How to read poetry

Beginning to read classical poetry, the first may encounter two problems: First, what to read? The second is how to read? Because of the cultural level, life experience, the original poetry skills vary greatly, the answer to these two questions can not be generalized. Here only on the majority of comrades learning the situation of the first to talk about some of the views.

First, read what?

Learning poetry is not like learning math, you must first learn arithmetic, algebra ...... and then calculus. Not necessarily according to the order of the Classic of Poetry, Han Fu, Lefu, Wei Jin ancient poetry, Tang poetry, Song lyrics ...... . Just like learning calligraphy, most people start from reading Tang steles, not in the order of oracle bones, bell and ding scripts, Han steles, and Jin posters. Poetry should also be learned from reading Tang poems. As I mentioned before, during the Tang Dynasty, China's poetry reached a golden age of high maturity with the rise of famous poets, a variety of genres, and a wide range of subjects. As Lu Xun said, all the good poems were finished in the Tang Dynasty, and all the poems written by the later generations could not escape from the palm of the Tang Dynasty. Lu Xun did not mean to say that there were no good poems in the Tang Dynasty, but he said: "Poetry in the Tang Dynasty was full of all kinds of styles, and all kinds of methods. Therefore, those who call poetry must regard the Tang as the standard, such as the enough rate of shooting, and the rules of the ruler." (Kangxi "preface to the whole Tang poetry") modern people whether to read poetry as art appreciation, or through reading poetry to learn to write poetry, generally should start from reading Tang poetry.

Reading Tang poetry, there are two problems: First, the Tang poetry has been handed down more than 50,000, the amount of so large, can not be gnawed, how to do? The second is that the overall process of the development of Tang poetry and the various schools of thought, the masters do not understand, as if watching television, do not know the "channel" of the program and its content, it is difficult to pick the "channel", how to do?

The first thing you need to do is to read the whole book, and then you can read the whole book in your own time. The first step is not to read a large volume of poems such as "All Tang Poetry". You can read an anthology like "Three Hundred Poems of the Tang Dynasty". There are two types of anthologies, one is the ancient book, there are many kinds of the Qing Dynasty, this kind of book, the annotations are in Mandarin, and there is no new style of punctuation, the beginner is more difficult to read, or choose to read the present book is good. There may be no less than ten kinds of this book, which one to choose? Comparatively speaking, the quality of editing and publishing of professional publishers such as People's Literature Publishing House and Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House is higher; the newly published ones, especially the reprinted ones, have been added, deleted, and rearranged, and are more complete than the previously published ones. After reading the "300 Tang poems", or start, further reading what? It depends on which one you like ---- Li Bai, Du Fu, Bai Juyi, Liu Yuxi, Li He ......? If you like one or more of them, you should read more of their works. Li, Du, Bai, etc. left thousands of poems, a large amount, you can read their poems first; works less, such as Li He only lived to the age of 27, left only 233 poems, a small number, if you love his work, you can read his complete works. If you like his works, you can read his whole collection. The Appreciation Dictionary of Tang Poetry published by Shanghai Rhetoric Publishing House collects 1,105 poems by 196 poets, from which you can also choose your favorite works. Unfortunately, the book is too simple to explain the allusions and ancient phrases, and the appreciation of certain chapters is too complicated, neglecting to inspire readers to run their own imagination.

Although the number of words is not as large as the poems, but from the Hualan School to the Qing Dynasty, there are tens of thousands of words, you can read the anthology first, but also according to the principle of selecting the version of the "Three Hundred Poems of the Tang Dynasty" to choose a good version. Most of the beginners choose "Selected Song Lyrics" published by Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House and annotated by Hu Yunyi. This book is based on the principle of "favoring the bold and free, not abolishing the elegant and simple", recording 300 famous words of the two Song dynasties, with concise and clear annotations. After reading them, go on to read the whole collection or anthology of your favorite authors. The Dictionary of Classification and Appreciation of Words of All Ages, published by China Tourism Publishing House, contains 829 words by 337 authors from the Tang Dynasty down to the end of the Qing Dynasty. After reading Song Lyrics, you may also want to read your favorite works from this book, or read the whole collection or anthology of your favorite representatives of the heroic and elegant school.

