Growing up, every time I was asked who my favorite poet was, many people would say Li Bai. However, our superficial love is in any case inferior to Mr. Li Changzhi, a fanatical fan of Li Bai.
Li Changzhi is a famous writer, literary critic and researcher of literary history. He graduated from the Department of Philosophy of Tsinghua University in 1935 under the tutelage of famous philosophers Zhang Dongsun, Jin Yuelin and Feng Youlan. Important works include "The Taoist Poet Li Bai and His Suffering", "The Personality and Style of Sima Qian", and "Welcoming the Chinese Renaissance".
Image source: Sohu
Mr. Li Changzhi wrote two books specifically for Li Bai, one is "The Taoist Poet Li Bai and His Suffering", which was published in 1941, and the other is simply called "Li Bai", which was published in 1951, and later publishing houses called the two books "Li Bai Biography".
"Li Bai" is more like a popular book, roughly outlining the outline of Li Bai. The Taoist poet Li Bai and His Suffering is a special treatise that focuses on the analysis of Li Bai's spiritual personality.
The Taoist Poet Li Bai and His Suffering
Author: Li Changzhi
Publisher: Beijing Publishing House
Publication date: 2018
So, what kind of person is Li Bai in Mr. Li Changzhi's eyes?
As an avid fan, what is unique about his understanding of Li Bai?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="13">01</h1>
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="170" > a biography of an idol by a fan</h1>
In his 1933 book "My Demands and Propositions for Literary and Art Criticism", Mr. Li Changzhi said that he "blatantly advocated emotional criticism", and he had three criteria for literary criticism:
First, if you want to be objective and faithful, you must invest in feelings, love and hate each other, otherwise it is too far away from the work and cannot be fair. "Only in this way can we be fair without regard to pity or perfection";
Second, rather than neutral and objective research, Mr. Li Changzhi believes that the study of a work is more important to "jump into the author's world", for example, to study Chinese poets is to "go deep into the poetry of the poet's world";
Third, Mr. Li Changzhi believes that a critic should say some specific conditions for judging whether a work is a good work.
He did all these three requirements when commenting on Li Bai.
He not only did not hide his love and selfishness for Li Bai, but also threw himself into Li Bai's world, feeling and experiencing with him. Thus in his strong feelings, the essence of Li Bai was accurately expressed.
In this book, Mr. Li Changzhi takes Nietzsche's philosophy as the core to explore Li Bai's poetry and behavior.
This is related to the fact that Mr. Li Changzhi's main academic background is German aesthetics, and because during the May Fourth Movement, Nietzsche's works were studied more comprehensively and deeply in China.
This is due to Nietzsche's "superman" philosophy calling for a "superman" who achieves true freedom in thought, emphasizing the need for human beings to be transcended, which is extremely in line with the people's demand for individual liberation in the May Fourth period and the lesson of "backwardness and beating".
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, German philosopher. Nietzsche's philosophy emphasized the reappraisal of all present value and the will to life of the individual, which was in line with the critical spirit and individual liberation spirit prevailing during the May Fourth period, so this period also led to a wave of translation of Nietzsche's works, and Shen Yanbing, Mao Dun, Guo Moruo and others all published translations of Nietzsche's works in the press.
Image source: Wikipedia
In this context, Mr. Li Changzhi has a deep understanding of Nietzsche's philosophy and applies it freely. This led him to use the philosophy of Nietzsche the madman to analyze the life of another madman, Li Bai.
Although there is a great difference between German classical aesthetics and German modern aesthetics, Mr. Li Changzhi can skillfully combine the heavy form and rationality of classical aesthetics with the irrationality and heavy life of modern aesthetics in the process of discussing Li Bai, and portray a lively and clear Li Bai as he understands.
Mr. Li Changzhi believes that the reason why we love Li Bai so much is because there is not much disparity between his life and our life, and we also have some experience of the emotions he experiences.
He grieves for us and rejoices in what we rejoice.
However, li Bai's "madman" and "madman", his joy and sorrow are much more powerful than the joys and sorrows of our ordinary people, so our feelings are expanded and released in his poetry. Like what:
"And I crush the Yellow Crane Tower for the King's Hammer, and the King also crushes the Yellow Crane Tower for me."
Like what:
"I'm a crazy person, Fengge laughs at Kong Qiu."
Mr. Li Changzhi believes that this is the embodiment of Li Bai's vigorous and wild vitality, and his love, hatred, desire, and sorrow all tend to extremes. Li Bai's vitality was not suppressed and claustrophobic, and he shouted out what every life thought and wanted.
