POETRY OF RETREAT AT THE FALL OF THE HAN Influence of Daoism |
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Stephen Owen :: Retreat can be understood as a purely Confucian thing. It can be understood as a Daoist move. It can be understood simply as a very pragmatic decision. And when society was breaking down as it was, say towards the late second century AD, that was quite reasonable to want to retreat; that is, to get basically away from large cities and court politics, where you would be killed. And one finds in the poetry of the third century a fascination with rejection, getting away, with negating Confucian, negating standard Confucian values, to go off into the hills. And it is probably the moment when one begins to discover nature in a certain sense, as one begins to understand nature as opposed to society, and, only when you have rejected society, can you actually see nature. Paul Rouzer :: In this particular type of reclusion, Daoist ideas of the cultivation of the self, of the union of the self with nature, of the practice of hygiene, and other particularly Daoist ideas, are combined in rather interesting ways with continuing ideas of Confucian service. Perhaps the most important poet from this time period was the poet Tao Qian.** |
| ** Tao Qian (365-427) lived during a time when China was divided into what are known as the Northern and Southern dynasties. |
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