Keywords: Synaesthesia Metaphor in Zhu Ziqing's Moonlight on the Lotus Pond
Moonlight on the Lotus Pond is a masterpiece of modern literature. After reading this essay, a fresh and beautiful scene immediately appeared in front of my eyes: green fields, lotus flowers, fragrant, moonlight dissolved, like a hazy dream, auspicious and ethereal singing. There are paintings, poems, feelings and far-reaching artistic conception. However, in that poetry, it contains the author's artistic loneliness and painstaking efforts. Zhu Ziqing once said that writers should "describe what people ignore and make you feel amazing in ordinary life." The Lotus Pond is located in the Tsinghua campus where the author "walks" day after day, which can be described as "the place of ordinary experience". But he felt it with the poet's sensitive touch, not only observed it with keen eyes, but also argued about its taste, thus describing the amazing "boundless moonlight with lotus fragrance" in detail. Below I will discuss this article from two aspects: thoughts, feelings and artistic style.
First of all, thoughts and feelings
The article begins with "I'm very uneasy these days", and the following is related to this restless mood everywhere: the road is lonely; The moonlight on the ground is faint, and the clouds in the sky are also faint; "An example of tree color is cloudy"; Hearing the lively cicadas and frogs, I thought, "Liveliness is theirs, I have nothing"; Thinking of the grand occasion of ancient lotus picking, I expressed the feeling that "this made me miss Jiangnan at last", and I was dissatisfied with the reality and had to return. A faint sadness enveloped the full text. However, the author's feelings are complicated, accompanied by "faint sadness" and "faint joy". At the beginning of the text, "It suddenly occurred to me that the lotus pond I walked through every day should look different under the light of this full moon", indicating that the author wanted to get rid of his melancholy mood and went to the lotus pond happily; Along the path of the lotus pond, the past is gloomy, "it's sunny tonight", so I calm down and think that I am a "free man"; When he arrived in the lotus pond, he was truly free for the time being, his heart was tied to the beautiful scenery, and the feeling of happiness was sudden; From enjoying the scenery to thousands of years, I think of the "lively season" and "romantic season" when the ancients picked lotus. It can be seen that "light joy" also enveloped the full text. The most direct and concentrated expression of the author's thoughts and feelings is the inner monologue in the third paragraph. This long monologue is a transition from fidgeting to enjoying the moonlight in the lotus pond, expressing the conflict between the author's spiritual world and the outside world and his desire to get rid of this conflict. The author's state of mind, in such a beautiful environment as the lotus pond under the moon, shows an aesthetic feeling of mixed sadness and joy. In short, sorrow and joy go hand in hand: I long for happiness in sadness and am led by sadness in happiness. They are two aspects of the author's contradictory mentality changes when watching the scenery. But the inner fluctuation is not ups and downs, but restraint, and the expression of emotions is gentle. Therefore, both sadness and joy are "faint". There have always been many different understandings about the theme of this article and the author's writing intention. Some people think that this article is the author's sentimental landscape work, expressing a cold and profound realm and expressing a bleak state of mind; Some people think that this article is a lyric work by borrowing scenery to express the author's melancholy mood; Some people think that it shows the author's appreciation of the natural beauty of the lotus pond under the moon, his restraint and leisure mood in his personal world; Some people think that it is not the author's escape from reality, but the author's anger at reality; Some people think that it shows dissatisfaction with the realization of darkness and yearning for a better life. These are too numerous to mention.
Second, artistic style.
Artistic style can be analyzed from three aspects: scenery description, written language and decorative techniques.
