In 1938, Feng Zhi and his family traveled with teachers and students of Tongji University through a trek through most of China to migrate to Kunming, and began to teach in the Department of Foreign Languages of Southwest United University the following year. In the eight years of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he lived in Kunming for seven and a half years. When the war was critical, it was once moved to the Yangjiashan Forest Farm in the suburbs. In a corner far from the center and far from the hustle and bustle, Feng Zhi, who became famous in the 1920s and was praised by Lu Xun as "China's most outstanding lyric poet", truly entered the middle-aged stage of contemplation and ushered in a period of creative flourishing. From 1941 to 1943, in a small hut in the Yangjiashan Forest Farm, "like a lake that opened the floodgates", Feng Zhi successively wrote many chapters in the poetry collection "Fourteen Elements Collection", the prose collection "Landscape" and the novella "Wu Zixu", with different styles, diving into the core of nature and life but reflecting each other, pure, transparent, and harmonious, achieving The "Three Absolutes" praised by Qian Liqun, and initiated the writing of works such as "Du Fu's Biography".
Everyone's small series Feng to four kinds
"Landscape", "Wu Zixu", "Du Fu's Biography", "Ten Letters to a Young Poet"
Beijing Publishing House
"Landscape": a masterpiece of contemplation
The chapters in "Landscape" span more than ten years, some were written in Beiping on the eve of Feng Zhi's visit to Germany in 1930, some were written when they studied in Europe, some were written when they were teaching in Tongji, Shanghai after returning to China, and the remaining half were written in Kunming, mostly for the chronicles and retrospective works, beautiful, timeless and extremely contemplative, Feng Zhi believes that they are "similar in nature" when recording. "Shanshui" was first published in 1942, and since then, due to the shift in focus under the realpolitik situation, Feng Zhi no longer writes such essays, but turns to realistic critical essays, so in this sense", "Shanshui" can be said to be a masterpiece.
When "Shanshui" was republished by the Cultural Life Publishing House in 1947, it was accompanied by an afterword, when Feng Zhi had returned to Beiping, and he wrote at the end: "Now that I have returned to Beiping, I have fallen into various situations that are more complicated than during the war, sitting in the circle of the city all day, and there is no longer a wilderness that haunts my soul, and the landscape of Kunming seems to have become my ideal landscape." At this time, I felt that this pamphlet was not so much a memorial to many places I had traveled in the past, but rather a memorial to Kunming. ”
All kinds of "mountains and rivers in the soul" are integrated in Kunming, and in contrast with reality, they are sublimated from a figurative landscape abstraction to an "ideal". As one of the most important encounters in Feng Zhi's life, Feng Zhi wrote, "The landscape near Kunming is so simple, frank, with little historical burden and artificial embellishment, they are not embellished, everywhere shows their original appearance: at this time I know nature, and naturally educate me." War and exile were originally tragic and mournful, but unfortunately, Feng Zhi came to Kunming by chance at this time, was in the forest farm, close to the purest and untainted nature, looked up at the universe, looked down at the categories, and gained a new view of the relationship between man and nature in the sweep of the "wind of the wilderness", or in the contrast between the two extreme worlds.
Therefore, rather than famous places, Feng Zhi prefers to place, watch and write about those nameless landscapes, the nature that has not been stained by human history. "For landscapes, let us also give them their original faces, and we should not mix some human affairs into nature" - this self-statement in the afterword reminds people of the literary teacher Rilke, whom Feng Zhixiang obeyed and admired, wrote in his famous article "On "Landscapes", "People should not materially feel the meaning it (landscape) contains for us, but should look at it as a great existing reality." Many of Rilke's works, including this article, have been translated by Feng Zhi into Chinese, or it can be said that the title of the book "Shanshui" is directly related to Rilke's "Ming" song. Behind the dedication to the nameless landscape and the subjective landscape aesthetic, there is a natural view that people and nature are separated and harmonized, and the ideological resources given by German romanticism, which Feng Zhi loved, were finally suddenly enlightened in the forest huts surrounded by simple landscapes in Kunming.
"Landscape" shows this trace of thought. As early as heidelberg (Feng Zhizuo Haidaishan) university, Feng Zhi, who often went to the mountain forest to walk alone, experienced from the two poems of Jia Dao," "Walking alone in the shadow of the pond, counting the trees by the side", "the infinite realm of walking alone in the nobody's nature" ("Two Verses"), but this is still close to the fragmentary epiphany of the aura, and by eight years later, the famous American work "A Vanished Mountain Village" written in Kunming has become more mature, calm and long-term. The village that has disappeared without knowing history has left a lingering charm in the streams, grasses and wild beasts, so that many years later, distant visitors such as Feng Zhi can also perceive that in a long time, in the depths of life, the sound and breath are connected and inexhaustible. There is also the Guilin landscape seen in "Remembrance of Pingle", "the silence is condensed in the front and back, left and right, as if thousands of troops and horses cannot break through this silence" - like a wartime metaphor, suggesting the true return of eternity.
