Reflections on Twenty-seven Literature Lessons of Youth (1): Good reading is to read the taste.
The waist seal of this book says, "The quality of an article is not easy to see without training." The training of literary appreciation is most suitable for people to start training from adolescence. So this collection is called "Twenty-seven Lessons of Youth".
"27 Youth Literature Classes" was originally named "Articles and Examples". 1936, New Teenager magazine was founded. Mr. Ye Shengtao set up an "article exhibition" column in the magazine, selected an article on schedule and commented on it. After compiling a book, it was named "Examples".
Except for the last two foreign language versions, the rest of this book are the works of modern authors, with rich genres and themes, including many famous works. After reading it, I was left with the impression that this literature class is like a semester text taught by an amiable and professional middle school teacher. The difference from middle school textbooks lies in the articles selected. In other words, this collection is most suitable for middle school students to read. I think it can be extended to young people (young people in a broad sense) for two reasons. First, reading and writing skills should be learned and mastered by everyone. They are part of life and work. Second, in fact, most young people lack basic literacy skills.
Therefore, although this literature course was originally for teenagers to preach the skills of appreciating literature, it is also worth reading by young friends today. The reason lies in the above two facts, especially the second point.
Every article in Twenty-seven Lessons of Youth Literature can be divided into two parts. The first half is a part of an article or the whole article selected from modern literature. The second half is the author's appreciation and analysis of the former. After reading the whole book, I was deeply impressed by the selected articles: Hu Shi's Biography of Mr. Almost, Lu Xun's Excerpts from Social Drama and Chekhov's Distress. Mr. Almost's biography is very interesting and worth thinking about. Excerpts from social dramas are forceful and literary, and Chekhov's distress is deep and full of compassion.
Speaking of Mr. Ye Shengtao's intentions, there are many places to talk about. For this book, I will talk about the following points.
The Necessity of Reading and Writing At some point, even now, the concept of "reading is useless" is still circulating in some groups and regions. Reading and writing are subordinate to reading, and their status is not worth mentioning. Moreover, until now, people generally don't think that reading and writing is something worthy of attention and hard work. Objectively speaking, they are forgotten outside the tent of life.
This is a sad thing. Needless to say, people who don't know their own national history lack vitality and sense of mission; No matter how barren the spiritual world of those who reject reading and writing is. From today's materialistic and money-oriented point of view, if you don't learn reading and writing skills, you will often fall behind others in your work. A backward nation will be beaten, and a backward person will be oppressed by life.
Some people want to say that in today's information-rich and convenient society, there is no need to point at yourself by reading and writing. Without them, we can still cross the society and succeed. Dear friend, if so, this sadness is just another layer, and it will last forever. For such a friend, I must remind you in a friendly way: please open your eyes and look at the world today and think about it seriously.
The origin of writing, Mr. Ye Shengtao, said in his book that the urgency of writing lies in the fact that people have an experience and meaning for life, which is different from the usual situation. This forces people to think and record, explore deeply inside and pursue widely outside. In order to show these experiences and meanings with a clearer face, understand their context and guide their own life path, they have to be recorded. The recorded experience and significance are very convenient for future memory, reference and update.
In recent years, reading and writing have attracted people's attention to a certain extent, and many people have devoted themselves to their practice, which has to be said to be a very gratifying thing. Of course, apart from Mr. Ye's opinion, the majority of authors must have many different views and original intentions about the reasons for writing. For me, the most important thing is to record my thoughts, explore the unknown and express my views.
Appreciation of reading In fact, most readers lack the ability to appreciate words, and everyone's proud appreciation vision is far from enough to see through the back of the paper and go deep into the text, especially literary works. This leads to poor reading ability and indigestion. This is the basic intention of Twenty-seven Lessons of Youth Literature. However, this book can only be regarded as an introduction, but it can be called "old driver".
The analytical articles selected in the book have different styles and characteristics. The author tries to show readers the secrets of reading and writing in a broader picture. Therefore, we can see different styles, such as narrative, expository, argumentative and reportage; The choice of text also focuses on different appreciation of different genres of text, such as prose, essays, poetry, drama, novels and so on.
Mr. Ye tried his best to appreciate every article in this book from different angles. Although it is a little simple, it reveals many different appreciation perspectives for readers, which is enough to attract laymen into the park.
Finally, what I want to say is that in ancient times, as Cao Pi said, articles were a great cause of the country and an immortal event. Although it is not enough to discuss today, articles (can also be extended to literature, literature and art, etc. ), as the cultural soul and spiritual pillar of a country and a nation, is indelible forever. We need to re-recognize and re-treat.
Reflection on Twenty-seven Lessons of Youth (II): Master class, revisiting the most basic and important writing principles and original intentions.
Twenty-seven Lessons of Youth is a series of articles that Ye Shengtao and Ye Lao introduce reading and writing skills to teenagers. It was first published in New Youth magazine. Ye Lao carefully selected 27 representative works (including 3 translations) with different styles, and adopted the method of publishing the original works in the first part and analyzing the comments in the second part. On the one hand, he can let young readers read beautiful and decent articles, on the other hand, he can understand why the original work can be called a good article from his explanation. His analysis is very in place, from introducing what style the article is, analyzing why the author chose this style, expressing the differences and advantages of the author's intention compared with other styles with this style, what is the uniqueness of the author's writing method, how to start with readers who want to learn this style, and so on. Elymus speaks in a calm tone, mixed with some self-questioning and self-answering statements like face-to-face communication. While reading, readers seem to be in the middle school classroom, listening to their favorite Chinese teacher patiently explaining the most basic and important writing principles and original intentions. The words are all pictures, vivid and effective. Below, I only choose a few articles with the deepest feelings for a brief explanation.
