How to divide the rhythm of ancient poetry?

On the division of the rhythm of ancient poetry If we want to achieve good results in the teaching of ancient poetry, we must strive to show the beauty of ancient poetry. The beauty of artistic conception, emotion and form should be the core and key of ancient poetry teaching. The beauty of artistic conception and emotional feeling can refer to many materials, which is relatively easy to grasp, and the beauty of form is of course more difficult for teachers who can't write ancient poems today. To this end, we have done a special study, and now this part of the content about rhythm is published for your reference, and your valuable opinions are welcome. First, the natural rhythm of ancient poetry In the era of The Book of Songs, the dominant form of poetry was Siyan. Under its influence, ancient poetry gradually formed a rhythmic feature of taking two syllables (that is, two Chinese characters) as a beat. "Yesterday I/past, Willow/Yiyi; Today, I/think, rain and snow/fly (The Book of Songs) embodies the rhythmic beauty of neatness, symmetry and catchiness. However, because the rhythm of four-character poems is too simple and rigid, it gradually declined after the Han Dynasty, and similar six-character poems have never entered the mainstream form of classical poetry. After the Han Dynasty, five-character and seven-character poems became the most basic form. Although Wuqizi poetry is mainly composed of two syllables in one beat, it is different from four-character poetry and six-character poetry in that it has an abnormal monosyllable in addition to several complete beats. Wuqizi poetry is composed of two beats and an abnormal monosyllable, while Qiqizi poetry is composed of three beats and one monosyllable. Why do you need such a monosyllabic word? It has two functions: first, it is more convenient to reflect the rhythmic beauty brought by poetry rhyme. As we know, poetry is for Ye Yun, and Ye Yun's usual method is to assign homophones at the end of the sentence. These homophones echo back and forth, resulting in the beauty of sound. Obviously, the rhyme point of leaves is the key to the rhythm, so it should be strengthened when reciting. Dragging an abnormal monosyllable into a beat can well reflect and highlight the rhythm of poetry. The rhythms of five words and seven words are generally 22 1 and 22 1 1. The second function is to make poetry more beautiful in setbacks and changes, because the rhythm of "222" and "222" is inflexible because it lacks change. The appearance of abnormal monosyllabic words has changed this rigidity, making poetry more flexible and changeable, and can produce a sense of ups and downs and the beauty of frustration when reciting. From the perspective of melody effect, read Melancholy/Gully Bottom/Pine Tree, Separation/Mountain/Seedling. Reading the History of Poetry (Zuo Si) is obviously better than reading the "wind and rain/sad cries/cries" in the Book of Songs. See/gentlemen, Hu Yun/not a foreigner? " (Storm) or "Shuo/Shuo, no food/I am Xiaomi! Three-year-old/female, Mo Me/ Ken Gu "(Shuo Shu) feels more beautiful and expressive. Therefore, 22 1 and 222 1 become the basic and classic rhythms of five-character poems and seven-character poems respectively. After the Han Dynasty, poets generally follow such classic rhythms to make sentences, such as: tidal flat/wide shore, positive wind/sail hanging (Wang Wan's Ci Bei Gu Shan), national ruin/mountains and rivers present, city spring/vegetation deep (Du Fu's Chun Wang), isolated mountain/Temple North/Jiating/West. It is found that the abnormal monosyllables in each sentence are so conspicuous that they naturally become the center of expression. As a result, many poets focus on the training of monosyllables, which makes the era of "five-seven-character" poetry, in a sense, become a poetic era of forging famous sentences. Of course, according to the need of meaning, the position of monosyllables can be placed not only at the end of the sentence, but also in the sentence. Afterglow/dispersion/prosperity, Chengjiang/tranquility/practice. A noisy bird/cover/spring island, a mixture of English/Manchu/Fangdian. This is a famous sentence in Xie Shu's poem "Going to Three Mountains and Returning to Wangjing Town Late". All monosyllables are impressively in the sentence, which is obviously the focus of the poet's tempering. In other words, the center of poetry is not in Ye Yun's position, and the poet's prominence is not entirely in the rhythm of poetry, but in the inner artistic conception of poetry. In this way, there are two common meaning structures in ancient poetry: one is the ending monosyllabic. The five-character poem 22 1 and the seven-character poem 222 1 are in line with the rhythm of natural classics. Second, monosyllables in sentences. Wuyan 2 12 and Qiyan Poetry 22 12 are also very common. Such as: at home/saving/confidanting, Tianya/Ruo/Neighbor (Wang Bo's Send me