However, in the limited space, it is difficult to make a comprehensive comparison between Chinese and western poems without generalizing and superficial. Based on the idea that profound one-sidedness is better than superficial comprehensiveness, this paper intends to investigate the theme of Chinese and western love poems.
As we all know, love has always been recognized as an "eternal theme" in literature. Once sung by a poet with good heart and exquisite artistic processing, it is most likely to arouse the reader's heart. Famous love poems in China and the West are often engraved in readers' hearts like knives and stones. Therefore, there are many theories to study Chinese and western love poems.
For a long time, it is generally believed that China's love poems are dwarfed by similar themes in the West. This view is biased. In fact, the exotic flowers of China's and Western love poems are swaying with their own unique charm, emitting completely different fragrance and flashing completely different national colors.
In terms of time, China's love poems originated from 300 poems, and their production time was 1 1 century to the 6th century BC. His first article, Watching Luo, tells the story of men's admiration and pursuit of my fair lady. Another example is a scene where a young man and a young woman meet in a corner of the city. Through the detailed description of the girl's "love but not seeing", the sweetness of their love life is displayed, which causes the young man to "slip". Zheng Yan depicts the scene of young men and women playing by the river when spring is blooming, reflecting the harmony and joy of their love. Three Hundred Poems not only describes men's love for women, but also often shows women's love for men. Try to read The Plum Mark.
It's marked plum, but it's actually seven. Ask me to be humble and lucky!
It's marked plum, but it's actually three. Beg me to be humble and do it today!
Mark plums, baskets and it. Beg my humble soil and call it!
This poem, taking the yellow fall of plums as a metaphor, expresses a girl's desire to get married in time. The same content often appears in some famous works, such as Juan Er, Gao Feng You Ye, Gao Zhou, Zheng Feng Cun Tong, Zheng Feng and so on. Judging from the love poems of the early generation and women's bold love for men, ancient Greece and Rome in the west are incomparable with ancient China. Regrettably, when the society entered the feudal society, due to the constraints of the ethical concepts of the Three Cardinal Principles and the Five Permanent Principles, the principle of neutralization of "love ends with ceremony" and the suppression of the tradition of "expressing ambition through poetry", such women directly bared their breasts and poured out their hearts with enthusiasm. Gradually weakened, even some periods of silence, brought China's kind of ignorance of love poems.
Western love poems originated in Greece in the eighth century BC. A little later than the epic, and the history of love poems, like China, originated from simple folk songs, mostly used for singing, often accompanied by musical instruments, and divided into two categories: solo and chorus. The solo style is completely an expression of personal feelings, which loses the collectivity of clan literature. Sappho, praised by Plato as "the tenth goddess of literature and art", was the most famous singer at that time. Her love poems mostly show the passion, sadness, parting pain and jealousy of lovers, which are characterized by simple language, sincere feelings and strong musicality, and are particularly touching. Later, in his later years, the great Rousseau hoped that he could sing Sappho's wonderful love song and die. However, it is really regrettable that Sappho's poems, which have been handed down from history to the present, are few and incomplete.
Love poems are perfect in the west, and they are unforgettable because of their quantity and quality. They are medieval knight lyrics. In the middle ages, due to the formation of chivalry, the chivalry class came into being. Knights have feudal lords and wives whom they admire and admire. In order to win the lady's heart, they are willing to take risks, fight and serve her. Although you die nine times without regret, you die ten thousand times. As for Rousseau's saying, "I would rather sacrifice my happiness for the happiness of the person I love." There is a shadow of chivalry. The love between a knight and a lady is different from marriage, and the ultimate goal is not to marry her, but a kind of "spiritual love" outside the abnormal marriage, which is the accumulation of love theory in Plato's philosophy in the Middle Ages. "It is always beautiful to be attached to someone for moral reasons" has a great influence on people's mentality. Some people even assume in their minds that a woman will fight for it. Song of Dawn is the main representative work of the lyric of the knights in Provence. It describes the inseparable feelings of the knights and ladies at dawn, and does not shy away from the description of lewdness, which has the significance of denying feudal morality and church asceticism, because under the dual system of feudalism and church at that time, men and women were bound together, often lacking the foundation of love, but pursuing freedom and having an ideal chivalry. /kloc-knight love poems in the 2nd and 3rd centuries contributed to the development of European love poems in the future.
