Reflections on Dai Wangshu's My Memory
Dai Wangshu's My Memory is one of the representative works of his mature artistic poetry. Different from previous poems such as Rain Lane, My Memory abandons gorgeous image expression and adopts a kind and simple language narrative method.
In Rain Lane, the poet describes a girl who is "as sad as a clove". The language of the poem is like a rain lane in the south of the Yangtze River, fluttering with the melancholy of drizzle. My Memory is a narrative based on inner feelings, expressing an abstract emotion with various daily things, and expressing these intangible memories with symbolic images. The combination of a series of common images such as "burning cigarette", "pen painted with lilies" and "shabby powder box" in the poem not only vividly shows the characteristics of rich memories, but also sets off the broad and subtle combination of the poet's memories.
In the poem, the author gives his memory vivid life and becomes "my" and "loyal friend". In the second section, the arrangement and combination of those images just brings the relationship between memory and oneself closer. These images are far and near, before and after; These scattered combinations of time and space add a cordial and lively atmosphere to memory. "In everything with and without soul, it lives everywhere, just like I do in this world." In fact, this sentence is a summary of all the above images. The poet's memory is the proof that the poet exists in this world, and it is the poet's soul that keeps chewing the beautiful and sour life of the past.
The third poem describes the feeling when the memory comes. "It's timid, it's afraid of being noisy." It's my lonely friend. "When I'm lonely, I will visit at close range." I think the memory of this passage is largely the poet's memory of love. The voice of a girl who loves focus is a very obvious symbol of love memory. In addition, "its voice has no power, but it also carries tears and a sigh of relief", which also reveals the love of laughter and tears in memories of youth. At the same time, the visit when the memory is identified as "loneliness" is always in a quiet and lonely environment when the memory emerges.
As far as the whole poem is concerned, the poet's memories are not good. When these memories come, the poet's mood is heavy and depressed, and he "sighs with tears". Memory "locking will never stop unless I cry or fall asleep sadly". Although the time recalled by the poet is sad, the poet "never hates it", not only because "memory is faithful to the poet", but also because "the poet is faithful to memory"-no matter what the memory is, it belongs to the poet. The value of the poet's life is contained in this kind of memory, so when we read the whole poem, we can't read the poet's rejection of memory at all. When sentimental memories emerge one after another, the poet is still willing to relive this sour taste.
Another difference between My Memory and Rain Lane is that its poems are not uniform in length. The whole poem seems to be arranged with it, without any sense of rhythm, but in fact, this arrangement of the poet only makes the poem express itself in the image of the poem: we seem to see the ups and downs of the poet's inner feelings. At the same time, this unrestrained wandering also reflects the obscurity and complexity of "My Memory". Therefore, although this poem seems to have no sense of rhythm from the external text, its musical beauty lies in its internal thinking and narrative logic.
Personally, I prefer Memory to Rain Lane, which may be influenced by my life experience and background environment. It is very beautiful for the simple but meaningful language in my memory. In reading, I often feel the lonely, depressed and yearning complex emotions emitted by the author through "memory", which makes me admire and move.