Advocating "equal love" - Shu Ting's "To the Oak Tree" appreciation

Shu Ting

If a (partial) literary work can play a role in leading the majority of readers to yearn for a better life, pursue beautiful feelings, and pursue a happy life, then in a sense, such a work will gain long-term vitality, or will become an immortal classic. Time best proves this. The masterpiece "To the Oak Tree" by the famous contemporary female poet Shu Ting can be said to belong to this category of works. Therefore, for those who are in the process of love, or the future of love, or the past of love, "To the Oak Tree", a love poem that has become a classic through time and space, is not only worth reading. Especially for those female readers, especially for those many young girls whose concept of love is in the formation stage.

As a young female author (25 years old at the time of writing this poem), the poet stood on the stand of caring for and sympathizing with the vast number of female compatriots, and completely denied those traditional secular views of love; on behalf of the majority of women, she declared to the world her rational and mature thinking on "equal love", and expressed the happiness and longing of all women for "equal love". It put forward the concept of "equal love" that has made countless young people, even those who have long passed the age of love, still feel incomparably beautiful and advocate the pursuit. In the 1970s, when the Cultural Revolution was coming to an end, with extraordinary courage and courage beyond history, this classic love poem could not but be particularly revered and admired. You know, the topic of getting involved in love during the Cultural Revolution was just a forbidden area, which was risking life, not to mention that it had not yet thawed?

At the beginning of the poem, the female poet uses six metaphors in a row to clearly and completely negate the traditional secular attitude of love, and also cleverly uses the decreasing rank of the poem to strengthen her attitude and position. Originally, the poet could have used six comparative sentences in a row (each sentence has three lines of eighteen lines), but after using only two sentences (six lines), he reduced one line of poetry in the third and fourth sentences, and then reduced the fifth and sixth sentences to one line each. The original arrangement of the sonnets was reduced to twelve sonnets. Through this way of reducing the line of poetry, the poet silently accelerates the rhythm and intensity of negation, and the poet's voice of denying those traditional worldly loves is resolutely and completely clean. So what kind of love does the poet deny? Summarized below:

Attachment-style love - like a climbing flower borrowing the tall branches of an oak tree to show off;

Obsessive love - like an obsessive bird repeating monotonous songs for the green yin;

Giving love - like a cool consolation sent by The fountain for many years;

Sacrificial love – like a dangerous peak increasing the height of an oak tree and setting off the majesty of an oak tree;

Gentle love – like daylight and spring rain warms and moisturizes the branches and leaves and growth of oak trees.

However, due to the limitations of the times, female poets cannot list them all, for example, the existence of the marriage of the second and third milks that appears nowadays belongs to the typical pet-like love or parasitic love, or the small three-type interstitial love. But the poet starts with the words "No, none of this is enough!" After the quick conclusion of the line of poetry is completely and mercilessly denied, it is immediately vivid and extremely "imagery" and extremely poetic to reveal her infinite yearning and praise for "equal love":

I must be a kapok near you,

Stand with you as the image of a tree.

The poet uses kapok to symbolize the women on the love side, and uses the female tone to solemnly express "greetings" to the male who symbolizes the love side, the oak tree: I must enjoy equal status with you! That is to say, the bullying of men against women in love must never be allowed or even tolerated. There is no doubt that in the society where the vast majority of men still play the main role in society and still dominate modern and contemporary China with male will, the poet rationally realizes that only when the men and women in love have many equal statuses, there is happiness for both sides of love, otherwise the female side in love will more or less eventually become the slave of the male side, which is by no means alarmist. This is determined by the innate attributes of women and the social environment in which they live, because compared with men, women are inherently weak, which is an indisputable fact, although since the "May Fourth" period, our era has advocated equality between men and women. On behalf of all women, the female poet calls for and strives for the female side in love to have the same status as the male side in love, which grasps the most core thing in the essence of love and reflects the female poet's incisive insight and uniqueness in love.

Roots, clenched in the ground,

Leaves, touching in the clouds.

----------------- Love love, no "love" how to say "love"! This is determined by the natural nature of the two sexes in love. They have both the intimacy of snuggling with each other and the warmth of their hearts and minds, even if they cannot accompany each other for a while, they will still be "a spirit and a sharp mind" for a long time.

Every gust of wind passes

We all greeted each other,

But no one

Understand our words.

Men and women in love, they have a set of love codes that belong only to their "two-person world", specially used for emotional and spiritual communication, mysterious and happy, and cannot be explained by outsiders.

You have your copper branches and iron trunks

Like a knife, like a sword, and like a halberd;

I have red flowers

Like a heavy sigh,

It's like a heroic torch.

Men and women in love will never lose their complete independent personality because of love, and each should still be "the sound of the waves". Because only such men and women can complement each other's advantages, learn from each other's strengths, fly with both wings, and jointly promote and make progress together.

We share the cold waves, the wind and thunder, the thunderbolts;

We share mist, stream, rainbow.

As if separated forever,

But they are all dependent on each other for life.

Men and women in love should be in the same boat with the wind and rain, suffering and sharing, willing and bitter, not abandoning, liver and gallbladder, and accompanying each other. It is by no means a sad portrayal of "husband and wife are originally the same forest bird, and they fly separately when great trouble comes".

This is great love,

Here's the thing:

Love --

Not only love your mighty body,

Also love the position you insist on, the land under your feet.

——Finally, the poet Zhang Xianzhi loudly expressed the firm confession of the female side to "equal love": "I" not only love your magnificent body, but also love your family, and love your career even more! Love everything and all you have! The confession of female chastity shows the femininity and affection of women. As a "equal love" of the male side of his firm confession will presumably show the male masculine heroism, but the poet left a long blank, evocative - for the world's "Kapok" love is happy, then let the world's "oak trees" together with behavior and voice to continue to write a "to Kapok" this "equal love" poem movement. Not to mention, the author really had the privilege of finding a poem called "Answer kapok" for the benefit of the reader.

Answer Kapok

Distinguished Professor he Jianzhong of Hubei Normal University

For your heroic declaration

I've waited a long century

Unwilling to bow down to the climbing of the Lingxiao flower

Just to see the beauty of your branches

Reject the monotonous ode of the birds

Your heavy sigh shook the walls of my heart like this

Yes, my green leaves need daylight

My roots must look forward to the spring rains

But if my vasculature has a living jelly

And why revel in the consolation of the fountain

If only I were a big tree

And why let you be a dangerous peak, set off my majesty

What I long for is your gesture

The spring light of the high trees stood with me

Roots, communicate our emotions underground

Leaf, expand our sweetness in the clouds

Wind is our common language

……

Isn't that exactly what female poets expected?

Think about it, if we really have such an "equal love" as our two poets call for and praise, can you say that the lovers of the "oak trees and cottons" in the world can still be happy without being heroic?

Thank you to our contemporary poets Ms. Shu Ting and Mr. He Jianzhong for painting us such a beautiful and colorful picture of love that people are infinitely admired and yearning for!