In his posthumous work "The Characteristics of China's Poems", Mr. Xu Siyuan thinks that China's poems originated from "Three Hundred Poems", flourished in Jian 'an and Tang Dynasty, and the theme of metrical poems has gained little since the Song Dynasty. The growth process of China's poetry is about 1800 years, while western poetry originated in Greece and began in 12 and 13 centuries. They flourished twice in the Renaissance and at the beginning of19th century, and declined sharply at the end of19th century, only 700 years before and after. From here, it seems that we can see the development track of love poems accompanying the growth of Chinese and western poems.
Love is an attractive theme, and beautiful love poems are dizzying, which often makes people infatuated and forget everything. We often feel this way when we explore the Range Rover in gorgeous Chinese and Western love poems. Many China poets write poems as women. For example:
Dressed up beautifully, I asked my husband: Can my eyebrows be painted in different shades? "Try the top half of the last picture" (Zhu Qingyu)
I dare not express my heart in front of everyone, secretly throw money and ask my distant husband's voice. Jiangnan district (ancient jade)
I haven't heard from my husband, but I hate buying fortune tellers on the bridge. Looking at the husband (Shi Jianwu)
Suddenly I saw the green willows, and I felt uncomfortable; Oh, I regret that I shouldn't have asked my husband to find Hou Feng. Always in my heart (anonymous)
When can we lie on the screen again and look at the bright light and stop crying? ? Moonlit Night (Du Fu)
The candle on the table lit the heart, and it also saw the parting; You see, it shed tears for us and flowed to the morning. Farewell (Du Mu)
Theoretically speaking, in the feudal society of the West and China, the status of men and women was superior to that of women in essence, but China was much more harmful. For example, in China, the word order of husband and wife, husband and wife, children and men and women shows that the principle that men come first and women come last cannot be reversed. In the past, married women should be given their husbands' surnames; In Chinese, there are many bad words, and the word "female" is often used as radical, such as jealousy, seduction, adultery and so on. This shows the low status of women. At the same time, literati and poets attach great importance to fame and fortune, and the immortal women who pursue "meritorious deeds and opinions" have no place in men's hearts, and choosing a spouse depends entirely on the words of their parents. After marriage, you must have "main meal" and "broom service" and have children. Women's educational conditions are poor and few, and "women without talent are virtuous" will inevitably lead to fewer female poets. Coupled with the division of labor between men and women, women "go to the kitchen" at home and "send cold clothes" when their husbands are away, so women are generally suffering internally, which is naturally discovered and used by male poets. Therefore, China's love poets often use women as a cover to praise their deep love for men and husbands, express their lovesickness, and vent their resentment and hatred for being abandoned.
In the west, religion is strong, people are deeply obsessed with the legend of the Virgin and the Infant, and influenced by the chivalry of the Middle Ages. The status of women is much higher than that of China. For example, in ancient Greek legends, human beings are spherical creatures with four hands and four feet, a round head and two faces. Zeus, the king of the gods, was afraid that the power of human beings would be too strong and endanger his monarchy on Olympus, so he raised lightning and a walking stick to split human beings in half, but the separated half rushed at the other half desperately, trying to reunite. This is the innate love of human beings, so western men traditionally call their wives "my other half". Therefore, women's personality ideals, wisdom, talents and even knowledge are often like Ben Jonson's Song for Celia:
Toast me with your eyes,
I will repay you for using my eyes,
Or leave a kiss on the cup,
I wouldn't have to find a drink,
Hunger and thirst caused by the depths of the soul,
I can only pray for a cup of fairy pulp to moisten my throat.
Even if the gods send dew,
I don't want to exchange eyes with you,
The new rose crown I gave you,
Not just to get you up there,
Just to give it hope,
Let it never fade.
Because of the aroma you smell,
And throw it back to me.
Since then, I have grown up and smelled good, so I will not follow.
But from you, I'm sure.
