Su Shi (1037—11) was born in Meishan (present-day Sichuan). He was born in a poor family of scribes, and his father Su Xun became an official by studying hard. Influenced by his father, he took the same path. When I was young, "learning the history of classics is a thousand words" (Su Zhe's Epitaph of Mr. Dongpo).
In the second year of Injong Jiayou (1057), he was 21 years old, appreciated by Ouyang Xiu, and was admitted to Jinshi. In the sixth year, Jiayou asked for advice, awarded the appraisal book of Dali Temple to Fengxiang House to save his official business, and began a bumpy career.
When Su Shi first entered the official career, it was just when the political and social crisis in the Northern Song Dynasty began to be exposed and the voice of scholar-bureaucrat reform was rising day by day, and he was quickly involved in this wave. During the six years of Jia You's countermeasures, he commented on the drawbacks of political reform, and then put forward suggestions on enriching the people, Qiang Bing and selecting officials in terms of ideology and governance theory. However, Su Shi, like Ouyang Xiu, held a moderate attitude towards political reform. The so-called "things are easy because of the law, but people are not surprised because of the incident" ("Question on the career strategy of the defense museum") shows that he hopes to carry out reforms without causing drastic changes, mainly by consciously adjusting and improving morality in all walks of life to change the decline of society.
Therefore, when Wang Anshi carried out the new law and reformed by changing the political and economic system, he stood on the opposite side of the new law with a large number of literati such as Ouyang Xiu and was involved in the upper political conflict. During Wang Anshi's reign, Su Shi took the initiative to ask for release. He first spread the punishment to Hangzhou, and then worked as a magistrate in Mizhou, Xuzhou and Huzhou.
In fact, Wang Anshi Xining's strike in the ninth year (1076) has explained that the failure of the new law is due to its own defects and external resistance. Since then, the debate between opposing and supporting the new law has been more linked to the power struggle between the ruling classes. In the second year of Yuanfeng, Su Shi, who was working in Huzhou, was suddenly arrested and imprisoned on charges of attacking the new court law with poetry. This is the famous Wutai Poetry Case. Although Su Shi was rescued from prison and demoted to Huangzhou (now Huanggang, Hubei Province) to help the war, he was mentally hit hard by this despicable literary prison. During his stay in Huangzhou, he became a Buddhist in Dongpo, wandering between mountains and rivers, seeking liberation from Laozi, Zhuangzi and Buddhism.
After Zongshen's death, Zhezong succeeded to the throne, and the empress dowager listened to politics, and the political situation changed greatly. Sima Guang and others who originally opposed the new law entered the DPRK and held important positions, and the new law was abolished one by one. So Su Shi was called to Beijing as a layman, a calligrapher and a bachelor of Hanlin. However, Su Shi originally affirmed part of the contents of the new law, so he disagreed with Sima Guang and others who blindly "exchanged one for two" and advocated "taking advantage of the quantity" (Query on the Professional Policy of Debate Museum); And his personality, as he himself said, "is just shy, black and white is too bright, and it is difficult to be in public" ("On the Frontier Will Hide the Constitution and Destroy it, and the volume is not true"), so he has differences with those in power, which has intensified into sharp contradictions in politics, academics, and even emotions and parties. He was in a position of "anger" and "suspicion" and was attacked by people including the "Old Party" and Luo Zhong Neo-Confucianism, so he had to ask himself to transfer from Beijing to Hangzhou.
Since then, he has been constantly attacked and framed, and he has been transferred to local official positions in Yingzhou, Yangzhou and Dingzhou.
After the death of Empress Dowager Gao, Zhezong was in charge of state affairs. In order to show his opinion and authority, he reversed the situation, announced that he would inherit Zongshen's tradition, and used bureaucrats who claimed to support the new law to crack down on the "old party." So Su Shi was put on the punishment list again, and was demoted again and again, and finally was demoted to Lingnan and Hainan Island. It was not until Fu Yuan's third year (1 100) that Song Huizong acceded to the throne and granted amnesty to Yuan You's old party before returning to the north and arriving in Changzhou the following year. Due to the torture of long exile and the hardships of long journey, he can't afford to get sick here. There is a collection of poems and poems "Dongpo Seven Chapters" and a collection of words "Dongpo Yuefu".
