The poet quoted six lines from the old work The Sun as the prelude to this long poem, which is often ignored by readers and literary critics, but I think it has a far-reaching influence that cannot be ignored. It is this 1937 spring "sun" that the author predicted the charming scene of the coming sunrise: "Let life breathe/let tall trees dance for it/let rivers run towards it with crazy songs." "When it came, I heard/the insects and pupae that had been stung in winter were going underground/people were talking loudly in the square ... so my heart was torn open by the hand of fire/the stale soul was abandoned by the river/I was sure that human beings were reborn." "To the Sun" is a celebration of the joy of human rebirth from suffering. In other words, Ai Qing wrote about the feeling of sunrise in Ran Ran, China as predicted in his mind. The six-line poem quoted from the sun pushes the sense of time and space and the whole plot of this long poem to a far-reaching realm. The author was less than 30 years old at that time, and dared to touch this ethereal and eternal theme about human destiny, which fully demonstrated his confidence in creation. This self-confidence stems from the author's strong perception of the real world. Whether it is the experience of life or the cultivation of art, at that time, it has been bred into a mature artistic creation potential in the author's life. Writing this kind of poem involving the eternal destiny of mankind often becomes vague and mysterious. Or take another simple way and construct a dazzling aperture with the logical language of argumentative writing. However, the author's mentality of "facing the sun" is not a superficial catering to reality, but a continuation and revelation of inner feelings. From the first chapter "He Appeared", the author abandoned the old rules, making the situation of the poem directly close to and cut into the reader's emotional world, so that the feelings of the reader and the author can be exchanged, and the enthusiastic poem is like a voice full of friendship for the reader:
"I got up-/.../struggled for a long time/propped up my upper body/opened my eyes/looked for the horizon/.../My body/sore body/stayed deep/tired of running last night/.../I opened the window/used the prisoner's eyes for the first time/saw the dawn/-this real dawn."
These sounds from the chest are simple and symbolic, without any exaggeration or exaggeration. Pain has become a thing of the past, a plain confession, which makes readers feel the heavy and strong lyrical charm of history from the concise situation of poetry. The residual pain in your life only means that you have to struggle for a long time to stand up. These physical and psychological feelings that anyone can really feel can actually arouse readers' association and thinking, thus making plain poetry have great tension and gravity. In fact, this joy of waking up with tears, this joy of life interwoven with the pain of last night and the dawn, can never be considered as belonging to this poet who was once a prisoner's own review of life. This should be regarded as the voice of a child who is fighting with the sons and daughters of Qian Qian to save the country's danger and destiny. This is how I feel about this poem.
In the second chapter "On the Street", the poet heard people singing in the distance and came to the street. A vibrant life scene appeared in front of him. However, the poem with clear tone in this chapter did not make all the heaviness of the previous poem disappear. Last night's nightmare can't be forgotten. This can't help but remind people how deeply the disastrous life has destroyed the poet's mind! Even though he has walked out of his personal nightmare and came to the street at dawn, he still feels a dull pain from the trauma last night. His mood can't suddenly become completely clear before sunrise. Therefore, in the third chapter, the poet once again reviewed his difficult life course and the tragic history of the motherland. The poet's mood is frank. His gloomy memories show that it is not easy for a nation slaughtered and humiliated by imperialism for many years to wake up and fight. Difficulties are not only difficulties in memory, but also mental burdens in reality. In the second and third chapters, the poet's sincere self-criticism in order to forget is criticized by some commentators as personal negativity and melancholy. In fact, the poet's painful review of the past is to liberate his mind so that he can run with great strides. Chapter III Yesterday Today, we can still feel its true weight. The pain of history often makes generations feel its heavy existence. I don't think a masterpiece like To the Sun can be defined by a certain theory. On the contrary, such poems can often test the truth and value of some theories. Poets have always regarded their homes as hospitals;
"Not a day goes by/I don't look at the miserable life in this country with dull eyes .../Not a day goes by/I don't listen to the endless groans of pain in this country with dull ears".
