(1) Appreciate the deep feelings and rich symbolic meanings of the old horse.
(2) Understand the metrical features of this poem.
Second, the difficulties and key analysis
(1) The poem "Old Horse" is not intended to symbolize the fate of farmers with old horses, but why do almost all readers and commentators of this anthology say that it is about farmers who suffered in the old society?
Analysis: Literature appreciation is an aesthetic enjoyment and an artistic re-creation. The meaning of the work comes from two aspects: one is the work itself, and the other is the gift from the reader. Therefore, we should not only admit the differences in literary appreciation, but also admit that the appreciator's understanding may be beyond or different from the author's original intention. Someone said, "A thousand spectators have a thousand Hamlets." Mr. Lu Xun once said: "A Dream of Red Mansions ... is just a matter of fate, because of the readers' eyes. Scholars look at the Book of Changes, Taoists look at lewdness, talented people look at lingering, revolutionaries look at rows, gossips look at palace secrets ... "Cang Kejia once said: On the surface, it is a horse with heavy load and great pressure. But almost all the readers and annotators of this anthology said that they wrote about the peasants who suffered in the old society. The reason is that the image of the old horse is shaped, and its shape is conveyed. The poet did not describe the old horse in detail, but focused on its fate, feelings and state of mind, which enhanced the appeal of the old horse's tragedy. The more the poet highlights the humiliation, kindness and faithfulness of the old horse, the more he can arouse readers' sympathy for the oppressed peasants and arouse their anger and curse against the old system and the exploiting class. Therefore, the image-building of the old horse fully embodies the characteristics of "image is greater than thought".
(A) How to understand the "concise" language style of the whole poem?
Analysis: The Old Horse celebrates the life under the yoke of the old horse, but symbolically summarizes the heavy burden of farmers' suffering for many years. The whole poem is concise and clear, and the words are wonderful and vivid. The words "buckle" and "gone with the wind" are accurate, vivid and lifelike, which effectively shows the depth of old horse oppression. The words "horizontal and vertical" and "swallow" are concise and clear, which truly shows the perseverance of the old horse.
You don't need a gentle tone to tell your personal joys and sorrows, and you rarely express your resentment against the old world with a warm voice. Instead, you use tempered poems to express the sufferings and misfortunes of farmers in old China, their diligence and tenacity, and let readers experience the poet's deep affection from chewing and aftertaste. It is with this unique style that Cang Kejia brought a fresh wind to the poetry circles in the 1930s, which attracted readers' attention.
Third, the teaching process design
(1) Recite the work.
1. Let students experience the "architectural beauty" and "musical beauty" of this poem in recitation.
Students recite works repeatedly according to the rhythm and rhythm of poetry. Both teachers and students know:
"Old Horse" pays attention to "symmetry of knot and neatness of sentence" in form. The whole poem consists of two * * * paragraphs, each with four sentences, each sentence is basically eight words, and every other sentence rhymes, which is catchy to read and has a kind of "architectural beauty" and "musical beauty".
2. Let students master the image of poetry in chanting.
Teachers and students made it clear that "old horse" is a true portrayal of poor farmers. The sufferings and misfortunes of farmers in China, the industriousness and hardships of the exploiting class, the greed and cruelty of the exploiting class, and the author's sympathy and resentment are all vividly expressed through the sculpture image of "Old Horse".
(2) overall perception.
The author and his writing background.
Cang Kejia was born in the countryside of Zhucheng County, Shandong Province. He was familiar with the countryside since he was a child and loved farmers, so most of his poems were in praise of the countryside. 1933 published Brand, and the following year published Black Hands of Evil. This is the time when the decadent poetic style of "modernism" is rejected by readers. Cang Kejia's poems describing farmers' images and rural scenery brought a fresh wind to the poetry circle, which immediately attracted the attention and attention of the literary world and opened up a new world for new poems reflecting rural life.
Lao Ma, written in 1932, is one of Cang Kejia's famous poems "Brand". The author once said: "After the failure of the 1927 Great Revolution, I completely denied Chiang Kai-shek's regime, but I was very uncertain about the future of the revolution. Life is bitter and I feel depressed and sad. " The author saw an old horse with tragic fate with his own eyes, and there was a kind of pressure in his heart not to write it. By appreciating this poem, we can more concretely feel the achievements and characteristics of Cang Kejia's new poetry creation in 1930s.