Su Shi has always played a strange role in the political struggle and power struggle for many years in the middle of the Northern Song Dynasty. Just as his concubine Chaoyun said that he was "out of date" (Fei Zhou's "Liang Xi Man Zhi"), he did not please the old party or the new party. But it is here that a basic aspect of his humanity is reflected.
Su Shi studied the history of Confucian classics since childhood and was deeply influenced by Confucian ideals. He "strives to have contemporary ambition" (Su Zhe's Epitaph of Mr. Dongpo). In his life, no matter whether his opinions are correct or not, he always dares to stick to his own opinions. He refuses to be a smooth bureaucrat, does not blindly follow, does not practice favoritism, and always maintains the spirit of black and white, as if this were the case. As a local official, he always cares about the people's sufferings and strives to promote the advantages and eliminate the disadvantages. As a scholar-bureaucrat with social responsibility, he has a firm and persistent personality.
On the other hand, Su Shi, who has experienced many years of officialdom turmoil and life humiliation, also clearly saw the inevitable darkness, meanness and sinister in political struggle and felt the helplessness of life. Therefore, he sought transcendental liberation from the philosophy of Laozi and Zhuangzi and Hyunri of Buddhism and Zen. He viewed the bitterness and happiness of life and the right and wrong of the world from the standpoint of infinite time and space, combined with the attitude of Zen, treated all changes with a "normal heart" and conformed to nature, in order to seek personal inner peace. When all kinds of misfortunes struck, he treated it with broad-minded macro-psychology, and regarded it as a short-lived phenomenon in the cyclical change of everything in the world; He doesn't want to suffer from it, but seeks some beauty and comfort in his "at arm's length" life. For example, he was banished to Lingnan, which was a place far from evil at that time. He said, "Three hundred pears a day, I don't want to grow up to be a Lingnan person."
(Eat Litchi Branch) is the expression of this attitude towards life. There is no doubt that Su Shi's above-mentioned psychology actually contains more profound sadness than the sadness directly revealed in general, including self-anesthesia and pleasure in suffering. This psychology weakens the intensity of passion in his literary creation, but at the same time, we should also see that this is not only the product of the culture of the times, but also shows the great feelings of observing society and life from a higher position and dealing with personal misfortunes.
Shen Liao, a good friend and poet of Su Shi, wrote in Mr. Dongpo's Poems: Eguan stood upright and talked, and the lofty spirit shook the national wind. Instead, I put a towel on the staff and went straight to the child. Su Shi's personality spirit is summarized from two aspects. He is solemn and peaceful, and he not only inherits the personality ideal of scholar-officials who actively join the WTO, but also keeps the personality ideal of scholar-officials who seek to transcend the secular and artistic life realm and spiritual realm, and integrates them into one, skillfully solving the contradictions that have been intertwined in the hearts of scholar-officials, such as enterprising and retiring, entering the WTO and being born, society and individuals, and fully showing them in literary works. Su Shi set an example for the literati who later lived in similar social conditions, and thus gained their universal respect.
Second, Bai Juyi
Bai Juyi (772-846), whose real name is Lotte, is another outstanding realistic poet after Du Fu in the Tang Dynasty. Taiyuan people, born in an official family, have great-grandfathers, both of whom are officials. My father is a doctor in North Korea, a driver in Xiangzhou, and my young daughter is in Dali, which is a gift to the right servant of the minister of punishments. Because his ancestors were officials in Henan, he lived in Henan. Bai Juyi was born on the 20th day of the first month of the seventh year in Dali, Tang Daizong (AD 772), from Dongguofu, Xinzheng County, Henan Province. Wu Zonghui Chang died in Luoyang in August in the sixth year (846) at the age of 75.
When Bai Juyi was born, Li Bai had died 10 years, and Du Fu had died for 2 years. The times need great poets, and Bai Juyi came at the right time. He came from a scholarly family and was extremely clever since he was a child. He learned to write poetry at the age of five or six, and he could distinguish rhyme at the age of nine. In addition, his family and society gave him great stimulation and supervision. He studied very hard when he was young. Later, recalling the reading situation at that time, he said, "I study at night and sometimes I study poetry." I haven't slept for a long time, so that my mouth is sour and my elbow is sore. " When I was a teenager, I once lived a life of refuge, and I knew all aspects of society. These reasons created Bai Juyi, an outstanding poet.
