China News Service, Beijing, August 6 Title: "Poet" Bian Zhilin: Eastern Imagery, Western Influence
Xu Tian, a reporter from China News Weekly
In the Institute of Literature of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in the 1950s and 1960s, young students called old experts and scholars "Sir" and party and government cadres "comrade", with the exception of Bian Zhilin, who was called "Old Bian".
In the summer of 1929, 19-year-old Bian Zhilin was admitted to the English Department of Peking University, and went north alone, and sitting opposite him on the train was Qian Zhongshu, who had just been admitted to the Spanish Department of Tsinghua University. The age difference between the two is less than 20 days, and they have become famous talents in the future, but after the 80s, Qian Zhongshu's fame is in the sky, but Bian Zhilin does not seem to return to the spotlight.
When it comes to Bian Zhilin, few people may realize that this is a figure who has lived until 2000 and entered the new century. He seemed to be forever frozen by some kind of magic: "You stand on the bridge and look at the scenery, and the people watching the scenery are watching you from upstairs." The bright moon decorates your window, and you decorate other people's dreams" in broken chapters.
His old friend and poet Feng Zhi once said: "There is a kind of relict creature in biology, just like ginkgo biloba in plants and giant pandas in animals. Perhaps because of empathy, Bian Zhilin admired this statement. He also mentioned many times that when he was young, he went to see the Performance of Peking Kunqu Opera Artists, and there were few viewers, and two poems were embroidered on the curtain: "He does not hesitate to sing the pain, but the hurt is rare." Every time he talked about it, he had infinite emotions.
"Spiral"
After the Cultural Revolution, poetry magazine held a symposium in Beijing to discuss the past and future of new Chinese poetry. Hu Qiaomu made a report, emphasizing the achievements of new poetry since May Fourth, and pointed out that the new poetry circle has produced recognized great poets, namely Bing Xin, Guo Moruo, Feng Zhi, and Bian Zhilin.
Bian Zhilin later told her friend that she could not be called a major poet , but only a minor poet .
His "Ten Years of Poetry" was reprinted. He parodies the Wenxin Carved Dragon and names the collection of poems the Chronicle of the Carved Worms, saying that his poems "may only occupy a place in a small corner of a history museum or library for the time being."
The Selected Poems of Modernism lists his poems at the beginning of the poem, while the Selected Poems of Modern Obscurity classifies his works as modern obscure poems.
Before this, a group of foreign scholars had begun to pay attention to Bian Zhilin.
Hong Kong scholar Cheung Man Yee was one of the earlier. In the early 1960s, she turned to Bian Zhilin's early book "Fish Catalogue" in the East Asian Library of Columbia University, and later she co-edited "Selected Modern Chinese Poems" with friends, hoping to find more works by Bian Zhilin, but it was not easy. "The Book of Lines" was copied from the University of California, Los Angeles, and "Ten Years of Poetry" was a film taken from Harvard University.
The Dutch scholar Han Leyi also paid attention to Bian Zhilin. He felt that Bian Zhilin's poetry had oriental imagery, and was obviously influenced by Western modern poetry, with light and darkness, yin and yang, and intriguing. But there is little research on his poetry and life in either the mainland or Taiwan, and even fewer in the West. Therefore, he chose Bian Zhilin's research as the topic of his doctoral dissertation.
In 1979, Han Leyi went to Beijing and met Bian Zhilin after a series of formalities. He told Bian Zhilin that he wanted to know how he translated Shakespeare's tragedies in poetic style.
Han Leyi recalled to China News Weekly that Bian Zhilin talked about his translation, his ideas on the law, and answered many questions about poetry creation.
Later, bian Zhilin, with the financial support of an entrepreneur, went to the Netherlands to participate in the defense of Han Leyi's doctoral thesis. In 2010, 10 years after Bian Zhilin's death, a revised version of the paper was introduced to China under the title "Discovering Bian Zhilin: A Journey of Exploration by a Western Scholar."
