What is poetry? What is poetry?

What exactly is poetry? What exactly is poetry? My definition is that poetry is a concise language produced by the collision of the poet's inspiration, emotion, thinking and language, which is generally arranged in rows. (Note 1) According to this definition, poetry is a sound, tangible and meaningful language that expresses feelings and thoughts. This is the essence of poetry and other literary genres. The difference between poetry and other styles is that it must meet the following three conditions at the same time: relying on inspiration, being concise and arranging in rows. In particular, in this definition, apart from "general line arrangement", I have not put forward strict requirements for the rhythm and format of poetry. Poetry creation depends on inspiration, which is the primary difference between poetry and other styles. The so-called inspiration refers to a sudden and fleeting state of thinking and emotion. According to "Etymology", the word "inspiration" originated from ancient Greece, originally referring to the aura of God, and expressing a sacred obsession. At that time, people in this situation were called ghosts. The meaning of inspiration in English is basically the same as that in Greek. It is used to show that an artist or poet seems to have inhaled the aura of God when creating, thus making his works have extraordinary charm. " Although other literary and artistic creations also need inspiration, inspiration has the greatest influence on poetry creation. Plato, an ancient Greek philosopher, even thought that poetry creation was based on inspiration: "The poet is only the spokesman of God" (literary dialogue). From Homer's era to Romantic era, the first verse of many poems generally follows the convention and seeks inspiration from the muse. Many poets, such as English poet Coleridge and French poet Baudelaire, smoke opium for inspiration. Although there was no word "inspiration" in China's ancient literary theory, literary critics of past dynasties also had similar views. For example, in the article "Wen Fu" written by Lu Ji in the Western Jin Dynasty, the inspiration is called "Secrets": "Why don't you pay attention to the beauty of Fang Tianji?" It means that inspiration can make a poet's literary thoughts gush out. Similar words are "inspiration", "insight" and "happiness". The importance of inspiration to modern poets is self-evident. Guo Moruo once said, "Poems come to me and turn on small lights in the middle of the night. I am afraid that after a little hesitation, the inspiration will run away. " I once heard a speech by an American contemporary poet. He believes that "in all philosophy, science and literature, only poetry and religion can transcend human limitations and lead to God. Because both need inspiration. " In my opinion, inspiration makes poetry creation and reading enter a realm similar to "the unity of man and nature". Poetry has a lofty position in literary works, partly because it must rely on "inspiration" that human beings can't control and explain. Poetry is a concise language. Compared with other styles, poetry is relatively short (except some epics). To express complex emotions and thoughts in a short space and create a special realm, the language of poetry must be concise and strong. China's classical poems often have poetic eyes, such as the word "green" in Spring Breeze and Green Jiang Nanan, the word "noisy" in Red Apricot Branches, and the word "lane" in Cloud Breaking the Moon, which is an excellent proof of this concentration and tension. The same meaning, if described in diluted long words, becomes prose poetry and prose. If there is no good dilution, it may not even be prose, but it can only be called vernacular annotation. Because words require concentration, it is impossible for a poet to cover everything when describing feelings, scenery and environment. He can only make cruel cuts and select only the most important fragments. For example, the phrase "It rains a lot during the Qingming Festival, and pedestrians on the road want to break their souls" does not tell the reason why travelers want to break their souls; The sentence "Jiang Feng fishing for fire and worrying about sleep" does not explain why passengers are "worrying about sleep", so readers can ponder for themselves. In English poetry, Pound's impressionist poems often come to an abrupt end, which can also have the same effect. Poetry, like "blank space" in China's traditional Chinese painting, gives readers imagination space for beautiful scenery, scenery and environment. As the saying goes, "without saying a word, you are happy." Of course, concise poems are shorter, but short poems are not necessarily concise. For example, words like "one piece after another, two pieces, three pieces, four or five pieces, six pieces, seven pieces, eight or nine pieces, ten pieces, and eleven or two pieces" (Gan Long's Yinxue) are short and pithy, with no tension at all. Fortunately, Ji Xiaolan changed the ending sentence to "I can't see the dancing reed flowers", and managed to make this poem a limerick. At present, so-called "pear-shaped" works are all over the Internet, such as "I see an ant/another ant/maybe there are more ants" (ants in Zhao Lihua). The language of ants is not concise, leaving readers no room for imagination of love, scenery and environment. This kind of work similar to "doggerel" can arouse readers' freshness because of its anti-tradition. However, if the author churns out a large number of such works, the quality of his works will inevitably be questioned or even abandoned by readers. Finally, poetry generally needs a flat cable. In my opinion, in addition to convention, this is also caused by the concise requirements of poetic language. Because the language is concise, poetry does not have complete grammar and coherent content like prose or novel sentences, so it must be divided into sentences. For example, the last paragraph of the poet Haizi's "Cooked Wheat": whose heart is also half a foot thick loess cooked wheat, if written in a row, it is obviously not smooth. In my definition of poetry, I did not emphasize that poetry should have rhythm and rhythm. This is different from many people's definition of poetry. For example, Zhu Guangqian emphasized in On Poetry that "temperament" is an important difference between poetry and prose. I think the sound rhythm is not the difference between poetry and prose, but the difference between poetry and song. In ancient China, there was a saying that "rhyming is a song and no rhyme is a poem". I think the meter in poetry has both advantages and disadvantages. The advantage lies in "formal beauty", and the disadvantage lies in paying too much attention to form. In the process of expressing his inspiration, feelings and thoughts, the poet is restricted by the rhythm, just like dancing in chains, unable to move freely. In addition, after a long period of development, human language has its own rhythm. For example, English sentences are naturally iambic, that is, "light and heavy". China's classical Chinese has developed for thousands of years and has reached its acme. The rise of vernacular Chinese is less than a hundred years, and there is still a lot of room for development. I think that modern new poetry will have an important influence on the development of vernacular Chinese.