Shortly after Bai Juyi was born, a war broke out in Henan. Pu Town, where Li is located, is divided into more than ten states by Henan, and this kind of chaos seems to continue. Peng Cheng County magistrate promoted him to be Bai, a special bus driver in Xuzhou, and sent his son Bai Juyi south to avoid chaos. I have taken refuge from home since I was a child, and later I went to the north and south to prepare for hardship. So when he was 15 years old, he wrote a quatrain that recorded the true feelings at that time; "What do you want from your hometown? Li Yu in Wushan Bay, Chushui. Today, because you went to see your brother, I cried several lines in a book. " Later, there was the Seven Laws of Sending Brothers and Sisters, which was also well written and has been praised. The poem reads: "My fields and gardens were destroyed by the war, and my flesh and blood became the scum of the street ... * * * When you look at the bright moon, you should cry, because your heart is sick in five places." From these poems, we can see Bai Juyi's living conditions and psychological feelings at that time. The separation of his family's flesh and blood can also reflect the degree of social unrest and people's displacement at that time. Bai Juyi spent his boyhood in such an environment.
When Bai Juyi was 0/6 years old, he had written many good poems that could be handed down from generation to generation, the most famous of which was the five-character poem Farewell to the Ancient Grass. It is said that Bai Juyi came to Chang 'an for the first time to visit the old poet Gu Kuang. When Gu Kuang heard that his name was easy to live in, he joked, "Chang 'an is expensive, but it is not easy to live in it. "I read the poem" The Mountain Fire is Unfinished and the Spring Breeze is High "and praised it. It is not difficult to live in Chang 'an with such a style of writing. This poem really shows Bai Juyi's extraordinary talent.
Since arriving in Chang 'an, Gu Kuang has become famous for this. Bai Juyi sometimes lives in Chang 'an and sometimes in other places. He has been to Xuzhou, Xiangzhou, Hangzhou and other places, made friends with some poets and really started his career as a poet. At the age of 27, he took part in the provincial examination, was appreciated by Cui Yan, the secretariat of Xuanzhou, and was sent to Chang 'an for an examination the following year. In the 16th year of Zhenyuan (800), he was 29 years old, and he was the fourth and the first scholar. 365-year-old, 438+0, won the top prize in the exam, met Yuan Zhen and others at the same time, and became friends with Yuan Zhen from then on. In the spring of the age of 32, Bai Juyi was awarded the school book lang, which was regarded as a successful career. At the age of 33, he moved from Luoyang to the State of Qin, Bu Juwei, about a hundred miles away from Chang 'an. At the age of 35, he no longer worked as a school book lang, and was later named as a county captain in Zhouzhi. The following year, Zhouzhi County Commandant was transferred to Jinshi Examiner to supplement Jixian Academy. This winter, he was awarded a bachelor's degree in Hanlin. Just before and after he was awarded a bachelor's degree in Hanlin, he married his sister Yang Yuqing. In the third year of Yuanhe (808), he worshipped the left and collected the remains.
Li Jifu, the prime minister at that time, was dissatisfied with Niu Monks, Confucians and others who criticized the failure of state affairs. Bai Juyi, who was newly appointed as a scavenger, went as far as "On the Human System" and said that he was arbitrarily relegated, so he offended Li Stepfather and Li Deyu and his son, and unfortunately fell into the whirlpool of political struggle at that time. Bai Juyi was always pushed out by Li Deyu in the decades-long struggle between Niu and Li, which determined that his life's official career was not smooth. During his ear-picking, he did his duty and repeatedly dissatisfied the emperor or the powerful minister.
In April of the 6th year of Yuanhe (8 1 1), Bai Juyi settled in Wei Village due to his mother's death, and his beloved daughter Jin Luanzi also died in this year. Bai Juyi has lived in Weiwei village for more than three years, suffering from poverty and illness, and his good friend Yuan Zhen often takes out money to help him tide over the difficulties. In the winter of the ninth year of Yuanhe (8 14), he was named "Dr. Zuo Zan", but later he asked for the urgent arrest of the person who stabbed Wu. As a result, he was hated by the Prime Minister, demoted to the state secretariat, and later demoted to Jiangzhou Sima by Wang Ya, the official of Zhongshu. This continuous relegation is a great blow and lesson to Bai Juyi, which has greatly changed his thoughts. In order to avoid disaster and suspicion, in Jiangzhou, "no more speaking out", "the world will never speak out again", claiming to be "a person who has fallen to the end of the world" He traveled and wrote poems as his career, longing for Tao Yuanming, hoping to be a recluse poet and turn to Buddhism in an attempt to get rid of Buddhism. In short, being demoted to Jiangzhou Sima is a major turning point in Bai Juyi's life.