Before sunrise, he dissected his soul again. If a poet really wants to transcend his past and move towards a new creative height, he must first overcome himself.
"Yesterday/I locked myself in a mental cell/surrounded by high gray walls/there was no sound/…"
When the poet writes such a poem soaked with blood and tears, his spirit can be reborn. Let it all go. This is the last line of Chapter 4. Only by writing this line can the poet take a deep breath. When I read this rare poem "Facing the Sunrise", I felt extremely comfortable and lucky, and the poet's spirit was reborn. From night to dawn and then to sunrise, in the depths of the poet's soul, he truly experienced the whole process from darkness to light. These poems that deeply analyze the soul are rare in the history of China's new poetry.
Sunrise means the birth of a new era. The fourth chapter is about sunrise, which is a poem full of sunshine. The sunrise aroused the poet's youthful journey when he was young. With the initial vision of the world, he has seen many beautiful sunrises on the boundless blue sea. But the sunrise he saw at the moment was "more beautiful than all sunrises". Because this is the sunrise of his troubled motherland. This beautiful sunrise seems to be the first sunrise he has ever seen. Loud songs, poems as open as the ocean, sunflowers with burning strokes … "The sun is better than everything". In this chapter, the poet's mind is completely exposed to the real world and the ideal realm of human beings, which makes the connotation of poetry deeply expanded with the sunshine and creates an affinity world with the eternal sun as the ideal for the world.
In the sixth and seventh chapters, the poet has completely surpassed all his painful memories, showing us a beautiful scene of nature that once twisted the painful soul in the sun, and praising the tall image of the injured soldier, "more beautiful than the bronze statue of Napoleon". Praise the girl who shouted for the war and carried the donation bag, as well as the vigorous voices of the laborers and the soldiers who performed in the Sunshine Square. These shadowless figures and their marching and fighting postures appear for the first time in Ai Qing's poems. It seems that a brilliant sun has also risen in Ai Qing's creative world. In the eighth and ninth chapters, the poet's heart finally bid farewell to the painful and silent life in the past because of the sunrise and colorful life scenes:
I don't bow my head/put my hands in my trouser pockets/whistle in my mouth/look at the clouds in the sky/wander on the sidewalk.
The poet thanked the sun for recalling his childhood. In the last two lines, the poet can't help expressing his sincere gratitude:
"I feel unprecedented generosity and love/I even want to die on this bright occasion ..."
This last line of poetry was criticized as the author's repression and destruction of the poem. Sincere complaining in this business is not depression. Judging from Ai Qing's joy and high mood at that time, he was willing to give his life for the long-awaited arrival of light.
Rereading Ai Qing's magnificent long poem "Towards the Sun" made me feel deeply. In the past, some critics, although they affirmed its perfection and elegance in the traditional sense in art and the rigor of composition, also thought that although the poet's soul was awakened by the turbulent real life, it still could not abandon his personal sorrow and pain, so he could not reach a pure new realm. I think the weaknesses and problems criticized by critics are the lifeblood of this poem. Poets are not abstract beings. He is a realist associated with China's miserable fate. In old China, a self-proclaimed revolutionary, if he had no sense of hardship, his sincerity was doubtful. The poet's sadness and pain just show that he is closely related to the nation in danger, and the fact that the sadness and pain have not disappeared in the poet's mind for the time being proves that the poet is sincere, a passionate patriot and a real person who struggles for his ideals. The poet realized that he must constantly break through himself in the real struggle, and his emotional world and creative realm have been newly expanded. The reason why "Towards the Sun" can strongly and permanently impress people is that a China poet who has struggled for the national destiny for many years has suffered serious mental injuries for his lofty ideals. In order to meet the sunrise, he finally stood up from the pain, he walked into the street, he joined the ranks of life, and he sang loudly. The remaining trauma and mental depression did not make him lose heart and despair. He put up with the pain and went into battle. He praised the sunrise with tears in his eyes This is a sincere and realistic voice immersed in history. Therefore, the poem Towards the Sun can give people an epic feeling. This is not a history of ideas, but a history of blood and tears.