To the Oak Tree is a love poem with no vague meaning. The poet uses meticulous and fluent thinking logic to show bright and beautiful images. In the 80-year history of China's new poetry, perhaps there is no other love poem better than it. What's more commendable is that it was written in March 1977, and it was the earliest love poem after the Cultural Revolution. The language and image are vivid and touching, and the humble, pure and beautiful love can be described as an ideal realm with strong appeal, which makes countless young people yearn for and look forward to.
Shu Ting's poems are novel in conception and full of lyrical colors. Exquisite language and distinctive personal style. To the Oak Tree is a beautiful and profound lyric poem of hers. The poet ingeniously chose the two central images of "kapok" and "oak tree", which contained delicate, euphemistic and profound feelings in the novel and vivid images. The love it expresses is not only pure and hot, but also noble and great. It is like an old and fresh song, which touches people's heartstrings.
The poet takes the oak tree as the object, expressing the passion, sincerity and firmness of love. The oak tree in the poem is not a concrete object, but an ideal lover symbol of the poet. Therefore, this poem, to some extent, does not simply pour out one's passionate love, but expresses one's ideals and beliefs about love. It is expressed through a kind and concrete image, which is quite meaningful to the ancients.
The poem To Oak uses the monologue tone of "kapok tree" to talk with "oak tree", which is pioneering in poetry creation at that time. Oak is a timber tree with compact and tall wood. Kapok is also known as the hero tree, and its image is tall and straight, which is the tallest among the flower trees. We have to admit the poet's careful design when choosing the material of poetry creation: oak is so suitable to represent the masculine beauty of men, while kapok is so suitable to represent women's self-reliance and equality with men.
Through the artistic technique of quasi-materialization and the inner monologue of kapok tree, the poet sang his own personality ideal and his independent and affectionate love view. As soon as this poem was born, oak and kapok became a group of symbolic images with brand-new character in China's love poems. The establishment of this group of images not only denies the old love description mode, but also transcends the principle of mutual love and is full of humanistic spirit: sincere and noble mutual love is based on their independent positions and personalities. This view of love is very ideological and artistic, and it is extremely heavy.
At the beginning of the poem, two assumptions and six negative metaphors are used to express my love view: "If I love you-/I will never be like Campbell climbing,/I will show off myself with your lofty branches; /If I love you, I will never learn from spoony birds,/and repeat monotonous songs for the shade; /It is not only like a source,/It brings cool comfort all year round; /It's not just like a dangerous mountain peak. /increase height and set off dignity. /even sunshine/even spring rain. " -she doesn't want to climb on each other and show off her vanity by virtue of each other's greatness; Nor is it wishful thinking to drown in each other's indifferent shade and sing unrequited love songs alone.
As a woman, she should be affectionate, considerate and gentle by default, but she thinks she can't stay in this affectionate state. She admits that bedding and foil can make the other person's image more prominent and powerful, but she feels that this function still does not express the full power of love. For each other, I want to offer the warmth like "sunshine" and pour out the affection like "spring rain"; This is the whole truth in love. But she was not satisfied with these: "No, these are not enough! /I must be a kapok beside you,/stand with you in the image of a tree. " The poet made it clear that she is not an accessory, but a foil and ornament of the other party. She must stand on the same side as the other party-you are a person, and I must be a person with the same spiritual temperament; You are a tree, and I must be a tree, equally tall and straight; You stand, I must stand, standing between heaven and earth equally. In short, the images of the two must be the same.
But this agreement does not mean bullying and squeezing each other, nor does it mean that there is no difference between the two, just for the sake of "roots, close to the ground,/leaves, clouds touching each other." /Every time it's windy,/we greet each other,/but no one/understands us. "Men and women in ideal love should stand side by side like oak trees and kapok, and convey and repay each other's love with the grip of roots, the caress of leaves and the mutual greetings in the wind. This is a couple who are hand in hand, and even a breeze can cause a thrill. They are soul mates, and no one can understand them. Kapok said in an oak tree and his own proud tone, "You have copper branches and iron shafts,/like a knife, like a sword,/like a halberd; /I have red flowers,/Like a heavy sigh,/Like a heroic torch. "Obviously, kapok deeply understands the characteristics and values of her and the oak tree; They can't replace each other, but should give full play to their respective advantages.
