First, pay attention to the title of the poem.
The title of a poem often points out the content of the poem and determines the emotional tone. When reading, we should pay attention to combining the content of the poem with its title.
For example, Kou Zhun's poem "Going upstairs to miss my hometown in spring" in the Northern Song Dynasty tells us from the title that this poem is about what the poet saw and heard when he went upstairs in spring, expressing his nostalgia for his hometown. "High-rise chat expectation, and it is flat. No one crosses the wild water, but the sun is crossed alone. Decadence is full of haze, and the ancient temple talks about warblers. The old things are far away, and meditation is shocking. " This poem appeared in the 2005 college entrance examination poetry appreciation question, which requires an analysis of the poet's emotional changes from "chatting" to "shock" in combination with the whole poem. If we pay attention to the title of the poem, it is easy to analyze that the scene in front of us touches (surprises) the poet's homesickness, and there will be no deviation in answering the questions.
Another example is the poem "Stay in the Mountain" by Zhang Xu, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, which clearly points out that it is a poem to retain guests. The content of the poem is the poet's words of staying in the mountain: "The state of the mountain makes the spring glow, not for lightness. Even if there is no rain in Mystery, clothes will stick to the depths of the clouds. " The last two sentences in the poem describe mountains and clouds, and the scenery is wonderful, expressing the feeling of staying with beautiful scenery. If we don't pay attention to the topic of poetry, we may misunderstand it as just the poet's own nostalgia for the beautiful scenery.
There are also some poems, whose genre can be seen according to the title. For example, after the Han Dynasty, poets wrote poems with the theme of ancient Yuefu poems, such as Song on the Sai, Song on the Sai, Joining the Army, Journey in Longxi, Midnight Wu Ge, etc., and the genre was Yuefu style. Cui Hao, a poet of the Tang Dynasty's Long March, said, "Tell me, where do you live? Near here, next to the fishing pond? . Let's catch our boat together, let's see if we belong to the same town ... "From the topic, this is Yuefu poem.
Second, pay attention to the author's life experience and dynasty.
To truly understand a poem, we must know people and discuss the world. The same scenery, because of the poet's different experiences and moods, will contain completely different emotions. Frost leaves are red, some people praise "February flowers are red", others feel bitterly that "it always leaves people with tears". Therefore, when reading poems, we must pay attention to the poet's experience and situation, and pay attention to the national conditions and political affairs of the dynasty where the poet lives. Only by contacting these backgrounds can we accurately grasp the thoughts and feelings of poetry. Some poems will provide relevant annotations, while others have no annotations, which need to be recalled and refined from accumulated knowledge.
For example, Dai Fugu, a poet in the Southern Song Dynasty, wrote "Floating Far Hall in Jiangyin": "Looking at the great river across the hills, Wan Li worries about floating far in front of the hall. The most bitter thing is that there is no mountain to cover your eyes, and Huainan is extremely eye-catching. " A note was added to the test question: "Dai Fugu, whose real name was Shi Ping, was a poet at the end of the Southern Song Dynasty." This information about the dynasty in which the poet lived provides the key to the interpretation of this poem. In the late Southern Song Dynasty, the decline of the country was irreversible, which made many patriotic poets feel extremely sad. The poet climbed to the top of the mountain and looked into the distance. Before the Song Dynasty, all the mountains and rivers were gone, so he couldn't bear to look again, and he hoped that there would be mountains blocking his sight. This ambivalence of wanting to see and not being able to bear to see shows the poet's endless pain caused by the defeat of the country to the fullest.
Another example is Wang Anshi's Plum Blossom: "A few plums in a corner, hanling alone. I know from a distance that it is not snow, because it has a faint fragrance. " Wang Anshi was a reformer in China 1 1 century. During his tenure as prime minister, he advocated reform, but eventually failed because of the opposition of conservatives. Wang Anshi insisted on his own reform ideas and did not give in to conservatives. Knowing this background, we can know that Wang Anshi used plum blossom metaphor to show his attitude towards political reform. No matter what happens, plum blossoms will still bloom in the world when it is cold and there are no flowers.
Another example is Wang Wei, a poet who is both an official and a hermit. With such background knowledge, it is easy to grasp his bamboo pavilion. "I was leaning alone in the dense bamboo, playing the piano and humming. The voice is so low that no one can hear it except my partner Mingyue. " The poet wrote all his longing for seclusion into this wonderful landscape.
Third, pay attention to the linguistic features of poetry.
