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李白《独坐敬亭山》孤独?痛苦?怀才不遇?你完全想错啦!

Li Bai’s Sitting Alone on Mount Jingting:

All birds fly high away, none in sight,

Even this lonely cloud drifts off, at liberty.

Looking at each other, Jingting Peak and me,

Never will I feel tired of you, and nor you of me.

(独坐敬亭山

众鸟高飞尽,孤云独去闲。

相看两不厌,只有敬亭山。

Tra. by 王国己, 更多唐诗英译请加微信13884096360联系索取)

Its simplicity in language will not impair its beauty if you discern the philosophy, which I stress is the key to deciphering a poem.

So many critics cling to the concept that the poem reflects the composer’s loneliness among the secular world that the subject of the poem has been sentenced to it. But this is wrong, personally. 

The reason, I need to say it again, is that the interpreters didn’t excavate the philosophy behind it. In the view of these interpreters, the poet was suffering from loneliness and feeling agonized because his talent was not taken seriously and no important post was given to him. It is a matter of a waste of talent in Li Bai, they maintain.

The poet may feel lonely, not because he was not put in an important post but because his poem would be misapprehended so much!

Poetry is songs of soul, which is cultivated by a concept rooted in a philosophy. Deep thoughts and feelings in disguise of simple language often cheat many people. So they often satisfy themselve with a simple concept before a seemingly simple poem as Sitting alone on Mount. Jingting, but a further step into its philosophy will significantly help decode it and make the hidden thoughts and feelings known to the readers.

The art of reading poetry begins with mastering allusiveness in particular poems and recognizing and interpreting allusions depends upon both the reader’s learning and her tact. The wider the knowledgeshe has, the more she can apprehend the poem. In tradition, Chinese critics decipher a poem by analyzing its image, which is actually the symbols of allusions. The concept of image in deciphering poetry is influential, so influential that people take it for granted when comprehending poetry and think it is the one and only way, thus forgetting making research on its philosophy.

We have drawn a conclusion that Li Bai was influenced deeply by Daoism by reading his poetry because the spiritual world in his poetry so much overlaps with that of Daoism. That is to say, comprehension of both Li Bai and Daoism is necessary to decipher his poetry. If you know nothing about Daoism, you can’t unveil the philosophy hidden between the lines and narrow the scope of his poetry necessarily. It would be a tragedy for both the poet and the reader. It’s a tragedy for the poet just because the values of composing it has been lost ; for the reader the values of aesthetics. 

The beauty of a poem lies in its unlimited approaches to deciphering it, different readers can benefit from it in different perspectives, as the Chinese ancient theory of deciphering poetry says: poetry has unlimited approaches to deciphering it(诗无达诂). But we should keep it in mind that though a thousand of readers have a thousand of images of Hamlet, the image has to be that of Hamlet but not Othello. Which decides it? The answer, personally,is its philosophy behind the poem.

Let’s come back to Sitting alone on Mount.Jingting.

This poem seems that the poet is alone facing Mount. Jingting, which leads the readers to the conclusion that the poem is about loneliness. But in fact, the whole poem reveals no clue to that he is suffering, on the contrary, he is joyful. This joy is quite different that of "Among thy mountains did I feel/ The joy of my desire" by William Wordsworth. Why? Without bustle and hustle by the birds, which symbol the secular world suffused with fame and fortune strife, without loneliness of a cloud disturbing him, the poet is totally in the world of peace, following what is of nature. In the view of Daoism, following what is of nature is the source of happiness and goodness, while following what is of man is the source of all pain and evil. So the poet enjoy sitting alone on the Mount. Jingting, because he is following what is of nature.

In the poem, he is Mount. Jingting ,and Mount. Jingting, himself. They have become one. To converse with Mount.Jingting is to converse with himself. The poet has totally immersed himself in  the ideal world, which he created between himself and Mount. Jingting. In theworld, he may be said to have achieved absolute happiness since he transcends the ordinary distinctions of things, and he also transcends the distinctions between the self and the world, the “me” and the “non-me”. Therefore he has no self. He is one with the Tao, exercising his own natural ability fully and freely.

As is said in the Zhuangzi: “the universe is the unity of all things. If we attain this unity and identify ourselves with it, then the members of our body are but so much that dust and dirt, while life and death, end and beginning, are but as succession of day and night, which cannot disturb our inner peace. How much less shall we be troubled by worldly gain and loss, good-luck and bad-luck!”

Sitting alone on the Mount. Jingting, LiBai achieved absolute happiness as he reached the unity with the universe where he conversed with himself as well as with the universe as they have been one. This happiness is quite different from that of what we understand in daily life. Happiness in daily life is a movement of emotion while absolute happiness is without emotion. The Daoists maintain that the sage who has a complete understanding of the nature of things, thereby has no emotion. This, however, does not mean that he lacks sensibility. Rather it means that he is not disturbed by the emotions,and enjoys what may be called the peace of soul. As Spinoza says: “The wise man, in so far as he is considered as such, is scarcely moved in his mind, but being conscious by a certain eternal necessity of himself, of God, and things, never ceases to be, and always enjoys the peace of soul.”

So , we are safe to say that Li Bai,conversing with the Mount. Jingting, enjoys the peace of soul in absolute happiness in the view of Daoism. 

There exists a sense of eternity in the poem,which is expressed by “Never will I feel tired of you, and nor you of me.” LiBai in unity with the universe feels a free development of our natures may lead us to a relative kind of happiness; absolute happiness is achieved through higher understanding of the nature of things, and the idea more or less agrees with that of Aristotle. All in all, sitting alone on the Mount. Jingting, LiBai enjoys the full freedom of spirits, which, in other words, is absolute happiness. Absolute happiness does not depend on external things, and in not limited by them. In the poem, birds and cloud go far away from the poet which symbolize the external things and leave him alone in peace.

It has to be pointed out Daoism couldn’t find the real absolute happiness and the “big one” as they are confined to nature, which they didn’t know was created by God. It is a big pity.  

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