In the previous lecture, we talked about a phenomenon-level figure in the literati of the Middle and Tang Dynasties, the famous hermit, Taoist priest, and artist Zhang Zhihe. After he was tired of the dirtiness of the officialdom, he returned to the beautiful waters of his hometown, fished happily outside the blue waves, and wrote five "Fisherman's Words", which led the Chinese literati to yearn for the reclusive life of the fisher father, from the beginning of the Tang Dynasty to the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, there have been people singing and imitating, even the Japanese Emperor Saga and his courtiers are also crazy, singing and imitating, and also opened the precedent of the history of Japanese filler words. Zhang Zhihe's "Fisherman's Words" can be said to have had a major international impact. This incident also shows that human beings may be born with a desire to return to the mountain forest, after all, our distant ancestors came out of the mountain forest.
Today, let's talk about the two poets who wrote the words of the literati after the Middle and Tang Dynasties, they are the two poets who have the most words in the Tang Dynasty, and they are also the two lyricists who clearly marked "according to the music beat as a sentence", that is, fill in the words according to the tune, they are Liu Yuxi, who is respected by later generations as "Shihao", and Bai Juyi, who is "poetry demon". These two good brothers are not only the first-class masters of the Tang Dynasty poetry circle, but also opened a new era of literati filling in words, which can be described as the absolute two heroes of the Tang Dynasty literary circle.
Let's start with Liu Yuxi. The Confucian thinker Mencius said, "Praise his poetry, read his books, do not know his people, can you?" It is also about its world. Although Mencius spoke of the art of making friends, literary critics in later generations often used this phrase as a method of literary appreciation. According to Mencius's method of "knowing people and discussing the world", if you want to appreciate a writer's work, you must understand the era in which the writer is located, and the ups and downs of his life, because in each work of the writer, the character code of the writer is integrated, and the mark of the times is engraved. Therefore, to understand Liu Yuxi's poetry, we must first start with Liu Yuxi's life.
From Liu Yuxi's nickname of "Shihao", we can see Liu Yuxi's personality. In terms of personality, Liu Yuxi is definitely a tough guy, a thorn, a "small strong who can't die", and a model of "as long as he can't die, he will die".
Liu Yuxi's life has experienced two party battles and several times of debasement, and most of his life has been spent in the career of being degraded. The political enemies of the imperial court relegated him to the barbaric land of the great southwest in order to make him completely shut up, completely depressed, and completely finished playing, but Liu Yuxi was more and more frustrated and courageous, never compromised, fought against the political enemies and fate with a tenacious heart, used the heroic poetic style, used the enthusiastic singing and poetry of the southwest barbarous land to comfort himself, and finally survived the cold winter of twenty-three years of life. Liu Yuxi needed too many people to comfort, Liu Zongyuan, who was degraded with him, Bai Juyi, who had a softer personality, Wang Shuwen, who was killed after the failure of the "Yongzhen Reform", and Li Deyu, who was famous. Liu Yuxi is such a person, no matter how bloody life is, others are sad and miserable, he is still elated. Liu Yuxi relied on this spirit of not being soft, not accepting defeat, and not dying, surviving his opponents, saving himself, and finally achieving the legend of a generation of poets.
Liu Yuxi, also spelled Mengde, was a native of Luoyang, and some people say that he was from Pengcheng, which is now a native of Xuzhou. Liu Yuxi grew up in the gentle and beautiful Jiangnan, but in his bones he carried the arrogance of the northern desert Xiongnu. It is said that Liu Yuxi's ancestors were Xiongnu, and later followed Emperor Wen of Wei to move to the capital Luoyang and change his surname to Liu. Therefore, the genes are strong, Liu Yuxi has the northern desert in his bones, and the stubborn and strong character of the Xiongnu.
Liu Yuxi was a young genius, when he was young, he was able to recite poetry and write gifts, and his literary style was considerable, even the famous poet monks at that time, Kyaukran and Lingche Shangren, all praised this child as "a widow can be taught", these two Buddhist masters really did not misread, Liu Yuxi took the imperial examination at the age of twenty-two, in the extremely difficult entrance examination, Liu Yuxi passed the examination for a higher difficulty, and then passed the more difficult "Erudite Hongzi Subject", and the next year he successfully passed the selection examination of the official department, and even passed three major passes, Liu Yuxi can be described as a figure at the level of the god, It provoked the envy and jealousy of many literary celebrities at that time. You know, the literary leader Han Yu took the exam four times before passing the Jinshike. Bai Juyi was known as a young genius, and at the age of seventeen he wrote the famous poem "Away from the grass on the original, one year old and one withered away", but Bai Juyi was only twenty-eight years old before he was admitted to the jinshi, so Bai Juyi was still ecstatic, and triumphantly inscribed a poem under the Ci'en Temple Pagoda, saying, "At the inscription under the Ci'en Pagoda, the youngest of the seventeen people", if this is in front of Liu Yuxi, Bai Juyi must be ashamed and his face is white.