Bai Juyi lived in Jiangzhou for four years, then moved to Zhongzhou, and was recalled in Yuanhe fifteen years. Xianzong collapsed, and Mu Zong succeeded to the throne, and he was named the Chinese Book Scheeren. Later, he paid a visit to Dr. Shang Shu, learned the imperial edict, sent the doctor away, and transferred to Zhu Guo. Bai Juyi's spirit is heavy and exciting. In the poem, he said, "If you get water, you can get fish, and riding a crane can also be spiritual." However, due to the fierce factional disputes at that time, he was not only powerless, but also "worried all the time" and marveled at "the danger of a trap under the high position". Soon I was disappointed again. Afraid of being a victim of power again, he dared not stay in North Korea for a long time, so he asked to go abroad. In the second year of Changqing (822), he went out to be the secretariat of Hangzhou, avoiding the court that was cruelly wooed by his cronies. Since then, his thoughts have been further depressed. The poem said: "Who knows that fame and fortune are exhausted, and there is no peace." "Dare to speak slowly and be safe." Let it go, let it go, it's a little forgotten. In order to get rid of the troubles of life, Bai Juyi indulged himself with prostitutes, music, poetry and wine. He went whoring and drinking until his later years. Tibetan prostitutes began to have fun in the Eastern Jin Dynasty and were common in the Tang Dynasty, especially Bai Juyi. There are more than a dozen prostitutes whose names are known from his poems. Alcoholic, according to him, "only drunk is the hometown", "often drunk, not awake all day." Song people counted Bai Juyi's poems and said that he had "2,800 poems and 900 drinkers." So it's all escapism and self-anesthesia. He further sought spiritual support from Buddhism, sought a way of liberation, and anesthetized and comforted himself with the negative thoughts of Buddhism. Bai Juyi, who was recorded in Biography of Monks in the Great Song Dynasty, paid a visit to the monks, asked about Buddhism and discussed with them the magical use of Buddhism, mostly after leaving Hangzhou. Bai Juyi then fasted and sat in the Dojo. From then on, he became a good Buddha and often fasted for three months, that is, sitting in the Dojo at home in January, May and September. Therefore, Bai Juyi is also a representative of ancient literati who worships Buddhism and is philosophical, and many people in the past dynasties admire him. In fact, his worship of Buddha is not really to serve the Buddha, but to relieve his troubles and seek liberation. It was a passive resistance to society, a retreat, and a helpless choice under the social environment at that time. It is caused by career bumps and disappointments. After the pain, I devoted myself to releasing my family. Bai Juyi's Biography of Mr. Zuiyin in his later years expressed himself in Baiyun: "Sex is addicted to alcohol, piano and obscene language. All drinkers, piano friends and poetry friends swim with them, and after swimming, they live in their hearts and release their homes. " We can see that he likes to drink in front of the Buddha. He even doubted whether there was a Buddha. At the same time, I learned alchemy. Strictly speaking, Bai Juyi is not a true Buddhist believer. At the same time, his worship of Buddhism is also for fitness reasons. That's why he sometimes sits in the Dojo while fasting, thinking about prostitutes and drinking wine.
Although he was passive, a prostitute, an alcoholic and a Buddhist, he played an important role in caring for the sufferings of the people in Hangzhou. The most famous is to build a lake embankment in Hangzhou to store water and irrigate the fields. In memory of him, people built a dam named "Bai Causeway". In addition, they dug six wells in the city for people to drink.
