Ai Qing, I love this land. What does the land symbolize?

Ai Qing is a singer of the land, and "land" is one of the two most common images in his poems (the other is "the sun"). "Land" symbolizes the troubled motherland that gave birth to him and raised him. Love for "land" is an inexhaustible melody in Ai Qing's works.

If I were a bird, the whole poem begins with such an unexpected assumption, and readers can't help asking, what is the connection between the image of "bird" and the "land" that the author wants to praise?

The author explained this.

I should also sing with a hoarse voice. At the critical moment when the fire is raging and the national luck is at the head, a seemingly insignificant bird has to fight hard and make an unyielding voice with its own voice. This reminds people that "every man is responsible for the rise and fall of the world." "hoarse throat", let us see that this is a bird that has suffered a lot, and its singing is made with its life.

The following four lines describe four objects that birds sing: land, river, wind and dawn, and the core is "land". It is worth noting that the author added long modifiers in front of these four objects.

This Land Attacked by Storm is a portrayal of this land being bullied by the Japanese aggressors.

"The river that always surges with our grief and indignation", the river on the land, like the grief and indignation that has been smoldering in people's hearts for a long time, surges.

"The wind of anger is endless", the wind blowing across the earth, symbolizes the people's anger at the atrocities of the invaders.

"The incomparably gentle dawn from the forest" indicates that the dawn of independence and freedom for which people struggle and devote themselves will surely come to this land.

"Then I died/even my feathers rotted in the ground." When the bird was alive, it tried its best to sing for this land. After death, it throws its whole body into the embrace of the land, and even its feathers are integrated with the land.

In the second paragraph of the poem, the author turns from a dynamic description of the singer to a close-up of "I". This is done by asking questions. A static close-up of "Why do I often have tears in my eyes" and "Tears in my eyes" shows the grief and pain that has been lingering in my heart for a long time. "Because I love this land deeply", witnessing the reality that mountains and rivers are broken and people are wiped by charcoal, the deeper my love for my motherland, the stronger my pain in my heart.

The last two sentences are the essence of the whole poem, and they are the confession of all patriotic intellectuals' sincere love for the motherland in that miserable era. This kind of love will never die, not only from the poet's heart, but also from the patriotic feelings of the whole nation. Ai Qing used these two poems to express the voice of the Chinese people in that era.