The fourth anniversary of Yu Guangzhong's death: Later, nostalgia is a short grave, he is inside, we are outside

December 14 marks the fourth anniversary of the death of the famous poet and translator Mr. Yu Guangzhong.

Four years ago, Mr. Yu died at the age of 90, according to the traditional Chinese custom, VanDe is highly respected, blessed with a full life, and those who die at the age of 80 or 90 should be called happy and mourning. Compared with many people, Mr. Yu is lucky, and he unraveled his nostalgia in his later years. From this point of view, we should remember his life with a feeling of sorrow and not sadness.

He wrote a poem in 20 minutes that redefined the word "nostalgia."

Searching for the word "nostalgia" on Baidu and Google, the first entry is not an explanation of the word, but an explanation of the poem "Nostalgia" in The Afterglow. "Nostalgia" is not a strange word, and it has been abused in recent years. Rao is so, the poem "Nostalgia" is still a more important existence than the word "nostalgia" identified by search engines, which shows its unusual meaning.

The attachment to hometown is one of the natures of human beings, and since the migration of people, there has been this feeling of nostalgia. The homesickness of Chinese seems to be even worse, and nostalgia has always been one of the main emotional sources of literary works. In the "Book of Poetry" more than 2,000 years ago, there was such a verse: "In the past, I used to be in the past, and the willow was yiyi; now I come to think, rain and snow." Not to mention the song "Quiet Night Thoughts" that all Chinese will recite before they turn six- "The bright moonlight in front of the bed is suspected to be frost on the ground." Look up at the bright moon and look down at your hometown."

Yu Guangzhong used a poem to condense the feelings of homesickness in the Chinese into the two words "nostalgia".

The word nostalgia, which originally means a disease — the fear of never seeing one's homeland again," was originally proposed by European doctors, roughly equivalent to a branch of depression today. Yu Guang's extremely deep English skills allowed him to keenly capture a certain connection between this imported word and Chinese deep and restrained emotions, and it took only 20 minutes to complete the poem. According to him, "Before these 20 minutes, my nostalgia had been for more than 20 years. ”

After this poem, "nostalgia" really entered the Chinese system, and replaced the words "homesick", "homesick", "nostalgia for the homeland" and other words, becoming the most fragile emotional valve in the hearts of all Chinese.

Such a classic poem, it is worth excerpting in full -

Nostalgia in the afterglow

Childhood

Nostalgia is a small stamp,

I'm at this end,

Mother was over there.

When I grow up,

Nostalgia is a narrow ticket,

The bride is over there.

Later, ah,

Nostalgia is a low grave,

I'm out there,

Mother is inside.

And now,

Nostalgia is a shallow strait,

The continent is over there.

Second, the title of "Taiwanese poet" is actually not very suitable for him

In the news of Yu Guangzhong's death, without exception, he will be given these four words: "Taiwanese poet". This title cannot be wrong, but at least it is inaccurate, and it cannot fully describe his life. In fact, he was born in the mainland, completed most of his studies in the mainland, and spoke Sichuan dialect for 70 years.

Born in Nanjing in 1928, Yu Guangzhong was born in Nanjing in 1928, and went to school in Chongqing as a teenager, and his wife, Ms. Fan Icun, also studied in Sichuan when she was young, so the exchanges between the couple for nearly 70 years were carried out in Sichuanese. In 1947, he entered the Department of Foreign Languages of Jinling University (merged into Nanjing University in 1952), moved to Hong Kong with his parents in 1949, and went to Taiwan in 1950 to study at the Department of Foreign Languages of National Taiwan University.

It can be seen that he spent his time before the age of 21 in the mainland, and after finishing his sophomore year, he transferred to Taiwan in his junior year.

Moreover, even if you look at his resume as an adult, you will find that Taiwan is only one of his long-term residences. He went to the United States for further study and teaching in 1953, 1961 and 1969, and has also served as a professor at the University of Chinese of Hong Kong and the head of the Department of Chinese for many years. In the past two decades, he has frequently traveled between the two sides of the strait.

To be precise, Yu Guangzhong is a Chinese scholar and poet who grew up on the mainland, studied in the three places across the Taiwan Straits and the United States, and taught. Just calling him a "Taiwanese poet" narrows his experience.

He was an English teacher for most of his life, and writing poetry was a hobby

In the above narrative, the author deliberately emphasizes his identity as a scholar and places it before the poet. In fact, for most of his life, he was an English professor, writing poetry, prose, and translation in his spare time. The poet's identity, for him, is not only amateur identity, but also only part of the amateur identity.

In 1947, he enrolled at Jinling University in Nanjing, where he studied in the Department of Foreign Languages. After transferring to Taiwan, he continued to study at the Department of Foreign Languages of National Taiwan University. He went to the United States for further study in 1961 and received a master's degree in fine arts from the University of Iowa the following year. Although he received a master's degree in fine arts, he returned to Taiwan as a lecturer in the English department at the Normal University.

In 1971, he wrote the poem "Nostalgia". The following year, he was "promoted" and transferred to National Chengchi University to become the head of the Spanish Language Department. After that, he went to Hong Kong to work and live for a few years, and in 1980 he returned to his old club, Taiwan Normal University, where he was the head of the English Department and the director of the English Research Institute.

