Comparison of the artistic characteristics of Tao Yuanming and Xie Lingyun

Let me give you my personal opinion.

Xie Lingyun and Tao Yuanming.

Although they live in the same era, there is no overlap between the two. Although the two of them were famous poets from the end of the Eastern Jin Dynasty to the early years of the Liu Song Dynasty, they were far from being like Li Bai in later generations.

Du Fu had a deep friendship like that. There are several reasons why this is so:

First of all, the two have very different attitudes towards their careers

Although Tao Yuanming became an official at the age of twenty, he did not like the life of an official eunuch. In 405 A.D., he took the initiative to end his life as a monk, and since then he has retired to the countryside and does not ask about the world. Contrary to his attitude, Xie Lingyun has always been actively involved in the Huan Hai, even if there have been setbacks in the middle, he has not stayed away.

The difference in the attitude of the two towards the official makes it difficult for them to intersect, after all, as the saying goes: the Tao is not the same. Therefore, it is difficult for the two to interact.

Secondly, from the perspective of time, the two missed the possible encounter

Although Xie Lingyun and Tao Yuanming lived in roughly the same era, Tao Yuanming (c. 365 427) was born twenty years earlier than Xie Lingyun (385-433). In 405 AD, when Tao Yuanming, who was middle-aged, chose to retire to the countryside, Xie Lingyun was in high spirits and began to enter the official career. Originally, there would inevitably be an intersection between the two sides as officials in the same dynasty, but Tao Yuanming's choice made the possible encounter come to naught.

After that, one lived a life of seclusion away from the court, while the other experienced the ups and downs of the sea in the court, and their lives never intersected again.

In the end, Tao Yuanming was not famous at the time, and there was no need for Xie Lingyun to go to the meeting

In the era in which they lived, Tao Yuanming's status in the literary world was far from being established, and judging from the writings at that time, Tao Yuanming was not as famous as he is now. It was not until the Song Dynasty that his poems were recognized and have remained until now. Compared with him, Xie Lingyun is much more famous, and his status has been established in contemporary times and has been passed down to the world.

Therefore, Tao Yuanming, who advocates a life of retreat, is like a well-known poet for Xie Lingyun, a latecomer. For Sanna, this senior, Xie Lingyun, who has long been famous in the world, doesn't care much. There is no possibility of a visit, and the last possible intersection between the two sides will no longer exist.

The social status of the two is not the same, and there is no intersection between the two individuals, the age gap is also relatively large, and the cognition of things is also very different, and the circle of friends is also different, so naturally there will be no intersection.

This is because the identities of the two people are quite different, Tao Yuanming is a poor family, and Xie Lingyun is a nobleman, so there is no intersection between the two people.

Although Tao Yuanming was born in the descendants of the aristocracy, but by the time of Tao Yuanming, his family had been reduced to the "bottle without storage of millet" of the Shu family, in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, a society that valued the door valve, he always had ambitions not to stretch, and was unwilling to surrender his will to be a warlord minions, and refused to change his nature to adapt to the world, so he broke with the official career, and was happy to be poor, which reflected the Confucian idea of "being good alone", and also showed the influence of Taoism's "independence from the world" thought on Tao Yuanming; He took his own pastoral life as the content, truly wrote about the sweetness and hardship of ploughing, and expressed his indifference to fame and fortune, and as a scholar, he personally participated in farming and wrote about his farming experience with poems, Tao Yuanming was the first. Xie Lingyun was born in the scholar clan and was the grandson of Xie Xuan, a famous general in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. Since he was a child, he lived in his hometown of Huiji Dongshan, which attracted him to seek mountains and wade through rivers, and he believed in Taoism and Buddhism, and most of the Buddhist retreats were in the deep mountains and valleys, integrating with nature.

Xie Lingyun had a strong sense of being a politician, but he didn't want to be a writer. But in his career, Xie Lingyun is a frustrated person. So he sent his thoughts on the landscape, feasting slowly to cover up his enthusiasm for power, and at the same time helplessly comforted himself with Lao Zhuang's thoughts, Xie Lingyun in addition to landscape poems, but also wrote idyllic poems and poems that expressed villa life, revealing the idea of nostalgia for the ancestors of the family, and mostly rendered through Xuanyan.

2. Ideological tendencies.

In terms of ideological tendencies, Tao Yuanming's thought is still controversial, and Confucianism and Taoism are embodied, but on the whole, it does not deviate from the ideological characteristics of the Wei and Jin dynasties, and adheres to a new view of nature that has been transformed by Wei and Jin metaphysics. Chen Yinke called it "Confucianism on the outside and Taoism on the inside". The Confucian part is mainly reflected in the personality of Nachang who is stubborn and poor and observes festivals.

When chaos and killing, betrayal and conspiracy became the main themes of the times, adopting a non-cooperative attitude was a kind of protection of self-discipline and a defense of Confucian values. Therefore, he repeatedly praised "moderation", "solidification of poverty", and "righteousness", and used this to motivate himself. The metaphysical part is mainly manifested in the life attitude of facing life and death, the life attitude of rebirth and the life attitude of adaptability and fidelity.

In the face of the impermanence of life, metaphysics believes that life and death are natural changes, from non-birth to existence, from existence to non-existence, all of which are natural. Tao Yuanming upholds this view. Commissioned Dahua, that is, "talking about multiplication to return to the end" in "Words of Return", calmly embraces life and welcomes death indifferently.

Returning to the countryside is a manifestation of Tao Yuan's adaptability and true ecology. "There is no vulgar rhyme, and sex loves hills and mountains", in Tao Yuanming's view, nature is his nature. The poet's natural nature can be revealed and developed, he can walk willfully, and he can fit in with nature, which achieves the "truth", such as "picking chrysanthemums under the east fence, leisurely seeing Nanshan".