technique of expression
Ye Saining took his hometown, Russia and nature as the source of inspiration for his poems, and created beautiful images on "the main node between man and nature", purifying his soul in poetic nature, and purifying poetic nature in his soul. [6] This poem, composed of seven sections, seems to constitute a complete narrative about a shrew from the beginning of the morning to the end of the moonlit night. In fact, it doesn't stop there. The word "sadness" appears in the sixth verse, which directly points out the main point of the poem-expressed as "sadness". "In the morning, in the kennel made of black straw, the golden light shines on the broken straw mat: the bitch gave birth to a litter of puppies-seven puppies with brown fur." "Seven puppies" are seven lives. "Brown fur" shows the loveliness of life, and "shining golden light" shows the awe of life, or the birth of life is sacred. "She kissed her child until dusk, and under her warm belly, the snowflake melted into water drops." From morning till night, actions and modal words such as "licking and washing", "warmth" and "melting" are all expressing love, or maternal love. The first two verses show the surprise of life arrival and the caress of life, which is in contrast with the sadness caused by the abandonment of life later, thus forming the narrative tension of the poem. [7]
This poem also uses a variety of expression techniques: color contrast, synaesthesia, metaphor, symbol ... For example, after the bitch lost her son, she barked loudly at the blue sky (which can only be translated as "eager to find"), and the combination of hearing, sight and sound was impressive. For another example, the second poem uses "newly melted snow" to describe milk, and the last sentence uses "Venus falling from the sky" to describe sadness, which is not only novel in metaphor and beautiful in image, but also symbolic and intriguing. [6]
Song of Dogs vividly expresses the bitch's joy in giving birth to her son, her worry about losing her son, her sadness about losing her son, and her anger after mistaking the moon for her son in one day. At the same time, it makes the love of her mother who has broken her heart for the next generation visible and tangible through animal symbols in a materialized way, which may be the mystery of her breathtaking artistic charm. [6]
Although it is a narrative, the poet did not explain everything, such as why the "owner" abandoned the puppy and what the fate of the puppy was. These deliberately omitted parts can be guessed by readers from some details in the poem. The host is "sad", which may imply the difficulty of life; The bitch has been chasing "unfrozen water", suggesting that the puppy has been drowned by its owner. The poet omitted these links in order to focus his pen and ink on describing the bitch's modality and express her deep affection and grief from the psychological level, just like describing a person. [6]
Writing characteristics
He writes about people and things; Write inanimate objects, but also write creatures; Write about plants (such as birch, plum blossom, sorbus, bellflower …) and animals (such as horses, cows, foxes, dogs …). The appearance of a large number of animals and plants is a major feature of Ye's poems in subject matter, theme and even techniques. Ye Saining's poems about animals, plants and insects are not only different from allegorical poems aimed at pinning the philosophy of life, but also different from narrative short poems that win by plot. They are real lyric poems that are integrated with me and have far-reaching feelings. In poetry, the poet fully expressed his persistent pursuit of poetic art: on the basis of humanizing nature (including all kinds of animals and plants) and materializing (referring to animals, plants and minerals), he reached the artistic realm of highly blending scenes. In this sense, Song of Dogs is a masterpiece of Ye's poetry. Combining them so skillfully in a poem is the unique feature of Ye Saining's poems.
There are many ways to write "lyric poetry", and Song of Dogs is a work to express emotions through narration. It tells a complete story. The poet did not intervene in the story, but maintained an emotional restraint. To read this poem, we must first grasp the context of the story: from morning till night, a bitch gave birth to a litter of puppies and lost them. [6]
In this poem, it is its subtle image. Snowflakes that melt into water droplets, rippling water surfaces, and all the snow are accepted, creating a poetic atmosphere, and the coldness, harshness and warmth of the Russian land have been effectively expressed. As for the "crescent moon on the hut", it is even more vivid to be mistaken for her puppy by the bitch. A golden crescent moon hanging in the air alone, coupled with the miserable cry of the bitch, constitutes a sad and sad picture. [6]
Song of Dogs is full of new ideas in conception, technique and language. For example, the topic of poetry is quite interesting. Song of Dogs shows Ye Saining's artistic pursuit of beauty in a peculiar way. He wants to express his fresh and unique feelings about life, and he also wants to pour out the kind of voice that Turgenev called "his own voice". [6]
The "novelty" and "strangeness" pursued by Ye Saining in Song of Dogs are not imagined from castles in the air, but extracted from things that have become accustomed to. The word "Song" in "Dog Song" in the original text is a lofty word, which is used to praise the tall image, but it is not a hero in the poem. As far as the animal world is concerned, dogs have neither the "heavy responsibility" of cattle nor the "heavy responsibility" of horses, nor the "high altitude" of larks, nor the "foresight" of Haiyan. However, the poet found poems from dogs-real poems. An unremarkable dog has experienced joys and sorrows for just over ten hours from morning to evening, and everything stems from the love for the next generation. This spirit alone is enough to make people cry. Here, the poet successfully used the artistic techniques of seeing the big from the small, seeing the strange from the ordinary and seeing the beautiful from the ugly, giving people a feeling of simplicity and new beauty, which made people shed tears of sympathy. The poem also uses the technique of positive and negative contrast to write the mourning in a happy scene: after seven puppies were drowned by their owners, the bitch dragged back with heavy steps. At this time, it is not a dark and windy atmosphere, but a crescent moon hanging in the night sky, and the earth is quiet. However, the beautiful scenery reflects the sinister fate, and the silence of the environment arouses the inner waves, which makes the bitch miss the puppy so much that she mistook the moon in the sky for her puppy. This psychological portrayal is really penetrating. [6]
The images in the poem are extremely rich, but they don't overlap each other, and they are carefully and slightly combined, jumping and jumping. When the owner carried the seven puppies out in sacks, the bitch followed, omitting the details of the owner throwing the bags into the river, leaving only the ripples on the water surface shaking. The description of the owner is omitted below, leaving only the picture of the bitch stumbling back. This technique of leaving a large space span between images leaves room for imagination for readers, thus greatly improving the artistic charm of poetry. The "long-term shaking" of the river is extremely rich: it can be imagined as the aftermath of the dog's dying struggle, and it can also be imagined as the heart of the bitch, owner or poet shaking with the water waves; It can not only infer that the bitch stood by the river for a long time, but also describe the poet's long-term uncontrollable behavior. [6]
Famous comments
On this poem, Gorky said in May 1922, "I can't help thinking that Sergei Ye Saining is not so much a person as a poem created by nature, expressing endless sorrow in the field and expressing love and pity for all animals (people deserve it more than anything else). [6]