So he is fundamentally closest to anyone's heart. That's where the value of madman's artwork lies.
Regarding Li Bai's requirements for life, Mr. Li Changzhi concluded:
"In terms of quality, he is in fact indistinguishable from the demands of ordinary people; in terms of quantity, ordinary people are not as powerful as he demands."
Li Bai's demand for the quality of life is related to his Taoist spirit.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="178">02</h1>
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="179" > Li Bai as a Taoist</h1>
The world says that Li Bai's poetry is ethereal and similar to the Taoist spirit, because Li Bai and Taoism do have a good relationship.
Li Bai came into contact with Taoist thought at a very young age and has always been influenced by it, and when he was fifteen years old, he ran to the Min Mountains to live in seclusion, stayed for several years, and never came out.
Mr. Li Changzhi believes that Li Bai's questioning of the road is also the beginning of his wandering trek, and since then, "home" has never appeared in Li Bai's poems.
And it was this path that determined and influenced his life and career, and made his poetry.
Li Bai's travel roadmap
Image source: Guancang Sea
On this road of learning, Li Bai also made many friends. In the book, Mr. Li Changzhi sorts out Li Bai's path of seeking the Tao, and analyzes who the friends mentioned by Li Bai in the poem are.
Minshan, Songshan, Suizhou, and Shandong are all places related to seeking the Tao, and they are also places that often appear in Li Bai's poems, and some friends on the road of learning also often appear in Li Bai's poems, such as Dan Qiusheng, who appears in Li Bai's famous poem "Will Enter the Wine":
"Cen Fuzi, Dan Qiusheng, will enter the wine, the cup will not stop!"
Sing with Jun, please listen to it for me."
This Cen Fuzi in the poem, Mr. Li Changzhi believes, is not the poet Cen Shan, who was once thought to be Cen Shan, but a hermit named Cen Xun. Li Bai has a poem called "Reward Cen Xun Seeing yuan danqiu treating wine with poetry", which should be the same thing as what "Will Enter the Wine".
It can be seen that most of Li Bai's travels to friends are related to learning Taoism, and it is not difficult to understand why Taoist thought has such a great influence on him. This influence is not only reflected in his poems, but also in Li Bai's daily walking, sitting and lying down.
When he was a teenager, Li Bai was told by Sima Chengzhen that he had "Immortal Wind Dao Bones", and when he arrived in Chang'an, He Zhizhang saw him and said that he was a "Who Immortal", and wrote a poem for him called "Summer Mountain":
"Lazy white feather fan, naked in the green forest." Take off the towel and hang on the stone wall, and sprinkle the pine wind on the top of the exposed roof."
Du Fu's account shows Li Bai's arrogance and freedom:
"Li Bai wrote a hundred poems, and the restaurant in Chang'an City slept." The Son of Heaven did not come to the ship, claiming that his subject was a wine immortal."
[Ming] Du Yan's "Poetic Intentions of the Ancient Sages" (partial), ink on paper, 28 cm in length and 1079.5 cm in width, in the collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing. This painting is based on Du Fu's "Eight Immortals in Drinking Song". History says that Li Bai and He Zhizhang, Li Shizhi, Li Jin, Cui Zongzhi, Su Jin, Zhang Xu, and Jiao Sui were good at drinking, known as the "Eight Immortals in Wine", and they were similar to each other in terms of alcoholism, boldness, and openness. Du Fu's poem "Eight Immortals in Drinking" is a group portrait of these eight people.
From Mr. Li Changzhi's point of view, Li Bai's absorption of Taoist thought is not passive acceptance, but a kind of heartfelt identification.
Using Liu Xun's sanpin theory of Taoism, Mr. Li Changzhi analyzed the evolution of Taoist thought—from Lao Zhuang's idea of wuwei nature, the idea of immortal alchemy of the Jixia school, to the alchemy of the runes, and then to the later incorporation of Buddhist thought.
In Mr. Li Changzhi's view, Taoism is a religion that can be inclusive and reconcile and absorb many other ideas.
By the time of Li Bai, Taoism had developed and formed, and because of its inclusive nature, Li Bai was contaminated with all of the above, so he often said Zen in his later poems.
But the reason why Taoism flourished so much in the Tang Dynasty was also related to the fact that Buddhism had taken root in China at this time. The rise of Taoism has a certain "local culture" meaning, and it is also in line with the idea of Chinese at every turn- affirming life itself.
