Poetry is one of the important genres of literature. "Poems express aspirations, and songs express words" ("Shang Shu·Yao Dian") "Therefore, the feeling of sadness and joy comes from the sound of singing. Reciting its words is called a poem, chanting its sound is called a song." ("Hanshu·Yiwenzhi") 》)

Poetry has cognitive, educational and aesthetic values. "In ancient times, there were officials who collected poems. The king observed the customs, knew the gains and losses, and examined himself." ("Hanshu Yiwenzhi") Confucius advocated the Confucian poetic teaching of "gentleness and honesty". Workers also attach great importance to the role of poetry. "The hungry sing about their food, and the laborers sing about their work." Our country has always emphasized "poetry expresses ambition". Poems that express aspirations must have the power to influence people's thoughts and emotions and regulate people's morality. "Poetry is a message sent by human beings to the future; poetry gives human beings the courage to move towards their ideals." (Ai Qing: "On Poetry")

Poetry has the following three characteristics:

(1) Concentration of ideological content. Poetry is the most concentrated expression of a certain social life. "The meaning is like grains. Writing is used to cook food and become rice; poetry is used to brew wine and become wine." (Wu Qiao's "Poetry Talk around the Furnace") The concentration of ideological content in poetry is mainly reflected in: it is through the creation of artistic conception (poetry) Image) to express the author's thoughts and feelings and reflect social life. Artistic conception is the harmonious integration of interior and exterior scenes, the harmonious unity of emotion, form and spirit, and is a poetic art world with strong appeal and inspiration.

(2) Lyricity of expression. Poetry is a lyrical literary style. "As a poet, the place of ambition is in the heart, and the speech is poetry. Emotions are moved in the heart and shaped in words." ("Preface to Mao's Poems") Poetry values ??true feelings. "Without emotion, there is no poet and no poetry." (Belinsky) "Poets: root feelings, Miaoyan, Hua Sheng, and real meaning." (Bai Juyi) "The creation of poetry lies in natural expression. The generation of poetry Just like the survival of natural objects, there should be no artificiality. I think the life of new-style poetry is here." (Guo Moruo) The lyricism of poetry is particularly strong compared with the lyricism of other literary styles.

(3) The musicality of language form. Poetry is the most musical language art. "Emotions come from sounds, and sounds are called sounds when they are written" (preface to Mao's poems). Harmonious rhyme and distinctive rhythm are a basic feature that distinguishes poetry from other literary styles. Marx said: "Since you write in rhyme, you should arrange your rhyme more artistically." Lu Xun required: "New poems must first have a rhythm and rhyme roughly the same." In short, the essence of poetry is to vividly express unique thoughts and feelings through carefully crafted language, skillfully reveal the general from the particular, and achieve harmony and unity between the world of self-feeling and the world of emotion.

Poetry Writing

How do beginners learn to write poetry?

1. Capturing and creating the image of poetry

(1) Poetry is written using image thinking

Belinsky has long pointed out: "Philosophers use syllogisms , poets use images and pictures to speak, but they are all talking about the same thing." ("A Glimpse of Russian Literature in 1847") This tells us that we need to think in images when writing poetry. The so-called thinking with images first refers to the need to experience life vividly when going deep into life, to experience life, observe life and analyze life vividly.

To think in images, one must be good at capturing images on the basis of image feelings. Ai Qing pointed out: "The activity of image thinking is to fix all the things that are difficult to capture and all the erratic things, and present them clearly in front of the reader, as clear as an imprint on paper." Therefore, he said: "Writing poetry People often look for images to express a concept. "If you can capture novel images, you will have the material to write poetry." So how do you capture the image? It depends on inspiration. Mayakovsky gave an example of capturing images: around 1913, he returned to Moscow from Saratov.

In order to express to a woman who was traveling with him on the train that he had no evil thoughts towards her, the poet said: "I am not a man, but a cloud wearing trousers." After saying this sentence, he immediately considered that it could be incorporated into poetry - but he was also worried that this sentence would be wasted in vain if it was spread orally. What to do? He was very anxious. For almost half an hour, the poet asked the girl many questions. He was not relieved until he believed that his words had flown out of the girl's other ear. Two years later, he used "Clouds in Trousers" as the title of a long poem.

