Wordsworth (1770- 1850), the leader of English romantic poetry in the 9th century, is famous not so much for his wisdom, but for his emotional strength, which fascinated him, just as matthew arnold, a famous British poet and critic of the times, asked in his mourning poems for Wordsworth.
Wordsworth's "She lives on a lonely road" is one of his famous "Lucy's poems", which perfectly presents his great and far-reaching emotional strength through traditional rhythm, deep feelings and diverse images. This paper attempts to analyze this poem from the aspects of rhythm, theme and artistic techniques in order to interpret the deeper expression of emotional power in Wordsworth's poetry creation.
She lives in a lonely place
She lives in a lonely place.
By the pigeon spring,
An unsurpassed maid
Few people love:
Violet beside moss stone
Half hidden and half present!
As beautiful as a star, when there is only one.
Shining in the sky.
She is unknown and few people know about her.
When Lucy ceased to exist;
But she's in her grave, oh,
It's different for me!
She lives on a lonely road.
She lives on a lonely road,
Live near the wild pigeon spring;
No one has ever praised this girl,
Few people will fall in love with her:
A violet from Shimada Hanzo,
Next to the mossy stone!
It's as beautiful as a star,
Hanging in the sky uniquely.
Who knew she was still alive,
Who knows that she died young;
But Lucy is in her grave!
For me, this is so different!
(translated by Huang Gao)
A ballad composed of simple language
This poem is recognized as a masterpiece in modern poetry circles, and it is the first poem in william wordsworth's famous group of poems "Lucy" published in 1799, describing an ordinary Scottish girl. Although she is "as beautiful as a star", she was born on a "lonely road", with neither praise nor love; What's more, she died in obscurity at an early age. The news came, which shocked and pained the poet. The language of the poem is plain, but there is deep affection between the lines, which is really touching.
In terms of rhythm, this poem is divided into three paragraphs, which adopts the ballad form with folk song style (four-step iambic and three-step iambic alternating, which is the cross rhyme "abab"
cdcd
Efef "), the characteristics of these language forms are also consistent with the image of Lucy, a country girl in the poem. Many famous folk songs handed down from ancient times (such as Sir Patrick Spencer) and some famous works (such as robert burns's A Red Rose) were written with this meter. Wordsworth's extensive use of this poetic style made his romantic poetry stand out from the neoclassical poetry at that time, drawing a clear line with the double-rhyme style that has been circulated in English poetry for more than 100 years, and completely different from the neoclassical poetry that he strongly opposed, especially the poems of Dryden, Pope and Johnson. Judging from the original work above, the arrangement of lines seems uneven, but in fact, the meter is quite strict: each line is four steps, and each step is composed of two syllables that are light before and heavy after; Both lines are three-step steps, and each step is also composed of two syllables that are light before and heavy after; In each section, the first and third lines rhyme, and the second and fourth lines rhyme. There are also some endings that rhyme, such as dove, love, stone and one.
This poem embodies Wordsworth's innovative ideas in language. In terms of language, he advocated abandoning elegant and outdated words and phrases in the neoclassical period and adopting the language of daily life and the vivid language of the people. He said that this is "a simpler and more powerful language." People who use this language "express their feelings and thoughts simply and without affectation"; He believes that the rhythm and rhythm of poetry must be consistent with the tone of spoken language to a great extent; He also emphasized the poet's imagination, believing that imagination can "present everyday things to the mind in an unusual state".
Second, the feelings established by the life of the humble.
1800, in the preface written for the second edition of Lyric Ballads, Wordsworth advocated writing not only great historical events, but also the daily life of humble people, because in this life, "human enthusiasm and natural beauty are combined in a permanent form", and this poem describes the daily life of humble people.
There are different opinions about the ideas expressed in this poem. Some people think that poetry expresses the narrator's passionate love for Lucy. Although others don't care whether Lucy lives or dies, he still loves her and her beauty. Her beautiful quality will remain in his memory forever; Some people think that the poet used this poem to tell his rich life experiences and profound feelings about life, that is, his true love and the sad experience of losing this love; As for Lucy's identity, critics have made various speculations, but none of them have reached a conclusion. Traditionally, Lucy is the poet's sister Dorothy; Others infer that Lucy is Annette Wallon, the mother of Caroline, Wordsworth's daughter (the poet didn't marry her); Others think that Mary Hutchinson, the poet's childhood partner and later legal wife, is the prototype of Lucy's life in group poems; Others think that Lucy in the poem is not a specific person, but an ideal figure, a typical example of the imaginary ideal beauty synthesized by Wordsworth's sisters Dorothy, Annette and Mary Hutchinson. Some people even think that Lucy in the poem may not be the poet's lover, maybe her friend, or just a nodding acquaintance, but it just writes the poet's deepest affection. Specifically, the poet aroused the readers' * * with his sympathy for beauty and weakness by describing the image of a beautiful girl and her fate. Generally speaking, for beautiful people or things, people want to have a beautiful situation to match them, otherwise, there will be a sense of dislocation. As such a beautiful and lonely girl, people all hope that she can have a good situation! But the opposite is true. What a pity! Her death is like the fall of a star! Through the art of expressing emotion, poets focus on expressing emotions and showing artistic conception, so that readers can feel the same. The sentimental atmosphere in the poem, the helplessness for the passing of life, and the poet's pity are all natural manifestations of this extreme affection, which makes this poem full of appeal, deeply loved by readers and enduring charm.
Three natural beauty and eternal forms * * * construct beautiful poems.
Wordsworth clearly advocates that poetry should express subjective feelings and spiritual world instead of imitating objective things, and thinks that "all good poems are the natural overflow of strong feelings" (The
The natural expression of strong feelings: it comes from
Recollected emotion
Quiet), claiming that the great theme of poetry is "the basic feelings of the human heart", "those great and simple feelings" always interact with "natural beauty and eternal forms" and are expressed in a "naked and simple" language to "please mankind forever". And this poem presents the poet's great and far-reaching emotional power in form.
From an artistic point of view, this poem seems to be unskilled, but in fact it is natural and does not show traces. This poem is extremely short, with only three sections and twelve lines. The first two lines and the last two lines of the second section seem to be unrelated or even contradictory, but they are actually interlocking. The first section describes a young girl in her prime, but "no one has praised this girl, and few people have fallen in love with her"; In the second section, two diametrically opposite images are used to describe Lucy. One is "a semi-hidden violet, blooming next to a mossy stone!" " ; At the same time, it is "beautiful like a twinkling star, uniquely hanging in the sky." In order to better understand the originality of these two images, we can try to extract the second verse from the whole poem and observe its effect.