Another poem says, "Looking straight at the sky, Xia Han is proud, with green branches and leaves clustered high. In spring, the ground is broken and strong, rotten but not residual. " It's all about the integrity of bamboo
When you wander in the ocean of China's classical poems, you will never forget the charming poems about bamboo. Bamboo is an inexhaustible object for ancient poets in China. Bamboo embodies the aesthetic ideals and artistic pursuits of countless writers, injecting them with many passionate emotions and wise thinking; Bamboo is really a literary symbol with China cultural characteristics in ancient China.
First, from symbols in literature to literary symbols.
Bamboo has gone through a long historical process from entering literature as an auxiliary component of artistic conception to becoming the central image of poetry, that is, from symbols in literature to literary symbols. In literature, the symbolization of bamboo art has gone through four stages: origin, formation, prosperity and development.
1, Pre-Qin and Han Dynasties: the beginning period
As early as the primitive society, bamboo was an important material for China ancestors to make production tools and household appliances, and became a common item in their production and life. Therefore, the original ballads described bamboo as a thing. Judging from the existing books and records, Ge Tan should be the earliest bamboo book in the history of China's poetry. It sings: "Broken bamboo, continued bamboo, flying soil, chasing it @ ①." In this ballad, bamboo is only mentioned as the material for making bows. The theme of ballads is not to praise bamboo itself, but to explain the process of bow making and hunting, which does not inject more emotion, concept and aesthetic interest into bamboo in essence. From barbarism to civilization, history has turned a new chapter in written records. China's ancient literature built the first monument that shone for thousands of years-pre-Qin literature, and created two bright pearls, The Book of Songs and Songs of the South. As the direct source of China's classical poetry, The Book of Songs and Songs of the South contain many poems and songs about bamboo, which is one of the important aspects of poetic artistic conception.
In The Book of Songs of the South, there are many articles about bamboo, such as bamboo, basket, dustpan, barrel, j @②, barnyard grass, bamboo, hat, land ② @ ③, bamboo, etc. It is not uncommon to introduce bamboo directly into poetry and describe bamboo. For example, "Feng Weiqi 'ao" says: "Look at him and Qi 'ao, green bamboo is embarrassed." Also, "Look at the Olympics, green bamboo." There is also: "Look at the Olympics, bamboo is like a basket." The third chapter begins with bamboo. Zhu Note: "There are many bamboos in Qiyuan, but the Han Dynasty still exists. The so-called bamboo garden is also. This is embarrassing, fragile and beautiful. " "Defending people is beautiful in martial arts, and the beauty of bamboo is also conducive to promoting their learning and self-study." "Green, strong is just a lush appearance. With the strength of bamboo, the dignity of its clothes is improved and its virtue is known. " "Sasakawa, stack also. The density of bamboo is comparable, and it is also thriving. It is also the merit of bamboo. " It is far-fetched to attribute poetry to praising Wei Wugong's virtue, but it is not wrong to think that bamboo has its connotation as a kind of rise. In this poem, although bamboo only appears as a plant at the beginning of each chapter and is only one of the objects selected by the poet to construct the artistic conception, it is endowed with some symbolic meaning, which is established between bamboo and its reference.
Make a temporary symbol code-information reference relationship. There is also a saying in Xiaoya's Four Trunks: "Like bamboo shoots, like pine." Zheng Xuan wrote a cloud: "What people say is like bamboo." Kong Ying Da said, "Bamboo is a bud, and bamboo poles are clustered, which is almost the same." According to legend, his poems were sung by Zhou Xuanwang when he was building a palace.
Compare the prosperity of family with bamboo shoots. Here, the Book of Songs gives bamboo another symbolic meaning, and constructs another symbolic code-information reference relationship between bamboo and its reference. In addition, there are some poems written on bamboo in The Book of Songs, such as "Erluoerluoerluoerluoerluoerluoer 2 1 However, bamboo, like other animals and plants in The Book of Songs of the South, has not got rid of its position as an introduction" [( 1)], and it is Zhu Wei. Although it is far-fetched to say "300 poems about objects" [2], this metaphor of birds, animals, insects and fish to arouse emotions has indeed bred a latent seed for the development of later poems about objects. [(3)] There is a saying in Han Fu that "bamboo and sandalwood are cultivated @ ⑥, and the water is fresh" (Mei Cheng's "Liang Wang Tu Guo Fu"); There are also poems about bamboo in Han Yuefu's folk songs, such as "What is a bamboo pole? ⑦ ⑦ ⑦ ⑦ ⑦ ⑦ ⑦ ⑦ 9318 The former uses bamboo poles to fish, which means that men and women love each other; The latter is rooted in the depression of mountains and bamboos, which means that women depend on gentlemen (or think that women depend on their parents before marriage). Among these poems, the poems describing bamboo and the poems expressing emotions and narrating events are no longer separated from each other in form like the Book of Songs, and each forms an independent language unit, but are basically integrated in language form. However, the image of bamboo is in harmony with the feelings expressed and described by the author.
The relationship has not yet reached harmony. As Mr. Ye Jiaying said: "After all, the authors of 300 essays still focus on emotions, not things. Therefore, although' 300 Essays' also has the name of birds, animals and plants, it cannot be regarded as a poem praising things. " (4) In the pre-Qin and Han Dynasties, that is, the beginning of bamboo culture, there have been poems chanting bamboo, which have become the "introduction", background or metaphor for poetry to express emotions and narrative events, and are only part of poetry content and images, rather than the theme and central image that runs through the whole poem, that is, they are only artistic symbols rather than artistic symbols, and have not yet reached duality. Nevertheless, the literature of the pre-Qin and Han dynasties has begun to show clues of chanting bamboo poems, forming the embryonic form of chanting bamboo poems. In the womb of China culture, this embryo will eventually grow into a "baby" and be born.
2. Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties: Formation Period
The discussion of "people with titles" at the end of Han Dynasty evolved into the discussion of "distinguishing names and reasoning" in Wei and Jin Dynasties, and absorbed it.
Accepting Confucianism and Taoism, especially Laozi and Zhuangzi, has formed a metaphysical trend of thought. Advocating nature, appreciating landscapes and scenery are the central topics and life interests discussed by metaphysicists and celebrities. Therefore, the natural landscape is no longer a cold and alien thing, but a refuge for celebrities to escape from reality and get rid of pain. It is a place to enjoy themselves and vent themselves, and it has become a concrete manifestation of human external extension and spiritual world, and it is a kind of "humanized nature". As a part of "humanized nature", bamboo is loved, intoxicated and sung by people. The Biography of Wang Huizhi in the Book of Jin recorded such a thing: "The emblem is very unruly. There was a scholar-bureaucrat in Wuzhong who had a good bamboo root. He wanted to see it, so he went out and sat under it, sneering for a long time, and the owner swept it and sat down, regardless of the emblem. Will go out, the owner will close the door, and the emblem will be rewarded. Leave with joy. Try to live in an empty house and plant bamboo, or ask why. You will scream at the bamboo and say, "how can you live without this gentleman for a day?" "Appreciating bamboo, writing poems, praising bamboo and chanting bamboo are becoming more and more popular, and celebrities in the ruling and opposition circles are flocking to it, so poets began to think. Guo Pu, a metaphysical scholar in the Jin Dynasty, first wrote "Praise of Peach Branches and Bamboo", saying, "Panjiamei Bamboo is called Peach Branches. The bushes are sparse and quiet, calm and melancholy. Sleep peacefully and persist in helping the needy. "This is a compliment to its function. ⑨ ⑩ ⑩ ⑩ ⑩ ⑩ ⑩ ⑩ ⑩ ⑩ ⑩ ⑩ ⑩ ⑩ ⑩ ⑩ ⑩ ⑩ ⑩ ⑩ ⑩ ⑩ ⑩ ⑩ ⑩ ⑩ ⑩ ⑩ ⑩ 932 In addition, there are Wang Xizhi's "Bamboo Sticking" and Dai Kui's "Song Zhu Zan". The literature of chanting bamboo in Jin Dynasty was limited to prose and fu, and poetry has not yet appeared. However, these documents and Fu all follow the genre of Wen Xin Diao Long Lun Fu, mainly sorting out the characteristics of bamboo by the method of "adopting Chι@ι @ Although bamboo in this period is not an artistic symbol in the full sense, it has risen to the main image of the work after all and runs through the whole text.
From Liu Song Dynasty to Southern Qi Dynasty, not only the number of bamboo-chanting works increased day by day, but also the genre expanded to the field of poetry. In addition, with the reversal of metaphysical poetry style and the emergence of landscape poetry school, people are closer to nature and bamboo, and bamboo has gradually become an image infiltrated by writers' emotions and concepts, and the aesthetic value and artistic taste of bamboo-chanting works have been greatly improved. Strictly speaking, bamboo-chanting literature was born, which is marked by Xie Tiao's Autumn Bamboo Song and its predecessor, Yongzhu:
North of the window, the roots are not uneven.
The wind is blowing and the reflected sun is quite far away.
If you want to blow the jujube, don't have Jiangnan branches.
Only the snow can be lost, and Yin Shin Quchi can be saved.
After the poem cloud:
A clump of bamboo in front of the window is green and unique.
The southern branches cross the northern leaves, and the new bamboo is mixed with the old branches.
The moonlight is dense, and the wind comes and goes.
It doesn't matter if you fly, but you can see each other's style.
But I hate to follow the trend and leave after a long time.
The former poem expresses the poet's unyielding feelings by praising the nature of bamboo that is not afraid of cold and loyal to the shadow pool. In later poems, bamboo shoots were used as a metaphor for the feelings of human separation. In the two poems, there has always been a deep reference and ideographic relationship between bamboo and its interest. In particular, the symbol code constructed between bamboo's fearlessness to the snow and people's loyalty-the constancy of reference relationship has been repeatedly confirmed and sung by later poets. Therefore, the appearance of these two poems marks the birth of bamboo as a literary symbol.
3. Tang and Song Dynasties: the heyday
The feudal society and economy in the Tang Dynasty were unprecedentedly prosperous, the territory was greatly expanded, and the thought was quite democratic.
Scholars have a broad vision and a strong desire to create; At the same time, literature, especially poetry, has developed by leaps and bounds on the basis of the creative experience and artistic skills accumulated by predecessors, reaching an unprecedented peak. Under such a social and cultural background, the poem of chanting bamboo has gone through "nine rivers and eighteen bends" and finally merged into the sea, ushered in its heyday.
In the Tang Dynasty, bamboo became one of the aesthetic objects concerned by literati. From emperors and ministers to ordinary scholars and the lower classes, people praise bamboo, and as many as 95 people have written about bamboo in ancient and modern book collections alone. Great writers such as Wang Wei, Li Bai, Du Fu, Han Yu, Liu Zongyuan, Bai Juyi and Li Shangyin. There are masterpieces of chanting bamboo handed down from generation to generation, especially Bai Juyi, who personally planted and raised bamboo, loved bamboo very much, and sang bamboo again and again, leaving many well-known poems of chanting bamboo; The literature of chanting bamboo in the Tang Dynasty is rich in genres, including poems, poems and notes. There are countless works about bamboo and bamboo products in Tang poetry. People who directly describe bamboo as the motif and central image can also get it by opening books, which is quite rich. There are as many as 175 articles in the Collection of Ancient and Modern Books, which are rich in content and different in style.
In the eyes of Tang people, the external world can be transformed by people, and people's subjective consciousness is unprecedentedly high. Nature is often infiltrated and dominated by the poet's emotion and will, blending with people's emotion and will to become an image, that is, natural objects become symbols of emotion and will, the separation between subject and object is opened, conflicts are melted, and they move towards integration and unity. For example, Du Fu's "Bitter Bamboo" cloud:
Qingming is also self-control, weak and strong.
Bitter summer insects avoid it, and spring birds suspect it.
The porch is not heavy, and the cutting is endless.
Fortunately, near the secluded house, the frost root is here.
Stop at the pavilion in the morning and love this secluded place alone.
In this poem, Du Fu praised Kuzhu as a humble, lofty and firm person. On the surface, it is praise and love for bamboo, but on the deeper level, it is praise and admiration for people, as well as the nature of bamboo and people, and the feelings of bitter bamboo and the poor, as Zhong Xing commented: "Shaoling is like" bitter bamboo "... All poems have praise, sympathy, hatred and thinking about everything. At this point, gods, buddhas, saints, sages, emperors and heroes are hard to get up. "
Another example is Wei Zhuang's "Newly Planted Bamboo":
I saw this gentleman in front of the lonely steps, but I sang around the bar and touched the towel.
Who knows that I am in a foreign land, but I am like a master.
If Du Fu's poems mentioned above are based on touching the scenery (bamboo), Wei Zhuang's Seven Wonders are based on seeking the scenery. The poet lived in exile (maybe Wei Zhuang lived in the south during the Huang Chao Uprising), and the feeling of wandering and loneliness came to mind. There is no place to find a bosom friend, no one can express his sadness, no one can express his heart. Only the bamboo raft that he often accompanies seems to be an old friend, which seems to solve the sadness of the poet's departure and eliminate the block in the poet's heart. Bamboo is not only personified as a good friend of the poet, but also endowed with an understanding character. Bamboo and people can be said to be intimate, and bamboo is completely emotional and subjective. In the Tang Dynasty, the poet achieved "loyalty to the monarch, being close to things" (Zhang Jiuling's "Answering Chen's Notes and Giving Bamboo Hairpins"), and human feelings and physics were integrated and unified. In Tang Dynasty's poems about objects, bamboo mainly refers to or expresses the poet's aesthetic feelings.
The society, economy and culture of the Song Dynasty inherited and developed the Tang Dynasty. Mr. Chen Yinque, who has studied the culture of Sui and Tang Dynasties, pointed out: "After thousands of years of evolution, the culture of the Chinese nation reached its peak in Zhao and Song Dynasties."
In such a cultural soil, a flower chanting bamboo literature can rival the Tang Dynasty. The literature of chanting bamboo in Song Dynasty is no less than that in Tang Dynasty in terms of the number of authors, works and genres, and has made new explorations and achievements in the fineness of artistic conception of chanting bamboo works and the depth and breadth of bamboo as a literary symbol. For example, Wang Anshi's Ode to Bamboo in the Pavilion of Huazang Academy:
It's cold all the way and has a long aftertaste.
People are born thin, and they become more rigid when they get older.
Will be with wormwood and dew, and will eventually be with pine and cypress cream.
I'm tired of plants that take root and sprout. I want to ask Linglun to learn from Phoenix.
This poem deliberately depicts the characteristics of bamboo, such as yin, straightness, node, rigidity and cold resistance, and ends with the allusion of phoenix phoenix phoenix in Zhuangzi to show the wisdom of bamboo. Through ideographic expression, we can realize that the literary symbol bamboo in the poem completely expresses Wang Anshi's personality, personality and ambition as a politician and writer.
The poet borrowed bamboo from this poem. Another example is Su Shi's Frost Cloud Pavilion:
Xie can't help herself, and ChanJuan has been in a cold attitude for many years.
To see the significance of first frost, we must wait until the autumn wind falls.
This poem captures the cold-resistant characteristics of bamboo, which is similar to the charm of Confucius' "When it is cold, pines and cypresses will die after cold", and generally expresses the intention that people who are not afraid of dangers have developed a determined character since childhood, and only when they are in danger can they show their true colors as heroes. This poem has a strong sense of reasoning with bamboo.
Song people's works of chanting bamboo are inferior to Tang poetry in artistic conception, concrete image and sincere and delicate emotion, but they are superior to Tang people in highlighting the image characteristics and profound meaning of bamboo. The content referred to and expressed by bamboo literary symbols has been filtered by the net of reason, and the elements of reasoning have been greatly increased. In the Song Dynasty, the literature of chanting bamboo, especially the poems of chanting bamboo, focused on reason and interest.
4. From Yuan Dynasty to modern times: continuation period.
After the Tang and Song Dynasties, the feudal culture gradually lost its vitality and strength, and the status of object-chanting poems deeply rooted in the soil of feudal culture declined day by day, which was increasingly impacted by civic literature-operas and novels. After the May 4th New Culture Movement, it was covered by new literature such as free verse and vernacular novels, and the creativity of chanting bamboo poems tended to be weak, and the dazzling light of the past could no longer shine. However, as an important motif of China literature, bamboo will not suddenly disappear, and writers of different times and cultures are constantly giving it new themes. With the evolution of history, bamboo, a literary symbol, has been gaining new references-expressing meaning. From Gao Shui Shang in Yuan Dynasty, Fu by Yang Weizhen, Shi Xiu Gu by Gao Qi in Ming Dynasty, Zhu Ji by Wang Shizhen, bamboo slips by Zheng Xie in Qing Dynasty, Wu Boxiao also wrote the article Jinggang Cuizhu until modern times. Although the literature of chanting bamboo is lingering, it still exists. The life stream of bamboo culture is endless, and the long river of reciting bamboo literature is endless!
Second, the cultural connotation of chanting bamboo literature
Although literature is "just a small piece cut from an endless network", it is still cut from this "network" of culture, which is closely related to it and can show some characteristics and aspects of "endless" culture in its "small piece". In this regard, the British novelist Ai Mo Foster has a very profound metaphor. He said, "Here are the fish. The same is true of the literature of chanting bamboo. The symbolic flower of bamboo literature is in full bloom in the soil of China traditional culture, which inevitably contains the unique nutrients of China traditional culture soil. There are countless poems chanting bamboo in China literature, and the rich form and connotation of bamboo literary symbols are incomparable to any country's literature. China's traditional culture is mainland agricultural culture. As a factor in China's traditional cultural system, the literature of chanting bamboo is bound to be restricted and regulated by Chinese mainland-style agricultural cultural system, and it has created the aesthetic style of bamboo literary symbols.
The reality and introversion of Chinese mainland-style agricultural culture determine the lyrical characteristics of the literature of chanting bamboo, and promote the great development of the lyrical literature of chanting bamboo. Mr. Zhu Guangqian pointed out: "Western poetry develops in three aspects at the same time: epic, dramatic and lyrical, while China's poetry tends to develop in lyricism."
The literature of chanting bamboo is to express one's will with bamboo, instead of telling a tortuous and complicated story or shaping brave and tenacious people who dare to take risks. Bamboo is the sustenance and symbol of emotion in literature. The strong lyricism of bamboo literary symbols is the product of the "barrier mechanism" formed by the geographical conditions of semi-closed mainland rivers, which adapts to the introverted personality of farming culture and the cultural spirit of clinging to reality; At the same time, the lyric literature of Yongzhu has grown into a towering tree because of its rich nutrients drawn from agricultural culture.
The harmonious pastoral life sentiment and stable life attitude of mainland agricultural culture have created a fresh, elegant, quiet and soft style of bamboo-chanting literature. Agricultural production is not as intense as hunting and sailing, which has intense conflict, excitement, fast pace and contingency. The production cycle of crops is long and the growth rhythm is slow. Especially in traditional agricultural production, whether it is abundant or not depends more on the weather. Generally speaking, only by seeking the harmony between man and nature can we get a bumper harvest and life become dull, natural and monotonous. In this static and closed cultural system, the value orientation of people's social life does not point to the maximum play of life potential and the great achievements that may be created, but to avoid conflicts and struggles with nature and society as much as possible, seek no merit, but no fault, seek safety and oppose adventure, realize the harmony between man and nature in the conversion to nature, and realize their own life value in the leisurely and quiet life rhythm, with the "golden mean" as the highest realm. As Mr. Zhu Guangqian said: "Compared with western natural poems, China's natural poems are as euphemistic and implicit as love poems, concise and meaningful, straightforward and profound. ..... China's poems have their own differences in rigidity and softness, but if compared with western poems, western poems tend to be rigid and soft, while China's poems tend to be soft. The nature that western poets like is the sea, not the storm, the steep cliffs and desolate valleys, and the sunny scenery. China poets naturally like the sparse willows in Mingxi, the gentle breeze and drizzle, the lakes and mountains, and the moonlight. ..... The softness of western poetry and the rigidity of China's poetry are not their true colors. "
The images repeatedly absorbed by China's literature are not majestic, turbulent and conflicting things such as mountains, swift rivers and sudden storms, but peaceful, slender, delicate and peaceful images. People pursue the beauty of "neutralization" that is "happy without lewdness, sad without injury", subtle and gentle, delicate and elegant. The literature of chanting bamboo is "expressing one's will by supporting things", which expresses the writer's interest and thoughts by describing and chanting bamboo, rather than directly expressing one's feelings and thoughts. Therefore, the way of expressing emotions in bamboo-chanting literature is generally tortuous, euphemistic and implicit; Bamboo is slender, soft, hard to fold, elegant in color, and has typical female aesthetic characteristics. Therefore, the aesthetic style of bamboo-chanting literature is mostly implicit, elegant, fresh and beautiful. The literature of chanting bamboo meets the traditional aesthetic needs of the Chinese nation, so it appeared earlier and developed fully.
The unique cultural psychology of agricultural culture regulates the ideological content and moral evaluation of literature. There are many works in China's literature that attack "the 237 virtue" and "the relic forgets the righteousness", but those positive figures who value righteousness, "loyalty, filial piety, righteousness and courage" can be seen at a glance. Bamboo is tall and unyielding, knotty and evergreen, tough and hard to fold, which accords with the ethical concept of Chinese traditional agricultural culture. Therefore, as an important literary symbol, writers incorporate it into their literary works to refer to and express their ideas and feelings of advocating morality, adhering to moral integrity, cherishing old friends and being attached to the countryside.
In a word, bamboo, as an extremely important literary symbol in China literature, is the product of China traditional cultural soil, which itself contains rich cultural connotation and meaningful aesthetic charm.