Why is it that even though the poems written by modern people are neat and the sentences are beautiful, I always feel that they don’t have the charm of ancient poems?

Foreword

There are several reasons for the phenomenon mentioned by the subject. First of all, not all ancient poems are good, and not all works of modern people are bad. Secondly, from creation to appreciation, times have changed, and the environment of creators and the cultural accumulation of appreciators are also completely different.

When you write your own poems, if you want to have the charm of the ancients, you need to mention in the fourth part of this article A few points will definitely change.

First, ancient poetry may not be all good

The ancient works we see today are 10,000, so it cannot be said that 100% of ancient poetry is fine.

1. Many have been lost.

First of all, many works of the ancients have been lost, such as Wang Zhihuan, Zhang Ruoxu, Cui Hao, and so on. /p>

There are many excellent poems that we have not seen, and there are also many rubbish works that have not been handed down. Therefore, it cannot be said that all ancient poems are necessarily good works.

2. The ancients deleted poems

In addition to historical reasons, many people’s The work is lost. Another reason is that poets take the initiative to destroy their own bad poems, so as not to let these works that they consider bad to be handed down.

The most famous is Wei Zhuang’s “Qin Women’s Song”. Because of this poem, Wei Zhuang received criticism from scholars and officials, so he took the initiative to destroy this poem and did not let his family copy it. If it hadn’t been preserved in the Dunhuang Sutra Cave, we might not have seen this poem. Of course, Wei Zhuang thinks it is not good, but we think it is good, which is another matter.

The story of Confucius deleting poems is more widely circulated. The “Book of Songs” has only passed down more than 300 pieces , which is also the result of being deleted.

Yang Wanli, a native of the Southern Song Dynasty, once burned poems that he thought were bad. Don’t want us to see his bad works.

3. Not enough reading

Lu You has nearly 10,000 poems, how many have we read? Bai Juyi’s poems are a little less, and there are about 3,000 poems that have been handed down. How many have you read?

And the Qianlong Emperor, who had tens of thousands of poems handed down to the world, and how many people have read them.

On the other hand, writing poetry by modern people is no longer the mainstream, and even if there are excellent works, it is difficult to spread.

4. Tian Ji’s horse racing is not fair

most of the poems we read It is the works in some selected books, that is, the excellent poems that have been selected and liked by many people.

We just take a poem written by a modern person and compare it with the excellent works of the ancients, just like Tian Ji’s horse racing. This is not a very fair comparison.

Second, the difference in the creative environment

1. The imperial examination to select scholars

For a long period of time, the imperial examination used poetry and fu to select scholars, which requires A scholar must be able to write poetry, otherwise the road to becoming an official will be much more difficult. For example, the main methods of selecting scholars in the Tang Dynasty were Mingjing and Jinshi. Most of the people who became high-ranking officials were jinshi, and those who were not jinshi, even if they became prime ministers, regretted their origins.

Poetry and Fu are required to be tested in the jinshi subject. During the past three hundred years of the Tang Dynasty, there were only about 20 jinshi each year on average. In this way, scholars must learn to write poetry and study poetry.

2. Differences in locale

Today’s creations have been written in vernacular In the world, very few people know how to create classical Chinese. Poetry is based on classical Chinese.

3. Differences in education

Poem writing is an important basic knowledge for the ancients to learn. Du Fu once said: Seven-year-old thinking is strong, and he opens his mouth to chant the phoenix. Today’s school education, except for individual subjects in universities, no longer teaches everyone to write poetry, as long as they can memorize poems and can interpret what they mean.

Imagine the students from Tsinghua University and Peking University who spend half their energy writing poetry today, how come they don’t come out with good works.

Even if a master like Li Bai and Du Fu was reborn in this world, he would not focus on writing poetry, because no matter how well he did poetry, he would not be able to get into the ideal university or the civil service.

Three, the ability to appreciate is different

Because I don’t know how to write poetry, my ability to appreciate poetry is actually not that high. Most people appreciate poetry and only stop at the interpretation and background analysis, because this is the content of the exam.

As for the closer analysis of syntax and statutes, it is separated from poetry creation. Many people are Talking on paper, take the appreciation of the predecessors and re-process it.

