Thoughts on "Joining the Army"

join the army

Author: Yang Jiong

There is a raging fire in Kyoto, and gasoline is surging in Chang 'an.

Leaving the palace, the general will assume the command; Surrounding the enemy and attacking the city, the elite cavalry are extremely brave.

The heavy snow darkened the color; The wind roared and the drums rang.

Better be a centurion than a scholar. This short poem tells the whole process of the scholar's joining the army. Being able to concentrate such rich content in a limited space shows the poet's artistic skill. First of all, the poet grasped the most representative fragment in the whole process and gave a general description of the image. As for how the scholar joined the army, how to bid farewell to his parents, wives and concubines, and how to March all the way, the poet omitted everything and did not write. Secondly, the poem adopts a jumping structure, jumping from one typical scene to another and developing by leaps and bounds. For example, just after the third sentence was written, the fourth sentence surrounded the enemy and then showed the scene of fierce fighting. But this kind of leap is very natural, and there is rich imagination space between each span. At the same time, this leaping structure makes poetry have a lively rhythm, such as turbulence on a cliff, giving people an indomitable momentum, effectively highlighting the strong patriotic passion of literati and the spiritual outlook of Tang Junbing. The whole poem adopts the combination of reality and fiction. Among them, the first couplet first explains the enemy's situation in a realistic way, the second couplet depicts the scene of war victory in an imaginary way, and the last couplet expresses the author's loyalty to serving the country in a comparative way. The whole poem is full of patriotism.