Here, she unabashedly praises the male beauty and masculinity of the oak tree, which is majestic and sharp; Also praised the flexible temperament of their own women: isn't that rich safflower a sign of youthful beauty and feminine beauty? However, why are all the red flowers of kapok like "heavy sighs"? We can feel the unique voice and emotion of this poetess: this voice bears painful scars, and this emotion is stained with sadness. At that time, many pains, hardships and struggles of society, relatives and individuals were melted in this kind of voice and emotion! This heavy sigh is so real that if you throw it on the ground, it will splash tears and blood spots!
With her sensitivity, sobriety and profundity, Shu Ting shouted out women's yearning and pursuit for independent personality, sound mind and equality between men and women. She is not fettered by the world, and expresses a mature intellectual woman's yearning for ideal love.
She went on to write: "We share cold waves, storms and thunderbolts,/We * * * enjoy fog, flowing haze and rainbow." True love, of course, must share joys and sorrows. On the surface, they seem to be separated forever, but in essence, their roots and leaves are intertwined and are "lifelong dependent". It's just that this kind of love has a special meaning in Shu Ting's eyes: "This is great love,/and here lies loyalty:/Love-/Not only your great body,/but also your persistent position and the land under your feet."
Shu Ting put forward her own unique views on the "loyalty" of love here: the loyalty of love is not only to be loyal to each other's "stalwart body", but also to stay in the admiration of appearance and the combination of body, but to go further and incorporate each other's career pursuit, ideals and beliefs into their love arms, and to blend and possess each other completely in spirit; Not only in form, but also in thoughts and feelings, it is considered as "great love" to achieve perfect combination, consistent position, consistent belief in life and consistent pursuit of goals.
The whole poem is bright, beautiful, refined, generalized and condensed, and the author uses the expression technique of quasi-materialization of lyric subject. The object of the poem is oak, but kapok. The style of writing is also unique. Instead of depicting the beauty and straightness of Kapok's appearance, it uses a series of subtle metaphors to compare Kapok's personality, characteristics, beliefs and ambitions from all angles.
Then psychologically, she further exposed her love view and portrayed it from the personality characteristics. In the depiction, the two images of "sigh" and "torch" are compared, which further shows kapok's plump personality. Then compare the images of "cold wave" and "fog" to contrast and render the typical environment of love images of kapok and oak. This shows kapok's love for oak trees in all directions.
Clever artistic contrast, vivid image and implicit and gentle tone constitute the independent characteristics of the whole article. At the end of the poem, it is both empty and real, meaningful and philosophical, which opens up the theme, rationally sublimates kapok's love view, reflects the image symbolizing love with the light of ideal, and makes kapok's loyal and beautiful image more upright, so full, beautiful and vivid!
Mr. Lin Zhiting praised: "To the Oak" is novel in conception and vivid in image. It is widely read among young people and obviously has great vitality. "
Wen Suolin: "Separation" is external and superficial; "Dependence" is internal and essential. Life is an art, and love is more like the most wonderful chapter in this art; Love is a philosophy, and only a woman who understands this philosophy with her life can understand all its mysteries. This is the sharp and profound poetic philosophy expounded by Shu Ting's To the Oak, and it is also the precious ideological and artistic value of this poem.
Wu Huairen: From the time dimension, To the Oak shows the independent female subject spirit; From the spatial dimension, To the Oak shows the enlightenment spirit of intellectuals; From the psychological dimension, To the Oak shows the optimism of revolutionaries.