Birds sing with joy and sorrow, and I love bleeding from the mouth. ——Meng Jiao, Tang Dynasty, "Bitter Cold Song" Birds sing with joy and sorrow, and I love bleeding from the mouth. All the frozen springs are swallowed, and I feel the cold even more.
Leaning against the pine trees in the middle of the night, my clothes are covered with snow.
Bamboo poles contain joys and sorrows, and I love to embrace the bitterness.
The sound of birds is full of joy and sorrow, and my mouth bleeds.
If Pan Shengruo understands and chants, his hair will grow gray earlier. In winter, life is desolate. About "Skinny Island in the Cold Suburbs"
"Cold" can of course also be used to explain poverty, but it is obvious that Su Shi is referring to the cold "cold" of the entire style. "Cold" is a shape that appeals to vision. Who feels the poems that are too cold and sees the poems that are too thin? No. There is no way to find the solution. But it is indeed perceptible and concrete. It triggers our imagination and arouses our aesthetic associations. In the world of our imagination, certain pictures and the beauty of a certain realm will appear in the poems of Meng Jiao and Jia Dao, and then we will be surprised to feel that the words "cold" and "thin" are used to describe this kind of picture and realm. The beauty of it couldn’t be more appropriate.
What is the explanation for this? To explain this clearly, many issues may be involved, such as the characteristics of Chinese classical poetry, national aesthetic habits, and the characteristics of traditional Chinese poetic theory. These issues are difficult to explain clearly at once. If we narrow the scope a little further, we can get a glimpse of the causes of these phenomena from a small perspective. For example, what is the thinking process of poetry commentators when they use concepts such as vigorous, cold, and thin to comment on the style of poetry? What forms of thinking do they adopt? What are its characteristics? Or contribute to the understanding of these phenomena. What this article attempts to cover is such a small issue, and only limits it to this small scope.
Let’s first dissect a representative example. Let’s start with “Slimming on Suburban Han Island”.
"Cold" obviously does not only refer to the content of the poem, which is mostly about poor life; "thin" does not only refer to the lack of diction, but refers to the entire style of the poem, and refers to the part that expresses the style of the poem. A type of artistic conception and beauty. Su Shi did not give a clear explanation of "the cold suburbs of the island", but from his two poems "Reading Meng Jiao's Poems", we can see what he meant by "the cold suburbs". The poem is "The solitary fragrance lifts up the desolate filth, and the bitter words remain in the poem. The water is clear and the rocks are chiseled, and the turbulence is not affected by the pole. At first, it is like eating small fish, and the gain is not repaying the hard work; it is also like cooking Pengu, and chewing the empty claws all day long. It is important to Being a monk is not enough to be a Han Hao. Life is like morning dew, and the fire burns the ointment day and night. Why bother listening to the cry of cold insects?" In this poem, he used three metaphors to describe Meng Jiao's poem: It's like a shallow stream of clear water, bright and fast; it's like a small fish or a squid, which has flavor but lacks plump meat; it's like the cry of cold insects, which gives people a sense of desolation. These three metaphors are not clearly defined. The ratio of small fish to pengxi seems to indicate that the content of the poem is not rich enough; the metaphor of clear water and turbulent water seems to refer to the cold and rapid state; and the description of the mournful cry of cold insects seems to refer to the sad and desolate emotional tone of suburban poetry. Obviously, this is Su Shi's feeling about Meng Jiao's poems. This feeling occurs as a series of associations. Although each association may be due to a certain stylistic factor of the poem, it is actually an impression of the entire style of the poem. It is probably due to these individual impressions that the overall impression of "coolness" is created, which is the "Qing" he said "to be a fighting monk Qing", which can be compared with Jia Dao in terms of coolness. From "cold", it moves further to produce a "cold" feeling.