Sophocles, a famous Greek tragedy writer, said: "There are many strange treasures in the world, but it is hard to find something as wonderful as people." As the soul of heaven and earth, the spirit of all things is long-lasting. He must have all kinds of ideals and demands, demanding "full satisfaction in both rationality and sensibility". Need the perfect filling of life. Among people's many requirements, "career complex" and "love complex" are two points that cannot be ignored. Whether in China or in the West, men's life is dominated by "career complex", while women are "love complex". Generally speaking, when there is a contradiction between career and love, the personality of western culture makes western men often give up their career and get love. They believe that love is the driving force of the cause and can promote the success of the cause; They think that the greatest happiness in life is love, and the greatest pain in life is the loss of love. Happiness is the pursuit of life, and love is a major event in life. In Voltaire's view, there are two real deaths in life: "one is to stop loving, and the other is to stop being loved." These are unbearable deaths. As for death, nothing. " "Love arouses active emotions, it can revive the dead, it can make the desert inhabited, and it can make the illusion of the loved one reappear." Dumas, the knight in the red house. These ideas are very common in the west.
In China, men are more inclined to pay attention to fame, and love will never compete with fame. On the contrary, they think that it is extremely disgraceful to fall in love and be immersed in love, which will make people degenerate and lead to career failure. As the saying goes, "There is a knife on the head of the color word", so it is natural for the husband to abandon his wife and children and go to Beijing to catch the exam, pursue fame and gain, defend the border and serve the country, serve the battlefield, travel south and north, leave his hometown and wander around, and separate the two places; In addition, men like the new and hate the old, empathize with others and have three wives and four concubines. It is also doomed that there are many "resentment" poems in China's love poems.
Married a high-ranking official's husband for no reason, not loving warm incense, but wanting to ascend the throne early. "Existence" (Li Shangyin)
Miss you like running water, you can smell sobbing. "From the monarch" (Yong Yu Zhi)
A moment that should last forever has come and gone before I know it. Jinse (Li Shangyin)
I only saw her tears wet her cheeks, and I don't know if she hates herself or herself. Resentment (Li Bai)
Like this kind of parting, the poems of "resentment" that are always in my heart are everywhere in the deep palace.
Since the Middle Ages in the West, due to the influence of chivalry, men have sought the meritorious service of honorary knights not for their own promotion, but to win their rivals and lovers' favor. Byron wrote "fame-if I am interested in you, I don't want to hear you brag loudly;" Is to see her burning eyes-she also knows that I am not unworthy of her! "This is a portrayal of western men seeking women's favor and represents the consciousness of western male groups, so western love poems express their admiration for women everywhere. Among them, Shakespeare's sonnets, Xue Rong and Browning's short poems are the most worthy of appreciation. When we read Marx's To Yan Ni, we can fully feel this.
As previously analyzed, the views of love between the East and the West are very different. Westerners attach importance to love and have the slogan "Love is supreme". Therefore, most love poems are written before marriage, often praising looks and calling for love. Petrarch to Laura; Spencer to Elizabeth; Byron's Don Juan to Hyde; Rousseau to Philson, Gordon, Mrs Warren, Dyers; Dante to Beatrice; Bai Langning to his wife, but also too numerous to mention. China, on the other hand, values marriage over love, and most of his love poems are written after marriage. The love between husband and wife is often covered up or despised by literati. "Chasing four dresses" is a shame of Confucianism. Only those poor, bored and pessimistic people, such as Li Houzhu and Emperor Yang Di, are willing to express their feelings openly, but they are all criticized by the world. China's true love poems are often excellent works of farewell and mourning. For example, Su Shi's "Jiangchengzi" "Ten years of life and death are ambiguous, without thinking, never forgetting." Li Qingzhao's "Who is more pitiful and who is more haggard?" It's boring to try the lamp, and it's unintentional to walk through the snow. "Things are people who don't do things and want to cry." We can find such examples from poems such as Lu You, Li Shangyin, Na Lanrong and Chen Cengshou.
