Poetry is known as the crystallization and highest expression of a national culture. At the same time, poetry is also the result of the precipitation of the times and history and culture. Chinese and Western poetry are completely different, reflecting the comprehensive achievements of Chinese and Western culture, art, aesthetics, and literary theory respectively. Comparing Chinese and Western poetry is not only an objective necessity for cultural exchanges, but also a subjective requirement for the research and development of Chinese poetry.
Chinese poetry has always attracted the attention of the world. Refined language and beautiful artistic conception are its iconic features. Western poetry is equally dazzling. We can find many immortal poems handed down from the vast number of poems. do. There are differences between Chinese and Western poetry in many aspects such as style, content, structure, etc., but it is not difficult to find the inextricable inner connections between them.
(1) Preface
Some Western comparative literature researchers once pointed out that the literature of different nations will reach the same destination by different paths in the process of parallel development. This phenomenon is indeed reflected in literary works. Although Chinese and Western poetry have different cultural backgrounds, we can still find shadows of each other in them. Chinese poetry has long been in a leading position in the world. For a long time, Western poetry has been more or less influenced by Chinese poetry. Although China and foreign countries, ancient and modern, have their own systems, they still have certain connections and are not (and cannot be) completely isolated.
We start with Chinese classical poetry and British and American modern poetry, because the influence of Chinese classical poetry on the West began with the English translation of Chinese poetry.
Judging from Ezra Pound's translation of "China" and the translation works of some British and American translators, the artistic conception of Chinese poetry has gradually penetrated into their poetry creation. Chinese poetry has simple words and profound meaning. The characteristics are gradually accepted by them and gradually learned by them. Pound, the famous American Imagist poet, once said that the discovery of a "New Greece" in Chinese literature launched a new "Renaissance". Chinese classical poetry not only affects their creations, but also affects their poetry creation theories.
Because ancient Chinese is a language without word ending changes, it does not have obvious changes in person, number and tense like English, and its expression is not as precise as Western languages, so Chinese is more ambiguous. More subtle. Amy Lowell once said: "Implicitness is one of the things we learned from the East." The distinctive feature of Chinese classical poetry is its simplicity and concreteness. This requires the poet to have the talent of concise writing and implicit expression. On the other hand, vivid imagery and paintings within poems, which are a major feature of Chinese classical poetry, are also integrated into their creations. The result of this kind of reference is the emergence of "Han style poetry". The poems of Li Bai, Du Fu, Bai Juyi, Wang Wei, Li Shangyin, and Li He and the lyrics of Li Qingzhao, Liu Yong, and Li Yu are most translated by British and American translators. Their creative techniques have had a great influence on modern British and American poets. The thoughts of Buddhism and Laoism circulated in our country, as well as the thoughts of escaping reality and improving oneself, are also deeply embedded in their poetry creation. A poem by Bly called "Thinking of
(2) Similarities
Chinese classical poetry is characterized by concise words, implicit artistic conception, integration of poetry and painting, and vivid images, which are integrated into the poetry creations of modern British and American poets in communication. , let’s first compare the following two poems:
Drinking
(Jin Dynasty) Tao Yuanming
The house is in a human environment, without the noise of cars and horses. When I ask you how you can do it, your mind is far away and you are biased. Picking chrysanthemums under the eastern fence, you can leisurely see the Nanshan Mountain. The mountain air is getting better day by day and the birds are flying back and forth. There is a true meaning in this, but I have forgotten to explain it.
Innesflee
(Ireland) William Burroughs Yeats
I am about to leave for Innesflee Lee Island;
Put up a small house and build a mud house;
Put up a few rows of cloud bean racks and a row of honey nests,
alone Stay and listen to the bees singing under the shade.
I will find peace, which descends slowly,
From the morning mist to the place where the crickets sing;
There is a bright light at midnight, and a bright light at noon Purple light,
The wings of cardinals are flying everywhere in the evening.
