On the one hand, this poem has won such high praise because it depicts a wonderful late autumn evening scene and truly shows the loneliness and sadness in the world. Although depressed, it reflects the depressing atmosphere of the times at that time and has certain social significance. On the other hand, more importantly, it has high artistic achievements. The obvious features are:
1. Simple and profound interdependence
Song Yu, an ancient man, used to describe a beautiful woman's figure by adding one point and subtracting one point. The refinement of the characters in Tianjingsha Qiu Si can also be said to have reached the point where one word cannot be added or subtracted. There are only five sentences and twenty-eight characters in the whole article. No exaggeration, no allusions. This vivid picture is outlined by pure line drawing: at dusk in late autumn, a travel-stained wanderer rides a thin horse and walks alone on the ancient road against the chilly west wind. He walked past an old tree covered with withered vines and saw crows hovering in the treetops at dusk. He crossed the small bridge across the stream and came to the doors of several families by the stream. At this time, the sun is about to set, but he hasn't found a place to stay. It will be a long night, and he can't help feeling sad and deeply sad. As for why the wanderer drifted here? Where on earth is he going? These meanings can be left to the reader to imagine. This poem is really a masterpiece with simple words and rich meanings, and less wins more. In the first three sentences and eighteen words of the poem, * * * wrote nine things word for word, such as rattan, tree, crow, bridge, water, home, road, wind and horse, which are really precious. However, brevity is not simple. Before the names of nine things, there are modifiers expressing their own characteristics, such as withered, old, faint, small, flowing, human, ancient, western and thin, which make all things have distinct personalities and make unrelated things form a unity in the desolate late autumn twilight. The author has no place to write these things, nor does he write about the relationship between these things and the activities of vagrants, but readers can imagine them and connect them closely. In simplicity, you can see depth and fineness.
2. Static and dynamic scenes set each other off.
The artistic effect of Tianjingsha Qiu Si is also due to the successful use of foil techniques. The author brings many relatively independent things into a picture at the same time, thus forming the mutual contrast between motion and stillness, brightness and darkness, background and subject: the flowing water in the dynamic contrasts with the small bridge and flowing water in the static state, showing a quiet environment; The west wind contrasts with the ancient road, making the road more desolate; On the autumn scenery map sketched by the author, on the one hand, the dead vines, old trees and crows are gloomy in the autumn wind and small showers, and on the other hand, the afterglow of the sunset paints the dead vines, old trees and crows with a touch of gold; The flowing water bridge presents an elegant and comfortable scene, which is in contrast with the wanderer who fell into a foreign land, making the heartbreaker even more sad. Judging from the whole composition, the first four sentences are about scenery and the last one is about people. But people are the main body and scenery is the background of people's activities. When the background is written, the main body is set off. This is the wonderful use of mutual contrast.
3. Scenery and emotion blend together
Poetry expresses ambition. This poem aims to express the sorrow of the people who were born. But people's thoughts and feelings are abstract and difficult to express. The author uses the traditional writing method of attaching affection to things to portray this bitterness and sorrow incisively and vividly. Dead vines, old trees, faint crows, westerly winds, thin horses, sunset, tangible and sensible things all have obvious late autumn colors, which are similar to intangible and abstract bitterness. Only by seeing and touching can people feel concrete and vivid. It's like asking how sad you can be. Just like a river flowing eastward, sadness has nothing to do with water, but the author borrows many rivers to describe many sorrows, and there are similarities between them. It is very profound to express infinite sadness with the scenery of river of no return. Natural scenery originally had no thoughts and feelings, but when the poet incorporated these objective things into his aesthetic comprehension and feelings, they were endowed with emotional colors and merged with people's thoughts and feelings. A small bridge flowing water is just a very common landscape, but when it appears in the picture with heartbroken people at the end of the world, it is no longer an isolated scene, but the fuse of heartbroken people, which brings a sad atmosphere to the picture. The so-called feelings are obvious because of the scenery, and the scenery is born because of feelings. This is the truth. "Tianjingsha Qiu Si" can be called a masterpiece with feelings in the scene, scenery in the feelings and a seamless scene.
