There are two kinds of philosophical poems:
One is philosophical poetry without concrete images. The basic feature of this kind of poetry is poetic, but it is not implicit enough, and it is often "the idea is greater than the image". Therefore, people can think that this is not a masterpiece. For example, "knocked down/unsympathetic/knocked down by others/won a handsome bonus" (World Boxing Championship). But after all, it has refined life, concise language and profound connotation, and it is still a philosophical poem. Second, vivid philosophical poems. This kind of poetry is highly appreciated because it has two outstanding characteristics: First, it has a series of vivid images. The second is implicit, not explicit.
Most of the philosophical poems in Mr. Zhang's new book Feng Yan are obviously successful transitions from unintentional images to images. This is undoubtedly a qualitative leap for Mr. Zhang.
A remarkable feature of Mr. Zhang's philosophical poems is to write "dynamic" thoughts from "static" images, which shows the poet's strong humanistic concern for people, feelings, things and attitudes around him. From the works, readers can feel the poet's concern for changing his life and his pursuit for a better future everywhere. They often reflect the big theme from a small matter and a small scene that people turn a blind eye to. Such as "Bean Sprouts": a healthy son/helplessly put into the water tank/soaked for a few days and nights to become/a white-haired old man/long beard/thin figure/unlike a person or a ghost/forced to go to the market/pathetic/selling image/selling green crisp.
This poem has a strong shock to readers, and people immediately think of all kinds of evil transactions that are forced to "sell their image" and violate human rights. Therefore, this kind of philosophical poetry often touches on major social themes, and its aesthetic value has surpassed literature and entered the category of sociology and anthropology. Of course, some philosophical poems neither express thrilling feelings nor unfathomable philosophies, but express a kind of life interest and give people an aesthetic enjoyment. Such as "Bamboo": Don't think that I am slim/the bird won't buy my account/the wind always bullies me/kisses me and runs away.
In any case, I would like to take pains to emphasize that philosophical poetry must first be a poem with the essence of poetry. Therefore, the image should be vivid and the theme should be implicit. Although some of Mr. Zhang's poems are still regarded as "life notes", on the whole, they are very old, and many of them can be called "excellent works"
Liu Xie, a native of A Jin, said in China's ancient writing theory monograph "Wen Xin Diao Shen Long Si 26": "The ancients said,' The shape is above the rivers and seas, and the heart is below Wei Que. "This is also called thinking. The idea of literature is far away. Therefore, I am silent and worried, thinking about the Millennium; Sad and moving, see Wan Li; Between chanting, breathing the sound of pearls and jade; Before it is imminent, the color of the storm: the reason for its thinking! Therefore, it is better to think about reason, and God and things swim. " (Note 1) This passage and the whole article describe the important phenomenon of "thinking" in the writing process. However, like most theoretical understandings in China's ancient theory, it is vague and mysterious, and there is no scientific abstract certainty analysis. However, this is an important issue in the writing of articles (including scientific articles and literary works), which is both theoretical and practical and must be discussed in depth. Furthermore, the author thinks that it, like the basic concepts such as theme implication and various genres, has never been accurately and completely understood by people. This paper is the author's summary cognition after years of discussion: "thinking" is conception, which is a systematic, centralized, hierarchical and materialized overall thinking activity.
First, the theory has developed to the stage of systematic analysis of "thinking"
The theory of literary creation and writing has developed rapidly and richly in China. However, it is still regrettable that the basic theoretical understanding has not received due attention and discussion, let alone definite unity, in which there are thoughts. There was the same problem in ancient times, and Liu Xie's "thinking" was vague and mysterious.
"Shensi" is the so-called conception, creativity, thinking and so on. The creative habits used in advertising activities are not common, and the creativity is limited and incomplete, which will make people only understand it as structural thinking. What's more, there are misunderstandings and one-sided problems in literary theory and writing monographs. For example, Introduction to Literature, a general textbook for satellite TV education, colleges of education, and self-study by correspondence, holds that "artistic conception is the sublimation of creative desire, the combing, synthesis and processing of artistic discoveries, and the formation of artistic images in ideas." In artistic conception, subjective factors are constantly permeated with objective factors ... this is the most tense, arduous and critical stage in creation. "(Note 2) This concept is extremely irregular and cannot explain its essence, center and elements. Another example is the national self-study exam textbook "Writing": "Thinking is the most creative content in the process of writing articles. It permeates the whole writing process, but it is concentrated in a stage after the drafting and before the drafting. " (Note 3) This understanding is limited to the division of stages-it is also vague and even misunderstood.
