At the end of the 1950s, Chairman Mao went to Shu to preside over the "Chengdu Conference." During the eighteen-day conference, six long-form speeches were delivered in a row.
In their spare time, Chairman Mao, Premier Zhou and Guo Moruo and their party visited Du Fu Caotang, a famous scenic spot in Chengdu. At the same time, Chairman Mao also praised the Yang Lian left by the Qing Dynasty scholar Gu Fuchu in Du Fu Caotang.
Subsequently, Chairman Mao borrowed 12 editions from Du Fu Caotang, a total of 108 volumes of Du Fu's poetry. After careful reading, Chairman Mao gave Du Fu's poem a four-word comment -- it was a political poem!
Du Fu's poems were born during the Tang Dynasty and flourished during the Song Dynasty. Since the Song Dynasty, it has become a model of poetry that "carries the Tao with literature". Its strength is to expose the true history and to sympathize with the working people living at the bottom.
In 1957, Chairman Mao privately told Zang Kejia and others that he did not like Du Fu's poetry very much. However, Chairman Mao did not approve of Du Fu's poems because of his personal preference.
After reading Du Fu's poems in large quantities, Chairman Mao repeatedly circled and commented on such famous passages as "Spring Hope", "Shu Xiang", and "The Song Of the Hut Broken by the Autumn Wind", and said to the sinologist Federin: "He (Du Fu) is the greatest people's poet in ancient China. ”
During the Chengdu Conference, Chairman Mao personally selected and compiled two volumes of ancient poems from Sichuan. In the previous volume (Tang and Song Dynasties), a large number of Du Fu's poems were also selected.
The pair that Chairman Mao saw when he visited Du Fu Caotang was a pair inscribed for Du Fu Caotang by Gu Fuchu, a great talent of the Qing Dynasty, when he was living in Chengdu, and was hanging in front of the big hall of Du Fu Caotang:
At the same time, ask such a country, how many poets are lying on the dragon and the tiger?
Mr. Also Flowing Apartment, there is a long stream of heaven and earth, the moon white wind Qingyi Caotang.
When visiting Du Fu Caotang, Chairman Mao once lingered in front of this pair for a long time, and after carefully reading it, he praised: Good, collect Du's poems!
Because the "different generations are not at the same time" in the couplet, it happens to come from Du Fu's "Yonghuai Monuments" in "Depression and Different Generations Are Not Timely". Gu Fuchu expressed his appreciation for Du Fu through Du Fu's own poetry.
The meaning of this pair of Yang Lian shanglian is that although Du Fu and Song Yu are in different eras, they have the same talents. If you ask the hidden dragon and Crouching Tiger in the world, how many poets like him are there?
The meaning of the lower link is: I did not expect that a talent like Du Fu would also live in Chengdu like me. However, this is a great fortune between heaven and earth! It is precisely because of the arrival of the poet saint that this grass hall with a white moon and a clear wind will be left.
For thousands of years, there have been many talents in Jiangshan, including poetry immortals, poetry ghosts, poetry kings, and poetry Buddhas, but how many "people's poets" like Du Fu have paid attention to the bottom of society all their lives?
The grass hall with a clear white moon also symbolizes Du Fu's character. Chairman Mao, Premier Zhou, and Guo Moruo praised Gu Fuchu's couplet. Guo Moruo commented on this link: "Juridah is clear, the style is high and yong... He has added historical materials to the famous shrine. ”
In addition, Chairman Mao also recited Du Fu's "Two Poems of The Water Sills and Sending Hearts to the Heart" in front of the "Epic Hall", which happens to be a work of writing about the scenery of the Caotang, the original text is as follows:
Go to Guo Xuan open, no village overlooking credit. Chengjiang river flat less shore, ghost trees late flowers.
Drizzle fish out, breeze swallow oblique. There are 100,000 households in the city, and there are two or three in this place.
Chairman Mao was in Du Fu's caotang, and the romantic genes of the poet in his body aroused his interest in Du Fu's poetry. So after this visit to Du Fu's Caotang, Chairman Mao borrowed more than a hundred volumes of Du Fu's poetry.
In these collections of poems, there are commentaries on Du Fu's poems by the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties. After carefully reading these collections of poems, Chairman Mao gave the evaluation of the four words mentioned at the beginning of the article: It is a political poem.
