Chapter 9 1957 "Funeral Song"

Genre: Poetry Author: Mu Dan Original publication: "Poetry Magazine" Published time: Issue 5, 1957 Contemporary readers may know that the Chinese translator of most of Pushkin's poems and Byron's masterpiece "Don Juan" was named Zha Liangzheng.The pseudonym he used to write poetry was Mu Dan. Mu Dan's first collection of poems was "The Expedition" (1945).In fact, he was more than just an "adventure", and he had adventures.It was 1942. Mu Dan, an assistant professor of the Department of Foreign Languages ​​and Literatures of Tsinghua University, voluntarily joined the Chinese Expeditionary Force, served as the general's translator, and went to the anti-Japanese battlefield.When Burma was retreating, he took part in a suicidal battle behind the palace, and strayed into the "Hukang River Valley" 400 miles deep "Savage Mountain" alone. Only when Sun Liren came to this valley of death can he be rescued.Five months after Mu Dan disappeared from the sight of his comrades, he miraculously reappeared in Calcutta, India, where he reunited with Du Yunxie, an alumnus of the Southwest Associated University and a poet, who served as an interpreter for the training center of the Chinese Army in India.A few years later, he went to study in the United States at his own expense.

In the poem "Dante's Prophecy", Byron, the British poet, sighed heavily through Dante's mouth: "People like me are always doomed/To suffer in life and to taste hardships ,/The heart will be crushed, and the struggle and struggle will be endless,/Until this last life, when I die, I will be alone.” These verses are simply a portrayal of Mu Dan’s rough life. In the spring of 1953, Mu Dan gave up his employment as a teacher in Taiwan and the University of Delhi in India, and resolutely returned to China with ardent hopes for the newly independent new China. At this time, he may have chosen a place to put his "heart".

On the one hand, when he went to the University of Chicago in the United States to study for a degree in English and American literature in early 1950, he consciously took Russian literature courses, and once again showed his language talent in Russian learning.Behind his study of Russian, his choice of political culture has been implied.On the other hand, while making the decision to return to China, he is also making further adjustments and preparations for his career, which can be reflected in the new work arrangements he made to himself at the beginning of his return to China.At the banquet hosted by Ba Jin and Xiao Shan for Mu Dan who had just returned to China, he talked about his plan to translate and introduce Russian and Soviet literature.What I translated at the beginning was Timofeev's "Principles of Literature", which represented the mainstream of Soviet literature at that time.Although literary theory is not Mu Dan's specialty, he chose it as the beginning of his translation work. He also made many translation notes for this theoretical book during his stay in the United States.The purpose of Mu Dan choosing to translate "Principles of Literature" is to adjust himself through the translation of this book, understand and be familiar with realistic literary concepts and creative methods, and learn this way of discourse that adapts to the new cultural environment.This also means that although Mu Dan has anticipated and prepared for the new cultural environment he is facing, and is willing to adjust himself to contribute his talents as a poet and intellectual.However, this transformation of his has a clear distance from his original artistic experience and interests, and it may not be as easy as he expected to bridge the gap between reason and emotion, existing personal experience and realistic needs.The contradiction between these two forces has always plagued Mu Dan for the rest of his life.

After returning to China, Mu Dan, who taught at Nankai University, was carrying out the transformation and transformation of his thoughts in the complex emotions of anxiety, tension and enthusiasm.This conversion and metamorphosis is complex, painful, and even long-term.Just as Zhu Ziqing had the kind of worry in 1948: "Now we can't live in the life of the masses. This is not unacceptable rationally; rationally, we know how to accept it, but it is habitually unacceptable. So I said to the students. To educate us, we have to take our time.” However, the political situation after the founding of the People’s Republic of China did not allow intellectuals to “take their time”, but required them to reform their thinking in a stormy manner.

In the few years since Mu Dan returned to China, his state of mind and experience have undergone great changes. At the end of 1954, due to "historical issues", Mu Dan was listed as a "target of counter-revolutionaries".This brought great mental stimulation to the enthusiastic poet, who suddenly became "reticent... spend almost every night and holiday on translation work, and never go to bed before two o'clock in the evening." (Zhou Yu Liang's "Reminiscence of Liang Zheng", "A Nation Has Rise", Jiangsu People's Publishing House, 1987) This almost cruel working method obviously contains the meaning that Mu Dan used his desperate translation work to relieve his depression.According to Mrs. Mu Dan's recollection, he "almost stopped writing his own poetry" during this period."Almost" indeed, but not quite.Because for a poet, poetry creation is the best way to express his inner world.

