Life is precious and love is more valuable. If and freedom, both can be thrown away. The author is the Hungarian poet Petofi, from the poem "Freedom and Love".
This famous short love poem was written on January 1, 1847. At that time, Petofi organized his completed works for publication and wrote a preface to explain his own ideas on poetry creation. It was late that night that he wrote this poem, thereby completing an important leap in the development of his early thoughts.
In the poem, the poet first praised the preciousness of life, maybe because it has infinite creativity, maybe because it belongs to people only once. However, in the poet's opinion, love is more valuable than life. "Life is precious, but love is more valuable." This is the poet's highly condensed life experience after experiencing the life experience of love. Love between opposite sexes is a natural attribute of human beings. Without the water of love, the tree of life will wither; with love, life is full of vitality and can fully demonstrate its essential power. As early as 1844, when the poet was 21 years old, he experienced a love blow. At that time, he and Qiao Bao Edkar, a beautiful 15-year-old girl, fell in love at first sight and loved each other. The poet wrote two poems dedicated to her at that time.
On January 7, 1845, Edelka died suddenly, which was a heavy blow to the poet. He cried bitterly in front of his lover's coffin, he slept in the bed where his lover had slept before his death, and he mourned in front of his lover's grave. All these painful sufferings were later turned into mourning poems, published under the name "The Collection of Cypress Leaves on Edelka's Grave". This was a huge blow that the poet received in his emotional life, which made him deeply feel the value of love. In 1846, the poet met Yulia, a rich girl, and the two finally got married after overcoming many obstacles. It is self-evident that this period was filled with doubts, anguish, sadness and joy. If Petofi's early love life did not break out of his narrow personal circle, then later on, he was able to link his personal love life with the national liberation movement. Undoubtedly, he was greatly inspired by his lover.
A diary entry written on March 17, 1848 contains the following statement: “During the greater part of the night neither my wife, my beloved and courageous inspiration, was asleep. "She inspires me all the time. She walks in front of my thoughts and plans, just like a military flag fluttering in the wind." In those days and nights when the revolution broke out, I had such a friend and comrade-in-arms. Fighting alongside oneself, the poet is obviously proud of this. Therefore, the poet said: "Love is like breathing and pulse to me" and cannot be left for a moment. From these words, we can see Petofi’s love values.
Love is so noble, so what is it compared with freedom? In the era when the poet lived, freedom meant the independence of the nation and the liberation of the people. Life without freedom is "living on", love without freedom is "trap". It is based on this understanding that Petofi not only fought with his pen and wrote countless revolutionary poems praising freedom and inspiring the people's fighting spirit; he also fought with his sword and participated in many fierce battles with "rivers of blood", and finally died heroically " Died on the point of a Cossack's spear." Petofi said: "If anyone wants to fall in a pool of blood, then he does not need to do anything else, just say the word 'freedom', that is enough." Isn't the poet's cry for freedom here the right to freedom? Revolution, the cry for the people's liberation? Petofi correctly handled the relationship between life, love, and freedom. He not only affirmed the value of life and love, but also consciously transcended it and sublimated it to the point where he was willing to stand up for the people's liberation. The noble realm of sacrifice draws a line with the general love poems that talk about the love between men and women.