Wen Yiduo once compared the creation of metrical poems to dancing in chains. Classical poetry is basically rhythmic. Even before the birth of modern poetry, poetry was mainly composed of seven-character poems, and rhyme was widely used; After the appearance of modern poetry, the emphasis on parallel couples and melody (flat and parallel) is particularly strict. The poetry creation of predecessors is not so much freedom as freedom from necessity. This makes some special phenomena appear in poetry and prose writing.
As far as poetry vocabulary is concerned, this is the widespread use of metonymy. For example, "Jinbo" is the moon, "Hai Yin" is the snow scene, "Furong" is the feather curtain, "jade chopsticks" is the tears and so on. In addition to these special "metonymy" words, the scope of synonyms in poetry is wider than that in prose. For example, a synonym for "ship" in prose. It's "boat" and some words with "boat" as the radical, while "tent", "sail", "spoke" and "paddle" are just the names of hull parts and can't be used to replace "boat" in general. In poetry, this metonymy is not only feasible, but also widely used. For example, "You must drift away from me here, like a hundred miles of loose aquatic plants" (Li Bai's Don't Be Friends), "Until the banks of the ebb tide widen, and there is no wind to stir my lonely sails" (Wang Wan's "Next berth on Beibao Mountain"), "Singing that you want to cross Pingyang in the radial direction, and the defenders ask each other their names" (Yuan Jie's "Yun Naiqu"), "When the oars fly across the pool.
The use of these metonymies may initially be for the sake of leveling and rhyming, and sometimes it is necessary, but the actual effect is far from so negative. In addition to rhyme coordination, the artistic conception conveyed by "No Wind Stir My Lonely Sail" is far better than that conveyed by writing "The wind is just sailing"; There are white sails on the river, which gives people a more vivid and beautiful impression. Compared with the plane of the river, its vertical shapes complement each other and show a very broad sense of space, which is irreplaceable. The word "frost" emphasizes the significance of several degrees of frost in life. If it is changed to the word "year", it will disappear and become a purely objective concept of time. At the same time, the word "frost" also means that poetry was written at the turn of autumn and winter. In this way, it was an inevitable consideration, but as a result, it gained freedom, or increased the image of vocabulary, or enriched the meaning of poetry, which can be said to be due to illness. Mr. Zhou's penetrating opinions in the preface to Notes on Hundred Selected Poems of Song Dynasty have made great contributions to poetry appreciation. Excerpts are as follows:
If you see the word "red calyx" in Yongmei's poems, you don't have to think that "red calyx" is really part of the botanical definition. In fact, because you must use Rusheng here, you use "calyx" instead of "flower". You don't have to think that this weed is really planted in Mr. Yan's yard when you see the word "Late Bonus Step Down from the Courtyard" by the wild goose. In fact, it can't rhyme here just because "grass" is the top note. And the list goes on. Because the word "land" is silent, sometimes we should consider using the words "Sichuan", "Yuan" and "Sha" (Pingchuan and Pingsha are actually flat land).
However, art is a strange thing. It is said that the use of "calyx" instead of "flower" and "toad" instead of "moon" was originally caused by melody, but it was changed and immediately added new colors and meanings than originally intended. So the relationship is not unilateral. From here, we can see the extremely complex connotation factors of refining words and choosing words. Wang Guowei pointed out that writing words and expressing feelings are "separated", and all good words are not separated. This truth should basically be said to be correct, but it is also difficult to insist on one thing. Zhou Bangyan wrote a sentence about the Lantern Festival, "Sweet-scented osmanthus flows between tiles". The criticism is that this realm is very good, but it is a pity that osmanthus is used instead of the moon, so it is "separated". However, if you can't see the beautiful imagination of "Guanghan Guishu" caused by the word "Gui", the association of "Yue Hua" caused by the word "Hua" and the quip of "There is a golden wave in the moon" caused by the word "Liu", then artists are required to give up all artistic thinking and only speak vernacular.
