Li Bai's original work is more poetic! Because the moon with geographical features, such as mountains and moons, is a special reference in ancient culture, so popular that ordinary people can't use it. Changing the mountains and moons into bright moons will eliminate this bookishness at once, thus becoming more grounded and catchy.
The effect of the first sentence "looking at the moonlight" is really not as good as "bright moonlight" Although Li Bai wrote the scene directly at that time, he was really watching it, but since he was watching it specially, why did he suspect it was frost on the ground? If you use "bright moonlight", there will be a feeling that suddenly appears in front of you, thus paving the way for the subsequent "doubt". Generally speaking, these two words changed by Qing people add points to this poem, but some truth of Li Bai is missing. I wonder which version you prefer?