Home Categories Biographical memories Biography of Su Dongpo

Chapter 13 Chapter 12 Protest Poetry

Biography of Su Dongpo 林语堂 3818Words 2018-03-16
Hangzhou is not full of lotus and peonies.Su Dongpo could not talk, laugh, sing, perform stand-up comedy all day long, and go boating on the lake at moonlit nights, because there were seventeen thousand debtors and illegal salt prisoners waiting to be sentenced in prison, there were locust plagues to be cured, waterways to be dredged, and famines to come To investigate.It is difficult to find a fixed theme for the hundreds of poems he wrote during this period.He wrote comedies and satires, witty landscapes, lyrics, laughter, and not a few tears.In his noisy, cheerful, and laughing appearance at the banquet, there is a spirit of restlessness, depression, sadness, and even fear.No one can express the sufferings of the people more fully than Su Dongpo. His talent enables him to turn everything that other writers want to express into poetry and beautiful words more fully and completely.But Su Dongpo left the capital and came here with pain in his heart.He secretly fears and mourns the direction of political development, and his pain is deeper than others.He has described it as follows:

A poem he wrote to Qiao Taibo in Mizhou summarizes his general views in Hangzhou and Mizhou during the productive period between the fourth year of Xining (1071) and the ninth year of Xining (1076):
Another poem addressed to Kong Wenzhong expresses his contempt for official events:
Along with his laughing psalms we hear cries and sighs.We heard the groans of the prisoners interspersed with the chirping of birds, and the wailing of the old peasant woman interspersed with the cooing of waterwheels.The wedding banquet on the lake also contained his thinning and graying complaints. Su Tungpo was unpredictable.He is used to starting his poems in the most natural, simple and unrefined way. He will quote one or two ancient allusions, and then no one will know what follows, let alone himself.Sometimes he would write incoherent but brilliantly odd prose, unplanned poems in which a momentary impression would be followed by a bit of acrid, ironic, or cynical thought.His poems and essays are excellent, "like clouds and flowing water, always do what you should do, always stop when you can't stop".It can also be said that his writing style belongs to a line that cannot be owned by himself.At that time, the critics who hated freedom the most in the court, it is no wonder that this style of writing made him get into trouble.

Su Dongpo didn't know what to write in the next sentence, and he didn't care.He is so talented that he often writes four or five poems with the same title and rhyme in a row.There is a poem that begins with an atmosphere of imminent snowfall.The first few sentences are as follows:
The friend who received the letter reciprocated with a poem, and he wrote a second poem, which began as follows:
Friends reunited, and he wrote a third song, the first few lines are:
The fourth stanza begins as follows:
The second one got him into trouble, because he wrote about fish and beasts who lost their freedom, so he couldn't help but continue to play.The next thing is to describe the prisoners who were whipped in prison, and the wives and children of prisoners who were imprisoned. These are long poems, and he must rhyme from the beginning to the end, and think around this rhythm.Two of the rhymes are "Bu" and "G".In one of his poems, he wrote, "When I write a poem, I am in a hurry to chase after death."Another poem naturally said, "A year of famine and no skills will return to perish."As for the word "imitation", he wrote in a poem that "a lonely smoke and a setting sun cannot be imitated", but in his poems describing prisoners, he could not help but say "a swan is easy to draw and a tiger is hard to imitate"-apparently referring to tyranny.

Su Dongpo is not a person who pretends to be sad when he is happy, and laughs when he is sad.Many friends corresponded with him and wrote poems corresponding to each other.Now Liu Shu and Li Chang are both in Jiujiang.Sun Jue is in Huzhou, not far from the north of Hangzhou.These are all people who jointly opposed Wang Anshi's New Deal, and they are all working in the southeast now.They all hated the status quo in the political arena. At this time, Wang Anshi was still in power, but they were not so stubborn anymore, so they took their opinions to heart.Han Qi and Ouyang Xiu are dead.Fu Bi and Fan Zhen resigned and went back to seclusion.Sima Guang devoted himself to writing.Zhang Fangping indulged in drinking wine, while Dongpo's younger brother kept himself safe and didn't say a word.Dongpo is not smooth enough.When a person sees the suffering of all natures with his own eyes, it is just a question of whether he should forget all the consequences and express his emotions.Maybe he never thought about it.Along with the pastoral poems, he also kept writing about the ugly side of the countryside.He's either crazy or just too enthusiastic.He knows that his poems are as far away as the capital, but he doesn't care.