I am about to leave, because I hear,
The sound of water lapping at the lakeside day and night;
No matter where I stand in the car, The street or the gray sidewalk,
I hear this voice deep in my soul. ①
We can see from the two poems above that the artistic conception and wording of the two are very similar. "Making a house" is exactly the same as "building a house", and "picking chrysanthemums" is similar to "planting beans". , Beekeeping" have the same tune but the same purpose. The artistic conception of "Mountain Qi" and the middle four sentences of the latter song can completely complement each other. What the two poets want to express is to leave this world full of pain and live a paradise-like life. They express the thoughts of tranquility and far-reaching and the true meaning of staying away from the hustle and bustle. In terms of writing techniques, both of them use an artistic technique that is almost line drawing, without adding subjective color. They describe the scenery objectively and truly, and express their feelings straightforwardly.
This can at least prove that there is great compatibility between Chinese and Western cultures.
The elegant, free and easy artistic conception expressed in the two poems is common in classical poetry and British and American modern poetry, from Li Bai's "laughing but not answering, the heart is at ease" to Du Fu's "Long live the fame, the loneliness behind you" "Things." There are many more examples, and there are many examples in modern British and American poetry. For example, T. S. Eliot's famous poem "The Waste Land" is a good example, which fully expresses this artistic conception. .
In terms of artistic expression techniques, the two also have many similarities. The biggest characteristic of Chinese classical poetry is that it is implicit, vivid and concise. The atmosphere can be set off with only a few numbers, and the artistic conception can be expressed with just a few words. The creation of modern British and American poetry shows the characteristics of being implicit, dignified, concentrated, and full of emotion, which is closely related to the influence of China on their poetry theory. Even some expression methods are basically the same. Ezra Pound's two-line short poem "In a Metro Station", which is famous in Western poetry circles, is implicit, concise, and endlessly memorable:
These faces emerge from the crowd
The petals of flowers on the wet black tree trunks
This is roughly the same as the artistic conception of the classical Chinese "Peach Blossoms on Human Faces", "Willows with Green Silk", and "Pear Blossoms with Rain", reflecting the cultural exchanges between China and the West. result. But the author personally believes that the artistic conception expressed by these metaphors in Western poetry is not as beautiful and imaginative as that in China. The poem vividly reproduces the scene of those beautiful faces emerging in the crowd, but it lacks a space for people's thoughts to fly, and the language also lacks beauty. This is related to the different forms of thinking between China and the West, which this article will discuss later.
(3) Differences
Comparison can reveal the personality and personality. Although Chinese and Western poetry can find a certain origin or prove the connection and influence between the two, it is not difficult to find the differences between the two in comparison. This huge difference is caused by their different natures and different forms of thinking.
Chinese poetry is good at describing scenes and expressing emotions, using scenery to set off the atmosphere or create artistic conception, while British and American poetry focuses on describing the reactions that scenery evokes in people's hearts, thereby expressing their own subjective consciousness. This is a difference caused by the different thinking modes of the two. Chinese people pay attention to expression, while Westerners pay attention to reproduction. The poetic literary theory and poetry creation developed under the command of this thinking mode are naturally very different. The East, represented by China, has formed the theory of artistic conception and enlightenment, while the West has formed the theory of typicality. Therefore, Chinese poetry pays more attention to the creation of a kind of artistic conception, pursuing the effect of saying all the words but leaving the meaning unfinished, making people feel Infinite space for reverie, the emergence of this kind of poetry is because the traditional way of thinking in ancient China is the perceptive and intuitive way of thinking. Even now, Chinese people still pursue the creation of artistic conception when writing poetry. If it is too plain, it will be meaningless. Of course, the works of some contemporary new and new human writers pursue a kind of directness, which is another matter and cannot be generalized. , after all, these people do not represent the mainstream of Chinese poetry creation.
