A generation
ancient city
The night gave me black eyes, but I used them to look for light.
From the third issue of Star 1980.
Vico, an Italian historical philosopher, waved his sword neatly 300 years ago, cutting off the thinking connection between poetry and philosophy. However, in the past 300 years, poets have spread the seeds hidden in images and cultivated the "symbolic forest". Through corresponding means, poetry and philosophy were successfully unified. Generation seems to be a proof that in the unity of opposites between black and light, two short poems have crossed the walls of Vico's handiwork smartly, and the abstract philosophical implication is presented to the world in a charming way through appearances.
"The night gave me black eyes". These two "blacks" are undoubtedly "literary eyes" and are worth pondering. We know that "black" is not a color. The so-called color is the result of all kinds of light waves reflected by objects. If it doesn't reflect, it turns black. Of course, the world without light can only be dark
Therefore, "black" is the result of killing all the light, and night is the tomb of light, which is a suffocating symbol of a specific era. However, "black eyes" is undoubtedly the rebellion of the night. Its blackness is "endowed" by the night, and it is also the result of the night blocking the light. In addition, black eyes are not a symbol of abandoning light, but a symbol of longing for light. Because black does not reflect light, it has the characteristic of completely absorbing light. Black eyes are the eyes of this generation ready to absorb light at any time.
From another point of view, black eyes also reflect the critical spirit, which is a deep denial of the great arrogance of black to black and night. Compared with the colorful bright world, black is an end, which is opposite to light. However, the extremes meet, and the black eyes rebellious from the dark night are definitely easier to accept the light than the eyes of any color. In other words, the great awakening of the "generation" coming from the specific black age is beyond the reach of other people in out of the dark.
Two short poems, with grand topics and profound themes, fully show the symbolic charm in the unity of opposites. Judging from the author's life course, the night in the poem seems to be a "ten-year catastrophe", and "a generation" of course refers to the contemporary China people who grew up in this particular historical stage. However, after all, poetry is not history, and the capacity of poetry can often be infinitely expanded by the magic of art. If we transcend time and space, we can easily see the image of "a generation" in people of different eras such as Qu Yuan, Du Fu and Lu Xun. They all live in the "dark night" and have particularly keen "black eyes".
The simple language and persistent pursuit intention of a generation also show a kind of character, which can be said to be a kind of "character poem" It brings together a series of contradictions between thinking and expression, form and content, title and poetic style in size, depth and image abstraction, and finally melts into the word 18, which profoundly and skillfully highlights the spiritual image of contemporary people. Sure enough, it detonated the feelings of the same generation! Dai is really a magical "detonator".
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