I once danced in the east wind and enjoyed the spring garden in the heart-breaking sky.
How can I be willing to arrive on a clear autumn day, with the setting sun and cicadas already there?
"Willow" is a Qijue poem that sings about things and expresses emotions. Among Li Shangyin's five poems titled "Liu", this poem is the one with the most profound and euphemistic meaning. According to Feng Hao of the Qing Dynasty's "Notes on the Collection of Yuxisheng's Poems", this poem is called "the first inheritance of Dongchuan's fate, and the fake thing represents the surname to express sorrow". It is believed that this poem is a poem to mourn the death of his wife in the fifth year of Emperor Xuanzong's reign (851). After the funeral, he went to Zizhou, where the Jiedushi envoy was in Dongchuan, and wrote about Liu Zhongying's political difficulties. Ye Congqi's Commentary on Li Shangyin's Collected Poems criticized Feng Haozhi saying: "Liu Zhongying is too precise" and "Looking at the emotional trauma, it is certainly a late work after mourning, but there is no way to determine the year." ". Looking at the whole poem, compared with the above two statements, Ye's poem is longer. I think this poem is actually a work of chanting things and expressing feelings, hurting oneself and feeling haggard.
The artistically outstanding feature of this poem is the use of metaphors and symbols throughout the entire text, using Liu's self-image and integrating Liu and the poet's self into one; , every sentence is about willow, but no word directly writes about willow; every sentence is about people, but no word is about the poet's self clearly and truly. It can be said that the pen is drawn in the air, the emotions are expressed based on the virtual, and the general writing without the subject sentence is used to create an artistic effect of being at home and away, objects and people, scenery and emotions, and profound and euphemistic meanings. First of all, if we clarify this point, it will be easy to grasp the analysis and understanding of this poem.
The first two sentences use the willows to dance in the spring breeze, describing the scene when the poet entered the country in his youth and was full of ambition. These two sentences are actually an inverted structure. They chose the grand occasion of the Spring Breeze Dance Banquet at Chang'an Le Garden in Kyoto to describe the gathering of Ji Di Tuzi to celebrate the rewards. The word "Zeng" is used to bring back the past prosperity. In order to highlight the willow chasing the east wind, the poet broke the conventional narrative logic of prose and started by grasping the dynamic image of spring willow branches blowing in the wind and describing them in a concentrated manner. The selection and matching of the scene in the first two sentences of the poem is like the use of montage in modern film art: the previous sentence captures the two close-up shots of wicker chasing the east wind and dancing the banquet from the virtual to the real, deepening the story layer by layer. It describes the willow's graceful and enchanting posture dancing in the spring breeze; the poet puts aside the general objective description and adopts an anthropomorphic writing method. The word "Zhu" makes the long wicker seem to become a spiritual life, chasing The warm east wind blows in front of the luxurious dance banquet. In this way, the first sentence at the beginning vividly and heartily describes the dynamic image of spring willows flourishing and dancing in the wind, intertwined with the singing and dancing at the "Dance Banquet" into a hilarious scene, giving people a strong sense of excitement. impression. The next sentence moves from a close-up of the wicker details to a panoramic bird's-eye view and inspection of Leyou Garden. In summary, this poem points out the location of the singing and dancing banquet, which is Leyou Garden on the bank of Qujiang in the south of Chang'an City. The terrain there is high and open, with ponds and pavilions built there. It has been a tourist attraction for nobles and ladies since the Han and Tang Dynasties. Every year on the first day of the first lunar month, the third day of the third lunar month and the ninth day of the ninth lunar month, Chang'an ladies and gentlemen visit and gather together, causing traffic and horseback jams, which is quite spectacular. This poem seems to have nothing to do with Ode to the Willows. In fact, it is a connection between the text and the meaning. One of the characters "spring" brings out the splendor of the scenic spots in the spring willow garden; The graceful and prosperous appearance of the hanging strips in spring also adds to the bright and charming style of spring that is intoxicating, heartbreaking to love, and ecstatic to look at. Then, at this spring breeze dance feast in the Leyou Garden, people will naturally think that there is a poet's self. He is one of the high-spirited and noble scholars who gather, celebrate and enjoy. However, the author describes the poet as The self fades away, melting or hiding behind the main image of the poem - the heartbroken spring garden and the willows dancing in the wind, which greatly deepens the ingenuity and profoundness of the poem's conception. In short, from the analysis of the above two lines of poems, we can see a picture of the heart-broken scenery of a banquet of spring willows in Beijing. Through this two-layered scene of movement and silence, we can see the scene of Liu Zhicheng's prosperity and image. It perfectly conveys the enthusiasm and smug self-confidence of the poet in his early years as a Jinshi and during his career. At that time, he once cheered "Whoever cuts the shortcut will reach the sky quickly" ("Business opens a new road"), revealing his optimistic fantasy about a bright future. "Chasing the East Wind" and "Going to the Blue Sky" can be said to accurately describe the poet's mentality and ambition at that time.