(2) Poetry is "an expression of imagination." Aristotle said: "Poetry requires a special kind of endowment, or the person is crazy, or it is easy for him to imagine the required expression. "Shelley: "Generally speaking, poetry can be interpreted as 'the expression of imagination'." Braithlett: "Poetry is the language of imagination and passion." Belinsky: "Imagination is the main activity in poetry." Power. The creative process can only be completed through imagination. "Ai Qing said: "There is no poetry without imagination." "The most important talent of a poet is to use imagination." The imagination of poets is different from that of scientists. Bacon pointed out: "Poetry is a science that is mostly limited in terms of literary rhythm, but is extremely free in other aspects and is related to imagination. Because imagination is not bound by material laws, it can combine things that are naturally separated at will. , to separate what is united. This creates illegitimate spouses and divorce. "Shelley also said: "Poetry deforms everything it touches." Andersen wrote in his fairy tale "Creation": A love writes. The young man who was a poet was distressed because he could not write good poems, so he went to find a witch. The witch put on his glasses and installed the receiver, and he heard the potatoes singing about the history of their family, the wild plum trees telling stories, and the crowd spinning one story after another. What is actually said here is that to be a poet, it is not enough to rely on ordinary people’s hearing. You must also have the poet’s deformed glasses and earpiece. Therefore, when we write poetry, we must observe the characteristics of life very accurately, and at the same time, we must not lack the courage to change these characteristics. Due to their deformation, poetic images often have symbolic meanings. For example, Zang Ke's "Old Horse":

You have to ask the cart to load enough. At this moment, you don't know what your fate will be next.

It doesn't say a word, and it only sheds tears. Swallow it to the heart,

The pressure on the back presses into the flesh, a whip shadow floats in the eyes,

It hangs its head heavily! It raised its head and looked ahead.

What is written here is not just a poor old horse, but mainly the spirit of the northern farmers in the 1930s who endured humiliation and perseverance. "Old horse" is a symbolic image.

(3) Creation of poetic images. Mayakovsky said to young authors in "How to Write Poems": "Poems should be made to express the spirit to the maximum extent. One of the great means of conveying the spirit is the image. ” Eliot believes that creating images is “looking for the objective counterpart of ideas.” There are many specific methods, such as: transformation of virtuality and reality; transformation of people and things; transformation of internal and external; transformation of large and small; Transformation between far and near; transformation between less and more; transformation between part and whole; transformation between history and reality; transformation between reality and future, etc.

What needs to be emphasized is that the image of the poet and the image of the scenery in the poem all serve to express emotions, moods, and tastes. The emotion of poetry is more important than the image. To pile up images indiscriminately without lyricism will only damage the poetry.

2. Conceive the poem skillfully

(1) Inspiration of the poem

Conception is the most important stage in the poetry creation process. What prompted the idea? The simple answer is: the creative impulse—the burst of inspiration.

Ai Qing said: "The so-called 'inspiration' is nothing more than the poet's new excitement about things, the sudden excitement, and the flash of the soul that disappears in an instant. The so-called 'inspiration' is the poet's subjective world and objective world. The most pleasant encounter in the world." ("On Poetry")

For a poem, inspiration is the cause; for the objective world, inspiration is the result. Get inspiration from the objective world and start creating from inspiration. This is the process of a poet writing a poem. After the "inspiration" breaks out, the creation enters into concrete conception.

(2) The conception of poetry The conception of poetry is very important. The poet Guo Xiaochuan said in "Talk about Poetry": "Poetry must have an ingenious conception." "You mentioned conception, and I think this has captured the key." Regarding the content of the conception of poetry, Hegel pointed out in "Aesthetics": "First of all, regarding the content suitable for the conception of poetry, we can immediately exclude purely external natural things, at least to a relative extent. The unique objects or themes of poetry are not the sun, forests, mountains and rivers, or human appearance, such as blood, veins, muscles, etc., but spiritual interests, although the poems also resort to perceptual observation and vivid descriptions. , but even in this respect, poetry is still a spiritual activity, which only works to provide inner reflection. "What is the way of conceiving poetry? The way poetry is conceived is inner experience.

