This poem by Xu Zhimo is a dramatic narrative poem. Behind the narrative structure and surface of the poem, there is a "prototype" symbolic structure.
The so-called "prototype" is the central term often used by the western "myth-prototype" criticism school, or "myth prototype". Broadly speaking, expanding the scope refers to the images that are typical and used repeatedly or appear in literary works, as well as the image combination structure-it can be the reproduction or evolution of ancient myth patterns, or it can be the images or image combination structure with special symbolic significance that are commonly used by writers and poets.
Xu Zhimo's "Live These Days" is not difficult, and the existence of its "prototype" is not difficult to find. Reading this poem, it is easy to think of Cui Hu's masterpiece "Chengnan Zhuang" in the Tang Dynasty: "Last year, this door/face peach blossoms set each other off/I don't know where to go/peach blossoms are still smiling in the spring breeze."
I have the intention to find another "face", but I still take time and feel sad. This narrative structure of "pursuing something with beautiful ideals, but not seeing it, can only be idle and melancholy" has been repeated in China's classical poems, almost becoming a prototype.
This poem by Xu Zhimo is a dramatic narrative poem. Poetry contains the dramatic structure praised by the new criticism. The whole poem is like a drama with strict and complete structure, with time, prologue, plot unfolding, contradictory confrontation and dramatic dialogue, tragic ending and the end of a paragraph (monologue).