1. Scenery description is vivid:
In the whole structure, the author focuses on the moonlight of the lotus pond, mainly in the middle three sections (the fourth, fifth and sixth sections). Let's take this as an example to see how the author colors, colors and typesets the text. First of all, focus on the lotus pond, first write the lotus leaves in the field, then write the lotus flowers and buds dotted on the green leaves, and the fragrance of flowers blown by the breeze. This is a still picture. Zhu Ziqing's landscape writing has never been satisfied with the static description of objective scenery. He said, "If the static state can become dynamic, it is certainly more willing." Then he caught the breeze fluttering, "like lightning, it passed through the lotus pond in an instant." The leaves are close side by side, so there are obvious wave marks. "This is a moving picture. The combination of dynamic and static vividly conveys the vitality and charm of the lotus pond. In this passage, the author didn't mention moonlight, but whether it's still pictures or dynamic scenes, there is faint moonlight everywhere, which is integrated into the author's specific description after observation. The shapes of leaves and flowers, as well as the bright ripples brought by the breeze, are all formed under the faint moonlight mapping. Next, focus on the moonlight. Write the scene of moonlight pouring on flowers and leaves like running water first. " Thin blue fog floating in the lotus pond ",this is the real text. And "leaves and flowers seem to have been washed in milk; It seems that there is yarn in the dream, but it is empty, but it shows the gesture of lotus wandering in the hazy moonlight. Use both reality and fiction to write a fascinating artistic conception. It is monotonous to write moonlight alone, so I try to imitate the projection of the moon, including the "shadows" of "jagged" and "mottled" shrubs, as well as the "sparse and beautiful shadows of curved willows". These "shadows" are like "painted on lotus leaves", connecting the trees on the shore with the lotus flowers in the pond to form a beautiful and complicated pattern, so the lotus pond is more charming against it. What is written here is moonlight, but I don't forget the lotus pond everywhere. The "thin blue fog" formed by moonlight quietly pouring on the flowers and leaves like running water is the hazy scene formed by moonlight and fog, leaf color and water vapor in the lotus pond. Finally, it was written all around the lotus pond and condensed in the willow tree. Write the tree scene under the moon, because the distance is full of willows, surrounded by a lotus pond, only a few gaps, leaking into the moonlight, so "the color of the tree is cloudy, at first glance, like a cloud of smoke", and the "elegant demeanour" of willows is revealed in this misty fog. The ink here is thicker. Then, write about the distant mountains in the treetops, the lights in the cracks in the trees, the cicadas on the trees and the frog drums in the water under the trees. This is just random staining. Dark and light alternate with each other, outlining the moonlight amorous feelings of the whole lotus pond. The characteristic of the scenery description in this paper lies in the ingenious combination of lotus pond and moonlight description. The lotus pond is the lotus pond under the moon; Moonlight is the moonlight on the lotus pond, which highlights the beauty of elegance, obscurity and quietness. The fourth and fifth paragraphs can best reflect this beauty. Such as: "among the layers of leaves, there are some white flowers dotted sporadically, some of which bloom gracefully and some bloom shyly;" Like a pearl, like a star in the blue sky, like a beauty who just took a bath. The breeze blew, bringing a faint fragrance, like a faint song on a distant high building. "This paragraph is not about the moon, but there are moons everywhere. Lotus leaves and lotus flowers all have strange brilliance in the dim moonlight. Compare the blooming and budding white flowers to "pearls" and "stars", and write the beauty of lotus from two aspects: color and brilliance. Write the continuous fragrance of lotus flowers, conveyed by the breeze, as if it were a song floating in the distance, intermittent and unpredictable. This feeling of elegance and remoteness can only be felt when you are alone on a moonlit night. For example, in noisy days, you will never feel this way. Another example: "Moonlight is like running water, quietly pouring on this leaf and flower. A thin layer of blue mist floats in the lotus pond. Leaves and flowers seem to have been washed in milk; It's like a dream covered with gauze. "Put lotus leaves and lotus flowers in the moonlight, and the word' diarrhea' gives people a vivid feeling of milky white; A word "gone with the wind" shows the ethereal and gentle appearance of lotus leaves and lotus flowers in the moonlight. By describing the tranquility of leaves and flowers, the author sets off the hazy softness of moonlight. Another example is: "The moonlight passes through the treetops, and the bushes in the heights cast jagged shadows, and the waiting for a while is like ghosts; The sparse shadows of curved willows are like paintings on lotus leaves. "Write' shadow' and' beautiful shadow' here, or write moonlight, because the shadow is produced by the moonlight on the object. The shadows of the trees are bright and dark, and the moonlight is faint. Moonlight is difficult to describe, but the author writes moonlight from different angles through different scenery, so that the difficult scenery is in front of him. The detailed description in Moonlight on the Lotus Pond comes from the writer's careful observation and careful taste of objective images. The description of cicada singing is enough to illustrate the problem. Because some readers objected that cicadas should not sing on a moonlit night, he consulted many people and finally observed it himself. After hearing the cicada singing on the moonlit night twice, he gave up the idea of revision, so he deeply realized the difficulty of observation. The whole work Moonlight over the Lotus Pond embodies the creative spirit of the author in sizing up the situation. He not only thought about the lotus pond as a whole, but also made a partial examination. He sometimes takes the lotus pond as the main scene, moonlight as the background, moonlight as the main scene, lotus pond as the background, sometimes imitates flowers and leaves, sometimes depicts shore willows, sometimes lightly hooks clouds and sometimes