Mr. Zhu Guangqian pointed out in A Comparison of Chinese and Western Poets, "Western poets want to realize their lives in love, while China poets often only seek to amuse themselves in their love poems. China poets are down-to-earth, and love is love; Western poets are more forward-looking, and there are some philosophies of life and religious feelings in love. " Indeed, western poetry has a strong religious color. When we turn to western poetry, we can feel a strong breath.
In Greek mythology, Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty and love, dominates human love. Love is like the wine of temptation, which makes people intoxicated. It makes people crazy and energetic; It makes people anxious. It is the bold pursuit of love and the devotion and infatuation that constitute a religion with a wide range of meanings. Try to read Shakespeare's sonnet 1 16 "Love is the Lighthouse of A Ring of Endless Light";
Oh, never, love is an eternal beacon,
It stares at the storm, but is indifferent;
Love is another star, guiding the lost boat.
You can measure how high it is, but its value is infinite.
Love is not affected by time, although it is beautiful,
And white teeth inevitably broke away from the hand of time;
Love doesn't change with the moment,
It stands tall until the end.
This poem eulogizes the eternity and greatness of love, with a strong speculative color, and expounds a philosophy similar to doctrine, which is very intriguing and thoughtful.
Another example is Fedofi's:
If you are a flower on a tree, I would like to be a tree;
If you are a dewdrop, I would like to be a flower;
If you are sunshine, I would like to be dew;
So we can be together forever.
Besides, girl, if you are the sky,
I want to be a star in the sky,
However, girl, you are hell,
I am willing to go to hell forever.
This poem also shows the persistence and tenacity of western poets in their pursuit of love, implies a kind of religious meditation and reverie, and embodies a kind of philosophical rationality.
China's speculative philosophy is underdeveloped, and his artificial religious concept is weak. Therefore, people in China attach importance to trivial matters in real life. Clothes and money have become the most important things for ordinary couples, so they can't dream of reaching a higher place or reaching a very high place. Therefore, China's love poems lack life thinking and religious feelings, which also leads to the fact that China's poems are not as profound and broad as western poems.
In the west, women's status is higher, education is more perfect, and the enlightenment of humanistic thought is added. There are few ideas that women are accessories to men, and their "virtue", "speech", "tolerance" and "work" are not standards to help men. They enjoy the same dignity as men in personality. The idea of staying together or not going has been popular since ancient times. It is better to compromise than divorce, so western women can make friends with men in knowledge and interest. It is common for men and women to fall in love and get married. This aspect is touching. When the first sonnet of elizabeth barret browning, a little Portuguese, was called, the joy of dying in spring and the flame-like passion were displayed in her beautiful sonnets.
In China, due to China's inherent social status and ethical thoughts, women can't be equal to men and can't communicate with their lovers. At the same time, literati disdain to turn around women's "pomegranate skirts". They are not women, but colleagues and literary friends. Therefore, the poems of men and women who love each other are not as good as the friendship of friends, and there are many works that give answers and sing. In many poets' collections, poems about friendship often account for more than half. The friendship between Jian 'an Qizi, Du Li, Han Meng, Su Huang, Nalan Chengde and Gu Zhenguan has been circulated as a beautiful talk since ancient times. Among westerners, there are Goethe and Schiller, Wordsworth and Coleridge, Keats and Shelley, Welland Rambo, etc. Although they are also famous for their friendship, many poems focus on the fun of their friends.
