Moonlight on the Lotus Pond is an essay written by China writer Zhu Ziqing when he was teaching in Tsinghua University. It is widely regarded as a masterpiece of modern lyric prose, because it is included in middle school Chinese textbooks.
The article describes the beautiful scene of the moonlight in the lotus pond, implicitly and euphemistically expresses the author's complex thoughts and feelings of dissatisfaction with reality, longing for freedom, and wanting to surpass reality but unable to do so, leaving a trail for the upright intellectuals of old China to wander forward in suffering. It entrusts the author with a kind of political thought longing for the future, and also entrusts the author with his love for the moonlight in the lotus pond.
Extended data:
Around the lotus pond, there are trees far and near, and willows are the most. These trees surround a lotus pond; Only on one side of the path, there are some gaps, which seem to be reserved for moonlight. An example of the color of trees is cloudy, which at first glance looks like a cloud of smoke; But the abundance of willows can be identified in the smoke. There are distant mountains on the treetops, just a little careless. There are still one or two lamps leaking through the cracks in the tree. What is listless is the eyes of those who are sleepy.
At this time, the most lively are cicadas in the tree and frogs in the water; But the excitement is theirs. I have nothing.
Moonlight on the Lotus Pond was written in July 1927. The Great Revolution failed and white terror enveloped the land of China. At this time, Chiang Kai-shek rebelled against the revolution, and China was in darkness. As a "pawn of the great era", Zhu Ziqing has been shouting and struggling, but after the April 12th coup, he moved from the "cross street" of struggle to the "ivory tower" of classical literature.
But the author can't join the army and take up a gun to go to the revolution, but he can't quell his dissatisfaction and hatred of the dark reality. The author is confused and contradictory about life, depressed inside, and can't be calm all the time. So the author wrote this article.
Through the description of the scenery of the lotus pond on a lonely moonlit night, this paper reveals the author's complex mood of pursuing peace but not getting peace, and dreaming beyond reality but not getting rid of peace, which is the reflection of that dark age in the author's mind.
References:
Baidu Encyclopedia-Moonlight in the Lotus Pond (Zhu Ziqing's Prose)