Bai Juyi's satirical poems are unpretentious, appealing to both refined and popular tastes, forming a unique shallow poetic style, representing the highest achievement of the New Yuefu Movement and establishing its immortal position in the history of China poetry. The following is a brief analysis of Bai Juyi's allegorical poems, hoping to help everyone.
A brief analysis of Bai Juyi's satirical poems 1 Bai Juyi is an outstanding realistic poet in the Tang Dynasty, with more than 3,000 poems, which is the most among the poets in the Tang Dynasty. He once divided his poems into four categories: satirical poems, leisurely poems, sentimental poems and miscellaneous poems. Among them, allegorical poetry is the most valuable, and it is also the most important part of Bai Juyi's poetry creation. The allegorical poem of "expressing meaning and speaking directly" is the concrete embodiment of Bai Juyi's political ambition of "saving the world" and the concrete practice of his new Yuefu poetics theory. His allegorical poems are not too many, only about 170. These poems were mainly written in the Yuan Dynasty and the first four years of the Yuan Dynasty. Qin Zhongyin and New Yuefu epitomize the ideological value of these poems. These fable poems point the exposure and criticism at the feudal ruling class and reflect the miserable life of the broad masses of people in many ways. It involves many political and social issues and embodies Bai Juyi's patriotism. His poems are not only rich in realistic content, but also of high ideological value. His satirical poems are simple, elegant and popular, forming a unique shallow poetic style, representing the highest achievement of the New Yuefu Movement and establishing its immortal position in the history of China poetry. Chen Yinque believes that Bai Juyi's new Yuefu poems inherit the fine traditions of The Book of Songs, Han Yuefu and Du Fu's poems, actively reflect social reality, and are unique in art, so they are called "The Book of Songs of the Tang Dynasty".
First, the background of Bai Juyi's satirical poems.
Bai Juyi attached importance to fable poetry for certain social and personal reasons.
Bai Juyi's family has been Confucianism for generations. His grandfather Zhong Bai and his grandfather Chen Run were both poets. My father, Bai, was also from the Ming Dynasty. He was an official at the local level many times. Such a family environment enabled Bai Juyi to receive a good literary education from an early age, which laid a solid foundation for his later creation. Bai Juyi spent his youth in exile. At that time, after the Anshi Rebellion in the Tang Dynasty, the central government gradually weakened, and the buffer regions confronted the imperial court in succession. In the Tang Dynasty, eunuchs gradually mastered the power of life and death in the imperial court. They were overbearing, greedy and evil, and even abolished the emperor because of their hands. The partisan struggle between feudal bureaucrats aggravated the political darkness. At this time, Bai Juyi's family also took refuge in Xuzhou because of the war. Later, it moved to Vietnam. When he was a little older, his father Bai died, his family fortune declined, and his life became even poorer, forcing him to run north and south, with no worries about food and clothing. He often "had insufficient food and clothing and was frozen", and even "Suomi begged for clothes in neighboring counties and cities". It was this poor life experience that made Bai Juyi deeply feel the pain of people's life at that time and laid an ideological foundation for him to care about all kinds of sufferings in politics and poetry creation.
In February (800), in the sixteenth year of Dezong Zhenyuan, Bai Juyi was admitted to Jinshi. Soon, the school bookkeeper was appointed as the captain of zhouzhi county, Shaanxi Province. A few years later, he became a bachelor of Hanlin. Yuan and three years (808) in April, awarded Zuo Shiyi, still a bachelor of Hanlin. After the mid-Tang Dynasty, the Hanlin bachelor was the messenger who drafted confidential documents for the emperor, and his position was very important. Most prime ministers were promoted by Hanlin bachelor.
Zuo Shiyi is an admonition officer. Although the position is not high, it is close to the emperor. Therefore, Bai Juyi once said with some conceit: "In ten years, I have risen to the third place, and my name has fallen to the public, and my track has risen to the top." This is the most proud period of Bai Juyi's politics. During this period, because there was no major war, the country was temporarily unified, and the rulers also adopted some reform measures, and the society was relatively stable, which was called the "Zhongxing" period in history. Although this superficial short-term recovery of society failed to solve a series of fundamental contradictions faced by the Tang Dynasty, it brought some people of insight the hope of reforming society and revitalizing state affairs. They are enthusiastic about politics and eager to try, and put forward various measures to reform social ills. Bai Juyi once wrote seventy-five pieces of "Ce Lin" with Yuan Zhen, constantly remonstrated with the emperor and strongly advocated the reform of current politics. In order to publicize his ideas and criticize social ills, Bai Juyi put forward the slogan "Articles should be written in time, poems should be written for things", and advocated "for the monarch, for the minister, for the people, for things, for things, not for articles". He believes that poetry should shoulder the political mission of "making up for the current politics and releasing human feelings" in order to achieve the political purpose of "relieving people's diseases and making up for the lack of time".
