"Poppy Beauty" is the most famous of the poems written by Li Yu, the later master of the Southern Tang Dynasty, and it is also his last poem. Li Yu reigned for 15 years. He did not correct his affairs and indulged in pleasure. After the country was overthrown, he was captured by the Song Dynasty and lived a humiliating life like a prisoner for three years. The themes of his early poems were narrow, and they were nothing more than expressing palace life, love affairs between men and women, or sorrow and separation, and were of little value. After the subjugation of the country, the lonely and desolate situation obviously affected his creation, making his later lyrics show different styles, and also enabled him to gain some new achievements in lyric creation. This experience forced him to wake up from his drunken life and face the cruel reality. In his words, he poured out his deep sorrow and pain of "washing his face with tears day and night". Among them, "Poppy Beauty" is the most representative one. One poem reveals unabashed thoughts about the motherland. The whole poem starts with a question and ends with an answer, from asking about heaven and people to asking about oneself. Through the sad and exciting tone and the twists and turns and flowing artistic structure, the author's melancholy thoughts run through the whole, forming a refreshing beauty. effect. This popular masterpiece is truly unique in art:
1. It starts with a strange question, flying down from the air, yet within reason.
The opening two sentences, "When did the spring flowers and autumn moon come, how much do you know about the past?" set the tone of the whole poem, which is "sad". Spring flowers and autumn moon are beautiful things, and they are also true portrayals of the author's past palace life. In the first half of his life, as the king of the Southern Tang Dynasty, Li Yu lived a very luxurious and luxurious life, with spring flowers, autumn moon, singing and dancing, and happiness. But now he is deeply imprisoned, seeing the endless spring flowers and autumn moon, and thinking of the past glory and wealth. The environmental and psychological gap make him not only not feel beautiful, but also bored, because they all evoke the author's right and wrong characters. Despair brings out his sorrow of being imprisoned in a foreign country. It is used to describe the state of mind of the Jiangnan king who was surrounded by pearls and greenery and cooked gold and jade, and was transformed into a prisoner who sang and cried. It is real and profound. Therefore, many people think of the beautiful "spring flowers and autumn moon", but the author earnestly hopes that it will "end" soon; the "east wind" in the small building brings the message of spring, but instead causes the author to sigh that "it is unbearable to look back", and he sends "" to the sky The strange question "When is it?" may seem bizarre, but in fact it is reasonable. It can be said that "all environmental language is a language of love" (Wang Guowei).
"How much do you know about the past?" The "past" in the sentence reflects that the author never forgets the life of the little emperor in the past. In the past, there were fine clothes and fine food, beautiful women in the harem, and the honor of "the king and the land in the whole world". But what the author missed more was not material enjoyment. The prison-like life made him feel the value of freedom. The dignity of being a human being is gone, so how can we talk about being happy and carefree. Since he is bound to decline, his own limitations and the situation at that time cannot allow him to see a better future, and even the security of survival no longer exists. Therefore, any beautiful thing, this situation, and this situation are nothing more than causes of "sadness".
2. Be good at using line drawing techniques and skillfully use imagery to express life feelings.
The description, narration, and lyricism in the poem make good use of line drawing techniques. It is natural, plain, and reasonable, which is what the poet highly recommends. "Ci is based on nature. Naturalness has no ornamentation, no borrowing, no coloring, and no interpretation." (Shen Xianglong's "Essays on Ci"). For example, the two sentences "The east wind blows again in the small building last night, and the motherland cannot bear to look back in the bright moonlight" form an artistic conception that cannot be achieved with a brush, and describe the feelings of life after the death of other countries and families. "The east wind blew again last night in the small building" indicates that time is passing by. Another year passed after he returned to the Song Dynasty, which corresponds to the beginning. The change of seasons aroused his infinite emotion, lamenting that human life is gradually shattered as the flowers bloom and the moon becomes full. Through the surface of the words, we can get a glimpse of the helpless sadness in the author's heart. Sincerity can be said that one is worth ten, and less is better than more.
In order to express the sorrow of the country's subjugation, the author mentioned the image of "moon" twice in the poem. Imagery refers to the mental image that combines subjective feelings and external objects. Liu Xie, a literary critic of the Liang Dynasty in the Southern Dynasties, said in "The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons. Shensi": "Accumulate learning to store treasures, judge theory to enrich talents, study and read to illuminate, and tame to interpret; , Find the rhythm of the sound and determine the ink, the craftsman who shines alone, glimpses the image and moves the weight; this is the first skill of controlling the text and planning the end of the chapter." After the Ming and Qing Dynasties, imagery specifically refers to expressing the author's emotions with the help of specific external objects in a symbolic way. The image of "moon" is very commonly used in ancient Chinese poetry, such as "The moon is the brightness of my hometown", "I send my sorrowful thoughts to the bright moon", "Tonight the moon in Luzhou, I can only look at it alone in my boudoir." It usually expresses longing for my hometown. , the theme of missing loved ones. In this poem, the author transforms his feelings for his hometown and today's infinite melancholy into scenery, cleverly uses the image of "moon", and expresses his melancholy in an extremely beautiful way from the opposite angle. The author reveals deep sorrow at the beginning of the poem. The annoying spring flowers, autumn moon, and melancholy east wind in the small building. The spring flowers, autumn moon, east wind, and bright moon are all carefully selected scenery by the author. These scenery are originally desirable, but because of the time In this situation, the author has no intention of enjoying the scenery, but instead adds sadness. The author uses the technique of contrast to describe sadness with happy scenes, making people feel sad. Compared with empty words of "sadness" and "sorrow", the artistic effect is incomparable.
