Source: Jiang Xue by Liu Zongyuan in Tang Dynasty.
There are no birds in a hundred mountains, and there are no footprints in a thousand paths. A boat on the river, a fisherman wearing his webworm moth; Fishing alone is not afraid of snow and ice.
Translation: all birds are extinct; All the roads, no sign of anyone. Alone on the river, fisherman Dai Li; Fishing alone is not afraid of ice and snow.
Creative background: In Yongzhenyuan, Liu Zongyuan participated in the political reform movement headed by Wang. Because of the joint counterattack of conservative forces and eunuchs, the innovation failed. Therefore, Liu Zongyuan was relegated to Yongzhou, which is known as the "Southern Wilderness". Known as Sima when he was in office, he was actually a "criminal" with no real power and was monitored by local officials. There was no place for him in the official residence, so he had to settle down in the west wing of longxing temple, a monk temple.
Appreciate:
The landscape poems written by Liu Zongyuan have a remarkable feature, that is, the objective realm is relatively quiet, while the poet's subjective state of mind is relatively lonely, sometimes even too lonely, too cold and cheerless, without any human fireworks. This song "Jiang Xue" is like this. The poet painted a quiet and cold picture in only 20 words: on the snowy river, a boat and an old fisherman were fishing alone on the cold river.
What the poet shows his readers is this: the world is so pure and silent, spotless and silent; The fisherman's life is so noble, and his character is so aloof. In fact, this is an imaginary realm created by Liu Zongyuan because he hated the declining society of the Tang Dynasty at that time. Compared with the characters in Tao Yuanming's Peach Blossom Garden, I'm afraid they are still illusory and far away from the world. What the poet wants to describe in detail is very simple, but it is just a boat, an old fisherman wearing hemp fiber and Li hat, fishing on the snowy river, and that's all.
However, in order to highlight the main description object, the poet did not hesitate to use half of the space to describe its background, and made the background as broad as possible, almost to an infinite extent. The wider the background, the more prominent the main description object. First of all, the poet used the words "Qianshan" and "Wanjing" to set off the following two pictures of "boating alone" and "fishing alone". 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 they are exquisite, lively and active in this absolutely silent background.
It can also be said that the first two sentences were originally a foil. According to the general understanding, it is enough to outline the outline, and there is no 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".
About the author:
Liu Zongyuan (773-8 19), a native of Hedong (now Yuncheng, Shanxi) in the Tang Dynasty, was an outstanding poet, philosopher, Confucian scholar and even an outstanding politician, and was one of the eight masters in the Tang and Song Dynasties. His masterpieces include more than 600 pieces such as Eight Chapters of Yongzhou, which were compiled into 30 volumes by later generations and named "Liuhe East Collection". Because he was from Hedong, he was called Liu Liuzhou, and because he was finally appointed as the secretariat of Liuzhou. Liu Zongyuan and Han Yu were both leaders of the ancient prose movement in the middle Tang Dynasty, also known as "Liu Han". In the cultural history of China, his achievements in poetry and literature are outstanding, which can be said to be inseparable.