Did you not know that those who taught literature in the early days were all those who knew how to write poetry, and even those who had been influenced by Western learning in the Republic of China were mostly proficient in the creation of ancient poems, such as Wen Yiduo, Zhu Ziqing and Gu. Sui, Lu Xun, TangGui Zhang, Cheng Qianqiu, etc.

As today’s poetry lovers, the ability to appreciate varies. There are a lot of readers who echo what they say and dwarves watch the play.

For example, many people despise the poetry of the Republic of China, but they really have to mix the poetry of the Republic of China into Tang poetry and Song poetry. In fact, many people can’t distinguish it at all.

Similarly, although the creative ability of modern people is definitely not as good as that of ancient people, they really have to mix today’s excellent works. In Tang poetry and Song poetry, there may also be many people who cannot distinguish it.

For example, these poems, can you tell which era they belong to?

Distant mountains have beautiful eyebrows, and beautiful willows have blue eyes. The pavilion is broken, and the curtain is cold in spring. The cup is delayed by the jade leakage, and the candle is afraid of the golden knife and scissors. The bright moon suddenly flew, and the shadows of flowers and curtains rolled. “Sheng Chazi” The rudder tower passes away in the east, and the scorpion head sinks into the moon in the west. What a single-minded person, since then there is no time to part. Coming from the fog and cutting the river, playing the drums in the early morning. You will turn your bones into dust, and my head will be like snow. “Sheng Chazi” New flowers on the branches of the garden, and Jiaoying on the branches. Holding the heart of flowers every day, pecking through the rain of swallow fat. When Ying Fei Ying goes, who will be with the flowers. Waiting but flying, goodbye to the blossoming place. “Sheng Chazi” The showers come with the wind, and the leaves and leaves are like new Mus. Move the inkstone close to the window screen and get the plantain green. After chanting, the small court is empty, and the thin jacket is too cold. Where is the hidden orchid, fragrant scattered screen mountain song. “Sheng Chazi” The lotus flower is bright in the silver pond, and the jade dew has withered away. Su Die is not worried, Bo Ying gets gold powder. Fei Fei Fei can’t go away, the west wind is tight at sunset. In order to cherish Bai Pingxiang, I am afraid of being damaged by micro-frost. “Sheng Chazi”

4. How to write poetry to have the charm of the ancients? Pay attention to these three points

We have mixed together the excellent poems of Ming, Qing, Song and Yuan Dynasties and even the Republic of China, and most people cannot tell them apart.

First of all, this requires a very high level of discrimination, and even today’s experts and scholars may not be able to do it. Secondly, scholars in the past attached great importance to the inheritance and learning of traditional culture. Although the poems they created were innovative, they did not lose their charm.

Of course, this is different from the “free and dashing” of most online poetry today.

If modern people write poetry, if they want to have the charm of the ancients, they will definitely improve if they pay attention to these three points:

1. The choice of words and images

When Liu Yuxi, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, refused to use the word “cake” in his poems, it was because the word was not found in the Five Classics. Song Qi, a poet in the Northern Song Dynasty, laughed at him and said, “Liu Lang dares not inscribe the characters for cake, and he is a vain person in his poems.” residual. The word Hanli comes from Erya, referring to the lotus flower.

These two stories reflect from the side, the poet’s choice of words, words, and even images , are very particular.

On the other hand, if we create poetry today, if there are newspapers, the Internet, automobiles, college entrance examinations, resignation…. Naturally, there is no ancient charm.

For example, this song “Subtracted Magnolia·Zhongshan Sun Ying”:

Zhong Shan Sun Ying. Thousands of households and thousands of doors welcome the National Day. The red flag fluttered. Loud singing around the painting beam. Green grass. The fragrance of Cong Guiqu bar is overflowing. Turn rain and spring breeze. Nurturing talents is fun.

Seeing “Welcome to the National Day” and “Cultivating Talents”, it naturally has a modern atmosphere. Of course, poetry with a modern flavor is not necessarily bad, but it lacks the taste of ancient rhyme.

Another example is this song “Huanxisha·Mountains and Rivers of the Motherland”:

The mountains and rivers of the motherland are very beautiful, the red flag is like the rippling wind in front of the sea, and the people are billions of joy. The grand new construction of the four modernizations, the Long March Avenue competes for the first place, and the singing resounds through the blue sky.

