original work
A generation
The night gave me black eyes,
I use it to find the light.
Annotation of works
1. Generation: refers to people who grew up in the historical stage of the Cultural Revolution.
2. Night: alluding to the political movement of the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976.
Creation background
Writing time
This poem was written in April 1979, published in the third issue of Stars 1980, and later included in the author's collection of poems, Black Eyes.
cultural background
Lorca, a Spanish poet, wrote in the poem "Song of Spanish Constitutional Police": "On this platinum night, the night blackened the night." The author Gu Cheng may have been influenced by this poem.
Time background
Judging from the author's life course, the "Cultural Revolution" was the background for Gu Cheng to write this poem. Although the political movement of the Cultural Revolution has long faded away, in the minds of those who have experienced it, the Cultural Revolution is still a continuous process, which lasted until the early 1980s.
works appreciation
There are only two sentences in the whole poem, and the images in the poem are very common phenomena in daily life: night, eyes and light. Because of this, this poem has a thoughtful charm. Two novel combinations, seemingly contradictory turning points, contain wonderful rationality.
This contradictory logic is the essence of these two short poems. This contradiction is on two levels.
The first level is that the overall image presentation of poetry is contrary to their presentation in people's daily experience. This mainly focuses on the image of the eyes. In the vast darkness, the eyes are the only light. In people's experience, eyes are always a symbol of transparency. However, the eyes in the poem are "black eyes". This is the feeling in the poet's heart and the poet's profound reflection. This feeling is a heartbreaking pain, and it is an accumulation over time. This kind of reflection is heavy, and there is great fear behind it. And these all point to the "dark night"-the background of that era.
The second level of contradiction is the internal contradiction of poetry. This focuses on the image of "light". In such an era, such an environment, such a deep night, poets should look for light. The poet looked for light with his black eyes. This is the horn that poets use to resist the night. This level is also the theme of this poem: the poet should not only reflect on the dark past, pour out the pain in his heart, but also look for it.
Therefore, the poet gave this poem with only two sentences a grand and intriguing title: a generation. But the content of the poem seems to point to two generations: it is not only a summary and reflection of the previous generation, but also a call and guidance for the next generation.
This poem also fully embodies the artistic characteristics of Gu Cheng's poems in artistic techniques and is unique in the construction of images. Poets use images closely related to life feelings in their lives and express their fresh experiences of the world, life and life with unexpected combinations. He also tried to express his feelings with clear and simple words and sentences to avoid obscure and other abusive pollution in poetic language.
This poem is brand-new in aesthetic principles. It avoids the direct expression of emotion and abandons the real narration of the scene. It does not deliberately construct a complete artistic conception, but only highlights a pair of unusual "black eyes" (a symbol of a generation's awakening) on a thick black background with images and metaphors. It seems that you can see a beam of white light coming out of a gap in the dark clouds.
Two short poems summarize the psychological course of a generation and express the denial of dark politics and the yearning and pursuit of light. This poem strongly proves that poetry is the essence of art, its ideological content is highly concentrated and its artistic expression is highly purified, which makes it have strength and capacity that novels, essays and other styles do not have.
Famous comments
Wang Gan's transparent carrot-I read Gu Cheng's. In my opinion, the tragic significance of these two poems is first reflected in the non-historical and abnormal environment. The image of "dark night" contains a vast and infinite time and space, and implies a deformed and inhuman year and environment, which is itself a tragedy in the development of historical process. Give me black eyes is the result of the development of this tragedy, and the undertaker of the tragedy is "I", because in Night and Black Eyes (the derivative image of the night). But the more profound tragic significance is "I use it to find light." It seems that "I" is in an active position here. There is no doubt that I have a spirit of daring to resist the "night" and look for light, and I will stick to it. The weapon I used-"it" turned out to be a derivative of "night". This seems to indicate that this search is bound to fall into a new tragedy. This tragic cycle reveals that people can find themselves, but they cannot realize themselves. This has almost become an eternal tragic complex in human spiritual life.
Tang Xiaodu: There are only two sentences in this poem by Gu Cheng, but it has considerable weight in the history of contemporary poetry. It has high historical generality and philosophical light of dialectical thinking, high aesthetic value and strong artistic power.
Brief introduction of the author
Gu Cheng (1956~ 1993) was born in Beijing. Started writing during the Cultural Revolution. Misty poetry is one of the representative poets. 1988 went to New Zealand to give lectures, then lived in seclusion in Riptide Island, 1993 killed his wife and committed suicide. He is the author of poems such as Moon in the Day, Lonely Song in the North, Iron Bell and Black Eyes.