Taoism is worldly, utilitarian, and has a strong human flavor—just the opposite of the Buddhist pursuit of happiness in future lives.
And this present life is different from the ambition of the Confucian family, the Taoist family's present life is to pursue the satisfaction of personal life, and does not care about the posthumous name. "Lao Tzu" reminds people that "name and body are close."
Li Bai was more concerned about the wine in front of him than the name behind him, he said, "And if you have a glass of wine before you are happy, why do you have a thousand names behind you?"
The essence of Li Bai is life and life, which is why Li Bai and Taoism are so in tune.
Mr. Li Changzhi analyzed from a metaphysical point of view that the cosmology in Li Bai's Taoist thought is "moving" and has an inherent spiritual force, so his view of nature is personified, such as "raising a glass to invite the bright moon, and the shadow into three people", such as "the mountain flower smiles at me, just when the cup is held", such as "looking at each other is not tired, only respecting the pavilion mountain".
Li Bai cosmosified himself and personified the universe, echoing Zhuangzi's statement in the "Theory of Qi": "Heaven and earth are born with me, and all things are one with me."
It is precisely because of this worldly thought, so it is not surprising that Li Bai chooses a ranger or enters the army, it is nothing more than the happiness in life and the wealth in life. But it also led to his pain.
[Qing] Su Liupeng's "Taibai Drunken Figure" axis, color on paper, vertical 204. 8 cm, width 93. 9 cm. Collection of Shanghai Museum.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="193">03</h1>
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="194" > Li Bai as an ordinary person</h1>
Li Bai has a flowing and detached side, but also a painful side. To understand Li Bai, go into his heart, and feel his pain, we need to start from his life to fully understand him as a person.
Regarding his childhood, Li Bai himself does not mention much, except for a sentence that can be seen that his family is well-off, "When he was a child, he did not know the moon, called a white jade plate", he rarely mentioned his childhood life in poetry.
There have been many theories about where Li Bai is from, some saying that he is from Gansu, some saying that he is from Sichuan, some saying that he is from Shandong, and some saying that Li Bai is actually a foreigner.
Mr. Li Changzhi believes that all these statements are inevitably arbitrary.
According to the records of Li Bai's contemporaries and his uncle Li Yangbing, and Fan Chuanzheng, the son of Li Bai's friend Fan Lun, one thing is certain, that is, Li Bai's childhood after the age of five was indeed spent in Sichuan, to be precise, in Qinglian Township, Zhangming County, northern Sichuan.
Li Bai's hometown is located in Qinglian Town, Jiangyou City, Mianyang, Sichuan Province.
Image source: NetEase
But before the age of five, Li Bai, according to Mr. Li Changzhi, was a Central Asian "overseas Chinese" born in Soviet Russia at that time. Li Yangbing recorded:
「...... The world is remarkable, the middle leaf is not sinful, who dwells in the branches... At the beginning of the Divine Dragon, he fled to Shu."
Fan Chuanzheng also said:
"At the end of the Sui Dynasty, it was difficult, a room was stolen from broken leaves, scattered, and named, put from the national dynasty has come, compiled in the genus, the beginning of the divine dragon, and the submerged Return to Guanghan, because the overseas Chinese are county people."
The stripes and broken leaves mentioned in it actually belong to Central Asia, where Li Bai spent the first five years of his life before moving to Sichuan.
In the tang dynasty territory map, the red circle area is the location of Shanye City. Shanye City was an important town set up by the Tang Dynasty in the western region, and is now located in the eastern part of Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan.
Image source: Map Nest
It can be seen that Li Bai experienced a strange and wandering life at a very young age, and his early life abroad also gave him something different from other Chinese poets in his life foundation.
Mr. Li Changzhi believes that Li Bai's "pursuit is particularly strong, and the pain is particularly deep" is related to this.
Because Li Bai always gives people the impression of playing around, Du Fu is always in the grip of the shortcomings of the times and laments the difficulties of people's livelihood. Therefore, people often simply classify Li Bai as romanticism and Du Fu as realism. In terms of style, Li Bai is called "ethereal" and Du Fu is "depressed".
In general, I think That Li Bai is a fairy floating in the clouds, and Du Fu is closer to ordinary people.
However, from the perspective of personal pursuit and ambition, Du Fu's desire to "shelter the world from the cold and happy faces" is not necessarily unromantic, and Li Bai is not "human", but too "human".
Mr. Li Changzhi believes that "the human taste of Li Baishi is above Du Fu", and he believes that Li Bai "is by no means an objective reflection of life, but he himself is life itself, more fundamentally, life itself".
