Chapter 4 The political lyric of the victor in the second quarter: "The time has begun"

The early 1950s was a transitional period when old cultural norms did not adapt to the new situation and new cultural norms were brewing. Ideological and theoretical criticism and self-criticism became the fashion for a while, and literary creation was relatively quiet.This is in an uncoordinated contrast with the vigorous situation presented on the surface of the times.In such an atmosphere, the victor's political lyric creation became the only loud voice.Under the new historical environment, the main content of political lyricism is reflected in the direct praise of the new regime and its leaders. The praise of the motherland in the disaster, and then the praise of the local government and leaders appeared in the folk literature and art of the anti-Japanese democratic base areas, and some poets (such as Ai Qing, Xu Chi, etc.) also initially tried to create the theme of praise. After the 1950s, "in order to meet the requirements of expressing the themes and themes of the 'New People's Era', 'Ode' has further developed into a general paradigm for poetry creation. In terms of content, it is manifested in two interrelated aspects, One is the eulogy of the era - the era of the people's revolution and the era of socialist construction and its masters - the masses of workers, peasants and soldiers; the other is the eulogy of the founder and leader of the new China, the Communist Party of China and its leaders. Both At the same time, it is also a tribute to the new socialist motherland.” 10 “Ode” style became the mainstream of political lyric creation in the 1950s and 1960s, and it developed until the period of the Cultural Revolution, when the eulogy of leaders reached its peak. It is also becoming more and more stereotyped.

In the early 1950s, because "carols" were a new theme style, the intellectuals who grew up under the enlightenment tradition of the "May Fourth" New Literature obviously lacked the corresponding language expression ability.The most typical example is Guo Moruo, a famous poet during the "May 4th Movement" period and the founder of free verse, who actually wrote the "Ode to Xinhua" in the form of classical Fu to praise the new regime.Although there are quite a few works that use the form of free verse to write carols, there is also a lot of rough production tendencies that tend to be empty lyric or conceptual narrative.Generally speaking, it may be that the poet is eager to confide the feelings accumulated in his heart, and his language often shows the flood style of "the river does not choose its trickle", and prose-style slogan-style or even quotation-style narrative sentences abound. It breaks the law and rhythm of general lyric poetry, and recreates the giant form of poetry with grand narrative; it also reflects the contradiction between the great freedom and liberation of the poet's subjective emotions and the hero worship psychology of the "song" style. Poetic features of a particular era.

The most vivid expression of this political lyric style is Hu Feng's large-scale symphony-like long poem "Time Has Began" composed from the end of 1949 to the beginning of 1951. This work consists of five movements: the first "Joy" "Ode to Glory", based on the opening of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in September 1949, exaggerated and exaggerated the warm atmosphere of the venue and the great image of Mao Zedong; the second "Ode to Glory" specifically described the history of suffering of Chinese working women and their Several glorious models who rose up to resist under the influence of the times; in the third "Youth Song", the poet transformed his subjective lyricism into a set of perceptual images, full of the youth of new things such as grass, morning light, snowflakes, land, and sunshine. Pure gratitude.This is a group of beautiful and touching lyric poems, but unfortunately the poet did not complete them all at that time.The fourth part begins with the foundation stone laying ceremony of the Monument to the People's Heroes held in Tiananmen Square. With romantic imagination, it has a soul dialogue with the heroic souls of the martyrs who the poet knew, and writes about the lives of the martyrs very affectionately and sincerely. The silhouette and soul are true; the last chapter is "Another Ode to Joy", returning to the celebration scene of the founding ceremony.The whole poem has more than 3,000 lines, starting with joy and ending with joy, which runs through the three historical times of the CPPCC meeting, the foundation stone laying of the monument, and the founding ceremony, and also runs through the poet's personal life path of seeking revolution and pursuing ideals; Carefully designed the poetic structure of grand political lyric poems, dignified narrative poems and light lyric small poems alternately, making it magnificent, open and close, fully conveying the spiritual soul of that happy era.

Hu Feng’s mood in creating this political lyric poem may be complicated, not just out of cheering for the new regime (although it is expressed in this form). It is considered that he "misinterpreted the basic principles and guidelines of proletarian literature and art thought with his own petty bourgeois viewpoint"12, and judging from Mao Dun's criticism of him in his report at the First National Cultural Congress, he It seems difficult to defend himself effectively from a theoretical point of view (although he has been trying to do so), so the best way under the circumstances at the time was to use creation to prove whether his theory is conducive to the construction of a new regime, knowledge Whether the "subjective fighting spirit" of the Communist Party can be consistent with the requirements of the new regime. "Time Has Begun" is an effort. He used exaggerated enthusiasm to praise Mao Zedong and the revolutionary practice under the leadership of the Communist Party, just to prove the identity of his theory with the times.Of course, Hu Feng’s closeness and admiration for Mao Zedong is also real, especially after he published Mao Zedong on Lu Xun for the first time in 1938, a sense of knowledge and appreciation has always been permeating in his heart.The fusion of these two emotions made him sing loudly with full passion in the poem:

ocean boiling it surges a peak Mao Zedong He stands tall on the highest peak as if he was slightly bent over as if his right hand is clenched into a fist put in front as if he stepped on a huge invisible steering wheel as if he was gazing at the rivers of various sizes The intimacy of personal perspective is carried out in the language, and Mao Zedong was pushed to the peak of a historical giant without loss of proportion.This is the core of Hu Feng's poetry theory: the poet's voice is the fermentation of the spirit of the times, the flower of the poet's emotion is the flower of the people's emotion, and the great emotional factors of the poet must be closely combined with the spiritual characteristics of the times. What is more successful in "Time Has Begun" is that the poet used quite personal language to describe the moving story of the poet's sympathy with several martyrs. The image is combined with a certain huge common voice of the times, and the latter is expressed through the former's real rather than conceptual feelings.This narrative feature is especially reflected in the fourth part. The poet makes no secret of the moments when the martyrs had depressed souls and various character flaws, especially the poetic narration of the revolutionary writer Qiu Dongping, which simply portrays a bloody soul.This is also consistent with what the poet has always advocated for the writer to write about the painful struggle of the character's soul.

Lu Yuan, a poet of the July School, once spoke highly of this poem: "There were quite a few poems praising the People's Republic at that time, but comprehensively measured from the height of vision, the depth of connotation, the concentration of emotion, and the strength of expression, it can be compared with There may not be many works equivalent to "Time Has Begun." 13 If "Time Has Began" is placed in the creation of similar political lyric poems, such a judgment is undoubtedly accurate. Many necessary factors of characteristic political lyric poems, especially the shaping of strong lyrical subject, made it difficult for latecomers He Jingzhi, Guo Xiaochuan, Wen Jie and other important political lyric poets in the 1950s to achieve such originality.However, it should also be noted that the political lyric poems of the "song" style at that time had shortcomings, such as the unrefined poetic language and the stylization of the "song" style, unrestrained subjective emotional catharsis, and fanatical worship of leaders. etc., are fully exposed in this work; as for the lengthiness and repetition without melodic beauty caused by its giant structure, such as "Ode to Joy" followed by "Ode to Joy", in the description In the middle of the CPPCC meeting, a party member meeting was inserted, and the naturalistic attitude of following the story was adopted when describing the documentary characters, etc. These may be the unique shortcomings of this long poem.