Author: Zhang Xianming (Director of the Office of the Editorial Committee of China Publishing Group, Editor-in-Chief)
In 421 (the second year of the Southern Dynasty Song Yongchu), Tao Yuanming, one of the great poets in the history of Chinese literature, created the Book of Peach Blossom Origin (and poems). "Peach Blossom Origin" is a separate preface to the "Peach Blossom Origin Poem", which takes the whereabouts of the "fisherman" as a clue and tells the reader a magical story: this fisherman accidentally found and visited Taohuayuan! You know, no one has found out for nearly 600 years. How can this not be fascinating and amazing!
It has been 1600 years since the peach blossom origin (and poem) came out. The beautiful scenery, beautiful customs of Taohuayuan, and the pastoral life of Taoyuan people who are industrious and simple, honest and honest, and who have no class differences and are equal to everyone and have a rich family, have been permanently retained in the history of Chinese literature through the author's concise poetic words and vivid descriptions, and have had a huge and far-reaching impact on future generations. For thousands of years, the story of Taohuayuan has been widely spread among the people.
Tao Yuanming's poem intends Shi Tao to paint an information picture
Write the scene lyrically to send its meaning
In order to write the peach blossom source in his heart, Tao Yuanming actually adopted two styles of prose and poetry to describe the same object, which was obviously well thought out by the author.
Let's first talk about the prologue "Peach Blossom Origin". In just over 300 words, "The Tale of Peach Blossom Origin" concisely narrates the story of a fisherman (the "fisherman" in the text) accidentally entering and leaving Peach Blossom Garden. Whether it is narration or description, the writing is clean, and the story of Taohuayuan is clear and complete. Compared with "Peach Blossom Origin Poem", "Peach Blossom Origin" is more vivid and fascinating. The whole text is gradually unfolded according to the natural order of the fisherman's whereabouts, that is, "looking for 'Peach Forest' - exploring 'Taoyuan' - entering 'Taoyuan' (visiting 'Taoyuan') - word 'Taoyuan' - and then searching for 'Taoyuan'".
The Taoyuan in the preface is described by the poet as confusing, but it is kind and clear, like a magical land far away in the sky. Of course, the pure and beautiful customs of the Taoyuan people have a realistic basis, which can be confirmed by Tao Yuanming's many idyllic poems, such as "More than ten acres of square houses and eight or nine grass houses" in "Guiyuan Tianju" (one of them). The eaves of the elm willow shade, in front of the tao li luo hall. Ambiguous distant village, clinging to the smoke in the ruins. Dogs bark in the deep alley, chickens chirp mulberry trees upside down. There is no dust in the household, and there is spare time in the virtual room." Reading Tao Yuanming's poems describing pastoral life, it can be said that the simple rural customs and folk atmosphere of Taohuayuan and the hospitality of Taoyuan people all come from Tao Yuanming's rural life.
Then there is the "Peach Blossom Origin Poem". "Taohuayuan Poem" is a poet's tone to highly praise the freedom, happiness, peace and tranquility of Taoyuan people, and the poet Tao Yuanming is lyrical for the people of Taoyuan and also for the pastoral ideal life that human beings yearn for. The poem is divided into three parts: "The Chaos of the Yin Dynasty,...... Coming and Going" is the first part; the poet narrates the origin of the people in the peach blossom garden. "Farming with each other's fate,...... Yu He Lao Wisdom" is the second part; the poet introduces the reader to the life of the Taoyuan people. People here work at sunrise, rest at sunset, work together, cultivate at the right time, have no calendar, grow up at four o'clock, harvest silkworms in spring, ripen in autumn without taxes, and everyone lives a happy and harmonious life. "Strange Trail Hidden Five Hundred,...... Holding aloft the Search for Wuqi" as the third part, the poet expressed his feelings and discussions about the life of the Taoyuan people. "May the words be light and the wind be lifted high", which means that the poet hopes to ride the breeze and fly high in pursuit of those who share his own interests. Because "Peach Blossom Source Poem" is a poem, it directly expresses the poet's own feelings, and it is also what the poet calls "sending his meaning".
