An important artistic feature of Rain Lane is the use of symbolism to express emotions. Symbolism is an art school that rose in French poetry at the end of19th century. They used the decadence of the end of the world to resist the capitalist order. In the way of expression, it emphasizes the use of implicit metaphor and other means to express the inner feelings. This school of art was introduced into China at the ebb of the May 4th Movement. Li Jinfa was the first person to write poems with a lot of symbolism. Dai Wangshu's early works were obviously influenced by French symbolism.
An important feature of his creation is that he pays attention to the ability of excavating implied metaphors in poetry and expresses his feelings with symbolic images and artistic conception. Rain Lane embodies this artistic feature. The poet with an oil-paper umbrella in his poem, the lonely and long rain lane, and the girl with lilac-like sadness and dreams are not the concrete portrayal of real life itself, but the lyrical images full of symbolic significance.
We may not be able to describe all the contents of these images in detail, but we can appreciate the vague poetry expressed by these images. The atmosphere of social reality, the lonely and wandering mood, the pursuit and the unattainable hope are both clear and hazy in the image described in Rain Lane, which is both certain and erratic. Imagination creates symbols, and symbols expand imagination. As the result of expressing emotions by symbolic means, the poet's emotional state of mind is more subtle, which also leaves readers with a broad imagination world and feels the fragrance and aftertaste of the poem.
Mr. Zhu Ziqing said: "The Dai Wangshu family also adopted the symbolism of law. He translated the poems of this school. He also pays attention to the neatness of syllables, but it is not sonorous but light and clear; It is also a bit embarrassing, but it is understandable. " "He wants to grasp the delicate place." (Introduction to China's New Literature Series Poems) Rain Lane is hazy but not obscure, low but not decadent, affectionate but not frivolous, which really captures the subtlety of symbolism poetry art.
Dai Wangshu's poetry creation is also deeply influenced by the artistic nutrition of classical poetry. In Rain Lane, the poet created a symbolic lyrical image, a girl with a lilac-like sad heart. This is obviously inspired by some works in ancient poetry. Lilac knots and lilac buds are used to symbolize people's worries. Li Jing in the Southern Tang Dynasty even associated lilac knots with melancholy in the rain. His "Huanxisha":
Roll up pearls to make curtains and hang hooks. In the tall building, I look like before, and my depression is still locked. The fallen flower in the wind is so haggard, who is its owner? Think long term!
The messenger didn't bring news to the pedestrians far away. The lilacs in the rain reminded me of sadness. I looked back at the Three Gorges at dusk and saw the river falling from the sky.
In this poem, the lilac knot in the rain is used as a symbol of people's sadness. Obviously, Dai Wangshu absorbed the artistic conception and methods of describing sadness from these poems and applied them to form the artistic conception and imagination of Rain Lane. This kind of absorption and reference is obvious. However, can we say that the artistic conception and image of the rainy lane are the expansion and dilution of the famous Tang poem "Lilacs are sad in the rain" in the modern vernacular version? I thought I couldn't see it that way. When the poet conceived the artistic conception and image of Rain Lane, he not only absorbed the juice of his predecessors, but also created his own.