2. Feel the general idea of the content.
Eight short sentences in "Old Horse" have shaped the tragic image of an overwhelmed old horse.
Section 1, Write Load.
The first two sentences "always" and "no matter what" echo each other, showing the greed and cruelty of the owner, making the old horse overloaded, and also writing the stubborn and persevering character of the old horse, burying a cavity of grief and indignation in his heart. In fact, the last two sentences describe the compulsion, the word "buckle" and the word "heavy", which vividly and profoundly depict the tragic situation of the old horse under heavy pressure, the indifference of the owner and the pain of the old horse.
In the second quarter, write a whip and start. The first two sentences are fictional, depicting the sad and hopeless psychology of the old horse. The last two sentences are realistic "A Whip Shadow", which vividly shows the fierceness and ruthlessness of the master. Under such harsh oppression, what is waiting for the old horse ahead? The poet left readers with infinite imagination.
3) Practice after class
1. Complete Exercise 2 and Exercise 3.
2. Read some Cang Kejia's poems after class and master their style characteristics.
[Small message]
own
Every poem of mine is the crystallization of experience. It was written when I didn't feel bad. This is the so-called encounter with pain. I can't sleep in the dead of winter. A person bites his teeth in the cold yard and is squeezed out in the howling cold wind.
-Cang Kejia's My Poetic Life
Escape from this land
-peasant narration in modern poetry, from "Old Horse" to "Wu Liangsi Village"
"Old Horse" and "Old Horse" in that era
In 2004, Cang Kejia, once known as a "peasant poet", had gone through 99 years of life, including at least half a century of poetry creation. 1933, Ming Kai Bookstore published his first book of poetry, Brand. This is his first collection of works, and it is also his most influential peak work. Mainstream comments agree that it shows the decline of rural areas in China, the suffering and perseverance of farmers and the worries of the country. The brand was quickly snapped up, and many famous critics were willing to advocate it. Mao Dun called Cang Kejia "one of the best young poets" at that time. Zhu Ziqing asserted: "Since Cang Kejia, we have had poems about the countryside." Wen Yiduo personally prefaced the poet who died in his childhood. He said: "There is not a poem of the Ke family that does not have a very real meaning of life. Without family experience, we don't know the seriousness of life. " (According to the preface of People Weekly and Wen Yiduo's Selected Works Branding) Cang Kejia claimed to be "a croton bug who chews bitter juice and never lets go". Therefore, his poems are bitter and hard. In the post-May 4th poetry world full of petty-bourgeois sentiment and revolutionary fanaticism, a simple and tenacious new style has emerged.
You have to let the cart fill it up,
It didn't say a word,
The pressure on the back got stuck in the meat,
It hangs its head heavily!
I don't know my life at the moment,
It only hides its tears in its heart,
A whip shadow floated before my eyes,
It looked up at the front.
salamander
This poem was published in 1932. It has been 10 years since Hu Shi published the first vernacular poem "Trial Collection" in the history of China's new poetry. At that time, most people who tried to write new poems were returnees and left-wing literary youth. In the new poetry movement, the two ideological trends of self-liberation and mass liberation went to two poles. The former formed the "Crescent School" represented by Hu Shi, Xu Zhimo and Liang Shiqiu, while the latter formed the "Creation Society" and "Sun Society" (Guo Moruo, etc. ) eager to provide the highest, strongest and most urgent syllables for the revolutionary struggle. Obviously, these two extremes can't really go deep into people's hearts and the hearts of the injured, creating a peasant virtual body, a metaphor and a nonlinear overall symbol with dual aesthetic and cognitive values. It is in this season that the "old horse" appeared. With bitterness, dignity of earth, unspeakable pain and sorrow, and the shadow of fate for thousands of years, a strange and familiar image of poetry broke into the intellectuals and readers of new poetry in China. Who is he? Isn't it our hometown neighbors, refugees, vagrants and migrant workers on scaffolding who have lost their land around us? Isn't it our collapsed countryside and dilapidated countryside? "How many dynasties have risen and fallen beside him/pinned hopes and disappointments on him/and he always spins behind the plow without saying a word,/turns up the same land where his ancestors dissolved,/and the same image of suffering is fixed on the roadside." (Mu Dan's Zan) Different from left-wing literature and revolutionary literature, this oppressed and damaged "horse" is not only "determined to crush the evil old world like steel" like the workers in the May 30th Movement and the Red Guards in Jinggangshan, but also has no minimum awakening. When the oppressor violently loaded him and even pulled his head into the meat, his reaction was only numbness. When he wanted