Text: Humility talks about the style of writing
Editor|Humility talks about the style of writing
Since ancient times, China has had a tradition of using water as a metaphor for morality. There are not many cases of using water imagery to symbolize moral connotation in Fan Chuan's poems, but they are all typical, and they can be roughly divided into two categories: praising political clarity and borrowing metaphors for high character.
Du Mu wrote fewer hymns, and about 8 of them used the moral connotation of water imagery, accounting for most of them. or direct praise, such as "too conservative as water" ("Jun Zhai Alone"), praising political achievements and reflecting Du Mu's political philosophy.
Or through metaphors, symbols, allusions and other techniques, the Haiyan River is clear and the country is peaceful and prosperous, such as "the four seas are clear and clear, and the clouds of thousands of officials are wisps" ("Li Gan's poem"), "The Honghe River is clear and the sky is clear, and the axis of the south is horizontal."
The auspicious clouds reflect the purple of the Han Palace, and the spring light embroiders and paints Qin Chuanming" (the fifth of the six long sentences of Chang'an miscellaneous topics), "the momentum of the autumn is strong, and the spirit of Taihua is caracal after the frost" ("Song of Shengde Yuanhuai Tianbao because of the title of the four rhymes of the long sentences of the pavilion") and so on.
Such an open sense of space and majestic and bold spirit are unique in the late Tang Dynasty poetry circle, where the spirit is constantly shrinking inward. Du Mu's devotion to the magnificent rivers and mountains and his pride in his family and country are naturally integrated, which makes his praise have more real emotions than pure sycophancy;
On the one hand, it makes the lyricism more natural and smooth, and the emotion is more calm, so as to avoid the abruptness and stiffness of the general hymn when it turns from the beginning to the theme, and at the same time, it also reflects the poet's positive and enterprising ideals and ambitions.
Moral symbols
The image of water is used as a moral symbol, and in Fan Chuan's poems, it is more expressed as a praise for the high character. There are about 10 such poems, which can also be broadly divided into two categories. One is to use the turbidity of water as a metaphor for morality, the most typical is the poem "Chizhou Qingxi":
Lane Creek all day to dusk, according to the autumn to the white hair roots.
What is Laijun washing a thousand times? The dust on the tip of the pen fades away.
The whole poem holds the word "clear", and the first two sentences are realistic, and the polar water is clear; The last two sentences are opened, supporting the words and aspirations, using the technique of questioning, and singing the pen and heart that are clean and dust-free and free of distractions after washing with water. Because of the small to see the big, clever in the idea, poetic fresh, the embodiment of divine reason, full of philosophical interest.
Another example is "Shen Xiaxian":
Who is the singer? The grass path is mossy and nowhere to be found.
A night of small accommodation under the mountain dream, the water is like a ring and the moon is like a placket.
The poem describes the night in the dream, relying on Shen Yazhi's noble poetry and personality, and expresses the loneliness of the difficult to find bosom friend, which is not only to mourn the sages, but also to self-harm. "Water is like a ring pei" uses Huanpei Chengcong as a metaphor for the murmuring of water, which is a metaphor from the perspective of sound, and highlights the silence of dreams with movement and stillness, while Huanpei is mostly jade, which often symbolizes a gentleman and also expresses the poet's admiration for Shen Yazhi.
"The moon is like a placket" uses the moonlight to metaphor the cleanliness of the collar, which is a metaphor from the perspective of color, and at the same time, the "placket" can also be extended to the placket, which is a metaphor for its nobility. The clear sound of hearing the water under the moon in the dream is a very poetic fantasy, compared to Shen Yazhi, although there is no word related to life, and there is no specific evaluation, its high-standard rhyme has been realized, and the author's remembrance and condolences have also poured out.
Du Mu uses synaesthesia and looping metaphors, integrates comparison and symbolism, and combines the techniques of avoiding reality and focusing on rendering, to achieve the realm of no distractions, fiction and expressiveness.
Time symbol
Water imagery often symbolizes time in classical poetry, especially flowing water, which flows endlessly, as if time is endless; Once gone, it is like life is irreversible.
The laws of nature do not change according to people's will, and time will not stop due to people's wishes, so the saying "water is ruthless" was born, and writing water is ruthless, in fact, it is to set off people's affection, affection, and affection, and at the same time, it also has the meaning of witnessing the changes of time and the rise and fall of history.
Fan Chuan's poems are sad when they are sad, often with melancholy and helpless emotions as the background. Li Shangyin's "Du Sixun" "deliberately hurts the spring and restores the injury, and there is only Du Sixun in the world" accurately summarizes a major emotional content feature of Fan Chuan's poems. From the perspective of time symbolism, it can be roughly divided into two categories: one is a rush of time and the passing of years, about 7 songs; Two sighs about the changes of the times, things are people, and the rise and fall of history, about 15 songs.