In November 1981, Bian Zhilin went to the Netherlands to participate in the defense of Han Leyi's doctoral dissertation. The picture shows Bian Zhilin attending a celebratory dinner at a local restaurant. Photo by Loe van Rees
After the end of the Cultural Revolution, Bian Zhilin began to translate Shakespeare's four tragedies.
He translated Hamlet in 1954, and Shangying's Revenge of the Prince was dubbed from this translation. Different from the prose translations of Zhu Shenghao and others, he applied his own legal propositions for new poems and used poetic styles to translate and annotate. But then the movement became more and more, and he could only put pen to rest. By 1984, he had finally translated Othello, King Lear (i.e., King Lear), and Macbeth.
At the time of publication, he said quite soberly that he had not been exposed to international shakespeare for more than 20 years, that he had forgotten everything he had known before, and that he was unwilling to agree with most of the recent Western literary and artistic theories, so the "Introduction to translators" spanning 30 years was considered to be a historical trace.
He did not translate Shakespeare's other works. Wang Zuoliang, who is also an expert in shakespeare studies, commented that in Shakespeare's poetic translation, the greatest achievement was Bian Zhilin.
After more than 20 years of writing, Bian Zhilin also tried to write poetry with a pen. Bian Zhilin put aside the shackles of the folk song body and pursued the use of classics, especially the law. The poet Beita told China News Weekly that the poems were rigorous in rhyme and rhythm, almost impeccable. Zhang Manyi also believes that poetry has the flavor of Modern Western poetry, which reminds people of the brushwork of Orton and Eliot. But both point out that perhaps because of years of repression, these poems cannot match his work in the 1930s.
In 1982, Jiang Weishui, a fourth-year student at Anhui Normal University, came into contact with Bian Zhilin's works and felt a refreshing sense of superiority. He was learning to write poetry, so he tried to send his study to Bian Zhilin for advice. Three weeks later, Bian Zhilin wrote back to him, sent him the Chronicle of carved insects, and annotated each of his poems with a pencil.
Since then, Jiang Weishui and Bian Zhilin have maintained correspondence for more than ten years. He, now a professor at Zhejiang University's School of Media and International Culture, told China News Weekly that he believes that in the 100 years of Chinese new poetry, the best poet written in the first 50 years was Bian Zhilin. He felt that the change in Bian Zhilin's poetic style in the later period was a natural thing, because he sincerely integrated himself into the "big self" and embraced the changes that took place on the land of China.
He said that Bian Zhilin was deeply influenced by the French writer André Gide, and Gide's thoughts and writings have been transformed into the flesh and blood of Bian Zhilin.
Bian Zhilin has translated many of Kidd's works, and he greatly admired Gide, once describing it in a translator's preface: Gide's style has always been a dual beauty that is very rich in the body of the Bible—spiritual warmth and sensual richness, like snow-white flames and golden waves of water.
After the age of 50, Gide was considered to have "turned" his mind twice, first to the "left", and then to visit the Soviet Union and then to come back. But Kidd himself doesn't think so, saying he's never changed direction, but keeps moving forward.
He once said, "My greatest strength is my belief in progress." He wrote in his diary that a demand to always want to tune used to torment him.
Bian Zhilin agreed with Kidd's point of view. He said: "Walking along a spiral road, on a curve, which point can we say is a 'turn'?" Maybe he just walked a little faster. Until his later years, he often talked about the concept of "spiraling upwards."
"Otherwise, it will be more lonely"
People familiar with Bian Zhilin say that his old age was lonely.
Zhao Yiheng, a professor of comparative literature at Sichuan University's School of Literature and Journalism, was one of bian's first graduate students recruited after the Cultural Revolution. He told China News Weekly that at that time, he often went to Bian's house, sometimes not meeting in advance, but whenever he went, Bian Zhilin was at home.
Bian Zhilin is a native of Haimen, Jiangsu Province, who left home at a young age, but retained his hometown accent, and others always spoke with him as if they were separated by a layer, and it was good to understand 70% or 80%. But Zhao Yiheng feels that in the field of modern Chinese literature, only the poems of Bian Zhilin and zhang Ailing's novels have really reached the level of world literature.
