However, there is a contradiction here: osmanthus flowers written in poems are usually in autumn. The folk song "Osmanthus fragrans blooms everywhere in August" and "Osmanthus fragrans fragrance in Mid-Autumn Festival". August and September of the lunar calendar belong to the Millennium season, with the autumn equinox, cold dew and early frost, and osmanthus flowers generally bloom in the middle and late autumn. Ancient works written with osmanthus flowers are also related to autumn. For example, Li Heshi's poem "Draw a column of laurel trees to hang autumn fragrance" ("Golden Tongxian Ci Han Ge"), and Liu Yong's poem "Sanqiu has laurel seeds and ten miles of lotus flowers" ("Looking at the tide"). In these poems, sweet-scented osmanthus is associated with autumn, but in this poem, Wang Wei associates sweet-scented osmanthus with "spring mountain" and "spring water", and the word "spring" clearly indicates that it is spring rather than autumn. Isn't that contradictory?
The second understanding. The notes in Selected Poems of Tang Dynasty compiled by the Institute of Literature of China Academy of Social Sciences are as follows: "Osmanthus fragrans, also known as turpentine, has different kinds, such as spring flowers, autumn flowers and four seasons flowers, and is written here as a kind of spring flowers. It is said that it is a laurel tree that opens in winter and falls in spring. " In this way, this contradiction has been satisfactorily solved. This is the second understanding of this poem.
However, if you think about it carefully, the problem still exists. Chacihai: Osmanthus fragrans is an evergreen shrub or small tree. The book quotes Compendium of Materia Medica: "Shi Zhen said:' Yan Gui' is commonly known as Mu Xi, and its flowers are white, named Yin Gui, and yellow and red alternate with each other." The book also quoted "Southern Vegetation", saying that Guangxi has the above three kinds. There are several varieties of osmanthus fragrans, osmanthus fragrans and osmanthus fragrans, but there are no varieties of osmanthus fragrans, osmanthus fragrans and osmanthus fragrans. Of course, after artificial cultivation, osmanthus fragrans can have various varieties such as spring osmanthus, autumn osmanthus and four seasons osmanthus. However, the author of this poem is the Tang Dynasty (AD 70 1-76 1), which is over 1000 years ago. Were there osmanthus varieties such as Chungui, Qiugui and Sijigui in Guangxi more than a thousand years ago? It seems hard to be sure. In addition, osmanthus fragrans is a flocculent flower, which is very small. When it withers and falls, it is difficult for ordinary people to notice it. If it falls, there will be a certain degree of wind; But if there is wind, it is a bit out of harmony with the "quiet" of the next sentence "quiet at night" As for the saying that "winter osmanthus and spring flowers fall", there is also no scientific basis, aiming at the climatic characteristics of the north (probably Wang Wei had not been to the south at that time). In the cold north, does "osmanthus blossom in winter" go straight to "deep flowers fall in spring"? It seems that this statement cannot stand scrutiny.
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The third understanding. Poetry in Tang Dynasty (edited by Liu et al., Anhui edition) holds that "this kind of textual research is inevitable", and Wang Weishi pays attention to the image of poetry. "The reason why osmanthus is written in the poem instead of other flowers is because osmanthus is particularly fragrant at night, and people always associate it with the image of the bright moon (it is said that there are osmanthus trees in the moon). There is a moonlit night in the poem, and osmanthus appears, which makes people feel very harmonious. There is a record in Meng Qian's pen talk:' the beauty of calligraphy and painting is hard to find ... Yan Yuan commented on paintings, saying that Wang Wei's paintings do not ask about the four seasons, such as painting flowers, and often paint a scene with peach, plum and lotus flowers, and Momo (Wang Wei) collected by Yu family painted "Sleeping in the Snow". It's convenient and works when needed. Therefore, it is like God, and it is God's will. This difficulty can be discussed with laymen. This passage is instructive for understanding the osmanthus flowers written by Wang Wei in this poem. In the language of modern literary theory, the truth of art is not equal to the truth of life. "(see page 92-93 of this book)
Obviously, what the author means here is that Wang Wei organically organizes the beauty of Gui Xiang, moonlight, underwater sound and birds' sounds by using the method of association, forming a wonderful and harmonious artistic conception, which makes people get a pleasing artistic feeling after reading. This view is quite insightful, which leads our appreciation of literature and art to the creative principles of literary works. Appreciating, understanding, analyzing and studying literary and artistic works in this way is really conducive to improving people's understanding level. This is the third understanding of this poem.
This understanding has a theoretical height, but the specific analysis can not be fully implemented, and some places are far-fetched. Because first, Wang Wei's poems are not equal to his paintings; Second, this poem, like other poems in the same group, should be a short poem describing the scenery, and it should be realistic by rights. However, if something (osmanthus) that was not available at that time was forcibly added to realistic poetry, wouldn't it lose realism and become neither fish nor fowl? Therefore, this statement still seems to be unable to withstand scrutiny.