He emphasized the "beautiful thorn" effect of poetry on reality. "All articles are empty, and every sentence must conform to the rules", "Poetry only makes people sick, and I hope it will be known to the emperor" (sent to Tang Sheng), "If you want to open your eyes to human feelings, you should first seek irony from poetry" (poet Pique). Bai Juyi thinks that caring for reality and interfering in current politics are the most important social functions of poetry. This period was the period when Bai Juyi cared about social life and was most enterprising in artistic creation. Seeing the dark social reality, the poet is determined to "plead for the people" and "help the world at the same time". "How can a husband be good at both?" To this end, he "seriously undermined the imperial power in his post, and he was just jealous." Often increase Lu's position, and do not intend to protect his wife and children. During the brave period, evil was eliminated and loyalty was destroyed! "So," there will be rules if there is a mistake, and there will be suggestions if there is a violation. There are gains and losses in the imperial court, and there are words in the world "On the one hand, he used poetry as a weapon. "It's hard for anyone to point out that a song should be sung." His famous satirical poems "Qin Zhongyin" and "New Yuefu" were written at this time. These poems, like handfuls of daggers, stab at the dark social reality, making the powerful people "suffocate", "change color" and "gnash their teeth" (Nine Books, a Yuan zaju).
Second, the ideological content of Bai Juyi's satirical poems
Among Bai Juyi's satirical poems, "Qin Zhongyin" and "New Yuefu" reflect the ideological value of such poems. Bai Juyi once said in "Two Wounded Tangqu Songs": "Recall the Yuan Dynasty and prepare for the official position. Now is the era after the military revolution, and the people are haggard. But it hurts people's illness and I don't know when to avoid it. He wrote Qin Zhongyin, a sad story. " This shows his purpose in Qin Zhongyin.
First of all, he described the most acute inequality between the rich and the poor in this dynasty and the tragic situation of the lower classes struggling under various exploitation and extortion, and pointed the exposure and criticism at the feudal ruling class. After the Anshi Rebellion, the Tang Dynasty changed the rent-leveling law into two tax laws, which played a certain role at first, but later it was full of drawbacks and the people were miserable. Bai Juyi angrily wrote in the poem "Give a Friend" that "private people have no money, flat land has no copper mountain, Hu Jiao pays taxes in autumn and winter, and loses copper coins every year." Money is getting heavier and heavier, and farming is getting worse and worse. Cheap millet and wheat, cheap silk and cotton. At the end of the year, food and clothing are exhausted, and there is no worry about hunger and cold. "In short, this exposes the drawbacks of the two tax laws. In his poem "Heavy Fu", the poet described in detail the heavy disaster brought to farmers by two tax laws destroyed by corrupt officials.
"Young people are not covered, old people are not warm, and sadness and cold converge into a nose." However, the envy of corrupt officials who "offer the supreme every month" (the local authorities euphemistically call the property squeezed out of the quota "envy" to please the emperor) is "a mountain of silk, like a cloud", and the poet issued an angry cry of "taking my clothes and buying my immediate pet" through the mouth of the old farmer. The luxury of the rich described in "Regret for the Past" is in sharp contrast with "Heavy Fu". "A hall spend millions, and light smoke. The temperature in the bridal chamber is too high for the cold part to dry. ..... There is rotten meat in the kitchen and money in the treasury. " In "Dazzling Silk", the hardships of peasant women are also described as "a woman's hands are sore, and a thousand words are endless", while on the other hand, the waste of the rich is "sweat stained with powder and dirt, dragging her feet without mercy." In the poem "Buy Flowers", he lamented An Tian Sheweng: "A bunch of dark flowers, ten households are blessed!" These poems objectively exposed the facts of class oppression and exploitation in feudal society. As a kind of redemption, the poet hoped that the powerful could be restrained, so he sharply accused those greedy officials and eunuchs, who added a layer of suffering to the suffering of the lower class. "Light Fat" points the finger at the ministers, doctors and generals in eunuchs, vividly depicts their arrogance, power and luxury life, and mercilessly lashes them. The "Charcoal Vendors" accused the imperial envoys of Huang Yi of exploiting and plundering the people, but indiscriminately demanded to take away a cart of charcoal that Charcoal Vendors had worked so hard to burn.
Through the experience of selling charcoal Weng from "burning charcoal at a reduced salary" to "selling charcoal" in the city and then taking it away, this poem profoundly exposes the barbaric acts of disturbing and harming the people in Miyagi and the eunuchs taking bribes. Among them, the phrase "poor clothes and simple clothes, worrying about charcoal and looking forward to cold" is particularly accurate. I first poured infinite sympathy into the word "pity", followed by "worry" and "wish", and wrote the difficult situation and subtle and complicated psychological activities of the old man selling charcoal, which was true and appropriate. In Du Lingcuo, it was written that Long Guan knew that the crops were destroyed by natural disasters, but he still "rushed to take the exam to collect the land" and forced the people to sell the land to the official rent. Bai Juyi said angrily: "Stripping my silk, taking my millet, cheat people is a pest, and it is a wolf. Why do you want to show your teeth and eat human flesh!" The industrious farmer in Watching the Wheat Harvesting, the poor woman who lost all taxes and collected some food to satisfy her hunger in The Village Living in Bitter Cold, the naked man who waited until dawn at night in No Cover, and the poet "I'd rather lose my horse and millet to save this bitter hunger" in Rehmannia glutinosa Collectors expressed deep sympathy for the unfortunate farmers and made food and clothing for them.
Secondly, Bai Juyi also noticed that the continuous wars in the border areas caused thousands of innocent deaths, which showed the people's bellicose opposition to the rulers and embodied the poet's idea of "preventing belligerence and not rewarding the border work". The famous "Xinfeng Folding Arm Weng" describes an old man who evaded military service during the Tianbao period. At that time, the prime minister "wanted to make contributions to the frontier" and launched a war against Nanzhao. Countless people who were forcibly recruited as soldiers died in a foreign land, and the old man "stole a big stone and smashed his arm" to survive. In the poem, the old man said, "This arm has been broken for sixty years, but it has a broken limb. It's raining and freezing so far, and I have no sleep until dawn. Sleepless pain, never regret, happiness to old age. Otherwise, at that time, Lu Shuitou was already dead and very lonely. You should be a ghost in Yunnan, crying on a mass grave. " The poor old man, however, happily celebrated his luck, which made people feel even more sad. At the same time, he also feels that the poet's purpose is not only to record a past event, but to reflect the endless suffering brought by the war to the broad masses of the people. Bin Rong Man describes the experience of a Han Chinese who has been in exile for forty years. In order to return to his hometown, he risked his life to escape from Tubo, only to be caught by the greedy side as "Man Zi" and "assigned to the lowland wetlands in the south of the Yangtze River", which is indisputable. What happened to this unfortunate man, a Chinese-speaking Tibetan, not only exposed the chaos of the ruling class, but also reflected the people's true patriotic feelings.
Besides the above two themes, Bai Juyi's Yuefu poems also involve many political and social issues. He exposed the incompetence of officials, the arrogance of generals and the self-interest in the name of the monarch. Poems such as Red Carpet, Song and Dance and Twilight mercilessly expose and criticize the incompetent and incompetent life of the ruling class from different angles. The wife in My Mother's Biezi was abandoned because her husband was promoted to a higher position and made a fortune. The young woman in The Silver Bottle at the Bottom of the Well was persecuted by feudal ethics and was driven away. Marriage proposal and Taihang Road both reflect the humble status and misfortune of women from different aspects. Bai Juyi pays special attention to the maid-in-waiting problems, such as the old maid-in-waiting who lost her youth and love in Shang Yang's White Haired Man, the 3,000 maid-in-waiting who "had no tears for several spring days" in Hou Gong Ci, and the village girl who "burned her face into a scar" in Guo Zhaojun's village, all of which are solemn protests and accusations against the decadent maid-in-waiting system. He criticized many maids in the palace and asked the emperor to release them. He also criticized the vanity of seeking immortality and many Buddhist temples, hoping that the monarch would take measures to intervene ..., all of which hit the nail on the head.
By the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, the society was relatively stable, and the war subsided slightly. People who had been living in a drunken state began to indulge in debauchery again, and ordinary people celebrated each other, while Bai Juyi lifted the veil of ostentation and extravagance, exposing the darkness, turmoil, filth and irrationality of this society. The edge of criticism swept the whole society, from the imperial court to the officials, and no one had done so since Du Fu. It is said that these poems make those close to the powerful look at each other and change color, those in power will feel embarrassed and those who hold the army will gnash their teeth, which just shows that they hit the social key and hurt the nerves of the powerful, and also shows that Bai Juyi has a sense of justice and courage. Bai Juyi's allegorical poems hit the nail on the head and showed concern for people's sufferings, all of which reflected his patriotic spirit.