The age is fleeting
Du Mu's feelings about the passage of time are mostly caused by the opportunity of cherishing friends, reminiscing about old travels, visiting hometowns, and remembering youth, and often mixed with emotions such as not meeting talents and ambitions, which naturally gives birth to a kind of helplessness and sadness of the rush of time and the twilight of heroes, as well as the anxiety and confusion of life being short and unable to make contributions.
For example, "who is stationed in Dongliu, the year is in hand" ("Cherish Spring"), while expressing the hope of grasping the limited time and doing a great cause of benefiting the country and the people, it also expresses the melancholy of knowing that the stagnation year is impossible and that it is impossible to develop its grand plans.
The poet gives birth to the sorrow of twilight spring in the "spring and a half" season of mid-spring, not so much to pity the fallen flowers that have just appeared, but to tell the sorrow of the sad spring. However, Du Mu is uninhibited by nature, although he is often melancholy, he rarely indulges in low and negative emotions, and often turns his pen to enter an open and free realm, and he is free to roll.
For example, "Ye Luoyan is a pity to return to the truth, and there is no time for the eastward flow" ("Title Tong Leaf") is to sigh about life through the cycle of nature, a little bit of the heaviness of the vicissitudes of life, and a little bit of detachment from the world.
Sometimes it is in a state of madness, such as "Chizhou Sends Meng Chi Ancestors" at the end of the imagination of heaven and immortal travel, "Penglai on the top of the sea, the water to the end to see the sea and the sky", the water is exhausted and not sad, the time is not sad, since "life is a hundred-year-old, but also a moment in the ages", fame and fortune are just vain, it is better to give up the doomed fruitless effort to extend the length of life, and instead pursue the height of life, even if aging accompanies it, what can I do?
This kind of sublime sparseness regardless of the world's vision and the passage of time is a portrayal of Ziwei's unique personality.
Things are the sighs of people and the rise and fall of history
Du Mushi's reminiscences of the old and youth, it is inevitable to compare the past and the present, leading to the sigh that things are not human. For example, "revisiting the sideburns and changing everything, only seeing the level of Dongliuchun" "From Xuanzhou to the official to Beijing on the road to Pei Tan's official return to Xuanzhou because of the title").
"At that time, I went downstairs, where is it today" ("Zhang Langzhong of Fuyun Temple in Anzhou"), "The old sound of flowing water is the old ear, and this time the sobbing is unbearable" ("Entering the Shang Mountain") and other sentences, which seem to have the meaning of resentment and ruthlessness of the passing water.
This kind of water imagery is more commonly seen in nostalgic epics, which usually unfold the poetry on the background of vast and far-reaching time and space, and write mourning with beautiful scenery, presenting the style characteristics of thoughtful sadness and emotion.
For example, "Flowing Nitang Water, Fork Teeth and Bone Beards" ("Taicheng Song II" II) describes the scene of the Sui army general Wang Xuan digging the tomb of Emperor Chen Wu near Nitang to take revenge after attacking the capital of Chen State.
Ni Tang has witnessed the night and night sheng songs of the Chen Dynasty, and also witnessed the tragic situation of a generation of founding kings exposing the corpses of the wilderness, but he does not add to his appearance because of the prosperity of the world, nor does he reduce his turbulence because of the decline of the dynasty, as if the rise and fall of history and the change of dynasties have nothing to do with it. The words are plain, but they contain infinite sighs, making the poetry far-reaching and shocking.
In his nostalgic epics, Du Mu often expresses his sorrow for the disappearance of prosperity in history, with an irresistible philosophy of prosperity and decline in addition to melancholy. For example, by the "A Scoop of Poetry" praised as "directly built the old Dumen wall", "Xuanzhou Kaiyuan Temple Water Pavilion Your Excellency Wanxi Jiaxi Dwellers".
This poem mourns the Six Dynasties, and at the same time uses the words "the same ancient and the present" to bring the present into the long river of history, expressing the emotion that "everything cannot last forever". The couplet borrows water to express lyricism, and uses the allusion of "singing in Si, crying in Si, and gathering the nation in Si", compressing the impermanence of joys and sorrows, the cycle of birth, old age, sickness and death in the long years in a freeze-frame landscape picture, writing extremely static and moving, and the feeling of loneliness naturally sprawls.
Regardless of the joys and sorrows of the world and the vicissitudes of the world, the flowing water only passes in a hurry, and so does time, under its sweeping, nothing is eternal. This poem is detached, with a subtle and unspoken meaning, melancholy and lonely without losing its handsomeness and brightness.
