The Symbolic Meaning of Things in China Ancient Literature

Compare the maturity of plum to a girl's desire for love, such as "looking back by the door, but smelling plum" (Li Qingzhao's "Dianjiang Lip").

Lilac refers to sadness or complexity, such as "I have been worried about seeing lilac knots since Nanpu Bie" (Tang Niuqiao's Gratitude)

3. Animals

Ape: Sad and mournful Du Fu's "Ascending the Mountain" and "Ape Sobs in the Wide Sky and High Wind" red songs:: Pursuing the ideal.

Fish: Free Eagle: Success in Hard and Free Life.

Dog and chicken: the breath of life, rural life (thin) horse: Pentium pursues drifting

Crow: a villain, an ordinary man and a sad husband. A wandering and sad bird: a symbol of freedom [spring]. Soup bass: a reference to hometown flavor. Later, literati used "blowing" and "blowing thinking" to describe homesickness.

Double carp: refers to letters. Han Yuefu's poem "Drinking Horses in the Great Wall Grottoes" said: "Guests come from afar and leave me a pair of carp. Hu Er cooks carp with books in it. " Later, I wrote a distant letter with double carp.

Zhuang Zhou Mengdie: The language comes from Zhuangzi's "On Everything": "In the past, Zhuang Zhou Mengdie was a butterfly, lifelike. I don't know what day it is. If you suddenly feel it, you will suddenly feel it. I wonder if Zhou Zhimeng is a butterfly? What is Hu's dream for Zhou He? There must be a difference between Zhou and Hu (butterfly). This is called materialization. " Zhuangzi used this to illustrate the idea that all things are one and all things are equal. Later, scholars used it to instruct people's confused dreams and fickle things. For example, Lu You's poem "Winter Night" says: A cup of poppy is a slave, and butterflies in Zhuang Zhou are both empty. "

(Lonely) Goose: Lonely, homesick, homesick, news, Hongyan: letters-thoughts of relatives.

Hongyan: Hongyan is a large migratory bird. Every autumn, it moves south, which often leads to homesickness and sadness for travelers. For example, Xue Daoheng, a native of the Sui Dynasty, wrote: "People return to yan zhen and think before spending." I had the idea of going home long before the flowers bloomed. But when the geese returned to the north, people had not returned home. When the poet was an official in the Northern Dynasties, he sent envoys to the Southern Dynasties and wrote this homesick poem, which was subtle and tactful. There are also thoughts written by geese, such as "I feel homesick at night and get sick during the New Year" (Ouyang Xiu's play answers Yuan Zhen), "When the stars cross the building, the flute leans against the building with sound" (Zhao Wei's "Looking at the Autumn in Chang 'an" in the Tang Dynasty), "The stars are cold and blue, and the geese are sad and red" (. There are also letters referred to by Hongyan. Everyone is familiar with the allusions of Hongyan biography, and the application of Hongyan as a messenger in poetry is also very common. For example, "The geese don't answer me when crossing the river, and the river is full of autumn water" (Du Fu's "To Li Bai at the End of the Sky"), "Shuo Yan handed out a book and Xiang Yan dyed more tears" (Li Shangyin's "Lisi").

Partridge bird: the image of partridge also has a specific connotation in ancient poetry. The song of partridge makes people sound like "I can't live without my brother", which is very easy to evoke the association of hard journey and full of parting. For example, "Autumn dusk is full of grass, and the partridges are far away" (Li Qunyu's "Smelling the partridges on Jiuzipo" in the Tang Dynasty), and "The evening in the river is sad, and the partridges are deeply heard in the mountains" (Xin Qiji's "Bodhisattva Man"). Book Jiangxi stoma wall ").

Cicada: Cicada will not live long after autumn. After some autumn rains, cicadas will make a few intermittent moans, and their lives are at stake. Therefore, chilling has become synonymous with sadness. For example, Dondero's "Chanting Cicada" begins with two sentences: "The cicadas in the west are singing, and the guests in the south are thinking deeply." [Journey to the West: Autumn] Singing in a chilling voice exaggerates his deep homesickness in prison. Liu Yong, a poet in the Song Dynasty, began: "Cold cicadas are sad, the pavilion is late, and the shower is early." Before the direct description of parting, the feeling of "sadness" has filled the reader's heart, brewing an atmosphere that can touch parting. Poems such as "Crying on My Side" (Three Kingdoms Cao Zhi's "Wang Biao as a White Horse") also express this feeling.

Yuanyang refers to a loving couple, such as "why did I quit my job after I succeeded?" It is better to be a mandarin duck than a fairy "(Tang Lu's Ancient Meaning of Chang 'an).

The "Swallow" Image in Ancient Poetry

Yan is a migratory bird, which migrates with the change of seasons and likes to enter and leave people's houses or eaves in pairs. Therefore, it is favored by the ancients and often appears in ancient poetry, or cherishes spring and hurts autumn, or exaggerates sadness, or reposes lovesickness, or is sentimental about current events, with rich images and expressive expressions, which are far behind other things.

(1) shows the beauty of spring and conveys the feeling of cherishing spring. According to legend, swallows come to the north in spring and return to the south in autumn, so many poets beautify and praise it as a symbol of spring. For example, "Deep in the haze of flowers, make a fresh breast" (Wei's On Meeting an Old Friend), "Swallows come, news agency, pear flower falls is behind" (Yan Shu's Broken Fighter), "Yingying comes, the flowers are beautiful in Liu Zhen, and everything is beautiful" (George's "The sky is clear and the sand is a thing"). "Great research, shape and spirit likeness. The spring is bright, the swallows are petite and lovely, and the literati are affectionate. When spring passes, the poet will feel infinite sadness. Therefore, Ouyang Xiu has "a traveler, only feeling the spring is empty." "When the curtain is hung, the two swallows return in the drizzle (picking mulberry seeds), and Qiao Ji has" Who is the swallow hiding the spring title, Yinger is ashamed to find a companion, cold and lazy to report to the official (picking honey), and the crow is hungry "(Narcissus).