sketches trees, and then spreads it out layer by layer, step by step, showing the beauty of lotus pond moonlight delicately. Zhu Ziqing also believes that "there are poems in flowers, and there are poems in addition to flowers", and that "there are poems in landscapes and pastoral areas ... only some colors, some sounds, some tastes and some feelings can have poems" (poems and feelings). The artist's task is to discover these "poems" with keen sense. From Moonlight on the Lotus Pond, we can easily find that the author works so hard to explore these poems contained in nature and uses various artistic techniques to describe the sound, light, color and taste of the lotus pond on a moonlit night, thus creating an intoxicating artistic conception. The infinite moving feature of Moonlight on the Lotus Pond lies in the author's emotion in the scene, that is, the lyricism of the scene. The scenery of the lotus pond under the veil reflects the author's subtle thoughts at that time. He wants to enjoy the boundless fragrant moonlight alone, that is, to get rid of "inner anxiety" and pursue a reflection of instant peace of mind. Determined by this mood, the scenery of the lotus pond is all quiet and peaceful: the flowers are scattered, the fragrance is continuous, the wind is slight, and the moon is faint, thus creating the artistic conception of "taking a nap with a different flavor". It's neither strong nor light here, everything is so harmonious, moderate and comfortable. The pursuit of instant peace is to temporarily forget, which obviously reflects his dissatisfaction with the reality at that time. But after all, the author can't really be detached. As soon as he heard the chirping of cicadas in the trees and frogs in the water, a sadness suddenly welled up in his heart, and he couldn't help sighing that "the excitement is theirs, and I have nothing", and the quiet mood became complicated. Then he remembered the matter of picking lotus. From the romance of the Six Dynasties, I think of the lotus-picking fu of the Liang Dynasty. Although the "wandering scene" at that time was "interesting", he felt that "it's a pity that we are not happy now". Then I remembered the song of Xizhou, which reminded me of my homesickness. " Finally, I miss Jiangnan. "The author's thoughts have been galloping in historical memory, quiet and restless, which profoundly and subtly reflects his extremely distressed mood of" being willing to forget temporarily "rather than" forgetting ". Obviously, determined by the author's thinking, this work takes "walking around with hands behind his back" and enjoying the boundless moonlight of lotus fragrance as writing clues, and expresses his inner feelings from the spatial order from going out through the path to the lotus pond and back. The author's description of the scenery along the way is also a kind of lyric. With the development of scene description, the emotional levels of tranquility and restlessness appear alternately, and what flows in the boundless moonlight is the author's affectionate thoughts. The author writes the scenery with emotion, and the scenery sets off the emotion, which makes the work both picturesque and interesting.
2. The language is exquisite and poetic:
The language in this article is simple and elegant, accurate, vivid and poetic. The language of Zhu Ziqing's prose has always been simple and beautiful. He strives for "truth", "truth is nature" (on realism and picturesque) and "returning to simplicity" (modern poetry), and thinks that "excessive decoration leads to a gloomy truth" is not desirable. He doesn't use beautiful, old and uncommon new words to carve and describe things, but expresses various emotions in an understatement. He used natural and novel language to draw his mood and express his feelings, such as "I put on my clothes quietly and rushed out of the door" and "the road was dark and a little scary". They were all dull, natural and smooth, without any traces of carving, which made people particularly uncomfortable to read. Beautiful artistic realm is achieved through high-quality language, so all excellent writers attach importance to language training. Zhu Ziqing pays great attention to the accuracy and appropriateness of words, such as "moonlight is like running water, quietly pouring on this leaf and flower." Thin blue mist floats in the lotus pond. The words "diarrhea" and "floating" bring the moonlight and fog to life. For example, when the breeze passes, "the leaves and flowers are shaking" and "the leaves are close side by side, so there are clear wave marks"; There are distant mountains on the treetops, and one or two lights leak from the cracks in the trees: a trace, a line, a face and one or two points, all of which are quantifiers used as adjectives, which have played a role in enriching, polishing and strengthening the image, as well as rendering and strengthening poetry and painting. At the same time, it is often based on the feeling of sudden trigger, with rich imagination, so that the image flashes and the reader is introduced into a picturesque realm. As far as this article is concerned, the author does not need heavy ink, but draws light ink. Appropriate use of some colorful words, but more metaphors, to stimulate readers' association and imagination, so that the picture color is light and thick. If you write a static lotus, you can use three metaphors: "like a pearl", which means that the flower is crystal clear in the faint moonlight; Like Stars in the Blue Sky is about flowers swaying against the green leaves. "Like a Beauty Just Showing Bath" is to write about the beauty of lotus flowers without touching dust. There is nothing strange about these words, but they have special artistic charm when used in the context of this article, which accurately and vividly shows the aesthetic characteristics of this place, this scene and this thing. Moreover, the word "moonlight pours quietly on this leaf and flower like running water" is also very common, but the modifier "quietly" is used to accurately and vividly write that moonlight pours like running water, but it is silent and quiet. Another example is "running water with pulse under the leaves", which means to express affection silently with eyes or actions, and to write running water here, but it seems to have affection silently. They are embedded in sentences, not as painstaking as they are, but they are very expressive. Others, such as writing lotus leaves with "de" and writing lights with "leakage", are all language skills that the author is very familiar with.