In the choice of words, there are not only nouns (images), but also verbs (the ancients refine characters, multi-fingered verbs), for example, the collocation of verbs and nouns in “Welcome to the National Day” and “Cultivation of Talents”, which All need to be carefully selected by the poet.

2. Use of allusions

Allusions are often used in poems, such as The first seven laws:

Kuang Heng resists sparse fame and fame, and Liu Xiangchuan violates his mind.

Kang Heng and Liu Xiang were both scholars of the Han Dynasty.

For example, a passage from the Seven Laws:

Golden Monkey rises up, and Yuyu clarifies Wanliye. Cheering for Dasheng Sun today, it is only because the demon fog is coming back.

At first glance, it uses the allusions of “Journey to the West”, which is the allusions of the Ming Dynasty.

The allusion used in this “Bodhisattva Man” comes from Du Fu:

The east wind welcomes the spring all night, and the grass is fighting for green. The dream of the past is gone, the floating lamp recalls the strong wine. Thief in the hard work, ten years old in Yangzhou. Words move Jiangguan, old age Gengzi Mountain.

Du Fu has a poem: Yu Xin was the most bleak in his life, and his poems in his later years moved Jiangguan. This allusion is written by Yu Xin of the Northern and Southern Dynasties.

It can be seen from the application of allusions that the older the allusions are, the more ancient rhyme they are.

3. Syntax

In addition to Chinese characters, the ancients also practiced sentences. There are also rules and regulations. It is mentioned in “Choice of Words and Images”.

For sentence making, you must learn to use poetic language, which is different from prose, often including inversions, omissions, jumps, implicits, polysemy, part-of-speech changes, etc., using prose syntax analysis will have semantic meaning unreasonable situation.

Qian Zhongshu said in “Guanzhuibian”:

… . … So after a break, I put things upside down, not understanding and not smooth, but I am familiar with the poetry and familiar with it, and I feel comfortable. ……Each is different, rhyme and prose can be leniently reduced. . . .

​For example, in the above “Bodhisattva Man”:

The word moves Jiangguan, the old age of Gengzi Mountain.

This is the reversed usage, the meaning of the sentence is “Gengzi Mountain in old age, every word moves Jiangguan”.

The Poem”Human Jade Chips, Volume VI” records Wang Anshi’s understanding of the poetic language:

Wang Zhong went to the examination hall, and after the test, he wrote a unique question: “The ancient trees are full of white jade halls, and I have been here for many years. Try the article. The sun obliquely played Chang Yang Fu, and I was free to brush the dust and look at the painted wall.” Jinggong saw it and sighed in love, so he changed it to “Play Fu Chang Yang,” and said: Poetry words, this is healthy.

Wang Anshi changed “Sun oblique replays and long Yang Fu” to “Sun oblique repertoires and Fu Chang” Yang Bai”, adjusted the order and told everyone the difference in the poetic language.

Another example is this Tang poem:

The peach blossom still smiles in the spring breeze.

Anyone who doesn’t understand poetry will surely ask, what is the logic of the peach blossom joke of spring breeze? What’s so funny about the spring breeze? This sentence is actually an adverbial postposition, which means: the peach blossoms are still (in) the spring breeze (middle) in full bloom (laughs).

​Concluding remarks

Today’s self-media is very developed, and anyone has the opportunity to publish their own works, so the poems we see are mixed with mud and sand.

The subject said that the works of modern people do not have the charm of the ancients. In addition to the preconceived subjective effect of this phenomenon, most of the works of modern people do not have the charm of the ancients.

Wang Guowei said that every generation has a generation of literature. The literature of today’s generation is definitely not poetry, it is online novels, film and television scripts, news reports, leadership colons… everything can be exchanged for money in the form of words.

Li Bai and Du Fu both wanted to join the WTO and wanted to make a career. If these two were reincarnated today, they might become Ma Huateng, Liu Cixin, and Tu Youyou. In short, it will not be such a high-achieving poet.

The elite of a certain historical stage Characters, always do the most amazing things in that period of history. And this era is not the era of great poets.