Bian Zhilin
You stand on the bridge and watch the scenery, and the people watching the scenery look at you upstairs.
The bright moon decorated your window, and you decorated other people's dreams.
[Summary]
It is the exchange of the position of subject and object in the picture composed of two groups of concrete images, which hides the poet's universal philosophical thinking on the relative relationship between life, things and society. In the poet's view, everything does not exist in isolation, but in the relative relationship with other things. The relative correlation and movement change of things are eternal laws. (Sun, "On the History of China's Modernist Poetry")
[Appreciation]
Broken chapter was written in 1935+00. It was originally a fragment of a long poem by a poet, and later became an independent chapter, so the title was called "Broken Chapter". This is a famous short poem in the history of modern literature in China. Its words are short, but its meaning is rich and obscure.
Mr. Li Jianwu once thought that this poem "contains infinite sadness and focuses on the word' decoration'", while the poet himself clearly pointed out that "I also mean focusing on' relative'". Regarding the difference between himself and the poet, Mr. Li Jianwu added: "My explanation may not make me agree with the author's confession. The author's confession may not hurt my explanation. It is not so much a conflict as a complementary beauty "(Li Jianwu's Answer to the Author of Fish Collection). In fact, both the "relativity" described by the poet and the "modification" pointed out by Li Jianwu are the dissolution of "certainty". "You stand on the bridge and watch the scenery", and the "you" here undoubtedly looks at the "scenery" from a subjective point of view, which has certain certainty or subjectivity; In the poem "Bright Moon Decorates Your Window", the "bright moon" exists for you or for you, and the "you" here is undoubtedly definite or subjective. Obviously, the first sentence of the two paragraphs in the poem shows a certain "happiness". The second sentence of each section is the analysis of "certainty". The certainty and subjectivity you got in the first sentence were made relative and objective by these two poems, and the joy of certainty turned into relative sorrow. And all this, however, fell into the "gaze" of the "poet", and the poem was written with the second person called "you", which made everything in front fall into another "relative". From this poem, we can undoubtedly appreciate the complex feelings of sadness, sentimentality, wandering, emptiness and sadness. On the other hand, if we can understand the philosophical thought that everything in the universe, including real life, is closely related and interdependent from this poem, we can get some comfort from life. The short four-line poem gives us quite rich feelings and inspirations!
In art, this poem mainly expresses abstract and complex thoughts and artistic conception, but the poet does not make direct statements and lyricism, but indirectly expresses the poem through the presentation of objective images and images. Poetry has a prominent sense of picture and space, profound artistic conception, and suggestibility of western poetry, which makes poetry implicit and deep and quite emotional. (Nanjing Normal University He)
The theme out of context caused a vague understanding. Liu Xiwei began to explain this poem, focusing on the meaning of "decoration", thinking that it shows a kind of sadness in life. The poet Bian himself wrote an article and replied that this is not the case. He said: "I don't pay much attention to the meaning of' decoration', just like the phrase' the bright moon decorated your window and you decorated other people's dreams' in Broken Chapters. I also mean to pay attention to' relative'." It seems that the "meaning" of poetry can't be completely captured in a word or two literally. Its deep connotation is often hidden behind images and words. It is true that, as the author explained, expressing the philosophical concept of "relativity" on the metaphysical level is the main theme of this poem "Broken Chapter".
This short four-line poem has a lasting artistic charm among readers and still gives people a strong aesthetic feeling. First of all, because the poet avoided abstract explanations and created a symbolic and beautiful picture. The natural beauty of the picture and the profound philosophy have reached a harmonious unity like a harmonious blend of water and milk. This poem is divided into two independent pictures to show or metaphor the poet's thoughts side by side. The first picture is a complete picture: "You are standing on the bridge watching the scenery,/the people watching the scenery are watching you upstairs." "You" is the protagonist of the picture and the central viewpoint of the picture. Around him, there are bridges, scenery and people upstairs watching the scenery. The author skillfully organizes these seemingly messy people and things into a frame, forming an ink painting and painting sketch or a symmetrical landscape sketch. This painting has no bright colors, but the picture is patchy and clear. When you are attracted by this simple picture, you will never forget to pursue the symbolic meaning behind it, and then you will be surprised to find how the author skillfully conveys his philosophical meditation: everything in this universe and life is "relative" and everything is interrelated. Yes, when you stand on the bridge and look at the scenery, you are naturally looking at the main body of the scenery, and those beautiful "scenery" are the "things" to see; The second line, the same time and space, people and scenery remain unchanged, but the perceptual status has changed. At the same time, another "landscape watcher" upstairs has become the subject of "seeing", while "you", who was originally looking at the landscape, has now become the watched landscape, and the subject has become the object at the same time. In order to strengthen this philosophical thought, the poet immediately introduced the second poem, which is a combination of reality and imagination: "The bright moon decorated your window,/you decorated other people's dreams." This is a picture, but it is no longer in a frame, and the big time and space are still the same. The "decoration" in the two poems is only a unique rhetorical device in poetry. If it is written as "shining in" and "entering", it will not become a poem. It may be someone who came back from watching the scenery, or it may be that the path has nothing to do with another person. In short, it doesn't matter whether this "you" can be "he" or "I". What matters is the relativity shown by the exchange of subject and object positions. In the first poem, "you" is the subject of this painting "Moonlight by the window", and the "bright moon" shining into the window is the object. I don't know, at this moment and night, you have entered a friend's dream and become a "decoration" in his dream. The "other" who dreams of you becomes the subject, and the "you" who becomes the dreamer plays the role of the object. In the meaningful picture, the poet conveys the philosophy of life obtained from his intellectual thinking, that is, the poetic experience beyond the poet's emotion: everything can be relative and interrelated in the universe and even the whole life course. In the combination of feelings, a moment can last forever; In the field of metaphysics, as the poet W. Blake said, "A world in a grain of sand" is not absolutely isolated, but relative and interrelated in the fields of life and morality, life and death, joy and sorrow, good and evil, beauty and ugliness. The poet wants to say that if people have an insight into this truth, they will not be bound by some secular ideas, will not haggle over whether they have it, will not be sad and happy for a while, but should thoroughly understand life and the world, and gain freedom and transcendence.