The figurative and symbolic meaning of the water imagery itself makes this kind of poem naturally have a contrast between the past and the present, so that the poetry can be freely stretched in the blending scene, which is more philosophical and timeless, and can also arouse the reader's empathy.
Du Muhuai's ancient epic poems also often have the meaning of mourning the past and the present, such as "a canal east into Fanghuayuan, and the garden lock pond is a hundred years old." The water hall is half poured into the mouth of the toad, for whom to shed the knotweed flowers" ("Shou'an County Gantang Pavilion Royal Ditch"), "Zhi Gai does not come to the clouds, where the fairy boat is murmuring" ("Luoyang Long Sentence Two Songs" one of them), "burst out of the water and pour Yao bricks, and the wind is in the jade room" ("Huaqing Palace Thirty Rhymes").
It is all through lamenting that the present is not what it used to be, and that things are not people, and in the lyricism of the scene, it expresses the historical feeling that prosperity is passing away with the water and that the decline is irretrievable. The elegance is beautiful and awkward, which faintly reveals the worry about the national situation of the late Tang Dynasty, alluding to the present. This is obviously different from many poets at that time who used the chanting of history to escape from reality, and it is also a major reason why Du Mu's poems are overwhelming.
A symbol of seclusion
Because of its unrestrained posture and free flow, water imagery is often regarded as a correspondence to a leisurely and indifferent state of mind, thus having a hidden meaning. The essence is the objectification and self-objectification of the poet's subjective consciousness. In Fan Chuan's poems, the hidden meaning of water imagery can be divided into the dual connotation of retreat and leisurely life.
Most of the intellectuals in ancient China had both the tendency to enter the WTO and to be born at the same time, and when they were disappointed in their careers or enjoying the scenery, their willingness to be born often prevailed.
Although Du Mu has a strong ambition to live in the world, he also frequently has the idea of seclusion, and in about 21 poems belonging to different stages of creation, he uses water to express his heart of retreat.
And use words such as "rivers and lakes", "rivers and seas" and "five lakes" to express their hearts directly, such as "the rivers and lakes are accompanied by wine and ask each other, and the old smoke and waves do not count the journey" ("From Xuanzhou to the official to Beijing on the road to Pei Tan's judge to return to Xuanzhou because of the topic").
Take "From Xuancheng to the Official Beijing" as an example, this poem was written in the fourth year of Kaicheng (839), Du Mugang was promoted to the capital by Fangzhen's staff, which should be full of joy of promotion, but the poem reflects the faint loss and lingering nostalgia for Xuancheng. "Dream of Creek Horror" is written in silence, which not only sets off the tranquility of the living environment, but also reflects the poet's leisurely and comfortable living state and quiet and calm state of mind.
Compared with the eunuch fetters in Beijing and the sinister officialdom, the poet is obviously more inclined to the life of ease and chic and full of high feelings when he was in Xuancheng. The tail coupling also hopes to be able to do so in the future
Really casual and comfortable, walk out of Vanity Fair, return to the old days of Yunshan, share happiness with two or three old friends, and raise all year round
Another example is "Remembering Qi'an County":
Pingsheng sleeps on the feet, Yunmeng Zenanzhou.
The wind bullied the bamboo overnight, and even the river rain sent autumn.
Gebei is often gurgling, and the mechanics are strong and leisurely.
Finally fell into the dust, Xiaoxiang fishing flooded.
This poem was written in Chizhou Thorn History, and it is also written about the love of mountains and rivers and the failure to get rid of the worldly situation and mentality. The first two rhymes recall the life in Huangzhou, and the latter two rhymes return to the status quo, comparing the casual, leisurely and indifferent nature of the past with the current situation of floating and sinking in the mundane, and the helplessness and emotion are overflowing.
So I can only hope to work hard to learn how to forget the world and keep my heart relaxed and quiet in the hustle and bustle. The last sentence is also looking forward to being able to withdraw and truly return to nature.
epilogue
When the idea of entering the WTO and leaving the world are evenly matched, there will be contradictions between entering and exiting. For example, "the hanging tassel does not dare to wet, and the Yan Sebi is murmuring" ("The Autumn Evening Morning Hair is New Fixed"), "The melancholy fishing rod hand in the rivers and lakes, but covers the west and the sun to Chang'an" ("A Unique on the Way"), also uses water imagery as the opposite of officialdom and the world.
Since the seclusion itself has the intention of staying away from politics and insisting on an independent personality, the hidden meaning of water is often fused with the moral connotation. For example, Du Mu's praise for Xu Hun's dashing rivers and lakes in "Xu Qishi's Imperial Abandonment of the Official East and Returning to the Chic Jiangnan is quite heard of the self-adaptation of the poem and the inscription poem of the high autumn Qiwang", which is based on the admiration of his personality and temperament.