1) The multiple emotional connotations of "Rain Lane"
1. The projection of the darkness of reality and the disillusionment of ideals in the poet's heart
A good lyric Poetry should be the crystallization of artistic beauty. It will transcend the limitations of time and space and arouse people's aesthetic feelings. "Rain Lane" by Dai Wangshu is such a beautiful lyric poem.
However, for many years, "Rain Alley" and some other poems by Dai Wangshu have been regarded as idle moans of Symbolism and Modernism and excluded from the field of literary history; until recently, people did not like to appreciate them. Just like unearthed cultural relics, these works were excavated from the forgotten dust, and the artistic brilliance of them was once again seen.
Dai Wangshu’s rough and tortuous creative path of more than 20 years left us only more than 90 short lyric poems. "Rain Alley" is one of his early famous works.
"Rain Lane" was written around the summer of 1927. It was first published in Volume 19, No. 8, of "Novel Monthly" published in August 1928. Du Heng, Dai Wangshu's close friend, wrote in 1933:
Speaking of "Rain Lane", it is difficult for us to forget Mr. Ye Shengtao's awards. Almost a year after "Rain Alley" was written, when Mr. Sheng Tao was acting as editor of "Novel Monthly", Wang Shucai suddenly wanted to post it. As soon as Mr. Sheng Tao saw this poem, he wrote a letter and praised him for opening a new era for the syllables of new poems. ...Mr. Sheng Tao's strong recommendation earned Wang Shu the title of "Yuxiang" poet, which he has done to this day. ("Preface to Wangshucao")
This well-known story in literary history reflects the value and influence of the poem "Rain Lane" at that time.
In terms of lyrical content, the realm and style of "Rain Alley" are not high. "Rain Lane" expresses the author's deep disappointment and hesitation in a low and beautiful tone. When we open the poem, we first see that the poet paints a gloomy picture of the alleys in the south of the Yangtze River during the rainy season. The poet himself is the lyrical protagonist wandering in the rain alley. He was very lonely, and in the continuous drizzle, he "held an oil-paper umbrella and wandered alone in the long, long and lonely rain alley." In such a gloomy and lonely environment, he had a vague and painful hope in his heart: "I hope to meet a girl who is as sad as a lilac." This girl is given a beautiful and sad color by the poet. Although she has "the same color and the same fragrance as lilacs", she is also "as sad as lilacs". Her heart was full of "indifference", "desolation" and "melancholy". Like the poet, she was "sad and hesitant" in the lonely rainy alley. Moreover, she was silent, "like a dream" from herself Floating past, she walked away from this lonely rain alley.
In the mournful song of the rain,
Her color disappeared,
dispersed. Her fragrance,
dissipated, even her
sleep-like eyes,
lilac-like melancholy. It is a lyrical mood rich in symbolism. Here, the poet metaphorizes the dark and dull social reality at that time as a long, narrow and lonely "rain lane" where there is no sound, no joy, and no sunshine. , is such a lonely person wandering in the rain alley. He cherishes a beautiful hope in his loneliness, hoping that a beautiful ideal will appear in front of him. This kind of beautiful ideal is the girl described by the poet. However, the poet knows that this beautiful ideal is difficult to appear. She is as full of sorrow and melancholy as herself, and it is fleeting, drifting away like a dream, leaving only the poet. I am still wandering in the dark reality, with the hope that floats away like an impossible dream!
Some commentators say that "Rain Alley" is the poet using beautiful "imagination" to cover up the ugly. The "real" "self-liberation" is to "deceive yourself and readers with some soapy and gorgeous illusions". Apart from the harmonious beauty of art, "there is no merit in content" (Fanny). : "On Dai Wangshu's Poetry", "Literary Review" 1980, 4), these criticisms and judgments are too simple and harsh for "Rain Lane"
The origin of "Rain Lane". The summer of 1927 was the darkest era in Chinese history. The reactionaries massacred the revolutionaries, causing a white terror that enveloped the country. The young people who had responded enthusiastically to the revolution suddenly fell from the climax of the fire into the abyss of night. . Some of them cannot find a revolutionary future. They are confused in pain, longing for the emergence of new hope in the gloom, and "Rain Lane" is one of them. A reflection of the state of mind of progressive youth.
Dai Wangshu was only twenty-one or twelve years old when he wrote this poem. He was engaged in revolution with his classmates Du Heng, Shi Zhecun and Liu Naou more than a year ago. Literary and artistic activities, he joined the Communist Youth League, and devoted himself to the party's propaganda work with his enthusiastic pen. In March 1927, he was arrested and detained by the reactionary authorities for promoting the revolution. "Four. After the "January 2" coup, he lived in seclusion in Songjiang, Jiangsu Province, chewing on "the troubles of being Chinese in this era" in solitude.
