Why did Wang Wei change from studying Confucianism for half a lifetime to Buddhism, and between entering the world and coming out of the world, how did he cope with his inner troubles and write his own poems? From a lowly cloth to a courtier, how did Han Yu go from the edge to the center, from weak to strong, and make his voice heard? Is Bai Juyi's life really as indifferent and superior as he said, "contentment and peace", and how should the poet act in the sinister world? Why is his poetry not as melancholy and frustrated as du fu he admires, but full of spirit and frankness? The amorous Li Shangyin wrote a lot of poems about love, but was his life really as beautiful and affectionate as his poetry? Poetry should not only meet the life encounters of the five poets, but also present their value orientation.
Mao Dun Literature Award-winning writer Zhang Wei's collection of cultural essays "Five Poets of the Tang Dynasty" was recently launched by the People's Literature Publishing House. Zhang Wei selected five poets from the Tang Dynasty, Wang Wei, Han Yu, Bai Juyi, Du Mu and Li Shangyin, and divided them into five units to judge the five poets from the perspectives of history, human nature, philosophy, poetics, aesthetics, literary history and writing.
Zhang wei
In Zhang Wei's view, human nature determines poetry. Poets' sense of morality, values, identities, and positions form the basis of their creation. Poetry is the carrier of the artistic pursuit of the ancients, but also a way of life to seek self-consistency, Wang Wei, Han Yu, Bai Juyi, Du Mu, Li Shangyin, the five poets of different poetic styles, reflect their different life pursuits and spiritual character. The poet writes poetry, the change of style, is a story of constantly convincing himself and settling himself. The nostalgia and frustration in the poems of the five poets are the reflection of their real life from enterprising to frustrated, from doubt to conviction. Zhang Wei believes: "In addition to leaving a record of time and history, leaving a trace of life, the writer must have disclosed himself, and there are various interpretibility in between. ”
Zhang Wei writes different poets with different themes, and in "Wang Wei's Twenty-Five Lectures", he focuses on the concept of large literary history, puts forward the propositions of "large scale" and "small scale", and believes that Wang Wei's opportunities in the official field and his artistic opportunities are in the final analysis one. Indifference, canceling oneself, calm and inaction, but there is another possibility of enterprising. "Zen" is not a state, but a process, a total effort to pursue self and freedom, including a sum of the final arrivals. If we only think of "Zen" as an escape, quiet, and bland, it is one-sided and simple. From this we can ask the poet, who chose only the first half of the whole process, staying only in a certain form, and not continuing forward, and finally did not reach that great freedom, but turned it into another kind of bondage; it was this bondage that led him to completely abandon the desire to resist and pursue, and to move towards a slightly cheaper negativity.
When writing about Han Yue, that kind of peace and indifference about Wang Wei turned into a majestic and wanton, and in the Twenty-Three Lectures of Han Yue, Zhang Wei wrote: "Many times Han Yue is indeed like a person who is strong and competitive and difficult to mature, from youth to old age, as if it has always been so. His pain and shouting are simple and moving, and more aesthetic value because they are fresh and straightforward. His spontaneity has turned him into a hot wheel of life, burning all the way and galloping away, leaving behind a trail of burning"; Zhang Wei believes that human nature determines poetry, and Han Yu's eagerness, pleasure and argumentation make him go all out and be interested in treating everything, whether it is love and scenery, people and things. He has been "accelerating" in the process of expounding things, and has a decisive posture.
When writing Du Mu, Zhang Wei entered as Du Mu as the grandson of the prime minister, believing that those words outside his poems that discussed the general trend of the world and the people's livelihood of the society had a kind of "eagerness and directness of his own family to speak", and believed that everything about Du Mu made us think of his origin, thinking of the power of the bloodline, his self-identity and sense of belonging were obvious, and he had been in a state of "no place and conspiracy" since his youth. As for Li Shangyin, who has always been considered obscure, Zhang Wei grasped his "sentimental" personality characteristics: "There is only the word 'sadness' or debatable here, it seems to be some distance away from the poet, it is a very external, even marginal light color, the core part is really depressed, sad and desperate... These passages, because of their distinctive decisiveness, mourning, agility, and sharpness, free themselves from the sentimentality and groaning of their kind. The groans that we are familiar with are rare here in Li Shangyin. ”
Five Poets of the Tang Dynasty
Five Poets of the Tang Dynasty, inner page
Attached excerpts from the Five Poets of the Tang Dynasty:
Artists can be roughly divided into two types: one needs to settle themselves well, and the other goes north and south.
