Illustration by George Henry Bolton for Hawthorne's novel The Red Letter
Illustration by Arthur Rackham for Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream
As one of the most important motifs and primitive scenes of anthropology, the forest symbolizes richness, depth and remoteness, which makes people yearn for it. The vast forest sea, the towering trees, exotic flowers and grasses, insects, birds and animals and endless vines that have been formed for thousands of years, the fine and delicate textures, the dynamics of light and shadow flickering, and the natural sound of high and low ups and downs, connect light, water, plants, insects and birds and beasts, bring bird observers, geologists, anthropologists, meteorologists, and botanists into different levels of perception, and also allow poets, philosophers, and literary and art critics to participate in the repeated examination of their complicated time and space. The forest, naturally, belongs to the space of poetry and poetics. Looking up, countless literary and artistic works in ancient and modern China and abroad are full of the shade of the forest. Forest poetics, let us return to a sky supported by the forest.
The smoke is scattered, and the clouds and trees are combined
There are many thousand-year-old trees in the mountains, and it is rare for a hundred-year-old person in the world. According to the "Etymology", the Chinese word "forest" was first found in the Wenyuan Yinghua: "Suhui Jet Stream Se, Green Cotton Forest". Nature's mountains, rivers, birds, beasts and forests were originally the "heart of heaven and earth". "Tang Dynasty? The land of Akebono. Who thinks about the cloud? Mei Meng Ginger. I am in the middle of the sangzhong, and I am in the upper palace, and I am sent to the top of the qi" ("The Wind and Sangzhong"). In ancient China, forests were a place for men and women to meet. Our ancestors worked under the protection of the forest, sang songs, had children, and loved each other.
There are numerous records of forests in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, a collection of ancient Chinese mythology. For example, "the father of the sun", "abandoning his staff and turning it into Deng Lin", "the shackles abandoned by Xuan You are for the maple tree", FuXi climbing the ladder of heaven, praying for the rain of the Tang Sang Forest..." The mountain of The Mountain of The Ridge, on which the Dodan wood, whose leaves are like a tree, is actually as big as a melon, red and black, and can resist fire when it is eaten", Jianmu, Fumu, Wakasa, Danmu, Baimu, Lingshou, Ganhua, Immortal and other sacred trees are all over the book, and these sacred trees are considered to be tools for the interaction between people and gods between heaven and earth, or play the role of heavenly ladders, and some grow in the center of the world.
According to legend, the Fuxi clan "came out of the river because of the negative figure of the dragon horse, so the official took the dragon age and was the dragon master... Destiny is the water dragon clan, breeding grass and trees, channeling the source, and not slacking off in time." The "Water Dragon Clan" may be the official who managed forestry in the era when the dragon was used as a totem. The Chinese sages had a variety of sophisticated and effective methods to deal with the relationship between the forest and the forest. For example, Chinese used to planting trees around mausoleums and temples because they believed that the spirits and deities of the deceased lived in the trees, which served a double protective effect on the temple and the mausoleum.
In the "Lü's Spring and Autumn", the environmental protection measures related to the forest are recorded in detail at each season, stipulating that in the first month of the month, "it is forbidden to cut wood, no nests, no killing of children, insects, fetuses, birds, no musk and no eggs"; in February, "inexhaustible Sichuanze, no pond, no burning of mountain forests"; in March, "no fate of wild Yu, no logging of mulberry"; in April, "no soil work, no hair to the public, no felling of large trees"; in May, "let the people have no blue to dye, no charcoal burning"; June "the trees are flourishing, but the people are ordered to enter the mountains and trees, none or cut down, and no soil work can be done".
"All things are good at wood" (Liu Xiang: "Five Classics of Righteousness"). Yan Zhi Lingze, Song Zhi Sanglin, Chu Zhiyun Dream, all are jungle grass. The forest is not an object, not an extended self of a person, but a vast chaos. In a seemingly chaotic forest, everything is in its place, each showing its own survival nature.
