Qing Dynasty writer Yuan Mei's "Qianxing":
Firstly
It is difficult to write down the origin of a hobby, but you can feel at ease after you change a poem a thousand times.
Grandma still looks like a girl with hairdo for the first time, and she cannot look at her hair until it is combed.
Second
As long as you are willing to look for poetry, there will be poetry. A clear understanding is my teacher.
Fragrant grass in the setting sun is an ordinary thing, and its explanations are mostly wonderful words.
Translation:
First one
Because it is always difficult to write a poem because of the love of beauty and the pursuit of perfection, a poem always needs to be revised repeatedly before it feels at ease. It's like an old grandma or a girl who just got haircut. She's not allowed to look at her hair until it's combed.
Second
As long as you work hard, you can make good poems. There is no teacher for this kind of creation, it only relies on momentary inspiration. Ordinary scenery such as the sunset and flowers and plants can become wonderful poems due to flexible use triggered by inspiration.
Extended information
Creative background
The two poems "Qianxing" are a collection of poems by the Qing Dynasty writer Yuan Mei. These two poems were written in 1791 AD (the fifty-sixth year of Qianlong's reign) and express the author's attitude and opinions in writing poems.
About the author
Yuan Mei (1716-1797), a poet and essayist in the Qing Dynasty. His courtesy name was Zicai, his nickname was Jianzhai, and in his later years he was named Cangshan layman, Suiyuan master, and Suiyuan old man. He was of Han nationality and from Qiantang (now Hangzhou, Zhejiang). In the fourth year of Qianlong's reign, he became a Jinshi and selected Shu Jishi. He was sent to Jiangnan as a county magistrate. He served as county magistrate in Lishui, Jiangning, Jiangpu, and Shuyang in Jiangsu for seven years. He had a good reputation for political diligence as an official, but his official career was not smooth. No intention of official salary.
In the fourteenth year of Qianlong's reign (1749), he resigned and lived in seclusion in Suiyuan, Xiaocangshan, Nanjing. He returned home at the age of forty. Build a garden at the foot of Xiaocang Mountain in Jiangning and chant in it. He recruited many poetry disciples, especially female disciples. Yuan Mei was one of the representative poets during the Qianlong and Jiaqing periods. Together with Zhao Yi and Jiang Shiquan, he was known as the "Three Great Masters of Qianlong"; together with Zhao Yi and Zhang Wentao, he was known as the "Three Great Masters of Xingling School". Representative works include "Collection of Poems and Essays by Xiaocang Shanfang", "Poetry Talk of Suiyuan", "Essays of Suiyuan", etc.
Poetry dictionary story
Writing poetry has never been an easy task. Often, after the first draft of a poem is published, it has to be carefully considered and revised hundreds or thousands of times. Just like my grandma loved beauty when she was young, no one was allowed to look at her hair without combing it. ?
The good poems of the past are all the result of the poet's painstaking efforts, thousands of tempers, and repeated revisions. It is precisely because they treat their works so meticulously and strive for excellence that they have those wonderful articles and sentences that have been passed down through the ages.
1. Su Shi revised his poems
When Su Shi was in Yingzhou, he once wrote a poem "He Ou Shubi" because he felt deeply about the noble integrity of Tao Yuanming, the great poet of the Jin Dynasty. The whole poem is as follows: Yuanming asked for the county magistrate because he was short of food. He tied his belt and mailed it to the governor, but the small humiliation was not a humiliation. When you return home, don't you miss being poor and alone? With five buckets of rice in hand, we can eat and drink at the waist.
This poem summarizes a story about Tao Yuanming: Tao Yuanming sought a small official position because of his poverty, and served as the magistrate of Pengze County for a period of time. One day, the prefect of the county sent the postal inspector to inspect and asked him to put on his crown and girdle and go out to greet him. He did not want to be wronged, so he hung his official seal on the beam, resigned and returned to his hometown to farm. In the poem "Returning Letters", he expressed his determination not to "bow down to the villagers for five buckets of rice", showing his noble integrity and unwillingness to join the corrupt officialdom.
According to Volume 7 of He Sui's "Chunzhu Jiwen" in the Song Dynasty, the first sentence of Su Shi's original manuscript of this poem is "Yuanming is a small town", after which the word "wei" was removed from the circle and changed to "qiu" The word "dao" and "yi" were painted together and changed to "county magistrate".
The word "wei" in the first draft means "when" and "doing". It can only show that Tao Yuanming was working in "Xiaoyi", but it cannot explain why he went there, how he went there, and what he did there. , and it is not necessarily related to the last sentence "the origin is insufficient food". Change it to "seeking" and it will be clear. "Qiu" means to seek or obtain, which is connected with the next sentence.
The reason why Tao Yuanming went to "Xiaoyi" was to make a living because his family "had insufficient food." The original word "Xiaoyi" could not explain what Tao Yuanming was proud of there, but after changing it to "county magistrate", it became clear. The revised context clearly shows that Tao Yuanming went to Pengze County to seek an official position as a county magistrate because of his poor family.
2. Huang Tingjian revised the poem
Huang Tingjian, a famous poet in the Northern Song Dynasty, once wrote a poem "Mocking Little Virtue". "Xiao De" is a child's nickname. According to "Donggao Miscellaneous Records": "Lu Zhi (Huang Tingjian)'s "Mocking Little Virtue" has the sentence "Xueyu Huang Ying turns, the autumn wild geese slant through the book window", which was later changed to "Xueyu sings the spring bird, paints the window and walks the evening crows" ."
