China's classical poems are characterized by conciseness, implicit artistic conception, unity of poetry and painting, and vivid images, and they are integrated into the poetry creation of modern British and American poets in communication. Let's compare the following two poems first:
Drink wine/alcohol
(Jin) Tao Yuanming
Building a house is under human conditions, without the noise of horses and chariots. When you ask him what he can do, you are far away from yourself. Picking chrysanthemums under the east fence, you can see Nanshan leisurely. The mountains are getting better and better, and the birds are back. There is a real meaning in this, but I have forgotten what I want to demonstrate.
Innasfri i.
William Burroughs Ye Zhi (Irish)
I'm going to Bali, Indonesia.
Build a small house and a mud house;
Set several rows of bean racks and a row of honey nests,
Living alone, listening to bees singing in the shade.
I will find peace, it will slowly fall,
From the fog to the place where crickets sing;
Sunny at midnight, purple at noon,
In the evening, the cardinals' wings are flying everywhere.
I'm leaving, because I heard,
The sound of water beats against the lake day and night;
Whether I'm standing in the driveway or on a dark sidewalk,
Everyone heard the voice in his heart.
As can be seen from the above two poems, their artistic conception and words are very similar. "Building a house" is exactly the same as "building a house", "picking chrysanthemums" is similar to "planting beans and keeping bees", and the artistic conception of "Shan Ye flavor" and the middle four sentences of the latter poem can completely complement each other. What the two poets want to express is to leave this painful world of mortals and live a paradise-like life. It shows the quiet and far-reaching thought and the true meaning of staying away from the hubbub. From the point of view of brushwork, both of them adopted the artistic technique of almost sketching, described the scenery objectively and truly without subjective color, and were outspoken. This can at least prove that there is * * * commonality between Chinese and western cultures.
The artistic conception of the two poems is elegant and free, both in classical poetry and modern British and American poetry. From Li Bai's "laughing without answering his heart" to Du Fu's "fame for a thousand years, fame for ten thousand years, what's good about it? When you die, it's gone." There are many such examples in modern British and American poetry, such as T·S· Eliot's famous poem The Waste Land, which fully shows such artistic conception.
There are many similarities between them in artistic expression. The greatest feature of China's classical poetry is its implication and vividness. Only a few characters can set off the atmosphere, and only a few words can express the artistic conception. The characteristics of implicit, dignified, concentrated and full of emotion in modern British and American poetry creation have much to do with China's influence on his poetry theory, and even some expressions are basically the same. Ezra Pound's fame shocked two major western poetry circles.
These faces suddenly appeared in the crowd.
Petals on a wet black trunk
This is roughly the same as the artistic conception of China's classical "Peach Blossoms Set each other off in Red", "Willow Silk" and "Pear Flowers Bring Rain", which reflects the result of cultural exchange between China and the West. But I personally think that the artistic conception expressed by these metaphors in western poetry is not as beautiful as China's, so it is imaginative. Poetry vividly reproduces the scenes where beautiful faces emerge in the crowd, but it lacks a space and language for people to fly in the sky.
(3) Difference
In contrast, you can see both * * * and personality. Although Chinese and western poetry can find a certain source or prove the connection and influence between them, it is not difficult to find the difference between them in comparison. This huge difference is caused by their different nature and different thinking forms.
China's poems are good at describing scenery, expressing feelings, setting off the atmosphere or creating artistic conception, while British and American poems focus on describing the reaction caused by scenery in people's hearts, thus expressing people's subjective consciousness. This is the difference caused by their different thinking modes. China people pay attention to expression, while westerners pay attention to reproduction. The theory of poetry literature developed under the command of this way of thinking is naturally quite different from the theory of poetry creation. China as the representative of the East formed the theory of artistic conception and the theory of enlightenment. The west has formed a typical theory, so China's poems pay more attention to the creation of an artistic conception, and pursue inexhaustible effects, which gives people unlimited room for daydreaming. This kind of poem appeared because the traditional way of thinking in ancient China was intuitive. Even now, China people still pursue the creation of artistic conception when writing poems. Too white makes no sense. Of course, it is another matter for some contemporary new human writers to pursue straightforward style.
China's poems are subtle, while British and American poems are bold and unrestrained, winning by emotional agitation. A prominent example is the handling of love, and the characteristics of Chinese and western poetry can be fully reflected here. China poets describe love as "only frowning, but taking it to heart" and never express that kind of love, while western poets will shout "You are my sun, and the fire of love makes me anxious." This outspoken China man.
In addition, China's poems mainly praise, while modern British and American poems mainly reveal. China's poems always bury the poet's feelings in his poems, and only "emotion" can feel its beauty. The most prominent example is Ma Zhiyuan's Tianjingsha Qiu Si. He hardly used a word to express his feelings, but only used a few strokes of "dead vine" and "old tree" to outline a desolate and lonely scene. The last two sentences list seven kinds of still life, but they properly render the lonely and desolate atmosphere. "Sunset" painted the whole picture with a layer of yellow, and the last stroke brought out "heartbroken people are at the end of the world". It seems that there is no direct connection, but the feelings are coherent and the ideas are coherent. Readers can read it all at once. Aroused a strong * * * sound. The juxtaposition of ten kinds of still life, though without any subjective feelings, strongly expresses a lonely and sad feeling than any other language, which is the charm of China's classical poetry. In contrast, modern British and American poetry emphasizes the psychology of grotesque people in capitalist society, and expresses the poet's meaning more directly, without any affectation, and also expresses what he wants to say.
variation analysis
In the above article, it is mentioned that different ways of thinking between China and the West lead to cultural differences. What causes the difference in thinking? This is a problem that even scientists are studying. The author really can't answer, and can only analyze the manifestations of thinking differences from the surface.
