Whenever we miss our hometown, we always have to inadvertently say: "Look up at the bright moon and lower your head to miss your hometown" to express our homesickness.
Thoughts on a Quiet Night
Dynasty: Tang Dynasty
Author: Li Bai
There was bright moonlight in front of the bed, suspected to be frost on the ground.
Look up at the bright moon and lower your head to think about your hometown.
Creation background
Li Bai's poem "Silent Night Thoughts" was written around the fifteenth day of the ninth month of the lunar calendar in 726 AD (the fourteenth year of the Kaiyuan reign of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty). Li Bai was 26 years old at the time, and he was writing in a hotel in Yangzhou at that time. His poem "Traveling on an Autumn Evening" should be regarded as a sequel to "Thoughts on a Quiet Night", and was written at the same time and in the same place. Li Bai looked up at the bright moon in the sky on a starry night. Feeling homesick, he wrote this famous poem "Thoughts on a Quiet Night" that has been passed down through the ages and is well-known at home and abroad.
Appreciation
This poem writes about the feeling of missing hometown on a silent moonlit night.
The first two sentences of the poem describe the poet's momentary illusion in the specific environment of visiting a foreign country. For a person who lives alone in a foreign country, running around and busy during the day can dilute the sorrow of separation. However, in the dead of night, waves of longing for his hometown will inevitably arise in his heart. What's more, it's a moonlit night, let alone an autumn night with a frosty moonlight. "Suspicion" is the word "suspect" in the frost on the ground, which vividly expresses the poet's confusion when he wakes up from sleep, mistaking the cold moonlight shining in front of the bed for the thick frost covering the ground. The word "frost" is used better. It not only describes the brightness of the moonlight, but also expresses the coldness of the season. It also highlights the loneliness and desolation of the poet wandering in a foreign country.
The last two sentences of the poem deepen the homesickness through the depiction of movements and expressions. The word "hope" echoes the word "suspense" in the previous sentence, indicating that the poet has turned from daze to wakefulness. He stared at the moon eagerly and couldn't help but think that his hometown was also under the shining of this bright moon at this moment. So it naturally leads to the conclusion of "bow down and miss my hometown". ?Lowering his head? This action depicts the poet completely in deep contemplation. And the word "sitting" leaves readers with rich imagination: the fathers and brothers, relatives and friends in the hometown, the mountains, rivers, plants and trees in the hometown, the lost years and past events are all in my mind. The content contained in one word "thinking" is really too rich.
Hu Yinglin, a scholar of the Ming Dynasty, said: "The quatrains in Taibai are all made up of words. It is said that there is no intention to work but nothing is not done." ?(Volume 6 of "Shisou? Internal Edition") Wang Shimao believes: ?(quatrains) In the prosperous Tang Dynasty, Qinglian (Li Bai) and Longbiao (Wang Changling) were the two most accomplished. Li Gengzi, his former residence is Wangshang. ("Remnants from the Art Garden") What is "natural"? What is "unintentional work but all work"? This song "Quiet Night Thoughts" is an example. So Hu specially brought it up and said it was "wonderful in ancient and modern times".
This little poem has neither strange and novel imagination, nor sophisticated and beautiful rhetoric; it only uses a narrative tone to write about the homesickness of distant visitors, but it is meaningful, thought-provoking, and countless It has attracted readers for many years.
Anyone visiting a foreign country will probably have this feeling: it’s fine during the day, but in the dead of night, homesickness will inevitably arise in the heart; let alone a moonlit night , let alone an autumn night when the moon is bright and frosty!
The white moon and clear frost are the scene of a clear autumn night; describing the moonlight with the color of frost is also often seen in classical poetry. For example, Emperor Wen of the Liang Dynasty Xiao Gang's poem "Enjoying the Coolness in Xuanpu" contains the sentence "The night moon is like autumn frost"; and Zhang Ruoxu, a poet of the Tang Dynasty who was slightly earlier than Li Bai, wrote "Spring River Flower Moonlight Night" with the sentence "The frost is flowing in the sky without noticing it" Flying to write about the clear and clear moonlight, it gives people a three-dimensional sense, especially the wonderful conception. But these all appear in poetry as a rhetorical device. The suspicion of this poem is that there is frost on the ground. It is a narrative rather than an imitation of an object. It is an illusion that the poet had in a specific environment for a moment. Why is there such an illusion? It is not difficult to imagine that these two sentences describe the scene of being unable to fall asleep late at night in the guest house and having the first short dream. The courtyard was lonely at this time, and the bright moonlight through the window shone in front of the bed, bringing the cold autumn night chill. The poet took a hazy first glance, and in his confused mood, it really seemed as if the ground was covered with a layer of thick white frost; but when he took a closer look, the surrounding environment told him that this was not frost marks but moonlight. The moonlight inevitably attracted him to look up and see a round of beautiful flowers hanging in front of the window. The space in the autumn night was so clear! At this time, he was completely awake.
The autumn moon is exceptionally bright, but it is also cold. For travelers who are far away alone, it is most likely to trigger the nostalgia for travel, making people feel that the guest situation is bleak and time is fleeting. Staring at the moon is also the easiest way for people to have reverie, thinking of everything in their hometown and their relatives at home. Thinking, thinking, his head gradually lowered, completely immersed in contemplation.
From "doubting" to "raising head", from "raising head" to "lowering head", vividly reveals the inner activities of the poet, and vividly outlines a vivid picture of homesickness on a moonlit night.
A short four-line poem, written in a fresh and simple way, as clear as words. Its content is simple, but at the same time it is rich. It is easy to understand, but it is difficult to appreciate. What the poet does not say is much more than what he has said. Its conception is meticulous and profound, but it is also composed without any trace. From here, it is not difficult for readers to understand the "naturalness" of Li Bai's quatrains, the wonderful state of "no intention of work but no lack of work".