If you want to evaluate the top ten ancient poems of spring travel, Zhu Xi's "Spring Day" of the Southern Song Dynasty should be a strong contender:
Katsuri looking for the Surabaya waterfront, the boundless scenery is new for a while.
Waiting for idleness to recognize the east wind, thousands of purples and thousands of reds are always spring.
From the literal meaning of the poem alone, it is written that on a good day in the spring, the author swims on the shore of Surabaya, returns to the earth in spring, and the natural scenery is renewed, which makes people feel refreshed. But if you look deeper into this poem, you can read the deep meaning of it. The first sentence of the poem says that the place of spring travel is the shore of Surabaya, and at that time, Surabaya had long been invaded by the Jin, and Zhu Xi had never gone north, of course, it was impossible to find fangs on the shore of Surabaya. In fact, the "Surabaya" in the poem alludes to Confucius, confucius in the Spring and Autumn Period, between Sushui and Surabaya, teaching disciples, and later generations called Confucius and Confucianism "Susi", so the so-called "seeking fang" is the way to find the saints. The space shown in "Boundless Light" is extremely vast, which not only hints at the profundity of Confucianism, but also reveals the pursuit of the poet. "Dongfeng" is a metaphor for enlightenment, and "Ten Thousand Purples and Thousand Reds" is a metaphor for the richness and variety of Confucianism. Therefore, this poem is actually a philosophical poem, expressing the poet's good wish to pursue the way of the saints in the chaotic world. The whole poem is allegorical and interesting in the image, and the idea of the pen is wonderful. Zhu Xi's famous poems with similar writing techniques include "Half an acre of square pond is opened, and the sky and clouds and shadows linger together." Q The canal is as clear as promised? In order to have a source of living water" ("Guan Shu has a feeling"), the artistic conception, philosophy, and charm are integrated into nature, exquisite and profound.
Many ancient poetry critics believe that an important criterion for testing whether a poetic work is excellent or not is to see whether it can trigger multiple interpretations, the so-called "endless words and infinite meanings" (Yan Yu's "Canglang Poetry"). Often, great works have many profound connotations, all have a wide range of ambiguities, and even let future generations of readers and critics argue and explore endlessly. From this, an important topic arises, the ambiguous beauty of ancient poetry.
The so-called ambiguity refers to the phenomenon that the meaning of the language is not clear, and there is more than one interpretation of the language phenomenon. If a word or sentence has two or more distinct semantic interpretations, then linguistic ambiguity arises. For example, the phrase "parent of a student" can be understood as both a student and a parent, as well as a parent of a student. The ambiguity of poetry, on the other hand, refers to the fact that the poem (or some of its words) can be understood both this way and that way. It can be said that "whether a poem has multiple interpretations" is one of the criteria for judging the level of poetry.
The ambiguity and blankness of the language of poetry provide conditions for the reader's re-understanding and re-creation, which is the unique artistic charm of poetry. Ancient poetry often "creates" different forms of ambiguity to achieve different performance effects, typical of which are: harmonics, sentence reading, semantics, situations and other aspects of ambiguity.
Achieving ambiguity through harmonics was a common practice of poets. The folk song of the Southern Dynasty Lefu "Song of Spring Song at Four O'clock in the Middle of the Night":
Since the farewell, the sighs have been incessant.
Yellow barberry is born in the spring, and the painstaking heart grows with the day.
The "bitter heart" here is a typical harmonic ambiguity, ostensibly saying that the bitter heart of the barberry tree grows every day, but in fact, it expresses that people's bitter heart grows every day, thus revealing the woman's resentment, longing, and painful mood.
Another example is Liu Yuxi's "Bamboo Branch Words":
Yang Liu Qing QingJiang level, smell the Lang River on the song.
The sun rises in the east and the rains in the west, and the road is clear but sunny.
This poem subtly depicts a series of psychological activities such as confusion, attachment and hope after the young girl hears the song of Ruyi Langjun, which is very appropriate and natural. The key ambiguous word is "qing", which not only writes the cloudy and uncertain rainy weather on the riverbank, but also cleverly integrates the shy and nervous "love" of the girl, and reflects the amorous and difficult to complain about the girl's heart with the uncertain weather, implicit and beautiful.
