Poetry is the oldest and most literary style. Labor songs and folk songs, which originated from ancient people, were originally the floorboard of poems and songs. At first, there was no distinction between poetry and song, but poetry and music and dance were combined into one, collectively called poetry. China's poems have a long history and rich heritage, such as The Book of Songs, Songs of the South, Han Yuefu and the works of countless poets. Poetry in Western Europe was written by Homer and Sappho in ancient Greece and Virgil and Horace in ancient Rome.
How did poetry come into being? It turns out that before the formation of literature, our ancestors compiled rhymes in order to pass on the experience in production struggle to others or the next generation for memory and dissemination. According to Mr Wen Yiduo's textual research, [poem] and [ambition] are originally the same word, and [ambition] belongs to [scholar] and [heart], which shows that what stops in the heart is actually memory. After the writing came into being, with the help of literature, there is no need for rote learning. At this time, all written records are called records. Desire is poetry. Have ambition in your heart and speak like a poem.
How did the title of the song come from? Poetry and songs are not the same thing Songs are produced by human labor at the same time, long before the formation of literature and long before poetry. At first, we only used sighs to express our feelings, such as ah, xi, oh, alas, and so on. At that time, these words were all pronounced with the same pronunciation: "ah". Song is a pictophonetic character, pronounced with "ke". In ancient times, "Song" and "Ah" were the same word, and the "Ah" people uttered in their work was called "Song". Therefore, the title of the song has been used.
Since poetry and song are not the same thing, why did they later be linked together and called [Poetry]? As long as we understand their relationship. At first, Song only used simple interjections to express emotions. With the appearance of language, people's understanding of objective things has gradually deepened and their emotions have become richer, so it is far from enough to express them with a few exclamations. So content words are added to the song to meet the needs. After the appearance of words, the combination of poetry and songs went further, and lyrics written in words appeared. At this time, a song includes two parts: one is music and the other is lyrics. Music is lyrical, and the lyrics are poetic and memorable. In other words, poetry is a song with music and a poem without music. The original poem can be sung with music. Songs are poems, and poems are songs. The combination of poems and songs has been discussed for a long time in China ancient books.
Preface to Mao's poems: "Heart is ambition, words are poetry." Emotions move in the heart and form in words. If words are not enough, lament. If there are not enough words, recite them. If there are not enough songs, I don't know how to dance. "Shangshu": "Poetry expresses ambition, but songs are silent", which vividly points out the internal relationship between poetry and songs. Because of this situation, people later called poetry and song "poetry" side by side. At present, poetry has become synonymous with poetry.
(B) the characteristics of poetry
Poetry is a highly concentrated literary genre that reflects social life. Full of the author's thoughts and feelings and rich imagination. Its language is concise and vivid, with distinct rhythm, harmonious rhyme and rich musical beauty. The sentences are generally in rows and pay attention to the beauty of structural form.
He Qifang, a modern poet and literary critic in China, once said: "Poetry is the literary style that most strongly reflects social life. It is full of rich imagination and feelings, and it is often expressed in a direct lyrical way. Moreover, in the degree of exquisiteness and harmony, especially in the distinct rhythm, its language and prose are different. " This definition summarizes several basic characteristics of poetry: first, it reflects life in a highly concentrated and general way; The second is lyrical expression, full of rich thoughts and feelings; Third, rich imagination, association and fantasy; Fourth, language has musical beauty. Several basic characteristics of poetry;
First, reflect social life in a highly concentrated and general way.
Literature is the reflection of social life, and all literary works reflect social life, which requires the centralized generalization of art, but poetry requires a higher degree of centralized generalization than other literary genres.
How does poetry reflect social life in a highly concentrated and general way? Generally speaking, poets always choose the most characteristic and typical things in life and concentrate their rich life contents and thoughts and feelings in these things. By describing the image characteristics of this typical thing, they can show a wider social life and have more universal ideological significance. Bai Juyi's Pipa, the whole poem describes an event in which a singer plays the pipa, which highly reflects the rich and complicated social life and thoughts and feelings. In the first half of the poem (from "I'm seeing the guests off and visiting Xunyang River at night" to "And we saw the white autumn moon entering the middle of the river"), the singer's "secret love and hatred" was expressed by focusing on the music played by pipa, which vaguely reflected her "infinite things in her heart". Followed by the second paragraph (from "... when she slowly put the plucked piece back into the string" to "when she was awakened from her dream by hot tears), Gene told her life experience, which reflected her life experience from childhood to old age and the prosperous life of the capital Chang 'an at that time. In the last paragraph, the poet described his life in Xunyang City after being demoted. In the poem, we are all unhappy until the end of the day when we meet. We understand. What is the relationship between acquaintances? " It is used to link the life experiences of poets and singers from the Imperial Capital to the Tianya with the thoughts and feelings of being down and out, thus making the life events reflected more universal. But who among them cried the most? , this Jiujiang officer. "My blue sleeves are wet" is a concentrated expression of the poet's long-suppressed thoughts and feelings. Whether describing scenery, describing events or expressing feelings, the whole poem is very concentrated and concise. Mao Zedong's Seven Laws "Long March" contains only eight sentences and fifty-six words. Because it chose the most distinctive and representative thing to describe the Long March, it can vividly summarize the battle course of the Chinese Red Army of Workers and Peasants successfully completing the 25,000-mile Long March in the most refined form, fully demonstrate the heroism of the Red Army soldiers and the revolutionary pride of the author, and highly concentrate on the characteristics of life.
