1. The background of the writing of "Dead Water".
Created in 1925, "Dead Water" is the leading work of Wen Yiduo's second poetry collection "Dead Water", which is a mature new poem and a milestone in the new literature of the mainland.
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At that time, Wen Yiduo, a hot-blooded young man, had just returned from studying in the United States. In the past, in a foreign land, he deeply felt the racial discrimination and national oppression of imperialism, which aroused strong patriotic enthusiasm and national feelings, and he "wanted to see China once a day." However, when he returned to the motherland, he saw a dark social reality, warlords fighting, foreign powers running rampant, political corruption, economic decay, a tragic scene of weakened national strength and poor livelihood of the people.
One day, the disappointed and sad poet came across a pool of stagnant water on the side of the road, and thought of the social situation at that time.
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2. The original text of "Dead Water".
"Dead Water" is a new poem in the metrical style, the whole poem is:
It's a desperate backwater,
The breeze can't blow the slightest ripple.
It's better to throw more broken copper and iron,
Splash your leftovers. //
Maybe the copper will be green into jade,
A few peach blossoms are embroidered on the tin can;
Let the greasy weave a layer of Luo Qi,
The mold steamed some clouds for him. /
Let the stagnant water ferment into a ditch of green wine,
Filled with pearl-like foam;
The laughter of the little beads turned into big beads,
It was bitten by a flower mosquito that stole wine. /
So a ditch of desperate stagnant water,
It's a bit distinctive.
If the frog can't stand the loneliness,
It was also a stagnant water that cried out and sang. //
It's a desperate backwater,
This is not where beauty lies,
It's better to let the ugliness reclaim it,
Look what kind of world it creates. //
3. Analysis of the structure and content of "Dead Water".
This poem, through the description of the symbolic "stagnant water", exposes and satirizes the old China under the rule of warlords, expresses the indignation and despair of the corrupt society, and the deep patriotism.
The poem "Dead Water" consists of five stanzas, which can be divided into three sections.
Dead Water
Sections 1 and 1 symbolically express the indignation and despair of the backwater-like corruption of old China.
The first sentence goes straight to the point, proposing the general image of the whole poem "stagnant water", symbolizing the semi-feudal and semi-colonial old China under the rule of the warlords at that time, which was decadent and decadent, and lifeless. First of all, it is modified with "despair", indicating that people have cut off hope and have no future; Comparing it with the "breeze", there is no ripple in the place where the breeze blows, which shows that it is completely dead and silent, and it cannot be saved. This "clear breeze" is a metaphor for fresh thought and power, and the meaning is exactly the opposite of "stagnant water", thus using the positive and negative comparisons to further characterize "stagnant water": decayed and decadent, lifeless, and expressing complete despair of old China.
Sections 2 and 2 to 4 describe the "stagnant water" in detail, vividly exposing the decadent and decadent status quo of the society at that time, and expressing anger and ridicule against the old China. This three-stanza poem describes the further changes of "backwater" layer by layer.
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First of all, use the guidance method to push the boat down the river, and describe the changes in the "stagnant water": "It's better to throw more broken copper and rotten iron", so that the copper will be green and the iron will be red rust; "Splash your leftovers with coolness", let the greasy flash, mold hair, and then stinky water, blisters, flowers and mosquitoes, frogs chirping and noisy, and describe the realm of "stagnant water" in detail and vividly, which is extremely dirty and smelly, which is really disgusting;
At the same time, he uses irony to use "jade, peach blossom, Luo Qi, Yunxia, green wine, pearl", these vivid colors and beautiful specific images, metaphor patina, rust, greasy, mold, stinky water, blisters, write ugliness with beauty, and set death with life, and put on gorgeous and beautiful clothes for those dirty and dirty stagnant water. This is that the poet can no longer express his deep hatred in normal language, so he has to use this ironic technique of using beauty to set off ugliness to create greater contrast, revealing the rotten nature of stagnant water, so as to reproduce the dark reality of old China in detail and vividly, and express extreme hatred, anger and ridicule for old China.
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In the last stanza, the dark reality is cursed, expressing a strong desire to change reality.