We can further prove what others have said. There are many people who feel this way about the style and characteristics of Meng Jiao's poems. For example, in Jia Dao's poem "Going to Meng Jiao", he mentioned that "the air is clear and cold, and it is contained in the arms." He noticed the cold artistic conception of Meng Jiao's poems and pointed out that this cold artistic conception was related to his embrace. Ouyang Xiu said: "On the outskirts of Kanxiao District and on the island, fireflies fly and wet the dew and sing the autumn grass." The state of "flying fireflies and wet dew singing autumn grass" gives people a "cold" feeling. Using such an artistic conception to explain the style of Meng Jiao and Jia Dao's poems is obviously also based on association. Fan Xiwen even quoted Meng Jiao's poem "Chang'an Road": "The wind stirs up the trees in Qin, and the lowly weeps in the wind. The red doors of every house are open, but they are visible but not accessible. On the twelve thoroughfares of Chang'an, birds are also anxious to throw themselves into trees. Whose house is in the high pavilion? The reed is noisy and sucking", saying that Meng Jiao's poems are "short of breath and bitter in lyrics". The so-called "shortness of breath and bitter words" mainly refers to the sad and desolate emotional tone. From the poem he quoted, we can see that he wanted to emphasize the sad and desolate mood that pervaded Meng Jiao's poems. The feeling of this kind of mood is of course still "cold". For another example, Ge Lifang said that Meng Jiao's poems "are all about poverty and poverty" and Zhang Wenqian said that Meng Jiao's poems "are all about carving out the words of poverty." Zhang Jie said that Meng Jiao's poems are "cold and bitter". Wei Tai said that suburban poems are "cold and remote", which has similar meanings. They all refer to the sad and desolate feeling that suburban poems give people. This feeling is emotionally similar to coldness, and is also very similar to Su Shi's so-called "cold".
We can also directly prove it with Meng Jiao's poems. Although there are a few chapters of suburban poems that are as affectionate as "Wandering Son's Song" and as light and content as after passing the college entrance examination, most of them describe the poor and frustrated life situation, with a cold artistic conception and a desolate tone. Let's try to copy "Bitter Cold Song" below: The sky is cold and green, the north wind is called dry mulberry, the ice is thick without cracks, and there is a cold light in the short day. Knocking on a stone will produce no fire; strengthening yin will capture yang. What can I say to adjust the bitterness? This chapter is written in the cold.
In this poem, Meng Jiao uses cold tones to deliberately describe a cold and dead realm and the image of the poet himself in this realm, melancholy and moaning. In the cold and dead artistic conception, there are desolate emotions. . "Autumn Embrace Part 1": "Although I lie alone at night, the singing insects chirp each other, I cry without tears, and the autumn dew is dripping." The realm of the mournful autumn insects is used to highlight the poor life experience, and the association of autumn dew and tears is used. Expressing deep desolate feelings. Another example is "Autumn Embrace No. 4": "Autumn comes and I get older and poorer. I have a broken house without a door. The moon falls on my bed, and the wind blows into my clothes." "The autumn air enters the sick bones, and the old man's body is covered with ice, his hair is dark and thorny, and the cold pain is unbearable." , Strong and strong, I am sitting thin and my body is about to collapse, my belly is hungry and my heart is about to collapse." There are many poems like this. Their common characteristics are that they write about poor life and express sad feelings. The emotional tone is sad and desolate, and the artistic conception is cold. These are enough to prove from different aspects that "cold" refers to the beauty of a cold artistic conception in poetry. It refers to a cold and desolate "cold" feeling caused by this cold artistic conception that arouses the emotional excitement of poetry critics and triggers their aesthetic associations. It is tangible and concrete.