Second, lyrical expression is full of rich thoughts and feelings.
Poetry is very lyrical, and the works are saturated with rich and strong thoughts and feelings. China's traditional poetry theory attaches great importance to this feature. It is recorded in Shangshu Yaodian that (1) "Poetry expresses ambition, song always says, voice always follows, and law is harmonious" (2); Mao wrote when he talked about the characteristics of lyric poetry in the preface to poems of Han Dynasty:
A poet, where there is ambition, has ambition in his heart and speaks like a poem. Emotion moves in the middle and is shaped by words. Sigh if you don't talk enough. If they are not enough, they will sing forever. If they are not enough, they will dance with their hands and feet.
It has been explained here that poetry, music and dance are all expressions of "emotion" and "ambition" in people's hearts, and they are all caused by "emotion". In this regard, scholars in Han and Tang dynasties and later have many explanations. They believe that "emotion", "ambition" and "ambition" are actually one and belong to people's thoughts and feelings. The so-called "poetry expresses ambition", in modern terms, means that poetry expresses thoughts and feelings.
Practical experience has proved that the process of poetry creation is always accompanied by the excitement of the poet's feelings, which is the product of the poet's strong feelings. Guo Moruo once talked about the close relationship between the poet's feelings and those of his poems. He said in "Three Poems":
Hong Tao in the stormy waves became a "vigorous" poem, including Qu Zi's Li Sao, Cai Wenji's Eighteen Beats of Hu Jia, Du Li's Song, Dante's Divine Comedy, Milton's Paradise Lost and Goethe's Faust. The ripples of Xiaolang became diluted poems, the "national style" of the Zhou Dynasty, Wang Wei's quatrains, poems written by ancient Japanese poets when they traveled to the West, and Tagore's "New Moon Collection". ①
Here, it is said that "vigorous" poems are formed by "big waves scouring the sand" and "diluted" poems are formed by "ripples in the microwave". Although the works of Chinese and foreign poets they quoted have different styles and characteristics, they are all permeated with rich and strong thoughts and feelings of poets.
Since it is a fundamental feature of poetry to saturate the poet's thoughts and feelings, is the poet's thoughts and feelings noble, healthy or vulgar? Whether it is true feelings or false feelings; Whether it is related to the spirit of the times and people's feelings or divorced from the "self-expression" of the times and the masses will directly affect the style and artistic value of the works. So Gorky said, "Poets are the echo of the world, not just the nanny of their own souls." Guo Moruo said: "Lyricism is not only to express personal feelings, but also to express the feelings of the times. If the individual and the collective are integrated and the author and the people are integrated, then it is certain to express the feelings of the times. " ③
Third, rich imagination, association and imagination.
Poetry should not only have rich thoughts and feelings, but also integrate thoughts and feelings with the life pictures depicted in the works, and infect readers through vivid and beautiful images. This requires rich imagination, bold association and fantasy, so as to break through the boundaries between things and me, time and space, and stimulate people's spiritual feelings and rich emotions to the maximum extent. Therefore, for poetry, imagination, association and fantasy are not only the combination and movement of images, but also the creation of images, the expansion of realm and the release of emotions. Without imagination, association and fantasy, there would be no poetry.
Imagination, association and fantasy are active, vivid and colorful, whether it is ancient poetry or new poetry, China poetry or foreign poetry. Not to mention that in China, from Qu Yuan's Li Sao to the romantic poems of Li Bai and Li He, as well as modern poets such as Guo Moruo and Wen Yiduo, there are imagination, association and fantasy. From the Book of Songs, to Du Fu and Bai Juyi, and then to modern poets Ai Qing and Tian Tian, there are also rich imaginations, associations and fantasies. The opening sentence of Guan Sui in the first article of The Book of Songs: "Guan Sui's dove is in Hezhou. My fair lady, a gentleman is good. " From the expression point of view, it is "rising", and from the imagination, it belongs to similar association. Bai Juyi is a realistic poet with positive comments, but not only is his Pipa and Song of Eternal Sorrow magnificent in imagination and rich in association, but the tune of his poem Good Jiangnan is indeed a beautiful scene created by imagination. As for foreign poetry, whether Byron, Shelley, Goethe, Heine, Pushkin, lermontov, Whitman, Tagore, their works also have the characteristics of imagination, association and fantasy.