In the first two sentences, two judgments of affirmation and negation, from the perspectives of beauty and ugliness, positive and negative, make a completely desperate conclusion to the total image "stagnant": completely dead and hopeless.
The last two sentences, "It's better to let the ugly reclaim it, and see what kind of world it creates", let the ugly reclaimed world only be uglier. This is an angry remark of "aiding and abusive", but it is not unreasonable, because the law of development of things is always the opposite of the extreme, and when the ugliness reaches the extreme, there will be a turnaround, just as the scholar Zhu Ziqing said, "simply let the 'ugly' be 'full of evil' earlier, and only in 'despair' can there be hope", and despair always contains a trace of hope.
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Therefore, this paragraph and four sentences not only express the complete despair of the old China, but also contain a glimmer of hope to change the reality, although this desire is very hazy, but there is no doubt, that is, the poet later expressed the expectation and yearning in "One Sentence": "Our China".
This is the poet's summary of the content of the whole poem, he has completely despaired of the old China, but he firmly believes that the extremes of things will be opposed, and he dimly realizes that the democratic revolution that overthrows the semi-feudal and semi-colonial old China will definitely come, so as to realize "our China". This is exactly the idea of the theme of the poem.
4. Appreciation of the writing art of "Dead Water".
Wen Yiduo is a patriotic poet, a famous scholar, and a fighter for democracy, and his works always combine patriotic themes with aesthetic forms, with profound content, perfect form, thought-provoking, and enlightening. The new poem "Dead Water" is one such exemplary work.
First, from the point of view of writing, the whole poem grasps the "death" of the general image of "dead water", adopts symbolic techniques, and combines guidance, irony and other techniques, and uses several methods in combination, layer by layer, step by step, and writes the word "death" thoroughly and hopelessly, so as to express the feelings of "despair" vividly and incisively.
In the first paragraph, he goes straight to the point, first makes it clear, uses "dead water" to symbolize old China, and puts forward the general image of the whole poem;
In the second paragraph, the general image of "stagnant water" is guided, and it is better to throw more broken copper and iron, and splash your leftovers with coolness", so as to create a more dirty, smelly, ugly, and disgusting ugliness;
At the same time, in order to more effectively vent the disgust of gnashing teeth, he used irony to contrast the real ugliness with false beauty, and used beauty to metaphor ugliness, and ugliness made uglier uglier; The sound sets off the death, and the death dies, so as to reveal the rotten nature of the stagnant water more clearly, and more powerfully express the hatred, anger and ridicule in the poet's heart.
In the end, according to the law that the extremes of things must be opposed, they do what they like, push the boat along the river, and simply use the method of "helping the evil to abuse", so that the "ugliness will be reclaimed", so that after the ugliness is "full of evil", hope will arise in the "despair". It means that when the poet is completely desperate, the flower of hope sprouts in his heart, and he seems to see the way out of the country.
Second, from the point of view of form, this poem has the "three beauties" rhythm of the new poem, with five stanzas, four lines each, the same number of words, the same rhythm, square shape, balanced and symmetrical, and architectural beauty; The poet also thinks that "Dead Water" is his "first most satisfying experiment in syllables", with the beauty of music;
At the same time, the whole poem takes the old Chinese symbol "stagnant water" as the general image, which is already very distinct and prominent, and uses a variety of writing methods, rendering layer by layer, depicting a picture of bright colors, beautiful and ugly contrasts, brewing a kind of disgusting artistic conception of dirty and fishy, decaying and dead silence, rampant flowers and mosquitoes, and frog crowing.
From the above, it can be seen that the poet's new poem "Dead Water" brilliantly uses a variety of writing methods, multiple angles and levels, describing imagery, rendering artistic conception, and the writing method is very superb. In terms of writing form, he strictly abides by the "Three Beauties Theory" advocated by himself, which is very beautiful in form of architecture, music in rhyme, and painting in artistic conception, which is a classic new poem with all the "three beauties". Chen Cunxuan 2024, 07, 07
Participation: Baidu Encyclopedia "Dead Water".
Babaoshan Wenyiduo husband and wife tomb Babaoshan Wenyiduo husband and wife tomb