The phenomenon of "every word has no source" in poetry vocabulary is only one aspect of the problem. On the other hand, habit is also the enemy of poetry. Even in poetry vocabulary, innovation is still an important issue worthy of attention. In this respect, poetry seems to be more prominent than prose.
Words and expressions in prose are the most taboo. In poetry, it is certainly not good to make words and sentences, but the poet can make some, and the discretion should be mastered by the poet himself. For example, Li Shangyin's Untitled: Through Spring-Wine, while it warms me, I will remind you how to gamble. There, in groups, we roll dice under the crimson lamp. Generally speaking, "wax lamp" only refers to "candle". It is said here that "Wax Lamp" is suitable for leveling, but readers don't think it is a creation. (On the Formal Beauty of Language by Wang Li).
People who are not good at rhyming are often trapped by rhyming, and sometimes they can't help it. People who are good at rhyming can win by surprise, not only using rhymes naturally, but also taking advantage of the situation to show the freshness of their thoughts. ..... Li Shangyin used the allusion of planting jade in Lantian in his poem Jinse. What a mediocre sentence it would be if we just said planting jade! Because poetry rhymes first, he suddenly realized that "jade gives birth to smoke", which not only solved the problem of rhyme, but also caused the extraordinary poetry. (same as above)
The poetry writing involved here does exist a lot because it is difficult to see originality and surprise, especially in the works of original poets.
Li He, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, is an excellent representative. One of the important ways of creating words in his poems is metonymy. At the end of Wild Goose Gate, it reads: "I report to you that you are in Jintai, and I took Yulong to die for you." "Jade Dragon" replaces "sword" not only because of the legend that the sword turns into a dragon, but also because it fits in with the poetic artistic conception with strong mythical color. "North Cold" says: "A hundred stones are stronger than a river." The word "water" here is actually "ice", but using the word "ice" has no amazing effect at all. The poem "South Garden" said: "A healthy woman with a long waist steals food and will feed it to the king of Wu with eight cocoons." The poet's original intention here may be to write "thin waist". The combination of "waist length" and "healthy woman" is no longer a gesture of "light waist posture", which may be closer to the reality of rural mulberry pickers and the image is very fresh. What's more, they are absolutely different from those familiar metonymies, such as "jade chopsticks for tears" and "brotherhood", but they create new words for an article or a sentence to play a warning role.
The homophonic pun commonly used in ancient poetry here causes literal argot, which must also be discussed incidentally. This technique is intended to skillfully use other words through association, and the reader must know what he means here.
Green land and green water, hibiscus red and fresh. Lang sees me, and I want to conceive lotus. (Song at 4 o'clock midnight)
In the poem, the heroine compares herself to a lotus flower, which will bear lotus seeds, implying the birth of love. Among them, "Lotus" is a homophonic pun on "Furong", and "Lotus" refers to a pun on "pity" (love). Readers should not only know the original words, but also know the "other words" with different sounds, so as to have a definite grasp of poetry. There is also a saying in Qingyangdu in the small Yuefu in the Six Dynasties: "Lotus root is below and lotus root is above", and the word "lotus root" should also be pronounced as "even" and "lotus" as "pity". In addition, "thinking" is used as a pun on "silk", such as "the silkworm first becomes a cocoon, and acacia is a female secret" (Silk Making); Use "sunny" as a pun on "love", for example, Liu Yuxi's "Rising East and Falling West, the road is sunny but sunny." Look at these quatrains:
A candle at the bottom of a well keeps Lang Changxing from going. Linglong dice Ann Monkey Bean, do you know how much you miss it? (Wen Tingjun, "Nan Gezi")
There are many riddles composed of puns in this poem, and "candle" should be read as "exhortation"; The "long walk" of one scene (two places) should be read as "long walk" of a wanderer; "Go" sounds the same as "overdue"; "Acacia to the bone" refers not only to the red beans (acacia seeds) embedded in the dice, but also to the infatuation of the woman.
How can we appreciate these poems if we can't read?