Beyond the rivers and the earth, whether there are mountains or not: A brief discussion on the description of the motherland's mountains and rivers in traditional poetry

【Expert Forum】

Author: Huang Tianji (Chief Expert of the National Social Science Foundation Major Project "Compilation of Quanming Opera and Research on Ming Dynasty Opera Literature" / Professor of Sun Yat-sen University)

In the vast land of more than 9.6 million square kilometers on the mainland, there are good mountains and waters everywhere. The elegance of "small bridges and flowing waters", the wild interest of "the sky is pale, the wilderness, the wind blows the grass and sees the cattle and sheep", the magnificence of "the tide of the spring river is even the sea level, and the bright moon on the sea coexists with the tide"... The rivers and mountains of the motherland make people love, and the customs and things of the hometown can always evoke the nostalgia of wanderers.

Jiang Gan Xueji Scroll Part (Tang) Wang Wei

Since ancient times, people have liked to go sightseeing in mountains and rivers, or to roar in the wind, or to climb to give poetry. The five mountains stand at the top of the heavens and the earth, Cui Zheng Rong; The mighty rivers rush and rush for thousands of miles, and their majestic landscapes fully reflect the spirit of the descendants of Yanhuang who have lived here for generations, who have seen the past and the present, and have the spirit of the world. At present, the transportation is developed and convenient, and people who love tourism often climb the top of mountains and mountains and swim on the shores of the Yellow River of the Yangtze River in addition to work and study. At this time, the famous poems and sentences of the ancient and modern people describing the mountains and rivers will appear in front of them and spring up in their hearts, making people open up and add a lot of pride and feelings of home and country.

In the creation of traditional poetry, the works of chanting the great rivers and mountains belong to the "landscape poetry" in terms of subject matter.

In the ancient poetry world, the creation of landscape poetry had a development process. Before the Han Dynasty, few poets used mountains and rivers as their subjects, which was related to the low level of agricultural productivity and the influence of cultural trends. At the end of the Han Dynasty, Cao Cao wrote poems and wrote ancient famous sentences such as "east facing the jieshi, to view the vicissitudes of the sea" and "the autumn wind is bleak, and the flood waves are rising". Such good poems and sentences were rare at the time.

The scenery of mountains and rivers, colorful and often touches the poet's heart. However, not only the landscape was regarded as the background to set off the author's mood, but also as the main body of the creative subject, which did not become a trend in the poetry world until the Wei and Jin dynasties. Liu Wei pointed out in the "Wen Xin Diao Long Ming Poem": "In the early Song Dynasty, the body had a cause, Zhuang Lao retreated, and the landscape was nourished. Wang Shizhen also said, "Xie Kang Le came out of the Yuan Jia Ma, and it was created as a word to portray landscapes." Indeed, in the Wei and Jin dynasties, poetry with the theme of mountain and river scenery was still not yet mature, and the depiction of scenery was often listed in piles, with little meaning. Even if there are a few good sentences, they only leave a few impressions on people.

It was not until the Tang Dynasty that landscape poetry, especially poetry describing mountains and rivers, matured in the poetry circle, and quickly reached the state of excellence, which can be described as "if you don't fly, you have soared into the sky; If it doesn't sound, it's already a blockbuster." The achievements and creative experiences of poets are still worth inheriting and developing today.

The scenery and water color, a thousand shapes, the lack of view, can not write enough. But different mountains have different characteristics; Even if it is a large river, its upstream and downstream scenery is different. In the mainland art scene, poetry and painting are of the same origin. In the eyes of painters, different mountains have different shapes, reflecting different personalities and temperaments, and there is a saying of "the world of the sword pavilion, the danger of the world, the show of the world of Emei, and the world of Qingcheng". Even in different seasons, the scenery will show different charm. Guo Xi said in "Lin Quan Gaozhi": "Spring Mountain is light and smiling, Summer Mountain is green and dripping, Autumn Mountain is clear and like makeup, and Winter Mountain is bleak and sleepy." His generalization may not be accurate, because the mountains in the south of the mainland and the mountains in the north have different mountain views in all seasons. However, in terms of paying attention to the different characteristics of different seasonal scenes, this is a great reference for our poetry creation.