At the beginning of 1957, there was a relaxed cultural environment in the literary world, and some publications also took the initiative to ask Mu Dan for manuscripts.He picked up the pen again and wrote his experience of transformation into a poem "Funeral Song", which was published in the fifth issue of "Poetry Magazine" in 1957. "Funeral Song" is a typical example of Mu Dan's inner division, contradiction, doubt and reflection in the mid-1950s.On the one hand, in the face of the huge social changes in the new era, the poet is intellectually aware and trying to bid farewell to his past, "History has opened a huge page, / How many people wrote oaths in Tiananmen Square, / I was there Hands up too: / The flood has drowned the lonely island", so "I" resolved to bury the old self, "Let me wash my body with tears, / First feel the joy of repentance"; The continuous loss of "self" raises sharp questions:

... Is "hope" lying to me? How can I leave everything behind? If the "I" is also lost, Where can I find a warm home? Therefore, as a poet, although "I don't know how many heroic epics have been written in this era, / And I, this poor heart! I only have my own funeral song", "Funeral Song" undoubtedly expresses the pain of intellectuals in transforming themselves spiritual journey.Different from the popular slogan-style poetry at that time, "Funeral Song" anthropomorphized abstract feelings such as "hope", "memory", "love" and "faith", making them "call out" to "me". , "persuasion", "assistance", and at the same time show the ambivalence of "I".At the end of the poem, Mu Dan clearly expressed his determination to reform:

it's nothing more than An old intellectual, the twists and turns he has experienced; His burden is heavy, as you have seen; he is determined Walking side by side with you, here shows his joy. . . . my funeral song is only half sung, That second half, comrades, please help me make it into life. When Mu Dan talked about this poem in his later years, he still believed that "people at that time only knew how to serve the motherland, and they always felt that they had to be reformed, and they always felt that they had many shortcomings, and they were afraid that they would not be able to keep up with the pace of the times."As intellectuals in the new era, poets are eager to embrace a new life while maintaining their conscience, which is reflected in contemporary poetry writing. The most typical ones are undoubtedly He Qifang's and Mu Dan's "Funeral Song".Both lie in the true presentation of the struggles in the inner world and the complex history of souls and thoughts of intellectuals in an era.Du Yunxie thought that Mu Dan "simply expressed the sincere feelings of celebrating the birth of new China and determined to transform the old world view", but he "did not simply express the determination shared by many intellectuals at that time, but carefully and visually analyzed He made up his mind to 'twist' the process of ideological struggle." Although Mu Dan also dealt with the common theme of intellectual transformation at that time, the way he dealt with it was still Mu Dan's style.

Mu Dan was cautious about "rectification" and "release" because he had been hit during the "Eradication of Counter-revolutionaries".But he still couldn't resist the "temptation" of the "early spring weather" in the first half of 1957, and published nine poems including "Funeral Song" in "Poetry", "People's Literature" and "People's Daily" in succession.This is his reappearance in the new poetry world after more than eight years of silence since he published "Four Poems" in 1948, and it is also the first time he has published poetry in New China.Of course, he quickly paid the price for his "imprudence".

Beginning in September 1957, Mu Dan's poems were successively criticized in "Poetry", "People's Literature" and other publications. Li Zhi criticized Mu Dan's poems as a bad tendency in his article "Opposing Poetry Creation's Unhealthy Tendency and Anti-Party Countercurrent" published in the ninth issue of "Poetry" in 1957.He believes that Mu Dan's "some poems reveal a relatively serious gloomy mood", and "the "Funeral Song" published in the May issue of "Poetry" seems to be an anatomy of his gloomy and sad mood."So he criticizes:

