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For now, people are in an era of expanding desire, some of them have abandoned their spiritual home and been encumbered with money, fame and fortune. They get lost in their pursuit of material possessions with a sense of inner emptiness. The reclusive life of both Thoreau and Tao Yuanming shows a natural, free and pristine life realm. So the study of their reclusive life and works are of great importance for people to dissolve the spiritual crisis and live a fulfilling and meaningful life.
From a holistic perspective of the domestic and foreign research status, there were abundant study results of relevant topics with different central focuses. In overseas, a lot of reports on Thoreau’s thought mainly focused on his political ideas and the criticism of ecological damage; conversely, few materials were focused on the studies of Tao Yuanming. Chinese scholars had made many contrastive studies of Tao and Thoreau, but they emphasized on the area of their thoughts of nature. The discussion that combined their reclusive thoughts with human spiritual crisis was rare. Thus the author chose this topic and eyed towards history, intended to explore the relationship between man and nature, material wealth and spiritual pursuit, and the meaning of life. This study attempted to offer people a chance to rethink of their life, from which they might improve the life level, find the actual self and maintain inner peace in the noisy life.
Beginning with the analysis of Thoreau and Tao Yuanming’s era backgrounds and personal experiences, This study took the approach called parallel research to sum up the causes of their reclusion. Based on the discussion with the similarities and differences, as well as the impacts of their thoughts, the author commented objectively on their reclusive life and made suggestions to people on how to change the way of life, fulfill the heart and resolve the spiritual crisis.
II. Backgrounds and Causes of Their Thoughts
Every kind of thought is caused with its far social and historical background. Therefore, it’s important to introduce the backgrounds of Tao Yuanming and Thoreau before deeply analyzing their thoughts. The author separately gave the backgrounds and causes, and then compared their differences and similarities in this chapter.
2.1 Tao Yuanming
Tao Yuanming was born in a decadent well-known family in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. His great-grandfather Tao Kan, grandfather Tao Mao and father Tao Yi were all once officers. And his mother was the daughter of Meng Jia, a celebrity at that time. In his youth, influenced by the home environment and the traditional Confucian notion, Tao formed the concept of family status, and showed an ambition to distinguish himself gloriously and uphold the honor of his ancestors. When analyzing Tao’s becoming an official five times, the author find reasons from his poetry including the following two points:
For one thing, he wanted to escape poverty. In the preface of Homeward Ho!, Tao said, “My family is poor, scarcely able to make both ends meet by growing crops and planting mulberry treesmy kith and kin advised me to enter the official career”(243). Not only that, but his younger brother and sister died prematurely; he had five sons to bring up, and lost some important relatives in his middle age. All of these placed heavy burdens to him and becoming an official was the best way for him to improve the living condition of his whole family.
For another, he desired to uphold the honor of his ancestors and devote himself to the cause of country. Confucianism played a leading and dominant role in Tao’s earlier life in his mind, for which he became a Confucian with strong concerns to the secular world. With the influence of the Confucian idea that a good scholar will make an official, Tao had the pursuit of making achievements and performing great deeds in his deep heart like many other feudal intellectuals. This is the reason for not only his first being an official at the age of 29, but also his other four official experiences in conflict with feudal forces. Therefore, Liang Qichao said, “Tao Yuanming was essentially a man of boiling blood, if you regard him as a misanthropist, you are very mistaken” (103).