2 1 century, literary creation and writing theory should get rid of China's traditional prejudice and misunderstanding in time, and carry out comprehensive and basic normative construction. These ideas, which are very important in theoretical understanding, should be re-recognized.
Second, analyze ideas accurately and systematically.
(A) the nature of the concept
A complete understanding of the word "conception" is helpful to grasp conception and writing (including literary creation). Structure, here not only refers to the structure, but also refers to the whole. Thinking is a psychological activity which is mainly based on abstract thinking, including image thinking, subconscious thinking (including gene coding program and life perception) and inspiration thinking. Conception is a creative whole thinking process in which the author refines the theme implication of the article on the basis of observation and experience and chooses the best expression to guide writing practice. As an individual life, the author must think about the article as a whole and rely on basic conditions such as observation, experience and even certain planning. The most obvious purpose and achievement of this idea is to refine the theme implication and its expression. The role of conception and its achievements lies in guiding drafting, revision and overall writing practice.
Ideas are original, and only individual life can sprout ideas first (it can never be issued by everyone in unison). It can be said that the individualization of life and its fuzziness and even mystery when conceiving this psychological phenomenon are the fundamental reasons for prejudice and misunderstanding.
In addition, conception is the core of literary creation and writing. Literary creation and writing should be a systematic, open and circular process, including a series of links: from the beginning of triggering impulse or accepting task, the author engages in investigation or sorting out materials, then conceives, then expresses it in words, then publishes it to the society, and finally accepts readers' feedback. The most important core link is conception. Only thoughts are produced by pure individuals. Serve them in the pre-conception stage. Collecting materials often depends on the nature of materials, and the objectivity of materials plays a very important role. However, materials should lay the foundation for ideas. The post-conception stage comes from this. Whether it is written expression or publication, it is an expression and reflection of ideas. Without intention, writing without center and soul is doomed to be inferior repetition or imitation. The central role of concepts should not be underestimated.
In fact, all human activities need to nurture this brilliance of life. But the name is slightly different in other ways. Some are called concepts, which are broad and vague. Some are called inspiration, which just points out the essence and opportunities of ideas. Some are called creativity, which is limited to advertising. Some are called creative thinking, with high accuracy, but low recognition. Others are called ideas, ideas, strategies, etc. This is obviously one-sided. Clear thinking is conducive to understanding concepts with similar meanings and engaging in creative activities.
(2) Conception characteristics
In short, we should think about the article as a whole, and create the result of abstract thinking-theme implication (theme is a foreign word, which was always called "meaning" in ancient China) and its expression. It has the following characteristics:
1. objectivity This is the premise of the idea, that is, collecting materials, whether from purposeful and planned investigations or from observations and experiences in life experience. This concept is based on the analysis of objective and comprehensive materials.
2. Creativity. This is the soul of thought and the most striking feature. There is a basic requirement for article writing: any article is a big or small creation, and the dominant idea or theme implication cannot be the same as other articles. The creativity of this idea is reflected in the theme implication of its main achievements. In my opinion, there are three levels of creativity: big, medium and small. The greatest creation is originality, which is highly personalized. General creation is innovation, which is the transformation and innovation of the existing theme implication. The simplest creation is novelty, difference in form or some small differences. If you want to be inspired by thoughts, you should first focus on the fundamental outlook on life, have a strong sense of mission, develop your imagination and learn new scientific methods.
3. totality. This is the charm of this idea. Conception, one is thinking about the whole article, and the other is thinking under the macro background of China and the world. Guided by abstract thinking, gradually enter the spiritual universe of consciousness and subconscious to detonate inspiration.
4. guidance. This is the effect of conception. The function of conception is to guide and observe the whole literary creation and writing activities. The theme implication of the conceived result will become the core of the whole activity and appear constantly.
