The specific explanation is as follows
Dai Wangshu: Rainy Lane
Dai Wangshu (1905- 1950), formerly known as Dai Mengou, was born in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, a famous modern poet and literary translator. Known as "Rain Lane Poet" because of his famous poem "Rain Roll", he was a representative poet of "Modernism" in 1930s. Early poetry is sad and hazy, while later poetry tends to be realistic and clear. His main works include poems My Memory, Wang Shucao, and Years of Disaster.
Rain lane ①
Holding an oil-paper umbrella, alone?
Wandering in the long, long
Lonely rain lane,
I hope to see
Like cloves.
A girl with a grudge.
She does.
Clove-like color,
Lilac-like fragrance,
Sad as cloves,
Mourning in the rain,
Sadness and hesitation;
She lingers in this lonely rain lane,
Hold an oil-paper umbrella
Like me.
Like me.
In silence,
Cold, sad, melancholy.
She approached quietly.
Get close and throw again.
Panting eyes.
She floated by.
Like a dream,
As sad and confused as a dream.
Floating like a dream
A lilac field,
I passed this girl by;
She went away silently, far away,
Reach the crumbling hedge wall.
Walk through this rainy path.
In the sad song of rain.
Remove her color,
Spread her fragrance,
Disappeared, even hers
Sighing expression.
Lilac is melancholy.
Holding an oil-paper umbrella alone
Wandering in the long, long
Lonely rain lane,
I hope to float over.
Like cloves.
A girl with a grudge.
(1) The poem "Rain Lane" was written in the summer of 1927 and published in the 8th issue of Novel Monthly, published in August of 1928. With regard to the influence of Rain Lane on the poetry circles and Dai Wangshu himself at that time, the following passage by Du Heng, a close friend of Dai Wangshu, can be used for reference: "Speaking of Rain Lane, it is not easy for us to forget Mr. Ye Shengtao's bottom prize. After nearly a year of writing Rain Lane, when Mr. Shengtao was editing a monthly novel, Wang Shucai suddenly wanted to publish it. As soon as Mr. Shengtao saw this poem, he sent a letter praising him for opening a new era for the syllables of the new poem. ...... Mr. Sheng Tao's strong recommendation made Wang Shu win the title of "Rain Lane" poet until now. " (Preface to Wang Shucao)
Let's take a look at the content of this poem first. The poem "Rain Lane" has a strong sense of music. It is easy for us to feel its slow, deep and beautiful melody and rhythm, and it is also easy to feel the feelings it expresses-sadness, sadness and melancholy. At the beginning of the poem, the poet painted us a picture of the alleys in the south of the Yangtze River in the rainy season: between buildings with white walls and black tiles, the alleys are long and tortuous; It is the rainy season, the sky is overcast and the rain keeps falling. The alley was empty, only the poet.
Hold an oil-paper umbrella
Wandering in the long, long
Lonely rain lane,
The poet walks alone in the rainy lane; And his vacillating gait clearly reveals his inner loneliness and anguish. Alleys, drizzle, the lonely poet with an oil-paper umbrella, and his wandering gait-these are the first few words of this poem that show us. After the above lens, a poet's inner monologue appeared in the poem:
I hope to see
Like cloves.
A girl with a grudge.
This "lilac girl" is not a real person in the real world, but a virtual person imagined by the poet (he hopes to meet). What kind of girl is this? The poem goes on to say:
She does.
Clove-like color,
Lilac-like fragrance,
Sad as cloves,
Lilacs bloom in mid-spring, and the color is white or purple, giving people a feeling of weakness, beauty, purity and solemnity. Lilacs are beautiful, but they wilt easily. The ancient poets in China often hurt spring when watching lilacs, saying that lilacs are the cause of concern. In China's ancient poems, there are many famous sentences chanting lilacs, such as: "The bluebird doesn't spread the news outside the cloud, and lilacs are sad in the rain" ("Huanxi Yarn" by Li Can in the southern Tang Dynasty); "Lilac is weak, and the branches are still falling"; "Bananas don't show lilac knots, but they miss each other in the spring breeze"; Wait a minute. Due to the repeated chanting and widespread singing of ancient poets in China, in the eyes of China people (especially literati), lilacs have gradually become a symbol of things with this nature, such as beauty, nobility, weakness and sadness. The "girl" in Rain Lane is a female image endowed by China ancient poets with the above attributes-she has the graceful posture and color of lilac, the noble fragrance of lilac, and the sadness of lilac (endowed by ancient poets).
