Qing dynasty: Shen
After the frost eased, several new branches were suddenly inserted. Independent Jiangshan dusk can open the spring of heaven and earth.
Natural emptiness, who still has fighting spirit? A stranger is idle, just like a stranger in the world.
Shen's "Mei" occupies a place in Qing poetry because it can break through the old stereotypes and strive to open up new artistic conception.
The first couplet begins with revealing the tenacious vitality of plum trees. Plum blossoms bloom in spring. Before flowering, plum trees have spent a whole winter and have undergone severe tests and tempering under the oppression of frost. Not only was it not crushed by first frost, but it became stronger after being honed, and finally it regained its youth and opened a few new flowers. The word "suddenly put a few new branches" fully shows the poet's surprise in front of a few newly opened plums.
The couplet of metrical poems is generally the main body of the whole poem, and so is this poem. The poet wrote the new realm of Yongmei mainly through Zhonglian.
The sentence "Being alone at dusk can open the spring of heaven and earth" is amazing. "Twilight" means dusk. The allusion of "Cho Se Ung meets the plum blossom fairy" in Liu Zongyuan's "Dragon City Story" is often adopted by later generations, and Zhao Yuxian was in the "cold twilight". In the Song Dynasty, Lin Hejing's "Fragrant fragrance floats in the moonlight dusk", Gao Qi's "Beauty comes down in the moonlight forest" and other famous Yongmei sentences, as well as Jiang Kui's "Meeting at the guest, leaning against the bamboo at dusk" (thin shadow) and Lu You's "It's dusk, worrying alone" (operator). , are set off by dusk. However, although she is also in the twilight environment, Mei in this poem has a distinctive mental outlook. Unlike Yongmei's poems, it doesn't live alone at the hedge and corner, nor does it mourn alone at the "broken bridge outside the post" like Lu You's poems, but it is full of vitality and independent of mountains and rivers. This extraordinary spirit is matched with the twilight environment, which makes its image even taller.
"Being able to open the spring of heaven and earth" means that Mei dares to be the first of a hundred flowers, facing the frost and breaking the snow, and opening up a spring between heaven and earth. The relationship between plum and spring has changed greatly: plum is no longer attached to spring, but becomes the master of spring. This kind of hero who describes Mei as the beginning of the world is unique in his poems.
The sentence "Nature is empty, who is fighting with the spirit" has changed a perspective and focused on the extraordinary spiritual quality of plum blossom. Plum blossom has its own outstanding appearance, quiet and elegant, magical beauty, not gaudy, incomparable. But the beauty of plum blossom is completely natural, and it doesn't value hue itself. The word "empty hue" borrows a term from Buddhist scriptures, which means "color is empty, and emptiness is color". Since plum blossom is empty in hue, it certainly won't win the battle with people by appearance. The spirit of "who fights with whom" is actually the spirit of not fighting with others. This kind of spiritual realm seems to be a step further than Lu You's words of "no desire for spring, envy of every group of people". Completely detached from the world, everything goes with the flow, so as to obtain absolute spiritual freedom and achieve an extraordinary situation.
The "wild guest" in the tail couplet "Wild guest is idle, like meeting an outsider" is the poet's own idea. In the face of this noble and refined plum blossom, he seems to have met an outsider, and a feeling of admiration can't help but arise. It should be noted here that the poet's intention of calling himself a "geek" is not only to pretend to be a Shan Ye man for modesty, but more importantly, to show that he has no intention of competing in Vanity Fair. He appreciates the extraordinary plum blossom with the mood of wild cranes in the clouds, and naturally feels congenial.
This poem by Shen was included in the Collection of Poems of the Contemporary Dynasty by his grandson, with a comment that "the old and the new are the best, and the predecessors are the best". Although "covering the predecessors" is not necessarily true, "breaking stereotypes" is a positive comment. The beauty of this poem is that it can get rid of the dependence on the ancients, innovate and create a unique image of Mei.