These poems are piled up day by day to accuse him of disregarding the prestige of the government. We may wish to study some of them carefully.Viewed separately, it is just the occasion, but together it becomes a volume of protest poems.A few examples will suffice.He used the simplest grammar to describe the tragedy of the people who were called to dig the Salt River.As an official overseeing the work, he saw the workers rising at dawn, and he used many words to describe the situation of "people are like ducks and pigs, thrown into mud and splashed in shock". When he went to Fuyang in the southwest of Hangzhou, he wrote a fresh and pleasant verse describing Qingtian, which begins as follows:

But he couldn't help seeing many things, describing "spring enters the deep mountains and everywhere flowers", and also mentioned farmers' meals in passing.They are eating bamboo shoots. Although the bamboo shoots taste sweet, they have no salty taste. "I come to eat without salt in March", just because the government's monopoly has hurt the salt business.He let go of writing, and unconsciously mentioned that the youngest son of the farmer took advantage of the farmer's loan, got the money and stayed in the city to spend it all, and returned home with only a mouthful of the city. Because the government was smart, a liquor store was set up next to the loan office. and entertainment venues.

He traveled south to the Taihu Lake District, and met his good friend Sun Jue, who was tall and beautiful. Both of them were experts in calligraphy and painting. He wrote a poem in his friend's collection of famous posts, but his poem also said: I have been away from the group for a long time, and my ears are cold and my heart is gone." He wrote poems describing the rushing water on the waterwheel, and also wrote a poem "Wu Zhongtian Woman Sighs": He wrote several tide watching songs during the tide season in Hangzhou.Every year during the Mid-Autumn Festival, people in Hangzhou go all the way to the banks of the Qiantang River to watch the tide.Before the tide comes, there are usually sea performances.Don't know how they get the tide.The swimmer is called "Dalanger", and he seems to go out to sea in a small boat with red and green flags on the boat to welcome the incoming tide.Su Dongpo wrote quite a few popular songs for the tide-gatherers, telling the story of the white waves swallowing the red flag and the peaks of the waves covering the mountains.But he also wrote about his inner feelings after waking up in the early morning:

A poem compares the man in power to a night owl, which later got him into trouble too.He traveled south of the Five Ridges with Zhou Bin.According to what they said about Su Dongpo's trial in the future, an official in Lingnan had drafted a motion to simplify the tax exemption. With the motion, the official went north to Hangzhou, and when he came back, he told Su Dongpo what had happened. "I was kicked out by Ye Xiao." The official said. "What do you mean?" Su Tungpo asked. The official history said that he had brought a plan into the city and presented it to the tax collectors, who sent troops to send him out of the city.Su Dongpo looked at his memorial and found that the tax system he proposed was simple and perfect.

"What is your so-called night owl?" Dongpo asked, and the official replied: "That's a popular fable. One day the swallow and the bat had a quarrel. The swallow said that the sunrise is the beginning of the day, and the bat said that the sunset is the beginning. They couldn't agree, so they went to ask the Phoenix for advice. On the way a bird said to them, 'Recently I didn't see Fenghuang, he sometimes takes leave, sometimes he can't sleep for a long time, and now Ye Xiao temporarily takes over his position. You don't need to ask him." He wrote a poem to Zhou Bin at that time, the words are full of disappointment and frustration:

Later, these poems were collected and investigated in detail by those in power, and there was no intention of betrayal, no public criticism, and no clear opposition to the authorities.But these poems have the effect of a mosquito bite.A few stings can be annoying; too many stings can keep you awake all night.The publication of these poems by Su Tungpo's close friend Wang Shen, who was the emperor's brother-in-law, was especially infuriating.Poetry was popular at the time to communicate ideas, and two lines of good poetry were more effective than a loud statement.Su Dongpo was very popular: his poems were recited by literati.Su Dongpo's voice finally reached the point where it cannot be ignored.