The language of poetry is different from that of prose. The language of poetry is the most concise. The same thing written in prose language will be a long sentence or a few words, while poetry only uses a few words. For example, if you write an essay, you will first explain what kind of tall building you climbed somewhere on a certain day, and then write a distant scene, and the poem is only five words. Poetry language is also full of leaps and bounds, leaving a lot of gaps between sentences, which requires readers to supplement and restore the scene of poetry through imagination. Jia Dao's See the Guest: "I asked your student, under a pine tree," he replied, "My teacher went to collect medicine." However, through these clouds, how can I know which corner of the mountain it is facing? "The three questions and three answers between the explorer and the boy should be written in at least six sentences, but the poet reduced them to four sentences and twenty crosses by answering questions. This leaves a gap between sentences, which needs our readers to imagine and supplement. In addition, because poetry pays attention to both brevity and rhythm, the language of poetry often breaks grammatical rules, or omits elements that prose can't omit in sentences, or changes the normal word order. For example, "the snow on the boat at night and the autumn wind scattered" means that nouns are directly juxtaposed into sentences without verbs or conjunctions. Another example is Du Fu's "fragrant rice pecks parrot grains, green trees perch on old phoenix branches", which is a typical inversion of word order. According to the normal word order, this situation should be: parrots peck at the remaining grains of fragrant rice, and the phoenix perches on the old branches in Wu Bi. Of course, if the word order is normal, the rhythm of the poem will be lost, which can't meet the requirements of the rhythm of the original poem at all.
Because poetry has its particularity in language, the interpretation of poetry must first be understood in sentences. In this regard, we can do some exercises in the translation of ancient poems and turn the language of poetry into the language of prose. For example, Qian Qi's "Taniguchi's study to the Imperial History Yang": "In the thatched cottage in the valley, there is a cloud on the vinegar wall. After the rain, the colors of Hsinchu are refreshing, and the mountains are more lovely against the sunset glow. Leisure egrets often nest early, and autumn flowers are full of vitality later than elsewhere. I have ordered my students to clean the grass for the arrival of my friends. " This poem describes the fresh and quiet beauty of the poet's secluded mountain hut, shows the quiet and comfortable life of seclusion, and expresses the joy of looking forward to meeting his old friends. The words "Dai" and "Sheng" in the first pair of couplets are imaginary words, and their scenes should be reproduced by imagination when reading. The two couplets in the poem and the one at the neckline are upside down. According to the normal word order, couplets should be: pity the bamboo after the new rain and love the mountain in the sunset. Putting bamboo and mountain at the beginning of the sentence highlights the secluded place where the poet's hut is located-by the bamboo forest and at the foot of the mountain. According to the normal word order, the sentence of the neck couplet should be: Idle herons often live early. This inversion is mainly due to rhythm. Delay in antithesis is rhyming, which can only be placed at the end of the sentence, so that the sentence forms antithesis with antithesis through inverted sentences. The poetry of the whole poem is: mountain springs and gullies haunt the hut study like streamers, Ficus pumila is hung on the wall like curtains, and clouds seem to rise from Ficus pumila. How lovely the bamboo forests that have just rained and the mountains reflected by the sunset are. Leisure egrets often return home early, autumn flowers are full of vitality, and they fall later than others. My children are clearing the way to climb Luo Teng. I made an appointment with my old friend yesterday.
The interpretation of poetry needs imagination and association, which is actually a process of re-creation. This also makes poetry show ambiguity. There is no fixed imagination mode in reading poetry. The key is to be reasonable. For example, Ouyang Xiu's "Butterfly Loves Flowers": "The rain and wind are crazy in March, and the curtain covers the dusk, so there is no plan to stay in spring." Omitting the conjunction of "door cover" and "dusk" can be understood as closing at dusk, closing at dusk and closing at dusk, which may have three meanings. Anyway, people indoors have a closing action, and the time is dusk, which shows her loneliness, disappointment and melancholy.
Fourth, pay attention to the images in the poem.
Image is an artistic image depicted in poetry. Poetry uses images to express its meaning. As a poet, "climbing mountains is full of feelings, while watching the sea is full of feelings", so we should grasp the feelings contained in "mountains" and "water" with our hearts when interpreting poems. In classical poetry, some images appear repeatedly in the works of different poets in different times, and their meanings are stable. These common images should be grasped as common sense in reading poetry. Here are a few examples to introduce some common pictures:
1, Du Fu: It is often used to express homesickness that is difficult to heal. Qin Guan's "Walking on the Sand": "It's like a lonely pavilion in spring, and the cuckoo is falling."
2. Zhu Xiang: It is often used to express sadness. Cen Can listened to Luoshan people playing the Three Gorges Liuquan in autumn night: "Chu Ke was heartbroken and ChristianRandPhillips was full of tears."
3. Mourning: It is often used to express sadness in the heart. Li Bai's "From Badong, the boat climbed the Wushan Peak through Qutang Gorge, and returned to the wall at night", "Jiang Han early apes crow, and pine trees spit out the moon."
4. Spring: it is often used to express warmth, vitality and prosperity, and to express a good time. Han Yu's "Late Spring": "The grass tree knows that spring is coming back soon, and all kinds of red and purple compete for Fang Fei." It is also often used to express feelings of hurting and cherishing spring. Meisu curtain cover: "Pear blossoms are gone, the setting sun is all over the ground, and the blue smoke is old."
