Why do Chinese people read poetry?

The life of poetry

We know that Chinese culture, in the realm of literature, has an evolution and development process. The general situation is that the so-called Chinese, Tang poetry, Song lyrics, Yuan opera, Ming novels, by the Qing Dynasty, I think they were couplets, especially people like Zeng Guofan and Zuo Zongtang, the famous ZTE generals, who developed couplets to the highest point. The evolution of our Chinese literary form over thousands of years is probably like this.

At noon today, a scholar talked about the writings of many people. He said that he had read some works in the past and they were passable and he didn’t pay attention. It’s hard to read some works now. What he said is true. Some people have the genius of a writer. They can write a few sentences casually, and from the style of writing, you can tell that they will definitely achieve success in literature. There are also people who study for a lifetime and cannot become a writer. Although he writes articles quite well, he cannot reach that level, and no matter how hard he works, he cannot break through his own limit. His articles are always just articles written by a scientist. Therefore, there is no way to make reading scientific books interesting.

I once told my students that if you teach chemistry in conjunction with literary techniques, you will be more successful. Science itself is very boring, so it is best to make it interesting. For example, for a formula, don’t talk about the formula first, but talk about other interesting things. Finally, explain this interesting thing, which is the same as the principle of a certain formula. Listen People can understand it. As a result, several students used this method to teach, and it was indeed very successful. But now Chinese literature is undergoing drastic changes, and no rules can be found yet.

As for poetry, in the past when we were studying, no one started learning poetry in primary school (not modern primary school). Everyone can compose poetry, but whether he is a poet or not is another question.

Some people ask why we attach so much importance to poetry education. This is a big question. Most people usually think that writing poetry means moaning for no reason and becoming a poet craftsman. In the past, some people also joked about this kind of poem, so-called "closing the door and covering the door with firewood", closing the door means closing the door, closing the house also means closing the door, and covering the door with firewood is still closing the door. The tones are correct, and the rhymes are correct, but putting them together makes no sense at all. This is nonsense. This kind of literature really has problems, and it has become a "closed door to hide behind firewood".

There was another joke in the past. A few decades ago, there was a so-called "toilet literature." In the Jiangnan area, there are a lot of messy words written on the walls of public places such as teahouses. There is no name for these words, so some people call it "toilet literature". Someone read these words and couldn't stand it anymore, so he wrote a poem. This poem also represents the last stream of literature in Chinese culture. The original sentence is: "I have never met a poet, but now I know that the poet is eight feet long. If he is not a poet, how can he fart on the high wall?"

This was a funny work criticizing "toilet literature" at the time. , Situations of decline like this may seem common to us now, but they were serious at the time. Therefore, we had to advocate revolution. At that time, the problems of literature and culture were very serious. There are too many decayed things in those useless poems! There are too many jokes with this meaning.

What Confucius said to Zigong here pointed out what the principle of "poetry" is. People who write poetry and learn poetry do not just want to be a poet, otherwise they will be scolded as "how can they be poets"? Fart on the high wall”. Therefore, the purpose of poetry is not to specialize in literature. The principles contained in it are very important. Regarding the culture of poetry, Confucius told Zigong that reading poetry does not teach you to become a sour nerd. You must "tell those who have gone before and know what is coming."

Not only do we write poetry, we also read history. Why do we read history? Although students studying history in history departments and institutes of history in universities can get good results, they are of no use to them as a person or person. We Chinese used to read history and advocated applying what we learned. Its spirit was to "tell the past and know the future." If you understand the past, you will know the future. This is the spirit of poetry.