Most of the people recorded in the book are also nameless people like this landscape, "life and death are like a tree." Feng Zhi used a light and warm white depiction to highlight their temperament. The Russians who sang Mongolian lamentations at the banquet let Feng Zhi see the simplicity of the people in the distant regions; the landlords and friends who lived in Esikab, on the outskirts of Berlin, still maintained a frank and relatively free way of life in the uneasy political atmosphere after the Nazi Party came to power; the people in the Locarno village in Switzerland lived a slow and casual life, and the young man who delivered bread would be too lazy to deliver the door because of the high steps, preferring to earn less money, which was very pleasant; the tailor he met in Pingle, no matter how chaotic, would do his duty to make a dress on time There are also cattle herders in the Yangjiashan Forest Farm, who come and go with the creatures they graze, and completely live themselves as part of the natural world...
These human beings are not opposed to nature, they are not easier with the times, but they are also what Rilke called "the great existing reality", in a sense, and the landscape on which they depend, are one and look at each other. The so-called changing circumstances of the world, the ancient landscape and the life of ordinary people, have always been like this and will always continue, in the wind and rain like obscurity, showing and giving a certain silent power. From this point of view, although "Landscape and Water" constitutes a masterpiece aesthetically, it is not a grand theme, but it is not external to the overall war experience of China at that time, but constitutes a heterogeneous and long aspect of it.
"Wu Zixu": the "Olimpian" of modern colors
The novel "Wu Zixu", which was completed later in the same period, shares a quality of "Landscape" and creates a new atmosphere through a unique style. Although "Wu Zixu" is based on historical legends, under the exquisite interception and initiation of Feng Zhi, it is full of poetry and contemplation, and is recognized as the leader of modern Chinese poetic novels. The novel consists of nine chapters, Wu Zixu, who insists on avenging his father and brother, runs from the father of the city and ends in Wushi blowing pipes, and the middle chapters, Linze, Huanbin, Wanqiu, Zhaoguan, Jiangshang, and Lishui, are all named after the landscape, and the Chu madness, soldiers, fishermen, huannu, Yishi, assassins, etc. who are hidden in the middle are also mostly unorthodox characters. In the different worlds separated by mountains and rivers, Zixu resides, lurks or transcends, constituting several miraculous encounters in his life, completing a personal history of spiritual growth. Just like the fisherman on the river, just because he saw that the landscape had become an obstacle for the distant pedestrians, he was determined to cross them, and Zi Xu, who was deeply touched, said to him when he said goodbye: "You crossed the river, and at the same time you crossed my hatred." "The landscape and man once again merged into a poetic whole, and there was a certain meaning of humanization, so that Wu Zixu was like a silkworm molting and gaining enlightenment in the speculation of the soul."
The most well-known plot of Wu Zixu in the historical story is that after he became the doctor of wu, he led his troops to invade the capital of Chu and excavated the tomb of King Chuping and whipped the corpse of three hundred. In a legendary sense, this is the violent climax that a revenge story should have, but Feng Zhi lets the novel stop abruptly long before the climax, and it is in Wu Zixu's timeless voice. More concerned than the fiery worldly purpose is the ever-changing picture of Wu Zixu's mind as he runs alone on the long rough road (which reminds one of Jia Dao's two poems). In the afterword, Feng Zhi uses it as a beautiful metaphor of "throwing", "every moment has a stay, every moment has a fall", "there is persistence in staying, and there is overcoming in the fall". This section of his Wu Zixu's escape, or journey, or wandering, is such a throw, outside the borders of the country, outside the history, outside the normal order of life, facing threats and loneliness, but also because of this throw, he can wander away from the daily life, reflect on the heart, and make choices in the intertwined contradictions between home and country, worldliness and ideals. And what is just Zi Xu, the raccoon girl who served him by the lishui river, Feng Zhi also gave up the tragic ending of the legend that she died in order to keep the secret of going to the water, but let her return home and get the historical and philosophical dimension of thinking - the distant travels of Meng En also enlightened the chaotic and unopened girl's soul. The novel transcends and sublimates history with a holistic contemplative temperament.
Although the text of "Wu Zixu" is a wave, the process of conception is long, running through Feng Zhi's youth to middle age. The idea of writing, which first began when Feng Zhi read Rilke's prose poem "The Song of Love and Death in the Banner Hand", was moved by the "brilliance of colors and the harmony of tones", and he also wanted to use this genre to write the escape story of Wu Zixu, whom he loved when he was a teenager, "the night of Zhaoguan, the dusk on the river, and the sunshine of Lishui", all of which became part of his imagination of color and tone. More than ten years later, after going to the country to return to his hometown, the death of his friends, and the exile of the War of Resistance, Wu Zixu appeared several times, but in his image, he "gradually took off his romantic clothes and became a person who was truly honed in reality." The final story is very different from the previous imagination, and "mixed with many trifles, reflecting the pain of some modern people, especially in recent years, Chinese", "a story of escape two thousand years ago has become a 'Odyssey' with modern overtones". This process of transformation shows the trajectory of Feng Zhi's experience and thought, and also injects the weight of reality into this story.
