Reviewing Li Bai's poems, I found that he seemed to have a special liking for the moon. Not only was his life related to the moon, but his death was also related to the moon. When he was alive, his mother dreamed of Chang Geng Star (also known as Taibai Venus) and gave birth to Li Bai; when he died, it was also said that he went to catch the moon. Li Bai's poems are all-encompassing and have a wide range of contents. However, even the poems he wrote about his wife, children, and the famous mountains and rivers he was intoxicated with were only a few dozen poems. These poems are simply incomparable to Li Bai's poems about the moon. He yearned for and eulogized the moon with infinite affection. Especially in his later years, this love deepened further. There are many talents in my life, but I never see them. "The road is like the blue sky, and I alone cannot reach it" ("The Road Is Difficult to Travel"). Being looked down upon and wronged, the world is so unpleasant, so where is the purest and noblest place? The moon, only the moon, it seemed that only the moon could free him. Later people said that it was no accident that he went to catch the moon. Wasn't it because he was pursuing his ideal?
Li Bai was born in the first year of Chang'an (701 AD) of Empress Wu of Tang Dynasty. He was mainly active in the Xuansu and Xuan Dynasties. In the early period of Xuanzong, that is, during the Kaiyuan period, because the rulers paid more attention to developing the economy and stabilizing the society, the development of social economy and culture reached an unprecedented peak, which is known as the "Kaiyuan Prosperity" in history. However, various contradictions still breed behind the background of the "Kaiyuan prosperous age". Therefore, in the late Xuanzong period, that is, during the Tianbao period, social decay increased day by day, the social economy was severely damaged, and the golden age of the Tang Dynasty came to an end in an instant. Li Bai was in such a historical period of ups and downs. He "recited Liujia at the age of five, and visited hundreds of schools at the age of ten." He was suave, uninhibited, fond of swordsmanship, and advocated knight-errants. Before he was twenty-five, he had visited the famous mountains and rivers in his hometown of Sichuan. At the age of twenty-six, he "went there with a sword." When he left the country and left his relatives and traveled far away" ("Historical Book of Pei Chang of Shang'an Prefecture"), he wrote a famous "Moon Song of Mount Emei":
The half-moon of Mount Emei in autumn casts its shadow into the water of Pingqiang River. .
The clear stream flows towards the Three Gorges at night, and I miss you and go down to Yuzhou without seeing you.
Although this little poem has only twenty-eight characters, it has left an extremely precious artistic portrayal of the moon on Mount Emei: the half-moon hanging on Mount Emei is reflected in the Pingqiang River. In the dead of night, when everyone was quiet, Li Bai set off for a long journey, and those who saw him off had returned. The feeling of loneliness arose spontaneously, and the feeling of nostalgia could not be controlled by himself. In this little poem, he used the five place names of Mount Emei, Pingqiang River, Qingxi, Three Gorges and Yuzhou. However, he did not reveal any traces of them and did not tire of them. Instead, he appeared to be natural and muddy, with his own beauty and emotions. Therefore, "ancient and modern" "This is the last song" (Wang Shimao's "Extracts from the *** Garden")
Li Bai is a very conceited person. He often refers to himself as Guan Zi, Yan Zi, Kong Ming, Xie An and other ancient politicians, so he never He is willing to pass the imperial examination and become an official, but he has been longing for it all his life "to learn from Guan Yan's words, seek the emperor's skills, and use his wisdom. I am willing to serve as an assistant to the emperor, so that the Ming District will be settled and the Hai County will be unified." ("Dai Shoushan's Reply to Meng Shaofu" Transfer documents"). Li Bai traveled out of Shu for sixteen years. During this period, in order to create conditions and realize his grand ambitions, he traveled around and interacted with various people in various ways. He was once in financial distress, was persecuted by some local officials, and was ridiculed by corrupt scholars. Sometimes he also He felt depressed and hesitant, but none of this dampened his political enthusiasm. In the first year of Tianbao (AD 742), in order to show off his "Kaiyuan prosperity", Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty issued an edict to recommend people with excellent literary skills. At that time, Li Baizheng and the Taoist priest Wu Yun lived in seclusion in Yanzhong, the upper reaches of the Cao'e River in Zhejiang. Wu Yun was first recruited by Xuanzong. Due to his direct recommendation and indirect support from He Zhizhang, and because Li Bai had already become famous in the capital, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty also sent someone to summon Li Bai to the capital. However, at that time, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty had changed from a wise monarch who worked hard to govern to an arrogant and extravagant emperor. Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty appreciated Li Bai's peerless talent and summoned him to Beijing. He just wanted to use Li Bai's poems to praise peace and increase the fun of court life. When he was ordered by Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty to go to Chang'an, he once said smugly: "Look up to the sky and laugh and go out. How can we be from Penghao!" ("Farewell Children from Nanling Entering Beijing")
