Xue Jiang
Liu Zongyuan [Tang Dynasty]
There are no birds flying over those mountains, and there are no traces of people in those paths.
A boat on the river, a fisherman wearing his webworm moth; Fishing alone is not afraid of snow and ice.
translate
All the mountains are covered with thick snow, the birds have disappeared, and there are no traces of people on all the roads.
On a lonely boat on the river, an old man in a bamboo hat was fishing alone on the cold river covered with heavy snow.
The poet used the words "Qianshan" and "Wanjing" to set off the pictures of "boating alone" and "fishing alone" in the following two sentences. Without the words "thousand" and "ten thousand", the words "loneliness" and "independence" at the back will appear bland and uninspiring. Secondly, birds flying on the mountain and people walking on the road are very common things and the most general image. But the poet put them under the "Qianshan" and "Wanjing" and added the word "absolutely" and "extinct", which suddenly turned the most common and summarized dynamic into extreme silence and absolute silence, forming an unusual scene. So the following two sentences used to be static descriptions. Because it is placed in this absolutely quiet background, it is exquisite, lively and lively. It can also be said that the first two sentences were originally a foil. According to the general understanding, you only need to outline it, and you don't need to make great efforts to carve it. However, poets just don't handle it this way. It's like making a movie. How many close-ups are used to explain and reflect every corner of the background? The more specific and detailed you write, the more exaggerated you are. The last two sentences, originally the object of the poet's intentional description, turned into a long-distance lens, which was reduced many times, giving readers an ethereal feeling, visible and intangible. Only by writing in this way can we express the lofty and detached thoughts and feelings that the author is eager to show to readers. As for the formation of this sense of remoteness, it is mainly the effect that the author adds a word "snow" at the end of the whole poem, which is connected with the word "Jiang".
The word "snow" covers the whole poem. "Qian Shan" and "Wanjing" are all snow, which makes "birds fly away" and "people disappear". Even the awning and fisherman's hat are covered with snow. But the author did not explicitly associate these scenes with "snow". On the contrary, in this painting, there is only Jiang and only Rulu. Of course, the river will not store snow, and it will not be covered by snow. Even if it falls into the river, it will immediately become water. However, the author only used the word "cold river snow" to connect the two farthest images, giving people a vague, distant and narrow feeling and forming a long-distance lens. This makes the main object described in the poem more concentrated, dexterous and prominent. Because even the river seems to be covered with snow, even the places where there is no snow are covered with snow, which completely describes the dense and thick snow and completely sets off the atmosphere of water and sky. As for the word "cold" used above, it is of course to point out the climate; But the poet's subjective intention is to write the fisherman's spiritual world quietly. In such a cold and silent environment, the old fisherman ignored the cold and snow, forgot everything and devoted himself to fishing. Although his body is lonely, his personality seems lofty, detached and awesome.