The ancients called the place of land worship "Society", and used trees as the gods of Society. Mr. Wen Yiduo once made a note of this, "In the primitive period, the society must have been set up by a god lord in a dense forest on a high mountain and an altar was set up. A 'cong' is a good proof. "It can be seen that the lush and lush places of the trees are often the place where the ancients established their societies. In Chinese, "city fox" and "social mouse" have the same metaphorical significance, because the fox rat often adheres to the divinity of the land god, and often uses dense foliage and ecological chaos and complex social forest as a hiding place.
In the book "XiaoxiangLu" of the Tang Dynasty, Liu Xiang wrote that Jia Bi saw several people drinking and singing and dancing in the green field of ancient Luoyang City, and these seven people were the embodiment of seven kinds of trees such as pine, willow, locust, mulberry, and jujube. Yang Yanzhi's "Luoyang Jialan Record" records that when the "Shensang" was watched, he annoyed the emperor and ordered people to kill him, "the sun and fog are obscure, where the axe is dropped, the blood flows to the ground, and those who see it do not weep." The British anthropologist Fraser also mentioned in his book "Golden Branch": "In Chinese books and even in the main history, there are many records of trees bleeding, crying or wailing when they are chopped or burned by axes. "The forest has become an image of merit, and the reverence for the forest has made a high and simple ancient spiritual homeland.
In the "Departure from sorrow" and the "Book of Poetry", there are many touching and living forests, which store the true information of the dependence of the ancestors and nature. In the chinese literati's pen, it is a different kind of weather, people and forests are quietly transported, without restraint, without tiredness, that is the ethereal realm of heaven, earth, and human life.
"There is no one in the empty mountain, but there is a sound of people. Return to the deep forest and look back at the moss. (Wang Wei: "Lu Chai") The forest is aesthetic and non-object here, and the forest language does not break the silence, on the contrary, it is self-sufficient and completes a kind of Tranquility that is self-sufficient and self-sufficient in the contemplation of all things.
Geographer Duan Yifu believes that the literati paintings of the Song Dynasty captured the essence of the mountains and forests. If you travel back to the Song Dynasty from now on, you may not see a painter like the West who carries paint on his back to the field. Artists of the Song Dynasty were not immersed in trying to replicate a particular landscape. "Instead, he walked into a world and wandered there for hours or days so that he could feel and absorb the whole atmosphere, and then he went back to the studio to paint." Artists face the forest, the mood and painting are intertwined, the poetry and natural objects, the spring wind and autumn circulation without hindrance, and the kind response, there will be a superior work of trees and clouds, mountains and rivers.
The Northern Song Dynasty painter Guo Xi's "Shanshui Xun" has a record: "The smoke of the true mountain is different at four o'clock. 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. "Chunying, summer shade, autumn color, winter bone, this is from the perspective of a painter, borrowing the different characteristics of forest growth to describe the scenery of the four seasons of mountains and forests, is a unique art form derived from the Chinese aesthetic spirit, which can be described as "the heart is condensed and released, and the harmony with Wanhua".
The poetics of dreams
"Poetry creates images. This image begins with pleasure and ends with wisdom. "(Frost) Forests, too, are naturally spaces that belong to poetry and poetics. Literary and artistic works related to the forest, whether quiet or warm, romantic or realistic, are related to the sky and the earth, to darkness and light, to the splendor and sorrow of the four seasons, to the profound words of creation, primordiality, reproduction, purity, rest, etc.
"Come and listen to the woods, I dare say: / This song is full of wisdom" (Wordsworth: "The Opposite"); Wordsworth was walking near Concord one summer when he saw a figure in the woods, "Look, that's Mr. Emerson." He seemed very pleased, for he had said that there was a muse in the woods today, and that her whispers could be heard in the breeze. The image of the "forest" is an important reference object in the process of the emotional and rational development of human life, especially loved by the writers of the Romantic period. For the transcendental poets, in particular, there is an enlightening force that inspires this nature of the unity of matter and self.