Different from the western business and open society, which pay attention to the clarity of concepts and categories, the logic of analysis and induction, and the abstract way of thinking, China formed a perceptual and intuitive way of thinking as early as the pre-Qin period. The former holds the philosophical view of "the separation of man and nature" and emphasizes the opposition between man and nature, so he tries to clarify the internal connection and logical relationship of things. The latter holds the philosophical view of "harmony between man and nature", emphasizing unity, integrity and intuitive grasp, while ignoring precise and abstract logical analysis and induction. It is a typical way of "looking at things with things", which is obviously different from the way of "looking at things with me" in the west. As a result, it is difficult to analyze and study, and the meaning can only be understood by feeling, and there is no precise scale to measure it. The meaning of "Tao" has been controversial for a long time. We can't find a suitable word to express its meaning in translation, so we have to use "Tao" to express it, which is a typical product of intuitive thinking. After this intuitive thinking rises to rationality, it is still inseparable from sensibility. When it is applied to literature, especially poetry creation, it will produce a series of unique concepts. Such as style, elegance, masculinity and so on. Unlike in the west, the concept is clearly defined first, and then the theoretical system is built through the process of reasoning. It originated from perceptual experience, was perceived and then established, and gradually developed and improved in the past and future, with the characteristics of combining concreteness with abstraction and combining experience with generalization.
In the long-term cognitive activities, China has formed the tradition of observing things with simple dialectics and the corresponding dialectical way of thinking, which is embodied in literature, not only attaching importance to and revealing the internal relationship between literature and society, but also revealing the laws of literature itself.
Under the influence of this thought, China put special emphasis on the word "enlightenment" in his poetry creation, and "epiphany" became the highest realm of poetry creation. "Enlightenment" often brings a stroke of genius, which is not necessarily directly related to the above, but emotionally coherent. This way of writing is the product of intuitive thinking, which has created the unique beauty of China's poems. A poem by Du Fu can highlight this feature.
Zhou Yue dui yi Jin Dian
Du Fu (Tang Dynasty)
Deeper than a candle, the moon shines and the boat shines. Outside the golden palace, beside the white water of the bamboo house. The city is full of birds, and wild herons stay in Juanjuan.
Although there are only the last two sentences in the poem to express the poet's feelings, the scenery in front paves the way for the continuation of the feelings behind, rendering the atmosphere, so that the poet's feelings can be achieved in one go in the poem, and there will be no sudden feeling. In China's ancient poems, these works abound, which is a major feature of China's poems. In contrast, western poetry rarely uses this way, which is caused by the different ways of thinking between China and the West.
(v) After discussion
Kuhn and Fay Abend, famous American philosophers of science, put forward an incommensurable principle, which holds that all chains in the history of science are incommensurable, that is, there is almost no divisor. This principle is used in the study of modern human culture, and the conclusion is that people living in different cultural backgrounds face different worlds, see different things and experience different things. Ask and solve different problems. We get the enlightenment from it: literary works and literary theories produced in different cultural soils and different national cultures should not establish a so-called neutral standard to judge their social and aesthetic values in comparison. The purpose of cultural comparison is to recognize the problems and improve ourselves, rather than knocking down one side and denying the other.
There is also the status of local culture and foreign culture in communication.
There are great differences between Chinese and western aesthetic habits and tendencies, which are related to the social and cultural background, cultural atmosphere and national thinking of all ethnic groups. When something from any other nation enters a strange nation, it is impossible not to mutate completely. This variation is not only a necessary condition for its integration into other national cultures, but also the result of its own development and absorption. There are two results of this mutation: one is to destroy other cultures, especially those of backward ethnic groups, and the other is to combine the two and finally merge into one. You have me and I have you. In ancient China, the former phenomenon often occurred, but in modern times, due to the cultural accumulation of various ethnic groups to a certain extent, the latter situation is common, and the trend of world cultural exchange objectively requires the integration of different cultures. It is worth noting that this cultural integration is not at the expense of destroying a culture. After all, the development of every nation has gone through thousands of years. It is impossible to eliminate cultural phenomena, and the argument of cultural integration cannot be established, because the incommensurability of cultural existence determines the personality of culture. To the extreme, we might as well put forward the argument that cultural integration is equal to no culture and culture is destroyed. It is really hard for us to imagine what kind of scene there is only one culture for all nationalities in the world, and the emergence, development and even extinction of each culture are dominated by objective laws. If a culture is forcibly destroyed by non-objective means, it will inevitably be punished. This lesson is not profound in Chinese and foreign history. Therefore, we cannot simply ask for integration. The purpose of communication between China and the West cannot be to destroy a culture, otherwise we will regret ourselves and our nation.
Comparing Chinese and western poetry, we can't come to the conclusion that who is good and who is bad. Every nation and every region has its own characteristics, only cultural differences, but there are some things that we and future generations are proud of. However, the development of poetry does not depend on human will. Pride does not mean that we can rest on our laurels. Only by constantly improving and developing our poetry can our literature develop in a better direction.
In addition, China's emphasis on structure, form and rhythm, and the West's emphasis on content are often symbolic.
From the perspective of aesthetic effect, China pays attention to the hazy beauty of artistic conception before flowers and under the moon, while the West pays attention to revealing the same pleasant experience in life and directly expressing her feelings.