Strictly speaking, literature is a direct expression of people's lives. However, since its birth, it has been bound by politics. Since then, there has always been a tradition of poetry and music politics, emphasizing that poetry and music serve politics. The formation of the theory of poetry expressing ambition has made literature "embody Tao" and turned literature into "Ming Dow"; "sanctification"; Jing Zong's tools. Therefore, in China's ancient poems, the love between men and women is used as a metaphor for the friendship between monarch and minister, which makes love poems often have political color. This kind of situation is common in China's classical poetry and unique in western poetry. Li Sao in the Songs of the South first used the love between men and women as a metaphor for the tactics of the monarch and the minister. For example, in the meantime, "many people are jealous of the moth, and the thick soup says that I am so slutty." "I am far from home, but I am not afraid of the wise king", "I used to be a grass, but now I am Ai", "I will be far from home." In fact, this is political frustration, being ignored and taking advantage of the proportion of love between men and women. In the Tang Dynasty, this method was fully used. Please read Wang Changling's "Long Letters and Complaints". "Jade is not as beautiful as western Western jackdaw, but it still bears the shadow of Zhaoyang." Bai Juyi's "Harem Ci" said, "Beauty thinks before she is old and wants to sit in a smoke cage." Wait a minute. Even if your article doesn't suit the examiner's taste, you should compare it with whether your wedding dress fits your in-laws' eyes: "Ask your husband in a low voice after makeup, and the depth of thrush is inappropriate." So the themes of some poems are related to politics or love, which is confusing and difficult to clarify. Because of this, people who used to annotate poems often put the emblem of loyalty to the monarch and patriotism on love poems. For example, in the Preface to Poetry, Guan Ju's poems about love between men and women are described as works praising "empresses", and for example, the fourteenth poem "Wealth and Fragrance" in Bodhisattva Bend is described as "works where people never meet". On the contrary, some people have gone to extremes recently and made themselves completely loyal and patriotic. For example, works such as Li Sao and Yuan You, which have long been correctly concluded, are regarded as love poems by some people, which can be said to be a scribbled and boring explanation and a forced addition. Westerners don't confuse political themes with love themes, but it is common for religious themes and love themes to cross in their poems.
Above, the author talks about the differences between Chinese and western love poems from several aspects. Here, I will analyze the different artistic styles of China and the West.
Liu Xie said, "Only Yong Jun; Gas has rigidity and softness; Learn a little; Can be elegant; And temperament; Tao dyed the clouds in the pen area, and Wenyuan was tortuous. " So what is the style of Chinese and western love poems? As we know, western culture is a radical, individual, open and absorbing culture, and the personality characteristics of western nationalities are unrestrained feelings, bold and frank, which are manifested in literature by praising heroic epics, eulogizing chivalry, affirming adventurous behavior and setting off wild and radical movements; Advocate the beauty of masculinity in aesthetics; In philosophy, we constantly break through the balance of inherent concepts with one-sided thinking and realize the leap and mutation of new concepts; Advocating shocking dramatic conflicts in art and publicizing the spirit of sports and wrestling with artistic images all make the techniques of western love poems open, straightforward, bold and refined. Often with wave-like emotions, lightning-like imagination, shocking exaggeration, but also often set off the surge of nature and the sea; A violent storm; A precipice; Desert and desert, in China's poems, are hardly associated with love poems. Let's read Byron's description of his love with Heidi:
They wandered around hand in hand,
Walking on shiny pebbles and shells,
Stepping on the smooth and solid beach gravel,
This long-eroded, desolate hiding place,
Wind and rain form, but like a clever building,
The two of them came in arm in arm to rest,
Obey the seductive charm of crimson.
They look up at the sky, floating rosy clouds,
Like a rosy ocean, vast and bright,
They looked down at the sparkling sea,
A full moon is rising to the sea;
I can hear the waves flying and the breeze blowing in Xu Lai.
See each other in the black eyes blazing flame-
I think their eyes are peeping at each other, their lips,
Get close to each other and stick together to form a kiss.
Advocating emotional catharsis, the loftiness of Apollo and the carnival of Dionysus are typical western love poems, which easily make readers feel thrilling and have a sense of diarrhea. The emotional appeal of western poetry is rigid beauty, which fully embodies the concept that love is the driving force of life.