Feng Zhi mentioned a stroke in his afterword, saying that he would sometimes think about writing Wu Zixu when he looked up at the plane soaring. In the glaring contradiction between war and poetry, it is the incomparable closeness between history and reality, and Wu Zixu's escape echoes the displacement of Feng Zhi and the whole of China at that time, and they are forced to run towards a distant, unfamiliar and unknown fate. In particular, in the eighth chapter of "Yanling", Wu Zixu's passing of Jizha is not found in the history books, which belongs to Feng Zhi's "fabrication", but it also shows the deep meaning of the writer, facing the difference between ideals and reality, the reversal of freedom and fate, the choice of where to go and the pain of "breaking the mind" after the choice, behind Wu Zixu's hesitant image, it is actually a projection of the spiritual pain of modern Chinese intellectuals. As Feng Zhi said, this story is a rainbow in the sky when he was a teenager, and a long bridge on the ground in middle age, with similar shapes, but the burden is different.
The Biography of Du Fu: Faith in Exile
Ji Xianlin once said that it is rare for people who are both poets and scholars and have reached a fairly high level, and Feng Zhi is one. And Feng Zhineng studied Chinese and Western literature at the same time, in the west is Goethe and Rilke, and in the middle is Du Fu. Feng Zhi's research on Du Fu is of pioneering significance, and the Biography of Du Fu is one of his outstanding achievements.
The biography of Du Fu was serialized in the New Observation in early 1951 and published in a single edition the following year, but like Wu Zixu, it was conceived by Feng Zhi long ago. Feng Zhi's daughter Feng Yaoping once recalled that when her father was young, he "respected and stayed away" from Du Fu, but it was during the war of resistance and escape that he became closer and closer to Du Fu, who had a troubled life, and the so-called "took his wife and daughter to exile, and first believed in Shaoling's characters." Out of admiration and deep understanding of Du Fu's poetry, around 1944, Feng Zhi aspired to write a biography for Du Fu. This is precisely when articles such as "Landscape" are replaced by essays, and the hidden practical concerns in "Wu Zixu" are gradually revealed and expanded, and finally based on Du Fu's biography, from which we can glimpse the ideological turn of Feng Zhi in this period.
Therefore, "The Biography of Du Fu" is not a scholar's study, but a writing with strong realistic demands. In his 1945 article "Du Fu and Our Times", Feng Zhishu said that the suffering suffered by the people in this era, such as civil war, harsh taxes, exile, and the division between the rich and the poor, was not much different from Du Fu's era, "we need Du Fu, as if we need a friend to state the pain for us", "The era we are in may be more difficult than Du Fu's era, and it is useless to deal with difficulties and perfunctory confusion, and it is useless to be detached and free, and only the spirit of attachment can overcome it." This spirit is exactly what we urgently need at the moment." However, the book was finally completed in 1951, and within a few years it underwent tremendous social changes, the founding of New China, and the mentality of intellectuals changed, which made the final book also take on a different look. In Feng Zhixin's positioning, Du Fu changed from a "friend" to a "people's poet", and the people's nature became an important criterion for commenting on the various stages of Du Fu's life, and how Du Fu "transcended the limitations of his class, experienced the disasters of the ruled and exploited people, and thus made the poetry of the Tang Dynasty develop tremendously", which became the main narrative line of his life.
Of course, in a specific political environment, the "Biography of Du Fu" inevitably bears the imprint of the language and way of thinking of the times, such as viewing Du Fu's ancestral eunuch family lineage as a birth defect that needs to be overcome when going to the people, and also attributing du Fu's "vulgar" side of seeking merit, and not highly praising some of his poems in the left and shogunate eras. But compared with the vision in the 1945 article "What I Want to Write a Biography", it can be seen that in the context of historical narration, Feng Zhi as a whole realized his original vision of "a simple and living narrative". "Simplicity" lies in not being burdened by the examination of traditional poetics, facing the lack of information on Du Fu's life at that time and the difficulty of distinguishing between true and false in history books, paying attention to "du to understand Du", seeking truth with poetry, colloquializing in style, being kind and natural, and not being able to branch out; "life" lies in the fact that Feng Zhi can always experience Feng Zhi's deep feelings for Du Fu as a successor, and Du Fu, in his pen, is not a "great realist poet" who has been isolated and sublime by later generations, but a seeker/martyr who has endured the suffering of his home country, and was not understood at that time. No one cares, born of sorrow and died of poverty, but he sings the song of the swan with a broken throat. The scattered footprints of his life outlined a vast but broken picture of mountains and rivers, and Feng Zhi recognized his footsteps in that string of footprints. This is the eternal wounded beauty of "Du Fu's Biography" that transcends the nature of the times.
Feng Zhi and Du Fu had a lot of intersections in their lives, and the most memorable one was mentioned in Feng Yaoping's recollection, when he heard about the victory of the War of Resistance in Kunming, his father walked briskly every day, and his mouth kept chanting "Outside the sword, the jibei was suddenly transmitted, and the long scroll of poetry was ecstatic..." This is also "the first fast poem in Lao Du's life". The two generations of poets, the sages and the descendants, the heirs and the masters, constitute the deepest and most moving empathy in the historical dimension.
Today marks the 28th anniversary of the death of modern poet and scholar Feng Zhi. Feng Zhi was praised by Lu Xun as "China's most outstanding lyric poet" and pinned his hopes on New Chinese poetry.
