Hermit poet
Tao Yuanming, commonly known as Mr. Wu Liu, is known as the "hermit poet school" Its recluse culture has three styles: one is soft, the other is light, and the third is far away. His creation initiated the system of pastoral poetry and brought China's classical poetry to a new level. From ancient times to the present, many people like Tao Yuanming's philosophy of life, such as staying cold, caring for the countryside and being free from vulgarity, as well as his artistic style, which is remote, quiet, natural and unparalleled. At the same time, the reasons why Tao Yuanming retired to the countryside and his secluded life were studied and analyzed. This paper discusses this in combination with Tao Yuanming's poems.
As a teenager, Tao Yuanming was influenced by traditional Confucianism and Confucian classics, and he had the ambition to help the world and the people. However, due to the existence of the gate system, it is impossible for people from civilian backgrounds to break through the monopoly of the gate gentry on high-ranking positions. Under such circumstances, it is difficult for Tao Yuanming's ideal to become a reality, and his ideal dream is doomed to be shattered. Tao Yuanming became an official at the age of 29, but all he did in his life was to serve wine, join the army and be a county official. Not only was he unable to display his ambition, but he also had to pretend with some officialdom figures in bring disgrace to oneself. By the time he was thirty-nine, years of experience had changed his mind in essence, and he began to plow for self-sufficiency and pursue peace and loneliness of mind. Since then, he has served as Pengze County Magistrate. Because I didn't want to bend over for Wudoumi, I went home after taking office for more than 80 days. From then on, he ended his career efforts and hesitation and embarked on the road of seclusion and pastoral without hesitation. Since Tao Yuanming retired to the countryside at the age of forty-one, he really enjoyed a period of "a warm and distant village, a wisp of smoke in the Iraqi market". Dogs bark in deep lanes, chickens crow and mulberry trees jump. " However, Tao Yuanming, who was born in a scholarly family, is not a good farmer after all, and the hard work of "southern reclamation" may not make him live a well-off life without food and clothing. Yi was 44 years old in the fourth year of Tao Yuanming, and a disaster impoverished his family. In the summer of this year, the poet's "eight or nine cabins with a square house of more than ten acres" was full of life, but it was destroyed by a ruthless fire. The whole family had to live on a boat and rely on relatives and friends for help. In the third year of Yong (422), Tao Yuanming was 58 years old, and his life was close to despair. His situation was reflected in the poem "Working at the Meeting", "Weakness leads to hunger for a long time. How dare you be greedy? "Yuan Jia four years (427), the poet was poor and sick. In the second elegy, the poet fantasizes that he can "swell up without thinking" after his death, which makes people sad: "There was no wine to drink before, but now it's empty. "Spring mash gives birth to ants, when can we taste it better? I cried and cried before the food box was full of me. " In November of the 4th year of Yuanjia (427), 63-year-old Tao Yuanming passed away indifferently.
Reasons for retirement
Regarding Tao Yuanming's official and seclusion, people are used to explaining it from the social environment, advocating seclusion and his Confucianism and Taoism. In fact, by grasping Tao Yuanming's five official experiences and analyzing the reasons for his clumsy retirement, we can get some new understandings. It can be summed up in two points: one is Tao Yuanming's nature, and the other is social reality. The essential feature of Tao Yuanming's personality is the pursuit of the greatest freedom of mind and the elegance of mind. Officialdom life does not conform to his nature of advocating nature. Tao Yuanming is in an era of advocating freedom and mysticism. Political usurpation and war can easily make literati who are bent on avoiding disasters form a recluse character. The formation of Tao Yuanming's recluse temperament should be said to have something to do with the universal envy of recluse and the pursuit of spiritual freedom by scholars in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. It is this natural, carefree and free talent that makes him "bow down to the middle and small people in the village" and finally hang up his official position and return to the field. He wrote "Hui Xi Ci", in which he admitted that he was forced to become a county magistrate because of his livelihood; He resigned because he was "natural in nature, not self-motivated, hungry and cold, and sick to himself". His detached personality made him rather hungry than sneak into officialdom against his will. The poet sang in "Returning to the Garden": "Shaoshao is not suitable for popular rhyme, but naturally loves Qiushan. I sneaked into the official career network and have been away from the game for more than ten years. The birds are loving Lao Lin, and the fish in the pond are thinking about the past. " "I've been in a cage for a long time, and I'm back to nature." In just a few words, I hate my career beyond words. Tao Yuanming, who regarded his career as a cage, finally resigned, left behind the dust and returned to nature because of his "nature" and "love for his post". Tao Yuanming's seclusion in the countryside should not only be considered in combination with his frank personality, but also be observed from the broad political background and his official career. His entry into WTO and his birth can be said to be related to the social reality at that time. Although Tao Yuanming was finally dismissed from office and returned to the field, he had the idea of making contributions and saving the world when he was young. In his poems such as Drinking Miscellaneous Poems, he once said that "young people are poor and can swim well in the Six Classics", "they are eager to escape from the world and like Philip Burkart", and "young people are strong and swim alone with swords", which shows that he did not have the idea of being born at the beginning. He was born in the family of several generations of bureaucrats. After the founding father, he also expected to make progress in his official career and make a difference in politics. However, at the end of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the situation was turbulent: the internal struggle of the imperial clan and the warlord's ambition for the regime constantly led to bloody killings and even fierce battles. This kind of social unrest not only brings disaster to the people, but also causes serious anxiety in the upper class of society. This made Tao Yuanming's political ambition have to be reduced. In addition, in this power struggle, all dirty and bloody plots are under the guise of lofty morality, which makes Tao Yuanming, who is really pure in nature, unbearable. Tao Yuanming, twenty-nine, first came out as an official in Taiyuan in the eighteenth year of Emperor Xiao of Jin Dynasty, and returned to the field at the age of forty-two for thirteen years. During this period, Tao Yuanming has been in the contradictory struggle between "being born" and "joining the WTO", which is reflected in his poems. Xin Chou sighed in his poems "Walking in Jiangling at night in July": "Why leave this place as far away as Xijing" and "Sun and Moon abandoned people and deliberately refused to hire them". There are too many disappointments and sorrows in the poem. It can be seen that the poet once had a painful hesitation about whether to return to the field, but after all, his long-cherished wish of "loving Qiushan" overwhelmed "fleeing the four seas", so his seclusion was the result of social reality, and it was the result that his thoughts and social reality could not be reconciled.