Liu Yuxi, who was admitted to the imperial examination, seemed to have a career of "wide on both sides of the tide and the wind", he first served as a secretary in Du You's shogunate, and then followed Du You into Beijing and did the supervision of the imperial history. At the age of thirty-three, Liu Yuxi reached the peak of his life. Wang Shuwen promoted the "Yongzhen Innovation" and wanted to solve the three major tumors in the body of the Tang Dynasty in one fell swoop, namely the dispute between the party and the party, the eunuch dictatorship and the division of the feudal town. Liu Yuxi and his fellow scholar friend Liu Zongyuan were highly valued and entered the central institutions of the imperial court, and it seemed that Liu Yuxi would play a great role in a great reform, but the peak of Liu Yuxi's life also came to an abrupt end.
In August of the 21st year of Zhenyuan, that is, in 805 AD, Tang Shunzong, who supported the reform, was forced to take the throne of Li Chun, the crown prince, and Li Chun succeeded to the throne as Tang Xianzong and changed the yuan to Yongzhen. After Tang Xianzong took the throne, just as Biden abolished Trump's policy on the first day of office, he immediately suppressed the reformists, arrested Wang Shuwen and other two kings, and demoted Liu Yuxi Liu Zongyuan and eight others to Sima of Yuanzhou, known in history as the "Two Kings and Eight Sima Incident". The "Yongzhen Innovation" failed after only 100 days of implementation. Liu Yuxi was demoted to the title of Assassin of Lianzhou, but on his way to Lianzhou, Liu Yuxi was demoted to Sima of Langzhou by the imperial court. Langzhou is now Changde, Hunan, and Liu Zongyuan has also been degraded to Yongzhou, Hunan.
Liu Yuxi stayed in Langzhou for ten years, and his life was also free, reading and composing poems every day, listening to local folk songs, and learning to sing mountain songs with the people, and his little life was full and happy. And Liu Zongyuan's personality is more pessimistic, during the Yongzhou period, although he wandered in the mountains and rivers every day, but the mood was always very depressed, all day was "borrowing wine to dispel sorrow and more sorrow", Liu Yuxi and Liu Zongyuan's personalities were different, which also created a gap in the life span between the two, Liu Yuxi finally returned to the imperial court to retire and spend his old age, and Liu Zongyuan was overwhelmed by repeated blows, and he died of illness in Liuzhou at the age of forty-seven. Therefore, if you want to live a long time, you must learn to face life with a smile.
Ten years later, the imperial court finally remembered Liu Yuxi and Liu Zongyuan, who were still in the barbarous land of the southwest, and issued an edict to let Liu Yuxi Liu Zongyuan and others return to Beijing. The imperial court hoped that Liu Yuxi would become a "little sheep", and if so, Liu Yuxi's career might usher in spring. But Liu Yuxi was an unrepentant old thorn, and he actually wrote a poem to satirize the rulers of the imperial court, and the poem was written like this:
Purple and red dust came to the face, and no one looked at the flowers back.
The peach trees in the Xuandu Temple were all planted after Liu Lang went there.
The superficial meaning of this poem is that the pedestrians, cars, horses and rivers on Chang'an Road are endlessly bustling and bustling, and the dust that is raised blows up on the face, and there is really a feeling of red dust rolling in. So lively, what are these people doing? People say that they have just returned from the Xuandu Temple. And there are many peach trees planted in the Xuandu Temple, all of which were planted after I was degraded by Liu Yuxi.
This poem is nothing on the surface, but people who are not stupid can see the resentment in Liu Yuxi's heart, and they can feel that there is irony in Liu Yuxi's words. It seems that this Liu Yuxi simply intends to submit to the people in power in the DPRK and China. The rulers of the DPRK believe that Liu Yuxi's poem is extremely insulting and extremely wide-ranging, and that Xuanduguan must have alluded to the imperial court; those who rushed to see the flowers must have alluded to those villains who tended to be inflamed and attached to the powerful; and Qianshu Peach Blossom referred to the upstarts of the DPRK who were later promoted by cracking down on the "Yongzhen Reform". The imperial court was very angry, the consequences were very serious, and then degraded! So he degraded Liu Yuxi and Liu Zongyuan, who had just returned to Beijing, and several of them.