The original poem "The orioles are learning to speak, and the wild geese are slanting through the book window in autumn" describes the situation of a child learning to speak and write. The meaning of the poem is: when a child learns to speak, he listens as gracefully as an oriole; when he writes on the window paper with a pen, he becomes as neat as the geese returning south in autumn, forming a herringbone formation. But this way of writing is too unrealistic - a child's babbling and learning words cannot be as graceful as the call of an oriole, and it is impossible to hold a pen and write as neatly as the geese returning south.
After changing it to "Learning to sing spring birds, painting the windows to sing dusk crows", it is not only true but also full of interest. Because ordinary bird calls are not as sweet as the oriole's cry, and children cannot learn language as well as singing, so it is better to change "oriole" to "spring bird".
If "book window" is changed to "painted window", "qiuyan" is changed to "twilight crow", and "Xian" is changed to "行", the terminology becomes much more realistic.
"Tu" means scribbling, and "twilight crow" is a crow that flies back to its nest in the forest at dusk. The "little virtue" in the poem wanted to learn to write, but he was illiterate and couldn't hold a pen. He just picked up the pen and wiped it on the window paper at will. As a result, he left pieces of ink on the window paper, which looked like flying crows. In this way, the scene of a young child scribbling on the window paper is vividly and vividly depicted, which is full of childlike interest.
3. Lu Xun changed his poems
In April 1933, Mr. Lu Xun published the famous prose "For the Memory of Forgetting" to commemorate the five young people who were murdered by the Kuomintang authorities two years ago. writer. The article quotes a poem like this: When the spring is spent in the long night, the woman will pull out the young hair on her temples. In the dream, there are vague tears of a loving mother, and the king's flag changes on the city wall. I can't bear to watch my friends become new ghosts, and look for poems in the sword bush angrily. After chanting, I lowered my eyebrows and found nothing to write about. The moonlight shone like water on my clothes.
(It means that I have become accustomed to spending the spring time in the long nights, my temples are gray, and I am forced to run away with my wife and children. I seem to see a kind mother in my sleep. I am worried and weeping, while the city is still there. Changing the various banners of the warlords, how could I bear to watch my young comrades being killed by the enemy? I wrote poems in anger to the white and terrifying swords. After chanting, I looked down at the place around me but there was nothing written there, only the cold water. The moonlight shines on me, a refugee in black robe)
Lu Xun wrote this poem in 1931 and recorded it in his diary on July 1, 1932. Comparing the published poem with the original poem in the diary, you will find that there are two important changes: first, "seeing" was changed to "bearing", and second, "bian" was changed to "clump of knives". Although there is only a difference of two characters, the momentum and artistic conception are very different.
"Seeing" is just a general narrative and lacks emotional color, while "bearing" (meaning "how can I bear to see") profoundly expresses Lu Xun's extremely angry mood and deep hatred for the enemy at that time. . The change of "border of swords" to "cluster of swords" not only highlights the white terror of the Kuomintang's rule, but also expresses Lu Xun's incomparable perseverance to the revolution and his fearless fighting spirit. Two modifications make the language of the poem more vivid, expressive and appealing.
4. Guo Mo wrote and revised poems
One day in June 1942, the rainy season continued in the mountainous city of Chongqing. The large-scale historical drama "Qu Yuan" was about to start, and the actors were busy. Suddenly, the playwright Guo Moruo walked in happily holding a large porcelain vase used as a prop. He was invited to watch the performance. It happened to be raining, and the scene was so emotional that the poet was so excited that he casually recited a limerick: I traveled thousands of miles to bring the bottle, but it was a gloomy day and it didn't open yet. Daring to hold the bottle would be a big mistake, and Mei Lin would be angry at Beibei Terrace.
The actors listened and marveled at the poet's quick thinking and humor. At this time, someone suggested that "holding the bottle" appeared twice and was repeated. After Guo Moruo thought about it for a moment, he changed the third sentence to "Dare you be so enthusiastic as to surprise the great master" (? "the great master" refers to Guanyin).
While everyone was talking about it, Zhang Ruifang, who played Chan Juan, stepped forward and said, "The word 'anger' is too fierce." Guo Moruo nodded happily and agreed. So I first changed "anger" to "Bian", and after thinking about it for a while, I changed it to "through", and finally decided on "Hui".
Why not use "Bian" and "Tou" instead of "Hui"? It turns out that "Bian" and "Through" have similar meanings here. Although they both reflect the heavy rain, they both lack image and emotion. Although the original word "anger" has distinct characteristics and uses anthropomorphic techniques, it can vividly depict the momentum of heavy rain, but the emotional color does not match the author's happy mood.
Although the author is traveling in the rain, he is going to taste the fruits of his hard work, so he should be in a happy mood. What’s more, after the previous sentence is changed to "Dare to be enthusiastic and startle the earth", it becomes even more expressed this happy mood. "Hui" Yu subtly expresses the sincerity of the author's painstaking efforts to deliver the bottle, which moved Guanyin to show his kindness and sprinkle sweet rain to bring joy, thus vividly rendering the author's joyful emotions, making the emotion and scenery blend together.
Baidu Encyclopedia--Qianxing