The last two sentences refer to the decline of willows in autumn and the sound of cicadas in the setting sun, describing the tragedy that the poet fell into the whirlpool of party strife and was repeatedly marginalized politically, resulting in a bumpy career, poverty and haggard throughout his life. The triumph of the spring breeze is like a flash in the pan, just like the flourishing of a willow tree in spring, it will soon be destroyed by the autumn wind. "Qingqiu" describes the coldness and desolation of late autumn. The three words "How to be willing" are a profound reflection on Liu Zhi's tragic situation. They are the poet's inner monologue in which he feels sad when he touches an object, and feels the same way about things and me! "How willing", how willing, how willing! What is hidden behind this rhetorical hesitation is that he is not willing to do it no matter what, and he will never be willing to do it no matter what! It conveys the sadness and injustice of Liu from the past when he was dancing in the east wind to falling into the decline of Qingqiu. In another of his poems entitled "Willow", he said: "For the fragrance of the bridge to blow my face, I never dared to take advantage of the light." As the poem we discussed said: "I once chased the east wind to blow the feast. ”, all of which praised Liu’s fragrant and natural talents.
Just imagine, this willow is not born to be rotten or ugly. It is born to be naturally fragrant and beautiful, adding a heart-breaking scenery to the spring scenery. However, it does not dare to show its sharpness and is proud of itself. Why does it suffer from such desolation and desolation? The poet expresses his sympathy and pity for the situation in which Liu Kong has a beautiful and fragrant talent, but is destroyed by the autumn wind. It expresses the poet's sorrow and anger that his talent was not appreciated and his years were wasted. In this poem, the poet's sad feelings and the willow's desolate feelings have been integrated into one, focusing on the expression of emotion; the next poem turns to the description of the scene, outlining the scene of the cold dusk in autumn: "There are already setting sun and cicadas." ", the setting sun is vast, the setting sun touches the sky, and a few wisps of desolate residual light hang on the sparse willow branches. In this desolate moment, the mournful screams of the autumn cicadas hanging high on the branches are heard. How many deep resentments and sorrows are there in this scene and this situation? How unbearable, how heart-stopping! Through the description of the scene of the decaying willows, the poet's dejected and haggard old age and pain of sinking are deeply expressed.
In addition to what has been mentioned above, the outstanding artistic features of this poem are also worth noting: First, the structural art of contrasting before and after, and falling back. The whole poem is composed of the ups and downs of the front and back sections, positive and negative scenes and emotions, thus showing the main theme of the poem. The first two sentences describe prosperity, and the last two sentences describe decline. The "Qingqiu day" of today reflects the "heartbroken sky" of the past, and the "setting sun" of today reflects the "Spring Garden" and "East Wind" of the past. The contrast and ups and downs between the extreme warmth of spring and the desolation of autumn are used to intensify the devastation and depression that the poet has encountered himself. Just as Yang Shen's "Sheng'an Poetry Talk" quoted from Luling Chen Mo's "Poetry Talk" of the Song Dynasty said: "The spring breeze dancing banquet the day before yesterday was so prosperous; today's setting sun and the sound of cicadas are so desolate." It gives people a feeling of "the trees are like this, how can people be worthy of it" "The feeling of despair. Specifically, the sentence structures at the beginning and end are basically the same, starting with function words (Zeng, Ji), and two sets of verb-object structures are brought out below. This kind of poem with a similar structure gives people a strong feeling of the changing times and the impermanence of prosperity. The same is true for the two middle sentences. "Heartbroken sky" and "Qingqiu day" constitute the transition from spring glory to autumn gloominess, connecting the changes of the two scenes of "chasing the east wind" and "bringing the setting sun". The second is to condense the exquisite language art. In addition to a series of nouns rich in environmental and seasonal characteristics in the poem, its clever combinations and conjunctions of verbs and function words play an important role in lyricism. For example, the word "Zeng Zhu" in the first sentence brings out the nostalgia for the past, expands the time, space, and connotation of this little poem, and prepares for the twists and turns of emotions. , the twists and turns that constitute the scene and emotion, show Liu Yuren's extreme reluctance, unwillingness and helpless sadness; the concluding sentences "already brought" and "brought again", layer by layer, render the poet's Emotions are pushed to the limit and flow out in an unusually bleak tone. Ji Yun's "Yuxi Shengshi Shuo" said: "Four sentences are in one breath, and the writing style is flexible", "Only three or four blank characters are used to turn, cold calls or hot calls, leisurely overtones, no need to change a word." What is said is absolutely true.