Chinese celebrities – Li Bai

Li Bai (701-December 762), whose name was Taibai, was named Qinglianjushi, also known as “The Immortal”. A great romantic poet in the Tang Dynasty, he was hailed as “The Immortal of Poetry” by future generations, and he was called “The Immortal of Poetry” together with Du Fu. “Li Du”, to distinguish from the other two poets, Li Shangyin and Du Mu, namely ” little Li and Du “, Du Fu and Li Bai are collectively called “big Li and Du”. Peking University professor Li Zhimin commented: “Li Bai’s poems breathe the universe and go beyond the Tao; Du Fu’s poems have towering virtues, originated from Confucianism, and reach the realm of harmony between man and nature, so they can be superbly transformed.” “Old Tang Book” records Li Bai is a native of Shandong; “New Book of the Tang Dynasty” records that Li Bai is the ninth grandson of the Xingsheng Emperor Li Hao and the same clan as the kings of Li and Tang. He is hearty and generous, loves to drink and write poetry, and likes to make friends.
Li Bai was deeply influenced by the thoughts of Huang Lao Lie Zhuang, and his “Li Taibai Collection” was handed down to the world. Most of his poems were written when he was drunk. His representative works include “Wanglu Mountain Waterfall”, “Difficulties in Traveling”, “Difficulties in Shu Road”, “Jiang Entering Wine”, and “Mingtang” “Fu”, “Early Delivery of Baidi City” and many other poems.
Li Bai’s Ci Fu, Song Dynasty has a biography (such as Wenying’s “Xiang Shan Ye Lu” volume), in terms of its pioneering significance and artistic achievements, “Li Bai Ci” enjoys an extremely lofty status.
libai

Major achievements

1.Poetry

(1)Summary

Li Bai’s Yuefu, Gexing, and Quatrain achievements are the highest. His song line completely breaks all the inherent format of poetry creation, has nothing to rely on, and has a variety of brushwork, reaching the magical realm of unpredictable and swaying randomness. Li Bai’s quatrains are natural and lively, elegant and unrestrained, and can express endless emotions in simple and lively language. Among the poets in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, Wang Wei and Meng Haoran were better than Wujue, Wang Changling and other Qijue wrote very well, and only Li Bai was the one who had both the Wujue and the Qijue and reached the extreme.
Li Bai’s poems are magnificent and elegant, and his artistic achievements are extremely high. He praised the mountains and rivers of the motherland and the beautiful natural scenery, his style is majestic and unrestrained, handsome and fresh, full of the romantic spirit, and achieved the unity of content and art. He is called the “Sex Immortal” by He Zhizhang. Most of his poems are about describing mountains and rivers and expressing inner emotions. Li Bai’s poems have the artistic charm of “the writing is frightening the wind and rain, and the poems become weeping ghosts”, which is also the most distinctive artistic feature of his poems. Li Bai’s poems are full of self-expression, and the subjective lyric color is very strong, and the expression of emotions has a momentum of overwhelming and turbulent times. He and Du Fu are collectively called “big Li and Du” ( Li Shangyin and Du Mu are collectively called “little Li and Du”).
In Li Bai’s poems, imagination, exaggeration, metaphors, and personification are often combined to create magical, magnificent, and moving artistic conceptions. This is why Li Bai’s romantic poems are bold, unrestrained, and elegant.
Li Bai’s poems had a profound impact on future generations. Famous poets such as Han Yu, Meng Jiao, and Li He in the Mid-Tang Dynasty, Su Shi, Lu You, and Xin Qiji in the Song Dynasty, and Gao Qi, Yang Shen, and Gong Zizhen in the Ming and Qing Dynasties were all greatly influenced by Li Bai’s poems.