to cry, the ruler thought that he was holding back the national economy and flogging him. He just looked helplessly ahead. He wants to overdraw his life and contribute to the national rejuvenation. At this moment, he even mortgaged his soul to the leader or leader. Of course, "Lao Ma" didn't have the consciousness of "making contributions", he just resigned himself. He can't cheat, he can't kick his master, and he won't break free from the reins to run wild, so he will have no hukou and no food, become a refugee, a unruly and even a mob and a bandit, and will be rectified, encircled and eliminated. In short, even if this is a sad horse, it is by no means a horse that can hold its head high and scream with a bright future. This is a humiliating horse. He was deeply shocked by authoritarianism, superstitious about order and inexplicably burdened with an unknown fate, which was somewhat similar to the "poor old horse" temperament in Russian folk songs. In the theory and code of revolutionary mobilization in the 20th century, he belongs to the category of "backward masses", and it takes Li Yuhe (The Red Lantern), Guo Jianguang (Shajiabang), Yang Zirong (outsmarting Weihushan) and other later red elites and advanced representatives to wake up, start and ignite, so that he can become a grave digger who buried the raging fire of the old world and the old system. "People I see everywhere,/people who live in shame, people with rickets,/I want to hug you with blood-stained hands. /Because a nation has risen. " (Mu Dan "Zan")
Is our "poet of the earth" like the prophet Lu Xun, "lamenting his misfortune and angering him for the" backward people "and" ignorant people "? No. In view of its own limitations, Cang Kejia made a profound review after the success of the revolution. He said: "I have never been able to break through the category of petty-bourgeois thoughts and feelings about the understanding of rural unrest on the eve of the storm and my views on farmers' issues." "Although it shows the bankruptcy of the countryside, it does not clarify its future fate; Described the misery of farmers' lives and their struggles. Through these descriptions, they accused the feudal dark society, but they did not write their positive struggles and the final way out. " ("On the Road of Literature and Art Learning")
Obviously, the poet's review depends on the height required by the reform method to the mainstream at that time, and at the same time, he finally defended himself carefully and painstakingly. In fact, his "active struggle and the last way out" has long been predicted by poetic lyric logic. At the beginning of 1927, Mao Zedong, a young man who worked as a producer in the Kuomintang Central Committee, went on a 32-day hiking trip to his hometown in Hunan. Therefore, in the famous investigation report of Hunan peasant movement, the poet who finally subverted the three mountains and the national government was in high spirits.
jade
Overall perception
The Old Horse is an early work of the poet, written in1April, 932. The poet "Old Horse" inherited the tradition of Du Fu's poems about things such as "Thin Horse Step", "Sick Horse" and "Li Gang's Sick Cow", and expressed deep sympathy for China's heavy-duty farmers. From the historical background in the early 1930s, the theme of "Old Horse" is actually a symbol of the sufferings of the ancient Chinese nation and the people of China. China is an agricultural country with a long history of 4,000 years, and 80% of its population is agricultural. Old horse-drawn carts are a common sight in northern rural areas. The poet grasps this common rural scene to symbolize the historical load and suffering of the Chinese nation and the people of China, which makes people think deeply and pay attention to it. Poets always look down, staring at the suffering land of China, staring at the bottom people struggling on the line of death and hunger. His thoughts are not only connected with those of peasants, but also his attitude towards writing poems is peasant-like. His earnest and persistent advocacy of "bitter poetry" is unique in China's modern poetry circle.
This poem is divided into two sections, each with four lines. The first verse of the poem presents the reader with a tragic picture: an aging thin horse, exhausted and uncontrollable. The old horse was forced to bear an unbearable burden and endure it silently without any complaints or protests. Even if "the pressure on his back was buckled into the meat", he just "hung his head heavily". This description vividly shows the tragic situation of the old horse and reveals its indomitable character and slim hope. In the first two lines of the second section, immediately after the end of the first section, it is written that the fate of the old horse is in the hands of the coachman, "I don't know the fate of the next moment", holding back my tears and "swallowing it to my heart". Three or four lines echo the first section. Since the cart is full, as the "owner" of the cart, it is natural to wave a whip and order the old horse to pull the cart to the predetermined destination. When the old horse saw a whip shadow coming, his heavy head hung down and he couldn't help looking forward.
