Li Yu (李煜), the Later Lord of the Southern Tang Dynasty, was an emperor of the First Dynasty. The lexicographer Shen Quian once said: "Li Hou lord in the male middle and Li Yi'an in the female middle are extremely authentic", which determined Li Yu's status as "the authenticity of the word". He had a rough life, "born in the deep palace, grew up in the hands of women", and in the first month of 976 AD, he was escorted to the capital of the Song Dynasty, Beijing, and began his humiliating life of being slaughtered by others. He could only integrate his rich emotions and thousands of thoughts into the words he was best at, chanting the pain of "how many tears, broken face and cross-cutting" ("Wangjiangnan"), "how much hate, last night's dream soul" ("Wangjiangnan"), chanting the loneliness of "Autumn Wind Courtyard Moss Invading the Steps, One Bead Curtain Is Idle, Who Comes All Day" ("Lang Taosha"), and also chanting the regret of "the dream of the homeland is returned, and the tears are weeping" ("Midnight Song").
Of the few thirty-seven poems left by Li Yu, there were fourteen words describing his dreams, accounting for almost a third. As Xu Wei said in his "From The Soul's Spring Dream to the Floating Life Like a Dream - Li Yu's Dream Words Exploring The Micro": "From the 'spring dream' of the emperor to the prisoner's 'dream of the homeland', to the attempt to comfort the pain of life with 'floating life like a dream', it can be said that it is the mental journey of the life of the future lord." In Li Yu's words, except for a few dreams-related works, most of the dream words show common characteristics: that is, they appear in the words at the same time as the adjectives describing the state of mind such as drunkenness, confusion, cold, bitterness, loneliness, and hatred, and the dream is not only the scene described by the author, but also a portrayal of his helplessness, confusion, loneliness, and pain in his life:
The flowers are drunk and drunk. ( "Nguyen Lang Gui")
The feast became empty again, and the dream was lost in the spring rain. ( "Bodhisattva Man")
Qiong Window dreamed of leaving a remnant day, and he had to hate how long he was. ( "Xie Xinen")
Idle dreams are far away, and the southern country is in the early autumn. Thousands of miles of cold twilight, reeds deep in the lonely boat. ( "WangjiangNan")
Luo Yu was impatient with five more cold. In the dream, I did not know that I was a guest, and I was greedy. ("Surfing the Sand")
In Li Yu's works, whether he is a hermit far away from struggle, an emperor who has spoken a word, or a prisoner who allows people to be fleshed, the confusion, loneliness, and pain that cannot help himself always flow between the lines. Some words may not have these special signs, but they convey the same emotion through the mood or artistic technique of the whole word. For example, "Happy Migration Warbler":
The moon fell, the clouds were slight, and the wordless pillow was frequent. Dream back to the grass SiYi, the sky far away geese sound rare. The warblers are scattered, the flowers are chaotic, and the lonely painting hall is deep in the courtyard. The piece of red Hugh swept away from Yi and left it for the dancers to return.
Through the dim, desolate and depressed scenes such as "moon fall", "cloud micro", "rare sound of geese", "warblers scattered", "flower chaos" and "deep courtyard", the lyricist reveals the protagonist's situation of no one paying attention to and being lonely after waking up from his dream. Another example is his "Wangjiangnan , Idle Dream", in the dream of the prosperity of the water and green flowers in the southern country and his own loneliness and pain as a prisoner, writing reality with dreams, writing sorrow with pleasure, and depicting the beauty and prosperity of the southern country highlighting his loneliness and desolation at this moment, the contrast is strong, and it is really touching.
Li Yu's life was full of ups and downs, although he had enjoyed the highest power in the world, a luxurious life, and warm love, he had also experienced a lifetime of helplessness, tasted the humiliation of the world, suffered all the misery of the world, and experienced a huge gap like heaven and earth. From being forced to live in seclusion to ascending to the throne, from the lord of the Southern Tang Dynasty to the prisoner of the order, the involuntary confusion, loneliness, and pain brought to him by fate have always accompanied him and integrated into his blood and life. Finally, it is embodied in his words, which forms a hazy, lonely, tragic mood. It also makes the name Li Yu shine for a thousand years in the long river of Chinese history.