(2)style

Heroic and unrestrained, fresh and elegant, rich in imagination, wonderful artistic conception, wonderful language, romanticism, clear intention.
Li Bai lived in the heyday of the Tang Dynasty. He has a heroic personality and loves the mountains and rivers of the motherland. He traveled all over the north and south and wrote a large number of magnificent poems praising famous mountains and rivers. His poems are bold and unrestrained, fresh and elegant, with rich imagination, wonderful artistic conception, and brisk language. People call him “the fairy of poetry”. Li Bai’s poems not only have a typical romantic spirit but also have typical romantic artistic characteristics from image shaping, material ingestion, genre selection, and the use of various artistic techniques.
Li Bai succeeded in shaping himself in it, expressing himself strongly, and highlighting the unique personality of the lyrical protagonist, so his poems have distinctive romantic characteristics. He likes to express himself in a magnificent image, expressing his emotions without concealment or restraint in his poems, and expressing his happiness, anger, sorrow, and joy.
To the powerful and powerful, he “holds a chrysanthemum in his hand and makes fun of two thousand stones” (one of the two poems “Send Cui Shiyu after Drunk”); when he sees the hard work of the working people, his “heart tears like rain”. When Shoji was overthrown and the people’s livelihood was overthrown, he “crossed the river to swear to flow, ambitions in the Qing Central Plains. Draw a sword and strike the front pillar, and the tragedy is hard to reiterate” (“ Lampen Shuhuai ”), so impassioned; The two of them were so innocent and straightforward to drink mountain flowers, one cup after another. I was drunk and slumbering, and the Ming dynasty deliberately hugged the piano” (“The Mountain and the Youren Conversing Drinking “), they were so innocent and straightforward. In short, his poems vividly show his uninhibited character and unconventional image.
Boldness is the main characteristic of Li Bai’s poems. In addition to the various factors of thought, personality, talents, emotions, and other factors, the artistic expression techniques and genre structure adopted by Li Bai’s poems are also important reasons for the formation of his bold and elegant style. Being good at relying on imagination and presenting objectivity subjectively is an important feature of Li Bai’s romantic poetry. Almost all articles have imagination, and some even use a variety of imagination throughout the article. Real things, natural landscapes, myths and legends, historical allusions, and dreams and illusions have all become the medium of his imagination. Often with the help of imagination, transcending time and space, interweaving reality with dreams and fairyland, and interweaving nature with human society, and recreating objective reality. The image in his pen is not a direct reflection of objective reality, but the externalization of his inner subjective world, the reality of art.
One of the romantic artistic techniques of Li Bai’s poems is to combine personification and metaphor ingeniously, empathize with things, and compare things with people.
Another romantic artistic technique in Li Bai’s poems is to grasp a certain characteristic of a matter and to make bold imagination and exaggeration based on the reality of life. His exaggeration not only imagines peculiarities but is always combined with specific things. The exaggeration is so natural and shows no trace; so bold, true, and credible, it plays the role of highlighting the image and strengthening the feelings. Sometimes he combines bold exaggeration with sharp contrast and enhances the artistic effect by increasing the artistic contrast.
Li Bai’s best genre is Qiyan Gexing and Quatrains. Li Bai’s Qi Yan Ge Xing adopts the structure of opening and closing, jumping and leaping. The beginning of a poem is often abrupt, like a hurricane, while the middle image of the poem changes suddenly, often omitting the transitional reference, which seems to be traceless, and the end of the poem often stops abruptly at the emotional climax.
Li Bai’s five-seven-word quatrains more represent the fresh and bright style of his poems. Such as “Early Delivery to the Baidi City”, “Send Meng Haoran to the Guangling Mausoleum”, “Quiet Night Thoughts”, etc., the magic is that “only the foreground, the oral language, and the overtones, the taste and the taste, make people far away.” (“Said “Shi Zhu Yu” on).