The word "forest" is poetic in itself, like a vast nest of language and experience. The French poet Baudelaire proposed the "fit theory", that is, the creation of the universe as a "symbolic forest" corresponding to the human mind, such a deep and tortuous, mysterious and open, especially the poem entitled "Fit", which is praised as "the gospel that brings modern aesthetics":
Nature is a temple, and the columns are spiritual,
From it, a faintly speaking sound is emitted.
Man passes through there, through the symbolic forest,
The forest stared at him with familiar eyes.
"Art is really lurking in nature, and whoever can strip it out of it will possess it." (Rilke: Portrait of the Artist) has endless metaphors in the world of clouds, seasons, birds, beasts and plants. The forest is boundless, and in the forest, we think of symbolic words related to subjective emotions such as "snow field", "meditation", "silence", "lost and subtle", "passing of life", "flourishing" and so on. Especially when darkness and light are intertwined, the forest has the deepest meaning. Forests before dawn, dusk, and storms often bring us telepathy and sensing beyond our horizons.
Further, around the forest, a unique soil and river, phenology and celestial phenomenon are formed, showing the tension between noise and tranquility, light and darkness. In this way, the forest reveals the richness of aesthetics and the integrity of our own experience, a metaphor for the clear state of the world. It even carries its own virtues, helping people to "walk through the netherworld and darkness" and regain a sense of clarity and clarity.
In the boundless wanderings of the North American continent, John Muir felt that "every hidden cell in the mountains and forests floats with music and life, every fiber vibrates like the strings of a harp, and the aroma constantly permeates the bell-shaped corolla and leaves containing balsam." No wonder these hills and groves are God's first temple, and the more trees are cut down and cut off to build churches of all sizes, the more distant and vague God appears. Perhaps the same is true of the stone halls. On the eastern side of this wood in our camp stands one of nature's cathedrals, cut from vibrant rocks... As if it had life like a temple of woods, it trembled in the baptism of the sun"; and when muir wanted the shepherds to accompany him to appreciate the allegorical landscape, he was answered that "it was nothing more than a canyon, a pile of rocks, a hole in the ground". (John Muir: "Summer Walks Through the Mountains")
The aesthetic experience brought about by the mountains and the vast forests and seas is not only "an abstract landscape that runs through the emotions of the observer", but must be a reflection of human history or human exploration. The forest picture in John Muir's eyes is no longer just a static landscape for human viewing, but contains the exploration of the future hope of human life, the pursuit of transcendent spirit, and the divine thoughts of nature.
The evolution of the world and the mysteries of the forest landscape convey to us all the time the will and instructions of the Creator. The breath of nature permeates the forest, precipitating all ambiguity, ambiguity, confusion and abnormality, deeply involving the ultimate propositions of life and death, so that we are satisfied and accept the baptism of integrity and faith:
Although there are many branches, there is only one root;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I shake off my foliage and flowers in the sunlight;
Now I can wither and enter into the truth.
(Yeats: Wisdom over Time)
Sin and atonement in the forest
The beautiful form, complex structure and calm quality of the forest have a natural edification, beautification and adjustment effect on human emotions, and are the best place for inner integration. Hawthorne's "The Red Letter", a classic literary work, is a metaphor for the mysterious connection between the forest and people.
In this novel, the forest symbolizes "a wild, heretical nature that has not succumbed to human law"; although it is close to the real society, it is dark and gloomy, and the towering ancient trees and boundless vines obscure the sun. Among the townspeople, there have long been many rumors about the presence of "blacks" and witches in the forest, and only Mrs. Spencer, who is regarded as a witch, dares to enter and leave the forest at will because she has repelled evil with blood. People are both reverent and afraid of the forest, seeing it as the source of the birth of evil and sin, and driving "sinners" into the forest is the most severe law of punishment.
"Letting the characters of the story enter the dark and dark forest will create a dangerous atmosphere" - this is a common creative method in Western classic literature. However, in "The Scarlet Letter", this forest, although dark and inaccessible, is far less evil and terrible than people think, on the contrary, it provides an effective way to solve human physical diseases and spiritual crises.
