Ancient Chinese poetry, generally called old poetry, refers to poetry written in classical Chinese and traditional rhymes. Its basic characteristics are:
1. The most basic characteristic of ancient Chinese poetry is lyricism;
2. Ancient Chinese poetry mainly conveys thoughts and feelings by creating images and artistic conceptions;
3. Ancient Chinese poetry is concise and implicit;
4. Ancient Chinese poetry is rich in musical beauty.
1. The most basic characteristic of ancient Chinese poetry is lyricism
Any literary form of work, without exception, is composed of subject (the writer’s subjective thoughts and feelings) and object (objective The product of the unity or integration of nature or social life), but poetry is the literary form with the strongest subjectivity and the most distinctive subjective characteristics.
No work, including narrative novels and dramas, can fail to express the author’s feelings. It can be said that art cannot be produced without feelings or passion, but poetry is a variety of literary forms. The most passionate and emotional style of writing. Even narrative poetry has a lyrical quality.
In other words, the poet's grasp and expression of the objective world and social life are emotional. Although the poet's emotions are often condensed and contained in artistic images rather than directly stated, it is difficult for us to capture the image of poetry without emotions. Therefore, when we appreciate poetry, our grasp of poetry should also be emotional.
2. Ancient Chinese poetry mainly conveys thoughts and feelings by creating images and artistic conceptions
This is significantly different from narrative novels and dramas. The image and artistic conception of poetry can be simply said: image is the fusion of the poet's thoughts and emotions with objective objects, while artistic conception is a poetic artistic realm formed by the poet through the creation and connection of various images. The image is partial and concrete, while the artistic conception is overall and ethereal.
The blending of scenes is the unique characteristic of images and artistic conceptions, which is what poets strive for when creating images and artistic conceptions. "Thinking" and "emotion" both refer to the poet's subjective thoughts and feelings, and "jing" and "scenery" both refer to the objective world and objective objects. These two aspects are integrated together in the poem, reaching the level of "kei" and "scenery". The realm of "wonderful harmony and boundless".
The creation of images and artistic conceptions is inseparable from objective objects and scenes, but these objects and scenes are not exactly the same as what we see in daily life. They are filtered by the poet's subjective thoughts and feelings. , refined, infiltrated, and sublimated by poetry.
But the characteristics of artistic conception are not limited to the blending of scenes. It breaks through and transcends specific images, from limited to infinite, from concrete to ethereal. It inspires readers to imagine and associate, and enter into the world created by the poet. The infinitely rich and vast artistic space allows us to think and understand the poet’s thoughts and perceptions about social history and even the universe and life in his poems.
The image can be captured from the poet's specific description, while the artistic conception must be obtained from the pen and ink.
The imagery and artistic conception of poetry not only infiltrate the poet's unique feelings, thoughts and emotions, but also often reflect the poet's different temperament and personality. Different from the deep, delicate and implicit characteristics of the images and artistic conception in Wang Wei's poems, the images and artistic conception in Li Bai's poems appear broad, grand and unrestrained, which is in line with his uninhibited personality and flying artistic imagination. Not open.
Different images not only express the poet's different life feelings, but also reflect different personalities and temperaments.
3. Ancient Chinese poetry is concise and implicit
In ancient Chinese poetry, five-character quatrains only have twenty characters, and seven-character quatrains have only twenty-eight characters. Most of the Xiaoling poems are twenty or thirty characters long; the ancient poems and rhymed poems are relatively long, but there are very few with hundreds of sentences. The concise language form and profound connotation of Chinese classical poetry are extremely rare in the history of world poetry.
Succinctness and implicitness are considered together as one characteristic here, because these two aspects cannot be separated. Only using the least words to express the richest meaning can be called concise. Merely speaking less cannot be regarded as concise.
So refinement is always related to implicitness.
But conciseness does not mean implicit. There are some straightforward poems, poems that speak directly from the heart. The expression techniques are not implicit, but the meaning expressed is relatively rich, and they should be regarded as concisely written.
4. Ancient Chinese poetry is rich in musical beauty
The musical beauty of ancient Chinese poetry has two meanings.
The first is that part of Chinese classical poetry was originally sung to music. For example, the Yuefu poems from the Han Dynasty and some Yuefu poems from the Wei, Jin and Tang dynasties were all sung to music. Ci and Sanqu after the Tang and Song Dynasties were sung to music. It is also sung to music. The lyrics were originally called music lyrics, and some were also called Yuefu. For example, Su Shi's collection of lyrics was titled "Dongpo Yuefu".
These poetic works originally had corresponding music scores, but most of the music scores have not been handed down. Despite this, their musical beauty can still be reflected in aspects such as sentence structure, rhythm, and rhyme.
The second meaning is that the language of classical poetry pays attention to the beauty of music. In particular, modern poetry (rhymed verses and quatrains) and lyrics and music pay attention to the neat or uneven changes in sentence patterns, rhythm and antithesis, level and rhyme, and in short, create a musical beauty of rhythm and rhythm from all aspects.
Generally speaking, the vocal emotion (the emotion conveyed by the music) and the literary emotion (the emotion conveyed by the meaning of the words) of a poem are always in harmony. Therefore, when reading poetry, the ancients paid great attention to recitation, which is to understand the content of the poetry and the poet's thoughts and feelings from the perspective of music. When we appreciate classical poetry today, it is necessary to know some common sense about the rhythm of classical poetry.
Extended information:
The return of poetry to people’s daily lives has a specific era and social background, as well as historical and cultural reasons. In Chinese culture, poetry has a special status. China has historically been a "country of poetry". Confucius said, "If you don't learn poetry, you won't be able to speak" (interpretation: If you don't learn the Book of Songs, you won't be able to speak in social interactions). Ancient China used "poetry" to educate civilization. .
Therefore, "poetic education" is the basic means of education, and therefore, poetry has become one of the foundations of Chinese culture. Some people even say: The West has the Bible, and China has the Book of Songs.
Poetry in China has always been about the soul. Scholar Hu Xiaoming once said: "Chinese poetry is the creation with the most spiritual value in Chinese culture." Qian Mu believes that poetry has a similar religious role in traditional Chinese culture. It can not only convey the subtle feelings of one's soul, express one's soul, but also standardize ethics. , educate human nature and comfort people's hearts.
Lin Yutang also believes that poetry teaches Chinese people to understand and view the universe, the world, nature, life and similar people with a benevolent, compassionate and sympathetic outlook on life.
So, since ancient times, China has had a huge demand for poetry, and there has even been an atmosphere of poetry worship. Behind this, it is because China has a huge spiritual market. Poetry, by its very nature, is a kind of spiritual learning or knowledge.
The origin of poetry is to be moved by the heart and emotions. The process is to start from the heart and write with heart. It can also be said to be a process of cultivating the mind, and its purpose is to continuously improve the realm, that is, the spiritual level. Thereby constantly surpassing oneself and finally achieving peace of mind.
Good poetry can make others feel moved after reading it, experience the emotion in the poem, understand the artistic conception of the poem, and also achieve the effect of peace of mind. And this may be what contemporary people need and desire most.