Describe mountains and rivers, and avoid covering everything. In this regard, the lessons of our predecessors are worth learning. Lu Ji of the Jin Dynasty wrote "Taishan Yin": "Taishan is high, and he builds the heavenly court." The mountains are far away, and the clouds are gloomy. Liang Fu also has a pavilion, and Artemisia also has a pavilion. Youcen Yanwan ghosts, divine room set hundred spirits. Long chant on the side of Tarzan, impassioned. "It's a common way to write it. Lu Ji is nothing more than saying that Mount Tai is very high, there are clouds, temples and so on. This is true of any big mountain, and there is no characteristic of Tarzan. Look at Du Fu's "Wangyue", the same is written about Mount Tai, but it is written in a different way. His focus is first and foremost on "looking". Du Fu did not say in general terms that Mount Tai was high, but looked up at the height of Mount Tai before climbing the mountain. He begins by asking "how is Dai Zongfu", which makes the reader suddenly startled; Then he said "Qilu Qingwei", its green mountain, continuing and crossing the two countries of Qilu, this is a mountain that only Mount Tai can have, and it is also the feeling of the poet writing about his distant view of Mount Tai. The third and fourth sentences, "Creation of Zhong Shenxiu, Yin and Yang Cut Dusk", are the poet approaching Mount Tai to observe its scenery. It is so tall and miraculous that it can cut off daylight, so that the two sides of the mountain are clearly separated by black and white. The fifth and sixth sentences, "Swinging chest to give birth to stratus clouds, decisively entering the returning bird", is to look further carefully; "Will be at the top, see the mountains and small ones", is the poet's impression expressed at the foot of Mount Tai about his observations. Obviously, Du Fu surrounds the "hope" of Mount Tai, allowing readers to deeply appreciate its magnificent momentum. This is very different from the general description of land aircraft.

In the traditional poetry circle, poets depict the great rivers and mountains of the motherland, paying attention to expressing their characteristics and momentum. For example, Lu lobbied that "30,000 li of the river enters the sea in the east, and 5,000 mountains go to the sky", and the 14 characters highly summarize the grandeur of the Chinese land. Li Bai wrote about the upper reaches of the Yellow River, focusing on its flying momentum, "The water of the Yellow River rises from the sky, rushes to the sea and never returns", which makes people dazzled, and truly feel the indomitable and unstoppable power of the Yellow River. When Wang Wan and Zhang Ruoxi wrote about the scenery of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, they paid attention to its vastness and tranquility, such as "the tide is wide on both sides, the wind is sailing" and "the tide of the Spring River is even at the sea level, and the bright moon on the sea coexists with the tide", making people feel the broad and peaceful weather of the motherland's rivers and mountains. As for the details of Su Shi's grasp of the choppy waves of the big river, the close-up picture of "chaotic stones piercing the sky, shocking waves crashing on the shore, and rolling up thousands of piles of snow" allows readers to see that the rivers and mountains are dangerous and magnificent, which makes people stunned.

How can you observe and capture the characteristics of different mountains? Here the author's thoughts, feelings and aesthetic concepts are involved. For example, Li Bai visited Lushan Mountain, the scenery on the mountain is strange, and there are many places that can be described, among which the waterfall is the most spectacular. Li Bai seized the wonders of the waterfall at the peak of the incense burner and used it to express the unique style of Lushan: the sunshine incense burner produces purple smoke, and the waterfall hangs in front of the river. The flying stream fell 3,000 feet, and it was suspected that the Milky Way fell for nine days. According to the "Taiping Huanyu Ji", the incense burner peak "has a round peak, and the smoke clouds gather and scatter, like the incense burner of Boshan Mountain". The first line of the poem directly compares the mountain peak to an incense burner, which under the sunlight obscures the mist, like a purple smoke produced by an incense burner. In the second sentence of the poem, Li Bai looked at it from a "distance", and the waterfall on the incense burner peak really became a cloth in his eyes. The cloth is "hanged", which fully shows the power of creation and the magnanimity of the poet's mind. The poet approached the waterfall and saw it rushing, so he turned his pen and focused on the dynamic waterfall, which contrasted with the static of the word "hang" gently thrown out in the previous sentence, and there is the third sentence of the poem. Li Bai said extremely exaggerated that this waterfall was a "flying stream", and it was a large water that fell directly from a height of 3,000 feet, and the momentum of the wild rush all the way really made people's souls throb. This was not enough, the poet suddenly wondered, and even suspected that the waterfall in front of him was not ordinary water, but a galaxy that fell from the nine heavens to the earth. Li Bai wrote the Lushan Waterfall as a spectacular fantasy, truly showing the momentum and charm of the incense burner peak. The wonder of the incense burner peak waterfall also makes people feel the unique characteristics of Lushan. To this day, anyone who visits Lushan will remember Li Bai's poem about the Lushan Waterfall, so as to further feel the brilliance of this lofty mountain.