3. The virtual and the real correspond to each other, and the universe and human affairs are in one continuous line.
"Poppy" uses the artistic dialectic of virtuality and reality, which complement each other. Through imagination, it combines reality and the past to describe it, stretching out time and expanding space, thus greatly expanding the capacity of words.
Generally speaking, Ci expresses abstract melancholy with the help of concrete and real images, and expresses abstract sadness with the help of scenery, and the reality with reality. The last sentence mainly uses real pen to write about the scene in front of you. Spring flowers, autumn moon, east wind and bright moon are all vivid real scenes. The poet uses this kind of scene with strong emotional color to set off the atmosphere, exaggerate the melancholy, use the real to show the virtual, and strengthen the poem. authenticity and appeal. Then he further developed his thoughts and opened up his artistic conception. "The past and the homeland" are virtual scenes in real writing. Time is pulled back to the past, from real to virtual, virtual and real are connected. Mainly using virtual pen to write about the situation of the motherland, and then brought back to reality. "It's just Zhu Yan's change" makes the whole word circuitous and thought-provoking.
Structurally speaking, the first six sentences are composed of three sets of contrasts, which are inherited from sentence to sentence. They repeatedly compare the eternity of the universe with the transience and impermanence of life. They are full of philosophical meaning and deep emotion. The author grasped the "poetic eye" of changing the word "" to the whole word. What changed was not only the "beautiful face", but also the status of people (from a king to a prisoner), and the mood of a person (from prosperity and honor to humiliation and humiliation). shame). In these six sentences, "When is the east wind again, should it still be there" are in the same line, specifically saying that the universe is eternal and unchanging; and "I know how much the past is, I can't bear to look back, the beauty has changed" are in the same line, specifically saying that life is short and impermanent. This cycle goes back and forth, singing three sighs, singing the ups and downs and worries in the poet's soul, and singing the infinite resentment of things being right and people being different.
4. The author is good at using appropriate metaphors to visualize abstract feelings.
This poem mainly expresses the sorrow of the subjugation of the country, but the separation is silent, the sadness is invisible, there is no color to capture, and no trace to trace. How to write such abstract emotions? The author has his own unique skill. He turns emotions into scenery, uses appropriate metaphors to visualize abstract emotions, and concludes with the sentence "A river of spring water flows eastward." This is a famous sentence that uses water to represent sorrow, implicitly showing the long flow of sorrow. Continuously, endlessly. Reading it, one can imagine a vivid picture. The poet seems to have returned to his old capital, Jinling, standing on the city and looking at the mighty Yangtze River flowing eastward. He feels that his sorrow is just like the river, rolling in waves all the time. Flows to the East China Sea, showing that sorrow is like spring water that lingers day and night, always flowing endlessly. Only 9 words express the depth and intensity of the rising and flowing emotions, and give texture and concreteness to the invisible sorrow. It can be said that the reason why Li Yu's words have aroused widespread political resonance is, to a large extent, due to the contagious and symbolic metaphor used in the concluding sentence to express his sorrow both visually and abstractly: The author did not clearly write the true meaning of his melancholy - nostalgic for the hedonistic life of the past, but only showed its external form - "just like a river of spring water flowing eastward." In this way, people can easily get some kind of spiritual response from it and use it to express similar emotions. Because although people's sorrows have different connotations, they can all have the external form of "just like a river of spring water flowing eastward." Because "images are often greater than thoughts", Li Yu's words can have a wide range of resonance and have been passed down through the ages.
"Poppy Poppies" has touched many people who have lost their beautiful lives in the past and now. Although it lacks the power to make people strive for their future, its flaws cannot hide its beauty. Its unique artistic charm has been passed down through the ages.
References:
1. "A Brief Analysis of Tang, Five Dynasties and Two Song Poems" Liu Yongji, Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, 1981 edition
2. "Appreciation Collection of Tang and Song Poems" People's Literary Publishing House, February 1983 edition
3. "Small Notes on Ci Poems of the Tang and Five Dynasties" edited by Liu Ruilu, Yuelu Publishing House, Issue 1, 1984
4. "The Essence of Chinese Classical Literature, Tang and Song Ci Ci" Volume" Selected Notes by Tang Guizhang and others, Beijing October Literature and Art Publishing House, April 1995 edition