Looking through the newspapers and periodicals during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, we can find that Du Fu and Du Shi were the cultural hotspots discussed by everyone at that time. As a du fu researcher, Feng Zhi did not like Du Shi in his early years. But the life of displacement during the War of Resistance changed his literary taste.
It is said that when Feng Zhi was teaching at the Southwest United University at that time, he was so poor that he only had one class robe, and only then did he understand the blood and tears in Du Fu's poems, so he began to write "Du Fu's Biography", and later achieved the good story of being chased by Chairman Mao in the newspaper column. He said:
"Personally, when I was young, I did not know Du Fu, and I was very estranged from him, and only gradually approached him during the years of exile in the War of Resistance Against Japan, when I wrote a poem: 'I took my wife and daughter to exile on the day, and I first believed in Shaoling.' I don't know the blood and tears in the poem, and I pretended to be a Peaceful Man for ten years. Since then, Du Fu has become one of my favorite poets, and from him I have drawn a lot of spiritual nourishment. ”
("Wishing "Caotang" a new publication and a little hope")
So, in the context of the times at that time, what kind of spiritual enlightenment did Du Fu and his deeds give to Feng Zhi? What is the relationship between the poet and his time, and how do different eras communicate and echo each other?
Inscription of Du Fu Caotang in Chengdu
Du Fu and our times
○ Feng Zhi
Du Fu's death year is 1175 years after us. In this long period of time, China has undergone many changes, and the world in front of us is naturally not the world that Du Fu has seen, but the name Du Fu is becoming more and more intimate to us day by day. Especially in recent years, articles about Du Fu have often been seen in magazines, books on Du Fu have been published in bookstores, and lectures on Du Fu have often been given in academic circles, which makes people feel that the time to remove the clouds and fog that spread around him such as poems and notes and reveal his true appearance and true spirit seems to be approaching.
A poet of the past is recognized again a hundred years later, or even a thousand years later, and can play a role, which is not uncommon in the history of literature, and people call this phenomenon "the rebirth of so-and-so". The so-called regeneration, according to the different circumstances, some because of "same", some because of "different"; the former is the spirit of an era in the past so-and-so poet found similarities and resonated, the latter is an era is lacking the spirit of so-and-so poet, need him to supplement.
In the past thirty years or so, in the decade or so of the Republic of China, the emotions of young people were liberated through the "May Fourth" movement, but it was not easy to find a way out politically or socially as well as in the relationship between the sexes, so they fell into a sentimental or wandering state, so the post-main words, "Shuyu Words", and even "Drinking Water Words" and "Two Dangxuan Collections" became the favorite readings of ordinary young people at that time. This is due to "same". As for the continuous research and admiration of Qu Yuan that arose at the same time, it can be said that it was due to "difference", because the rich imagination, powerful performance, and deep affection in the Chu Ci were exactly what was lacking at that time.
In terms of introducing Western literature, in the climax of the battle for freedom, who would not be fascinated by Byron's heroic posture, and when the emotions flooded uncontrollably, Goethe also felt the need. We are not willing to estimate the value of these two factors of "sameness" and "difference", but if we give them a metaphor, it should be because of the "same" people, there are those who are looking for friends, and because of those who are "different", there are those who seek teachers. When you find a friend, you can mourn and share; but if you get a good teacher, it is not so simple, and you have to go through long-term efforts to get something.
Now we humbly approach Du Fu, because whether it is because of the same or because of the difference, we need him on both sides. In terms of "tong", we have long known Du Fu fragmented; when the country suffered from the civil war of the warlords for many years, and the non-war ideology was the most common, poems such as "Soldier Carriage Travel" became popular reading materials in schools; in the early days of the introduction of socialist thought to China, the famous sentence "Zhumen wine smells of meat, and the road has frozen bones" was repeatedly quoted, and some of the cited people even did not know the origin of these two poems.
Du Fu Caotang in Chengdu
However, since the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, no one has not directly or indirectly tasted the pain brought by the Japanese invaders to the Chinese, and then open Du Shi to read, because of personal experience, naturally more deeply understand. The words in Du's poems are all true: writing about the suffering of conscription, "three officials" and "three distinctions" are the most praised; the writing of the rich and complex, "Dry Brown", "The Guest from Nanming" poems are the most painful; "Surviving today's affairs, the middle way is temporary", is the state of mind of the exiles; "Ande Guangsha Ten Million ,......" Who does not feel Du Fu's breadth when reading this; how powerful is the unevenness caused by the excessive disparity between the rich and the poor in the two sentences "No nobility is not sad, no rich and poor are enough"; "There are many doors of mourning and death", It is the inevitable fate of a nation that lacks the ability to organize itself in wartime.
