Let's talk about the strong patriotic feelings embodied in stagnant water. Wen Yiduo said: "The poet's main talent is' love', love his motherland and love his people." ① "stagnant water" is the concrete embodiment of his "talent". Wen Yiduo loved classical poetry and art since childhood. Influenced by the excellent culture of the motherland, he planted the seeds of patriotism. The May 4th revolutionary storm aroused his inner patriotic enthusiasm, and he actively participated in the May 4th Movement, seeking ways to save the country and the people. Later he chose art and began to write poems. 1922 went to the United States to study painting. In these days, he personally felt the pain of national oppression and discrimination, became more and more attached to the motherland and wrote patriotic poems. Such as: Sun Yin, Yiju, etc. Driven by such thoughts and feelings, the poet returned to China at 1925 one year in advance. But when he set foot on the land of his motherland, he found a dark reality of stagnant water in front of him. He found that his longing turned into empty happiness. 1928, he published "stagnant water", in which he cursed: "This is a desperate stagnant water, which is definitely not the beauty. It is better to let ugliness cultivate and see what world he has created. " The vitality of old China under the rule of reactionaries will not last long. It is not difficult to see the poet's resolute attitude and anger at completely denying the old society. Zhu Ziqing praised Wen Yiduo as a "patriotic poet, almost the only patriotic poet". (2) Although this statement is somewhat exaggerated, it clearly shows the remarkable feature of Wen Yiduo's poetry creation-a strong patriotic enthusiasm throughout. The poem "Dead Water" uses a ditch of stagnant water to describe the stagnant, filthy and lifeless social reality. The poet hopes to "throw more rubbish" and "throw away your leftovers" to accelerate its demise and create a new China, which fully embodies the poet's fighting spirit and patriotism.
Let's talk about the artistic characteristics of this poem-"three beauties".
The so-called "beauty of music" mainly refers to the beauty of syllables, that is, the regular arrangement and combination of "sound levels", which are composed of syllables, also known as "sound groups", the scale composed of two words is called "two-tone scale" and the scale composed of three words is called "three-tone scale". As far as the stress on the scale is concerned, the poem "Dead Water" is the most typical. The whole poem consists of five sections and twenty lines, each line consists of a "three-tone ruler" and three "two-tone rulers", and finally ends with two-syllable words. Although the order of tones is not exactly the same, the total number is the same. Cleanliness changes, and keep it clean while changing. The beat is clear and powerful, and the sense of rhythm is strong. Due to the high harmony of internal rhythm, coupled with the strict double-line rhyme and the effect of one rhyme per verse, this poem is catchy to read and has a musical beauty.
The so-called "beauty of painting" mainly refers to the beauty of words. Poets are good at using colorful words and synaesthesia, combined with audio-visual art, to create picturesque effects in poetry. In the poem "Dead Water", the poet observes the multi-tone world with the painter's eyes and spreads the colors with the painter's technique. The whole poem is rich in color, and the feelings are integrated into the color. Although he wrote ugly things such as "scrap iron", "leftovers" and "stagnant water", he used colorful and lifelike things such as jade, peach blossom, chess, clouds and pearls to expose the reactionary rulers' tricks of whitewashing Taiping with irony, which reflected the poet's criticism, denial and disgust of reality. Although these things are "beautiful", they are a kind of appearance after all, because "this is definitely not the beauty." In addition to coloring, the poet also expressed the sound of "stagnant water". Although there are "laughter of beads" and "singing of frogs", it can't cover up the terrible silence of a stagnant water.
The so-called "architectural beauty" means "symmetry of sections and neat sentences", and the arrangement of poems should have a sense of neatness. This is especially obvious in stagnant water, so I won't go into details.
The profound patriotic feelings of the whole poem are reflected through exquisite artistic forms. The whole poem begins with "This is a desperate backwater" and ends with "This is a desperate backwater". And take "look at what world he created" as the conclusion, which is inexhaustible, inspiring readers to think and find answers. Zhu Ziqing said: "At least at that time, the advocacy of metrical poetry played a clarifying role, making everyone think that poetry is not so easy to write and should have a serious creative attitude. In this sense, Wen is a person who is loyal to art and guides new poetry on the right track, which has positive significance for the pursuit of form. " It should be said that the poem "Dead Water" skillfully combines the perfect artistic form with profound ideological significance, and is indeed a natural poem.