Rain Lane has been written for almost 1 year. When Mr. Ye Shengtao was editing the Novel Monthly, Wang Shucai suddenly posted it. As soon as Mr. Shengtao saw this poem, he sent a letter praising him for opening a new era for the syllables of the new poem. ..... strongly recommended by Mr. Shengtao, Dai Wangshu won the nickname of "Poet in Rain Lane" until now. (Preface to Wang Shucao)
Rain Lane creates a lyrical artistic conception with strong symbolic color. Here, the poet metaphorically described the dark and dreary social reality at that time as a narrow and lonely "rain lane". There is no sound, no joy, no sunshine here. The poet himself is such a lonely person wandering in the rain lane.
He has good hopes in loneliness. I hope there is a beautiful ideal in front of me. The "lilac-like" girl described by the poet is a symbol of this beautiful ideal. However, the poet knows that this beautiful ideal is difficult to realize. She is as full of sadness and melancholy as herself, fleeting and drifting away like a dream. What is left is only the poet himself who is still wandering in the dark reality, and the hope that the dream that cannot be realized generally floats away!
Some critics say that Rain Lane is the poet's self-liberation by covering up the ugly truth with beautiful imagination, and it is "deceiving himself and readers with some gorgeous fantasies like soap bubbles". Apart from the artistic beauty of harmonious melody, it "has no merit in content". (Fanny: On Dai Wangshu's Poems, Literature Review1980,4), these questions and conclusions are too simple and harsh for Yuxiang.
The summer of 1927 produced by Rain Lane was the darkest time in the history of China. The bloody slaughter of revolutionaries by reactionaries caused a white terror that enveloped the whole country. Young people who enthusiastically responded to the revolution suddenly fell from the climax of the fire into the abyss of the night. Some of them can't find the future of revolution. They are lost in pain, they long for new hope in disappointment, and they expect beautiful rainbows floating in the haze.
Rain Lane reflects the mentality of some progressive young people. Dai Wangshu was only twenty-one or twenty-two years old when he wrote this poem. 1927 In March, he was arrested and detained by the reactionary authorities for propagating the revolution. After the "April 12th" coup, he lived in seclusion in Songjiang, Jiangsu Province, chewing "China people's distress in this era" in loneliness. (Preface to Wang Shucao)
Poems such as Rain Lane written by him at this time are naturally full of feelings of hesitation, disappointment, sadness and pain. This feeling of hesitation and sadness can't be said to be a pure personal lament, but a projection of the darkness of reality and the disillusionment of ideals in the poet's heart. Rain Lane reproduces the typical voices in the hearts of these young people with short lyrical singing. Here we really can't hear the description of real suffering, and we can't hear the cry against the darkness. This is a deep confession, a confession of disappointment.
However, from this kind of reflection and introspection, can't we clearly see the pain and pursuit of some young people after their disillusionment? The pain of losing good hope flows in the poem. Even the young people at that time were not so easily deceived. People don't want to wander in the rain lane forever after watching Rain Lane. People will hate this rainy lane and long to get out of it and go to a wide and bright place without rain and sadness.
An important artistic feature of Rain Lane is the use of symbolism to express emotions. Symbolism is an art school that rose in French poetry at the end of19th century. They used the decadence of the end of the world to resist the capitalist order. In the way of expression, it emphasizes the use of implicit metaphor and other means to express the inner feelings.
This school of art was introduced into China at the ebb of the May 4th Movement. Li Jinfa was the first person to write poems with a lot of symbolism. Dai Wangshu's early works were obviously influenced by French symbolism. An important feature of his creation is that he pays attention to the ability of excavating implied metaphors in poetry and expresses his feelings with symbolic images and artistic conception. Rain Lane embodies this artistic feature.
The poet with an oil-paper umbrella in his poem, the lonely and long rain lane, and the girl with lilac-like sadness and dreams are not the concrete portrayal of real life itself, but the lyrical images full of symbolic significance. We may not be able to describe all the contents of these images in detail, but we can appreciate the vague poetry expressed by these images.
The atmosphere of social reality, the lonely and wandering mood, the pursuit and the unattainable hope are both clear and hazy in the image described in Rain Lane, which is both certain and erratic. Imagination creates symbols, and symbols expand imagination. As the result of expressing emotions by symbolic means, the poet's emotional state of mind is more subtle, which also leaves readers with a broad imagination world and feels the fragrance and aftertaste of the poem.
Mr. Zhu Ziqing said: "The Dai Wangshu family also adopted the symbolism of law. He translated the poems of this school. He also pays attention to the neatness of syllables, but it is not sonorous but light and clear; It is also a bit embarrassing, but it is understandable. " "He wants to grasp the delicate place." (Introduction to China's New Literature Series Poems) Rain Lane is hazy but not obscure, low but not decadent, affectionate but not frivolous, which really captures the subtlety of symbolism poetry art.