In the first sentence of the poem "Burying Flowers", some versions read "Flowers bloom and flowers fly all over the sky", while others read "Flowers bloom and flowers fly all over the sky", so there is a difference between "Flowers fly all over the sky" and "Flying all over the sky". Why are the words of the poems different? There is only one word difference between the two poems. Is there any difference in art? If so, which sentence is better? I don't want to be humble here, but I would like to share my humble opinion with you, so as to gain the opportunity to learn from you in reading the poems of A Dream of Red Mansions.
In 1982, A Dream of Red Mansions was published by People's Literature Publishing House, which was the proofreading version of The Dream of Red Mansions Institute of Chinese Academy of Art. The poem was "Flowers bloom and flowers fly all over the sky", while the poem was "Flowers bloom and flowers fly all over the sky" according to A Dream of Red Mansions compiled and published by Cheng Yiben.
Cai Yijiang's Commentary on Poems and Songs of A Dream of Red Mansions is also written as "Flowers fade and flowers fly all over the sky". There are notes in the book that explain:
Flying all over the sky: Geng Chen wrote "Flowers are all over the sky", but a closer look at the word "flowers" is a later change; The original copy is two dots, which means the same as the last word "fly". Therefore, from Jiaxu and Qixu.
This shows that in fact, not only the Jiaxu edition and the Qixu edition are "flowers and flowers flying all over the sky", but Geng Chen's edition should also be "flowers and flowers flying all over the sky". It's not that the fat review is "flowers bloom all over the sky", but Cheng Gaoben is "flowers bloom all over the sky". Who is the later reviser of Geng Chenben in Cai Yijiang's book? Cai Yijiang didn't say it, and I naturally don't know. In the book, Cai Yijiang didn't say that "flowers are flying all over the sky" is not good, but he changed this sentence to "flowers are flying all over the sky" according to Jiaqu and Qi Xuben in the book, which not only shows that he respects the manuscript of A Dream of Red Mansions, but also shows that he prefers the poem "flowers are flying all over the sky". But in my opinion, this later reviser changed the word "two dots" of the word "flying" to the word "flower", so the poem changed from the original "flowers flying all over the sky" to "flowers flying all over the sky". Perhaps he is not very clever in character recognition, but I think it is a very artistic move, which naturally makes people admire his artistic perception ability and certain artistic creation ability.
if you carefully taste and ponder, especially in terms of artistry, I think there is still a certain difference between "flowers blooming all over the sky" and "flowers blooming all over the sky", that is, "flowers blooming all over the sky" is higher than "flowers blooming all over the sky". The reasons for this are as follows!
from the visual description of things in the poem, "flowers fade and flowers fly all over the sky" and "fly" are verbs, which emphasize the dynamic falling of spring flowers and describe the scene of flowers dying and petals flying all over the sky, with dynamic narration, but the image itself is not strong and it is not easy for people to trigger more artistic associations. Although the meaning of "flowers flying all over the sky" is not much different from that of "flowers flying all over the sky", "flower" is a noun, which refers to the flower itself, which is an image, so it has become a kind of image from a general dynamic description of "flying", which has a strong image in itself, and the image of falling flowers can be highlighted, and the image of poems is stronger.
In terms of the logic of the word structure of the poem, in the poem "Flowers thank and flowers fly all over the sky", "Flowers thank and flowers fly" is a big joint structural phrase composed of two small subject-predicate structural phrases, while "Flying all over the sky" only takes care of "flowers fly" but can't take care of "flowers thank", so the word "Xie" of "flowers thank" has no landing. However, "flowers fade and flowers fly all over the sky" makes the poem consistent, and there is no problem of poor care before and after. Moreover, the words "flowers fade", "flowers fly" and "flowers are all over the sky" are all subject-predicate structures, and they all talk about "flowers" themselves, highlighting the image of "flowers", which is coherent in meaning and in one go, without any gap.