In May of the 4th year of Changqing (824), his term in Hangzhou expired. Except prince Zuo bastard, Shi Dongdu. So, he lives in Luoyang Road. I have been an official for 20 years, but I can't get enough money to buy a house, so I have to pay it back with two horses. This shows that he is an honest official. In the second year, except for Suzhou secretariat, he was only in Suzhou secretariat for more than a year, and was exempted from county affairs due to illness. Liu Yuxi went to the state secretariat, and Liu returned to Luoyang with Bai. A year later, Bai Juyi was transferred to the position of assistant minister of punishments and named Jinyang Gongjun. At the age of 58, that is, in the spring of the third year of Daiwa (829), Bai Juyi said that he was ill and refused to come back. Since then, I have never returned, except for Henan Yin, seeking to avoid illness. At the age of 64, he refused to worship except in the same state, changed to a prince of Shaofu, and divided the company into the east capital. Due to negative emotions and health reasons, he doesn't want to be an official anymore. At the age of 60, his son Ali died, which was another blow to the poet. At the age of 73, he opened eight stone beaches in Longmen to facilitate boat trips. He died at the age of 75.
Judging from Bai Juyi's official career, although he is mostly an official, he is always in a state of anxiety and anger. As a poet, his achievements are remarkable, which can be said to be known to both the government and the public, even to women and children. Probably because of his wandering when he was young, he was demoted several times later, and he became an immortal poet because of his extensive experience and deep understanding of society.
Bai Juyi's poems, as I said before, have been well written since childhood. /kloc-at the age of 0/6, the sentence "wildfire spring breeze" became a famous sentence through the ages. The most famous narrative poem "Song of Eternal Sorrow" is a masterpiece of China's ancient poetry, which was written when he served as the zhouzhi county Order at the age of 35. The poem is based on the story of Xuanzong and Yang Guifei, which is circulated among the people. It is fictional and vividly written. It is vivid and touching, and is regarded by critics as a masterpiece of long poems in the Tang Dynasty, which occupies a prominent position in the history of China's poetry. In this poem, he dared to criticize Tang Xuanzong's debauchery. There are even such languages as "the emperor of China, eager to shake the beauty of an empire" and "the emperor, from then on, gave up his early hearing". The affectionate description of them is both ironic and full of pity. Speaking of the situation in Where Are You Going, the pen is quite emotional. The whole poem rises from the twists and turns of the story, full of emotion and complexity, which gives people great appeal.
Bai Juyi classified his poems into four categories. Besides satirical poems, there are leisure poems, sentimental poems and miscellaneous poems, most of which are well written. Generally speaking, early poetry is more valuable than later poetry. It is a pity that his later poems no longer have the edge of youth because of the cold world.
As a great poet and brilliant poet, Bai Juyi's creative talents are various. His poems are diverse not only in artistic form, but also in ideological content and artistic style. One of the greatest characteristics of white poetry is that the language is easy to understand, but at the same time it has undergone a lot of artistic processing. In the poetry circle, there is a story, and an old woman is also explaining white poetry. In "Tang Yin Tong Qian" written by Hu Zhenheng, a poetic theorist in the Ming Dynasty, Zhang Wenqian, a poet in the Song Dynasty, once saw the record of Bai Juyi's manuscript, saying that "the original work is not lost, but the first work is lost", which shows that Bai Juyi is diligent in writing and proofreading poems. The artistic level of his poems is the result of the author's efforts.
When Bai Juyi was alive, his poems spread widely and had great influence, which made him very proud. Bai Juyi said in "Nine Books with Yuan": "From Chang 'an to Jiangxi for three or four thousand miles, there are often poets in rural schools, Buddhist temples, anti-tourism and boating; At the mouth of the earth, monks, widows, virgins, there are always servants who recite poems. "Yuan Zhen also said Bai Juyi's poem," In the past twenty years, provinces, temples, posts and walls have been banned without books, and ministers, concubines and horses have no discomfort. As for those who sell Moeller Street in the market, or take it as wine and tea, it is everywhere. "A person's poetry has such a social effect in contemporary times, which is rare in ancient times. Not only that, Bai Juyi's poems gained great international reputation and numerous foreign readers at that time, and were circulated and created in Japan, Silla (now Korea), South Japan (now Vietnam) and other countries. According to historical records, the then Emperor Emei of Japan copied many poems of Bai Juyi and secretly recited them in his secret house. King Khitan personally translated the white poems into Khitan characters and ordered the ministers to read them aloud.
It goes without saying that Bai Juyi's poems have a great and far-reaching influence on later poems, and white poems will always be loved by people all over the world and spread through the ages.
References:
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