There are eight lines in the poem * * *. Except the first line is about the master's inner world, the other seven lines are all about the old horse: the second line is about the old horse's silent and resigned character; Write three or four lines about the feelings and image of the old horse; The fifth and sixth lines describe the inner activities of the old horse; The seventh and eighth lines describe the expression and image of the whip shadow driving away the old horse.
Problem inquiry
1. What is the symbolic meaning of the old horse in the poem?
Before liberation, there was a mountain on the head of farmers in China, specifically, "famine, exorbitant taxes, soldiers, bandits, officials and gentry", just like an old horse overloaded, the pressure on its back was buckled into the meat. Facing the heavy pressure, the old horse hung his head with tears in his eyes. Obviously, the poet was infected by the peasant character, and the image he created symbolized the out-and-out peasant. In fact, this also limits the connotation of poetry. It should be said that the poet's life and attitude are of universal significance in our country.
The poet himself said, "I wrote about the old horse, and I also wrote many images of the oppressed peasants, in fact, it was myself." In fact, considering the poet's writing background, how can he only write about himself? It can be regarded as an ancient symbol of the sufferings of the Chinese nation and the people of China.
Second, what artistic techniques are mainly used in this poem?
Mainly used the combination of reality and irony and other expressions. For the old horse, adopt a solid writing method and outline the image characteristics of the old horse with a straight line drawing method; For the host, use a virtual writing method, leaving a blank for the reader to imagine. He also used irony appropriately: "The trolley must be full,/it didn't say a word anyway." How much blood and tears are condensed in the first two sentences, and how much resentment.
3. How to understand the sentence "It looks up ahead"?
The last sentence has a pun meaning, which cannot be ignored. Judging from the whip shadow drawn, the so-called "front" is of course the destination that the old horse runs to according to its owner's will, but it also implies that the fate of the old horse will not be dark, but will change.
Language taste
First, simple and colloquial
The poet thinks: "It is difficult to write a poem that everyone can understand and feel good after understanding. It is easy to carve a poem so that you can understand it. " Therefore, his poems are unpretentious, but serious and rigorous, pursuing artistic tempering and forming his own dignified poetic style. Therefore, he is called the "Kuyin School" in new poetry. He said: "I tried to be careful, painstakingly scrutinized and pursued, hoping to put every word in the most suitable place and screw it tightly like a screw." (Postscript to Selected Poems of Cang Kejia) The poem "Old Horse" is extremely simple and full of simple beauty, thus forming its own style and characteristics. For example, the words "always", "no matter what", "the pressure on the back is stuck in the meat" and "if there are tears, you can only swallow them in your heart" in the poem, which is like a farmer pouring out his personal feelings. You can't tell whether this is the language of the farmer or the language of the poet.
Second, carefully scrutinize and brew images.
Cang Kejia's poetry attaches great importance to the refinement and visualization of language, and often devotes himself to a poem or even a word. For example, the verb "buckle" in the poem is vivid and vivid. It not only reminds people of the heavy pressure on horseback, but also shows the strength of this heavy pressure and the progress of slowly pressing it down. If you change the word, it won't be so natural, appropriate and subtle. To give another typical example, in Cang Kejia's another poem "Refugees", there is a sentence that began to be written as "the wings of homing crows are stirred at dusk", later changed to "the wings of homing crows can be recognized at dusk", and finally changed to "the wings of homing crows have not been dissolved at dusk". Regarding the benefits of the word "dissolve", he said: "Please close your eyes and think about such a scene: dusk is hazy and crows are all over the sky. The color of dusk is thick for a while, and the wings of crows are light for a while. In the end, the two gradually became inseparable, as if the crow's black was melted by dusk. " The word "dissolution" vividly describes the scene that the color of dusk is getting thicker and thicker, melting everything.
Third, pay attention to rhythm and rhythm.
