Poetry is the art of language. Poetry expresses the author's inner emotions in concise and concise language. Ambiguity does not mean overlapping images or obscurity. The beauty of ambiguity is the ideal artistic form of poetry. Ambiguity is not only an artistic creation technique, but also an aesthetic principle. The beauty of ambiguity is different from and related to the implicit beauty and hazy beauty of poetry.
In William Empson's "Seven Types of Ambiguity", the theory of "ambiguity" is:
(1) One thing is similar to another thing, but they are There are several different properties that are similar; (2) The coexistence of multiple meanings caused by context, including polysemy of words and polysemy caused by loose grammar; (3) Two apparently unrelated meanings appear at the same time; (4) Two or more meanings of a statement are inconsistent with each other, reflecting the author's complex and comprehensive mentality; (5) Discovering the true meaning while writing, resulting in inconsistent meanings of a word above and below; (6) Expression Something is contradictory or cumbersome, forcing readers to make their own interpretations; (7) The two meanings of a word, the two values ??of an ambiguous word, are exactly the opposite meanings specified by the context.
Compared with common expression techniques such as metaphor, symbol, suggestion, etc., the "seven types of ambiguity" appear to be more rational. However, in my opinion, point (6) is more difficult to accept. It's not impossible, but the problem is that doing so seems to create more obstacles for readers than adding meaning to the work. Of course, literary creation carried out under "vague" thinking has indeed achieved good results: such as Mu Dan's love poem "Eight Poems" - "Your eyes saw this fire,"
You can’t see me, even though I ignite it for you;
Alas, what is burning is just the mature age.
You and I are as separate as each other. Heavy Mountain!
From this natural transformation process,
I love a temporary you
Even if I cry, turn gray, turn gray again. New life,
Girl, that’s just God playing with himself.”
According to the most basic meaning of “playing”, “God plays with himself” can be interpreted as God’s presence. Self-entertainment and entertainment seem to be nothing. But if you reread the whole poem carefully with this understanding, you will feel that there is a mysterious force (God) controlling everything. The love of "you" and "me", the "fire" that "ignited" "you" and made me "cry, turn gray, turn gray and reborn" are all just a game played by God. He created human beings. Emotionally mature (a natural need), but mischievously alienating people's hearts. In this painful and contradictory entanglement of men and women falling in love and separated from each other, God's game mentality is greatly satisfied, but how insignificant human beings are! Since love is God's arbitrary manipulation of human beings when he entertains himself, it cannot last long, but can only be short-lived and void. This is the tragic nature of love. "Fire", "mature age", etc. can also have other different explanations. From here, readers can read about being helpless about love, and can also feel their knowledge and understanding of other things. The key depends on how readers understand and grasp it.
Modern literary works (especially poetry) are even more ambiguous than in the past. Their connotations are generally richer, and their language flexibility and tension are greater. , with a variety of meanings, and the ideas expressed may even be contrary to tradition, and it is indeed difficult to understand. But I think that as long as it is not too far away from reality, uses too much obscure language, creates too confusing images, and is not too empty in terms of spiritual connotation, then it should still be acceptable.
If it is too "ambiguous", it will be too difficult for readers to understand the work, and the author will inevitably give people the feeling of being mysterious or even deceptive. Moreover, it is not very beneficial to the extension of the artistic life of the work, and it should not be too worthy of recognition.
As for the domestic reclassification of ambiguity types: 1. ambiguity in the object of reference; 2. ambiguity in the author’s attitude; 3. grammatical ambiguity. In fact, it is basically just a summary of Yanbu Sun's vague theory, and there is not much new idea.
Of course, there are many, many more knowledge and theories related to ambiguity, but the author really lacks knowledge about ambiguity and can only say a few extremely superficial words that are not even superficial. All in all, the literary theory of ambiguity can make the language of the work full of more uncertainty and full of semantic reverberation, giving readers a richer reading experience.