When he arrived in Chang'an, When the famous poet He Zhizhang saw Li Bai, he said: "This is the way to banish an immortal from heaven." ("Old Book of Tang·Li Bai Biography") The smug Li Bai mistakenly thought that a bright and promising political career had begun, and from then on he could show off his talents and achieve great things. his ambition. However, the reality was far from his ideal. He only served in the Hanlin Academy and presented gorgeous poems to Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty from time to time. When the monarch is happy, he will personally serve him a spoon to show his love. Favoring is not respect, Li Bai is just a high-end plaything of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty. After seeing his true status in the eyes of the monarch, Li Bai was in great pain for a while. However, he did not show the pain on his face, but melted it into the wine. Although "raising a glass to relieve sorrow makes me more sorrowful" ("Xuanzhou Xieloujie Farewell School Secretary Shu Yun"), there is no other way to relieve sorrow except wine. He and He Zhizhang, Li Shizhi, Li Jing, Cui Zongzhi, Su Jin, Zhang Xu and Jiao Sui often stayed together and drank until they were so drunk that they were known as the "Eight Immortals of Wine". After drinking too much, Li Bai, who was originally very crazy, showed an even more dissolute and crazy attitude. He is a person who thinks very highly of himself and has never looked down on those powerful people. Now he was so angry that he simply regarded the powerful people as the objects of his play. Due to his drunkenness, he lay down in the hall and asked Gao Lishi to take off his boots. In order to retaliate, Gao Lishi provoked Yang Guifei and compared her with Zhao Feiyan in the sentence "Who borrowed it from the Han family in Qingping Diao" written by Li Bai in response to the imperial edict, and pitied Feiyan for relying on her new makeup. Therefore, Concubine Yang used her own methods to prevent Tang Xuanzong from giving Li Bai a real job.
Li Bai's madness not only offended Gao Lishi, but also offended a large number of powerful people. Most of the powerful people hated Li Bai, so they joined forces to force him to be a guest and not be able to move.
Li Bai was only idle in the Hanlin Academy in Chang'an, the capital. He was very dissatisfied with the current situation and once wrote "Gu Lang Yue Xing", which is a metaphor. The poem goes:
When I was young, I didn’t recognize the moon, and called it a white jade plate.
Double suspicion of Yaotai realm, flying in the blue clouds.
The white rabbit pounded the medicine and asked who he wanted to eat with?
The immortal drooped his legs, how can the osmanthus be bunched up?
The toad eroded the round shadow, the bright night Already disabled.
Yi fell into the Nine Crows in the past, and the heavens and humans were clear and peaceful.
The Yin essence has fallen into confusion, and it is not enough to understand it.
Worry comes as no surprise, and sadness destroys the heart and liver.
When I was a child, I didn’t know the moon, so I called it a white jade plate. I also suspected that it was a mirror flying into the sky from the Yaotai where the gods lived. Legend has it that when the moon rises, you first see the two feet of the Moon Fairy. When you see the laurel tree, you realize how round the moon is! Who is the medicine made by the White Rabbit in the Moon Palace for? What follows is a strong political overtone. Using the metaphor of toads eroding shadows and yin spirits being deceived, it expresses sorrow, resentment and deep sorrow for Xuanzong's debauchery and Yang Guozhong's frame-up and concealment.
Because Li Bai "plays like a colleague and treats his colleagues like grass and grass", and holds an attitude of "unyielding and unwilling to interfere with others" to "make peace with the princes", he has been repeatedly slandered by traitors and sycophants. The emperor used it sparsely" (Li Yangbing's "Preface to the Thatched Cottage Collection"). For this reason, Li Bai was depressed and often complained to Yue, drinking to drown his sorrows:
A pot of wine among the flowers, drinking alone without any blind date.
Toast a glass to the bright moon, and look at each other as three people.
The moon does not know how to drink, but its shadow follows me.
While the moon is about to be shadowed, we must have fun until spring.
My singing moon lingers, my dancing shadows are messy.
They make love together when they are awake, but they separate when they are drunk.
We will travel together forever, and we will meet each other in Miao Yunhan.