This time, Liu Yuxi was relegated to the more remote Bozhou, which is now Zunyi City, Guizhou Province. When Bozhou was in the Tang Dynasty, it had the title of "evil place", that is, that place was really dangerous. Liu Zongyuan was relegated to Liuzhou this time, which is now the city of Liuzhou in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Liu Zongyuan and Liu Yuxi were brothers who had passed away, and Liu Zongyuan knew that Liu Yuxi was still accompanied by an eighty-year-old mother, so he took the initiative to ask for a change with Liu Yuxi, and coupled with the intercession of the chancellor Pei Du to the emperor, Tang Xianzong changed Liu Yuxi to lianzhou, which is now lianzhou city in Guangdong Province. Later, Liu Yuxi was degraded again and again, and successively served as the History of the Thorns of Kui Prefecture and the History of the Thorns of Hezhou, and lived in the barbaric land for fourteen years.
In the second year of Yamato, that is, in 828 AD, Liu Yuxi was recalled to the Capital Division. It is reasonable to say that even the most powerful person should be soft; even the stubborn cow should bow his head, but Liu Yuxi is a lord who is not convinced and does not obey, he returned to Xuanduguan again to see the peach blossoms, and wrote a rather provocative poem, "Revisiting Xuanduguan":
The 100 acres of garden are full of moss, and the peach blossoms are pure and cauliflower.
Where the Tao Daoist returned, Liu Lang came again.
The meaning of this poem is that most of the hundreds of acres of large courtyards in the Xuandu Temple are covered with barren moss, and the original brilliant peach blossoms have disappeared, only cauliflowers are blooming. Where did the Taoist monks who planted peaches before go? Last time, because I wrote poetry here, I Liu Yuxi, who was demoted from Chang'an, is back!
Across the screen and the smoke of a thousand years of history, we seem to be able to hear Liu Yuxi's triumphant laughter.
There is a saying in Sichuan, called "poor death is better than food, not to die always have to turn over", Liu Yuxi is a person with such a belief, as long as you can't kill me, I always have to turn over! As long as I can't die, I will die, and I am a little strong who can't die!
Liu Yuxi's stubborn character, indomitable soul, open heart, optimistic spirit gave him the strength to rise in the face of adversity. These character traits are reflected in the poems, with a sense of boldness and heroism. Liu Yuxi's good friend Bai Juyi praised him and said, "Pengcheng Liu Mengde, the poet is also a hero, his peak is Senran, and he dares to be a person." Bai Juyi means that Liu Yuxi's majestic poetic style was unique among the poets at that time.
Let's look at Liu Yuxi's autumn. Chinese literati have always had a tradition of sad autumn, just as the so-called "sadness at seeing the fallen leaves, feeling the autumn wind and being miserable", the words gave everyone Song Yu to say "sadness, autumn is qi", and the Southern Song Dynasty poet Wu Wenying's sense of sadness and autumn is even more lingering and touching, Wu Wenying said, "Where to synthesize sorrow, away from people's hearts in autumn", the word "sorrow" was broken down into the heart of autumn, which seems to explain the deep-seated reasons for the Chinese literati's tradition of sad autumn. But Liu Yuxi is not an ordinary person, and the autumn he wrote is not sad at all, but there is a bright and upward emotion.
Since ancient times, autumn has been sad and lonely, and I have said that autumn is better than spring dynasty.
A crane in the clear sky lined up on the clouds, and it led the poetry to the blue sky.
Liu Yuxi said that in autumn, the sky is high and refreshing, far better than the spring day, where will there be any sad emotions? It can be seen that Liu Yuxi's spirit of striving forward and optimistic attitude towards life can be seen.
In the twenty-three years of degrading career, Liu Yuxi has never been defeated by life and has always maintained an optimistic heart. He has the self-improvement of "although the people arrive late, the tree is holly"; he has the "thousand sails on the side of the sinking boat, and the spring of the ten thousand trees in front of the sick tree". In the face of the sigh of his old friend Bai Juyi's aging life, Liu Yuxi told Bai Juyi, "Mo Dao Sang Yu is late, for Xia Shang is full of heaven", telling Lao Bai, what to do when he is old? Just die!