"Peach Blossom Origin" is the preface to "Peach Blossom Origin Poem", which takes the fisherman's whereabouts as a clue and must be limited by the fisherman's knowledge, so it is only used as a background story to help readers understand the "Peach Blossom Origin Poem". "Peach Blossom Origin" focuses on the storyline, appealing to the reader's intuition, the text is vivid and lively, the steps are fascinating, and the sense of reality is strong. "Peach Blossom Origin Poem" focuses on lyrical speech, appealing to the reader's rationality, highly summarizing historical facts, thought-provoking everywhere, and strong sense of historical depth. From the textual analysis, although the Peach Blossom Origin (and poem) has a clear time, place, character and story, it should be classified as a fiction in literary works, and the peach blossom source written by the author is a synthesis of his own life experience and strange imagination. In short, "The Tale of Peach Blossom Origin" is neither a real person nor a real thing.
"Peach Blossom Origin" volume Zhu Yunxing cursive information picture
Life is imprinted between the lines
Tao Yuanming was the most outstanding poet between the late Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty, and the most famous poet who appeared after Qu Yuan in the history of Chinese poetry and before Li Bai and Du Fu. He was born on the occasion of the Chang dynasty, catching up with the turbulent years, social unrest, and displacement of the people. In a war-torn environment, the poet who has entered his prime cannot achieve even if he has a single ambition.
Judging from the specific poems, Tao Yuanming's life has roughly experienced three stages: idleness in the early years, retirement and seclusion after middle age. Reading through his works, I feel that his poetry flows from his lungs. For example, "The knot is in the human realm, and there is no car or horse noise... Under the eastern fence of picking chrysanthemums, leisurely see Nanshan" "Drinking" (its fifth), writing that the poet lived a leisurely and self-sufficient life in the "human realm (non-fairyland)" - "Nanshan (Lushan)" - "Nancun", and obtained a free and idyllic state of mind. In the poem "Drinking Alcohol" (its nineteenth), "Divide everything and return to the field with your clothes folded", it is even more proof that when the poet resigned from the state liquor ceremony at the age of 29, he had the intention of ending up in the field. Speaking of "opening up the wilderness in the south, guarding the humble return to the garden field", "Returning to the garden and living in the field" (the first), "both ploughing and planting, when still reading my book" and "reading the Classic of Mountains and Seas" (part 1), it expresses the han Confucian poet Tao Yuanming's experience of the joy of pastoral cultivation and reading after returning to hermitage. The imagery of "Lost Birds" and "Lonely Pine" in "Drinking Alcohol" (Part IV) can also be seen that Tao Yuanming's choice to resign from his official position and live in isolation in his prime is not entirely his active choice, which is more social rejection of him. In addition, he has a straight personality, is clear and honest, and is unwilling to bow his knees and climb to the magnates, so he has a sharp contradiction with the dirty and dark real society, resulting in incompatible feelings. "The birds love the old forest, and the pond fish think of the past." Open up the wilderness in the south, and keep the humble return to the garden field" "Return to the garden and the field" (the first), Tao Yuanming said here that he did not adapt to the life of the career, but had a strong pastoral complex. Therefore, the choice between entry and retreat eventually became his most frequent ideological contradiction. As a result, solitude and seclusion have always become Tao Yuanming's thoughts in his bones.
When Tao Yuanming was young, he had the ambition of "Daji Cangsheng". "Young people are rare, you are good in the Six Classics" "Drinking" (its sixteenth) proves that Tao Yuanming grew up under the influence of Confucian culture, he believed that Confucianism can save the world, and also worked as a petty official such as Jiangzhou Sacrifice Wine and Pengze County Order, but finally because he did not want to bend the flattery and had a bad career. The harsh reality has led to the han disciples entering the world without a door, and the result has caused Tao Yuanming's mentality of "the world abandons me, I also abandon the world" in which individuals and society are mutually exclusive. And "the first teacher has a testament, and the way of worry is not to worry about poverty." Looking forward to the difficulty of catching, turning to the desire to be long-term and diligent" "The Second Song of the Ancient Tianshe in the First Spring of the Year of The Decade", it is said that the poet should have been worried, but the Tao is not feasible, so he has to work hard to provide for himself. At the age of 41, Tao Yuanming resigned from the Pengze County Order for only 81 days because he was "unwilling to bend his waist for five buckets of rice", and completely began a life of seclusion, and since then he has lived in seclusion for a long time in the countryside, cultivating the secluded wilderness, alienating himself from the society of the Gaomen shi clan, and turning to be close to the grass-roots people. Throughout his life, Tao Yuanming admired and remembered the simple style of ancient society, and did not have a good feeling for the society where there was class exploitation, especially for the powerful Qin Empire (Qin Dynasty), calling it "Crazy Qin", "Drinking" (its twenty), "Yin's Chaotic Heavenly Age" and "Peach Blossom Origin Poem". He believes that only in the ancient and simple society, people will have a self-sufficient and satisfactory happy life. Looking at all of Tao Yuanming's poems, we can see his in-depth philosophical thinking on life and society everywhere, and in the dirty world, he started from the inherent Confucian concept, opened up another world, and envisioned wandering in ancient societies such as Wuhuaishi and Ge Tianshi, and repeatedly lamented the Confucian datong thought. This can be clearly felt from the "Biography of Mr. Wuliu" written by Tao Yuanming a year before the creation of "Peach Blossom Origin" (and poems). "The Biography of Mr. Wuliu" is a documentary biography written by the poet himself, Tao Yuanming wrote that his reading focuses on "knowing the will", but does not seek much understanding; the focus of the writing is on "self-entertainment", but also quite self-ambition; including drinking, it is also "the period will be drunk, both drunk and retreat". It can be seen from this that the poet in daily life is a cheerful person, a person in temperament, and a person who is real on the surface. Of course, although Tao Yuanming's mentality in his later years is "far away from his own bias", but "the fierce ambition is always there", he can not change the real society, he had to use creation to express his feelings, and finally created a beautiful realm opposite to the dirty and dark society, in order to pin his life ideals and beautiful tastes. From Tao Yuanming's poems, it can be clearly felt that his mood of living under the South Mountain is relatively happy, and his life is at ease with the encounter. He farmed, picked chrysanthemums, and traveled with poetry and wine. To this day, at the foot of Nanshan Mountain, there is still a huge stone on which Tao Yuanming often lay down after he was drunk (now referred to as "drunken stone"). Tao Yuanming, the earliest and most influential pastoral poet in China, because he always cared about the fate of the peasants, thought about it all the time, and it was inevitable that a paradise would be conjured up from his heart. It can be judged that all the poems created by Tao Yuanming, especially the famous poems such as "Five Songs of Returning to the Garden and Tianju", "Twenty Songs of Drinking" and "Peach Blossom Origin Poems", have marked the back of the times and the author's life for the birth of "Peach Blossom Origin".
Peach Blossom Origin is poetic
As mentioned above, the Taohuayuan Ji is a short preface or a small note in front of the Taohuayuan Poem, which is Tao Yuan's work of the next year and the most representative masterpiece of Tao Yuanming's entire creation. It mobilizes the poet's entire accumulation of life, both intellectually and artistically, to the highest achievement of the author's personal creation. At this time, Tao Yuanming resigned from the government and retired to seclusion for many years, and he had already transformed into an ordinary laborer, and his thoughts and feelings and the working people had long been imprinted on their hearts. He has a personal experience of the bitter life of "long hunger in summer, no sleep in cold nights" ("Complaint Poem Chu Tune Pang Master Book Deng Zhizhong"), and he also saw the painful situation of ordinary people starving and cold. The harsh real life prompted him to be dissatisfied with reality and explore a bright future, and "Peach Blossom Origin" is an inevitable product of this ideological development.
In 411 AD, Tao Yuanming created the Second Song of Migration (the second). Among them, the two poems of "Spring and Autumn Are More Good Days, Ascending to the Heights and Giving New Poems" are simply an advance preview for his creation of "Peach Blossom Origin" (and poems) ten years later. On a spring day when the sky is clear, the wind is beautiful and the peach blossoms are in full bloom, a fisherman ghost makes the god send to the peach blossom source of his heart, he is really "ascending"! He has climbed to an unprecedented height of thought, and he has really depicted a new realm of life, writing an unprecedented "new poem" - "Peach Blossom Origin" (and poem).
So, what is the original intention of the author to be expressed in "Peach Blossom Origin" and "Peach Blossom Origin Poem"? Here, there are two questions that have puzzled how many people and how many years, which need to be carefully analyzed.
First of all, who is this fisherman in "Peach Blossom Origin"?
When reading "The Tale of Peach Blossom Origin", readers will definitely care about the image of the fisherman throughout the text. From the analysis of the previous text, it is not difficult to see that the "five wonders" that run through the entire preface of "Taohuayuan Poem" are full of Tao Yuanming's life, experience, personality and emotions, and "Taohuayuan Poem" is written in the tone of a poet, and the preface and the text of the poem cannot be inconsistent. Therefore, the "fisherman" in the preface is undoubtedly the author himself. Thinking of the author's life experience, in June 408, when Tao Yuanming was living in seclusion in the countryside, his home was hit by a fire, and not a single house was left. Tao Yuanming and his family lived on the ship for a not short period of time. It can be seen from this that in the preface, the author constructs the story with the fisherman, pretending that the fisherman has discovered the peach blossom source, which is based on life. The reason for writing this way, of course, is to make the things and feelings described appear more natural and real.