Talking about Wang Wei, we must not say "Yuanchuan", "Yuanchuan Beiye" is almost the same as the poet. This place not only produced the poetry collection "The Collection of Yuanchuan" sung by Wang Wei and his close friend Pei Dihe, but also had great significance for the poet's life and his poetry creation. For Wang Wei, "Yuanchuan" exists first as a material entity, and secondly as a breeding ground and projection place for spirit and art, which has great symbolic significance. It is not only the externalization of the poet's inner spirit and ideals, but also further supports and strengthens the poet's spirit. It seems to be asserted that without "Yuanchuan", Wang Wei would have lost his good material conditions, and without this life of being both official and hidden, he would not have been able to form a basis for objective description, and he would have lost a certain environment that nurtured the poet's unique poetic style.
Originally owned by the early Tang Dynasty poet Song Zhiwen, the "Yuanchuan Beiye" was later inherited by his descendants and purchased for Wang Wei. At that time, Wang Wei was also serving as a Beijing official, and although he had a certain amount of government affairs, his life was still idle. The river is less than a hundred miles away from Chang'an, and it is also suitable to live here. But in our judgment today, after all, the poet is in the court, there are always some unshirkable affairs to deal with, according to the traffic conditions at that time, It seems that The River is still a little farther away from the capital.
Wang Wei lived for sixteen years before and after The River, and his life was only sixty-three years (one says sixty-one years), which shows that the River occupied the most mature period of his life, which cannot be said to be heavy. Before the "Yuanchuan Period", the poet experienced two setbacks in his career: one was at the beginning of the government, when he was deposed by the Jingguan Dale Cheng, which was the first difficulty of the first career journey, which had an important impact on Wang Wei and made him unforgettable for life; the second setback was because the prime minister Zhang Jiuling resigned, and thereafter he lost a strong dependency in the official field. Wang Wei had gone into hiding three times before Yuanchuan, namely Qishang, Songshan and Zhongnan mountain, all of which were expedient measures. In a sense, these "three small hiddens" can be regarded as the practice and experiment of the later "Great Hidden Of the River". Therefore, the purchase and operation of "Lingchuan Beiye" is a big hidden decision, a mature life choice and planning.
The poet is ready to settle himself here. It seems that all the past experiences are preparing for the journey to the River, and the road to come after will also start from this. He wrote poems because of The River, which ranked first in the number of poems he had achieved, and the River was also the place where he lived the longest. Perhaps we can assert that without Yuanchuan, there would be no Wang Wei's unique poetic style, no formation, consolidation and development of his world view, so Yuanchuan would become the core area of his life and art, and a node of life. In fact, he paid the most time for the "Tsunekawa Beiye", and the longest time in operation was also the most effective.
Looking at the literary figures of ancient and modern China and abroad, they often have a personal base of life, but it is not easy to find a place to wander and linger from it that is bigger than the "Lingchuan Beiye". "The valley water is in the southern part of the prefecture, and the valley mouth is the junction of Lishan Mountain and Lantian Mountain. The mountain is narrow and narrow, and the stone is the way, about three miles. The Shangling water flows from the Blue Bridge to this place, and there are Thousand Saints Cave, Fine Water Cave, and Tin Water Cave, such as the rim ring, which turns twenty miles from south to north. After this, it was suddenly cheerful, and the forest and the wilderness looked at each other. Its water is also injected northwest into the Bashui, also known as the Yuanchuan River. (Qing Gu Zuyu's "Minutes of Reading the History of Fang Public Opinion") Today, its area is about 70 square kilometers, with beautiful peaks and peaks, babbling water, and mountains and valleys and forest springs everywhere. Wang Wei described in the "Preface to the Collection and Consolidation of The Yuanchuan": "Yu Beiye was in the Liaochuan Valley, and its tour stops were Mengcheng Pass, Huazigang, Wenxingguan, Jinzhuling, Luchai, Mulanchai, Zhuyi, Gonghuaimo, Linhuting, Nanyao, Yinhu, Liulang, Luanjiase, Jinduquan Spring, Baishitan, Beiyuan, Zhuliguan, Xinyiwu, Lacquer Garden, Pepper Garden, etc." The poet counts twenty scenic spots, which can be regarded as a three-dimensional long scroll created by his own hands.
