Writing background:
After Wang Ji entered the Tang Dynasty, he served as secretary of the province and waited for the imperial edict to go to the province. Soon he resigned and returned to his hometown. In Zhenguan, he came out as Tai Lecheng and returned home. This poem was written when the poet resigned and lived in seclusion in Donggao (in today's Hejin, Shanxi).
From: "Ambition" is a work by Wang Ji, a poet in the late Sui and early Tang Dynasties. This poem describes the quiet autumn scenery of a secluded place. In the leisurely mood, it is full of hesitation, loneliness and depression. It is Wang Ji's representative work and the earliest five-character poem with complete meter among the existing Tang poems.
Original text:
Ambition
Tang Dynasty: Wang Ji
Dong Gao looks forward to the dusk, where can he rely on when he migrates?
The trees are all in autumn colors, and the mountains are only covered with sunset.
Herdsmen drive calves back, hunting horses return with poultry.
We look at each other but have no acquaintance, and we sing and pick up the flowers in our hearts for a long time.
Colors, mountains and mountains are covered with the afterglow of the setting sun.
The herdsmen drove the cattle back home, and the hunters passed me with their prey.
We were relatively silent and didn’t know each other. I screamed and sang and I really wanted to live in seclusion in the mountains!
Extended information:
Appreciation:
"Donggao looks at the dusk, and where can I rely on?" The first two sentences mainly express emotions. "Donggao" generally refers to the waterside highlands near Longmen in Jiangzhou, Wang Ji's hometown. It borrows from Tao Yuanming's poem "Climbing Donggao to soothe the whistle" in Tao Yuanming's poem (his return speech), which implies that the poet tried to cultivate Donggao after returning to seclusion.
So he named himself "Dong Gaozi". "Yiyi" means wandering. "Where can I rely on?" is adapted from Cao Cao's poem "Dan Ge Xing": "Wrap around the tree three times, what branch can I rely on". These two lines of poems are described in a plain and simple way, and they are first revealed to be the poet standing on Donggao in the thin twilight.
Looking around, an incomprehensible feeling of loneliness and helplessness surges into my heart, making it impossible to calm down. Viewing the scenery in this way will naturally be painted with a layer of psychological imbalance. It also provides a clever foundation for the description of the scene in the middle four sentences.
"The trees are all in autumn colors, and the mountains are only covered with sunset." This is the poet's rough-line description of the landscape in front of him, focusing on the transparency of colors. The layers of woods have been dyed with bleak golden autumn colors, and the undulating mountains can only see the afterglow of the setting sun. This is such a peaceful, open and beautiful picture.
Even in the faint dusk, people can still feel the strong reflection of the light and color of the autumn forest and sunset in the mountains and fields. Then, the poet's writing turned to dynamic narrative: "Herdsmen drive calves back. Hunting horses bring birds back." He strives to depict the vivid scenes of reintroduction in the mountains and wilds that he can see.
Injecting a pulse of excitement and joy into the entire quiet scene. The several verbs in the sentence are "drive", "return", "bring" and "return". Use it naturally and alertly. This dynamic description increasingly brings out the tranquility of the autumn evening scene.
In the description of silence and movement, the poet interweaves mountains and trees, calves and hunting horses into a wonderful artistic picture. The harmony of light and color, and the combination of distant and close shots all appear so natural and harmonious that one cannot help but have some kind of reverie.
I even forget my feelings in the comfortable and leisurely fields. The first and last couplets of this poem are lyrical. The two couplets in the middle describe the scene. Through in-depth descriptions of the scene with emotion and through the use of scenes to express emotions, the poet's lonely and hesitant mood is cleverly connected with the autumn dusk that envelopes the surrounding fields.
Bring readers an intuitive sense of art and pleasure in beauty. The endless meaning contained in the poem makes people chew and ponder it for a long time. The language of the whole poem is straightforward, fresh, natural and smooth, with simple words and profound taste, and powerful sentences, which paved the way for the innovation of Tang poetry and later generations' poetic language.