Zhou Liangpei was compiling the "New Chinese Poetry Library" at that time, and ran the Bian family many times for the "Bian Zhilin Scroll". The dormitory building of the Academy of Social Sciences is like a gray bunker, Bian Zhilin lives on the top floor, other people's homes are engaged in decoration, and the lime on the walls of the Bian family is falling off.
Zhou Liangpei recalled to China News Weekly that ten times, nine times Bian Zhilin was alone at home. The big bookshelf blocked out the light outside, and he had to turn on the lights during the day, and he was there to write. The streets outside the door are bustling, but inside the door is like a person who reads hard in the ancient cold window, which is the story in the old version of the line-bound book.
Writing poetry has not been completed, the translation work has also been collected, and Bian Zhilin's later years were mainly in sorting out her past works.
A few days after returning from a visit to the United States, the poems he wrote were published, and he had already begun to revise the words in them. Self-selected and edited poems from the 1930s, he is still wondering where to delete one or two words and where to add one or two words to fit his legal ideas. He wrote to Zhou Liangpei, begging him to spare him and not to include one of his works in the anthology.
He also had a stubborn view of the interpretation of poetry. Once, zhou Liangpei said that "Broken Chapter" made him understand that all kinds of events are landscapes, and Bian Zhilin corrected him: "It only expresses a relative and balanced concept, and must not make other speculations." Zhou Liangpei thought that when the work is written, the re-creation of the poem is handed over to the reader, can the author unify it? If the author is embarrassed by this, he will inevitably live too tired, this perfection is too far away, and the person who pursues it is doomed to be lonely.
The descendants of the Institute of Foreign Languages of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences went to visit Bian Zhilin and came back to talk about a discovery: Bian Zhilin liked to eat fried potato chips and listened to the sound it made when it was crushed.
Those who can understand him are withering away. He co-published the "Hanyuan Collection" with peking university classmates Li Guangtian and He Qifang, which caused a sensation in the poetry world in the 1930s, and the name of "Three Poets of Hanyuan" was derived. They talk about everything, especially prose.
His student, Qiu Xiaolong, who later became a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, told China News Weekly that Bian Zhilin had told him with emotion that He Qifang had joined the revolution, Li Guangtian had become the president of the university, and he himself was mainly a translator, and it was really difficult to go down the road of poetry creation.
Bian Zhilin likes to call her old friend Feng Zhi, two or three times a day, and each time she talks for a long time. His ears are not working, Feng Zhi must speak loudly, and hanging up the phone is often tired and sentimental.
Feng Zhi once told others that Bian Zhilin's ears could not hear clearly, and he always talked to himself, maybe he was too lonely, but otherwise, it would be more lonely.
When Bian Zhilin was 80 years old, yuan kejia, Du Yunxie and Wu Ningkun, students who were teaching at southwest United University, edited and curated the book "Bian Zhilin and the Art of Poetry" to celebrate his birthday. Feng Zhi wrote a poem for his birthday: No matter how fate teases your pot boat, your poem is a tree against the water and the wind... There is no need to go up to the tall building alone to read the history of modern literature, this constellation is not prominent, but it contains a unique brilliance.
Ten years later, Yuan Kejia, Du Yunxie, and Wu Ningkun once again initiated the Bian Zhilin Academic Seminar to celebrate the birthday of their mentor.
Yuan Kejia came from the United States with an illness, but after getting off the plane, he heard that Bian Zhilin had died that morning. It was his 90th birthday.
The original meeting was held as scheduled, but the people who congratulated the birthday were all sent off. Bian Zhilin loved white roses, and Yuan Kejia gently placed two white roses on his chest and leaned over and murmured for a long time.
Zhou Liangpei thought that Bian Zhilin was a person who was pushed into the deep mountains and ancient temples of history, and leaving was also a kind of calm. He often remembered the way Bian Zhilin sat in his study at home, outside the window was the wind and sand of Beijing in winter and spring, and Bian Zhilin sat quietly, lonely, but also enjoyed the wealth of his thoughts. (End)