Read the Tang poetry, Song lyrics, if you still have the ability, you can find the People's Literature Publishing House published by the Chinese Poetry through the ages to read. This book, from the pre-Qin primitive ballads to modern Su Manshu, Liu Yazi's works are selected into the 1999, the People's Liberation Army Publishing House published "Chinese Poetry Through the Ages", including from the pre-Qin primitive ballads, down to the May Fourth Movement of poems of 4,318, 1045 authors, notes concise, also with the text of the white control. You can read through these anthologies, or you can choose to read them. Learning poetry, in addition to reading Tang poetry, should also read Song Su Shi, Lu You, Fan Chengda, Yang Wanli and other people's poems, Qing Gong Zizhen's work is also worth reading; Learning words, in addition to the Song lyrics, you can choose to read the late Tang Dynasty Wen Tingyun, Southern Tang Dynasty, Feng Yansi, Li Yu, the Yuan Sadura and other heirlooms, if you love the elegant and graceful, you may want to read the words of the Qing Dynasty, Nalan Seide.

If you love to watch TV, you should always read the China Television News first, to know which channel has what your favorite program and its content summary. Before reading poems, it is better to browse the relevant part of the History of Chinese Literature. For Tang poems, you can read the relevant parts of the second book of History of Chinese Literature edited by You Guo'en, Wang Qi, Ji Zhenhuai and Fei Zhengang; for Song poems, you can read the relevant parts of the third book. In this way, you have a general understanding of the overall process of the development of Tang poetry or Song lyrics, and the representative characters and works of each period, so that you can choose and emphasize according to your own preferences when you read poems in the future, and it will also help you to understand the works. Comrades who have not studied poetry, read the "History of Chinese Literature" encountered the main difficulty is that the works cited in the book, there is no commentary, do not understand, how to do? You can temporarily "do not seek to understand", jump over, wait until the formal reading of poetry, and then to understand, do not spend too much time in the preparation for the start.

Second, how to read?

If you have the means to attend a poetry class and listen to the professor, it is of course very good. But if you really want to learn to read poetry, you have to rely mainly on self-study." "A teacher is a teacher who teaches and explains." Professors teach by selecting representative works of famous authors, explaining and analyzing them, and arousing people's interest in reading poems. However, the cultural level is not the same, and the difficulties encountered in learning are not the same, so the effect of solving puzzles individually may be better than that of teaching collectively. Experience has shown that you can't learn to read poetry by relying solely on listening to lectures, and often learning stops when the professor's lecture is over.

There are many difficulties in starting to read poetry. Only by gradually overcoming these difficulties can you get started, realize the meaning of the poems, enjoy the art, and have fun.

The first difficulty is to understand the meaning of words. The meaning of Chinese words varies greatly, and there are often many interpretations of a word. For example, the word "xuanhuang", which is generally a synonym for heaven and earth, is sometimes used to refer to silk and silk, and in some cases is used to refer to disease, so that it is necessary to contextualize the two words in order to define their meanings. Such variations are especially noticeable in poetry, for example, the word "credit", which is common in poems, has many interpretations. In Lu You's "A long journey to the lake bridge", in the line "I often drink wine on credit", the word is understood as "on credit"; in Luo Binwang's "Crossing the Tianshan Mountain in the evening and reminiscing about Jingyi", in the line "Sighing at the far distance of the military banners, and sitting in pity for the credit on the sash", the word is interpreted as "slow"; in Du Fu's "Pleasant Sunshine", in the line "I have not yet given credit for my plowing", it is also interpreted as "late"; and in Li Zhong's "Smelling the Flute at Night during a Journey", in the line "Whose house is the flute from, and who is the one that gives credit for the cool night of autumn", it is also interpreted as "on credit". It is also used as "long" in Li Zhong's "Hearing the Flute at Night During a Journey", "Whose house is the long flute from, and the night leaks in the cool of autumn", "long" in Han Yu's "Gift to a Monk Translating the Scriptures", "far" in Han Yu's "Ten Thousand Miles of the Road on Credit", and "remote" in Zhang Shuo's "A Song of Yuezhou", "The Land is Different from the Southern State, and the Guan and Hebei Letters are on Credit", and "sparse" in Han Yu's "The Second Boundary of Dengzhou", "Fewer people are seen at the twilight of the snow of Shangyan, and fewer at the stage of the mud of Deng Mei in spring". This character is sometimes used as an auxiliary word, as in Yang Wanli's "Plums in Duojia Pavilion": "The gentleman is returning home in the next place, and he is going up to the city to have a look on credit." Li Shangyin's "Yesterday": "Yesterday the purple nuns went away, but today the green birds are on credit." Chang'an was the capital city of Han and Tang dynasties, but in the old poems, Chang'an was often used to refer to the capital city in general, no matter in which dynasty. This is still easy to understand, such as the capital called "sun side", "sun down", it is difficult to understand. Wine is called "Zhongsheng" in Li Bai's poem, "Zhuye" in Du Fu's poem, and "Amber" in Li He's poem. Mao Zedong "to Chen Yi" said: "Li He poem is worth reading", Li He poem has a characteristic: good use of pronouns, not directly say the name of the object. Such as the sword is said to jade dragon, the sky is said to pale round, autumn flowers is said to cold red, spring grass is said to cold green. Classical Chinese poetry is concerned about metaphor, which is relatively easy to understand, metaphor, metaphor is difficult to understand, get through it needs to have the relevant knowledge, for example, Liu Zongyuan "suburb residence": "dill medicine idle garden to extend the country old, open the bottle virtual pavilion to wait for the wise man." The word "Guolao" stands for licorice, and the word "sage" stands for wine. Another example is Su Shi's "Snow": "Frozen Jade House rises up with cold corn, and the light shakes the silver sea with dazzling flowers." The word "Jade Tower" is used as a substitute for "shoulder", and "Silver Sea" is used as a substitute for "eyes". These in the reading of the poem have to be well thought out.