("Preface to Wangshucao") The poems such as "Rain Alley" he wrote at this time are naturally filled with emotions of hesitation, disappointment, sentimentality and pain; this hesitation and sentimentality cannot be generally said to be purely personal. It is a lament, but the projection of the darkness of reality and the disillusionment of ideals in the poet's heart. "Rain Lane" uses short lyrical chants to reproduce the typical voices deep in the hearts of these young people. Here we do not hear descriptions of real suffering and cries of rebellion against darkness. This is a low confession, a confession of disappointment. However, from this confession and confession, can't we clearly see the pain and pursuit of some young people after their ideals are disillusioned? The pain of losing beautiful hope flows in the poem. Even young people at that time were not so easily "deceived." After reading "Rain Lane", people do not want to wander in the rain lane forever. People will hate this rainy alley and long to get out of this rainy alley and go to a broad and bright place without rain and sorrow.
2. Expressing anxious people and unattainable ideals, a tragic theme with the characteristics of the times,
The poem "Rain Alley" is about a person who is intoxicated in the pursuit of emotions. Young people often wander alone in the long rain lane, waiting for a beautiful girl, because the girl's home is at the end of the rain lane. Except for the sound of spring rain hitting the oil-paper umbrella, the rain alley is lonely. The girl the lyrical protagonist hopes to meet is filled with sorrow and resentment. The fence of her house is crumbling. She has obviously been struck by fate. She is melancholy, desolate, sighing, and confused, but she is not depressed or begging; she is Indifferent and arrogant, she was still so charming. She did not lower her noble head in the heavy sorrow, and endured the hardships that fell on her head like a flag fluttering in the wind. The poet here shows human dignity and tenacious vitality. But the girl described by the poet is sentimental, and he compares her to lilac. There are many famous lines praising lilacs in ancient Chinese poetry, such as "Lilacs can bear sorrow in the rain", "Plantains do not show lilac knots, but they share their sorrows in the spring breeze" and so on. Lilacs bloom in mid-spring, and poets often say that lilacs are the crystals of sorrow. Lilac flowers are white or purple, and their color and fragrance are neither frivolous nor frivolous. Lilac is a symbol of the trinity of beauty, nobility and sorrow. Lilacs are beautiful, but they wither easily. A girl who is like a lilac is a girl who dreams of fragile dreams, and her sorrow and resentment are naturally inevitable.
After a long period of expectation, the girl finally came, complaining in the rain, "she approached silently", sometimes the two hearts were close to understanding each other, but they were finally disappointed, "they surrendered again" "Looking like someone out of breath", he finally drifted past, and the distance between the two of them widened again. These two wanderers both suffered from the same depression, and therefore they sympathized with each other. However, just because the symptoms are the same, it is impossible to save each other and they have to separate. They are hesitant, and they continue to pursue in the hesitation. Judging from the deeper symbolic meaning of the poem, the image of the girl in Dai Wangshu's poems is often the embodiment of his ideal. He was wandering and searching just to find the girl - ideal. The girl appeared, but, "like floating in a dream", she only flashed in front of her and disappeared in an instant. Together with her color, her fragrance, her breath and her melancholy, the lyrical protagonist herself was left behind. Yuxiang wandered alone. Everything is silent, and the rain flutters the paper umbrellas, adding to the loneliness of the rain alley. In this way, the poet expresses the lonely feeling that the pursuit of beautiful ideals is futile.
In "Rain Lane", the image of the girl has a tragic color, and the image of the lyrical protagonist, the wanderer (the image of the lonely wanderer runs through all Dai Wangshu's works) also has a tragic color. His pursuit is so noble and idealistic. He is looking forward to a girl who has both a deep inner world and charming charm; a girl who is both beautiful and unyielding in the face of hardships. However, he himself is so difficult to be understood by others. He neither knows himself very well nor understands the other party very deeply; perhaps what he expects is always the memory in his heart. Therefore, in the face of idealistic expectations, he is always confused and harbors a temperamental sense of tragedy. Dai Wangshu was familiar with the works of the French poet Verlaine, and in terms of sentimental temperament, he was also close to Verlaine. Verlaine's "Silent Songbook" expresses the depressed and depressed mood of the overwhelmed intellectuals after the failure of the Paris Commune. Its tone is the tragic sense of the poet's ideals and the squalid life around him. Dai Wangshu's poem expresses the tragic feeling of the ideal that soared happily from the May 4th Movement and the reality of the Revolution from 1925 to 1927 that was drowned in a pool of blood. Although his poems are not poems of resistance and fighting, they are not slaves to the environment either. The tragic theme of people and ideals, panicked people and unattainable ideals contains the characteristics of the times.
(2) The artistic characteristics of "Rain Lane"
1. An important artistic feature of "Rain Lane" is the use of symbolism
Lyrical.