Unfolding all of Wang Wei's texts, we find that he did not have a long and huge work in his life, and Yuanchuan can be used as a substitute, which is a more conclusive implementation of his outlook on life and art. "After the new rain on the empty mountain, the weather came late in autumn. Bright moon pine light, clear spring stone upstream. The bamboo hustle and bustle returned to the raccoon girl, and the lotus moved down the fishing boat. Feel free to rest in the spring, and Wang Sun can stay for himself. ("Mountain Residence Autumn Breeze") This poem describing the autumn color of the river establishes and represents the poet's ethereal poetic style. It can be seen that it is The River that determines the "lightness" of its art; without the Lack of the Main Part, it is difficult to form a complete poetic territory of the poet, so it is enough to see its "weight".
Artists can be roughly divided into two types: one needs to settle themselves well, and the other goes north and south, and is displaced for a lifetime. Li Bai belonged to the latter, and he wandered around the earth, tossing and turning, as if he had never stopped all his life. Du Fu seems to be somewhere in between, when he was young, he was "debauched and Zhao Jian, Qiu Ma was quite crazy" ("Grand Tour"), and later had a Chengdu Caotang and also operated an orchard: "Miscellaneous Red is opposite, he is not as good as Jinshi." The boat will go out of the gorge, and the patrol garden will carry a hoe. Overall, most artists still like to have a safe place to live and operate a land and a garden, but most of them suffer from not having such conditions. Not only artists, but everyone: the desire to live in peace.
If a person can live in peace, the body has a foothold, the spirit can also have a point of strength, and the creation can be expected. For example, Tolstoy's Yasnaya Manor, Faulkner's Tamarind Villa, etc., there are many similarities. After the defeat of the French Revolution, Hugo also built a four-storey "high-city villa" on the British island of Guenzi when he was exiled, and built a watchtower as a workshop, which became the commanding height of the whole island, and when the weather was clear, he could overlook the French coast. The watchtower is decorated with a bizarre picture of the petals of the flower that he personally depicted, and the vault and four walls are made of glass. On this sunny, sea-and-sky top floor, Hugo wrote novels such as Les Misérables, Sea Laborers, And The Smiley Man, and a literary criticism monograph on Shakespeare. Dickens in England was regarded as a wanderer, but he also operated more than one base and settled in the famous "Gates Hill" in his later years.
Mark Twain of the United States traveled the world and lectured everywhere, but still ran the comfortable "Hartford Villa". It was in this house that he spent the sun and the moon in peace, leaving behind a large number of popular works. Jack London, an American writer who worked as a newsboy, dock worker, sailor, worker, and gold digger, once spent all his savings to build a luxury villa "Wolf's Den", hoping to spend the rest of his life here, but unfortunately destroyed by a fire.
Hemingway was a lifelong restless figure, hunting in Africa, bullfighting in Spain, traveling the world, and having experienced two plane crashes. He braved bullets and bullets to work as a Red Cross ambulance driver during World War I, went deep into the front lines of the Spanish Civil War as a war correspondent during World War II, and visited Chongqing, China. After the outbreak of the Pacific War, Hemingway not only changed his yacht to a cruiser, scouting German submarines in the Caribbean, but also participated in the Allied liberation of Paris. Hemingway's life seems to be a legend of wandering and wandering, but it is such a person who has established several creative bases: Key West in the United States, and "Overlook Villa" in Cuba. The same is true of most of the oil painters in the West, such as Picasso,who in his later years built a huge fortress in Cannes on the coast of southern France, nicknamed "the lair of the Minotaur.". On a hillside in the Seine Valley of France, there is the rest of the Impressionist master Monet in the second half of his life: the nearby river is cleverly introduced, forming a pond, divided into two parts: a water garden and a garden. It was here that Monet completed the famous "Water Lilies" and "Nihonbashi" series.
Similar to Wang Wei's "Yuanchuan", it is a dream of many writers and artists. Whether this dream is realized or not is really too important.