(3)Language

The language of Li Bai’s poems is as fresh as a spoken language, and some are bold and unconstrained and close to prose, but they are all unified in the natural beauty of “the clear water comes out of hibiscus, and the natural is carved.” This is related to his conscious pursuit of natural beauty. He inherited Chen Ziang ’s literary propositions and took the restoration of the tradition of poetry and Sao as his duty. He once said, “Since Liang and Chen, Shen Xiuwen has been very beautiful, and Shen Xiuwen still adopts vocal rhythm and will restore the old to the truth. Who is it for me?” ( Meng) Kai’s ability Poetry Manhattan “) he advocates” halal “satire” carving insects funeral naive “ugly effective frown, imitate others. The natural beauty of his poetic language is the result of his earnest study of folk songs and his understanding of the characteristics of the popular, clear, and vivid.

libai poem

2.Ci Fu

Most of the current Li Bai poems are derived from “Zunqianji “, but since the writing date and authenticity of “Zunqianji” itself are questionable, the authenticity of Li Bai’s poems may continue to be debated. According to the general opinion of the Ci scholars, at least the first four poems of ” Bodhisattva Man·Pinglin Momo Smoke Ruzhi “, “Remembering Qin’e·Xiaoshengyan ” and “Qingpingle” should be based on the Song people before there is no strong evidence. The argument is regarded as Li Bai’s work.
Regardless of whether Li Bai has written words or not, “Li Bai Ci” has become a pronoun, and this name represents an insurmountable peak. Whether or not these words are written by Li Bai is of secondary importance. In terms of pioneering significance and artistic achievements, “Li Bai Ci” enjoys an extremely lofty status in the history of Ci. This status is like the status of ancient Greek mythology in Western art. As an “unreachable” norm, “Li Bai Ci” has become an eternal idol in people’s minds.
Li Bai in the altar in the word pioneer ancestors position, which is the consensus of Poets. Even if the “Li Bai Ci” handed down are indeed all fakes and do not belong to the Ci style, Li Bai is still an indispensable link in the Ci style development chain. Without this link, it is impossible to fully explain the development history of the Ci style. Since the ” Hua Jian Ji ” of the Five Dynasties in the late Tang Dynasty, all the selected works and total works of Tang and Song ci will not forget Li Bai in the specific operation, at least one sentence should be mentioned in the preface and postscript. As the first great poet in literary history, although there are only a few poems whose copyrights are often suspected, no one has ever expressed any dissatisfaction or criticism towards him.

3.Calligraphy

“The Post on the Balcony” is Li Baishu’s self-introduction of four-line cursive poems, and it is also the only authentic calligraphy handed down. Paper, 28.5 cm in length and 38.1 cm in width. 5 lines of cursive script, 25 characters in total. The section is signed with the word “Taibai”. Quoted in the Qing Dynasty Gaozong Hongli regular script inscription “Qinglian Yihan” four characters, the text of the upper right of the Song Huizong Zhao Ji thin gold book inscription: “Tang Li Taibai on the balcony” seven characters. On the back are the inscriptions and postscripts and observations of Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty, including Zhao Ji of Song Huizong, Zhang Yan, Du Ben, Ouyang Xuan, Wang Yuqing, Wei Su, Mo Lu, Emperor Qianlong of Qing Dynasty. Before and after the volume, there is Song Zhao Mengjian “Zigu”, “Yishai”, Jia Sidao “Autumn Book”, Yuan “Zhang Yan Private Seal” and “Ouyang Xuan Yin” and Ming Xiang Yuanbian, Qing Liang Qingbiao, Anqi, Qing Neifu, Appreciation and seal of Zhang Boju and others in modern times.

 

4.Taoism

Since he was a teenager, Li Bai often went to Daitian Mountain to find Taoist priests to talk about Taoism. Later, he lived in Minshan with a hermit named Dongyanzi and studied with great concentration. They raised many exotic birds in the forests where they lived and worked as animal breeders. These beautiful and docile birds, because they are used to feeding, fly regularly to beg for food, as if they can understand people’s language, with a call, they fly from everywhere before stepping down, and they can even peck at people’s hands. Grain, not afraid at all. This incident was rumored to be an anecdote and finally made the governor of Mianzhou go to the mountains to watch the birds eating. Seeing that they could direct the actions of the birds, the governor decided that they had Taoism, so he wanted to recommend them to take the Taoism exam. However, both of them politely refused. At that time, the well-known political strategist Zhao Wei was also Li Bai’s teacher. This man wrote ten volumes of “Long and Short Scriptures” in the fourth year of Kaiyuan (716). At that time Li Bai was only fifteen years old. Zhao Yu’s work of a politician who studied the similarities and differences of the six classics analyzed the situation in the world and emphasized the rise and fall of the chaos aroused great interest in Li Bai. In the future, he is determined to make meritorious deeds, and he likes to talk about the dominance of kings and hegemony, which is also influenced by this book.