"Funeral Song" is an elegy for the author to bury the old "I".He compares the transformation of intellectuals to a "long dark tunnel", but the author seems to be still wandering in this "tunnel".Therefore, he felt "coldness", "loneliness", "shudder", ... felt that in the past, "poisonous blood flowed from the seven orifices, and if I touched it, I would be paralyzed".But he wrote with fear about the future: "Is 'hope' lying to me? If I am lost too, / How can I leave everything behind? Where can I find a warm home?" Here is the author's mood It is full of contradictions, saying that the old "I" "bleeds poisonous blood from the seven orifices"-this description itself is such a ghastly description of the transformation of intellectuals, but I am afraid that "hope" will deceive him.Is this a "funeral song" for my old self?In my opinion, this is almost a slander of the transformation of intellectuals by an intellectual who has not been reformed. What is buried in Li Shuer's "Mu Dan's "Funeral Song"?" "("Poetry" No. 8, 1958) said: "On the surface, this poem seems to be the funeral song of the 'old me', but in fact it is an ode to bourgeois individualism. Its essence is to promote A bad work of bourgeois thought".After dissecting the poem "Funeral Song" out of context, Li Shuer went on to connect with current affairs and framed Mu Dan politically. He said: These things are enough to show what kind of goods Mu Dan is selling.It was not without reason that this poem was published in the May issue of Poetry Magazine last year.Not long ago, the rightist Fei Xiaotong published "Early Spring Weather of Intellectuals" in the "People's Daily" in an attempt to encourage some intellectuals to oppose the Party and ideological remolding.May I ask what Mu Dan's plan is?In fact, it is already very obvious. I want to describe thought remolding as "fear", so as to call on people not to lose "I", because this will "lose a warm home", and imply that people should reform, and don't want to be thorough. Just "reconciliation" and "repentance" are enough.Or if you want to bury it, don’t bury it all. Only half of it is enough.So, I think this poem actually has a bad effect of anesthetizing himself and others, and it is poisonous! During the same period, Mu Dan published "How to Educate the Next Generation in the United States", "Thanksgiving Day-Shameful Debt", "Ask", "My Uncle Died", "Go to the Study Session", "Sanmenxia Water Conservancy Project Has Feeling", "Maybe" and "Definitely" ("People's Literature" No. 7, 1957) and "Ninety-Nine Schools Controversy" ("People's Daily" May 7, 1957) and other poems.Among them, "Ninety-Nine Schools Controversy" has also been criticized. Dai Bojian said in "A Poem Distorting the "Contentation of a Hundred Schools of Schools"——Criticism on the Story of "Contentation of Ninety-Nine Schools of Schools"" (People's Daily, 8th page, December 25, 1957): "Although the author uses cryptic However, it cannot conceal the distrust and dissatisfaction with the party’s policy of “Contenting among a hundred schools of thought and letting a hundred flowers bloom” and the rectification movement.” ', 'Release', cast a cold arrow against the rectification movement", and then imply that Mu Dan is a "rightist" who is "aggressively attacking" the party. Huo Junming in "What color is left in this wasteland?" "("Poetry Monthly" No. 2, 2007) said: "Mu Dan in 1957, the poems he wrote made the best footnote or epitaph for that era. When the political movement swept all corners Mu Dan was also not immune. Whether he actively participated or was forced by the situation, Mu Dan left the color of life and the shock of conscience on that wasteland with the pain and division of intellectuals.” Xie Mian believes: “Mu Dan This kind of self-examination is the consistent and uninterrupted theme of his poems. "Funeral Song" written in 1957 and "Question" written in 1976, no matter what changes have taken place in the surrounding environment, he insists on This kind of ruthless trial.... Standing between the two great darknesses of the past and the future, revealing the full complexity of the self, this is Mu Dan's most moving poetry." ") Fang Zhi also thought in "Mu Dan's "Own Funeral Song"": "The 'self' in "Funeral Song" left few sincere and unique lyrical expressions for the Chinese poetry circle in the 1950s. The image of the protagonist." That period of history has gone through more than half a century.Today, when we re-read Mu Dan's poem "Funeral Song", it is not difficult to understand how it is for him to truly record his own spiritual struggle and maintain the independent spirit that a poet should have in such a harsh political and cultural environment. valuable.Otherwise, it would not have attracted such cruel criticism. (Written by Wang Juchuan) Edited by Li Fang: "The Complete Works of Mu Dan's Poems", China Literature Publishing House, 1996 Edition Wang Zuoliang: "A New Chinese Poet", "Literary Magazine" Volume 2 Issue 2 (July 1947) Tang Shi: "On Mu Dan", "New Chinese Poetry" (September 1948) He Qifang: "People's Literature", October 1954 Edited by Du Yunxie: "A Nation Has Risen", Jiangsu People's Publishing House, 1987 Edition Edited by Du Yunxie: Abundance and Abundance of Pain, Beijing Normal University Press, 1997