The Spiritual Ecology Connotation Of “Mountain” Imagery In Du Fu’s Poetry

Du Fu was an outstanding representative poet of Tang Dynasty known as the “poetry sage”.His poetry occupied an important position in the history of Chinese poetry,thus he was also known as the “the poetry of historical significance”.“Mountain” is an imagery appears frequently in Du Fu’s poetry which presented different composing style characteristics according to Du Fu’s life stages in different periods were worth to be explored by the method of spiritual ecocriticism.The Poetry Sage Du Fu was deeply influenced by Confucian culture when he was young,and his thoughts had a distinct Confucian color.Starting from the Confucian nature of Du Fu’s thoughts,according to the different stages of Du Fu’s life experiences,the particularity of social environment,natural environment,and the characteristics of Du Fu’s mental state,combining with the Confucian spiritual intension,this paper sums up four Confucian theoretical categories dominated Du Fu’s different life stages respectively,which are the accumulation of “benevolence” in his youth,the mood of“concern” in his prime,and the idea of “righteousness” in his middle age,the realm of “harmony” in his later years.Du Fu’s thoughts of his spiritual ecology in different life stages directly affected his poetry,so the writing styles of “mountain imagery” varied according to his spirit states.This paper summarizes four writing styles of “mountain imagery” in four different life stages of Du Fu,which are “verdant and lofty”,“lush and strong”,“firm and profound”,and “desolate and bleak”.Finally,from the perspective of Confucian spiritual ecology,this paper explores the significance of “mountain imagery” in poetry,and explores the inheritance and development of Confucian spirit by “mountain image” in Du Fu’s poetry.Corresponding the development of Du Fu’s spiritual ecology to the style transformation of “mountain imagery” descriptionconcretely is not only conducive to grasp the transformation of Du Fu’s spiritual ecology,understand the Confucian spiritual ecology overall,but also to broaden the critical space and research horizon of ecocriticism and to provide more possibilities for ecocriticism.