The aesthetic forms presented by the shapes, lines and colors of the mountains and rivers of the mainland are objective existences, and they also show different characteristics and momentum. For example, the steepness of Mount Hua, the majesty of Hengshan Mountain, the huge waves at the mouth of the Yellow River, and the turbulent water of the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River, the forms and gods they express must be different, which can be described as "the world knows that people have God, but they do not know that things have God". Therefore, when describing the scenery of the rivers and mountains of the motherland, poets will carefully understand the charm expressed by the mountains and rivers. Wang Wei described the endless scenery of the border plug: "The desert is lonely and straight, and the sun sets on the long river." "He wrote a wisp of black smoke on the plane, straight up to the sky; It is also written that the long river lies horizontally, and the sunset is like a disk. Here are straight lines on the plane, circles on the horizontal lines; Blue sky, yellow sand, red sun, black smoke. The poet combines simple lines with different colors to brightly present the vastness and recklessness of the desert of the motherland.

However, the scenery and brilliance presented by the mountains and rivers are conveyed to the reader through the poet as the subject of aesthetics. In other words, the image of mountains and rivers inevitably stimulates the poet's thoughts and feelings, and "the heart shakes when he searches for it." Therefore, the "god" of the aesthetic object is fused with the "god" of the aesthetic subject, which presents the artistic conception of the mountains and rivers to the reader through written symbols. Therefore, the images of natural scenery written by excellent poets are often the projections of their inner world, and their descriptions of mountains and rivers can not only double the beauty of archetypes and the god of creation, but also the allegory of the author's thoughts and feelings, presenting them as masterpieces of scene blending. For example, the Lushan Waterfall written by Li Bai is inseparable from his unrestrained, hearty and romantic personality, "Li Bai is sexually addicted to alcohol, and his ambition is not informal", "Seeing the crumbs of rice grains in the dust, and the worm eyelashes are disturbed". When he observed the Lushan Waterfall with a broad mind and vision, he connected the grandeur in his chest with the mountains and rivers. He writes about the momentum of other mountains and rivers, and the same is true. For example, "the mountains end with the plains, and the rivers enter the great wilderness" and "the Yellow River touches the mountains for thousands of miles, and the vortex turns into Qin mines". Li Bai himself admitted this, and he said in the poem "Gift to Pei 14", "The Yellow River sets in the sky and walks the East China Sea, and thousands of miles are written in the bosom." It can be seen that the image of the god objectively presented by the mountains and rivers and the subjective meaning of the poet are closely related and integrated. Li Bai has always been full of spirit, and although there were many shortcomings in the current affairs during the heyday of the Tang Dynasty, at least on the surface, it was still a heyday, enlightened and open situation. In such a situation of the times, Li Bai integrated the god of mountains and rivers with his own arrogance, and the landscape poems he wrote can also be said to reflect the "flourishing Tang Dynasty" from one side. The early Qing dynasty painter Shi Tao said: "Mountains and rivers make the mountains and rivers of the Yu dynasty." Mountains and rivers were born from Yu Ye, Yu was born from mountains and rivers, searched for Qifeng to make drafts, and mountains and rivers met Yu Shen and traced also. "Poetry and painting are interconnected. Shi Tao's view just shows that the images presented in poetry as the mountain scenery as the aesthetic object are always integrated with the thoughts and emotions of the poet as the aesthetic subject. This is true of Li Bai's poems mentioned above, as well as of the excellent poets of all generations.

It is worth noting that traditional excellent poets who depict the magnificence of the mountains and rivers of the motherland often use it as a counterpoint to dissatisfaction with social reality. As quoted above from the Song Dynasty Lu You's famous phrase "30,000 li of the river enters the sea in the east, and 5,000 mountains go to the sky", describing how magnificent the mountains and rivers of the motherland are, but then the pen turns, "The remnants are in tears and dust, and the south looks to the king for another year." In this way, the poet's description of the mountains and rivers, and his love for the motherland, just reflect his dissatisfaction with the surrenderists in real life. Similarly, Song Wan of the Ming Dynasty wrote about the mighty rushing momentum of the huge waves of the Yellow River: "Whether there is anything to pour down the galaxy or not, it is only necessary to set off turbid waves in the sky", and the next two sentences are: "There are more winds and waves in the world, and it is said that the Yellow River is a fearful road." Here, the poet contrasts his feelings for reality with the turbulent charm of the Yellow River, which can also trigger readers as aesthetic receptors, thus deriving "images outside the image".