(Part 1 of "Drinking Alone under the Moon")
This is the monologue of the Poet Fairy under the moon. I know I am lonely, but I am unwilling to be lonely; I know I am down and out, but I am still broad-minded. So he asked the ruthless moon and the invisible shadow to bear witness. Singing and dancing, waking up and then getting drunk, gathering and separating again, I wrote about the bright moon, my shadow, and myself.
Li Bai became famous in poetry, but his ambition was not in the literary world, but in the political world. He wrote poetry, tried his best to write poetry, and reached the pinnacle of poetry, but he did not want to end his life as a poet. He had a strong political complex that could not be overcome, and had strong political ambitions that he could not let go of throughout his life. Like all poets at that time, he only used poetry as a stepping stone to knock on the political door of the imperial court. Seeing that Li Bai could not become an official and could not realize his ambition, he no longer wanted to stay in the court and suffer the cowardice, so he gave up the position of imperial edict in the Imperial Academy that many literati dreamed of but could not achieve.
In the third year of Tianbao (743 AD), Li Bai was "gifted with gold to return the mountain" by Xuanzong, so he left Chang'an and roamed around. His footprints have traveled all over the north and south of the Yangtze River and up and down the Yellow River. His rich experience and broad vision enabled him to create more magical, magnificent and heroic poems. Li Bai, who seemed like a wandering crane, had achieved success in his poetry that was admired by the world, but this was just an expression of his feelings. He has absolutely no desire to be born in the world, nor has he given up his innate ambition. He has been looking for opportunities.
After the Anshi Rebellion broke out, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty appointed his 16th son Yong Wang Li Lin as the Commander-in-Chief of the Jianghuai Army and the Military Envoy of Yangzhou on his way west to Bashu. At this time, Suzong of the Tang Dynasty had ascended the throne in Lingwu and asked Li Lin to lead his troops to move closer to him and fight against the rebellion together. However, Li Lin designed a blueprint for himself: conquer Guangling (now Yangzhou, Jiangsu), take Jinling (now Nanjing, Jiangsu), and separate half of the country. Li Bai did not know Li Lin's true intention, so he recommended himself in Xuanzhou (now Xuancheng, Anhui) and became Li Lin's staff. He wanted to seize this turbulent opportunity and rely on Li Lin to make contributions. However, his bet was wrong. Li Lin was not a prince with leadership qualities. Within two months, he was defeated and killed. After Li Lin's defeat, its nature was determined to be a rebellion by the Tang court. As an aide, Li Bai was sentenced to death by Tang Suzong. Thanks to Guo Ziyi's rescue, Li Bai changed his life to Yelang (now Tongzi County, Guizhou). He was pardoned on the way and returned to Jiangxia (now Wuchang, Hubei). It happened that the Shu monks who had come down from Mount Emei were going to Chang'an. Li Bai recalled the moon on Mount Emei with great emotion. He wrote "The Moon Song of Mount Emei Sends Shu Monk Yan to Beijing":
When I was at the Badong Three Gorges, I looked at the bright moon in the west and recalled Emei.
The moon rises from Emei and shines on the sea, accompanying people for thousands of miles.
The moon was white in front of the Yellow Crane Tower, and a visitor from Emei was suddenly seen.
The moon of Emei Mountain returns to you, and the wind blows west to Chang'an Road.
Chang'an Avenue stretches across the sky, and Mount Emei's moon shines on Qinchuan.
The golden lion rides on a high seat, and the white jade tail talks about the mysteries.
I am like a floating cloud over Wuyue. When you meet the Holy Lord, you visit Danque.
His fame spread all over the imperial capital, and he even held the Emei Moon when he returned.
It can be said that Li Bai has never forgotten Emei Yue. Even after traveling thousands of miles away, he has always seen and remembered her, and he felt that she was accompanying him when he traveled. Now I saw a monk from his hometown in front of the Yellow Crane Tower. He brought the Emei Moon. This bright moon will definitely accompany him to Chang'an. This bright moon not only shines on Jiangxia, Chang'an and the surrounding Qinchuan, but it is also accompanied by the Emei moon when it returns to Shu. In fact, there is a bright moon thousands of miles away, and it does not matter whether the moon is bright here or there.
However, on the one hand, it can be seen that Li Bai has a special liking for the moon in his hometown. On the other hand, compared with himself, who was like a floating cloud and stranded in Wuyue, he envied the Shu monks who could still see the Emei moon when they returned.