As for "thin", of course, like "cold", the artistic conception of the poem triggers the association of poetry critics, resulting in a feeling of "thin" image. Su Shi did not further discuss Jia Dao's poems, but this can be proved by his generalization of "cold suburbs". Similarly, we can also prove Yijia Dao's poems. "Skinny" is the opposite of "fat", which means not plump. Reading Jia Dao's poems, you will feel that his poems are not rich in content, not rich in imagination, and narrow in realm. Although there are a few poems such as "The Swordsman" that are impassioned, most of the poems are cold and express feelings of loneliness, such as "Autumn Twilight" ": "The willow leaves at the north gate have become colorful without realizing it. The cranes are approaching the water, and the monks are greeted by the clouds. The white beards appear side by side, and the dark tears are divided into two lines. Silently in the sky day and night, who likes to hear the bitter chanting." The whole poem The realm is tight and narrow, and the imagination has not taken off. The poet who only writes in tears and moans is independent in the autumn, and there are only a few surrounding scenery, which cannot arouse readers' rich associations with the artistic conception of the poem. "Walking for Friends in the Rain": "Thinking of a gentleman in the rain, tasting tea near the secluded bamboo, Confucianism next to the ancient temple, not seeing autumn again." It also lacks rich imagination and full realm, and only expresses a little loneliness and loneliness. In Jia Dao's poems, the emotion of loneliness is very prominent, and there are many poems that express the emotional tone of loneliness and neglect, such as the famous "Inscribed on Li Ning's Residence". Not plump, narrow, lonely and desolate, his works give people a feeling of thinness and loneliness. From this feeling, and then associated with thinness, there is a "thin" feeling that belongs to volume.
We can also corroborate what others have said. Ouyang Xiu said that Jia Dao's "the smell of silence is reflected in his poems". Lu Shiyong said that "the charm of Jia Dao's poems comes from loneliness." Smell and charm refer to the color, atmosphere, and emotions contained in the artistic conception of the poem. To say that the flavor and charm of his poems are dry is to say that his poems express a kind of withered and desolate poetic artistic conception. Kuji is another way of saying "thin". However, "thin" focuses on the spiritual aspect, while Kuji focuses on the charm.
Undoubtedly, "thin" also refers to the beauty of a type of artistic conception. It is also tangible and concrete.
From the above brief anatomy, we can see that "cold" and "thin" describe the type of beauty in the realm of poetry. It is tangible, concrete, and expressive. It is based on our aesthetic experience, appeals to our imagination, and triggers our aesthetic associations. It is not based on concepts, analysis, reasoning, and judgment, and triggers us to engage in rational thinking. Many terms used to comment on the style of poetry, such as vigorous, elegant, magnificent, clear and distant, etc., all have such characteristics. They are different from scientific concepts with clear meanings and high abstraction. For the convenience of discussion, let us give them a name and call them "image concepts". Artistic conception: Meng Jiao lived in poverty all his life, and many of his poems complained about hunger and cold, and expressed the injustice of poverty. His representative work "Bitter Cold Song" can be seen as a tragic portrayal of the poet's life. Meng Jiao, (751-814), a poet of the Tang Dynasty. The word is Dongye. Han nationality, a native of Wukang, Huzhou (now Deqing, Zhejiang), his ancestral home is Pingchang (now northeast of Linyi, Shandong), and his ancestors lived in Luoyang (now in Henan). A famous poet in the Tang Dynasty. There are more than 500 existing poems, among which short five-character ancient poems are the most numerous. The representative work is "Wandering Son's Song". He is known as the "poem prisoner" and is as famous as Jia Dao, and is also known as "the thin island in the cold suburbs". In the ninth year of Yuanhe, he died of illness in Nexiang (now Lingbao, Henan). Zhang Ji's private posthumous title is Mr. Zhenyao.
Meng Jiao The swallows are leaving the spring scenery again. A burst of dusk rain fell on the screen window. Hunan is a guest in spring, and the swallows hold mud twice in their mouths. The finless porpoise is standing in the waves, and the sand bird is free to fish. The swallow comes again, and the past flows eastward. The river is broad and the clouds are low, and the broken geese are calling the west wind. Zigui cries, "It is better to go home. The saying is that spring returns and people do not return." The dusk rain suddenly comes and the wild geese disappear, and there is a sound of autumn in Mangguan Mountain. The frightened birds are gone to no end, and the cold crickets are chirping next to me. The curtain is slightly cold, and the swallows fly away. It's hard to send all the books, and I'm worried about many dreams. The butterfly does not convey the dream of a thousand miles, but Zigui calls the third night of the moon. The remaining flowers in March are blooming more and more, and swallows are flying from the small eaves every day. The red lotuses lean against each other as if they were intoxicated, and the white bird is silent and worried about itself. Only seeing wild geese flying makes one feel sad. There are no birds flying around Jiaohe City, and horseshoes slip on Luntai Road.