On Bai Juyi's Fable Poems II. Poets in the Tang Dynasty, known as "poetry demon" and "poetry idiot", belong to Bai Juyi. He is one of the three great poets in the Tang Dynasty, and his poems follow the people-oriented thought of Confucian benevolent government, which has profound practical significance. Bai Juyi's poems can be divided into four categories: irony, leisure, sentimentality and miscellaneous methods. Among them, allegorical poems have super artistic value, which is also an important reason why they are highly respected in later generations. Today, we will appreciate the ten allegorical poems of Bai Juyi, the most famous poet in the Tang Dynasty, and walk into his inner world together to realize his sense of justice and the practical significance of his poems.
Judging from the development history of Tang Dynasty's poetry circles, Bai Juyi is another famous artist who dares to innovate after Chen Ziang, Li Bai and Du Fu. The new Yuefu movement initiated by him and another great poet, Yuan Zhen, pushed the poetry of the prosperous Tang Dynasty to another peak. Bai Juyi attaches great importance to fable poetry, which has a wide range of themes, is outspoken and has profound ideological content. Bai Juyi sympathized with the hardships of people's lives by writing about the shortcomings of the political arena and serious social problems at that time. It can be said that Bai Juyi's allegorical poems can best represent the positive side of the poet and best reflect the poet's lofty ideals and moral thoughts.
Due to the special social background in the mid-Tang Dynasty, the application of land policy led to the bankruptcy of farmers and the poverty of the people, and Bai Juyi easily felt pain in his heart. His poems and songs express deep sympathy for farmers, among which the representative work "Looking at Wheat" is the most representative. The poem describes the hardships and tragic experiences of farmers, fully explains the influence of exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous fees on the people at that time, and expresses deep sympathy for farmers who can't solve the problem of food and clothing. This kind of poetry, which reflects people's sufferings and the extortion of the ruling class, has great social progress and historical significance.
Bai Juyi also wrote many allegorical poems reflecting the arrogance and extravagance of the ruling class. The Tang Dynasty tended to decline, the society was dark and decadent, the eunuch was in power, and Bai Juyi wrote social reality in his poems from an objective angle, which had great practical significance. Among them, the charcoal man we learned in middle school is the sharpest. The poet described an old man wearing a single coat, hoping that the weather would be colder, people would have more demand for carbon, and the carbon in their cars would fetch a good price. The poet's description of the poor old charcoal seller satirizes the social reality of oppressing the people with appropriate words, which can not help but make readers feel sorry for the old man and denounce the decay of the court and society. Bai Juyi's poems hit the nail on the head, and let the younger generation see the social reality at that time. After reading them, people have personal feelings and are worth pondering.
In addition, Bai Juyi's allegorical poems also contain patriotic feelings. Because of the frequent wars in the border areas in the middle Tang Dynasty, the people in the Tang Dynasty were oppressed by foreigners, while the soldiers in the border areas were addicted to alcohol and did not think about the country and the people at all. This sad situation made Bai Juyi suffer greatly. He used poems to accuse those frontier soldiers who wasted military spending and had no patriotic feelings, praised those soldiers who defended national integrity and people's property, and at the same time expressed helplessness, which fully reflected Bai Juyi's patriotic feelings.
It is worth mentioning that in Bai Juyi's satirical poems, women in the Tang Dynasty are the object of his concern. In the mid-Tang Dynasty, many women were persecuted because of the ruling class's pleasure-seeking. As an official, Bai Juyi had a deep understanding of this issue, and he expressed his misfortune to women in his poems. The masterpiece of this kind of poem is "A Silver Bottle at the Bottom of the Well", which depicts a woman who dares to pursue love, but she is blocked and persecuted by society and finally has no way out. This is the poet's injustice to women and the epitome of the poet's ideological progress.
Generally speaking, the language of Bai Juyi's satirical poems is easy to understand, the content points to all kinds of disadvantages, the contrast is sharp, the emotion is rich, and the characters created are vivid and vivid. In creation, Bai Juyi absorbed the advantages of his predecessors, and at the same time, after years of research and creation, his satirical poems became mature and stereotyped.