[Southern Song Dynasty] Liang Kai", Taibai Xing yin tu, ink and pencil on paper, 81.2 cm in length, 30.4 cm in width, (Japanese) Tokyo National Museum collection.
Why do you say this, let's take a look at what Li Bai wrote in the poem.
There is praise for the life of the Ranger:
"Kill one person in ten steps, and leave no one behind for a thousand miles." The matter is whisked away, and the merit and name are hidden deeply."
There is a desire for wealth:
"Rich and noble, self-inflicted, meritorious and spring glory."
He also has a blunt demand for lust:
"It is better not to see each other than not to see each other."
Li Bai wants to eat well, dress well, play well, be famous and rich, and eat and drink like Yan Hui, he can't do it, and he doesn't want to do it.
If we compare confucianism in ancient China to Western Christianity, Li Bai is an out-and-out pagan, and his attitude toward Confucianism is rebellious and sarcastic. The sentence "I am a madman of Chu, Fengge laughs at Kong Qiu" is very famous, and the poem "Mocking Ru" spares no effort to be sarcastic:
"Russo talks about the Five Classics, and the white hair dies.
Asked for economic policy, dazed and fell into the smoke.
Traveling far and wide, wearing a square turban for the first time.
Slowly walk from the straight, before the dust rises."
Sometimes he also paid homage to Confucius, such as "Go west to get the Lintai and hang the Kong Mound for me." Remembering the past, I burst into tears." But his attitude is equality, he does not look up to Confucius, Mr. Li Changzhi believes that Li Bai's attitude toward Confucius is not in favor of his ideas, but envious of his career and status.
From this point of view, Li Bai is indeed an ordinary person and a layman.
But he is so popular because of his "truth", his joys and sorrows, his desires and pains, all of which are expressed unabashedly, without exaggeration or pretense.
Li Bai's custom is to enjoy the customs of the world, it is the custom of ardent pursuit in the world, the layman Li Bai, not not "human", is too "human".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="211">04</h1>
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="212" > Li Bai's pain</h1>
Li Bai is innocent, but his innocence and enthusiasm for joining the WTO clashed when he threw himself into politics, and Li Bai pursued a trip fervently in the human world, but he could not go on the road of politics.
As we mentioned earlier, Li Bai envied Confucius's career and status, but Confucius was not the person he admired. So does Li Bai have any idols? There are also some, Li Bai worships Xie An and Lu Zhonglian.
Mr. Li Changzhi believes that in Li Bai's eyes, Xie An's desirable point is his calm and easy attitude.
Li Bai could never bear the cautious state of "walking on thin ice like approaching the abyss", what he hoped was that someone would come and invite him, and suddenly he would come out of the mountain and make meritorious contributions when he came out of the mountain, just like Zhuge Liang.
But Zhuge Liang still did not have Xie An's ideal. Before Xie An went out of the mountain, he lay on his high side, and after he came out of the mountain, he did not change his old state, and Li Bai longed for this state of joining the world.
Xie An (320–385) was a politician and celebrity during the Eastern Jin Dynasty. Xie An was born into a famous family, but refused to leave the army in his youth and lived in seclusion in Huiji County. Later, he was invited by the Western general Huan Wen to serve as his sima under his command, and after Huan Wen's death, he began to take power, defeating the Former Qin army led by Jian Jian at the Battle of Shuishui, winning decades of peace for the Eastern Jin Dynasty.
However, Xie An was still not as kind as Lu Zhonglian to Li Bai.
Lu Zhonglian was a famous lobbyist in the Warring States period, who studied at the Jixia Xuegong of the State of Qi, and he persuaded the Wei general Xinyuan Yan on behalf of Pingyuan Jun, so that he could dispel the idea of honoring King Zhao of Qin as emperor and achieve a good story of "righteousness is not emperor Qin". When the yan and Qi armies were at a stalemate in Liaocheng, he wrote a letter of persuasion for the state of Qi, and shot an arrow into the defenders of the State of Yan in Liaocheng, successfully allowing the state of Qi to capture Liaocheng.
Lu Zhonglian "Righteous Not Emperor Qin".
Image credit: Sina
Because of his excellent lobbying skills, Lu Zhonglian was invited to be an official many times, but he never accepted it. The "Records of History" records that "Lu Zhonglian and Qi Renren were curious about the painting strategies of Wei Qi, but refused to serve as an official, so as to maintain a high festival."
The last time he was invited to become an official, Lu Zhonglian actually fled directly to the sea, and there has been no news since.