Such a "girl" with a lilac soul seems to have her own life once she is created by the poet's imagination. In the poem, she also moves like a real person:
She lingers in this lonely rain lane,
Hold an oil-paper umbrella
Like me.
Like me.
In silence,
Cold, sad, melancholy.
In the rain lane written in the poem, only the poet walks alone; Since the "Lilac Girl" appeared, there have been two people walking in it; And the girl's gait, expression, and even the oiled paper umbrella in her hand are all like a poet. The appearance of such a person obviously filled the poet's heart with expectation and hope. In Long and Lonely Rain Lane, there are two lonely young men and women now, so what will happen next? This is what we want to know, and it is exactly what the poet wanted to know at that time. The poem goes on to say:
She approached quietly.
Get close and throw again.
Panting eyes.
She floated by.
Like a dream,
As sad and confused as a dream.
She finally approached the poet, (we can imagine the poet's heartbeat at the moment), but she didn't say hello to the poet, just cast a sighing look at the poet, and then floated past without a trace like a dream! (We shout in our hearts: Why is this so? ! When she drifted past the poet, the poet saw that her expression was sad and confused. This expression clearly reveals that she is actually unwilling to be separated from the poet. But for some (unclear) reasons, she had to miss the poet! As the saying goes: life is a rare confidant! What a pity that these two young men and women (even with the same expression and gait) accidentally missed each other in the rainy lane! How sad it is for the poet to miss a possible beautiful marriage like this. The poet, in an emotional state of reluctance and deep helplessness, watched the "Lilac Girl" drift away in the rain lane:
Floating like a dream
A lilac field,
I passed this girl by;
She went away silently, far away,
A crumbling fence.
Walk through this rainy path.
When we passed a "broken fence"-this "broken fence" is a concrete symbol of the poet's hope to get together with "Lilac Girl"-"Lilac Girl" finally disappeared at the end of the rain lane. But at this time, the poet is still in an emotional state. Even if he can't see "Lilac Girl" anymore, he is still feeling the dim light left by "Lilac Girl" in the rain lane, the color and fragrance left in the cold air, and he is sad for the continuous dissipation of this color and fragrance:
In the sad song of rain.
Remove her color,
Spread her fragrance,
Disappeared, even hers
Sighing expression.
Lilac is melancholy.
(We can imagine:) The poet stood alone in the rain lane, remembering for a long time the color, fragrance and even her sighing and melancholy eyes when she met Lilac girl just now. But the cruel reality can't tolerate beautiful love or ideals. At the end of the poem, we can see that in the "long and lonely rain lane", only the poet is wandering alone:
Holding an oil-paper umbrella alone
Wandering in the long, long
Lonely rain lane,
I hope to float over.
Like cloves.
A girl with a grudge.
At the end of the poem, the poet seems to repeat the scene that appeared at the beginning of the poem. The words in the first two paragraphs are almost the same, except that "(I hope) meet" is changed to "(I hope) float". This change, on the one hand, shows that the poet has not completely given up hope, on the other hand, it also makes people feel that the poet's hope is getting more and more slim. Therefore, after reading the last verse of the poem, we can't help feeling that the irretrievable depression, sadness, helplessness and melancholy expressed in the poem have deepened.
After explaining the general content of the poem Rain Lane, let's analyze the characteristics of this poem in writing techniques.
