#Poetry Appreciation# Introduction The focus of writing war poems is: the battle scenes between the warring parties; the brutal fighting and fighting scenes on the battlefield; the moral influence and the shock of military power. The following is brought to you by Wu: War Poetry: Li Yi's original translation and appreciation of "Listening to the Flute in the City at Night", everyone is welcome to read it.
Listening to the flute in Shouxiang City at night
Tang Dynasty: Li Yi
The sand in front of Huile Peak is like snow, and the moon outside Shouxiang City is like frost.
I don’t know where to play the reed pipe, and all night long the people are looking for their hometown.
Translation
The sand in front of Huile Peak is as white as snow, and the moonlight outside the city is like autumn frost.
I don’t know where the melancholy reed pipes were blowing, and all of them looked at their hometown overnight.
Notes
Shoujiang City: In order to defend against Turks, Zhang Renyuan, a famous general in the early Tang Dynasty, built Shoujiang City north of the Yellow River and divided it into three cities: east, middle and west, all in today's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Another theory is that in 646 AD (the 20th year of Zhenguan), Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty came to Lingzhou in person to accept the surrender of the Turks, and the name "Shouji City" came from this.
Huile Peak: In the Tang Dynasty, there was Huile County, the administrative seat of Lingzhou, in the southwest of Lingwu County, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. Huile Peak is the local peak. One is "Huile Feng": refers to the beacon tower near Huile County.
Below the city: one is "above the city" and the other is "outside the city".
Reed tube: flute. One is "Reed Flute".
Zhengren: soldiers guarding the border. Complete: complete.
Appreciation
This is a poem that expresses the nostalgia of the border soldiers. It depicts the strong homesickness and sadness of the border soldiers (including the flute player) from multiple angles.
The first two sentences of the poem describe a unique scenery of a moonlit night in a frontier fortress. Looking into the distance, tall beacon towers stand on the hills that wind for dozens of miles, and under the beacon towers is an endless desert. , like a snowy wasteland under the moonlight. Looking closer, the moonlight outside Gaocheng is as bright as the frost in late autumn. The desert is not a snowfield, but the poet says it is "like snow". The moonlight is not autumn frost, but the poet says it is "like frost". The poet uses his pen in this way to use this cold scenery to exaggerate the sadness and desolation of his mood. It is this snow-like desert and frost-like moonlight that make the night in Shoujiang City look particularly empty and bleak. It also made the poet particularly strongly feel the loneliness of being in such an isolated place, and developed a feeling of homesickness.
If the first two sentences describe the scene, the scene contains emotions, which are stored but not expressed; then the last two sentences describe the emotions head-on. In the complete silence, the night wind brought the whining sound of the reed flute. The sound of the flute reminded the poet: On which beacon tower are the soldiers pouring out their endless sorrows through the sound of the reed flute? How many homesicknesses did the resentful flute sound touch in Zhengren? During this long night at the frontier, they stood up one by one, their melancholy eyes passing over the snow-like desert and the frost-like moonland. They stared into the distance for a long time? "I don't know where", which is what the poet wrote about listening to the flute on a moonlit night. The confused mood at that time reflected the loneliness of the night scene. "One night" and "desperate hope" also express the depth and urgency of the soldiers' longing for their hometown.
From the perspective of the whole poem, the first two sentences describe color, the third sentence describes sound; the last sentence expresses the feelings in the heart and writes about emotion. The first three sentences all set the stage for the direct lyricism of the last sentence. At the beginning, the visual image arouses lingering nostalgia, and then the auditory image leads the undercurrent of nostalgia to a torrent of emotions. The first three sentences are already well-prepared, and the last sentence is usually written directly. Li Yi, however, took a unique approach, allowing the feeling of full pregnancy to circle around at the end, using an imagined scene of people visiting their hometown to express it, making people feel that the sentence is complete but the meaning is still lingering at the sudden end. Create one ripple after another. The artistic success of this poem lies in the integration of the scenery, sounds, and emotions in the poem, and the beauty of poetry, painting, and music, forming a complete artistic whole with a harmonious artistic conception. It is simple and ethereal, yet has the characteristics of endless implications.
This poem has beautiful language and gentle rhythm. It embodies emotions in the scenery and uses the scenery to describe emotions. It describes the scenery in front of Zhengren's eyes and the feelings in his heart, which is touching. The poetry is profound and melodious, leaving people with endless aftertaste. Li Yi is mentioned in Liu Yuxi's "He Ling Gu Xianggong's Speech to Yang Shaoyin in the River", and there is a sentence "The moon is empty and the reeds are in autumn", which refers to this poem. It can be seen that this poem was widely read at that time. "Chronicles of Tang Poems" states that this poem was incorporated into paintings at that time. Carefully appreciate the artistic conception of the whole poem, it is indeed a good product for composing songs and painting. Therefore, it was composed into string instruments and sung throughout the world, becoming one of the most outstanding quatrains in the Mid-Tang Dynasty.