Finally, tell a story that Bai Juyi has nothing to do with poetry. There were many poets who loved wine in ancient China, and the most famous poem was Li Bai. When it comes to wine making, Bai Juyi is an expert among poets. It is said that Bai Juyi is a master brewer, and the quality of his wine is excellent. His wine-making deeds are not only recorded in historical materials, but also he writes poems to evaluate his wine.
According to records, Bai Juyi was born on February 28th, 772. Today is his1250th birthday. Let's appreciate Bai Juyi's ten allegorical poems and understand the poet's spiritual connotation and positive energy spirit. Reading them is bound to gain something.
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Five Free Words (Part III)
I'll give you a solution to the problem. This method does not need tortoise shells, and yarrow can bring wealth and luck.
It takes three days to test the authenticity of jade, and it will take seven years to distinguish wood.
In the days of the Duke of Zhou, he was afraid of gossip and paid homage to the throne before Wang Mang usurped the throne.
If this man died from the beginning, who would know the truth of his life?
In the fifth year of Yuanhe (8 10), Yuan Zhen, Bai Juyi's good friend, was demoted to Cao Junjun, a scholar in Jiangling, for offending powerful people. During his stay in Jiangling, Yuan Zhen wrote five poems "Free Talk" to express his feelings: "Death is the life of old idleness, which has nothing to do with me" (the first one), "I didn't know my life experience until I walked twice, and I won several honors" (the fifth one). Five years later, Bai Juyi was also demoted to Jiangzhou Sima. At this time, Yuan Zhen has been transferred to Tongzhou Sima. After hearing the news, he wrote a poem full of affection: "I heard that Lotte awarded Jiangzhou Sima". Bai Juyi is on his way to be demoted. He was deeply moved by the storm and wrote five poems entitled "Free Words" to offer peace.
This is a rich and interesting poem. It tells a truth in very popular language: to fully understand people and things, we must pass the test of time, measure and judge from the whole history, and we can't draw a conclusion based on the phenomenon of one thing at a time, otherwise we will regard Duke Zhou as a usurper and Wang Mang as a humble gentleman. The poet said that people who have been framed like himself and his friend Yuan Zhen can stand the test of time, so they should take care of themselves and wait for the expiration of "testing jade" and "distinguishing materials" to clarify the facts and distinguish between true and false. This is a summary of my own experience in the form of poetry.
In terms of expression, although the debate is a poem, the writing is extremely tortuous and full of emotion.
At the beginning of the poem, "Give the monarch a law to doubt" means telling people to doubt one law, and it is very solemn. Using the word "give" to emphasize the value of this method shows that it is an experience. This has firmly grasped the readers. Because there are many things in life that can't be judged, of course, everyone wants to know what kind of method this is.
What method is this? Make a good wish without drilling a turtle. Say what is not and what is not first; What is it, but you don't just say it. This makes poetry twists and turns, waves, and more attractive to readers.
The third and fourth sentences in the poem euphemistically introduce this method: "It takes three days to examine jade, and seven years to distinguish materials". It's simple. To know whether something is true or not, only time can test it. After a certain period of observation and comparison, the true colors of things will eventually appear.
This is to explain the correctness of this method from the front, then turn the pen around and explain from the opposite side: "Duke Zhou is afraid of gossip, but Wang Mang is humble and not usurped." If you don't use this method to identify things, you often can't make an accurate judgment. The evaluation of Duke Zhou and Wang Mang is an example. When the Duke of Zhou became king, some people suspected that he had the ambition to usurp power, but history proved that he was sincere in calling the king, and his loyalty was true, saying that his usurpation was false. When Wang Mang was not in the Han Dynasty, he pretended to be modest and once confused some people. According to the legend in Hanshu, he is "the more he respects the title, the more modest he is"; But history has proved that his "humility" is false, and the self-reliance of the Han Dynasty is his true face.
"Shi Xiang died at first, but who knows the truth of his life?" It is the key sentence of an article. The purpose of "definitely suspicious" is to distinguish between true and false. Distinguish the true from the false, and the suspicion will naturally disappear. If you draw a conclusion too early and don't need time to test it, you will easily be blinded by temporary superficial phenomena and can't tell the truth from the wrong.
The meaning of this poem is clear, but the language is euphemistic. The "method" of "never being suspicious" is described from two aspects, but it is not directly revealed. The former cited two examples of "examining jade" and "distinguishing materials", while the latter cited two examples of Duke Zhou and Wang Mang for readers' consideration. These examples are not only arguments but also arguments. They contain philosophy in the image, show the universal law with concrete things, see the big from the small and make people think. It is very reasonable and interesting to express a profound philosophy in the form of seven-character poems.
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