In the forest, social rules are ignored or ignored, and primitive laws of nature prevail. The order that is different from social time and space is called the "Green Forest Law" in Europe and the United States, and the forest is a space full of freedom and resistance. In The Scarlet Letter, the forest embraces the socially ostracized Hester mother and daughter, and this desolate land becomes their secret spiritual home.
Hester originally lived on the edge of the forest, which also meant that she was on the edge of the unconscious, and her urgent task was to awaken herself and solve the problem. Entering the forest, you can usually find your true self, because the complexity of the forest provides people with space for reflection and understanding. Hawthorne describes the forest's calling and acceptance of Hester in four chapters: "The forest's intersection is open to her, and her wild nature is exactly the same as that of the locals, whose living habits are exactly the opposite of the laws that sentenced her." ”
More importantly, forests symbolize freedom and happiness. Through the meeting of the Heist family in the forest, the forest has become the spiritual cultivation place of the protagonist's family, becoming a place where their love is reborn and their future is rekindled, which also metaphorically describes the maternal characteristics of the forest.
When Hester and Dinmesdale made up their minds to break with the past, the forest issued a "voice of approval": "The sky emits a thousand rays of light, just like the sky opens a smile, pouring a piece of sunlight into the dark forest, making the yellow leaves become golden and brilliant, and even the gray and solemn trunks shine." "This is the moment when loneliness is abandoned or into infinity, when the weary soul is washed away by emptiness and the darkness is dispelled, and from it we can feel the wonderful connection between the forest and the destiny of mankind.
Only "In the middle of the woods, we return to reason and faith" (Emerson). Forests can also be a refuge for the souls of people who are oppressed by the laws and institutions of Puritan society. Emerson once observed, "Merchants and lawyers came out of the hustle and bustle and treachery of the streets, saw the sky and the woods, and returned to being human." In The Scarlet Letter, the family is in love and does not want to leave the forest, "How terrible is the path back to town, Hester has to take up the burden of shame again, and the priest is going to put on the mask of good reputation again... They lingered a little longer. There has never been any golden light as precious as the darkness of this dark forest. ”
Wearing the red letter of shame, Hester finally regained his long-lost feminine cognition in the forest, took off his dark and heavy hat, "full of dark shiny, thick and waterfall-like hair immediately flowed on her shoulders", "her youth and her feminine beauty in all aspects have recovered from the so-called irreparable past." Along with it came the hopes of her girlhood and a happiness that had never been known before..." The shame and distress were relieved, and the forest was deeply involved in the writing of the fate and situation of the characters, and allowed them to regain their true existence lost in the real world, including the desire for true emotions.
Unconsciously, the forest embodies the most authentic state of human existence, and the sense of security and belonging is completely naturally generated. If, according to the geographer Pete, man in a place like the forest "naturally and unintentionally experiences existence"; the great forest and the things in it can cause an awe-inspiring silence in the human mind; this reverence for nature has a very healing effect. Only an ecological community of the earth, such as a forest, can comfort those who wear sin with blood and tears in their chests. In "The Scarlet Letter", the forest is portrayed as a kind of "leader" with wisdom and will, helping the protagonists to find a sense of identity and home, and giving them hope and new life. In this sense, the forest is the spiritual empty space and spiritual church provided by nature for people, the necessary place for rebirth, and the supplement and perfection of the mutilated real world. Leaving the sad and tired world—entering a source of some kind of strength (the forest)—returning with a life-promoting energy also achieves a certain classic literary style.
Vast natural literary space
The Austrian writer Schwab said in "Dances with the Devil": "The noblest soul on this earth is the soul of the forest, and this nation should attribute its power to its forest." Because of this, I would like to say that it is no accident that all culture originates from forests, because the decline of culture is inseparable from the destruction of forests. "Forests are not only available resources or natural forces that need to be adapted, but also a source of security and happiness, an object of deep attachment and fascination, and a vast natural literary space.
