Yao Pengzi's son is Yao, an active leader of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and a member of the Gang of Four during the Cultural Revolution.
Break the piano
Scattered pianos,
Lonelier than a song full of weeds,
Lonelier than the clock in the ancient temple.
Broken strings burst in the autumn wind!
Faded lapels and skirts,
They are all covered with moss.
Never see a poet again,
Before the song was finished, he flapped his wings and flew to him;
Above the morning dew, there is no piano music.
Loneliness, watching spring flowers turn yellow leaves,
Look at the lack of moon and full moon;
Stealing shadows, under the autumn moon, like a skeleton.
From Selected Poems of Symbolism, People's Literature Publishing House,1August, 986.
When I first read Yao Pengzi's Broken Piano, I felt a strange beauty, such as abstract paintings, such as San Qin, Singing Lips in the Wild Grass, Lapel Skirt, Dead Skeleton with Dust Moss ... These grotesque images seem to be filled with a square piece of paper, and the lines are distorted, which gives you a visual impact.
Singing Lips in the Weeds reminds people of a gorgeous woman who plays and sings (I don't know why, "singing lips" always makes people feel as red as blood), and the "clock of the ancient temple" is not as lonely as the ear of the silk and bamboo, and the residual string "bursts" because of being in the ancient temple. This word with sonic boom almost made us hear the "pop" and the piano came to an abrupt end.
"Never again. When I see a poet/piece unfinished, I will flap my wings and run to him." Who saw the poet again? When it is "singing lips in the grass", when it is a woman who plays the piano and sings in front of the piano, her beautiful clothes, if they can fly, must be like butterflies flapping their wings. Now, her clothes are covered with moss and people are gone. Of course, the piano will not stop at the morning dew.
Spring flowers turn yellow leaves again, and the full moon is missing several times. Time goes by, but it can't take away your loneliness. In the moonlight, you feel sorry for yourself, but you are a skeleton. When I read the word "skeleton" at this time, I suddenly remembered the woman who played and sang in front of the piano. The front corner and skirt are covered with moss. She must be a skeleton, and the scratches on the broken string are still there, just like a song has just been sung.
The whole picture is gloomy and dreary. Only the "flapping wings" and "flying" in the third paragraph of "Helpless Memories" bring a little agility and color to the picture, but with the completion of the memory, it falls into a more gloomy space, and everything seems to have lost all its soul and turned into a bone.
Some people think that since the poem takes "broken piano" as a symbolic carrier, then the whole article must only be written on the piano. "The first section describes the coldness of the piano, the second section describes the broken string, the third section describes the sound of the piano, and the fourth section describes the shape of the piano." (See Zhou Rongquan's Appreciation of Peng Zi's Three Poems, Appreciation of Masterpieces 1998. "Lip-singing" and "lapel skirt" are metaphors of the piano, which makes sense, but if the third season is postponed like this, it will be understood as "bosom friend" listening to the poet playing the piano, and it seems that it is not good to "gallop" to sing with the poet before the music is finished. The whole poet is looking at the broken piano, and suddenly he abruptly inserts a third, and the poet is playing a tune, which is in harmony with the whole. Therefore, a woman who plays the piano and sings will be better when she sees the poet running away. Moreover, a broken piano under the moon, like a sunken ship, is naturally lonely, but the things in front of it are more lonely and melancholy.
Yao Pengzi, a poet in the early 20th century, was depressed and confused. At this time, he was involved in the wave of French symbolism poetry. During the First World War, symbolism poetry swept across Europe and then hit China. Yao Pengzi hit it off with symbolism's pessimism, decadent color and concern for the individual's heart, and began to reveal his "painting in the heart" in his poems. With his sensitivity and imagination, he used symbols, metaphors, comparisons and associations to reveal his inner secrets-depression and melancholy through rich and confusing image descriptions. Yao Pengzi, whose heart was filled with depression, plunged into symbolism. If he drinks nectar, he splashes ink on the pages of the manuscript paper to express his "abnormal mood" (in Yao Pengzi), but he doesn't seem to pay much attention to the ideal world and abstract thinking that symbolism attaches importance to. Some people think that the third and fourth paragraphs in Broken Piano have the meaning of sighing that "time is no longer" and "life is not satisfactory" (see
This song "Broken Qin" was included in 1929, a collection of poems by Peng Zi published by Shanghai Shuimo Bookstore in March. In the preface of this collection, the poet thinks that "the history of China in the past ten years is the history of climbing out of the grave." I am a person who sleeps in the grave, so these poems are his "evidence of boredom in the grave". No wonder the people in the grave are all bones, covered with mildew, as if there is a gloomy wind. But in the preface, the poet also denied these poems, "May dear readers put down this boring pamphlet and pick up your fighting weapons". Since then, Yao Pengzi's poetic style has changed. His poems are no longer strange and quiet, but have become drums.