Wen Yiduo's Red Candle:
Red Candle! ?
such a red candle! ?
what a poet! ?
spit out your heart and compare it.
but ordinary color? ?
red candle!
who made the wax-gave it to your body?
who lit the fire-lit the soul?
why do you have to burn the wax to ashes before you let it shine?
one mistake after another; Contradiction! Conflict!
red candle!
no mistake, no mistake!
It was meant to "burn" your light-this is the natural way.
red candle!
once it is made, it will burn!
burn it! Burn it!
Burn people's dreams and blood-save their souls and smash their prisons!
red candle!
when your heart glows, it is the day when your tears begin.
red candle!
the craftsman made you to burn.
since it's burning, why bother to shed tears?
oh! I know!
It's the residual wind that invades your light. When you burn unsteadily, you cry with anxiety!
red candle!
flow! How can you not flow?
Please pour your cream into the world, cultivate comforting flowers and form happy fruits!
red candle!
if you shed a tear, you will be distracted.
shed tears when you are discouraged, and create bright reasons for you.
red candle!
"Mo Wen reaps, but asks for cultivation."
About the author:
Wen Yiduo (1899—1946), formerly known as Wen Jiahua, was born in Xishui, Hubei Province. In 1912, he was admitted to Tsinghua University in Beijing, and in September 1923, he published the first new collection of poems, Red Candle. In January 1928, the second book of poetry, Dead Water, was published. Academically, he has extensively studied the cultural heritage of the motherland, and has written such monographs as Myths and Poems, Chuci Supplement, etc.
joined the China Democratic League in p>1944. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, he became the executive committee of the NLD Central Committee, and often participated in progressive assemblies and demonstrations. On July 15th, 1946, at the memorial meeting for Mr. Li Gongpu, he angrily reprimanded the Kuomintang for the crime of assassinating Li Gongpu, and published the famous "The Last Speech", which was killed by Kuomintang agents that afternoon.
"Red Candle" is a true analysis of the poet's heart, which summarizes the persistent pursuit of the future of the motherland and the great ambition of dedication to the motherland expressed in poetry collections.
The poet compares himself to a red candle. He wants to use that faint light and heat to illuminate the sinister future, to burn out the dreams of the world, to destroy the prisons that imprison people's souls, and to cultivate comforting flowers and happy fruits for the world. Although it is "a tear, a distraction", but even "until and every night the candles will weep their wicks away", so be it. ?
Extended information
Appreciation of Red Candle:
China's classical poems are based on things, which are carried out in a state of harmony between things and me, such as Li Shangyin's "and the silk-worms of spring will weave until they die and and every night the candles will weep their wicks away". Here, it is not deliberately emphasized that "Spring Silkworm" and "Candle Torch" are just foreign objects, nor is it necessary to look for the poet's own image in the position corresponding to these foreign objects. However, Wen Yiduo, who accepted the prototype of "wax torch", went against this in his overall thinking mode.
"red candle! /Such a red candle! /Poet! /Spit out your heart to compare/But the general color? " As soon as the poet put pen to paper, he surpassed the classical poetry. He distinguished the "red candle" from the poet, and did not put himself directly into the red candle that made him admire. The relationship between himself and the red candle is at arm's length. The poet is a poet, and the red candle belongs to the red candle, which is his "separation".
However, it is an effort to find the spiritual connection between the two and to identify with each other, so it can be described as "namely". This separation has laid the basic emotional way and cultural character of the whole poem.
We can understand this fundamental significance from three aspects:
1. "Separation" is the starting point of the poet's consciousness, "namely" is the trend of efforts, and the contradiction between "separation" and "namely" is inevitable.
2. From "separation" to "namely", the poet's emotional trend is outlined in the pain of contradictions and conflicts, which is also the basic pattern of poetry.
3. From the cultural point of view, "Li" is the manifestation of contemporary culture and belongs to the poet's real experience, while "i.e." is the temptation of classical culture and belongs to the poet's ideal destination in his obscurity. The conflict between "separation" and "namely" is the conflict between the two cultures within the poet.