So why did Chairman Mao say that? We all know that Du Fu's poetry is called "poetic history". It is said that Du Fu wrote tens of thousands of poems in his lifetime, and about 1500 have survived and passed down.
The connotations in these poems cover almost the entire eunuch career of Du Fu. Almost all of the works handed down from generation to generation deal with the social life of the Tang Dynasty at that time.
At the same time, because Du Fu himself had no ambitions in his life, everything he could see was a folk suffering, so he was using his own poetry to speak for the people at the bottom.
Once you speak up for the people, you must form an "opposition" to the ruling class of the Tang Dynasty. For example, the sentences in Du Fu's poem", such as "Zhumen wine smells of flesh, the road has frozen bones", "The fool does not starve to death, and the Confucian crown is more mistaken", which are obviously "political".
Another example is Du Fu's "Three Histories and Three Distinctions", in which "Stone Trench Officials" reflects the social reality of officers and soldiers forcibly conscripting people's husbands, which is obviously reminiscent of the serious "class oppression" in the Tang Dynasty.
In addition, Du Fu also described in "Years of YanXing" the fact that peasants were forced to sell their children and daughters because they could not afford to pay their rent. In the "Five Songs of Feeling", it is even more pointed to "the thief of this king".
There are countless such famous verses of Du Fu's poetry. The connotations expressed in these sentences were enough to arouse the strong spirit of resistance of the masses of the people against the reactionary ruling class in the revolutionary years.
It's just that most of the people at the bottom of the ancient society were illiterate, so the influence of Du Fu's poetry could only reach some knowledgeable literati. In fact, the people at the bottom cannot understand it at all.
Especially in the Song Dynasty, in this era of unprecedented improvement in the status of ancient Chinese literati, the admiration of Du Fu's poetry in the cultural circle also reached an unprecedented peak. But that's another topic.
In addition to some poems that clearly reflect social reality, Du Fu's poems expressing personal feelings will also be mixed with social and political concerns.
For example, Du Fu's "Climbing the Tower" was written at the beginning, but then it went around to the political topic of "the Arctic court will not change in the end, and the Western Mountains will not invade each other".
After expressing his confidence in the restoration of the Tang Dynasty, he could not help but borrow the two sentences of "Poor Hou Lord Returns ancestral temple" to scold Li Yu of the Tang Dynasty for being blinded by villains like Liu Chan, the lord of Shu Hou, which led to the invasion of Tubo.
Therefore, after carefully reading Du Fu's poems, you will find that the personality of this poet saint is actually extremely strong, because he is writing poems almost everything, attacking the politics of the Tang Dynasty.
At the last moment of Du Fu's life, when "relatives and friends have no words, the old and sick have a lonely boat", he would still express his concern for the war on the front line through the sentence "Rong Ma Guan Shan Bei".
It is precisely because of Du Fu's poetry that with these characteristics, Chairman Mao, after carefully reading Du Fu's collected poems, will affirmatively say that Du Fu wrote "political poems."
Chairman Mao not only liked Du Fu, but also liked Li Bai more. Because Du Fu's poems are "heavy", most of his poems are concerned about the people at the bottom and about the major affairs of the country, not only the theme is heavy, but the emotions are also very sad, and it is breathless to read.
In fact, Du Fu's poems are most suitable for people who have not fought in battles and have not suffered hardships to read. Let these people know more about the world outside of themselves and inspire their sympathy for the people at the bottom.
The phenomenon of "Zhumen wine smells of flesh, and the road has frozen bones", will those people living at the bottom of life not know it? In fact, what is really unknown about this phenomenon is still those who "why don't you eat meat" in the upper echelons of Tang Dynasty society.
In fact, Du Fu was admired after the late Tang Dynasty, also because some learned upper-class literati were able to read Du Fu's poetry and get feelings from it.
But Chairman Mao is different, he came out of the people, he is a person who has suffered since he was a child, and he naturally does not want to see such a scene in the poem again. Therefore, Chairman Mao said that he did not like Du Fu's poetry very much, which is also the common sentiment of people.
However, some people have therefore misunderstood that Chairman Mao did not approve of Du Fu, which is a complete mistake. Because Chairman Mao has made it very clear that Both Li Bai and Du Fu are irreplaceable.
Chairman Mao believed that Li Bai and Du Fu were " immortal artists " and " poets of the people " . The weight of the people in Chairman Mao's mind is really great, and I don't think I need to say more!