if we look at the causal relationship of things again, we also feel that "flowers are blooming all over the sky" is more complete, accurate and detailed than "flowers are blooming all over the sky". It is the cause of things, but it is the result of things. It is precisely because of the cause of flowers and flowers that flowers and flies first that the result of flowers and flies all over the sky will appear later. It is very natural and logical for readers to understand the meaning of the poem at once. Let's look at "Flowers bloom and flowers fly all over the sky". Although we can also understand it as the result of "flying all over the sky" caused by "flowers bloom and flowers fly", the poem emphasizes "flying" and "flying all over the sky" is a supplement to the verb "flying", so this result is far less natural, smoother and more imaginative than "flying all over the sky".
If we pay attention to the aesthetic feeling formed by the arrangement of words in poems, it is also that "flowers are blooming all over the sky" is better than "flowers are blooming all over the sky". In the poem "Flowers thank flowers and fly all over the sky", the word formation methods of "Flowers thank flowers and fly all over the sky" are inconsistent. "Flowers thank flowers and fly" is a combination of "Flowers thank" and "Flowers fly", both of which are subject-predicate phrases, and "Xie" and "Fei" are flowers. However, the appearance of "flying all over the sky" has caused inconsistent phenomena in the middle of the poem, because "flying all over the sky" is a verb and a predicate, and "flying all over the sky" has become the complement of "flying". Obviously, the arrangement and combination of words in the whole poem are not harmonious enough, and the aesthetic feeling is naturally discounted. While "Flowers are blooming all over the sky" is a sentence composed of three phrases with subject-predicate structure. The three words "flowers" are arranged neatly and appear in turn, and the form is very beautiful. As the predicate of "flowers", "all over the sky" is arranged together with the previous "thanks" and "flying", showing the beauty of change and the sense of agility.
In terms of the simplification of words used in poems, the author thinks that "flowers are blooming all over the sky" is better than "flowers are blooming all over the sky". There is already a word "fly" in "Flower Xie Hua Fei", and then there is another word "fly" in "flying all over the sky", which leads to the repetition of the use of words, which is unnecessary, because the amount of information in the poem has not increased. However, the words "flowers fade and flowers fly all over the sky" and "fly" only appear once, and the language is extremely concise, without any redundancy, but the amount of information is still great. Especially in "Flowers fade, flowers fly all over the sky", the word "flower" appears three times, not only without a sense of verbosity and repetition, but also with the repetition of words here, forming a positive rhetoric in language, which not only creates the aesthetic feeling of word arrangement and combination, but also achieves the sad style of poetic language, which further sets off the sad mood of the lyric protagonist Lin Daiyu.
Cai Yijiang thought in Comments on Poems, Songs and Fu of A Dream of Red Mansions that "the flowers are flying all over the sky, but the fragrance disappears when it is red" may be inspired by Li He's "Flying fragrance is popular all over the sky in spring", which is very insightful. In the poem "Fei Xiang is popular all over the sky in spring", Li He is also the reason for the first half sentence "Fei Xiang is popular" and the result for the second half sentence "Man Tian Chun". In the two poems of "Flowers bloom and flowers fly all over the sky" and "Flowers bloom and flowers fly all over the sky" in Lin Daiyu's "Burying Flowers", the feeling is that "Flowers bloom and flowers fly all over the sky" is closer to Li He's "Flying fragrance becomes popular all over the sky in spring". Li He's poems are similar to those in which "flying incense is popular all over the sky in spring", and the famous sentence in "March", which is also the reason for writing the first half of the sentence and the result of writing the second half. These may also be an indirect reason why we say that "flowers bloom all over the sky" is better than "flowers bloom all over the sky" Aside from the comparison between the words "flowers blossom and flowers fly all over the sky" and "flowers blossom and flowers fly all over the sky", we can also see that Cao Xueqin deliberately passed on the words of Li He's poems when he wrote poems for Lin Daiyu in A Dream of Red Mansions.