Fourth, the musical beauty of language.
Poetic language especially requires musicality, and musical beauty can enhance the expressive force and artistic appeal of works. The musical factors of poetic language include rhythm, tone, rhythm and so on. Poetry requires clear rhythm, harmonious tone, a certain sense of rhythm, beautiful and moving recitation and musical beauty.
Rhythm is the most important factor in the musicality of poetry language, including the regular intermission and pause of syllables in poetry, that is, "beat" and "pause", as well as the alternation of sounds and the coordination of strength. The strength of rhythm is directly related to people's thoughts and emotions. For example, the rhythm of the lyrics of the military song "Forward, Forward" in the movie "Red women soldiers" is very different from the rhythm of "Hong Hushui, Wave, Wave" in the opera "Red Guards of Honghu Lake". The former is passionate and short-lived, which is the expression of fighting mood; The latter is peaceful and soothing, which is a manifestation of happy mood.
Guo Moruo said in On Rhythm: The progress of emotion has its own wave-like form, which is the rhythm of poetry. Therefore, rhythm is not only its appearance, but also its life for poetry. We can say that without poetry, there is no rhythm, and without rhythm, it is not poetry. ①
The law of musical beauty of phonology and tone has been explained in detail in the previous chapter when talking about the musical characteristics of the language of literary works, so I will not repeat it here.
1. Appreciate the beauty of words
(A) the deformation of China's poetic language
To appreciate poetry, we must first understand the characteristics of poetic language, that is, to understand the "poet's language" and the deformation of poetry to language. This is the basis of poetry appreciation. At the same time, it is also one of the key contents of poetry appreciation in college entrance examination.
Literature is the art of language, and poetry is of course the art of language. Language is the basis of artistic analysis of poetry. Yan Yu said that "poetry has different materials", but in fact, poetry also has "different words". Compared with other styles, poetic language is more lyrical, implicit, refined and jumping. China's poems are mostly short lyrics. There are not many words in a poem, but the images it contains are very rich. Poetry should express rich thoughts and feelings with the help of a very frugal language shell, and to meet the needs of phonology, it is necessary to deform the language. In fact, few people write poems in the language they usually speak. If they do, they are absurd limericks. Quiet night thinking is an exception! )
Grammatically, the distortion of China's poetic language is mainly manifested in changing the part of speech, reversing the word order and omitting sentence elements. The main purpose is to establish meter, create the beauty of music, and leave room for artistic imagination and re-creation for readers. These places are often the focus of the college entrance examination. Knowing the rules of poetic language organization can quickly enter the context of poetry.
(1) Grasp the change of part of speech and experience the "meaning" refined by the poet.
In order to refine the meaning of words, ancient poets in China often changed the parts of speech of some words in their poems, and these places were often the eyes of a poem or a word. Make a detailed distinction. For example:
He Xun's "Night rain drops empty steps, dawn lights leave the room in darkness" (the first two sentences: after the east is flooded, there is no west to return to the yang. This article describes the scene of saying goodbye to friends.
"Rain at night" is a famous sentence that has been recited all the time, which renders the atmosphere when saying goodbye to friends. The previous sentence was written outdoors: the night was deep and silent, and only raindrops fell on the steps, making a monotonous sound. Although there is no description of people's activities and feelings in the poem, through the scene of "rain falling on the steps at night", we can observe the desolation in people's hearts, and the cold raindrops seem to fall on their hearts. The last sentence is written indoors: it is almost dawn, the oil lamp is about to burn out, and the room full of sadness is dark. This room feels dark at dawn, but not at night or during the day. What a careful observation! From Rainy Night to Morning Light, it implies that a sleepless night has passed, while "empty footsteps" and "leaving the room" render people's mood sad.
(2) Restore the inverted word order and grasp the poet's true intention and emotional focus.
(3) Pay attention to the ellipsis in poetry and fill the blank left by the poet with imagination and association.
Mr. Jin Kaicheng pointed out that the appreciation of poetry is always inseparable from the word "image". Mr wu shichang also said that it takes imagination to read words. In poetry appreciation, reconstructing imagination according to the "reconstruction conditions" stipulated in poetry can supplement the blank left by the poet intentionally, restore the scene of poetry and obtain higher aesthetic enjoyment. This is a necessary part of poetry appreciation. Ellipsis in poetry is related to the combination of images. Therefore, you can also use imagination to fill in the omitted parts.