libai thought

5.Thought

In the prosperous Tang Dynasty, the national power was strong, and most scholars were eager to make contributions. Li Bai considers himself a talent of immortality, with “strengthening his intelligence, willing to be supplementary, so that Huan District Dating, Haitian Qingyi” merits himself, and he is determined to pursue the realization of “Talking Laughing Liyuan” and “Qingyi Haixian” throughout his life. “Finally with the ideal of An Shoji”. He compares himself with the Dapeng, Tianma, and Xingjian: “The Dapeng rises in the same wind in one day and soars for 90,000 miles. If the wind stops, it can still shake the water.” (“Shang Li Yong”). He hopes to be like Jiang Shang assisting Mingjun, like Zhuge Liang to rejuvenate the Han Dynasty. “Liang Fuyin”, “Reading Zhuge Wuhou’s Biography”, “Yongwangdong Tour Song”, and “Difficulties on Roads” (Part 2) all reflect his thoughts of this kind.

Li Bai felt that by his talents, he could “go out to meet the princes, and escape to look down on the nest Xu” (“Send Yanzi Yuan Yan Yin Xiancheng Mountain Preface”), for those who rely on the shadow of the door to enjoy the wealth of high-ranking officials He casts strong contempt for the powerful and powerful, showing a proud and unyielding character. He despised the feudal hierarchy, did not want to be flattered, and disdainful of ups and downs with the vulgar. The darkness of reality disillusioned his ideals, and the shackles of the feudal ethics hierarchy strangled him. He yearned for the freedom and liberation of his personality, so he adopted a wild and unruly attitude towards life to break free from shackles and fight for freedom. The way of expression is to indulge in drinking and sing and learn to find immortals. However, wine can neither dispel the sorrows, and the immortals are more illusory, so he “has a good life in the famous mountain tour” (“Lushan Ballad”), taking the beautiful nature as the sustenance of his ideal. , The incarnation of freedom to sing. His paintings of Emei, Huashan, Lushan, Taishan, Huangshan, etc., are majestic and majestic, spitting out the wind and clouds, and converging with the river; the rushing Yellow River and the surging Yangtze River in his writings wash away all things and sweep everything, showing the poet’s pride Character and a strong desire to break through the fetters.

This is Li Bai’s angry struggle against society and an important manifestation of his rebellious spirit. He opposes Xuanzong’s liking for great joy, exposing soldiers and soldiers, and exposing the generals, causing the people to die in vain. Because of Xuanzong’s arrogance, the eunuch’s power is very hot… Through the analysis of the political program and the observation of Youyan on the spot, Li Bai is sensitive to the poets. Dong Youzhuwei, among the poets at that time, he and Du Fu were the first to reveal that disasters will be made. The “Anshi Rebellion” broke out, and his patriotic enthusiasm was sublimated, and he got rid of the contradiction of using Tibetan sources. His rebellious character and rebellious spirit have profound patriotic connotations and are rich in social significance and characteristics of the times. The third, fifteenth, twenty-four, thirty-nine and so on of “Gufeng” all made profound exposures and powerful criticisms of social reality.

Li Bai has both a proud side and a secular side. His ideals and freedom can only be sought in the mountains and forests, fairyland, and drunk country. Therefore, he has flowed in poems such as “Jiang Jinjiu”, “Jiangshang Yin”, “Xiangyang Song” and other poems. Revealing the thoughts of life as a dream, having fun in time, escaping from reality, etc., are also representative of the upright and arrogant literati in feudal society.

 

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