Poetry, especially metered poems, because of rhyming, leveling, battle and other requirements of the constraints, the meaning of some words is often like but not, not as precise as in prose. For example, Ma Dai's "Sending Guests to South": "Reeds dry up in the color of clouds and dreams, oranges ripen in the fragrance of the cave." The word "fragrance" is both olfactory and visual - tangerines are ripe, the Dongting Lake is a golden autumn scene, fragrant; at the same time, because the poem rhymes with "yang". Another example is Li Qunyu "send Xiao XII school book to Ying state marriage": "horse through the evening rain Jingshan far, people sleep in the cold light Ying dream long." Since ancient times have said "night long dream more", and here why say "dream long"? This is in addition to the newlywed love, but also because the poem is "Yang" rhyme, so the word "long".

The following are two examples of the use of the word "long" for the sake of the level and narrowness. Du Fu: "Spring Hope" "White head scratching is shorter, I want to not win the hairpin" only white hair scratching is shorter, where is the white head scratching is shorter? Because this sentence should be "flat and flat and oblique" according to the meter, the first word can be regardless of the second word can not be accommodated, it must be flat, and the word "hair" is precisely oblique, then we have to use the flat "head" word to replace. Li Shangyin's "Untitled": "The storm does not believe that the diamond branch is weak, and who teaches the fragrance of cinnamon leaves in the moon dew." Only the fragrance of osmanthus flowers, where is the fragrance of osmanthus leaves! Because of this sentence according to the meter should be "oblique flat oblique flat", one three five regardless, two four six clear, the sixth word must be oblique, can not be accommodated, then only to the oblique "leaf" word to replace the flat "flower" word.

In order to match and accommodate the use of words is more common. For example, Du Fu's "Spring Stay in the Left Province": "The stars are moving in ten thousand households, and the moon is in the middle of nine nights." The meaning is that the stars and buckets are moving in the ten thousand households, and the moon is shining in the sky, bright in the nine nights. If in prose, the word "more" would be superfluous, but in this poem, it is indispensable, firstly, to "more than nine nights" and "ten thousand households moving" in contrast, and secondly, for the sake of rhyme, this poem rhymes with "song". Another example is Du Fu's "I will go to Chengdu Cao Tang on the way to send Yan Zheng Gong five songs" (four): "Physiology is only based on the Huang Ge Lao, the decline of the face want to pay the Purple Gold Dan." The meaning of this couplet is that he relied on Huang Ge Lao to take care of his livelihood, and entrusted his aging body to the elixir to cure it. In fact, the author may not be taking the "Zijindan", so the use of this word, is entirely in order to contrast with the "Huang Ge Lao" in the first sentence.

Read the poem, the meaning of the words, the understanding of the meaning of the words, can not be too serious ---- dead key words, the need to link the elements of the poem to "look at the meaning of the text". Beginners if there are teachers counseling, of course, much more convenient; if not this condition, then you need to purchase a more detailed annotated selection of books, but also have the "Etymology", "Dictionary" and other tools.

The second difficulty is grammar. There are many differences between the grammar of vernacular and literary languages, and the grammar of poetry is close to that of literary languages, but there are great differences. First, because in a poem or word in a few words, to stretch quite rich imagination, had to strive for simplicity, wherever possible to omit the word, try to omit; secondly, by the sentence, the number of words, metrical and other requirements of the constraints, sometimes have to change the position of the word, or change the nature of the word, break through the conventional syntax. Poetry grammar is quite complex, the beginner is difficult to understand all at once, you can first understand two common, one is omitted, the other is to change the position of the word and change the nature of the word.