Hegel said: "Since poetry can most profoundly express all the full spiritual inner connotations, we should require the poet to have the most profound and rich inner experience of the subject matter he expresses." "The poet must understand both the inner and the outer aspects. Understand human life, absorb the vast world and its diverse phenomena into his self, sympathize with them, experience them deeply, and make them profound and clear." ("Aesthetics", Volume 3, Volume 2. , page 54) Therefore, when a poet writes poetry, "not every poem is about himself. However, every poem is written by himself - that is, written through his own heart." (Ai Qing) Following this conception method, when writing lyric poems, since the real source of lyricism is the inner life of the creative subject (the poet himself), the poet should only express "simple moods and feelings, etc., without describing the external shape." specific external situation”. (Hegel's "Aesthetics")

The process of poetry conception includes the following contents:

(1) Refining poetic sentiment. It is to find the unique feelings that show the general feelings from the general feelings, and to find the specific feelings that show the same feelings from the same feelings. Such as Ai Qing's "Freedom".

(2) Select the angle. You should choose the right angle to express your poetry. Generally speaking, there are two major angles. One is to express one's heart directly. The poet directly expresses his feelings, such as Wen Yiduo's "Oral Confession". When writing poems from this perspective, you should avoid being vague and create a distinct and personalized image of the poet, otherwise it will be easy to be explicit. Another angle is symbolic sustenance, borrowing objects to express feelings, borrowing people to express feelings, and borrowing scenes to express feelings. For example, Zang Ke's "Old Horse" mentioned earlier.

(3) Layout and planning. How to write the beginning and end of the poem, and how to form an organic whole between the various parts, need to be carefully considered. This requires thinking about: In this poem, what do I use to connect the poems together? Generally speaking, lyric poems "always run through the changing levels of emotions (feelings)." (Guo Xiaochuan's "Talk about Poetry")

(4) Refine the language. Language is the most important factor in the performance of poetry. Extremely important in the ideation process. We will do a special study in the third section of this chapter.

When writing poetry, you should pay attention to the skills of poetry conception. Guo Xiaochuan advocated: "If you don't have new ideas or new creations, don't write." Therefore, the idea must be: new, strange and clever. Summarizing previous experience, there are some techniques that can be used for reference.

For example: symbolic conception, radiation conception, "prop" conception, metonymy conception, proposition conception, contradiction conception, virtual conception, anti-meaning conception, side conception, contrast conception, dialogue conception, etc.

The language of poetry

"Poetry is actually a kind of language", "As a means of conveying the concept of poetry, the element of words is also different from the expression used in prose. It is the purpose in poetry itself, and it should be refined. "Poetry cannot stop at the inner poetic concept, but should use language to express the image created by the intention. In this regard, there are two types of poetry. Things to do: first, poetry must adapt the inner (mental) image to the expressive ability of language, so that the two are completely consistent; second, poetry uses language, and cannot use language like daily consciousness, and must carry out poetic transformation of language. The processing, whether in the choice and arrangement of words or the tone of language, must be different from the expression of prose" (Hegel's "Aesthetics")

The fundamental language of poetry is imagery. language. Images are embodied feelings and emotions. Imagery language has the characteristics of intuition, expressiveness, transcendence, etc. It should be more in line with the rules of the poet's subjective sensory activities and emotional activities, rather than the objective rules of grammar. This is the essential difference between poetic language and practical language. Therefore, the art of poetry cannot be mediated by everyday practical language.

Only by "destroying" and "transforming" practical language, and "breaking the neck of grammar" as Eliot said, can poets turn it into poetic language. For this reason, when writing poetry, you must study the language and rhetoric of poetry, that is, you must master the expression techniques of poetic language. The main language expression methods of poetry include: metaphor, rise, metonymy, contrast, symbol, synaesthesia, oxymoron, combination of virtual and real, etc. In addition, there are other modification methods, which all contribute to the expression of poetry. Only through reading, research and writing can the writer master the language and rhetoric skills of poetry. When writing poetry, we must not only pay attention to rhetoric, but also pay attention to the refinement of words and sentences. Famous poets from ancient to modern times pay attention to the elaboration and refinement of their verses. The elaboration of verses is by no means simply a matter of formal techniques. It is closely related to the poetic meaning, poetic taste, and the theme of the poem.