This was not enough, fate also caused Du Fu to fall into the thieves once, so the poems "Sorrowful Chen Tao", "Sorrowful Qingsaka", and "Spring Hope" were produced, which were the blood and tears of the people in the occupied areas, and at the same time he imagined for us that once victorious, those people who had been destroyed by the enemy would be happy to "sell the mash at home and wait for the incense mash to be offered." (Unfortunately, we are now very disappointed in those who are only waiting for the mash!) )
When we read these famous poems and famous sentences, we feel that Du Fu is not only the mouthpiece of the people of the Tang Dynasty, but also seems to be the mouthpiece of our modern people. At the same time, we are also shocked to see that Chinese culture has really fallen into a state of stagnation for more than a thousand years, although there have been the science of the two Song Dynasties, the sinology of the early Qing Dynasty, and the so-called sexual spiritual literature of the late Ming Dynasty (a dark era), which have nothing to do with the ordinary people, and in the event of chaos, the suffering suffered by the people is not much different from Du Fu's time. Because of these "sames," we need Du Fu as if we needed a friend to state our suffering for us.
But if we don't stop there and think about it further, why can't Li Bai and Wang Wei, who are at the same time as Du Fu and enjoy the same fame as Du Fu, speak for us like this, and aren't they also through the Tianbao Rebellion? By asking this question, Du Fu is not limited to our friend, he has achieved the status of a teacher for us. At this point, maybe we need him more.
Stills from the BBC documentary Du Fu: China's Greatest Poet
When Du Fu was in Qinzhou, his pockets were empty, and he only "left a dollar to see", he wrote these two sentences: "The people of the world are reckless, and my way is difficult." It is true that at that time, ignorant and evil people could "talk and laugh and seek the marquis", and "the fox and white fur in the township" was not a difficult matter, du Fu did not seek this, but tended to be "difficult", which was the path he identified. On the other hand, he "is not without Jiang Haizhi, Xiao Shan sends the sun and the moon", and he also repeatedly mentions "Pang Degong" in his poems, and he not only praises and sometimes envies the reclusive life, but he cannot live like this.
When he was forty-four years old, he was "poor and worried about Li Yuan, sighing and having a heat in his intestines", and by the age of fifty-five, after more than ten years of displacement, he was still "sleepless and worried about war, powerless to do the right thing", and the reason why he was like this was because "the sunflowers poured into the sun, and the physical nature was difficult to seize", which was his character. He insisted on his character, insisted on his path, and when he was deeply aware of "what my way is" and "everywhere is a poor way", he preferred to be self-indulgent, preferred to see himself as zero, as ,—— but from this zero, this nothingness, in twenty years to create amazing greatness. Such an attitude towards life is rare among Chinese poets, and I am afraid that only Qu Yuan can compare with it. There is no detachment, no detachment, only attachment: attachment to nature, attachment to life.
There are many natural poems in China, but who has written such a jixing poem as Du Fu's journey from Qinzhou through Tonggu to Chengdu, so that people "know that outside the Five Peaks, there is no other mountain dignity"? It was a difficult journey, and these poems were not only seen with eyes, nor by heart, but by step with his hungry body.
Who among Chinese poets has integrated the entire image of an era into a long-form work like du Fu wrote before and after the Tianbao Rebellion and after the Kuizhou Rebellion? Only those who are persistent in their work and who are persistent in their poetry - "words are not surprising and die endlessly" - will have such amazing results.
Du Fu not only endured these "difficulties" without any escape, but he also concentrated on finding "difficulties".
"Or look at the emerald orchid, not in the blue sea of whales", it is a difficult job to restrain whales in the blue sea, but he insists on doing so. Therefore, the horses and eagles in the animal kingdom, the rivers and the sunset in nature, have all been properly placed in his poems; the sense of tragedy and sublimity in the world has also been fully expressed in his poems.
On the other hand, he does not lack the sense of beauty of the emerald orchid, he has written "drizzle fish out, breeze swallow oblique", he has written "geese are yellow like wine, love geese for wine", but this is only his temporary rest, just as he walked into a monastery, visited a mountain villa, mentally felt a momentary comfort, and walked out of his face is still a difficult reality. This kind of poem, with his most written when he was in Chang'an renzuo shiyi and when he first arrived in Chengdu, (these two short-term periods are indeed two temporary breaks in his life) - even this part of the poem is enough to withstand a whole Wang Wei!
Because of this persistent spirit, Du Fu was able to write so powerfully about the mountains and rivers he had experienced, so extensively depicting the images of his time, that we read his poems and felt that he was more intimate than any poet of his contemporaries.
The era in which we live may be more difficult than Du Fu's, and although it is useless to deal with difficulties and perfunctory confusion, detachment and freedom are equally useless, and only the spirit of attachment can overcome it. This spirit is exactly what we urgently need at present.
About the Author
Feng Zhi
（1905—1993）
Formerly known as Feng Chengzhi, a native of Zhuozhou, a modern poet and scholar, Lu Xun called "China's best lyric poet". He taught at Southwest Union University in Kunming and Peking University. His representative works include "Yesterday's Song", "Journey to the North and Others", "Biography of Du Fu" and so on.
Selected Poems of Rilke
XiuTao/Translation(1)
Book of Hours (Das Stunden-Buch)
I 2
I dwell in this ever-expanding,
Inside the arc that runs around the nether.
Maybe I will not be able to last,
But I will try to.
I circled around God and the ancient tower,
Circumvented thousands of years in my ancient way.
But I still don't know I'm a falcon,
A storm, or a great song.
I 6
You, my next God, if only it were night
I'm beating you violently to wake you up, all because
I can barely hear you.
And I know: you're alone next door.