The dialectical unity of the four characteristics lies in the operation of ideas.
(3) Pregnancy results
1. The ultimate and greatest achievement of conception is to get the crystallization of "thinking"-the theme implication. Among the four elements of writing, material, language and structure all exist objectively, and only the theme is produced by the author himself, which is the most important. But the understanding of the theme is very vague. In monographic textbooks, the theme is either shelved in the conception part or vaguely called concept, concept, central idea, ideological content and so on. Even in the study of China's writing theory, which is at the forefront of the world, the understanding of the theme is still inaccurate and does not meet the operational requirements. For example, in the authoritative national higher education self-study exam textbook "Writing", the theme is defined as: "The theme is the central meaning expressed by the author through various materials in the article. It runs through the' all content' of the article, reflects the main intention of the author's writing, and includes the author's basic understanding, understanding and evaluation of the objective things reflected in the article. " (Note 4) This understanding is general and does not help to grasp the theme. This requires a re-analysis of the theme implication.
We should understand the theme in essence. Topic cognition should be based on its essential attribute-abstraction: it is a cognitive judgment of the object of the article with the article as the center. The theme of all articles is like this. The abstraction of theme is more embodied in a judgment sentence: a sentence with subject (which can be omitted), predicate and object (which can also be omitted separately). Implication is the first core established in literary creation, which is much more complicated than a simple theme. It can be simply said as "theme+secondary theme+aesthetic intention", which often appears in the form of complex sentences. For example, the theme of A Dream of Red Mansions is: a specific individual's life pursues the realm of truth, goodness and beauty in a chaotic life and the sadness and disillusionment that this pursuit cannot achieve. The Journey to the West's theme implication is: the pursuit of transcendence, freedom and self-esteem and the confusion of not realizing this pursuit.
Just as the level of the soul determines the level of people, the level of the theme meaning also determines the level of the article, that is to say, the topic sentence has levels. The author must give full play to subjectivity and make the topic sentence reach a higher level. Don't talk about the improvement of the author's self-cultivation, just talk about the refinement of the theme implication itself.
The meaning of a theme can have five levels. (1) The level of objectivity and truth. The most basic level of theme implication should be the objective level, that is, it accurately reflects the essential truth and objective characteristics of the central content of the work, such as image and plot. (2) the characteristics of the times. The most prominent feature of the times is novelty and advance. The author should strive to stand at the forefront of the times and take new ideological understanding as the basis for the formation of the dominant thinking in writing. The ideological understanding of human society is constantly developing, and the dominant thinking of writing embodied in literary works is of course changing and improving. This point refers to the * * * sex foundation of writing leading thinking. For example, the understanding of love in China's classical literature is spiraling. In the folk songs represented by The Book of Songs, the understanding of love is very simple, two of a kind. In The West Chamber, young men and women struggled to break through the shackles of feudal younger brother concept, and finally fell in love at first sight could not resist the secular pressure. In Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the love between men and women was completely buried by feudal political rationality. In Water Margin, the love between men and women took a tortuous road, which was consciously rejected by orthodox feudal Neo-Confucianism and unconsciously distorted. In Jin Ping Mei, the love between men and women is immersed in the endless satisfaction of sensuality. In A Dream of Red Mansions, the love between men and women finally has a linguistic basis for pursuing the same personality, but it tends to be detached from the spirit. Every author should be guided by the most advanced ideological theory of this era, combine the object of the article, form the dominant thinking of writing, and finally extract his own theme implication. (3) Cultural color level. It needs the improvement of the author's ideological and cultural literacy, especially the national cultural literacy, so that the theme implication has the color of national culture. (4) Philosophy is a hierarchy. Philosophy is only a universal and permanent interest. Philosophical themes are enlightening and thought-provoking. (5) Aesthetic life level. Beauty is actually an individual life with the nature of free creation. The highest realm of theme implication should be aesthetic comprehension to life.
2. The result of conception includes the expression of theme implication. There are about two kinds.
1. structural mode. In order to express ideas, we often need a good structure, more accurately, the whole content. However, structure should serve the theme. Clever and ingenious structure belongs to the responsibility and content of conception, and is often inspired.
The structure of the whole content, the most prominent is the object content of social life: people, things, environment, scenery and their objective logical relations. The purpose of conception is to make them a part of new artistic life. Generally speaking, there are several aspects: first, the establishment of character relations. The fate of the characters and the relationship between them determine the scale, level and structure of the works. The second is the unfolding of events and conflicts. The third is the setting of environment and environment. The three are integrated in the specific creative process.
2. Expression techniques. Choose the most ingenious expression to better express the theme. The big one is the choice of method genre, and the small one is a good beginning, which makes the receiver more interested, such as the ingenious and exquisite structure in the middle of the text, such as rhetoric.
In short, creativity should create theme implication and its expression.
Third, creativity must have a climax, which is the essence of inspiration.
Conception becomes conception because it must have the core of inspiration. It is because of inspiration that the fuzziness and mystery of the concept-the individual life characteristics of the concept are obtained. Inspiration is the essence of conception. It is necessary to analyze the inspiration that is not easily recognized by reason.
(A) the difference between conception and inspiration. Conception is a whole thinking process, and inspiration is just a phenomenon. The first is the relationship between big and small, whole and part. It usually takes longer to conceive, even years, and all inspiration is just a moment. Conception is carried out under the guidance of abstract thinking, that is, consciousness, and inspiration is irrational. Conceiving more technical operability is artificial, and inspiration is accidental and natural. However, inspiration can be constantly generated in the process of conception.
(2) The closest understanding of the essence of inspiration.
Inspiration, which means inspiration in English (the original meaning is the breath of God), was called encounter, opportunity, feeling, inspiration, encounter with God and epiphany in ancient China. Inspiration is the highest spiritual life phenomenon in advanced life activities. If we must analyze it, we have to say clearly but mechanically: it is a psychological phenomenon that after accumulating a large amount of information and the possibility (premise) of hidden information gushing out at any time at the level of human consciousness, it is often driven by huge emotional upsurge, or when the rational binding force (situation) is greatly reduced, because key information is added in different ways (opportunities), all information is quickly communicated, forming a creative mental body. American scientists have recently announced that they have revealed the unique mechanism of "epiphany" in the brain for the first time through research. They concluded that the anterior superior temporal gyrus region can promote the brain to integrate seemingly unrelated information, so that people can find previously undiscovered connections in it, thus "suddenly understanding" the answer. (April 2004 19 China News Network)
Inspiration has obvious characteristics. First, it is sudden and difficult to predict and control in advance. The second is excitement, often accompanied by passion. Third, originality, a person produces a new spiritual life, which cannot be similar, but different. Fourth, fleeting. Inspiration is based on the contingency of thinking situation and the inevitability of a lot of information. The connection is mysterious and empty, just like a dream, which is difficult to reproduce. Inspiration is coming, so be sure to write it down quickly.
(3) Heuristic information method. There must be a lot of conception activities as the premise of inspiration. In an uncertain thinking stage, suddenly a message will appear in a different way, so many related messages that have been thought will be recombined to produce a spiritual organism. There are roughly four kinds of information.
1. External information. Designers go to the outside world, but they still have ideas in their minds. They may accidentally encounter objective situations that conform to their own thinking problems and suddenly contribute to the whole idea. The most common example is that Newton, a classical physicist, walked in the garden and discovered the law of gravity just because an apple fell to the ground. Lev? Tolstoy saw burdock, a tenacious plant, on the roadside and associated it with a national hero, so he wrote the novella Haji? Miao La. In the Tang Dynasty, Du Mu's poem "There is a twilight shadow in my heart, and I have driven on the tomb of Leyou". To see the sun, for all his glory was buried in the coming night ",from which we can see that after seeing the information of the sunset, the poet trembled and associated with the decline of the Tang Dynasty empire, and wrote this poem with powerful images.
2. Thinking information. In the inexplicable, a message suddenly jumped out of the ocean of personal subconscious. In an inexplicable way, a message suddenly jumped out of the ocean of the subconscious, making the existing information communicate at once and forming a creative whole. Archimedes, a great scientist, racked his brains and begged for a long time, but when he was taking a bath, he suddenly had a brainwave and rushed into the street, shouting happily. Ke Yan has always wanted to write a poem in memory of Premier Zhou. His feelings are sincere, but he suffers from mediocrity. "Suddenly, I remembered that our nation has a custom of evoking souls for the dead ..." So, "Premier Zhou, where are you? This swan song reflecting the voice of the people of the whole country was born in this way. This kind of information often appears in the writing of papers and philosophical poems, resulting in epiphany inspiration.
3. Inspiring information. Other advertisements become a source of inspiring information. Guo Moruo said that his creation is to "look at everyone's works first" in order to get a hint and promote "interest". He also said frankly: "I have a secret, that is, read more works and use other people's ideas to decide my own life." By appreciating and comparing Guo's poems in many aspects, we can see that he imitated or borrowed from Goethe, Tagore and Whitman, or extracted enlightening information from them. Many authors also look for enlightening information from other artistic images. Bai Juyi, a poet, was inspired by music and wrote Pipa Xing. Du Fu and Su Shi wrote many poems on paintings. Imitation of articles and artistic images can be a source of inspiring information.
4. Free information. Subconsciously, it appears when the consciousness is relaxed or under the control of hemp. For example, after using alcohol and narcotics, poets are often eloquent and write thousands of words. The restriction of consciousness in sleep is almost zero, and the subconscious mind is free, but it can still produce inspiration that conforms to certain rationality. Many authors have the experience of writing in their dreams. Coleridge, an English poet, suddenly got a good sentence in his dream and recorded it immediately after waking up. He only wrote dozens of lines because of the interruption of the guests. However, the recorded poems became the essence of Kublai Khan. The surrealism of western modernism especially emphasizes free information and its inspiration. The creative method advocates "automatic writing" and thinks that writing should be absolutely unconscious, and it is best to describe dreams and hallucinations.
When there is no inspiration, you should think deeply or write repeatedly to draw inspiration.
Fourth, ideas are externalized into outlines.
The idea of writing symbols is an outline. The outline of literary creation is a psychological chart of the relationship between artistic images expressed by words and sequence codes. Outline is both important and necessary, but as far as I can see, I haven't seen a relatively complete and detailed outline writing method.
First of all, we need to talk about how to treat the outline. A brief outline should be written in literary creation, but it is not necessary to draft it strictly according to the outline. This kind of outline is not the display of logical relationship, but the display of theme, plot, image and key points. It is a psychological chart, so it is more vague and emotional. The correct way is to write a concise outline after conception, and then abandon the outline, play freely and draft at will. In fact, when drafting this way, there is still an outline that plays a reflective role. When you can't finish writing, refer to the outline and continue thinking. Tolstoy and Stendhal were both opposed to writing an outline, but they took notes and wrote the main points. In fact, notes and main points are outlines. The creative outline is not the display of logical relationship, but the display of theme, plot and key points, so it is more vivid, vague and emotional. It is more appropriate to write an outline that conforms to the characteristics of literature after profound ideas, and then leave the outline behind, freely play and draft at will. In fact, when drafting in this way, there is still a rational observation function of the outline in the subconscious, but this rationality has been integrated into the perceptual operation and turned into intuition, which is more suitable for the creation of images. When drafting, don't think about the outline, let family, consciousness and sensibility create life to play. Only when the creation encounters great obstacles and it is really impossible to write, refer to the outline and put forward ideas. In the history of literature, there is a phenomenon that people tend to ignore, that is, writers who stick to rational guidance, especially those who write detailed outlines, have not created works handed down from ancient times that writers who do not pay attention to outlines can write. In contrast, the former is slightly inferior to the latter. The most obvious is the comparison between Lao She and Mao Dun and Lu Xun. Of course, the reasons for the difference between the two are quite complicated, but the difference in drafting methods cannot but be a factor. It can be said that the works written according to the outline often have many external observation elements and have strong rationality. Mao Dun's repeated explanation of the dominant ideas in the creation of Midnight is a good example. He wrote a distinct theme: Chinese national capitalism was doomed to be unworkable under the domestic and international situation in the 1930s. Reportage writing is like this. Those works created without strictly following the outline or even writing the outline have more internal experience components and stronger sensibility (including profound and rational intuition). Lu Xun's novels Diary of a Madman and The True Story of Ah Q are like this. It is impossible to write an outline in advance in the writing of The True Story of Ah Q, because it was drafted under the pressure of editors' regular contract and serialization. Lu Xun said that the author failed to book the ending of Ah Q, which just illustrates this point. However, The True Story of Ah Q not only writes the author's observation and analysis of China's history and reality and the mentality of Chinese people, but more importantly, naturally writes the most profound and painful inner experience in his life. Some people think that Ah Q's personality is similar to the servant who was ordered to pay bribes to the examiner in the case of the author's grandfather cheating to death in the examination room. Can you see the factors and complex of the author's persistent exploration intentionally or unintentionally? Creation needs an outline, and drafting needs to get rid of it. Jia Pingwa's attitude towards the creative outline is worth learning from. He said: "This book has not been written for a long time, only three months, but it has been brewing for a long time. I wrote a detailed outline for more than ten months, fidgeting day and night, but as soon as I put pen to paper, I completely turned over and gave up. As soon as I sat at the table, the characters in the book moved by themselves, the story developed automatically, and plots, scenes and dialogues came out one after another, just like the natural flow of water and the natural ups and downs of clouds. " Generally speaking, an article should write a detailed outline. As long as it is constantly enriched, the outline will become the first draft.
The outline writing procedure is as follows:
1. Write a topic sentence. Theme implication plays a core role in the article, and the first step of outline work is to establish theme implication. If an article is spiritual life, then matter is flesh and blood, structure is bones, language is cells, expression is skin, clues are veins, and theme implication is the core.
2. Draw up a title. The title serves the theme; The title can be changed, but the theme can't be changed at will. The titles of literary works generally include: 1. Image generalization. This kind of title is very common, because symbolism is traditional and conforms to the essence of literature. Such titles in famous literary works include Red Sorghum, Castle and Old Well. The second is the executive summary. Point out the content of the article, that is, the scope of the topic. The third is something related to the theme, or the language of the characters. The fourth is the name, place name, time and so on. This title requires: image, implication and novelty. Famous literary works, such as The True Story of Ah Q, are novel and unique, blending local culture and foreign culture. It has pictographic function, like A Q and China people dragging their pigtails in the late Qing Dynasty. A good title makes the finishing point, makes people fall in love at first sight, and reflects the author's literary attainments.
3. Briefly describe the content. Brief content, some of which are called plot synopsis and synopsis, including "theme+layer meaning+main points", can be used to describe the process, part and main points in literary articles. This is about 30 words.
4. Select the structure. This refers to the arrangement of the middle part. All structures in the world are the evolution of two basic structures, the universe and the universe. The structure of literary articles: First, vertical development. According to the time sequence or process of the development of things, this structure is based on the direct narrative and flashback narrative of this expression. Although flashback mentions the end or the most prominent fragment to the beginning, the subject still belongs to the vertical development type, because both the author and the reader have a clear sense of time. The clue level is clear, but it is easy to get bored. This must pay attention to the primary and secondary details and highlight the key points. The second is horizontal development. According to the order of things, it is divided into several parts. Structural selection usually uses only a few words.
5. Indicate the meaning of the layer. This part is called the outline of the full text. There are two ways to write the main part of this outline. First, the title writing, no punctuation at the end, a few words at most, concise. The advantage of this writing is that it is concise and easy to master (few words, short outline). The disadvantage is that others don't understand it well, and they may not understand it after a period of time. The second is sentence writing, which is a complete sentence. The advantage of this writing is concrete and clear, but the disadvantage is that it is easy to be lengthy and not conducive to thinking. It is best to use the two methods alternately, with titles in simple and clear places and sentences in complex and difficult places, depending on the specific situation. In this way, there are two layered meanings in the article, one is the small topic arranged in the middle, and the other is the project.
6. Write down the main points. In the outline of literary articles, there should be greater creative freedom. Here, you only need to write down the main points or key points-it can be methods, skills, aphorisms, inspiration and other tips, or it can be the characteristics of the image.
A little too much.