A meaning like "the night has passed and there is light", if it is said plainly, it will make people feel indifferent. Zang Kejia thought about it repeatedly and finally wrote it as: "Under the long wings of the night, / lies a bright morning sun. . ”

The language of poetry is the most essential literary language and has its special functions:

A. Lyrical, which is close to music with a small descriptive function.

B. Organic information system, one word, can produce magical effects. For example, the word "Zhumen" in "Zhumen smells of wine and meat" has become synonymous with the ruling class and has many meanings, as well as the feelings of the author and readers.

C. Independent aesthetic value can be played with. Novels can put aside language and retell stories, but poetry cannot leave language.

D. The general requirement is to express the psychological feelings of individuality. There are four specific requirements:

First, ambiguity, with both superficial and deep meanings. Mainly using symbolic techniques. Such as pine plums, snow bamboo, the Great Wall, lilies, etc. Traditional symbols are too rational and form rigid routines. There are also hints, puns, euphemisms, etc.

The second is leaps and bounds, surpassing any stylistic language. Because it shows rapid mental activity. Do not use any mediators such as prepositions and conjunctions - related words. Such as "the sound of chickens in Maodian and the moon in Banqiao". The logic can also be confusing and arbitrarily intertwined. Such as time and space intertwined. For example, in "Love at the Back of Time", the poet falls in love with an ancient beauty.

The third is perceptibility, which requires a sense of color, three-dimensionality and concreteness (turning abstraction into concreteness). There are paintings within poems.

The fourth is musicality, which includes both inner musicality, which is the rhythm of emotions, and external musicality, which is the loop of sound (rhyme, rhythm and tone). Acts as a restraint on primitive emotions. Rhythm is the decisive factor. It is the rhythm of things and people's physiological rhythm - the regulation of breathing and the reflection of movement sensation. It is the regular arrangement of sound groups and pauses. Each word has one syllable, and monosyllables, double syllables or multi-syllables with independent meanings form a sound group, and each group is followed by a long or short pause. Ancient poem: five words "two, two, one". New poetry is free and open, uniquely creative, and changes regularly.

The function of music in poetry is to regulate primitive, rough, and strong emotions, transforming them into a regular movement, deepening the poetic flavor, and arousing readers' aesthetic attention. Put aside some practical, non-poetic ideas.

Inner musicality is the rhythm of inner emotions, that is, ups and downs, length, speed, etc.

External musicality is mainly manifested in the loop of sound, which can be said to be a proportional relationship between numbers. The main ones are:

Rhyme is when the final syllable of a related verse is the same or similar. You should have an open attitude towards rhyme and respect the poet's artistic pursuit; as long as the inner emotion is perfectly conveyed, it is optional. Blank poetry can display musicality through other means, such as the arrangement of lines.

First, choose a rhyme. Similar rhymes form rhymes. Nowadays, there are thirteen rules, that is, thirteen categories: Middle East, Renchen, Jiangyang, Yanqian, Fahua, Huailai, Huidui, Yaotiao, Youqiu, Suobo, Yiqi, Gusu, Minxie, etc. . Each rhyme part has different places of pronunciation, degree of opening, and different pitch ranges. Some are loud, high-spirited, and exciting, such as Jiangyang, Fahua, etc. Some have low loudness, are dull and heavy, such as Ash Heap, One Seven, etc. The rhyme should be chosen according to the situation, and the rhyme should be changed according to the situation.

The second is the rhyme change. In longer poems, emotions flow and change, which must be reflected in the form of speech. If you rhyme to the end, it is easy to give people a sense of monotony and fatigue. Changing rhyme can refresh the literary spirit. For example, "Spring River with Flowers and Moonlight Night" has four sentences and one rhyme, which is fluent and graceful, euphemistic and lingering.

The rhyme pattern again. The main ones are connected sentence rhyme - every line rhymes, every other sentence rhyme - in ancient times there was a requirement of "no matter one, three or five, two, four or six are clear", following rhyme - two sentences are exchanged like Xintianyou, cross rhyme - Chapter 1 One line rhymes with the third line, the second line rhymes with the third line, etc. Others include embrace rhyme, where the first line rhymes with the fourth line, and the second line rhymes with the third line. This is the authentic rhyme scheme of Western sonnets.