Chinese poetry pays attention to subtlety, and its beauty is blandness, while British and American poetry is more unrestrained, and its emotional excitement is its victory. A very prominent example is the treatment of love, where the characteristics of Chinese and Western poetry can be fully reflected. Chinese poets describe love as "on their brows, but in their hearts" and never express that kind of love, while Western poets will shout, "You are my sun, and the fire of love burns my whole body." This kind of outspokenness in China It is difficult for people to accept it. The essence of the difference lies in their different aesthetic orientations.
In addition, Chinese poetry is mostly about praise, while British and American modern poetry is mostly about revelation. Chinese poetry either expresses one's ambitions based on objects, or expresses one's emotions through scenery. The poet's emotions are always buried in the poems. Only through "perception" can one feel their beauty. The most prominent example is Ma Zhiyuan's "Tianjingsha·Autumn Thoughts" , he hardly used a word to express emotion, but simply arranged "withered vines", "old trees" and "dark crows" together, and outlined a desolate and lonely scene with just a few strokes. The following two sentences Seven kinds of still lifes are arranged in one place, but they appropriately exaggerate the lonely and bleak atmosphere. "The sunset" paints the whole picture with a layer of dim color, and the last stroke brings out "The heartbroken man is at the end of the world." , it feels like there is no direct connection between the front and back, but the emotions are coherent and the thoughts are coherent. The reader reads it in one breath, as if he is the wanderer in the painting painted by the poet, which arouses a strong excitement. However, the juxtaposition of ten still lifes, although without any subjective feelings, expresses a lonely and desolate feeling more strongly than any number of words. This is the charm of Chinese classical poetry. In contrast, modern British and American poetry emphasizes writing about the psychology of abnormal people in capitalist society. It expresses the poet's meaning more directly and expresses his heart directly without any pretense. It is relatively smaller, but it is more in line with the psychological characteristics and thinking characteristics of Westerners.
(4) Analysis of differences
As mentioned above, the different forms of thinking between China and the West cause cultural differences. What factors cause the differences in thinking? This is a The author really cannot answer the questions that even scientists are studying. I can only superficially analyze the manifestations of differences in thinking.
Different from Western commercial and open societies that emphasize the clarity of concepts and categories, the logic of analysis and induction, and the highly abstract way of thinking, China has already formed a perception as early as the pre-Qin period. Intuitive way of thinking. The former holds the philosophical view of "the separation of nature and man" and emphasizes the opposition between man and nature, so it strives to clarify the internal connections and logical relationships of things; the latter holds the philosophical view of "the unity of nature and man" and emphasizes unity, wholeness and intuition. It is a typical way of "observing things by things", which is obviously different from the Western way of "observing things by myself". This results in ambiguous semantics, which makes it difficult to analyze and study. We can only rely on perception to understand the meaning, and there is no precise scale to measure its meaning. For example, the first sentence of the opening chapter of "Laozi": "Tao can be Tao, but it is not Tao; names can be named, but they are not names." The meaning of "Tao" has always been controversial, and there is no suitable word that can express its meaning in translation. The word can only be represented by "dao", which is a typical product of intuitive thinking. After this kind of intuitive thinking rises to rationality, it still remains inseparable from sensibility. When it is applied to literature, especially poetry creation, it will produce a series of unique concepts, such as character, elegance, masculinity, etc. It is not like the West that first clearly defines the concept, goes through the reasoning process, and then constructs a theoretical system. It originated from perceptual experience. After understanding, it became a convention and was gradually developed and improved through subsequent use. It has the characteristics of combining concrete and abstract, experience and generalization. ②
In the long-term cognitive activities, China has formed a tradition of using simple dialectics to observe things, and a corresponding dialectical way of thinking, which is reflected in literature by not only attaching great importance to and revealing the inner connection between literature and society. , and can also reveal the laws of literature itself.
