Working background
"Tiangou" is a famous sentence in Guo Moruo's first poetry collection "Goddess", which was first published on February 7 1920 in Shanghai News of Current Affairs.
The May 4th Movement brought new breath and vitality to China society. Old morality, old ethics, autocratic politics and all feudal idols have been violently attacked and criticized, while new things, new ideas, new cultures and all the requirements of progress have been enthusiastically advocated and praised. Advocating scientific democracy, striving for independence and freedom, publicizing individual consciousness, pursuing individual liberation, and demanding to transform the old society and build a new society have become the strong voice of the times. At that time, the poet was studying in Japan. Although he is in a foreign country, he is always concerned about the fate of his motherland. The news of the May 4th Movement greatly inspired the poet's spirit. The poet's patriotic enthusiasm accumulated for a long time and his pent-up strong desire for personal liberation, national liberation and social liberation boil and burn like a volcanic eruption. Thus, "in the second half of 19 19 and the first half of 1920, poetry creation broke out" (Ten Years of Creation). A number of passionate poems, such as Phoenix Nirvana, Coal in the Furnace, The Earth, My Mother, Good Morning, Ode to a Gangster, etc. , were born in this particular historical stage. Tiangou is also one of the outstanding masterpieces.
Tiangou, originally a thing in folklore, was often called "Tiangou eats the moon" by the ancients. In one of his novels "Eclipse", the poet once wrote that during the eclipse, his hometown of Sichuan had the custom of beating bells and drums to drive away dogs and save the sun and the moon:
"When I was a child, every time I met an eclipse, it was like encountering some kind of disaster. All the temples in the village have to ring bells and drums, and the adults also let us knock on the partition at home to make noise. In the dark, a tengu wants to eat the sun and the moon. Playing the bell and drum is to scare the dog and save the sun and the moon. This is a story circulating in rural Sichuan, and even a legend in China since ancient times. As far as I can remember, in the books I read as a child, Zhou Li, Emperor Guan and Drummer wrote letters to Wang Gu to save the sun and the moon. Officials and servants in the Spring Dynasty also praised Wang Gu to save the sun and the moon, and Qiu Guan Shi Ting was even more capable of saving the sun and the moon. "Gu Liangzhuan" also said that the emperor had five soldiers and five drums to save Japan and Chen, and the vassal had three soldiers and three drums, and the doctor knocked at the door and struck him. This shows that the custom of saving solar eclipse has existed since ancient times. Nordic people also have a myth that is absolutely similar to this. They said: there are two wolves in the sky, one is Hattie and the other is Managarm. Black hoof food day, Mana arm eats the moon, and people's noise saves the sun and the moon. "
Ideological content
This poem mainly expresses the poet's strong desire to deny the old social reality, get rid of the old ideological shackles, publicize his personality and pursue liberation by shaping the image of Tiangou, and embodies the spirit of the times advocating science, democracy and freedom during the May 4th Movement.
Artistic feature
In art, this poem fully embodies the romantic style of Guo Moruo's poetry.
1. The metaphor is novel and vivid. Tiangou originally existed only in folklore, but the poet praised it as an idol. The image of Tiangou in the poem has become a symbol of rebels in the old times, traditions and the old world, as well as a symbol of personality liberation with unlimited energy and the creator of the new world, society and future. The use of this metaphor not only vividly shows the poet's strong desire to publicize his personality and pursue liberation, but also gives people a refreshing feeling in poetic images. In addition, the poet compared "I" to "X-ray light" and "flying like electricity", which also reflected the characteristics of advocating science at that time.
2. Imagination is bold and strange. The image of Tiangou is vague in legend, but it is transformed into an image of "I" with unlimited energy and fully liberated personality in poetry. He swallowed the moon for a while, the sun for a while, and all the planets for a while, becoming the light at the end of the month, the light at the end of the sun, and the light at the end of all the planets, and then flying, screaming, burning, flying on the nerves, spinal cord and brain, all of which showed the boldness and strangeness of the poet's imagination.
3. Emotion is unrestrained and intense. The whole poem is written in the tone of "I", and the poet uses the dog as a metaphor to express his inner pride through the extraordinary trend of the dog devouring the universe. Poetry runs through strong feelings from beginning to end and has a strong subjective color.
4. Pay attention to the rhythm and sense of rhythm. This poem is also very distinctive in language form. Poets often use short sentence mode, and combine overlapping sentences and parallelism, which produces strong melody, rapid and powerful rhythm and destructive momentum. In addition, the language of the poem is free and the rhyme is rough, which shows that the poet attaches importance to the sense of rhythm.