In the Western art world, works that use realism as the method of creation pay attention to the description of truth, and pursue to portray typical environments and typical characters, which has an important positive impact on literary and artistic creation, but also brings some drawbacks. Some Western artists believe that this is not easy for aesthetic receptors to develop their imagination. As a result, art schools such as Impressionism, Absurdismism, and Dadaism appeared, and even Picasso, who tended to the realist style in the early days, became more and more abstract in his later works. Of course, we must respect different artistic styles and draw on each other's excellent results. For example, Mr. Wu Guanzhong has absorbed some concepts and techniques from the Western art world in his paintings, and combined them with the traditional concepts and techniques of the mainland, which is unique in the art world and has made important contributions to the development of mainland art and even aesthetic theory. The traditional art scene in the mainland, especially the poetry world, pays more attention to the technique of "combining the virtual and the real" in its creative methods. The so-called "reality" is described according to the form of the aesthetic object; The so-called "virtual" is that the author deliberately leaves enough imagination space for aesthetic receptors, which is "writing without writing". For example, the image of an angel painted in Western churches is a pair of wings growing on a child's shoulder; The angel "Feitian" on the Dunhuang mural only depicts a girl lying horizontally on the picture, with a flowing belt behind her. They have no wings, but the viewer can imagine them as flying angels from the streamers. Another example is the ink painting of the mainland, if you want to express the height of the mountain, often leave a large blank space in the mountainside, and the audience will perceive that this is the cloud and fog in the imaginary painting, so as to imagine the true form of the mountain.

Traditional excellent poems often use a combination of fiction and reality to express the magnificent atmosphere of the motherland's mountains and rivers. For example, Wang Wei's "Han River Linpan", with two sentences "outside the world of rivers, there are no mountains in the middle", describes the vast scenery of mountains and rivers in the area of the Han River in Xiangyang. As for how the Yangtze River flows beyond heaven and earth, and how the mountains are hidden in the clouds and mist, the author leaves a blank space with a false pen, consciously guiding readers to comprehend the magnificence of mountains and rivers through imagination. In addition, Li Bai's famous sentences such as "the mountains end with the plains, the rivers enter the great wilderness, the flying mirror under the moon, the Yunsheng Jiehai Lou", Du Fu "the stars fall on the plains and the wilderness, and the moon surges in the rivers", Meng Haoran "Steaming clouds and dreams, waves Yueyang City" and other famous sentences are all combined with fiction and reality, inspiring readers to "see" the beauty of mountains and rivers from the verses.

Among the many excellent poets of the Tang Dynasty, Wang Wei knew best how to use the method of combining fiction and reality to depict the mountains and rivers of the motherland. The "Final South Mountain" written by him: Taiyi near the capital of Tiandu, even the mountains to the sea; The white clouds looked back, and the green mist looked into nothing. The peaks in the divided fields change, and the clouds and sunshine are different; If you want to stay in the house, ask the woodcutter across the water. The poem begins from the height of the mountain, and the first sentence begins with a myth, leading the reader to imagine the height of the mountain. Then there is reality in reality, and the poet looks over from the southern mountain and writes about the real scene, but it stretches all the way to the "sea corner", which is an impossible scene, and then the reality becomes nothing. In the third and fourth sentences, the poet writes that he walked down from the mountain peak and found himself walking in the clouds and fog, which is not only to record the real scene at that time, but also to fictionalize the changes in the mountain scenery, so that the reader can feel the opening and closing changes of the clouds and mist from the hazy blankness like looking at a landscape painting, and imagine the towering height of the southern mountain. The fifth and sixth sentences are realistic depictions of the mountain view. The seventh and eighth sentences are even more meaningful. The poet said that he went down the mountain to find a place to rest, when he came across a woodcutter who was chopping wood on the mountain, and he asked each other across the mountain stream. The mystery of this sentence is that he actually writes about the scene of "crossing the water", and he cannot cross the past through the stream, and he cannot "ask the woodcutter", obviously they can only answer in a loud voice. And the unwritten sound of the question and answer sets off the emptiness of the mountain with nothingness. In the Tang Dynasty, the warriors often lived in seclusion at Jinan Mountain, seeing it as a place of retreat. "Poetry Buddha" Wang Wei uses the creative means of combining fiction and reality to depict the unique style and empty charm of Junan Mountain, a famous mountain of the motherland.

The above is only a superficial discussion on the works of some poets in the traditional poetry circles depicting the mountains and rivers of the motherland, from how to grasp the characteristics of the scenery, how to reflect the integration of scenes, both form and spirit, the unity of aesthetic objects and aesthetic subjects, and how to use the creative method of combining virtual and real. Today, reading these famous verses in traditional poetry can still make us feel great and enhance national and cultural self-confidence. We must learn from the useful experience, continue to carry forward innovation, and write more excellent works full of family and country feelings.

Guang Ming Daily (November 30, 2022, version 11)

Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily