-A Summary of Dai Wangshu's Poetry Creation

Author Longquan Ming

Author brief introduction Longquan Ming, 195 1 born, doctor of literature, professor and doctoral supervisor of Chinese Department of Wuhan University.

This paper discusses Dai Wangshu's important position in the history of China's new poetry development through a comprehensive investigation of his emotional tone, the inheritance and innovation of artistic techniques and the integration of reference. The author thinks that Dai Wangshu's poems focus on developing his inner world and typically reflect the mental outlook of intellectuals in a certain historical environment; He provided valuable experience for the nationalization of China's new poetry through the vertical inheritance and innovation of new poetry and the horizontal reference and integration of foreign poetry. His creative practice shows that the heterogeneity and contradiction between different poetic discourses can be achieved through communication and complementarity, and they should and can achieve integration and transcendence on the fundamental issues of poetry. The richness, comprehensiveness and typicality of Dai Wangshu's poetry creation can be regarded as the symbol of the new poetry from naivety to maturity and from foundation to expansion, so it can be regarded as the milestone of the second integration of China's new poetry after Guo Moruo.

China's new poetry has been initiated (19 17- 1920), laid the foundation (192 1- 1925) and expanded (1925- As a representative poet in the development period of new poetry, Dai Wangshu's poetry creation is a milestone in the second integration of China's new poetry after Guo Moruo.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Dai Wangshu was a striking poet. As a leader of modernism, he created a modernist poetic style. But when we look at his whole poetry creation, it is beyond the reach of a modernist. He was a representative figure in the field of poetry in the 1920s and 1930s. Although there were many accomplished poets at that time, such as Bian, He Qifang, Yi Qing, etc., the poems of Bian and He Qifang were few in form and quantity. Feng Zhi had a long intermission in writing (from 1929 to 194 1 year, and basically did not write poetry); Wen Yiduo has already left the poetry world; Xu Zhimo died young; The creation of Tian Tian, Cang Kejia and Ai Qing has just begun, and they have made great progress in the 1940s. Therefore, Dai Wangshu's representativeness is more prominent. Of course, the more important reason is that in the period of poetry construction and great changes in poetry style, the projection of his poems is multifaceted and colorful. Although his poems are few in number, they are extremely colorful. Judging from the general tendency of the poet, he experienced a change process from escaping from reality to returning to reality, from passively treating life to actively participating in life, from the weakness of human nature to the strength of personality, from the weakness of poetic style to the strength of poetic style. This change is typical of the times and the common feature of most intellectuals and conscientious poets in that era. From the essence of poetry, his poetry contains many factors, that is, modernism is dominant in creative methods, while realism, romanticism, symbolism, imagism and magical realism are absorbed; In the form and technique of creation, it has the characteristics of extensive reference and integration of ancient and modern China and foreign countries; In writing style, he noticed the combination of modernization and nationalization of poetry earlier. Compared with those poets with strong poetic style in Europe and America, his poems have more national characteristics, and compared with those poets with popular poetic style in China, his poems are more modernist. We say that Dai Wangshu is the highest master of new poetry in the 1920s and 1930s, not because his poetic achievements are far higher than those of famous poets of his time, but because his poems contain various ideological and artistic qualities, which all show or contain various trends in the development and evolution of new poetry. In other words, the richness, comprehensiveness and typicality of his poetry creation can be used as a yardstick for new poetry from germination to maturity and from foundation to expansion.

First, the course of the soul: a mirror of the times

In the past, some Dai Wangshu researchers mainly denied the value of Dai Wangshu's poems from the negative emotions, or completely separated his early and late periods, trying to belittle his early period and raise his late period. In my opinion, this is a cognitive bias. The passivity in the early stage and the enthusiasm in the later stage of Dai's poetry are not only the poet's real induction of the life of the times, but also the projection of the life of the times on the poet's mind. Therefore, in any case, it is a mirror of the times, and its cognitive value and poetic value cannot be underestimated.

Dai Wangshu began to write poems in the1920s, and stopped writing in the1940s, leaving behind four collections of poems, including My Memory, Wang Shucao, Wang Shushi and The Years of Disaster, with more than 90 poems. The number of poems is very small, but Shi Zhecun pointed out: "The creative process reflected by these more than 90 poems can explain how the second generation of poets explored the way forward after the May 4th Movement. In Wang Shu's four poems, I think Wang Shu's grass marks the completion of the author's artistry, and the years of disaster mark the improvement of the author's ideology. " [①a] With the change of thought, the emotional tone of his poems also showed differences in the early and late stages. When we read his early poems carefully, we can clearly feel that Dai Wangshu is full of distress and disappointment in real life, hoping to find a new fulcrum for his broken life in his illusion. Dai Wangshu's open-book Sunset expresses an indescribable sadness and indicates a basic trend of the poet's mood in the future. The 12 poems in Lao Jian series are filled with this tone. Later, in a poem named Rain Lane, he directly used spleen (melancholy) as the title, and in a poem named Wang Shucao, he directly used "sorrow" as the title. This shows that Dai Wangshu has a deep sense of hardship in his early creative mentality.

The sense of hardship is a strong and helpless mental state in the conflict between reality and dream, living environment and life desire. 1920s, warlord regime, warlord melee, people desperately struggling. Facing the dark reality, Dai Wangshu was very indignant and desperate, so when the Great Revolution began, he had placed great hopes on it. He was enthusiastic, engaged in revolutionary literary and artistic activities, joined the proletarian youth league, devoted himself to the party's propaganda work with his enthusiastic pen, and was arrested and detained by the reactionary authorities. The failure of the Great Revolution gave Dai Wangshu a great mental contusion. He felt that the whole world was in a quagmire of despair, and he couldn't help sighing with many regrets and helplessness. In order to escape from the smoky real society, he tried to forget it with the poem "Imagine yourself not being caught by the secular network" [①b], but in fact, it was unforgettable, for which he felt more pain and sorrow. As a result, he changed from a "loser" in the real world to a "dreamer" in the poetic world. It is his excellent poem "Dream catcher" that focuses on observing and depicting his mentality and spirit. From the earliest "Wanderer's Night", which shouted "I am wandering alone, I will sink with the waning moon", to Nightcrawler, who wears a black felt hat all the time and walks quietly like night, from Black Fog to Black Fog, from Missing the Sky to Wanderer's Ballad, and finally to Dreamcatcher. Dai Wangshu's early poems mostly explored his heart, expressing his sadness and longing for love in a lonely state of mind. Depression, loneliness and wandering girls become the main lyric images. From this kind of poetry, it is difficult to see the projection of the real struggle at that time, but the wandering, loneliness, trouble, pain and suffocating environment he felt were consistent with the social reality at that time.

1932165438+10, Dai Wangshu went to France to study, and/kloc-0 returned to China in the spring of 935. After the outbreak of War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, he took an active part in the anti-Japanese and national salvation propaganda activities. 194 1 year, the Japanese invaders occupied Hong Kong, and the poet and his motherland suffered a national disaster together. In prison, the poet is unyielding and full of faith in the future of the motherland. Su Wen said that the poet "found a broad road in countless lost ways and completed it in this way" [②b], which not only refers to the change of his thoughts, but also refers to the completion of his art. The poet swept away his gentle and elegant poetic style and responded to the call of the times with patriotic enthusiasm. As can be seen from the later collection of poems "The Years of Disaster", the poet has been tempered by the Japanese aggressors' bloody prison bars and humiliating and miserable life, and his joys and sorrows have gradually merged with the broad masses of the people, not only singing personal sufferings, but also expressing the sufferings of our whole nation from one side and expressing the patriotic feelings as pure as gold inspired by it. It can be said that "only building milestones for disasters" is the keynote of his later creation. In the face of hatred, suffering and death, he wrote Yuan Zhiri's Blessing, Prison Wall and I Broken My Palm with a heavy pen. This is a chapter condensed by the poet's deep pain and strong desire at the time of national peril and his own crisis. Although these poems do not use any loud political terms and slogans, they actually fit the pulse of the times and embody the spirit of the war of resistance against Japan. Dai Wangshu's poems not only provide a basis for modernist poetry to broaden the content field to a certain extent, but also provide a logical basis for modernist poetry to express violent revolution. In sharp contrast with the decline of lyric art brought about by the progress of political consciousness at that time. Therefore, as some scholars have pointed out, "the birth of these poems is almost an exciting miracle in the era when roaring replaces artistic meditation" [1C], because "the characteristic of Wang Shu's poems is the improvement of ideological content, which not only does not hinder his artistic technique, but makes his artistic technique better and more profoundly promotes the improvement of ideological content" [2C].

It is obvious to all that great changes have taken place in the poetic style of Dai Wangshu's later works. But at the same time, we should also see that this issue of Dai Wangshu's works naturally did not get rid of the melancholy, loneliness, distress and anxiety that ran through my heart. In Lamps, Autumn Night Thoughts, Xiaoqu, Gift to Kemu, Eyes, Loneliness, My Thoughts, White Butterfly, To Fireflies, Waiting, Passing by My Old Residence, Inner Giving, and By Xiao Hong's Tomb. Even if it is an open-minded poem, such as "The Wall in Prison", I use a broken palm, and wishes, distress and troubles are accompanied by passion. Although the poet was involved in the battle of blood and fire in his later period, his works were strong in emotion, depth and strength. However, in the face of growing social darkness, more difficult and cruel struggle and his own misfortune, he can't be passionate blindly. He has his own multiple feelings and understandings of life, and has made a deeper exploration of life and humanity, so boredom, loneliness, depression and anxiety will inevitably become important aspects of his works. However, this kind of works has indeed broadened and deepened than before. It gradually abandoned the melancholy self-injury and self-mourning, and added some observation and ultimate concern for life and the universe. His poetic style is also bleak and gloomy, and his poetic realm is getting deeper and deeper. This can also be said to be a reflection of the changes in the poet's thoughts and feelings. Although the pain and anxiety in the poet's early and late poems are different, they are all profound realistic experiences of the poet in different periods and all belong to the product of "modernity". It can be said that taking pain as the emotional tone of poetry is a typical modernity tendency of Dai Wangshu's poetry. Dai Wangshu never got rid of the influence of French symbolism, and always permeated with the color of poetry in the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties. One of the most important reasons is that Dai Wangshu has great similarities with French symbolism and the mood of poetry in the late Tang and Five Dynasties. Of course, Dai Wangshu was influenced by French symbolism and poetry in the late Tang and Five Dynasties. It was not a preconceived idea, but an innate pain and anxiety in his life. When he collided with French symbolism and poetry in the late Tang and Five Dynasties, he had a certain degree of recognition, which further infected and strengthened his existing pain and anxiety. In the final analysis, the emotional tone of Dai Wangshu's poems is the shadow cast on the poet's mind in the dark times of suffering, and it is a vivid embodiment of the unique melancholy and thoughtful temperament of China intellectuals. Therefore, we can say that the thoughts and feelings in Dai Wangshu's poems are of typical significance.

An important feature of carrying out Dai Wangshu's works in the early and later periods is that he always relies on artistic sincerity, does not violate his own personality, interest, temperament and the influence of the times, does not pretend class feelings, or caters to certain political concepts and ideological tendencies with hypocritical emotions. He has always been loyal to himself, to his unique political attitude and outlook on life in the process of changing from an upright intellectual to a democratic revolutionary soldier, and to his true feelings and understanding when observing real life. Ai Qing said: "Wang Shu's path is the path of an upright and highly educated intellectual in China" [①d], which is not only in terms of Dai Wangshu's life path, but also in terms of Dai Wangshu's poetry creation path.

Second, the attitude and position of writing poetry: the vertical inheritance and innovation of new poetry

Dai Wangshu rose after Guo Moruo, leader of New Poetry School, Wen Yiduo, Xu Zhimo and Li Jinfa, leader of Symbolic Poetry School. So he can try the vertical inheritance of new poetry, which is the opportunity given to him by history. In fact, Dai Wangshu's poetry creation has undergone at least many major changes or explorations from the early Rain Lane to the mid-term Memory of My Bottom and then to the late Blessing of the January Day. He once brought a new tendency and a new expression strategy to the construction of poetry art, and his identification, absorption and synthesis of various poems at that time reached a considerable depth and level.

Dai Wangshu's most important poetic proposition is his Seventeen Notes on Poetry after reading French symbolist poetry, in which "Poetry comes from reality through imagination, not only from reality, but also from imagination" [②d], which basically summarizes his whole poetic viewpoint and position. Su Wen, a close friend of Dai Wangshu, once commented: "It's not just true, it's not just imagination." This sentence is indeed the only truth in Uncle Wang's poems. It includes Wang Shudi's overall attitude and views on poetry. In recent years, it has been difficult to find similar examples in domestic poetry circles. This has almost become a feature. This feature has been developed since Wang Shu began to write poems. "[③d]

At the beginning of the May 4th Movement, realistic poets emphasized that poetry creation should be based on personal experience and advocated a realistic reflection of life, which was of positive significance to oppose the poetic style of lamentation and fiction. However, realistic poets' understanding of "truth" only stayed on the surface of things at first, with some naturalistic traces. At the same time, realistic poetry schools ignore the role of imagination and pay more attention to sketching rather than interest in techniques. However, the romantic poetry school, which is completely different from the realistic poetry school, advocates that "the essence of poetry lies in lyricism and self-expression" and requires poetry to play the role of imagination. However, romantic poetry schools also have some defects, such as indulging emotions, wasting language and exaggerating. In fact, Dai Wangshu's concept that "poetry comes from reality through imagination, not only from reality, but also from imagination" is trying to absorb and integrate the advantages of realistic poetry school and romantic poetry school and discard their shortcomings. For example, Dai Wangshu realized the defects of the romantic poetry school. According to Su Wen's memory, "there was a technique of self-expression at that time, and the poem was straightforward and advertised as frank." We are privately resisting this tendency. " [①e] Judging from Dai Wangshu's creative tendency, he pays attention to "expressing not meaning, but feelings or emotions", which is the "subtlety" of grasping feelings and emotions. Generally speaking, both modernist poetry and romantic poetry focus on the poet's own emotional world. The difference is that romantic poetry focuses on the direct venting of emotions, while modernist poetry focuses on the subtle perception and appreciation of emotions. Dai Wangshu's early poems are full of emotional factors. Although his poems in the middle and late period pay attention to the metaphysical examination of people's spiritual pursuit, they often reflect philosophically on emotional expression, or are permeated with metaphysical colors, instead of "making people think deeply without making them emotional" and "trying to avoid emotional venting and pursuing wisdom condensation" [②e], that is to say, his poems are based on feelings or emotions.

Dai Wangshu's early poetry creation was a period when the realistic poetry school and the romantic poetry school gradually lost their influence in the poetry circle and the metrical poetry school flourished. Out of the understanding of the defects of realistic poetry and romantic poetry and the pursuit of poetic expression art, Dai Wangshu naturally accepted some influences of metrical poetry. At that time, he wrote a poem "pursuing the beauty of melody, trying to make the new poem" recite "like the old poem. Of course, the rhyme is even flat. " [③e] Most poems in Dai Wangshu's first book of poetry, My Memory, have this feature. Although Lao Shao's series of poems exude a strong flavor of old poetry, his exertion of musical language and careful scrutiny of poetic rhythm somewhat responded to the theoretical practice of metrical poetry school, and the poet's pursuit of musical beauty of new poetry reached its peak in Wen Mandolin and Rain Lane. However, before long, Dai Wangshu's exploration of the beauty of poetry has undergone tremendous changes. From 1927, he was dissatisfied with the musicality of Rain Lane, and felt that instead of "deliberately pursuing the beauty of syllables, sometimes it is better to sing old poems honestly" [4E]. So he wants to change his poetic style, that is, from paying attention to the external musical beauty of poetry in the early stage to canceling the rhythm of poetry in the middle stage, and replacing it with "the rhythm of poetry is not the cadence of words, but the cadence of poetry", that is, the internal rhythm replaces the external rhythm. The first seven articles of his Poetics are a complete denial of the "three beauties" of the metrical school. He believes that poets should not leave the artistic conception of poetry and pursue the beauty of form, but should only create new forms according to the requirements of artistic conception, just like making shoes according to their own feet. Dai Wangshu's idea of "making shoes that fit you best" is to use fresh and natural modern spoken language that is close to life to eliminate the false bookishness of verse language and replace the deliberate pursuit of external music elements with the natural rhythm of emotion. My memory is the conscious practice of his new poetry view. This poem does not have the sonorous rhyme and flowery words of Rainy Lane, and it completely adopts unpretentious modern spoken language. Ai Qing praised this poem as written in spoken language, which does not rhyme. This is the author's contribution to the development of new poetry. Dai Wangshu's mid-term poetry creation, contrary to the pursuit of musical beauty of poetry in the past, expresses his inner feelings by abandoning gorgeous and carved natural and simple poems. These poems pay attention to the euphemistic ups and downs of emotions regardless of the external rhythm, pursue the liberalization of forms, take spoken language as poems, and are cordial, natural and implicit. Bian said that Dai Wangshu's poems are "free to curl, sharp and accurate, without losing charm, restrained and chic, and artfully simple" [①f]. In fact, this poetic style was established from my memory.

The change of Dai Wangshu's poetic style also reflects the regularity of the development of new poetry. When metrical poems occupied the poetry world, some poets deliberately hurt their sculptures, preferring form to hinder content, and dried tofu or mahjong poems flooded the poetry world, causing disasters. Dai Wangshu reversed the disadvantages of metrical poetry from theory to practice and created a generation of poetic style. The publication of the first book of poetry with the theme of My Memory has become a major event in 1929 poetry circles. Dai Wangshu's preference for my memory is far better than that of Yuxiang. In fact, the significance of Rain Lane's attempt at the musical beauty of new poetry cannot be underestimated. The author only sublates the tendency of metrical poets to pursue melody deliberately, but does not eliminate the musicality of poetry. After he began to write free verse, although he tended to "prose beauty", he did not ignore the "musical beauty" of poetry. Especially when writing poems such as "Yuan Ri Blessing" in the later period, the language style is more connected with the "Rain Lane" era, and the poetry pays attention to "new poetry syllables" again. At first, he proposed "removing the sound", but in fact he only said "removing the sound", that is, "the law of leveling and leveling covered by China's old poems" [②f] and the "fixed rhythm" that some metrical poets blindly imitated "the uniformity of words" and insisted on, and they did not object to "generalized music" including rhythm. After translating and introducing a large number of Spanish ballads with wonderful tones, he was greatly inspired and gained a new appreciation of the musical beauty of poetry, so he revised his opinion and added, "I am not opposed to these words and rhymes themselves." Only when they are not necessary to "poetry" or "hinder poetry" should they be expelled "[③f]." "Yuan Ri's Blessing" and "I Break My Palm", etc., the rhyme often changes freely (unlike the rhyme in early poems). Just like the rhythm of words, it is no longer "superficial and pretentious", but "fluctuates with the thought curve tapped with a subtle transition" [④f].

On the one hand, Dai Wangshu pursued the beauty of melody under the influence of the formal view of metrical poetry school; On the other hand, he was deeply inspired by the romantic spirit of the Free Poetry School. After he rebelled against the form of metrical poetry, he saw the advantages of free verse in expressing modern life and emotions. Although he hated the romantic poetic style of "calling a spade a spade and flaunting frankness", he did not ignore the progressive significance of romantic free poetry. He believes that metrical style conflicts with modern life and modern people's emotions, and freestyle is more suitable for modern people's agile induction. Therefore, his mid-term poetry creation pays great attention to the modernity of poetry, absorbs the advantages of romantic free poetry style, and establishes a free poetry style with prose beauty that can express modern "theme, emotion and thought". This kind of free poetry style is close to spoken language, which has greater flexibility and is more suitable for the requirements of the new era. Dai Wangshu's poetic style has a far-reaching influence on the poetic world. Fan Cao commented that due to the role of Dai Wangshu, China's new poetry entered the modern poetry era of "prose into poetry" from the vernacular poetry era [①g]. Later, Ai Qing advocated "the prose beauty of poetry" in the 1940s, which had a great influence, but Ai Qing admitted that the idea of prose beauty was not his invention, and it existed when Dai Wangshu wrote My Memory [2g]. When Dai Wangshu wrote some excellent poems, such as Yuan Ri's Blessing, The Wall in Prison, I Use My Handstump and Waiting, he tried to explore new formal beauty. Language has changed from obscure in the past to simple, refined, fresh and meaningful, and its rhythm is also very musical. Generally speaking, this kind of poems are still free poems, but some places have the characteristics of metrical style. In the process of Dai Wangshu's attempt to "melt and cast" new words, we can see that Dai Wangshu has a beautiful language in his poems, from beginning to pursue the beauty of meter and strive to make poetry "sing", to learning the unique syllables of symbolism and pursuing the "melody" in a cycle, to suggesting and creating hazy images with hazy music, to entering the free body of poetry with spoken language, and finally to the free body of semi-meter.

In the middle period of poetry creation, Dai Wangshu abandoned the poetic tendency of deliberately pursuing the beauty of rhythm in response to Xu Zhimo and Wen Yiduo's poetic style, but consciously absorbed the fresh experience of metrical poetry school in emphasizing the creation of poetic images. It is from this that his poetic art gradually develops to symbolic expression. At that time, the inheritance of Dai Wangshu and the school of metrical poetry did not attract enough attention in the poetry circle. When Wen Yiduo put forward the idea of "dancing with shackles", he also emphasized that poetry should have "rich, dense and concrete images" Therefore, the artistic charm of his masterpiece Dead Water lies not only in the neat poetic form and the harmony of syllables, but also in the poetic skills such as rich fantasy, strange images and symbolism. At the same time, some other poets in the metrical poetry school, such as Xu Zhimo, Zhu Xiang, Sun Dayu and Bian, also paid attention to the creation skills of images, and the metrical poetry school showed a tendency of leaning towards symbolism in the later period. However, their theory and practice in this respect are obscured by the "wall" of metrical parts created by themselves and others, so that when the metrical poetry school dries up and the form of free poetry is re-valued by the poetry circle, most poets are still struggling with the problem of metrical form. I don't know that there are many new worlds that have not been opened up. Dai Wangshu is different. He can not only jump out of the old pattern of poetics and innovate, but also open up a new look of poetry from the place that others seldom pay attention to, that is, Rain Lane, which tends to be rhythmic in the early days, showing his unique pursuit. Although Rain Lane pursues the beauty of music and imitates metrical poems, it is more vivid, harmonious, elegant and subtle than metrical poems. It can be seen that it obviously combines the experience of metrical poetry in creating images, accepts the influence of early symbolism, pays attention to the musicality of poetry, and initially forms an art of "hiding oneself and expressing oneself" by using hints and metaphors. The poet holding an oil-paper umbrella, the lonely and long rain lane, and the girl floating like a dream with lilac-like sadness are all lyrical images, all of which are full of symbolic meanings. Mr. Zhu Ziqing said: Dai Wangshu also adopted the school of legal symbolism. "He also pays attention to neat syllables, but they are not sonorous, but light and clear; Also found a little hazy atmosphere, but people can understand it; There are colors, too, but not as strong as Feng Naichao's. He wants to catch that delicate place. " 【 ③g 】 Rainy Lane is hazy but not obscure, humble but not decadent, affectionate but not frivolous, which really captures the "subtlety" of symbolism poetry. Later, when Dai Wangshu abandoned the form of metrical poetry and wrote free verse, he lost only the form, but the techniques of image creation, suggestion and metaphor that have been formed in Rainy Lane have been continuously developed and used more skillfully in later poems. Although his poetic skills are different in the early, middle and late stages, the basic quality of symbolic poetry school runs through and becomes an important aspect of his poetic creation. Su Wen said: "Symbolist poets have a special attraction to him, but it can be said that this special technique is just in line with his motivation to write poems, which is neither to hide himself nor to express himself." [①h] In short, it is an important feature of Dai Wangshu's aesthetic pursuit to pursue the "translucent" oriental artistic conception between obscurity and transparency and poetry's concealment and expression.

As can be seen from the above, Dai Wangshu's poetry creation is to achieve self-transcendence in the process of constantly breaking through himself. At the same time, it has formed the characteristics of modern poetry on the basis of constantly absorbing the strengths of various schools (realistic poetry school, romantic poetry school, crescent school, symbolic poetry school, etc.). ), and synthesize the strengths of various schools (metrical style, free style and symbolic style) to create more exquisite and brilliant new poetry works. Dai Wangshu kept the consciousness of subjective creation for a long time, lost no time in grasping the trend of reality and the road of the development of new poetry, and constantly made new adjustments and choices. It is precisely because Dai Wangshu has a continuous process of inheriting, sublating, transforming and developing China's new poetry that his poetry is not only rich in capacity and colorful, but also condenses a certain historical process of the development of new poetry. It should be said that this is his great contribution to China's new poetry.