Symbolism is an artistic genre that emerged in French poetry at the end of the 19th century. They rebelled against the capitalist order with their fin de siècle decadence. In terms of expression methods, emphasis is placed on hints, metaphors and other means to express inner momentary feelings. This art genre was introduced to China during the ebb of the May Fourth Movement. The first person to make extensive use of symbolism in poetry was Li Jinfa. Dai Wangshu's early creations also clearly accepted the influence of French Symbolism. An important feature of his creations is to pay attention to the ability of poetry to imply metaphors, and to express emotions in symbolic images and artistic conceptions. "Rain Alley" embodies this artistic characteristic.
In the poem, the poet holding an oil-paper umbrella, the lonely and long rainy alley, and the girl with lilac-like sadness floating past like a dream are not specific portrayals of real life itself: they are lyrical images full of symbolic meaning. We may not be able to specifically say all the content these images refer to, but we can appreciate the hazy poetry expressed by these images. The atmosphere of social reality, the lonely and wandering state of mind, the kind of hope that is pursued but cannot be obtained, in the image described in "Rain Lane", are both clear and hazy, both definite and erratic, displayed before the readers' eyes. Imagination creates symbols, and symbols expand imagination. The result of using symbolic methods to express emotions makes the poet's emotional state of mind more subtle and subtle, leaving readers with a vast world to imagine and feel the lingering fragrance and aftertaste of the poem.
Mr. Zhu Ziqing said: "Dai Wangshu also adopted the symbolism school. He translated the poems of this school. He also paid attention to neat syllables, but not sonorous but light and elegant; he also looked for a hazy atmosphere, But it can be understood." "He wants to capture the subtle and subtle places." ("Chinese New Literature Series·Collection of Poems·Introduction") "Rain Alley" is hazy but not obscure, low-key but not decadent, affectionate but not frivolous. It has truly grasped the symbolism A subtle and exquisite place for the art of poetry.
2. Dai Wangshu’s poetry creation has also been deeply influenced by the artistic nutrition of classical poetry.
In "Rain Alley", the poet created a symbolic lyrical image of a lilac-like girl with a sad head. This is obviously inspired by some works in ancient poetry. Using lilac knots, or lilac buds, to symbolize people's sorrow is a traditional expression method in ancient Chinese poetry. For example, in Li Shangyin's poem "Gifts on behalf of others", there is a line: "The plantains do not show their lilac knots, but they all face the same sorrow in the spring breeze". Li Jing of the Southern Tang Dynasty even associated lilac knots with melancholy in the rain. He has a song "Huanxi Sand":
The hand-rolled pearls are hung with jade hooks, locking the heavy building with the regret of the previous spring. Who is the master of the falling flowers in the wind? Thoughts are long!
The bluebird does not convey the message from the clouds, and the lilacs bear sorrow in the rain. Looking back at the green waves of San Chu and Mu, they connect to the sky.
In this poem, lilac knots in the rain are used as a symbol of people's sorrow. It is obvious that Dai Wangshu absorbed the artistic conception and method of describing sorrow from these poems and used them to form the theme of "Rain Lane" Artistic conception and image. This absorption and reference is obvious. However, can we say that the artistic conception and image of "Rain Alley" are the expansion and "dilution" of the modern vernacular version of the famous old poem "Lilacs are empty and sad in the rain"? I don't think it can be seen that way. When constructing the artistic conception and image of "Rain Lane", the poet not only sucked the juice of his predecessors, but also created his own creation.
First, the ancients used the lilac knot itself to symbolize sorrow in poetry. "Rain Alley" imagines a girl who is as sad and resentful as a lilac. She is as sad as lilacs, but also as beautiful and fragrant as lilacs. In this way, it changes from a simple metaphor of sorrow to the incarnation of a beautiful ideal filled with sorrow. This new image contains the author's pursuit of beauty. It contains the pain of disillusionment of the author's beautiful ideals.
Secondly, the poet used fresh modern language in "Rain Alley" to describe the fleeting image of the girl like lilac in the rain. This is different from the clichés used in classical poetry. It is very different from other early works written by the poet that are full of old poetry tones, and expresses more of the flavor of the new era. "The lilacs bear sorrow in the rain", and "the girl who bears sorrow and resentment like lilacs" can arouse people's emotions of hope and disillusionment better. In the field of expressing the sorrow of the times, this image is a rare creation.
