A little poem

Mr. Wen Yiduo once wrote a poem "Dead Water" to express his resentment against the ruling environment at that time.

background introduction

Dead Water is a poem that best represents Wen Yiduo's thought and artistic style. Wen Yiduo is an important poet, scholar and revolutionary fighter in the history of modern literature in China. His poems mainly include Red Candle and Still Water. Although these two poems are the products of different stages of Wen Yiduo's thought and artistic style development, there is a red line of patriotism running through them.

The anthology Red Candle is Wen Yiduo's first anthology. Many works in this collection reflect the poet's strong anti-feudal consciousness, loneliness in a foreign country and his attachment to the motherland. Among them, Ode to the Sun is very distinctive. With the wings of imagination, the poet expressed his love for the sun and poured out his homesickness and love for the country to the sun. The works included in the poetry collection "Dead Water" are obviously superior to the works included in "Red Candle" in both the profundity of thought and the maturity of art. Among them, poems such as Discovery, One Word and Still Water. , or grief or heroic enthusiasm, expressed the poet's anxiety and concern about the fate of the motherland and expressed strong patriotic enthusiasm. Whenever readers read these works, they will be moved and shuddered.

Wen Yiduo's poems have a unique artistic style. He thinks that the new poems since the May 4th Movement are too loose and free, so he advocates new metrical poems. Due to the pursuit of artistic rigor, most of his poems have the characteristics of romantic fantasy, rigorous and strange conception, volcanic passion, three-ring rhetoric, metaphor, exaggeration, symbol, repetition and other rhetorical devices.

Wen Yiduo has also made great achievements in the theoretical construction of China's new poetry creation, and his new metrical poetry theory is called the cornerstone of modern poetics by later generations.

1922, the poet went to the United States to study with the ambition of serving the motherland. In a foreign land, the poet tasted the bitterness of China people being humiliated and discriminated against. 1925, the poet returned home early with strong patriotic feelings and ardent expectations. However, after returning home, the motherland presented to him was a scene of extreme disappointment-warlords fighting and imperialism running rampant, so that the poet's feelings changed from disappointment and pain to extreme anger.

The poem "Dead Water" was written under such circumstances.

The author's life

Wen Yiduo (1899- 1946) is a modern poet and scholar. Xishui people in Hubei. I studied literature and art in America. He joined the crescent society in his early years and was a major member of the society. He wrote poems such as "Red Candle" and "Dead Water". In the form of new poetry, he advocates meter and emphasizes "symmetry of stanzas and uniformity of sentences". Later, he mainly engaged in academic research, and made great achievements in the study of The Book of Songs, Songs of the South and Zhouyi. He taught in Qingdao University and Tsinghua University successively, and was a professor at Kunming Southwest United University during the Anti-Japanese War. Mr. Wen Yiduo's life path is poet → scholar → democracy fighter, which is a brave, shining and bumpy life. Formerly known as Wen Jiahua, also known as Duoduo, Yiduo and Yiduo, the word is especially three and especially good. Crescent School is a representative poet, whose works are mainly included in Wen Yiduo's complete works. China was a great patriot in modern times, a staunch democratic fighter, an early leader of China Democratic League and a close friend of China Producers' Party. He was honest and took an active part in the patriotic and democratic movement. He was assassinated by Kuomintang agents in Kunming in the summer of 1946.

Wen Yiduo of stagnant water

This is a backwater of despair,

The breeze can't blow the slightest (yι).

Why don't you throw more rubbish,

Throw out your leftovers.

Maybe copper will turn green into jade,

A few rusty peach petals on the tin can;

Let greasy weave a layer of Luo Qi,

Mold steamed some clouds for him.

Let the stagnant water ferment into a ditch of green wine,

Filled with pearly foam;

Little Pearl smiled and became a big one.

I was bitten by a flower mosquito who stole wine again.

A desperate backwater ditch,

And a little image.

If frogs can't stand loneliness,

Dead water again. It is singing.

This is a backwater of despair,

This is definitely not the beauty,

Why don't we leave it to ugliness to cultivate,

See what kind of world it has created.

works appreciation

Dead water, written in 1925, is a war song full of curses and uncompromising to the dark society.

The poet came back from America with ardent love and sincere hope for his motherland, but the dark social reality made him sad and disappointed. The intense emotion was solidified by the cold social reality, and the image of "stagnant water" in the poet's mind was constructed. Dead Water is a true portrayal of that society: green, lifeless and hopeless. Through this ditch, "stagnant water" gushed out the anger and pain generated by the poet. The positive significance of poetry lies in that the curse on the old society is not only the catharsis of subjective feelings, but also the harsh exposure and criticism. Poems such as "throw more garbage and throw out your leftovers" and "stagnant water is fermented into a ditch of green wine" are exactly what poets use to reproduce the disgusting social essence, so-called "to the point"!

