Poem, Nature And Ecological Awareness

Li Bai is regarded as the greatest romantic poet of the Tang Dynasty and of China of all times. More than half of our country’s territories are written by Li Bai. What he heartily praised is not only the famous mountains and waterfalls but also the woods, streams and valleys which are not as famous as everyone knows. In the poems, they are represented as magnificent and majestic, elegant and beautiful, exquisite and charming and tremendous. The relationship between nature and Li Bai is conversation not conversion, meanwhile the nature also has the glory of life. To decode Li Bai’s poems can enhance the readers’ awareness of ecology. This ancient oriental wisdom is a vital spiritual resource which can help us establish a new conception of nature. Those moving poems may not stay at motivating the enthusiasm of loving for our country, we should let the foreign learners to witness our wisdom.According to my limited knowledge and resources, I find some questions to be further studied. The thesis is based on Li Bai’s 100 poems translated by Xu Yuanchong. From the perspective of Ecostylistics, applying the statistical analysis, intensive reading of the text, and stylistic criticism and so on. To systematically interpret and appreciate Li Bai’s poems from the levels of vocabulary, syntax and images and so on, try to reveal the natural beauty, friendship and affection, the emotion of “Family-country” and personal cares in Li Bai’s poems, especially his concern of nature and ecology. From the level of wording and phrasing, the incisive expressions and ingenious syntactic arrangement. The readers can personally feel the magnificent or freshness of the nature. From the prospect of images, the natural images are various, for instance, the sea, snow mountain, waterfall, the Milky Way, streams and moon, all these beautiful images create sets of wonderful landscapes. At the rhetorical level, there are many rhetorical devices are applied in Li Bai’s poems, such as simile, personification, metonymy and hyperbole, it is very vividly, meaningful and thoughtful.