Why doesn't Meng Haoran want to be an official?

Meng Haoran is a representative figure of pastoral poets.

What kind of person can he write those fresh and natural poems?

Meng Haoran once failed in the imperial examination. He immediately gave up the road of imperial examination and embarked on the road of seeking officials. Although he and Wang Wei have forgotten their friends, they are deeply appreciated by Zhang Jiuling. Even in the second half of their lives, he was constantly recommended to be an official, but he always gave it away for nothing. Why is this happening?

Meng Haoran once met Tang Xuanzong in imperial academy, where Wang Wei worked, but he was very scared and hid under the bed, leaving a bad impression on the emperor. Because Zhang Jiuling, Wang Wei and others often praised Meng Haoran, Xuanzong decided to give him a chance to sing a poem. Brother Haoran is very conceited about his talents and thinks that the failure of the imperial examination is not his own reason, so there are two lines in the poem: "I was exiled by the Ming monarch because of my mistake, and I have not seen my friends for a long time."

Xuanzong is unhappy. You call yourself "incompetent", but you are actually bragging about your talent. Then, isn't "knowing the Lord" just a joke about the emperor's fatuity? Xuanzong's face collapsed: "You don't want to be an official, but I don't dislike you. Why do you accuse me? " Although he was not convicted, he missed the best opportunity.

Later, he worked as a squire under Zhang Jiuling's door for three years and wrote the famous "A Letter from Dongting Lake to Premier Zhang":

The autumn water rises and almost blends with the shore, mixing water and sky with the sky.

Ozawa's water vapor transpiration on the cloud soil is white, and the waves seem to shake the whole Yueyang.

I'm going to cross the water to find a boat and paddle. It's a shame to return home in the sacred age.

Sitting around watching other people's hard river fishing can only envy the fish caught in the fish.

While watching people fishing, writing a poem to Zhang Jiuling is actually obscure and obvious. I watch people make achievements every day, but I have no chance. Premier Zhang, you must help me. A small poem, writing scenery, expressing meaning, is short and not shameful. This talent is really high. Zhang Jiuling was demoted at this time and didn't have a chance to recommend him, but he was really a genius and kept him for three years until his death.

Many years later, several friends wanted to recommend Meng Haoran as an official. He felt that neither Zhang Jiuling nor Wang Wei could recommend him, so forget it. Negative talent and arrogance, no intention of career. He is different from those poets who were exiled and addicted to mountains and rivers in history.

Meng Haoran's poetic talent can be regarded as the first-class level in the pastoral school.

Why do you say that? What is pastoral poetry? In fact, just like landscape poems, immortals' poems and hermit poems, including erotic poems, they value pastoral (landscape, immortals' wandering, hermit and beautiful women) lightly. However, in ancient China, the contradiction between seeking and abandoning a name was very serious. There is no one who does not pay lip service to fame, and his men try their best to find an official. Tao Yuanming, Xie Lingyun, Li Bai, Su Shi and Du Fu, which one is not?

Meng Haoran also asked for fame, but he was not sad or angry when he asked. He doesn't care about the countryside after being frustrated, nor does he use idyllic leisure to show that he is very different from the secular.

Because he is the owner of the manor himself, he moved in his heart: can I be an official with my talent? Forget it if you don't think so. It doesn't matter if you go back to Lumen Mountain to be an old farmer.

Meng Haoran really enjoys this life. Therefore, in Meng Haoran's pastoral poems, there is neither a negative mentality of escaping from the world nor an official sitcom of complaining about others. He likes and enjoys it purely.

He doesn't want to be the representative of pastoral poets. This is his life. If he doesn't write poetry, he doesn't have to write it. It happens that he loves life and likes to write poems, which makes him simple, frank and fresh.

Writing poetry is the most difficult to be true, and Meng Haoran has this advantage. Of course, pure frankness, if there is no talent, good poetry can't go out. Meng Haoran is also brilliant.

The pastoral poets before or after him all had his talents, but not his nature. Therefore, Meng Haoran's poetry level can't be compared with Du Li in the Tang Dynasty, but he definitely has a place in the second echelon after Du Li, and he is still far ahead.

If we only look at the genre of pastoral poetry, Meng Haoran is the first.