The brushwork of stagnant water is spicy and delicate.

First of all, irony is often used, that is, beautiful and bright words are used to express the poet's extreme hatred, such as "turning green into jade", "rusting a few peaches" and "steaming a few clouds". The poet outlined the dark social reality in his own unique way and expressed his attitude of never cracking.

Secondly, as an advocate of metrical new poetry, the poet strives to practice metrical new poetry. The whole poem, * * * consists of five sections, with four sentences in each section and nine words in each sentence. It rhymes alternately and has a rhyme in each section. It is neat, catchy and full of charm.

It is the poet's ingenuity to write ugliness with vivid language and rigorous and harmonious rhythm, and then to enhance the criticism and denial of reality with carefully written ugliness.

Main content analysis

By using symbolic and ironic artistic techniques, Dead Water profoundly exposes the dark rule of Beiyang warlords and shows the author's determination to be at odds with this dark government.

The whole poem is divided into five sections and can be divided into three parts.

The first part (the first section) expresses the poet's indignation at the "stagnant pool" of corruption in old China.

The first sentence of the poem "This is a stagnant pool" has profound implications: it symbolizes the corrupt and dark semi-feudal and semi-colonial old China at that time, just like "a stagnant pool". In this poem, the word "despair" expresses the poet's deep disappointment. In the second sentence of the poem, "the breeze can't blow a bit", and "breeze" is the contrast of "stagnant water", which can be used as a metaphor for all fresh thoughts and forces. However, these new things can't attract the slightest reaction of "stagnant water". There are no waves where the breeze blows, indicating that the stagnant water has been silent to the extreme. This sentence is a further description of the third and fourth sentences in the poem "Dead Water", which describes the poet's extreme hatred after facing the disappointment of "Dead Water". Since the reality is so dark and desperate, it is better to let it rot and stink completely. Maybe it's a terminal illness, and if it's hopeless, it will rot faster and more thoroughly Only when the old dies completely will the new become stronger. These two poems also show that the poet's anger is full of ardent hope for good things.

In the second part (the second, third and fourth sections), the poet described "stagnant water" in detail, vividly exposed the decadent social situation in old China, and expressed his feelings of hatred, anger and ridicule towards old China.

In these poems, the poet gradually and profoundly wrote the further changes of scrap iron and stagnant water after leftovers with rich imagination, vivid metaphors, vivid color descriptions and ironic brushstrokes. And "scrap copper and iron" thrown into stagnant water will produce green and red rust, such as "emerald" and "peach blossom". Moreover, greasy "leftovers" are scattered on the water, and the sunshine is like a flashing "Luo Qi"; Some places are moldy and hairy, just like "clouds"; After fermentation, the stagnant water will turn into smelly water with the color of "green wine", which is covered with "pearl-like foam". It is in this stagnant water that swarms of flower mosquitoes are flying around, and sometimes, noisy frogs are added. This disgusting stagnant water, dirty and smelly, is untenable! Here, the poet described the dark reality of old China in detail by further describing stagnant water. In this part, the poet used colorful "Emerald", "Peach Blossom", "Rocky", "Xia Yun" and "Pearl" to describe the dirty stagnant water, just like dressing the devil with a delicate and elegant coat. This is a contrast between false beauty and ugliness. The poet wrote this way to make the ugly class uglier. Write ugliness with beauty, and ugliness is even uglier. In this unique way, the poet shows the rancid nature of stagnant water more vividly, and at the same time makes his poetry have a strong irony.

The third part (the last section) expresses the poet's strong desire to curse reality and urgently hope to change it.

In the first two sentences of this part, the poet completely denies the dark China society in a very straightforward tone. "This is a pool of desperate stagnant water, which is definitely not the beauty." . After the complete denial, the sentence "Let Ugly take back the land and see what world he created" wrote the poet's hope in despair. The world cultivated by ugliness can only be uglier, but if it is ugly to the extreme, it is possible to reverse Gan Kun. Therefore, these last two sentences not only contain the poet's despair of old China, but also his expectation and yearning for new China, and his strong desire to change reality. Although for poets, this expectation was very vague at that time.

The whole poem strongly lashes and curses the dark and stale old China under the rule of warlords, which shows the poet's deep patriotic enthusiasm.