Selected Poems by Wen Yiduo
Lone Goose
Unfortunately, a lonely guest who has lost his way!
Who taught you to abandon your old lover,
break up the formation,
and live in the deadlock of this water country,
Fighting with the sadness,
crying out the boundless sadness?
Ah! From the dense curtain of floating clouds,
such mournful sounds burst out,
such pain! Such enthusiasm!
The lonely wanderer!
No need to shout!
Your deep sound waves,
in the thunder of this sea,
are not worth the splashing of the waves
A piece of floating rice!
Poor lonely soul!
There is no need to look back to the sky.
The sky is a boundless secret,
a blue riddle,
it is too difficult and cannot be guessed by you.
There is no need to bow to the sea.
This evil man who insults Gao Tian, ??
His salty spit
Don’t wet your wings,
It’s stuck on your schedule!
What a lonely bird!
Where are you going to fly to?
On the other side of the Pacific Ocean,
Do you know what is there?
Ah! That is the territory of the goshawk——
That ferocious overlord!
His sharp claws,
have torn apart the face of nature,
building a nest of financial resources.
There are only machines made of steel and iron,
drunk with the blood of the weak,
spitting out the black smoke of sin,
Smear my space, shut out the sun and moon,
teach you to fly without knowing the direction,
take your breath and have no place to hide!
O wandering outcast!
Where are you going?
O bird that follows the sun!
O pursuer of light!
I don’t believe that the smelly slaughterhouse,
the dark smoke stove,
can actually attract your traces!
Come back, lost wandering soul!
Return to join your mates,
replenish their array!
They are looking at you with their necks bent.
I came back and lay down in the frost-stained reed forest,
There was the west wind of school hunting,
the fluffy reed flowers,
< p>I have made your bedto warm your sweet dreams.
Come back and float in the gentle harbor,
There is your bathtub.
Return and wander on the flat sand of the waves,
Taking advantage of the silvery moonlight
The shadows whirling and teasing you.
Come back, you wandering solitary bird!
Instead of being trapped in this water country,
fighting with sorrow,
crying out the endless sour dreams,
< p>It's better to turn around and go back!Ah! But this inexplicable rush
forces me to keep moving forward;
I carry another letter on my feet,
How can I give up? My mission,
depends on my character
How about turning around and flying back?
"Lone Wild Goose" is one of Wen Yiduo's representative works of poetry. The poem symbolically describes a lone goose that has flown away from the formation, running alone towards the "water country" that is "absolutely blocked". Along the way, there were lightning and thunder, and the sea surged into the sky, and the destination on the other side of the ocean was so dirty and dangerous. After many hesitations and hesitations, it finally "kept forward" without hesitation. The poem was written when Wen Yiduo first set foot on the American continent. It goes without saying that the lone goose is his self-projection. He imagined that he was a lone goose lost to the flock, flying with difficulty toward a foreign land.
The whole poem is long but has clear layers, vividly showing the development process of the poet's "lonely goose consciousness" in the turbulent waves. We can understand it in layers.
The poem *** has twelve sections, and the first section can be called the first level of the poem. This is a summary of the situation of "Lone Goose". At this level, in addition to psychological renderings such as "sorrow" and "sorrow" that are not difficult to understand, there are two things that are most noteworthy. One is "losing the group", that is to say, the vast majority of "wild geese" "They did not take this path. They had another direction and another choice. Obviously, this is the poet thinking about the problem in the overall sense of Chinese culture. He clearly saw that "overseas wanderers" like him were only very few after all, and they did not conform to traditional Chinese ideals of life. (Lu Xun once said , even entering schools run by foreigners was regarded by the world as "selling his soul to the Japanese.") Wen Yiduo had a profound foundation in Chinese studies, and was certainly quite familiar with this traditional outlook on life. So, how does he feel about being "lost from the crowd"? The poet uses a series of words in this part: misfortune, wandering, sadness, crying, sorrow, etc. The emotional color is quite obvious: he does not want to "lose the group" like this, and he feels lonely for this. ,pain.