The fourth understanding. In fact, the "osmanthus" in Wang Wei's poems does not refer to osmanthus trees, but to the light of the moon. In ancient works, "bright moon" and "laurel" are often linked, and "laurel" often represents the moon. "Osmanthus fragrans and autumn brightness" (Shen Yue's "Looking at the Autumn Moon on the Stage") obviously refers to the light of the bright moon. "The jade wheel is exposed to wet light, and Luan Pei meets cinnamon ink." (Li He's Dream of Heaven) Among them, "Gui Xiang is a stranger", that is, the road of osmanthus fragrance in the middle of the month refers to the Moon Palace. This is borrowed from relevant legends and allusions. According to legend, there are laurel trees in the middle of the month, so the moon is also called "Guipo" and the Moon Palace is also called "Guigong". "Guijiao flies to a place with light and soaks for a cool day." (Su Shi, "Nian Nujiao? Mid-Autumn Festival) It is said that there are toads and jade rabbits in the Moon Palace, and they are sometimes mentioned together. For example, "in the ancient temple, toads are cold in recent months, and pepper flowers are red and wet in the clouds." (Li He's "Wushan Gao") and said, "What's the point, and the rabbit is in the abdomen? "What's the advantage of the moon looking after the rabbit in its belly? Look at Qu Yuan's Chu Ci? The osmanthus tree in the legend of the Moon Palace is very tall. For example, Huang Tingjian's "Nian Nu Jiao" words: "Break the coral, fight for it, and Xiangui will help you? "Youyang miscellaneous said osmanthus trees more than five hundred feet, and said the fairy WU GANG (Wu Zhi) cut osmanthus trees in the middle of the month. For example, Du Fu's poem: "Although the moon is full of laurels, it should be clear. "(One Hundred and Fifty Nights to the Moon) Li Heshi said," Wu sleeps and leans on the laurel tree, flying barefoot to wet and cold rabbits. "(Quotations from Li Ping) Xin Qiji wrote:" Unfortunately, dancing makes human nature clearer. " (Taichang Drink) According to Nan Xinshu: "Hangzhou Lingyin Temple is full of osmanthus flowers, and the monk said,' Plant this month'." Up to now, watching the night in the Mid-Autumn Festival, children often fall, and monks try to pick it up. "The monks in the temple are of course self-righteous and serious, but it is inevitable that they will spread more and more when they are circulated. For example, the poem Lingyin Temple written by Song Wenzhi and Wang Wei before: "Gui Zi sets in the middle of the moon, and the fragrant clouds float outside." Bai Juyi wrote in the poem "Two Poems of Lingyin Temple in Tianzhu": "Love falls because of laurel, and drunkenness opens for the sea." Note: "Tianzhu tastes the laurel in the middle of the month." (See Complete Poems of Tang Dynasty) The words in Bai Juyi's Memories of Jiangnan: "Looking for Guizi in Yuexia Mountain Temple" and Liu Yong's words "Looking for Guizi in Sanqiu" are all related to this. From the poems quoted above, we can clearly know that when the ancients wrote the moon, they often associated it with legends such as laurel trees in the middle of the month. "Osmanthus fragrans" in Wang Wei's Birding Creek should also use this allusion.
Based on this, the author thinks that some versions of the first sentence of the original poem are wrong to be "osmanthus fragrans in leisure", but should be "osmanthus fragrans in the world". Because the word "leisure" was written as "leisure" in ancient times, it is not surprising that the words "leisure" and "room" are almost easy to make mistakes, and the words "leisure" and "room" were used interchangeably in ancient times. The first sentence of Notes on Wang Youcheng's Collection published by Zhonghua Book Company is "Osmanthus fragrans fell into the world". Zhu Dongrun's Selected Literary Works of China in Past Dynasties (the first volume in the middle part) is also called "Osmanthus fragrans Fall into the World", and the annotation reads: "A sentence in the world:' Osmanthus fragrans fall into the world', which means that moonlight illuminates the earth. Ancient myths and legends say that there is laurel in the moon, so laurel often becomes the representative name of the moon, such as the spirit of the moon. Osmanthus fragrans, that is, Yue Hua. Hua, Huatong. "
In this way, the first sentence of this poem is about the light of the bright moon, and it takes care of the following sentence: one is about the moonlight shining on the earth, and the other is about the influence of the moon after it rises. There is no contradiction between the two, and there is no interesting repetition, but there is concern after explanation. Compared with the previous statement, this statement lacks the description of "leisure" with the subjective feelings of the appreciator, and also lacks the fragrance and taste of osmanthus fragrans and the quiet feeling of osmanthus fragrans falling. However, it uses romantic association techniques, from underground to paradise, from Shan Ye to fairyland, from human to moon palace, and the whole poem forms an intriguing and wonderful realm with open artistic conception, fantastic imagination and elegant scenery. The first sentence of the poem says that the light of the moon is scattered all over the world and thousands of miles; The second sentence is written in the spring mountain on a moonlit night, which is quiet and ethereal and pleasant; In three or four sentences, I wrote about the birds going up and down on the moon, flying up and down, singing from time to time; I also wrote about the spring stream under the moon, the stream and the moon set each other off, and the sound of water gurgled. The whole poem is just 20 crosses, but it has stillness and movement, color and sound, harmony of things, joy of some people, beauty of natural scenery and beauty of the author's subjective feelings. It is both a lyric poem and a landscape painting. In the poem, the scenery of spring moon, spring mountain and spring stream are intertwined, which naturally constitutes a "spring mountain and moon stream map"; Among them, the crisp and melodious calls of spring birds are interwoven, and the sound of flowing water is lined up, which is graceful and moving, as if playing a beautiful serenade harmoniously. In poetry, silence is set off by movement, and the beauty of music matches the beauty of painting. After reading it, people feel that spring is brighter, the spring mountains are empty, the spring nights are quiet, the spring streams are elegant, the spring birds are beautiful, and all the scenery is so harmonious and graceful. The poem "Birds Singing in the Stream" is probably based on this artistic conception.
Wang Wei is both a poet and a painter. He is good at music and believes in Zen. He can apply painting and music to poetry. He is good at writing poems in refined, natural, accurate and distinctive language. Although he has little pen and ink, his image is vivid and constitutes a long and beautiful artistic conception. Su Shi said: "There are poems in the painting; There are paintings in poetry. " This poem is a model that combines the beauty of painting, music, romantic artistic imagination and quiet Zen, creating a beautiful artistic conception.
This is the fourth understanding of this poem, and perhaps only this understanding is more in line with the original appearance of Wang Wei's poem.