Why is there such a difference? To explain this problem, we must first make it clear that the object is poetry, so what is poetry? Broadly speaking, all art is poetry. It can be a philosophical term or a way to observe the objective world from the subjective spiritual world. But this is not the poem I want to say. What I want to say is poetry in a narrow sense, a huge literary genre. So what is poetry in a narrow sense? I don't know. Not only do I not know, but no one can give an accurate definition of poetry as a literary genre. Therefore, I have to define my object in other ways-combining the literary genres generally recognized as poetry in China and the West, and calling them China Poetry and Western Poetry respectively. China's poems include poems, ci, qu, ci and fu. Western poems include: metrical poems, free poems and prose poems. ③
The origin of China's poetry-The Book of Songs of the South is a common view at present. The poems in The Book of Songs are mainly in four words and six languages, which are relatively short. The poems in Songs of the South are generally long, especially Li Sao and Tian Wen. But something interesting happened. History-that is, later literati poets mostly chose the "form" of The Book of Songs, but only absorbed its expressive art and spiritual connotation. The reasons why the poet chose the "style" of The Book of Songs are as follows: First, The Book of Songs is regarded as authentic and the product of the civilization of the Central Plains; Second, the limitations of Songs of the South-the local color of the language is too strong, so it has not become a widely used language; Third, in the process of absorbing fresh blood, the "constitution" of The Book of Songs is more similar to new things and easier to absorb and mix. So China chose short and pithy poems from the beginning.
The source of western poetry is mainly ancient Greek mythology, among which Homer's epic is a typical representative. The Iliad and Odysseus are two homeric epics, each of which is a masterpiece-tens of thousands of lines, and the number of words is equivalent to modern novels. The question is, why did ancient Greece combine real history with myth, why the story was so long, and why was it recorded in the form of poetry? For these problems, I will make some rough explanations respectively:
First, because the ancient Greeks revered and yearned for the gods on Mount Olympus, myths and gods profoundly influenced their lives, and the affairs of the world were closely related to the gods.
The second question, because the gods in ancient Greek mythology are interrelated and form a huge system, it will take a lot of space to explain this huge system. China also has myths and works written for gods-Nine Songs, but most gods exist independently and cannot be pieced together into a story, so the length cannot be compared with Homer's epic. In addition, due to the yearning and reverence for gods and heroes, the ancient Greeks used many exaggerated narratives, which greatly increased the space.
The answer to the third question is closely related to the second question. It is precisely because of the huge space that the ancient Greeks could not write down the story, but passed it on from generation to generation. It is not easy to write down so much content, so it forms a rhythm in the process of circulation and is easy to remember. Finally sorted out, it became a poem and became the origin of western poetry.
China pursues performance, emphasizes freehand brushwork and is implicit;
The west pursues reproduction, attaches importance to realism, and is happy and unrestrained.
Most of China's poems are produced by poets to express the heaven and earth in their hearts, and they consciously pursue expressiveness. Ten points, the poet will never write ten points, but set aside space for readers to feel the unfinished meaning. Very artistic, writing three points will become a poem. Poets are convinced that "words don't mean everything", and write the frame of artistic conception, leaving the rest for readers, which is the best reading experience pursued by China poets and readers. China people pursue "neutrality" and introversion, which leads to the clumsy expression of poetry. Even if there is no intense emotion in falsehood, it will not be "exposed" in poetry. Moreover, China's poems seldom express his feelings at will.
Most western poems are made by the secondary processing of the scenes that poets have experienced, which is highly reproducible. Naturally, when they write poems, they are mainly realistic, trying to restore the scenes they captured to the readers, so that the readers can understand the poet's own feelings at that time. Westerners always have open genes in their blood. They are willing to talk and share, and writing poems is a good choice for them to reflect on their hearts. As a result, they not only like narrative, but also like emotion, and they wrote it without hesitation.
It is worth mentioning that there are similar differences between Chinese and western painting arts. China's paintings attach importance to freehand brushwork, take the spirit in form and reflect the flow of qi between heaven and earth with the flow of lines; Paper white is virtual, line black is real, and virtual and real are born together; Various pigments are used only for decoration. For a long time, western painting has emphasized realism, pursued details and aimed at restoration. Colorful, infectious and pleasing to the eye.
First of all, we should know that Chinese is the most concise language in the world, especially the classical Chinese in the past. In classical Chinese, words are often monosyllabic words, that is, a word can often express a complete semantics. A word is very small, and a sentence containing a dozen or twenty words won't make the sentence appear lengthy (such as this sentence). In addition, the syntax in grammar has few restrictions on Chinese, and there are not too many function words in expression, which makes almost every word in a poem express its meaning. Even function words, China's poets often make full use of them, which contains profound meanings. ①
Most importantly, western languages have no advantage over Chinese. This makes the length of Chinese even smaller if the same meaning is expressed. This is particularly evident in translation.