A Critical Survey Of The Poem Immortals By Caotang

Cao Tang, named Yaobin for respect, was born in Lingui of Guilin in the late Tang Dynasty (Guilin in Guangxi Province of today). He was a Taoist Arthur at first, later came back to the reality and became a successful candidate in the highest imperial examinations, then worked for the government. 161 pieces of poems of Cao tang were reserved, which contains 121 pieces of complete fragmentary immortals,including 17 pieces of Great Immortals and 98 pieces of Little Immortals. However, there are more than that, a lot of pieces were lost. Critics hold different opinions on his poems, someone highly praised him and someone spoke ill of his poems. Current scholars paid little attention to Caotang's poems, they only have some different understanding of the contents of certain poems.According to poem styles (the difference of metic and quatrain), Cao tang's poem Immortals can be divided in to Great Immortals and Little Immortals. This is the general way to classify until now. In contruction, Great Immortals are coherent and sequent, while Little Immortals are not related between each piece. These poems are descriptions of the happiness of reunion, the sorrow of departure, or the sweet life, both facially discript the wonderland while indicate the real life, full with the true love amomg people. In the materials, Great Immortals are adapted from fairy tales, while Little Immortals have little relationship with fairy tales. However, both of them enbodied the imagination and creativity of poets. As a result, if we say that Great Immortals are especially acknowledged for there polished words and complicated and heavy feeling that were presented, then Little Immortals are famous for its simplicity, leisure and peace.This dissertation make further research of Cao tang's poem Immortals from the origin of Immortals.There are endless discussions about the origin. Literature itself originated from the reality. In other words, literature is the outcome of real life. So the development of every literature style depends on the social cultural background and the inherent element of literature itself. In the first and second part of chapter one, according to the social background of a specific period, this part expound the development of poem Immortals from Qin Dynasty to Sui and Tang Dynasty in chronological order, and explicit different features in different time.In the third part of chapter one, this dissertation make a brief comment on Cao tang's life and poems and make a reasonable conclusion.Cao tang was active between Changqing and Dazhong. In chapter two, based on the social features of late Tang Dynasty, I elaborate the background of poem Immortals. There are three features: fights between friends, monopolism and local govern. During this time, literature was descended to an entertainment tool, closely related to sense. The major feature of citizen literature is to make fun with the common life, especially love affairs.The prevailing Taoism in Tang Dynasty made great influence on the appearance of poem Immorals: Taoism provides images, materials and experience for poem Immorals. But we should notice that there are not only positive influence but also a certain negative effects. Literati believe in Taoism so that the literary work lost its seriousness, they frame things out of nothing. Besides, under great influence of Taoism, some poem Immortals even became odes of Taoism, leaving the art, love and reality. In addition, there are Taoism terms in the poem which made the poem obscure. Classical-language tale of Tang Dynasty played an important role in the development of poem Immortals. First, it enlarges the concept of"celestial being". Sencond, its unprecedented development made"celestial being"more concrete. Third, the theme of poem immortals transferred from expressing one's emotions to narrating. Forth, in the classical-language tale, the author escalated the dialogue between literati to the one between celestial beings. As a result, the invention of poem Immortals was promoted and peaked in Cao Tang's poem.The main content of this dissertation lies in chapter three and four, which focus on the content and artistic characteristics of Cao Tang's poem Immortals.Cao Tang's secularism and humanism distinguished himself. He mould a class society including a utopia family, a king and citizens, and people of all ages. The poet shows his life dream in this illusive society, made the"celestial being"secular and humanized, distinct and interesting. This is unprecedented in the poem Immortals history.This dissertation concludes the creation motives of Cao Tang's poem Immortals into five points: First, the poems depict human feelings. The similar feature of Cao Tang's poems is to depict the real world through depict the fairyland. A fairyland contains many beautiful things but the most conspicuous one is true love. Second, he expressed his ideals through imagination. In the fairyland out of Cao Tang's hands, people realized the ultimate dream, that is, the eternity and freedom of life beyond time and space, he made every impossible become possible. Third, the work expresses dissatisfaction to the reality. In Cao Tang's mind, that haven country has the eternal love without any negative emotions. Fourth, through writing erotic poems, he builds a utopia of mind. He paralysis himself in the erotic, made sadness into nothing, this is the way to build utopia. In the dissertation, I take some typical poem Immortals as examples to illustrate the above points. Fifth, he built a spirit home for himself on the basis of fairyland. Cao Tang's poems represents almost all the descriptions of the celestial beings and fairyland before. All the examples were listed in this paragraph. This aesthetics value of collectiong is conspicuous.Chapter four was divided into two levels. First in the artistic method, Cao Tang used simple words, a lot of double words and unified the form of matric and quatrain, so the poems was mettallic sound. In the creation method, Cao Tang was good at imagism and romantism, he combined narration and expression perfectly, his words are fine and smooth. It represents the further development of poems of late Tang Dynasty.