(2)
In order to further understand the artistic achievements of this poem, we might as well make the following comparative appreciation. According to Ren Yuansheng Ruzi's Old Learning Series, Ma Zhiyuan's Tianjingsha actually has three songs.
One is:
Thin vines ("Yuefu New Sound" is a dead vine) are faint crows on the old trees.
Distant mountains ("Yuefu New Sound" as a small bridge) flowing water people.
The ancient road and the west wind are thin. The setting sun ("Yuefu New Sound" as "Sunset") sets in the west.
Heartbroken people go to the end of the world.
The second is:
The flat beach is covered with fine grass. The winding stream gurgled. Trapped in the clear autumn and early cold. A new goose. Huang Yun has red leaves and green hills.
The third is:
The west wind is holding Hu Jia. Yueming immediately plays the pipa. That (that word is in doubt) shows that Zhao Jun hates many (many words are in doubt). Li xialing Light smoke, rotten grass and yellow sand.
Two or three songs, although they are all about autumn scenery, are all about more than seven or eight kinds of scenery in fewer words, but none of them have the sunset and dusk atmosphere in Tianjingsha Qiu Si. The second song has no scenery, and the third song quotes allusions, with resentment and sadness, and the autumn is not strong. As for the words in the first song, such as "The Far Mountain of Xiteng", "Sunset" and "Towards the End of the World", it may be Ma Zhiyuan's first work, or it may be copied wrongly. If compared with Qiu Si in Tianjingsha, not to mention the phonological appropriateness of Thin in Thin Rattan, Oblique in the Setting Sun in the Far Mountain and Walking to the End of the World, the meanings of these words are far less accurate than that of Qiu Si in Tianjingsha. Compared with withered vines, withered vines are more aging and rotting. Thin characters are mostly used to describe people and animals, and are rarely used to describe vegetation. Moreover, it is obviously inappropriate to use thin people here and thin horses below. Compared with small bridges, the distant mountains, combined with the above sentence, are a group of closely connected landscapes, and small bridges, running water and people are also a group of interdependent landscapes. And since you can see the stream, it should be a close-up view, and a small bridge is more suitable than a distant mountain. Compared with sunset, sunset is also called sunset, and sunset is sunset, so it is more accurate to use sunset. Compared with Tianya, Tianya is a foreign land here. The environment where tourists live is already a foreign land, and being in a foreign land is more real than going to a foreign land.
The ancients said that it is not easy to write a word for tempered poetry. Through the above comparison, we can better understand the diction and sentence-making skills of Ma Zhiyuan's poem Tianjingsha Qiu Si, and we can also see its artistic ingenuity in expressing ideas.
Ma Zhiyuan's "Tianjingsha Qiu Si" Original Tianjingsha Qiu Si
Old vines and faint crows, small bridges and flowing water. The ancient road and the west wind are thin. When the sun sets, heartbroken people are at the end of the world.
Ma Zhiyuan translated "Tianjingsha Qiu Si" (1) withered vines and old trees, and a listless crow flapped its wings and landed on the bare branches in the sunset. Exquisite and chic small bridges and flowing water, low and shabby huts are getting quieter and warmer. On the desolate ancient road, a thin and haggard horse was carrying the same tired and haggard wanderer in a foreign land, wandering in the west wind of a foreign land. The sun is setting, but where is the home of the wanderer? Where is your hometown? With this in mind, how can a wandering wanderer not be heartbroken!
(2) Dead vines are entangled with ancient trees, and crows fly back to the trees at dusk to live. Under the small bridge, the stream flows through the people on both sides. There is a traveler riding a tired thin horse, facing the biting autumn wind, slowly marching on the ancient desolate road. As the sun sets, travelers are extremely sad and wander far from home.