Ada is the most Acadian of Nabokov's entire novels, and many scenes take place in the shade of a tree, and when the hero and heroine interact, the relationship between the linden tree and the oak tree also occurs: "Overhead, the branches of a lime tree stretch towards the branches of an oak tree, like a green beauty flying to meet her powerful father, who is hanging upside down on the swing with his feet. The depiction of the two summers in the novel has been called "two summer idylls" and "lush pastoral songs".
"In the woods, a man sheds his old years as if he were shedding his shell, and at any time in his life he is as if he were a child, eternal youth in the woods" (Emerson's Speech). The forest is the place where the child receives the rite of passage of passage, and the protagonist of the fairy tale leaves home, away from the protection of his parents, and often enters the forest, at this time the forest symbolizes a state of self-exploration, the child may experience tribulations, but that is the only place to discover and perfect himself. After coming out of the forest, you may reach a city or a royal palace, or even a secret place of good luck.
Many of the scenes in Grimm's Fairy Tales take place in the forest. For example, "Three Dwarfs in the Forest", "The Old Woman in the Forest", "The Cabin in the Forest", "The Marriage of Mrs. Fox", "The Skilled Hunter", "St. Joseph in the Forest", "The Scrooge in the Jungle", etc., mark the "historical event" of the first encounter between the forest and people. "The earth is green, flowers are growing in the ground, and the trees in the forest are full of branches and greenery. The song of the birds resounded through the forest, and the flowers in the trees began to fall to the ground. "Surrounded by a silent forest, when a full moon rose at night, he took his little sister's hand and followed the stones that shone on the ground. The budding and appearance of the forest in fairy tales is a world of serenity, warmth, silence and beauty, with flowers overflowing the wilderness and a secret passage through which people maintain contact with their childhood years.
Throughout history, both the European continent and the British Isles were covered by endless virgin forests. It is said that in The Warickshire in the middle of England, squirrels jump from tree to tree in a dense forest and can cross the entire Warwick county without landing.
In Shakespeare's plays, the forest often appears as the antithesis of a cold, rigid court world. The old duke, who was exiled to the Ardennes Forest, was touched by the scene: "This kind of life, though far away from the hustle and bustle, can listen to the talk of the trees, and the flowing water in the stream is a great article, a stone is a small stone, and it also hints at lessons; in the middle of every thing, some benefit can be found." "In Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, the forest is also given a beautiful color, which is the land of the elves, the paradise of dreams." When the moon reflects her silvery countenance in the mirror waves, when the crystal dew is dotted on the tip of the grass blade", the young man will sneak out of the house and meet in the forest. Forests are where all people are brought to equality. There is no difference in identity or status in the forest, everything is manifested and each has its own place, and everything is the best arrangement.
Russian literature is known as the precious literary tradition of "nature testing human nature", and Pushkin, Fett, Turgenev, Bunin, Prishvin, Andafiev are all singers of Russian nature and the mind. Their works shine with the poetic luster of Russia's vast wilderness and great forests, which are the source of their creative passion. In Rasputin's "Farewell to Maggiora", there is a "tree king" that embodies the vitality of the land, the fire can not be cut down by the axe, even the chain saw can not take it, in the eyes of the residents, it is the "tree king" that fixed the island to the bottom of the river, connected to a common land, it is the Maggiola Island of the heavenly tree, the sun tree, is the root of the world connecting the life and blood of the clan. As long as there is it, there is Maggiora, and people's hearts will be extremely stable. The birch tree is Russia's "ritual tree", a broad-leaved tree with white bark that has been transformed into an indelible thought, into the dreams and ideas of a nation that is full of snow.
The vast plains north of the Carpathian and Bohemian Mountains have been densely forested and beautiful since ancient times, so the German people called themselves "the peoples who came out of the forest tribes". The primitiveness and solemnity of german forests construct the fantastic light and shadow of German culture. After the Teutonics of the Germanic tribe defeated the ancient Roman invasion in the forest, the oak forest was seen by later generations as the embodiment of the strength and bravery of this people.