to Shaofu as Zhou Shu), Silkworm/Dying/Silk/Tired, Wax Torch/Ash/Tears/Dry (Untitled by Li Shangyin). In these examples, the monosyllabic words distributed in the sentence are the meanings that the poet should highlight. Prolonging in these positions when reading makes poetry more meaningful. But in this way, the rhythm and meaning structure of poetry are misplaced. If the first is the classical rhythm, which is the natural rhythm required by the rhyme of poetry, then the second is the deviation from the natural rhythm. In other words, the beauty of echo brought by poetic rhyme has faded. For this reason, in practical application, two forms are usually used intricately to read a complete poem, such as Lu You's Tour of Mountain Creek Village:/farmer/pull old/muddy, good year/stay/foot/chicken, dolphin, mountain weight/water recovery/doubt/no way, willow songs/flowers/swim/village drums/follow. However, in the second rhythm form, the position of monosyllabic words in sentences is noteworthy. Whether it is five words or seven words, it is before the last beat, and it is often closely combined with the last beat in meaning, but more alienated from the beginning beat. It seems to be similar to the first form, and this rhythm form can be regarded as a variant of the first form. For this reason, predecessors put forward the theory of "three-character suffix", while some modern scholars call it "semi-teasing method" (Lin Geng's A Comprehensive Review of Tang Poetry). The former thinks that the last three words of the May 7th Poem are a big unit of meaning (such as "keeping your bosom friend" and "doing your best"). The latter thinks that there are still "half teasing" in the poem, with five words in the first section (such as "Hainei//Save/Confidant") and seven words in the second section (such as "Spring Silkworm/Death//Silk/Jin Fang"). Therefore, it can be said that the second rhythm form is only a minor modification without fundamentally violating the classical rhythm of melody, and it is still a harmonious unity of sound and meaning. However, some poets have broken through the rule of "three suffixes" or "semi-teasing" in pursuit of poetic strangeness. Such as: ① one//Wen, the official//the elderly should take sick leave. (Du Fu's "One Night in the Field") ② It sounds sad in the corner of the night//soliloquize, the moonlight in the sky is good//Who can watch (Du Fu's "Sufu") ③ Sometimes it rains at 3: 00/2, and there are//ten branches and five flowers everywhere. (Li Shanfu cold food) (4) Looking for poetry//quilt, thinking about the years//surprised. (Yuan Zhen's Farewell) None of the above situations conform to the "three suffixes" rule. From the perspective of meaning structure, the "semi-teasing" point of example 1 is after the first syllable, example 2 after the fifth syllable, example 3 after the second syllable and example 4 after the fourth syllable. As long as you read it a little, you can find their great differences from the above two forms. Here, the natural rhythm of poetry is completely broken and replaced by an abrupt and extraordinary effect. Third, how do middle school students divide the rhythm of ancient poetry? Chinese education in China has always paid special attention to poetry, but until the first half of the 20th century, learning poetry also paid special attention to reciting. The traditional chanting, however, has a tune, completely follows the natural rhythm, regardless of the meaning structure, and only follows the first rhythm form mentioned above, that is, the classical rhythm form. For example, "the mountain is heavy/the water is heavy/there is no doubt/the road is deep/there is another village." Although readers know that "there is no solution to doubt" and "there is another reference" cut off the meaning, this is the case in actual recitation. It can be seen that the traditional chanting method pays attention to the rhythm and ignores the meaning. (See Zhu Guangqian's On Poetry) This method is certainly not suitable for today's primary and secondary school teaching. So how should we guide students to divide the rhythm? On this issue, linguists are controversial. This argument is reflected in the first volume of Chinese 1 published by People's Education Publishing House in 2000. This is the first time for middle school students to learn ancient poetry. In this exercise, students are required to divide the rhythm, and the principle put forward is "giving consideration to both syllable and meaning" (the author should change the word "syllable" to "rhythm"). There are two kinds of demonstrations, namely: old friends/tools. So, what is the theoretical basis of this amendment? In fact, many teachers prefer to use the latter division because it is simpler, and according to the above analysis, we can also think that the simplified dichotomy conforms to the principle of "three suffixes" or "semi-teasing method" and is more convenient for students to operate. Generally