This shows that Wen Yiduo is still deeply influenced by the spirit of traditional culture. However, if his mental state only stayed at this level, there would be no originality of "Lone Goose" and no success as a modern poet. After all, Wen Yiduo has another side to him. This is the second point we should pay attention to, that is, "abandonment". Lone Goose's loss of the group was not the result of his helplessness and abandonment, but Lone Goose's initiative to "abandon his old partner." In this way, Guyan's "loneliness" as well as his "misfortune", "wandering", "sadness", "sorrow", etc. have become the products of his subjective will. Guyan's life choice has obvious anti-traditional meaning. Taken together at this level, the poet actually conveyed two contradictory emotions intentionally or unintentionally: both the determination of his own life choice and the inescapable sense of loneliness and loss after making the choice.
These two contradictory psychology are deeply immersed in the entire poem, becoming the basis for our understanding of "Lone Goose Consciousness".
The second to fourth stanzas can be called the second level of the poem. It mainly writes about the dangerous journey of "Lone Goose". There are earth-shaking thunders, rolling and tossing dense clouds, unfathomable sky, and roaring sea. In the vast world, there is no other shore in front of you, no partner behind you, and the miserable screams have long been forgotten by nature. Swallowed by thousands of roars, who can hear it? In the journey of life, isn't human life so weak, so vulnerable, so isolated and helpless? The sadness of "losing the group" came to my heart again and again. However, when the poet writes here, his emotions are in vain, "Poor lonely soul! / There is no need to look back to the sky," "There is no need to bow to the sea." The poet temporarily puts aside other distracting thoughts: The boundless blue sky is tempting, but it is too mysterious and vague after all. It is better to be more realistic and not to pursue metaphysical mysteries. The real life is waiting for us to explore; the sea is fierce, but it belongs to " There is no need to pay attention to the vulgarity of "evil man", "Don't wet your wings / stick to your journey!" In the journey full of difficulties and obstacles, the poet pushed aside the fog and resolutely moved towards the established destiny. Goal running. The decisive side of "Lone Goose Consciousness" is fully demonstrated.
Stanzas 5 to 7 can be called the third level, writing about Lone Goose’s outlook on the other side. From the perspective of Wen Yiduo, a simple young man from an agricultural civilization, the capitalist United States, which is in the highly industrialized stage, is really scary: tall buildings, factories with billowing black smoke, madly grabbing land from the beautiful nature , they stretched their "sharp fingers" everywhere, tearing the originally harmonious and complete nature to pieces. The clear sky became smoky, and the brilliant sun and moon also lost their light. Traditional research on Wen Yiduo believes that this is the characteristic of the "Jin and Yuan Empire" outlined by the poet for us. I think this analysis is not accurate enough; the poet actually does not accuse the "money" relationship of capitalist society here. His focus is mainly on the destruction of the harmony of nature caused by the mechanization of industrial civilization. This is related to the influence of Western romanticism in the 19th century that Wen Yiduo received in his early years. Of course, it is also closely related to the agricultural civilization that Wen Yiduo, the son of a squire from Xishui, Hubei, received.
In the Chinese countryside that Wen Yiduo is familiar with, the natural mountains, rivers, vegetation and human activities are in such a tacit understanding and harmony. Compared with the hustle and bustle of large-scale machine production in American society, it is really worlds away. Don't. Wen Yiduo, who is very fond of traditional Chinese civilization, would find it difficult to express his favorable opinion of this unfamiliar lifestyle! Thinking of this, "Lone Goose" fell into confusion, "flying without knowing the direction", "going to rest and having no place to hide!" Then, the frustration of "losing the group" surged up strongly. If the other side was really such a "stinking slaughterhouse", how could he go there rashly?