First, the perfect combination of French symbolism and China's traditional poetry images. We can see that this poem is ostensibly about a pair of young men and women who met in a rainy lane and separated silently, which shocked their thoughts and feelings. We can believe that the events written in the poem are based on similar real events in the poet's life; But even so, it is easy to see that what is written in the poem has other symbolic meanings. Among them, Lilac Girl can be regarded as both the embodiment of the poet's ideal lover and the symbol of other ideals pursued by the poet. The "Rain Lane" can be regarded as a realistic alley in the rainy season of cities in the south of the Yangtze River, and it is also a symbol of the poet's social living environment (the "broken fence wall" in the rain lane is a micro-level symbol of love failure or disillusionment). As for the story of two young men and women meeting unexpectedly and meeting each other late in Rain Lane, it can be regarded as the reappearance of a true love event, and also a symbol of the author's mental journey of pursuing ideals but failing to succeed. The feelings expressed by the poet in his poems can be regarded as both the poet's lament for the failure of love and the poet's mourning for the disillusionment of his ideal. After understanding the symbolic meaning of the whole poem, we will find that the meaning of this poem is actually much richer than the literal meaning. In addition to this literal meaning, there is a metaphorical relationship between meaning and literal meaning, that is, symbolic meaning. The symbolism of this poem is caused by the symbolism adopted by the poet. The so-called symbol (that is, metaphor), that is, on the surface, only the vehicle is written (the implied ontology does not appear), but secretly it points to the ontology through the vehicle. Because the ontology does not appear in the symbol, the receiver can have different or multiple understandings of what the ontology refers to in the vehicle, which leads to the uncertainty of the symbol meaning. Different from scientific and theoretical activities (the pursuit of semantic accuracy and oneness), in poetry creation and appreciation activities, people often pursue the richness, diversity and even vagueness and secrecy of meaning, and the use of symbolism is an important way to meet people's needs. Dai Wangshu was deeply influenced by French symbolism poetry schools (especially poems translated by Dai Zeng) and admired symbolism. This poem is a successful example of his use of symbolism to create China vernacular poems. It is worth noting that Dai Wangshu's "The Creation Method of Comprehensive Symbolic Poetry" shows that the creation method of comprehensive symbolic poetry includes not only narrow symbolic techniques, but also the creation of novel and peculiar symbolic images, the application of synaesthesia (the metonymy and supernormal combination of various senses), the description and arrangement of colors, and the creation of music. Although it can be said that it was mainly imported from France (narrow symbolism was also widely used in China's ancient poems), the symbolic images he used. Because: "Lilac" used to describe "girl" in poetry is a common symbolic image in ancient Chinese poetry; The poem's "Long and Lonely Rain Lane" is a typical style of southern cities in China. The "lilac-like girl" who appeared in the "Rain Lane" of Jiangnan city with an oil-paper umbrella is obviously a female image with the characteristics of China Jiangnan. The perfect combination of thorough China in content and comprehensive Westernization in expression means that it is easier for the general readers of this poem in China to understand the general content of this poem, instead of being at a loss as some modernist poems are ignorant of foreign things. It can be said that Dai Wangshu's poem Rain Lane is a successful example of the perfect combination of French symbolism and China's traditional poetry images.
Secondly, the successful application of musical means and the successful creation of the musical beauty of poetry.
A striking feature of Rain Lane at the phonetic level is its strong musical beauty. This kind of musical beauty is mainly caused by the repetition of words and the regular repetition of rhymes. The repetition of words and phrases, such as: the last verse of the poem is exactly the same except that the "encounter" in the first verse is changed to "floating"; This practice not only makes the whole poem echo from beginning to end, but also makes the same sound stream appear repeatedly in the poem (repetition is one of the basic means of musical expression), thus enhancing the musical sense of the whole poem. In addition, every section of the poem has the repetition of words and phrases; Such as "long, long" in the first and second sections; The second section is "lilac-like color, lilac-like fragrance and lilac-like sadness" and "sadness, sadness and hesitation in the rain"; The third section "like me, like me"; The fourth section is "like a dream, sad and confused"; Section 5 "Far, Far"; The sixth section "her color fades away" and "sighing, lilac-like melancholy" (variation repetition); The repeated use of such words in the poem and the echo of some repeated forms in the poem make this poem quite musical. Rhyme is repeated regularly: the whole poem has seven sections, each with six lines, and each line is different in length but repeated regularly on the whole. The poem adopts the method of rhyming to the end (rhyming ang rhyme), in which the foot rhyme is repeated at the end of each line not far apart, and each verse rhymes two or three times; Some of the same words appear many times in rhyme, such as "Rain Lane", "Girl", "Fragrance", "Melancholy" and "Vision". The repeated use of this rhyme makes the rhyming sound (ang) feel repeatedly in people's hearing, thus producing a kind of music effect one after another. When we read this poem, we feel like listening to a gentle and soothing meditation serenade, and the sweet melody full of loneliness and pain echoes repeatedly in our hearts.
Regarding the musical beauty of this poem, Ye Shengtao once said: This poem "opened a new era for the syllables of new poetry". This may be a bit flattering, but the strong musical beauty of this poem is one of its most important features.
Reading Skills in Textbooks
Rain Lane was written in 1928 during the period of white terror after the failure of the Great Revolution. With a symbolic pen, the poet looked for hope and ideal (girl) in the dark reality (rain lane) and missed her, expressing his dissatisfaction, disappointment and frustration with reality.
The whole poem draws lessons from the advantages of China's classical poetry in attaching importance to images and artistic conception and the functions of western modern poetry in attaching importance to symbols and hints. With a long and slow rhythm, it expresses the stagnant and sad poetic sentiment, which embodies the author's ideal of poetry creation that "the rhythm of poetry is not the cadence of words, but the cadence of poetry", thus "opening a new era for the bottom syllable of new poetry" (Ye Shengtao)