Cang Kejia opposed the pursuit of formal neatness in poetry creation and the complete prose culture. On the basis of natural writing, his poems pay attention to rhythm and regard rhyme as "a powerful symbol of emotional position and rhythm return" His poems reflect the natural state of metrical poems. The poem "Old Horse" embodies this point well. "Old Horse" has four sentences in each paragraph, with one or three rhymes and two or four rhymes. It is extremely neat, catchy and full of rhythm. However, the number of words in each line of the poem is not the same, and there is no "word ruler" like Wen Yiduo's poem. The structure and number of words of the poem are constantly adjusted according to the change of feelings, which breaks through the sense of form in Wen Yiduo's poems and makes the metrical poems go natural.
related data
I. Introduction to the author
Cang Kejia (1905—2004) was born in Zhucheng, Shandong. I like classical poetry since I was a child. I have lived in the countryside until 18 years old, and I know more about the tragic situation of farmers. This rural life became the deep foundation of his later creation. 1923 He entered the First Normal School of Shandong Province in Jinan and began to write poems. /kloc-participated in the Northern Expedition in the autumn of 0/926, and fled to other places after the failure of the Great Revolution. 1930 to 1934, studying at Shandong university, was encouraged and helped by Wen Yiduo in the creation of new poems. The first book of poetry, Brand, was published in 1933. Most of it is about rural life and has infinite sympathy for the tragic fate of farmers. It has the characteristics of simplicity, preciseness, implication and conciseness in art, and is deeply loved by Mao Dun, Wen Yiduo and others. Mao Dun once asserted: "Among the current young poets, the author of Brand may be the best among them." Old Horse is selected from this collection of poems. Before the Anti-Japanese War, the poet also had poems such as "The Black Hand of Evil" and "My Portrait". During the Anti-Japanese War, poems such as Joining the Army and Songs of the Earth were published. After the Anti-Japanese War, political satires such as Baby, Zero Life and Winter appeared. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he was the editor-in-chief of Poetry Magazine, and published Selected Poems of Cang Kejia, Random Thoughts on Learning Poetry and Poetry and Life.
Second, the poet's readme (Cang Kejia)
On the surface, these eight-line short poems are about an old horse, which is under pressure and suffering and has to struggle forward under the whip. But almost all readers and commentators of the anthology said that I wrote about the peasants who suffered in the old society. In fact, when I wrote this poem, I didn't intend to use it to symbolize the fate of farmers. I saw such an old horse with my own eyes, and its tragic fate made me deeply sympathetic. If I don't write, I will feel a kind of pressure. 1927 After the failure of the Great Revolution, I totally denied the Chiang Kai-shek regime, but I felt very uncertain about the future of the revolution. Life is bitter, and the mood is gloomy and sad. At this time, the thoughts and feelings are interlinked with the oppressed and suffering peasants, and so are the old horses who "put the pressure on their backs into the meat". So I wrote about the old horse, and I also wrote many images of oppressed farmers, in fact, it was myself. Many ancient poems are lyrical by chanting things, such as Ganges sand, and some are clearly written. Finally, the idea is to write people, such as Bai Juyi's poem "Lingxiaohua". Some chant things from the outside, in fact, they are also used to give full play to the poet's feelings, such as Du Fu's "Thin Horse Walking" and "Sick Horse". When commenting on Du Fu's first poem, Xiao Difei said, "This is a realistic and lyrical work. On the one hand, Du Fu loves horses very much, and on the other hand, this abandoned official horse has something in common with him at this moment, so he borrows horses to pin his sense of life. " Regarding the second poem "Sick Horse", the note reads: "This is also a poem about the object of sustenance, with the author's own shadow." In addition, in the Song Dynasty, Li Gang wrote a famous poem "Sick Cow", which also used a crushed sick cow to express his deep feelings against Jin people's ambition and exile.
I think we can understand my old horse with Du Fu's writing situation and sustenance of thin horse, sick horse and sick cow of Li Gang. The times are different and the feelings are the same. Since we are writing about sick horses, sick cows and old horses, we should first observe them carefully, find out their characteristics, be moved by their images, and give them real and sincere enthusiasm. The author is first moved by the object he writes, and then the poem he writes can be moving. If we just regard them as symbolic diagrams, with themes first and then as specimens, we will definitely not write well and no one will love them. Writing about an old horse is writing about the old horse itself. How readers interpret it is a matter for readers, which varies from person to person. You said that "Old Horse" was about farmers, he said that "Old Horse" had its own shadow, and a third party said that it was about a poor old horse. I think so. Poetry is expensive and implicit, and taste is left to readers to evaluate.