If you want to drink water, no one
Bring it to you. You're just groping in the dark.
I've been listening. Just a soft hello
I'll come right over.
There was only a thin wall between us
Occasionally just
A soft call from you or me
It will be silent
collapse.
That wall is made in your image.
It stands in front of you, obscuring you like your name,
And when the brilliance in my heart is high,
My deep heart knows you
The sparkle is in vain, like a light thrown into a frame.
And then all my consciousness becomes crippled.
From exile to homelessness.
I 36
Oh God, what would you do if I died?
I am your water jug (what if I break?) ）
I'm your drink (what if I'm corrupt?). ）
I am your shirt, your industry
Lose me, and you lose meaning.
Without me, you will be homeless
No warm and gracious welcome.
I am your velvet shoes
Take off your tired feet.
Your coat will also fall.
Your gaze, that casts warmth on me
On the cheeks, as if resting on a soft pillow, it is imminent
In vain, the endless search -
And lie like the setting sun
At the knee of a foreign mountain rock.
What do you do, God, I'm anxious.
II 7
Extinguish my eyes and I can still see you.
Close my ears and I can still hear you.
I can still walk towards you without feet.
Without a mouth I can still pray to you.
Remove your arms,
I embrace you with my heart instead of my arms.
Stop my heart, I beat with my brain.
If only you were to set fire to my brain
My blood will still carry you.
Duino laments
First Lament (Die erste Elegie)
When I cry, who will be among the angels
Should I? Even if one of them will be sudden
Embrace me, and I will be irresistible because of him
Exists and dissipates. Because beauty is nothing else
It's the beginning of fear that we can barely bear
The reason why we are as promised is because of them
It can easily destroy us. Every angel is terrible.
- So I tried my best to suppress it, and endured
And swallowing. Oh then when we need it
Who can turn to? Not angels, not men,
Even the discerning beasts were aware of it
We are in this ambiguous world
Not at all comfortable. Maybe on the hillside
There is still a tree left that we can do day in and day out
Take a look. A street of yesterday,
As well as faithful love stacks us
And not the habit of wanting to leave.
Oh, and the night, what we expect, when the wind is full of emptiness
Bite our face – she will stay for anyone.
Gentle and slightly disappointed presence and lonely heart
rendezvous. Will she be a little more lenient with her lovers?
Oh, they just cover up their fate from each other.
Don't you still understand? Throw your full of emptiness
In the space we breathe, maybe birds and finches
You will feel that the air is diluted and you need to fly wildly.
Yes, spring needs you, numerous stars
Wait for you to take a look. The waves of the past
Rush to you, or when you have walked
One side of the window opens, a violin
Make a confession. That's your mission
Can you do it? You are not often being
Want to be distracted? As if everything
Promise you a lover? (Where will you hide,
These are whimsical ideas
In and out of the churning, often not going to go at night. ）
If you expect, sing the praises of great lovers;
And although they are passionate, they are far from immortal,
Some of the outcasts, you are almost jealous,
They may love you more than you have ever loved.
Start all over again and try your feeble praises;
Remember that heroes are not dead, even if they are temporarily extinguished
It is also for the rebirth of another world.
The exhausted Creator recalls the lovers
When I got to her, it seemed as if I didn't have enough energy to take them
reforge. I can still remember
Gaspala Stampa (2)? For that great love
Every woman who is abandoned by her lover
Or they will sigh to themselves, "If only I could be like her."
This eternal pain should not be for us now
Does it bear fruit? It's not time for us yet
Is self-love set free? We shuddered and endured
It is like an arrow enduring a bowstring in order to make a leap in that accumulation
to buff yourself. After all, there is no place to stop.
Voice, voice, my heart, listen, like
Listen to the Sages. Nor are you going to suffer
The Voice of God. Just listen to that long sigh
The endless message that grows from silence,
The self-dying ones come to you with a serpent.
A church before you enter Rome or Naples
Didn't they tell you about their lives?
Or the inscription on the height shows you
It's like the stone carving last year in the Church of Santa Maria de la Maxima
What are they asking of me? Or for me to abandon that
The uneven faces of their deaths, because that will make
Their elves are quite hindered.
Of course, it's not what it used to be
There is always an endless thirst for hand;
Even old names are thrown away like broken toys.
Unaccustomed to the old hopes have also been abandoned,
Unaccustomed to the old relationship of the past is also in the air
Drifting. At the beginning feel a hint of eternity
Before, I wanted to try to save,
Difficult death. But the living are at fault
Recognize the difference between life and death too absolutely.
Angels (some say) are often indistinguishable
Are they in the Sun or in the Underworld.
The eternal flood flows into all the yin and yang
generations and drown out their voices.
After all, those who died prematurely no longer need us,
They are separated from the world, like babies light
Weaning is as isolated from the mother's breast. But us
It's just such a huge magic. Troubles are given to us
The source of progress – can we live without this?