Secondly, is the peach blossom source that everyone yearns for an ideal society or a utopia?
"The Tale of Peach Blossom Origin" depicts a simple and natural external world. Anyone who has read the Book of Peach Blossoms (and poems) is amazed that there is no war, no taxes, no bloody feudal dynastic succession, and the relationship between people is so peaceful and sincere. Life is so beautiful, and every family's life is rich and comfortable. This is undoubtedly fascinating for people living in hypocrisy and darkness, frequent wars, and bloodshed. But we must rationally see that Tao Yuanming's peach blossom garden is highly idealized, centralized and poetic. The relevant chapter of The History of Chinese Literature (People's Literature Publishing House), edited by Professors You Guoen, Wang Qi, Ji Zhenhuai, and Fei Zhengang, believes that Tao Yuanming "put forward the social ideal of 'Taohuayuan'" and that it "vividly shows the picture of life in an ideal society." The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature (Sanlian Bookstore), edited by Sun Kangyi and Yuwen Soan, argues: "The Tale of Peach Blossom Origin describes a utopian society. In the author's opinion, what the author wants to express is neither a "social ideal" nor a "utopian society", but only an idea of the pastoral life in his heart, or a picture of a beautiful pastoral life in the form of art. This did not exist in the society of the time. Therefore, it is wrong to artificially elevate the author's original intention or true intention.
First, look at the "Peach Blossom Origin" there is an account of "this person heard in the village", which clearly shows that the object of the author's writing is only a natural village. In remote places in ancient times, there may have been such places. But the problem is that this is just a natural village, it is not the organizational structure that human society should have, the second is that Taoyuan people have not been in contact with the outside world for a long time, and they have lived an equal life of "salt and salt, no salt and light", which is doomed to its existence will not last long, and the third is that Tao Yuanming's peach blossom source obviously carries the poet's own spiritual imprint. In the chapter, "there are fathers and sons, no monarchs", there are families, there is no village organization, and the relationship between people only exists as a simple moral relationship based on blood, and far from establishing various social relations based on class (of course, there is no class in Taohuayuan) and above the state. This reflects the author's affirmation of "home" and his denial of "country". Therefore, although the peach blossom garden is beautiful, it is not true, because it is made by the poet with "heart"! The Taoyuan people advise the fishermen to be "not humane enough for outsiders", although it reveals that the Taoyuan people are very satisfied with their current life and do not want outsiders to disturb the tranquility of their lives, but this is also clearly the author's self-confession. In the preface, Taohuayuan is called the "desperate situation" of "spacing with outsiders" (this is the "literary eye" to understand the whole text), which means that Taohuayuan cannot be said to the outside world, and no one can find it! Therefore, it is by no means an ideal society, but only an imaginary picture in the author's mind, depicting the grand beauty of the self-sufficiency of an ancient village under natural economic conditions, because of the labor of everyone. I can't find it, because there is no peach blossom in the world.
Finally, what is the theme of "Peach Blossom Origin" (and poems)?
In summary, Tao Yuanming's "Taohuayuan" (and poems) does not reveal any "social ideals", let alone depict a "utopia", all the interpretations of various opinions, mostly learners and researchers use the ideas of future generations of philosophers to over-interpret this fictional classic literary work. Returning to the author's original intention, "Peach Blossom Origin" (and poem) is a rather mythical legend based on the author's own experience and life. The theme of "Peach Blossom Origin" (and poem) is that Tao Yuanming expresses the author's incomparable love and sincere yearning for the idyllic ideal life of freedom, equality, tranquility and prosperity through the vivid depiction of the Taoyuan people relying on labor to create a harmonious and happy life. It fully embodies the author's pursuit of life, is the concentrated sublimation and image display of the author's pastoral ideal life, and is also a song of yearning for the pastoral ideal life. It provides us with a new and harmonious pastoral life realm, and directly stimulates the infinite vision and pursuit of a harmonious and rich pastoral life for future generations.
Guangming Daily (12th edition, November 6, 2021)
Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily