Tiangou is a poem in Goddess, Guo Moruo's first collection of poems, which was first published on1February 7, 920 in Shanghai News of Current Affairs.
Tiangou, originally a thing in folklore, was often called "Tiangou eats the moon" by the ancients. In one of his novels "Eclipse", the poet once wrote that during the eclipse, his hometown of Sichuan had the custom of beating bells and drums to drive away dogs and save the sun and the moon:
"When I was a child, every time I met an eclipse, it was like encountering some kind of disaster. All the temples in the village have to ring bells and drums, and the adults also let us knock on the partition at home to make noise. In the dark, a tengu wants to eat the sun and the moon. Playing the bell and drum is to scare the dog and save the sun and the moon. This is a story circulating in rural Sichuan, and even a legend in China since ancient times. As far as I can remember, in the books I read as a child, Zhou Li, Emperor Guan and Drummer wrote letters to Wang Gu to save the sun and the moon. Officials and servants in the Spring Dynasty also praised Wang Gu to save the sun and the moon, and Qiu Guan Shi Ting was even more capable of saving the sun and the moon. "Gu Liangzhuan" also said that the emperor had five soldiers and five drums to save Japan and Chen, and the vassal had three soldiers and three drums, and the doctor knocked at the door and struck him. This shows that the custom of saving solar eclipse has existed since ancient times. Nordic people also have a myth that is absolutely similar to this. They said: there are two wolves in the sky, one is Hattie and the other is Managarm. Black hoof food day, Mana arm eats the moon, and people's noise saves the sun and the moon. "
trait
This poem fully embodies the romantic style of Guo Moruo's poetry.
1. The metaphor is novel and vivid. Tiangou originally existed only in folklore, but the poet praised it as an idol. The image of Tiangou in the poem has become a symbol of rebels in the old times, traditions and the old world, as well as a symbol of personality liberation with unlimited energy and the creator of the new world, society and future. The use of this metaphor not only vividly shows the poet's strong desire to publicize his personality and pursue liberation, but also gives people a refreshing feeling in poetic images. In addition, the poet compared "I" to "X-ray light" and "flying like electricity", which also reflected the characteristics of advocating science at that time.
2. Imagination is bold and strange. The image of Tiangou is vague in legend, but it is transformed into an image of "I" with unlimited energy and fully liberated personality in poetry. He swallowed the moon, the sun and all the planets in an instant, became the light of the moon, the sun and all the planets in another instant, and then flew, barked and burned, flying on the nerves, spinal cord and brain, all of which showed the boldness and strangeness of the poet's imagination.
3. Emotion is unrestrained and intense. The whole poem is written in the tone of "I", and the poet uses the dog as a metaphor to express his inner pride through the extraordinary trend of the dog devouring the universe. Poetry runs through strong feelings from beginning to end and has a strong subjective color.
4. Pay attention to the rhythm and sense of rhythm. This poem is also very distinctive in language form. Poets often use short sentence mode, and combine overlapping sentences and parallelism, which produces strong melody, rapid and powerful rhythm and destructive momentum. In addition, the language of the poem is free and the rhyme is rough, which shows that the poet attaches importance to the sense of rhythm.
There are four verses in the poem "Tiangou". The first section takes "swallowing" as the key word, showing the life characteristics of a "Tiangou" absorbing everything in the world. Look at this dog. It devoured the sun, the moon, all the planets and even the whole universe. Swallowing all this, it finally became itself, "I am me." Who is this "Tiangou"? Actually, it's Guo Moruo himself. He feasted on the world's outstanding ideological and cultural treasures in Japan and swallowed Goethe, Nietzsche, Copernicus Darwin and Spinoza. He formed a modern man with rich thoughts and strong subjective consciousness. This "Tiangou" is not only Guo Moruo, but also includes all Chinese sons and daughters who seek the truth of saving the nation and modern knowledge and culture in China's modern history. He is Liang Qichao, Wang Guowei, Lu Xun, Zhou Zuoren, Hu Shi, Xu Zhimo and Wen Yiduo ... Isn't this group of "Tiangou" creating modern ideology and culture together?
In the second paragraph of the poem, "Tiangou" swallowed up the whole universe and began to show its energy to the world. After devouring the universe and the planet, it radiates brilliant light, which is not only macroscopic light: "the light of the sun", "the light of the moon" and "the light of the planet"; It is also microscopic light: "X-ray". In a word, it represents the light of all things, and it is the sum of the energy of the whole universe. If the first section of this poem is about the storage of energy, then the second section is about the flash of vitality; The first section focuses on dynamic description, and the second section is static photos. Storage and flash memory, dynamic and static, weave a huge image with broad mind and unlimited creativity.
The third section is the most wonderful part of this poem. The "Tiangou" who absorbed the essence of the sun and the moon and accumulated the energy of the whole universe, at this time, the subject consciousness is bursting out, and he needs to surge and explode to show his vitality and creativity to the fullest. So he is like electricity, like the sea, like fire, running wildly, roaring and burning. Here, the poet wrote a lyric hero image with distinct subjective consciousness. This lyric hero is just a "phoenix" after nirvana. With the extraordinary power of "constantly destroying, constantly creating and constantly striving" (Guo Moruo's Standing on the Earth), it shows the world the exuberant youthful passion and strong creative desire of modern youth and modern intellectuals. This passion and desire is so strong. The experience and feelings of modernity filled the lyric subject's heart, which made him completely forget the objective existence of the external world, but only felt that he was lonely and extremely powerful, and only a capitalized "I" was reflected on the display screen of the whole universe. Tengu, trapped in irrationality, regards this capitalized "I" as the only goal of destruction and transcendence. It peels my skin, eats my flesh, sucks blood, gnaws my liver, and finally even revels in my thinking world, releasing endless vitality and passion, showing the free spirit of fully developing and publicizing my personality.
After crazy galloping, roaring and burning, the "Tiangou" is back. In calm, it cried in surprise: "I am me!" " Although this magical tengu is full of infinite creativity, it has not found a suitable place to release it. It objectifies itself as a temporary vent object, but it can't fully display its personal talents. Guo Moruo, a poet like "Tiangou", is still wandering in a foreign country. He can't return to his hometown in time to serve the country faithfully, and he can't apply what he has learned to the construction of the motherland. Guo Moruo, as a poet, and Tian Gou, as a lyric hero, are integrated here. Both of them feel that their blood is gushing, which is difficult to control and may "explode" at any time. The last section responds to the first section of the poem, ending with the poem "My I'm about to explode", which makes the whole poem full of tension and adds rich meanings. (Zhang Deming)