Legend has it that it is unconscious, once in mourning Reno (3),
The first fearless musical tone penetrated the paralysis of the flood
In the stunned space suddenly a god-like
The youth are gone. That space felt it for the first time
Harmony, still happy, supports and comforts us?
note:
(1) Translator Xiu Tao (1934-2020), born in Echeng, Hubei Province. He went to Taiwan in 1950, graduated from National Taiwan University in 1960, and later joined the "Modernist" poetry club founded by Ji Xian. In 1962, he went to Saigon. He immigrated to the United States in the 1970s, first in New York and then in Los Angeles. The above translation is taken from his translation of "The Best Rilke", and the selected works cover Rilke's main works and famous works, avoiding the regret of The Richter lovers to the greatest extent, published by Guangxi Normal University Press in September 2020.
(2) Gaspara Stampa (1523–1554), Italian poetess. Abandoned by his lover, Prince Trevisa, he wrote a large number of sonnets.
(3) Linos, a poet of Greek mythology who was contemporaneous with Orpheus. For his death is the result of mourning.
Haidai Mountain read Feng Zhi
Zhang Qinghua/Author
I can't imagine how many once vivid lives will be buried in seventy years of time, how many once vivid lives will be buried, and what kind of wipes will be needed to see through the traces of the beginning. Seventy years ago, the twenty-five-year-old Chinese youth, with his fantasies and love of German literature, came here with his name feng zhi. Today, this once-spirited young man has entered history and become a character in the book.
Feng Zhi has always disagreed with the translation of "Heidelberg", because the word "Fort" here is actually only the meaning of "mountain", and its transliteration should also be called "Berg", the accurate translation should be called "Heidelberg", and the more evocative and "elegant" translation is better called "Haidaishan", because the word "Haidai" is "not only transliteration, but also quite poetic". But because of habit, he personally "can't turn the tide with one hand." In several articles, he has been "grumpy" about it. I think it probably has something to do with the poetic memories of his life here at the time. "Haidai Mountain" is indeed a more poetic and aesthetic name. However, it doesn't sound like a western land, but rather a mirage of the Immortal Mountains on the Eastern Sea. Therefore, as far as my personal feeling is concerned, there is nothing wrong with calling it "Heidelberg", not to mention that Heidelberg does have a very long history and a rather majestic ancient "fort".
In October 1930, Feng zhi came to Heidelberg University to study literature, philosophy and art, and transferred to the University of Berlin for less than two years. In June 1935 he received his doctorate in Heidelberg with a thesis on Novalis. It can be said that Heidelberg is the most important stop on the trip from Von to Germany. The landscapes and rivers here should have left his dense footprints, and the beautiful scenery and long literary traditions here have given him rich nourishment and creative inspiration.
I spent an entire afternoon searching for Feng Zhi's books in the library of the Department of Sinology at the University of Heidelberg, and the results were not ideal, and I found only the second volume of Feng Zhi's Anthology with prose and literary essays, and a Copy of the Fourteen Elements of Hand with a German translation, and I intended to systematically read his poems, but that was all. Instead, I turned to two thick volumes of Feng Zhi's Academic Treatises, but my interest lies precisely in his poetry. Although you can still see some of the other collections and various anthologies, it is already a scale and a half claw, and it is impossible to read the whole picture in a concentrated manner. I am ashamed to think that I am a person who claims to specialize in modern and contemporary Chinese literature, but I have not studied Feng Zhi's poetry in depth. Seriously, in the past, when I read his poems, in addition to having a particularly good impression of several long poems such as his "Blowing Flute Man", the general feeling of his lyric poems was relatively rigid and rigid, and I had the memory of seeing the half-unfamiliar "fake folk songs" such as "Han Bo Chopping Firewood" that he wrote after the founding of New China. At this moment in a distant foreign country, stepping on the river path that the poet walked through seventy years ago, when I read his fourteen lines, I was suddenly deeply shaken- I read from it the revelations that the poet brought back from European culture and German philosophy, and read the poet's profound understanding of life and existence after the enthusiasm and melancholy of his youth: "We are ready to receive deeply / Those unexpected miracles, / In the long years there is a sudden / Comet, the wind rises; / / Our life in this moment." ,/ As if in the first embrace / The sorrows and joys of the past suddenly appear in front of the eyes / Condensed into a immovable form. "Life, in the moment of near death, reveals the full sharpness of existence, and its exhilarating and enlightening joy and suffering. The poet deeply perceives the fragility of life, but is convinced of the self-evident meaning of the comet-like journey, of the good memories and the awe-inspiring dignity of the small individual. These sentences filled me with emotion, something blurred my eyes:
We praise the little insects,
They went through a mating session,
Or resisting a danger —
And that's the end of their wonderful lives.
"Our whole life is bearing / The wind rises and the comet appears." This is the first song of the open volume. Holding on to the revelation and dignity of life with a small existence, this simple poetry is particularly broad and strong. In the previous new poems, it can be said that no one would write like this, whether it is those who are self-expanding, leisurely gentlemen, or melancholy and sad, obscure and desperate, all of them have not set their sights on such things, and are so touched by the "death that has come early". It convinced me that even the weakest beings in their existence also flashed the light of creative will and wisdom, they burned and disappeared, and they existed because of death, like shooting stars cruising between heaven and earth. What a magnificent idea this was, and I was shocked. I suddenly changed my mind about the poet.