This paper uses more than 30 words, which not only vividly depicts the scene in front of us, but also has a kind of phonological beauty. For example, "Tian Tian" is used to describe the density of the lotus leaf, "level" indicates its depth, and "zigzag" indicates the width of the lotus pond. Another example is that "lush" is the overlap of the two-syllable word "lush", which not only indicates that there are many trees, but also strengthens the atmosphere at night; "Far and near" is a combination of far and near, describing the dense trees around the lotus pond. Lush, far and near, high and low green trees, faint distant mountains, winding lotus ponds, slender lotus flowers, lingering fragrance, quiet flowers and leaves, and thin blue fog not only strengthen the semantics, but also make the language stretch and the rhyme harmonious. The author writes that moonlight is the moonlight of the lotus pond, and the lotus pond is the lotus pond under moonlight. There are multiple levels in the hierarchy, which makes the reconstructed picture three-dimensional and penetrating. Among them, motion, reality, shadow and mystery are the arrangement of painting and poetry, which not only makes the color of the picture uniform and pleasing to the eye, but also reveals a charm and a strong poetry.
3. Metaphor and synaesthesia rhetoric are vivid and rich:
Moonlight on the Lotus Pond uses a variety of techniques. There is an image metaphor that the lotus leaf coming out of the water is "like a graceful dancer's skirt", with buds, like "pearls" and "stars in the blue sky", which is not only appropriate but also vivid; There is obvious contrast, the sparse "beautiful image" of curved willows is more and more light and beautiful against the "dark shadow" of "steep as ghosts" shrubs; There is a strong contrast, with "listless" lights to set off the brightness of the moonlight, with cicadas and frog drums to set off the surrounding silence; There are vivid anthropomorphic and elegant blooming lotus flowers, like a "beauty who just came out of the bath", which makes the white crane on the water very beautiful. But what is even more admirable is that because the author has a profound understanding of the object of description, he has broken through the general experience and produced a strange and novel technique, such as "a breeze passing by, emitting a delicate fragrance, like a faint song from a distant building." The fragrance of flowers originally appealed to the sense of smell, but the author wrote it into a beautiful song, giving people a sense of smell and hearing. Another example is "light and shadow have a harmonious melody, such as a famous song played in the Vatican". The flowing light waves are silent and described as beautiful music, which gives people visual and auditory enjoyment. It stands to reason that fragrance, light, shadow, singing and piano sound have nothing in common, but the author uses the artistic technique of "synaesthesia" commonly used in classical poetry to transform the images of smell and vision into auditory images, imitating the continuous and seemingly nonexistent forms of fragrance and light, so that the indescribable feelings can be reflected through another sensible image. Using this rhetorical method, readers can be inspired to have a broader and deeper imagination and association, so as to understand the ideological content and artistic realm of the works from their own life experience and cultural accomplishment. This superb artistic technique is rare in modern prose creation.
Moonlight on the Lotus Pond is the representative work of Zhu Ziqing's landscape prose. His charming description of local scenery, perfect writing skills and plain language convey sincere and profound feelings in simple descriptions. It is vividly reflected in this article and deserves to be called a master of American literature.
────────
reference book
1. Zhu Ziqing's Collected Works of Shan Ye, Beiyue Literature and Art Publishing House, 20031February.
2. Zhu Ziqing's Introduction to European Miscellanies, Beiyue Literature and Art Publishing House, 20031February.
3. Zhu Ziqing's Poetry, Beiyue Literature and Art Publishing House, 20031February.
4. Zhu Ziqing's On Realism and Painting, Beiyue Literature and Art Publishing House, 20031February.
5. Zhu Ziqing's Poems Today', Beiyue Literature and Art Publishing House, 20031February.
6. Zhu Ziqing's Collection of Zhu Ziqing's Works, Beiyue Literature and Art Publishing House, 20031February.