5. Autumn: It is often used to express the cold, declining and desolate mood. Ruan Ji's "Yong Huai": "Autumn wind blows agastaches, which starts here. It was the day when we were scared to death, and we looked at each other. Sell turbid wine from the cup and see yellow flowers. " (sad autumn)
6. Goose: I miss my hometown and express my expectation of hearing from my loved ones. Fang Yue's "Bopp": "In autumn, geese fall on the guest side."
7. Boarding: This is a person's action image, which is used to express homesickness, nostalgia and other emotions. Du Fu's Ascending the Mountain: "Flowers, as high as my window, hurt the hearts of wanderers, because I look from this height and feel sad everywhere."
8. Folding willows: expressing endless feelings of parting. Liu Qizhuang's "Yangzhou Sending People away": "Sijun breaks the willow and tears Wuchang Building."
9. Parting: expressing attachment to the motherland and lamenting the fall of the homeland. Chai Wang's "Looking at the Building": "In the past, the scenery was the most, but today people are worried."
10, Nanpu: Express the sadness of parting. Qi An Deyu's "Send the Yellow River Order": "The film sails in Nanpu to stay sad, and the ancient river beam does not think about life."
1 1, Cao Chun (Cao Fang): expressing the feelings of missing and leaving. Wang Changling's "Out of the fortress": "The cold geese return in spring and break the grass."
12, Feng: Expressing the sadness of caring for others and parting. Li Baiyao's Talk on the Way: "See Hengyang Wild Goose Hurt Jiangshangfeng."
13, floating clouds: a symbol of treacherous forces. Li Bai's "Nanjing on the Phoenix Terrace": "There is a cloud between the light in the sky and me, hiding his city in my melancholy heart." It is also used to express the vagrancy of vagrants. Li Bai's Farewell to Friends: "I will think of you in the clouds, so think of me in the sunset."
14, changing friends: shows the loneliness and sadness of wandering. Wang Wei's "Climbing to the Shanzhai": "Expropriating Peng and returning geese to the lake field."
15, water: the most commonly used meaning is the passage of time. Li Bai's "Into the Wine": "You don't see how the water of the Yellow River moves out of the sky and into the ocean, which is gone forever."
16, Moon: The moon is one of the most common images, which has both contractual and non-contractual meanings. The meaning of convention mainly includes reunion and yearning, the symbol of hometown, the symbol of eternity, the symbol of beauty, and the feeling of being indifferent and pursuing spiritual freedom. Liu painted "Thinking": "Beauty does not meet, and the bright moon is empty in the curtain." Zhang Wenguang's "Qing Huai Xiao Fa": "The moonlight shines elsewhere, and Wan Li's rivers sound like the old country." Liu Yuxi's Shicheng: "In the old days, the east of Huaishui came to the female wall at night." Su Shi's "Reunion of Suwanghu Tower" "The new moon is like a beauty, and it first appears when it goes out to sea." Wang Wei's Autumn Night in the Deep Mountains: "There is moonlight in the pine forest and crystal stone in the stream."
These are the general meanings of common images. These common images also have unconventional meanings in the poet's works. At the same time, poetry is more of a poet's improvisation image, and its meaning is not conventional, so it needs to be felt and grasped from specific works.
Pay attention to the last two sentences of this poem.
This is a common way to write poetry and prose. Ancient poems often indicate the theme at the end of two paragraphs, so pay attention when reading.
Du Fu has a quatrain: "The blue bird in the river is too white, and the blue flower in the mountain burns. See you again this spring, when is the year of returning home? " Looking at the first two sentences, I just wrote beautiful scenery with bright colors, and it is still difficult to determine how I feel. The last two sentences point out the poet's homesickness. Poets live in exile, year after year, homesick, I don't know when to return, how painful it is. As can be seen from these last two sentences, this poem uses a happy scene to write sadness.
Another example is Liu Yuxi's poem "Autumn Wind": "Autumn wind comes everywhere, and rustling sends geese. When I came to the court tree, the lone guest heard it first. " The first two sentences of this poem are about wild geese in autumn wind, which has implicitly expressed the homesickness of wanderers through images. The last two sentences are written directly. The guests who are alone first hear the rustling autumn wind blowing in the courtyard trees, and make the main idea of the whole poem clear.
Another example is Li's Let's Take a Picture. Li served as the left phase in the first year of Tianbao in Tang Dynasty, and Tianbao was excluded by treacherous court official Li in five years. To this end, he wrote this poem: "avoid the sages at the beginning, stop talking, and be happy and win the cup." Ask the guests in front of the door, how many will come today? "Avoid the sage in the poem, that is, let the sage, and enjoy drinking. Miao Wei called sake a "saint" and turbid wine a "saint" by borrowing the allusions of Miao Wei's good wine in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The last two sentences of this poem directly describe the cold of the world. I used to be a guest, but now I'm afraid of being implicated and afraid to come to my house again. The last two sentences illustrate the poet's contempt for these villains.
The methods introduced above can be used as a reference for reading poems. Of course, the fundamental way to understand poetry is to read more and read more, and even the best method can only play some auxiliary roles.