China's literature is more refined and indulgent, advocating "pleasure without lewdness, decline without harm, and affection with propriety". Therefore, although China's poems advocate lyrical expression, they also advocate restraint, not excessive, gentleness in restraint and happiness in happiness, so the love recited in China's love poems is obscure. "I have been out for a long time, still holding my face." Love is just an undercurrent of life. Emphasize the beauty of agility, implicit and vague artistic conception; Dragon; Euphemism is deep; Delicate; Pay attention to "the words are near and far, the words are shallow and deep, although the words are exhausted, the meaning is not exhausted"; It makes people "look at the inside, look at the hair and distinguish the bones, see something outside the sentence, and turn a corner outside the word." Men and women meet, know each other, know each other, fall in love, leave each other, meet, rarely set off by the wilderness scenery of nature, but often by the bridge, by the stream, in the moonlight, under the willow tree, in the lonely pavilion, in the boat; The breeze around is clear; Birds and flowers; Small bridges and flowing water; Lakes and mountains; Valley path; Clouds and rainbows bring people artistic feelings, emotional infections, and the inside information of reading. Many China people's hearts are locked, and love mostly happens indoors. Love poems such as "small building", "rust pavilion", "painting hall", "cloister", "deep palace", "carved jade fence" and pavilions, pavilions and temples are common and will not appear in readers' physiology and psychology. Try reading the following poem:
The melancholy dream rests on the mountain and the moon, the solitary lamp shines on the red gauze back of the wall, and the small building is put aside to thank the family. I want to know what jade looks like. A plum blossom is frozen in the Chun Xue, covered with fragrant fog and morning glow. Huanxisha (Weizhuang)
The mountains overlap, the golden light disappears, and the temples want fragrant snow. Too lazy to draw a moth eyebrow, too late to make up and wash. Looking at the flowers in the front and back mirror, the faces are opposite, and the new posts are embroidered with rollo, both of which are golden partridges. Bodhisattva Man (text)
Upstairs at dusk, apricot blossoms are cold, and the small railings are inclined. A Shuang Yanzi, two rows of geese, drawing a corner sound residual. Leaning against the east wind by the window, weeping in the spring, should also be as old as before, full of autumn water, reading the spring mountain. Eyebrows (left feather)
These poems have both characters, emotions and backgrounds, but their artistic conception is far-reaching and broad, which means ancient and remote, with slender feelings, and the charm of "people end up with a few peaks on the river".
In China, judging from the genre of poetry, there is no beautiful and penetrating language to express love better than words, which is more brilliant than China's four-character, five-character, seven-character ancient poems and metrical poems. Mr Miao Yue once put forward incisive opinions in the article On Ci. "As the poem says, the essence of life feelings is solid, but there are more subtle and beautiful people in the essence, so I want to innovate, and the word is' Zhaoxing'. ..... The feeling of sadness and sadness can't be exhausted in poetry, and this new style is suitable for expression. " It can be seen that there are differences between words and poems. Ci mainly talks about "life feelings-love" which is "what poetry can't say". Confucius once said when deleting poems: "Three poems, in a word, the day: thinking without evil". It can be seen that naive thoughts are thoughts within the scope of ethics and the main theme of poetry. Therefore, poetry has a unique function, which can "educate couples, be filial to others, be kind to others, be beautiful in education, and change customs." The love of "evil thoughts" is naturally no longer classified as the authenticity of poetry, and even if it can be squeezed in, it is minimal and rare. Therefore, the indescribable "sad feeling" in that poem also found its place in the word. At the same time, Ci has the agility and delicacy that other poems can't match. Although its capacity is very small, it makes people see the big from the small and wander around. With its pioneering courage, it can often break through the forbidden area of defenders, boldly express the love of "a word from a gentleman is a promise, but it is hard to catch up with it" and openly disclose it to the world. Therefore, as far as romance is concerned, it has unique vitality and stronger artistry than poetry.
Please read the following two words:
Acacia night leaks more, worrying about the moon leaning against the railing, missing you and me. The painting hall is as deep as the sea. I only read old books in my memory. When will you join hands in Chang 'an? Huanxisha (Wei Zhaung)
In spring, apricot blossoms blow all over the head. Who is young and romantic? I intend to marry her and spend the rest of my life with her, but I can't be ashamed of being mercilessly abandoned. Sidi town (Weizhuang)
These words are "fragrant and dazzling" and "incomparable beauty". If written in poetry, it will appear frivolous in the eyes of ordinary people. However, in words, they are not only novel in conception, sincere in feelings, not strong in strength and exciting, but also have a strong sense of resisting feudal ethics, showing the weakening of political constraints and the deepening of literary consciousness. Western poetry is proud of expressing love, whether it is marital love or extramarital love. The main function of China's poems is "expressing ambition", and the theme of love can't be elegant, especially extramarital affairs. Only words can best compare with western love poems in this respect.