Lee Dal(李達)'s poems have a couple of expressive features, including his frequent uses of depiction and often borrowing the narrative structure. The images of birds and insects, female figures, and fall that often appeared in his descriptions impli...
Lee Dal(李達)'s poems have a couple of expressive features, including his frequent uses of depiction and often borrowing the narrative structure. The images of birds and insects, female figures, and fall that often appeared in his descriptions implied the poet himself gradually losing energy and vitality. He conveyed his awareness that his life force decreased little by little in the world of his sickness with a series of such images displaying his imagination of extinction.
The poet began his inquiry into the essence of being as he developed a sense of emptiness in this awareness. In his works, the poet embodied plants with wounds to imply that the essence of being lied in the persistent will for life. Furthermore, he created a symbol of flower bundles to imply that life`s essence was the harmonious state of life force and beauty. Ideal figures that achieved the state were depicted in the images of generals, Taoist hermits with miraculous power, ascetics, hermits, and Yeins. This series of images that appeared in combination with the rise images attract attention as they show his imagination of creation.
The poet paid attention to ordinary people who shared the same pain as him in his wandering life. He depicted ordinary people`s suffering in his poems in a short narrative structure, expressing his deep sympathy and compassion for them. Moreover, he also talked about his bond and consciousness of kind for them in his poems. He delivered the message of true happiness in life by describing the healthy and lively aspects of ordinary people.
Lee Dal's poems imply a profound and broad spiritual world that he achieved by delving into the essence of being based on his hardship and exhibiting his spiritual journey of resonance with ordinary people`s pain and grief. He especially expressed his spiritual orientation with various images and colorful figures based on his imagination of extinction and creation, which is why his poetry in the Tang style(唐詩風) has been praised.