Tone is the change in pitch and length during pronunciation. Shen Yue's "Four Tone Spectrum" was the first to study this issue. New poetry can only be noticed. Especially when reciting poetry requires it.

Rhythm is originally a musical term and is the decisive factor in the external musicality of poetry. In nature and life, everything has a rhythm. The rhythm of poetry is the rhythm of things and the physiological rhythm of people - the regulation of breathing and the reflection of movement sensation.

Poetry rhythm is the regular arrangement of sound groups and pauses.

In Chinese, a word is generally a syllable. Single, double or multi-syllable syllables with independent meanings form a sound group, and each group is followed by a long or short pause.

The rhythm of ancient poetry: five-character "two, two, one"; seven-character "two, two, two, one".

The rhythm of the new poem: free and open, unique and creative; each line is roughly the same, and the changes are regular.

The branching of poetry

New poetry does not have the fixed music regulations of ancient poetry. Western branching is introduced to enhance the sense of rhythm and melody to achieve a musical effect.

A. The lines are long, short, dense, and uneven to suit the poetic mood. The lines of poetry follow the internal rhythm of poetry - emotional rhythm, and their appearance is a structural form that visually displays inner emotions. Whitman expresses the pioneering, bold, free and romantic emotions of the founding of the People's Republic of China. The poems are very long, just like the vastness of the New World. Mayakovsky expressed the dramatic changes of the October Revolution, and the lines of poetry were staircase-shaped, with large ups and downs, and were uneven.

B. The lines of poetry use omissions and jumps, which are more random and produce new structural meanings. For example, the juxtaposition of the upper and lower lines of poetry produces new ideas: "The wine and meat in Zhumen stink, and there are frozen bones on the road."

C. The branch line converts visual intervals into auditory intervals to show rhythm. This is the effect produced in reading. Reading them together does not reveal the rhythm.

D. Branch lines attract aesthetic attention and allow people to appreciate it with a poetic mentality.

Requirements:

A. Pay attention to the organic combination of rows and rows. The key is to cross lines - one sentence takes up more than two lines. This is to make people pause and concentrate on appreciating the next line - emphasizing the most valuable and glorious language.

B. Branches are developing and changing and should be original. Such as traditional emotional patterns, changed into pictographic patterns and knowing patterns.

C. Branch pays more attention to the visual effect of poetry, changing from "auditory art" to "visual art". This is because the inherent complexity and multi-layered nature of new poetry is difficult to express directly through recitation, and the poetic meaning can only be maintained through text arrangement. Kahler (US) believes that whether a piece of text is poetry does not necessarily depend on the language itself, but depends on the arrangement of the words, that is, the visual form.

The mode of poetry

The symbolic mode

This mode can be said to be the heirloom of poetry, also known as the multi-layered mode: on the visual level of text symbols, People give people images, and at the same time, they give people meaning (a certain physical thing or spiritual content) in the deep level of association, which can be summarized and included as infinitely as possible. Symbols are superficial, clear, and may even be stipulated by traditional rationality, such as plum blossoms, orchids, pines and bamboos, the Great Wall, etc. But the symbolized ontology is hidden and vague. The relationship between the two should be arbitrary to facilitate creativity. Genius poets connect seemingly unrelated internal and external images through similarities to form amazing ideas. The key is to capture the most common points between the two, and the further apart the other attributes are, the better.

The central method is to choose images and form symbolic images. Imagery, also known as artistic image, can be said to be the cell that constitutes a large system of literature and art. Meaning - human consciousness (including emotions. Fundamentally speaking, it is people's aesthetic needs and cognitive needs), which ultimately manifests itself in literature and art as the projection and expression of the author's individual life. Image - an objective thing, external to the author, but ultimately objectified by the author's life essence. The two are combined into images, and the number of components and the density of the relationship between the two create two basic literary and artistic creation methods, namely romanticism that emphasizes meaning and realism that emphasizes image, which also become the theory of expression and the theory of reflection. origin. Compared with ordinary images, symbolic images have specific requirements: to become the central image of the whole poem. The best symbolic images have infinite meanings, express the author's inner world as much as possible, and become a universe of artistic personality.