Thirdly, in ancient poetry, lilac knots in the rain use real life scenes to express the poet's feelings. The image of the lilac-like girl floating in the rain in "Rain Lane" brings more elements of the poet's imagination. It is not only a possible scene in life, but also the crystallization of the writer's artistic imagination. It is a true image of art produced by the combination of reality and imagination. Dai Wangshu said: "Poetry is derived from reality through imagination. It is not only real, nor just imagination." ("Notes on Poetry" 13) He believes that the essence of poetry lies in the two ways of expressing oneself and concealing oneself. In the eternal struggle of wishes, he carefully and skillfully hides his "reality" within the barrier of "imagination" in poetry. The reason why the French Symbolist poets have a special attraction to him can be said to be because that special technique coincides with his motivation to neither hide himself nor express his poetry. Judging from the poem "Rain Alley", Dai Wangshu's poetry is different from the frank and unrestrained and direct lyricism of the Romantics, and it is also different from the French Symbolist poet Valéry who puts thoughts first. Dai Wangshu puts feelings first. However, he used the method of suggestion to make this feeling as hidden and hazy as possible, especially to hide the real thing. Although "Rain Lane" also has the elusiveness of the Symbolist feeling, the erratic inner state, and the vagueness of the image, it does not have the mysterious meaning of some Symbolist poems. It "makes people understand and has sincerity." "Emotions serve as the skeleton", with classical content, few empty emotions, extravagance but not hypocrisy, gorgeous but lawful. We speculate that the "reality" hidden in the "imagination" in the poem "Rain Alley" may be an emotional encounter of the poet, and the emotional experience in this period of life became the skeleton of the poem. The poem probably retains some shadows and details of the real events, but the time, place and circumstances may have changed beyond recognition. This is also a huge difference between Symbolism and Romanticism.
Romantic poetry mostly depicts real people and events, and many of them are improvisational. However, it is difficult for Symbolism to infer the author from the poem. At least, this kind of speculation is quite tortuous. At the same time, the meaning and theme of symbolist poetry are often expressed through hints. The sense of tragedy and loneliness in "Rain Alley" is hinted at through the environmental rendering of the long and lonely rain alley, the crumbling fences, the cold sadness and the drizzle, as well as the depiction of the wanderer's expectations for a girl who looks like a lilac. of. Nothing is explained or revealed, but we understand and feel it. Precisely because the poet does not limit the meaning of poetry to one level, we can understand more things from poetry.
We say that the artistic conception and image of "Rain Alley" draw lessons from classical poetry, but also transcends classical poetry. The most important reason is that it is a creation based on the poet's life experience and his own imagination. It is the product of an artistic imagination that is larger than life.
3. "Rain Lane" was initially praised, and an important aspect was the beauty of its syllables.
Ye Shengtao praised this poem for "opening a new era for the syllables of new poetry." Although it is a bit exaggerated, but first of all, seeing the beauty of its syllables, it is insightful. . The whole poem "Rain Alley" has seven stanzas. The first and last stanzas are exactly the same except that "meeting" is changed to "floating over". This kind of knotting and reappearance, echoing from beginning to end, the same main theme reappears in the poem, strengthens the musical feeling of the whole poem, and also increases the expressiveness of the poet's hesitation and disillusionment. The whole poem has six lines in each stanza, and the number of words in each line varies, and the rhyme is generally repeated in lines not far apart. Each stanza rhymes two to three times, with no rhyme changes from beginning to end. The sentences in the whole poem are very short, and some short sentences even cut off the connection between words and sentences. Some of the same words appear multiple times in rhymes, such as "rain lane", "girl", "fragrance", "melancholy" and "eyesight", intentionally making a sound repeat in people's hearing. The result is a reverberating melody and smooth rhythm. It reads like a gentle and pensive serenade. A lonely and painful melody echoes repeatedly throughout the song, lingering in people's hearts.
In order to enhance the musicality of the whole poem, the poet also absorbed some techniques from foreign poetry, and alternated the same words in the same verse. This kind of repetition in language, like the repetition of intertwined lyric phrases, sounds pleasant and harmonious, and adds to the lyrical color of the poem. When romantic free verse and the "Crescent School" style of tofu-dried poetry were in vogue, Dai Wangshu sent the beautiful and melodious "Rain Alley". Although it cannot be said to have "opened a new era for the syllables of new poetry," at least it It also opens up a new world for music to be expressed in new poetry.
Reference materials
1. Wang Zelong: "From the wild "Tiangu" to the lonely "Rain Lane" - On the evolution of Chinese new poetry from romanticism to modernism in the 1920s", "Journal of Jingzhou Normal University", 1994/04
2． Sun Shuqin: "Analysis of the artistic characteristics of "Rain Lane"", "Journal of Yanbian University (Social Science Edition)", 2000/03
3. Lan Dizhi: "On Dai Wangshu's famous work "Rain Alley"", "Appreciation of Masterpieces", 2002/01
4. Zhang Junping: "Also talking about "Rain Alley" - and discussing "Talk about Dai Wangshu's famous work "Rain Alley"", "Appreciation of Masterpieces", 2002/06
5. Sun Yushi "Appreciation of Dai Wangshu's Masterpieces", China Peace Publishing House, 2002 edition
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