In such a low mood, the poem enters the fourth level, which is the eighth to eleventh stanzas of the poem. This is Guyan's longing for his hometown. The gloomy future and the fear of life can easily make Chinese poets sigh "I'm going back again". At this time, "Lone Goose" seemed to hear the affectionate calls of his friends in his ears: "Come back! Come back!" Then the quiet and charming scenery of his hometown appeared in front of his eyes. Here the reed flowers are flying, the west wind is blowing, there is a "gentle harbor", a flat beach, and under the reflection of the moonlight, you can dance freely. The freedom and happiness of the wild geese is what the poet Wen Yiduo feels about his hometown. kind of imagination. Some people think that this is Wen Yiduo's description of the beautiful scenery of the motherland. I think it can be understood in this way, but the more important thing is probably to refer to the distant hometown of "Dishanshanmingshui". Because only there could he truly bathe in freedom and happiness, an enlightened tutor, a harmonious family, and the charming study room - Er Er Lu, that he missed day and night. As early as when he was studying at Tsinghua University, the poet would rush home every holiday in order to sit in his warm study as early as possible and concentrate on his spiritual wanderings that made him endlessly happy.
However, Wen Yiduo finally endured all kinds of discomforts and studied diligently in the United States. "His grades were quite good and he was repeatedly praised by teachers." (Manuscript of Wen Yiduo's "To Parents") "Lone Goose" "I didn't really follow my companion's call and turn back all the way. The last stanza of the poem makes this decisive decision, which is the fifth level of the poem. What is the reason that prompted the poet ("Lone Goose") to make this decision? The poem tells us that there are two reasons: first, the "unexplainable rush".
It is conceivable that this is the historical trend of traveling across the oceans and striving to learn from advanced Western culture during the May Fourth Movement. This is the only way for Chinese society to go global and modernize. It is unstoppable by any personal power. The second is personal sense of mission and willpower. Although "Lone Goose" is "lonely", he is an indispensable "messenger", shouldering the trust of millions of people and leading the hope of the times. Does this mean that the poet's study abroad is intentionally exaggerated? Actually no, Chinese intellectuals have always had the tradition of taking the world as their own responsibility. This has become a deep unconscious psychological accumulation in people's hearts, especially for Wen Yiduo, an intellectual who has read many poems and books. We must admit that people need spiritual support, no matter what it is. Inspired by the righteousness of the nation and the country, the Chinese people are often able to work hard in the face of adversity and become more confident in the face of setbacks. As the saying goes, "When heaven is about to entrust a great responsibility to a person, he must first work hard for his will and his bones." From here, we can see that the previous "Lone Goose" resolute attitude must be related to this spirit.
"Wild geese" is one of the typical images in traditional Chinese poetry, such as Xue Daoheng's "People Think of Returning Every Day": "When people return home after the wild geese, their thoughts are in front of the flowers"; Li Yi's "Listening to the Flute on a Spring Night" : "There are endless geese all night in Dongting, flying north without waiting for dawn"; Li Qingzhao's "A Cut of Plum Blossoms": "Who in the clouds sent a brocade book? When the geese return, the moon is full on the west tower", Wang Shifu's "The Romance of the West Chamber": "The sky is blue and the ground is yellow. , the west wind is strong, and the northern geese fly south." In the artistic conception of traditional Chinese poetry, the movement of wild geese has become a symbol of the approaching cold and the solemnity of all things due to its distinct seasonal nature. This echoes the sentimental soul of Chinese poets, so "wild geese" has become "wild geese". Symbols of moods such as "sorrow, resentment" and "confusion". Wen Yiduo also relied on "wild geese" to express the distress of leaving his country and his hometown, which is naturally an inheritance of this tradition. However, in this poem, "Lone Goose" is not just an emotional symbol of sorrow. It is also full of willpower, has its own personality, pursuit and thoughts, and can survive the storm, the roaring mountains, the tsunami and the endless waves. Make your own correct judgment in the dark. "Lone Goose" is the "Lone Goose" of the "May 4th Movement" era and is the crystallization of the new culture.
(Li Yi)