Mr. Li Changzhi described Lu Zhonglian's life as follows:
"He is both a lobbyist and a strategist; he is a thunderclap on the ground, a man who participates in politics from the ordinary, but who does not kill himself, and who lives a good life."
Lu Zhonglian came to the aid at a critical moment, and after the fact, he retreated freely, which was what Li Bai longed for most, and he envied Lu Zhonglian, "I can take the Liaocheng Gong with an arrow book." In the end, he was not rewarded, and he was ashamed to be with the people of the time."
Li Bai did start politics according to Lu Zhonglian's line, and when he was twenty-five or six years old, he lived the life of a doorman, but he did not make any achievements, and he was gossiped about from time to time.
At the age of forty-two, Li Bai entered Beijing as a Hanlin offering, and then he had the phrase "Go out laughing in the sky, my generation is a basil person." Mr. Li Changzhi said this sentence " seems to be very crazy, but it is very true and very bitter."
However, Li Bai, who finally entered Beijing, was not happy.
Mr. Li Changzhi drew this conclusion from his life as a drunkard, because most of Li Bai's poems about wine were almost all written at this time, such as "after losing the world after getting drunk, Wu Ran was lonely", "Wine did not come out of sorrow", "wine was drunk and self-open", etc. Even Tao Yuanming, who wanted to drink as soon as he wrote poetry, did not write so many experiences after drinking.
Although he had the intention to join the world, such a life was obviously not in line with Li Bai's character, so he wrote "Success to thank people, from now on a fishing", "He should create a ghost, destroy the traces and live in the shadows". The heart of birth jumped on the paper again.
After only three years in Chang'an, Li Bai left again.
Mr. Li Changzhi wrote here:
"If a person is not concerned with the social state and simply does not want to use the world, this is not enough for a poet; but if a person really uses the world, he can cooperate with the foolish society, but he is not enough a poet." Li Bai's enthusiasm made him unwilling to be lonely, but Li Bai's innocence made him unable to compromise."
By the time Li Bai was fifty-five years old, the "Anshi Rebellion" occurred.
The An Shi Rebellion was a civil war and turmoil between An Lushan and Shi Siming and the Tang dynasty royal family from 755 to 763 AD, and was a turning point in the decline of the Tang Dynasty. After the outbreak of the Anshi Rebellion, Li Bai and his family fled south to avoid the chaos, and then defected to Li Xuan, the Yong King, to express the feelings of meritorious service to the country and compose the "Yongwang East Tour Song". After the defeat of the Yongwang army, Li Bai was implicated and imprisoned, and was later exiled to Yelang.
In the "Anshi Rebellion", the fifty-five-year-old Li Bai still did not forget his dream of standing up in danger, he wrote that "there is still an arrow left, not shot lu lianshu".
He chose Li Xuan, the sixteenth son of Emperor Ming of Tang, but unfortunately, King Yong failed, known as a "rebellion", and Li Bai became a political prisoner and was sent to Xunyang Prison.
The outcome of this political career was very different from his initial imagination.
Therefore, Li Bai was finally depressed, whether he was engaged in politics or seeking immortality, he did not get what he wanted, he was most afraid of "fame in the universe, but withered back then", but in the end Li Bai was lonely and died.
The world knows that Li Bai is crazy, but Du Fu understands his pain, and the last few sentences of his "Dream Li Bai" say:
"Go out and scratch your head, if you have a bad life's aspirations." The crown is covered with Beijing, and the Si people are lonely and haggard!
What cloud network is restored? Will be tired of old age. Long live the name, lonely aftermath!"
People often say that Du Fu can learn, but Li Bai can't learn.
Du Fu's deep worries about the people's livelihood may not have been learned, but Li Bai's "truth" can be learned, to treat himself sincerely, to express himself, although Li Bai's "suffering" also comes because of his "truth", but "untrue", unhappy suffering, I am afraid it is more difficult to endure.
Maybe we can live like his demand for poetry, that is, "halal", "true" does not have to be explained, "pure" is not turbid, dashing.
In this way, we are worthy of our own lives and burst out of strong spiritual strength.
Just like Mr. Li Changzhi's Nietzsche's poem "The Language of the Great Tree" in the introduction to the book:
"Above man and beast, I grow;
I'm going to say ,—— but no one is saying it to me.
I grew, I grew lonely, I grew so tall—
I waited,—— but I couldn't wait for anything.
It's so close, I'm out of the clouds —
I waited for that first thunder, flash!"