Generally speaking, the title of this kind of poem contains the symbol (or even the character). However, the inner ontology, that is, the feelings of the author's individual life, is what poetry is really about.

Transversal mode

This type of poetry intercepts a fragment of life or a fragment of consciousness, describes a series of images, or uses a series of metaphors to express the author's feelings and express the author's consciousness. Many landscape poems are exactly like this. Create as much artistic conception as possible. Such as Du Fu's "Spring Hope".

Vertical mode

This type of poetry takes the advancement of the author's observation point as a clue, and integrates what he sees, hears and feels as time goes by or as space unfolds. Such as He Jingzhi's "Back to Yan'an". Such poems are generally longer and mostly narrative poems.

Sublimation mode

This type of poetry is generally divided into two parts. The first part is a relatively gentle foreshadowing, and the second part reveals new ideas, creating a striking breakthrough, which sublimates the emotion and artistic conception to the highest level. A new level. Most of the old-style poems "expressing ambition" adopt this mode. The scenery is described in the front, and the scenes are blended. The "ambition" is written in the back, and there is emotion in the ambition. Such as Mao Zedong's "Qinyuanchun. Snow".

Bead Pattern

This type of poem consists of several juxtaposed parts of the same structure and some of the same verses. chant repeatedly. There are many such poems in "The Book of Songs".

Confessional mode

Directly express feelings and use judgmental arguments, also known as the argumentative mode. With a long history, romanticism mostly uses lyrical discussion, that is, confession. Many political poems and philosophical poems belong to this kind of "traditional confession". This kind of confession is not easy to write well. First of all, the author must reach the highest level of understanding and experience of an era. Among Western modernists, Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" connects the past and the future, and uses confessions extensively. Since the 1950s, American poetry, represented by Allen Ginsberg's "Howl", has formed the confessional school, occupying the mainstream status. Most of my country's "third generation" poems in the 1980s are "confessional" poems. Unlike the early Romantic confessions, the confessions in contemporary poetry can be called "anti-traditional confessions": intentionally anti-traditional - opposing culture, aesthetics, personality, rationality and even poetry itself, but in fact it just limits the subject matter. In circles where personal life experience is primarily about the feelings of the id. He mostly uses the first person, informally, and expresses his feelings about life and even his privacy in everyday spoken language, sometimes touching on society and making some degree of criticism. "Confessional" poetry places more emphasis on language, form and meaning, and even writes entertaining and documentary poetry, calling itself "play" poetry. As an exploration of poetry as a whole, "confessional poetry" can be said to have a historical role in shifting from a social critical meaning to an individual life-affirming meaning.

Pictographic Pattern

The lines of poetry are arranged in the shape of a central image, forming a pictographic pattern. Such as "The Assassinated Dove of Peace" by the French poet Apollinaire. Another example is the poem by Taiwanese poet Bai Di, which is like a landscape painting (the lines of poetry are from right to left, and the words are from top to bottom), and the wanderer is like a fir tree far away from the mountains, forests and lakes.

Modern model

Transplanted from Western modernist poetry. It is obviously different from traditional poetry in content and form, and believes that content is form and form is content, so it pays more attention to formal innovation. It writes about the division and absurdity between individuals and society, nature, others and even oneself, reflecting the spiritual crisis, abnormal psychology, pessimism, despair and nihilism brought about by the high development of capitalist society. Emphasis on expressing the inner heart - in fact, it is just the ever-changing and unpredictable instincts (desires, especially sexual desire) and subconsciousness. The main methods used are: ① Perceptualization of thoughts, that is, abstract physical sensation. Directly combine abstract ideas with concrete images, "perceive thoughts as you smell the scent of roses (Elliott)". Such as the "dance of power", "dizziness of will" and "moist soul sprouting" in the poem. ②Free association. This kind of association is not inherent in the thing itself and is recognized by everyone, but is an association written based on personal intuition and illusion. Such as "Sunshine is a football kicked out of the sun." ③The language form can be changed at will to imply the feelings, imagination and mental state of a certain moment.

Understanding pattern

Some lines of this type of poetry are arranged into abstract shapes, showing a certain trend of meaning. For example, the arrangement of the poem lines in the second half of "The Sun Goes Down" implies that the sound of the bell rises and falls in the strong wind