The depth, richness and mystery of the forest also gave the German nation a rich source of creation. In 1772, a group of young poets founded the Göttingen Forest Society, in which they often created chants in the forest, thus creating a jungle of language: a "world of deep and rich hearts that can be felt and felt". The flow of the four seasons and the delicate environment in the forest have stimulated their pursuit of freedom and their yearning for nature. As the geographer Lever put it, "Some places are more real than others, and that sense of commonality, belonging, and 'local consciousness' can only be found where the connection between those people and place is deeply rooted." ”
In the magnificent epic of The Song of the Nibelungen, the hero finds hope and infinite power in the forest, but loses himself and loses his life in the dark, crisis-filled forest. Forests exist not only as "landscapes", but also as interpretations of the specific situation of human beings.
Since the boundaries of the forest are not easy to determine, the forest symbolizes the junction of consciousness and unconsciousness, and is a symbol of the subconscious. This also triggered the writer's pursuit of real human desires in the real world. Kenzaburo Oe's grandmother once told him the story of the forest. The forest is made up of many trees, each tree is a person's tree of life, if you are lucky enough to find your own tree of life and walk under the tree, you will meet your future self. In "The Football Team of the First Year of Wanyan", Oe writes: "Although I grew up in this deep forest, every time I crossed the forest back to my own valley, I could not escape from the dull feeling. The core of the feeling of suffocation entangles the emotional essence of the deceased ancestors. At this time, the forest is like a lonely and absurd dream, making people unable to extricate themselves and unable to wake up.
The landscape of the forest can be peaceful and warm, or it can be gloomy and cold, which is closely related to the inner state. The "forest" is the image of the soul or self, growing upwards and toward the light, while constantly pushing the roots into the depths of darkness. The process of the tree growing upwards is also the process of taking root downwards, and the roots of the tree must constantly advance towards the depths of darkness, which is largely similar to the human fascination with darkness, death, and the abyss. In the forest, the protagonist must "face all aspects of the neglected self hidden in the unconscious."
Without a specific natural environment, people often cannot orient themselves. In fact, when you are in the special geographical environment or specific place where the story takes place, people will have a sense of substitution for those stories that are mixed with sorrow and joy. In Yasunari Kawabata's prose, there are traces of forests everywhere, beautiful and quiet, but in the pure and green, there seems to be a certain mysterious uneasiness. Haruki Murakami's "Norwegian Forest" preserves the original experience of the connection between human life and the forest in a certain era, and responds to certain historical spiritual situations. From the forest, the writer acquires a rather unique sense of self and creative spirituality.
"Everyone is vast and inexhaustible"
The forest is the group portrait of the human soul, the transitional space between civilization and wildness, city and countryside, reality and fantasy, worldliness and sacredness, consciousness and unconsciousness, the source and hidden cradle of a person's spirit, the revelation of truth and origin, and the closest place to the source. The expansion of "modernity" around the world has caused the "poverty of experience" of modern people, and people have lost the ability to communicate and dialogue with "nature" and "forests". In the expanded world of "the poetics of the forest", both man and the forest can exist more self-sufficiently and openly, especially to help us approach a certain integrity, which includes the light and darkness, life and death, happiness and destiny of the soul itself.
Mountains and rivers, springs and streams, ancient and modern, through the millennium, the true state and external value of the forest, embodies a kind of realm from the limited to the infinite, in an instant to experience the eternal realm, shaping our ability to reflect on reality. "The next morning, as we walked out of the forest, on the way back, we saw that the urban world was like a vast industrial workshop, noisy and blind, like a huge lie. We want to rediscover that enchanting joy, we remember the vividness of that feeling, but we always have to rediscover the lost key. (Bauzanbach, Solels: Watch, Write) When we are far from the hustle and bustle of modernity and return to a firmament supported by a forest, we can reconcile with nature, with ourselves, and let nature and the heart reach a mutual comfort.
(Author: Liu Dongli, President and Editor-in-Chief of China Forestry Publishing House)