Throughout his life, it can be seen that he has been engaged in English teaching and research for most of the time, and "teaching English" is his main means of livelihood in his life.

Do not underestimate his English background, in fact, the status of "amateur poet" not only does not detract from his poetry creation, but also brings him new horizons. Words like "nostalgia," which was originally a western pathology category, were made into words that were used very frequently in Chinese. Moreover, he often realized.

I remember watching an interview with Mr. Yu before, and he admired the simplicity and fun of Chinese. He said that Chinese ancient texts have no prepositions or transition words, and that rich semantics can be created by just two phrases that are floating and floating. He gave the example of Su Shi's "Former Chibi Fu": "The breeze is gentle, and the water waves are not happy." In looking at him, these are two words with strong interrelatedness, there is a breeze, but it will not rise water waves, if it is written in English, I am afraid it will be written as "breeze to but without water waves" This sentence pattern, the meaning is clear, but the interest is lost.

Fourth, the influence is far-reaching, the controversy is not small, and there are many "fans" and dismissors in the literary world

"Amateur poet" Yu Guangzhong had a great influence on the Chinese language scene. Specific to the author, the first time I knew the name Yu Guangzhong, it was not to read his poems, but to see others worship him.

At that time, I was still in high school, and in my mind, the best writer in China was Yu Qiuyu (covering his face), holding the book "Cultural Journey" and reading it repeatedly every day. In one of the "Three Gorges", Mr. Xiao Yu once praised Mr. Lao Yu: "Standing at the center of the Sheng Tang Dynasty, it is not the emperor, not the noble concubine, not the general, but these poets. Yu Guangzhong's "Looking for Li Bai" poem Yun:

The wine entered the intestines, and seven minutes became the moonlight

The remaining three points roared into sword qi

As soon as the embroidery mouth spits out, it is half a shengtang

These few sentences, I have always regarded as a rare song in the contemporary Chinese poetry world. ”

"A rare song in contemporary Chinese poetry", this is Xiao Yu's evaluation of Lao Yu. At that time, Yu Qiuyu was not an unknown person, bearing the title of "the youngest liberal arts professor in the mainland" and the dean of the Shanghai Theater Academy, and the wind evaluation was much better than now. And when he talked about The afterglow, he basically looked like a fan.

Among the literati, it is normal for some people to like and some people not to like. Dong Qiao, another university scholar in Hong Kong and Taiwan, has a sentence in the light, but it sounds like scolding him. Yu Guangzhong once wrote a general preface to the "Department of Modern Chinese Literature", and Dong Qiao said after reading it: "The text is quite smooth, and the rational narrative is also clear, and there is no "commotion" taste of his past prose. This is progress in the afterglow. ”

The "commotion" taste of Yu Ni, this is Dong Qiao's positioning of the afterglow Chinese wind...

And his English foundation is good, people who like him say that he is a "scholar of Chinese and Western", and those who do not like him say that he is too influenced by the West, and even "humiliates the motherland".

Chen Guying, a professor in the Department of Philosophy at National Taiwan University, criticized him very rudely, saying that his work was "indulged in the decadent consciousness and nihilism of capitalist pathological life, comprador consciousness and self-inflation." In his works, he does not see any concern for others, nor does he see any concern for the social crowd. ...... Because of the obstruction of identity with the United States, the sense of humiliation of one's own nation-state has become more and more, and a series of words that humiliate the motherland have appeared. ”

There is a lot of controversy about him, and to some extent, this is also a clear proof of his position in the literary world.

Fifth, the high life expectancy is ninety, the parting in "Nostalgia" has dissipated, and Mr. Yu should have no regrets

One of Mr. Yu Guangzhong's great fortunes lies in his high lifespan. At that time, his parting in "Nostalgia" was completely released in his later years.

"Nostalgia is a shallow strait, I am here, the mainland is at that end." This is the last sentence of the poem "Nostalgia", which elevates the poem from a personal emotion to the height of national righteousness, and is also the most important poem that makes Yu Guang have its current status. In 1992, Yu Guangzhong returned to the mainland for the first time to visit his relatives after a 43-year absence, and recited the poem on CCTV. Since then, he has become the most well-known poet of that generation.

Since then, returning to the mainland is more like a business trip for him. In 2010, Mr. Yu, who was 82 years old at the time and was still in good health, said in an interview that when he returned to the mainland to visit relatives and friends, "in the past 18 years, there have been fifty or sixty times of less talk", "In recent years, I have returned to the mainland too frequently, nostalgic poems cannot be written, but I have written a lot of hometown poems", "I hope that "Nostalgia" is the beginning of my friendship with everyone, not the end. ”

I believe that what he said was the words of the heart, and no matter how strong the nostalgia, after dozens of returns to his hometown, it also became an embarrassing talking point. However, "Nostalgia" is so famous that no matter how many times he says that "nostalgic poetry cannot be written", when he died, we still miss him in the sense of "nostalgia poetry author".

However, dissolving the thick nostalgia into a plain as water return, turning the attachment to the homeland into an overwhelming interview, and boiling the cool middle-aged man with nostalgia into a kind old man who looks down at the mainland media and does not look up, this embarrassment and dislocation is itself a kind of happiness.

The nostalgia has passed away, and Mr. Yu should have no regrets in this life.