speaking, it is enough to divide a poem into two, five words and two thirds, and seven words and four thirds. However, this simplified method is actually inappropriate. It only pays attention to meaning, without considering melody. As far as the above-mentioned "Tour Shanxi Village" is concerned, it is simple to divide it by dichotomy. However, after this division, the whole poem becomes monotonous and unchanged, which does not conform to the actual aesthetic effect of the poem. In fact, as a metrical poem, formally speaking, it pays special attention to antithesis. The antithesis requires that the upper and lower sentences must be consistent in structure and symmetrical to each other. Contradictory sentences (that is, compound sentence) are arranged in the middle four sentences. Prose sentences are usually used at the beginning and end of metrical poems. The first sentence and the second sentence, the seventh sentence and the eighth sentence have different structural forms. The alternate use of prose and parallel prose is the basic feature of metrical poetry. In addition, the antithesis of two couplets usually needs to change the structural form. If the couplet is 22 12, then the neck couplet is generally 222 1. In this way, prose and parallel prose are intertwined, and several different parallel prose are combined together, which makes metrical poems have both strong expressive force and beautiful reading effect. A visit to Shanxi village, the first sentence is 222 1, the second sentence is 22 12, the couplet is 22 12, the neck couplet is 222 1, and the last two sentences are 22 12. It can be seen that the key points of dividing the rhythm of ancient poetry are: (1) find the abnormal monosyllables of each sentence and take them as a beat alone; (2) Other syllables, as long as they do not violate the meaning, every two syllables are a beat. This method is feasible for two common structural forms. For example, Meng Haoran's "A Gift to Prime Minister Zhang Dongting Lake": In August, the lake is beautiful, the clouds and smoke are soaring, and the sky is the same as the sky. If you want to cross without a boat, you are trapped in Yueyang City, and you are ashamed to sit and watch fishermen throw fish. First, find the abnormal monosyllabic words in each sentence: Ping, Hun, Ze, Cheng, Nothing, Shame and Love. In this way, we can quickly mark the rhythm points of the whole poem, as follows: August/Lake/Peace, Meaning/Mixing/Too Clear and Steaming/Cloud Dream/Ze, Wave Shake/Yueyang/City Desire for Economy/No Boat, Fall/Shame/Sage Sitting/Angler, Apprentice/Fairy Jade/Love, and then you can see it. The middle two couplets are couplets, one is 22 1 and the other is 2 12, and the order changes. The seventh sentence of the ending here is not drawn according to the trisection, because the word "angler" is difficult to separate, and of course "angler" is closely combined, but "angler" is not independent, so the author thinks that the meaning should be respected and treated as a whole after segmentation. The above examples belong to two conventional structures. In fact, the above methods can also be applied to poems that break the conventional meaning structure, such as "eternal night/horn sound/sadness/monologue, mid-sky/moonlight/good/who is watching." (Du Fu's Sufu) "Seeking/Poetry/Being, Thinking/Years/Surprising." (Yuan Zhen's Farewell) Obviously, these example sentences are the same as the regular rhythm in terms of rhythm. However, the following situations need special discussion: ① Mountains/Ye Ping, rivers/wild streams. (Li Bai's "Seeing Friends Off at Jingmen Ferry") 2 people/text, officials/should take sick leave. (Du Fu's "A Night Out") ③ Pass/No/Eat Meat, Kong Fangxiong/Yes/Break up. (Huang Tingjian's "The Father of Kong Yi in the Play") The above points are divided according to the meaning. If you divide the rhythm, first, don't violate the meaning structure; Secondly, it should be as detailed as possible to reflect the actual rhythm of poetry. The third rhythm point and the number of syllables per beat can be handled flexibly according to the actual situation. The above three examples can mark its rhythm as follows: ① Mountain/Spike/Ye Ping/Exhaustion, River/Entry/Wild/Flow. (2) Name/text/book, official/response/old illness/rest. (3) GuanChengZi/no/meat/phase, Kong Fangxiong/have/break up/book. In the first two cases, two short beats are the focus of poetry, and reading with two beats is helpful to understand the connotation of poetry. The two function words in Example 2 are used as a single beat, mainly because "Qi" and "Ying" are the focus of the poet's expression and can express their meanings independently (this is different from "Zhe" in Pipa). Chinese shoulders the heavy responsibility of carrying forward excellent national culture, and to realize this task, in poetry teaching, we must let teenagers enjoy reading ancient poems and appreciate their spirit and beauty in reading.