This poem "Broken Chapter" is entirely about common things and outlook, and the philosophy of life expressed is not original by the poet. There is a sense of freshness after reading it. Apart from symbolizing the "meaning and image" of poetry, where is the secret? In my opinion, the key lies in the poet's ingenious arrangement of familiar materials (symbols) with modern consciousness. The poet once said: "Old materials, even rotten materials, are not necessarily unusable, as long as you are creative and properly arranged. As long as it is a new clever arrangement, rags can also be made into white paper. " What the poet calls "novel and ingenious arrangement" is also a novel artistic conception and ingenious language tone. Everything out of context is common, even familiar in classical poetry: people, bridges, landscapes, buildings, windows, bright moons, dreams ... After careful selection and arrangement by the author, they are organized in two scenes, which has an internal connection. The two poems connect unrelated things through "seeing" and "decorating" respectively. In terms of content and time sequence, the two poems can be separated, independent and set off against each other, giving full play to the artistic functions of image superposition and film montage in modern art, and a "broken chapter" is a complete artistic world.
There is a harmonious and inseparable relationship between the arrangement of out-of-context language form and the implication of content. This reminds us of some famous sentences in classical poetry. Zhang's "Moonlit Night on a Spring River" has "Who saw the moon by the river first? Photo taken at the beginning of Jiangyue "; There is a saying in Li Shangyin's "Midnight Suburb Villa": "Look at the mountain and miss me. Listen to the drums and leave the city. I will come to see you." Lv Kun used the term "intertextuality in duality" in the last two sentences. These two poems are characterized by "intertextuality in duality", that is, the subject and object of the two sentences are the same in connotation, but their functions are opposite. Bian used this method to sort out the out-of-chapter language. The verbs "you stand on the bridge and watch the scenery" and "the people watching the scenery are watching you upstairs" have not changed, but the subject and object of watching have shifted; "The bright moon decorated your window" and "You decorated other people's dreams" are the same syntax. In this way, sentences are not only connected end to end, but also strengthen the density of language, the exchange of subject and object, the image of subject and object, enhance the effect of artistic conception of poetry and painting, produce an aesthetic effect of sound and meaning gyration in both vision and hearing, and the philosophy of relative relevance of metaphor is also profound and concrete in image.
Bian likes the works of Li Shangyin, Wen, and others, poets and lyricists in the late Tang and Five Dynasties. He has a creative absorption and transformation ability of "turning decay into magic". Turning to Yu Pingbo's Selected Readings of Tang Poetry, we read the second half of Feng Yansi's butterfly lovers: "There are willows on the banks of the Kate River, so why worry about new things every year?" The independent small bridge is full of wind sleeves, and the linping crescent people return home. I can't help but be surprised to find that the artistic conception of the two pictures in Broken Chapters, Standing on the Bridge Overlooking and Moonlight Through the Window, is closely related to Feng Ci's "independent small bridge is full of wind sleeves, and the crescent people in Linping return to their hometown". However, Bian is, after all, a modern poet, and his creative absorption and transformation have reached the point where no trace can be found. We can't simply judge that the out-of-context is a dilution of the modern spoken language of two poems in Feng Yansi's Dead Hua Lian, just as we can't simply think that Dai Wangshu's Rain Lane is a dilution of the modern spoken language of Jing Li's Lilac Empty Sadness in the Rain. Feng's poem Death has no deeper meaning. Break out the chapter and spread it into two artistic images. The characters, bridges, upstairs, scenery, bright moon and imaginary dreams in the painting are not only more colorful than the original two words, but also have profound philosophical thinking in addition to the description of these scenes. The composition of the natural scenery and the main body of the characters creates a symbolic hint. Every poem or image only plays a symbolic role in the whole organization, and even the topic of "out of chapter" itself has a seemingly broken and connected relative connotation. This deep thinking and pursuit is unique to modern poets. Secondly, Feng's poem "A Bridge with Full Sleeves, Crescent Moon Man Returning Home" still focuses on expressing feelings, leaving friends behind (at the time of Crescent Moon), which contains an unavoidable sadness, while Bian's "Broken Chapters" focuses on it, and the poet crystallizes feelings into poetic experiences. Although it is a lyric poem, poetry does not explain philosophical concepts, but "Broken Chapter" implies a great philosophy in a common picture. It contains the poet's philosophical proposition of thinking about the whole life of the universe, "A single bridge is full of sleeves, and the crescent moon people in Linping return to their hometown", which is exquisite and beautiful, but falls into a narrow personal emotional world and cannot be compared with the artistic conception and ideological realm taken out of context. Thirdly, because the poet "washed away" his personal feelings, he practiced the "impersonality" of poetry and enhanced the universality of poetry. As the author explained, due to impersonality, the word "you" in the poem can represent or be replaced by "I" or "he" (she), which is more intimate with the reader. Because of the use of "you", readers have a certain appreciation distance, so the poet jumps out of the artistic realm, and the ideological realm of poetry itself has a greater openness, leaving a broader space for readers' beautiful imagination. Once you understand the broken chapters, which imaginative reader will not put forward a "mirage of the soul" in his spiritual space? (For Yu Sun's poems, see "A Guide to Modern Poetry in China")