In the seventh year of Xining (1074), his term in Hangzhou expired.At that time, his younger brother was working in Jeju (now Jinan), Shandong Province, and Dongpo asked himself to be transferred to the province.The wish came true, and this time he was sent to Mizhou near Qingdao as the prefect.He worked in Mizhou for only two years before being transferred to Xuzhou prefect.From April of the tenth year of Xining (1077) to March of the second year of Yuanfeng (1079). Su Dongpo bid farewell to the monks and friends of the North and South Temples in Hangzhou, and then went north with his family.His wife bought a twelve-year-old girl named Chaoyun, who was intelligent and intelligent, and later played a very important role in Su Dongpo's life. Mizhou is a very barren area, mainly producing marijuana, dates and mulberry trees. The life here is really different from Hangzhou.At this time, the salaries of officials dropped sharply. Su Dongpo said in the preface to "Fu of Qi Ju": "For ten or nine years as an official, my family has become poorer and my food and clothing are not as good as those in the past. When I moved to Jiaoxi, I was satisfied. However, the fasting kitchen was boring and unbearable, and the day and Tongshou Liu Junyan walked through the abandoned garden of the ancient city, asking for chrysanthemums to eat. Touching his belly and laughing." Wang Anshi dismissed from office, and now that Huiqing is in power, a new tax has been set up.The people of the district simply cannot afford the exemption tax.Children are dying on the side of the road.A poem by Su Dongpo once said that he "spread tears through the city to pick up abandoned children".A few years later, he mentioned in a letter that he had rescued thirty or forty orphans who were about to die of starvation and placed them in various families. This was the most depressing period for Su Dongpo. It is strange to say that the poet wrote his best works when he was the saddest.According to Chinese standards, he reached the maturity of poetry during this period.Anger and bitterness are gone, leaving only peace and letting go.Even his joy in nature and the fun of the day are more mellow, completely different from the youthful sentiments of the Hangzhou period.He admired Tao Qian more and more, the great Chinese pastoral poet.His "Xizhai" poems are exactly the same as Tao Qian's.Not only can one see true peace and contentment in this poem, but one is completely integrated with nature, and there is also a calm joy in the sounds and colors of nature. He has achieved perfect harmony with nature, so he can write the poem "Li Yin Pavilion": Because of this mystical view, he attains spiritual freedom, floating aimlessly on top of a mountain like a white cloud. The poem "Wangyun Tower" is as follows: It is interesting to say that Ziyou often made Su Dongpo write his best works.On the way from Hangzhou to Mizhou, Dongpo thought of his younger brother and wrote a poem called "Qinyuanchun": In Mizhou, he thought of his younger brother whom he had not met, and wrote the best Mid-Autumn Festival Ci in history.Critics said that once this poem came out, other works about the full moon were not worth paying attention to: It was written in Mizhou in the ninth year of Xining (1076). As I have already said, it is a small word of the music.I might as well analyze the pattern and structure of this poem.Chinese words, like poetry, rhyme with four tones instead of light and heavy tones.The pronunciation can be divided into two types, one is flat tone, which is equivalent to the open syllable or crisp sound in English.The first is the oblique sound, which is equivalent to the syllables ending with air sounds in English.The difference is like the difference between "song" and "sock", "seen" and "sick!" or the difference between the end of a question and the end of a period. (Westerners) must understand the tonal basis of the musicality of Chinese poetry.Chinese is monosyllabic; and auxiliary verbs commonly used in unstressed syllables in English poetry are often omitted in Chinese.The single word makes the stress obvious, which is convenient for displaying the emotion of the phonology.Therefore, the rhythm of Chinese poetry—whether it is ancient poetry, Tang poetry, or Ci—all depends on the subtle and changeable contrast between the words and sounds.For example, there is a basic rule that if the rhyme is flat, sentences that do not rhyme must end in flat, and vice versa. for example.Let's knock the cup for "Ping", and slap the table for "Zhe". Let each character represent the note in the picture, and it is easy to see the pattern of the following table: first quarter 1.flat flat / flat flat / flat flat / flat flat 2.flat / flat / flat / flat / flat 3.Zeze / flat / flat / flat / flat / flat / flat / flat / flat 4.flat flat flat flat flat flat flat second quarter 1.flat flat / flat flat / flat flat 2.flat / flat / flat / flat / flat 3.Zeze / flat / flat / flat / flat / flat / flat / flat / flat 4.flat flat flat flat flat flat flat
Sentences that rhyme all use the same tone (ZeZeZePingPing), so they become the main rhyming words.Each sentence has a different beginning and leads to the main rhyme sentence, which becomes a mutual comparison.Contrary to the music score, the accent always falls on the last note; therefore, the change of the last note of each line is inevitable, and the first note of some lines can be slightly relaxed.In this way, the fourth longest sentence is actually a repetition of the first sentence.Except for the first sentence, the phonology of the second stanza is exactly the same as that of the first stanza.The pace of the first sentence in the second stanza has been quickened and shortened into three-character sentences, but after careful study, the same ending sentence emerges.
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