The "tension" of language is:
The so-called "tension" is a critical term advocated and practiced by British and American New Criticism. Generally speaking, it can be regarded as an organism of the whole poem, but it contains the contradiction and dialectical relationship of * *. A poem, on the whole, must be organic and holistic, but all kinds of contradictions and tensions are allowed and should be filled in. Poetry full of tension can be profound, chewy and memorable. Because only such poems are not static, but "moving in silence". For example, although the full bow is still, it is full of energy and strength that can erupt at any time. Tension structure exists between muscle and frame, between image and image, between intention and intention. The unique tension structure should be said to be a mystery of the artistic charm of this poem.
For example:
accidental
I am a cloud in the sky,
Occasionally projected into your heart—
You shouldn't be surprised,
There's no need to be happy-
It disappeared in an instant.
You and I met in the dark sea,
You have yours, I have mine, direction;
You remember it well,
You'd better forget,
The light that shines on each other at this intersection!
About this poem, first of all, there is a certain tension between the title and the text. "Accidental" is a completely abstract adverb of time, and what to write under this heading should be said to be free and arbitrary. But under this abstract title, the author wrote two more practical things, one is that clouds in the sky occasionally project into the heart of waves in the water, and the other is that "you" and "I" (both symbolic images) meet at sea. If you use "you and me" and "meeting" as the title, it is no problem, but the poetry is far from it. If we use quite practical words such as "you and me" and "meeting" as the title, the tension between abstraction and concreteness will naturally disappear. Thirdly, there are more tension structures in poetry texts. "You/I" is a pair of "binary opposites", or "occasionally projected in the heart of the wave" or "met at sea", both of which are passers-by in a hurry in the journey of life; "You don't need to be surprised/you need to be happy more" and "Do you remember/you'd better forget" both show full tension with the emotional attitude of binary opposition and semantic contradiction rhetoric. Especially the poem "You have yours, I have mine, my direction", I think it is not too much to praise it as the classic poem most suitable for "tension" analysis praised by "New Criticism". "You" and "I" met by chance in the vast sea of people because of their respective directions, but they passed by and went their separate ways. Two completely different and diametrically opposite intentions-"You have yours" and "I have mine" are exactly contained in the same sentence and boil down to the same word-"direction".