Under the influence of this kind of thinking, Chinese poetry creation places special emphasis on the word "enlightenment". "Enlightenment" has become the highest state of poetry creation. "Enlightenment" often brings about a stroke of genius. It does not necessarily have a direct logical connection with the above, but it is emotionally coherent. This writing method is the product of intuitive thinking, and it creates the unique beauty of Chinese poetry. Du Fu has a poem that highlights this feature.
The moon on the boat is close to the temple
(Tang Dynasty) Du Fu
The deeper the moon is, the brighter the boat is. Outside the golden temple, there are green maples, and there are red towers and white waterside. The crows crow in the city, and the wild herons stay in the city. The leader of the rivers and lakes is a guest, and the hook curtain alone is not sleeping.
Although only the last two sentences of the whole poem express the poet's feelings, the scenery in the front pave the way for the coherence of the feelings that follow, exaggerate the atmosphere, and make the poet's feelings revealed in the poem in one go. Produce a sense of abruptness. In ancient Chinese poetry, these works can be found everywhere and are a major feature of Chinese poetry. On the other hand, Western poetry rarely adopts this method. The reason is due to the different thinking modes between China and the West.
(5) Post-discussion
The famous American scientific philosophers Kuhn and Faye Abend proposed a principle of incommensurability, which believes that various chains in the history of science are incommensurable, that is, there are almost no divisors. This principle is used in the study of modern human culture to draw this conclusion: people living in different cultural backgrounds face different worlds, see different things, have different experiences, and propose and solve problems. Different questions. ③We got inspiration from this: When comparing literary works and literary theories produced in different cultural soils and different national cultural deposits, a so-called neutral standard should not be established to judge their social and aesthetic values. The purpose of cultural comparison is to clearly understand problems and improve oneself, not to overthrow or deny one party.
There is also the issue of the status of local culture and foreign culture in communication.
There are great differences in aesthetic habits and tendencies between China and the West, which are related to the social and cultural background, cultural atmosphere and national thinking of each nation. It is impossible for any thing from another nation to not mutate completely when it enters a strange nation. This mutation is not only a necessary condition for its integration into the culture of other nations, but also the result of its own development and absorption. There are two results of this mutation: one is the elimination of other cultures, especially the culture of backward ethnic groups, and the other is the combination of the two, and finally they merge into one, with me in you and you in me. The former phenomenon often occurred in ancient China, but in modern times, as the cultural accumulation of each nation has accumulated to a certain extent, the latter situation is commonplace, and the trend of world cultural exchanges also objectively requires the integration of different cultures. . It is worth noting that this kind of cultural integration does not come at the expense of the elimination of one side's culture. After all, the development of each nation has gone through thousands of years of history. The phenomenon of eliminating culture is impossible. The argument for cultural integration is It is impossible to establish, because the incommensurability of cultural existence determines the personality of culture. To be more extreme, we might as well put forward this argument: cultural integration equals no culture and eliminates culture. It is really difficult for us to imagine what it would be like for all the nations in the world to have only one culture. The emergence, development and even death of each culture are governed by objective laws. If it is forced by non-objective means, The eradication of a culture must be punished. This lesson is profound in Chinese and foreign history.
Therefore, we cannot put forward simple requirements for integration. The exchange between China and the West cannot be aimed at eliminating a culture, otherwise we and our nation will surely regret it.
By comparing Chinese and Western poetry, it is impossible for us to draw conclusions about who is better and who is not. The culture of each nation and each region has its own characteristics. There are only differences in culture, not advantages and disadvantages. . Our poetry has made us and even future generations proud for a long time, but the development of poetry is not transferred by human will. Being proud does not mean that we can rest on our laurels. Only by continuous improvement and development can our poetry and our literature Only then can we develop in a better direction.
In addition, China pays attention to structure, form and rhythm, while the West pays attention to content and often uses symbolic techniques
In terms of aesthetic effects, China pays attention to the hazy artistic conception of holding flowers and smiling, and the United States and the West pay attention to exposing the * in life. **Express your feelings with the same pleasure experience