In fact, although Feng Zhi's early poems also claimed to be influenced by Rilke, they generally left little impression on me, the syntax and sense of language were not so fluent, and the thoughts were definitely not so profound. In an autobiography written in 1979 (there is at least one additional edition), von Zhi described himself in Heidelberg as "listening to Jaspers on existential philosophy, reading the works of Kirkeger and Nietzsche, admiring the paintings of Van Gogh and Gauguin, and reciting Rilke's poetry with great interest", but his poetry writing throughout the 1930s was a blank. Although there are some translations, it is really strange that I can 'not write it" myself. In this Autobiography, he blames it on "the complex struggle of the Second Civil Revolutionary War" and "ignoring reality..." Please note that when he said that he was accepting the influence of the above, his mentality was inevitably a little "subtle", and of course he could not hide a little pride and superiority, but he used a "but" word. This insincere confession and "self-criticism" is obviously a bit sour, but considering the lingering aftershocks of the ultra-left era, such a statement is still forgivable. The most real situation, I think, is due to the strong shock of the emotional way he was young. People are often like this, when he has not fully understood a thing or a thought, he always has the courage to judge his head, and when he really understands it, he is about silent because of awe, I think Feng Zhi is like this. What he liked in his youth was the skin, "the brilliance of the colors, the sonorous tone of the tone", and the "gloomy and mysterious mood", and so on, but in 1936 he really understood Rilke, and also understood Hölderlin, and understood that their writing was based only on "truth and hypocrisy, survival and wandering, seriousness and funny" (Rilke – for the Tenth Anniversary Day), and a few years later he began writing in the same realm in the gap between wars, under the dim oil lamps in the deserted mountain huts. Reading his twenty-seven songs and fourteen lines in 1941, my soul trembled.
A poet cannot be without weaknesses, and as an intellectual who has completely experienced the history of modern and contemporary China, Feng Zhi can serve as an illustration of a study. He began to write poetry at the age of sixteen, and was admitted to the preparatory department of Peking University, two years later he participated in the literary activities of the "Asakusa Society" in Shanghai, in 1925 he participated in the initiation of the "ShenZhong Society" at the age of twenty, and then for many years he was encouraged by predecessors such as Lu Xun, and his writing was influenced by the tradition of German poetry focusing on intellectuality and ideological connotation through his uncle Feng Wenqian, who studied German literature, and thus extended to be influenced by German philosophy, especially existentialism, which led to what he called "three periods". The first two periods are the "Song of Yesterday" and "Journey to the North" period in the 1920s, and the "Fourteen Elements" period in the 1940s. But in any case, you can hardly imagine that Feng Zhi, who wrote the "Fourteen Elements Collection", later wrote works like "Han Bo Chop Wood". A poet who was so gifted and accomplished became an unappetizing parrot learner. Now that we think about it, we will of course say that if a poet cannot write according to his heart and personality, and write according to the principles of art, why not remain silent? If Feng Zhi were alive, he would naturally not be able to answer such a question. But the truth is that he can't be silent at all, all the poets participated in and jointly created that era of fake folk songs, Guo Moruo and Ai Qing are the same, Wen Yiduo is afraid that if he is alive, he will not be exempt from vulgarity, which is a common tragedy of contemporary Chinese poets.
In Feng Zhi's academic research works, the same problem can also be read, that is, the disease of the times when academic thought is poor. Whether it is his study of Du Fu or the study of Goethe, Heine, and German literature, it is really difficult to get more than the repeated ideological exposition and contrast, the analysis and discrimination of progress and limitations. This is also quite sad, how can a scholar who has such a deep cultural background have such a poor ideological and spiritual content of his academic treatises? I would especially like to be able to read his doctoral dissertation on Novalis and see what it looked like, which must have been very different from his later academic treatises. But when I went through those writings, I couldn't find them.
In 1979, 1982 and 1987, Feng Zhi revisited his hometown of Heidelberg three times. It was exactly forty-five years later, and the dancing boy had become an old man. I did not read an article devoted to his recollection of Heidelberg, but I did read an article written in 1981 on the banks of the Neka River, which was written about him sitting in Tübingen upstream to reminisce about heidelberg reading downstream, and an article about the poet Hölderlin, who wrote that he "sat on the banks of the Neka River in Tübingen, but could not help but think of forty-five years ago", and that "when the sun was setting in the west, I used to sit on a bench on the banks of the Neka River flowing across the Haidai Mountains", which moved me very much. I don't know if he still thought about his long life at that moment, although he wrote about hölderlin who was distorted by revolution and politics, but I think he must have had a bit of sadness and regret at that moment, the wind and rain, the world changed, a person rushed for a lifetime, cultivated a lifetime, how much did he leave? If he were still a poet, he should have some doubts, some scrutiny, he knew what would be left behind, and other things would be obliterated into the ruins of time. Thinking of this, he should have an old tear in his eyes and sighed.
The apparition of the old man appeared before my eyes, and on the bench by the river, I heard him let out that sigh.
The author Zhang Qinghua, a scholar, focuses on Chinese modern and contemporary literature, Chinese modern and contemporary poetry, and Chinese contemporary avant-garde literary trends. Heidelberg Notes is a miscellaneous travelogue of the author between lectures at Heidelberg University, published by Guangxi Normal University Press in June 2020.