Special ambiguity effects can be achieved through different sentence breaks between different before and after words, that is, the "sentence reading" of the ancients. Legend has it that during the Ming Dynasty, a rich man asked the famous calligrapher zhu Zhishan to write a congratulatory letter for him, zhu Zhishan was very reluctant but could not resign, so he used sentence reading to cause ambiguity: "Tomorrow is a good spring; there is little surplus money in the year's bad luck." When the rich man saw it, he shouted angrily, saying that Zhu Zhishan was cursing him for "not being obscure, having bad luck all year round, and having little surplus wealth." And Zhu Zhishan read it to the rich man according to the new sentence, "Tomorrow is a good spring, not obscure; there is little luck all year round, and there is surplus wealth." When the rich man heard this, he opened his eyes and smiled. The beauty of ambiguity is evident.
Du Mu's "Qingming":
During the Qingming Festival, the rain is pouring, and the pedestrians on the road want to break their souls.
Asking where the restaurant was, the shepherd boy pointed to the apricot blossom village.
Sentence pronunciation changes can be used to change to words:
During the Qingming Dynasty, the rain is pouring down the road, and pedestrians want to break their souls.
Ask the restaurant where there are shepherd boys, remotely referring to the apricot blossom village.
After such a change, the connotation of the poem has changed greatly. The original poem says that the shepherd boy helps the pedestrians find the restaurant, and the word says that the wine boy helps the pedestrians find the shepherd boy. This is the beauty of ambiguity brought about by the change of "sentence reading".
There are more ambiguous poems due to multiple understandings of semantics. A word often has different interpretations, and placed in a specific verse can convey a deeper meaning through the surface text. For example, there is a poem in the "Nineteen Ancient Poems" in the poem "The day has gone away, the day of the belt has slowed down", the word "far" refers to both the length of space and the length of time, and it is the polysemy of the word itself that not only creates a colorful aesthetic imagination space, but also stimulates the reader's emotional resonance about time and space, and achieves a superb artistic expression effect.
Another example is Li Shangyin's "Le You Yuan":
To the evening discomfort, drive to The Ancient Plains.
The sunset is infinitely better, just near dusk.
The last two sentences of the poem, "The sunset is infinitely good, but it is near dusk" depict the picture of "the afterglow is reflected, the sunset is full of sky, the weather is varied, but it is about to enter the night of all kinds of silence". But isn't "dusk" a person's twilight? The poet melts the sense of the decline of the times, the pain of the sinking of the homeland, and the sadness of the twilight of the world into the scenery under the sunset, so that the verses contain a broad and profound philosophical meaning, which is widely quoted by later generations.
The ambiguity created by the situation is more subtle and more intriguing. Wang Guowei said in "Words and Sayings on Earth": "The realm is not a unique scenery. Joy and sorrow are also a realm in people's hearts. The ambiguity of situations and situations is also an important technique, and Li Shangyin is undoubtedly a master in this regard, his "Jinse":
Jinser unprovoked fifty strings, one string and one pillar Sihua Nian.
Zhuang Sheng Xiao dreamed of butterflies, and wangdi chunxin trusted the cuckoo.
There are tears in the pearls of the sea and the moon, and the warm jade smoke of the blue field.
This can be a memory, but it was already confused at the time.
The poem is the crown of ambiguity, and its main thrust is varied, and it has always been interpreted as if it were almost blind. Some people say that it is a summary of the poet's life in his later years, some think that it is a mourning poem, some think that this poem is a memorial poem that remembers the female Taoist who had a love affair, and some say that it is a poem of Yong Jinser, that is, a song of a musical instrument... No one can really read it. Perhaps Liang Qichao was right: "I can't pay attention to it, take apart sentence by sentence for me to explain, I can't even understand the meaning of the text, but I think it is beautiful, and reading it makes my spirit get a fresh pleasure." That's the charm of this ambiguous poem.
Another example is the ambiguous poem "Gifting Flowers to Qing" by Saint Du Fu:
Jincheng silk pipe day after day, half into the river wind and half into the clouds.
This song should only be heard in heaven, and can be heard several times on earth.
The first two sentences of the poem depict the specific image of the music, which is a realistic writing; the last two sentences boast of celestial fairy music, which is a reverie. Because of the reality and the virtual, the virtual reality is born, and the beauty of the music is praised to the extreme. However, if the simple understanding is to praise the singers and prostitutes of Hua Qing's (referring to XichuanYa's hua Jingding) family, it is far from Du Fu's original meaning. At that time, Hua Jingding had made meritorious contributions to counter-rebellion, and he was arrogant and arrogant, often playing Tianzi music to entertain himself, and obviously trespassing. Du Fu gave this poem with clever ambiguity, implicit, euphemistic irony; it is intended to be outside the words, loyal but not against the ear, just right, can be described as the best use of ambiguity.
Ambiguity is sometimes flexible, looming, and if there is none, it does not have to be rigid. Someone must be taken to sit in the right seat, but it makes the ambiguity narrow. Such as the famous Tang poem "Fengqiao Night Berth" (Tang Zhang Ji):
The moon is falling and the frost is full of frost, and the river maple fishing fire is sad and sleepy.
Hanshan Temple outside Gusu City, midnight bell to the passenger ship.
Any time you take it out, it's a pleasing poem. Zhang Ji's insomnia this time is a great insomnia, because of this insomnia, he saw the Jiangfeng fishing fire, heard the midnight bell, and wrote this ancient masterpiece. Just the sentence "Jiangfeng fishing fire to sleep" has many understandings.
First of all, the word "Jiang Feng", normal understanding, should refer to the maple tree by the river, but some people refer to a nearby bridge called "Maple Bridge", if according to this understanding, then there is no tree in this poem; then the word "fishing fire", generally believed to be the light on the fishing boat, but also some people think that this fishing fire can not sleep, so "fire" should be understood as the word "gang", so the fishing fire has become a small partner on the fishing boat; finally, the word "sleep", the normal understanding is insomnia because of sorrow, However, some people think that it refers to the mountain of melancholy outside Hanshan Temple. Although these understandings can be justified, from the perspective of the poet's situation at that time, the most classic way of understanding should be adopted: worrying about the maple trees and fishing fires by the river. Therefore, the interpretation of ambiguity should not be arbitrary.
The ambiguous beauty of classical poetry gives future generations room for multiple interpretations, and it is precisely because of the multiple interpretations formed by the continuous understanding and speculation of posterity, which are recreated, so that the ancient poetry itself has become more profound, moving and diversified, and we should be proud of the charm of ancient Chinese poetry.
Seeing so many beautiful ancient poems that are refreshing, I can't help but have the impulse to apply to the East. Coincidentally, on a high day, I once visited a lake, which was empty and clean, and there was a small red building standing quietly by the lake. Entering the building, the banners in the house are full of mythical stories, pieces of historical allusions, which make people feel relaxed, especially in the "Book of Poetry, Daya Mian" has "Ancient Gong Gong Father, come to the horse." The story of "Leading the Western Water Margin, as for Qixia", tells the story of the ancestor of the Western Zhou royal family, Gu Gonggong, who came to the area of Baoji Qishan in Shaanxi to establish a state, and was very moved, and at the same time understood the true origin of the name "Water Margin", "The Story of the Water's Edge", so he felt the wisdom of the ancients, imagined the vastness of time and space, drew on the beauty of ambiguity, and put together a few sentences:
"Linshui Climbing the Tower and Nostalgia" (Realistic Edition)
History of Spring and Autumn many back and forth,
The Red Chamber Water Margin is full of ups and downs.
The Thousand Autumns Brochure is a matter of fact,
There is no such thing as a storm!
"Linshui Climbing the Tower" (Unreal Version)
The history of spring and autumn often goes back and forth,
The Red Chamber Water Margin has several ups and downs!
Hollow Brochure Is It?
Smoke in the air!
(Pictured in this article is provided by the author)
Source: China Youth Daily client