First, I was moved by Xu Zhimo's Cambridge I Know. I have always heard about Xu Zhimo, but I have never turned over his works. I don't know why. But this time, the fragment of "Cambridge I Know" selected by Ye Lao made me regret leaving it before. "The time between the stars and the moon, green grass, flowers overflowing, running water to entertain guests" is not what I have been trying to capture? "Take a book, walk ten miles, choose a clean place, watch the sky, listen to birds, read books, and dream on the grass when you are tired." Isn't that what I've been pursuing? Not only him, but also 27 articles and 27 authors, many of which I have never paid attention to, or have never read. After reading Ye Lao's course, the first feeling is that there are several author names and titles on the waiting list.
Second, Mr Cai Yuanpei's birthday speech by Dr Dewey, which is a practical article, that is, an article about ceremony mentioned by Ye Lao. I chose this article because the most important thing in my daily work is to write this kind of thing, all kinds of conference manuscripts, and the common faults of this kind of articles listed by Ye Lao at that time, such as "most of them piled up some rhetoric, which made people feel that it was by no means" heartfelt words ",but rolled down from the author's lips and pen tip, boring the audience and readers in vain", which is exactly the mistake I often make and I tried my best to avoid. In his comments, Ye Lao analyzed how Mr. Cai made such a ceremonial article interesting and emotional, which was helpful to people who do word work.
Finally, I want to talk about your ice cream's Preface to the Wind in the Willow. I put this article at the end because I don't quite agree with some of Ye Lao's views in this article. Elymus thinks that if the preface tells the general idea of the book, or points out its meaning, or points out its benefits, you will have a general understanding of the book after reading the preface, and then you will see the clues clearly and easily, so you must develop the good habit of reading the preface first. From this perspective, I think we should look at it from two aspects. If the preface says some explanations that have an impact on reading the article, you really need to read it first, but if the preface reveals too many key contents, such as Mr. You's article, every character in the article is analyzed and labeled as a good person and a bad person. If readers read the preface first, they already have a preconceived concept about each character, which will greatly affect reading. Of course, Ye Lao's original intention is to worry that if the description of the article is too implicit, readers who are not good at reading can't correctly understand the author's real intention. But I think, when reading a book for the first time, you must draw a conclusion with your own understanding. If it is found later that it is different from the author's intention, you can read through it again on the basis of fully understanding the author's intention and see if you can find the deep meaning behind those words this time, so that you can really exercise your reading ability, instead of telling you in advance because you are afraid of understanding the deviation. So if it is a spoiler-style preface, I personally think it is more appropriate to put it at the end of the article as a postscript.
I wonder if my comments are spoilers. I hope it will not affect everyone's reading experience.
Reflections on "Twenty-seven Literature Lessons of Youth" (III): Living water comes from the source and from life.
Chinese teachers always say that "those who get Chinese get the world", and Chinese class is mainly to cultivate the ability of reading and writing, and the accumulation of reading is ultimately for writing. Mr. Ye Shengtao once said that "every good article should have a reason to write", which seems to be a little different from the propositional composition in the student period. In fact, Mr. Ye has always wanted to explain that it is not difficult to write a good literary work or a high-scoring composition. The material of the article is experience and significance, and the basis of the article is language. As long as "the materials are accurate and the words are rigorous and meticulous", you can write a good article.
Ye Lao added: "Writing articles is not the ornament and decoration of life, but life itself." "If a person wants to live a meaningful life in society, he must require the accuracy of experience and meaning, and the accuracy and thoroughness of language. That's not for writing articles, it's for living. Anyone who has undergone this kind of cultivation often feels that there are many articles to write, and what is written is often a good article. " Ye Lao concluded: "Literary creation itself comes from life. Life is like a spring and articles are like a stream. The source is abundant, and the stream is naturally lively day and night. " After reading these two paragraphs several times, I feel more and more deeply, and admire the greatness of Mr. Ye Shengtao.
Based on this idea, Ye Lao also put forward a good way to practice writing and cultivate reading and writing habits. 1936, New Teenager magazine was founded. Ye Lao made a column, and selected good articles for young readers in each issue, with comments attached. At that time, the column was called "Article Exhibition", which was very popular. Later, he compiled the contents of this column into a book called "Examples of Articles". 1983, Ye Zhishan, the son of Ye Lao, made some changes when reprinting this book, and emphasized that "both reading and writing should be paid equal attention". The latest edition of this book was renamed "Twenty-seven Literature Lessons of Youth" because twenty-seven famous books were selected.
In this book, Mr. Ye Shengtao chose Zhu Ziqing's Back, Xia Yan's Bonded Labor and Lu Xun's Theatre at that time, so he was very familiar with it. Ye Lao also took into account the genre of the article when choosing famous works, including writing stories, taking notes, narratives, argumentative essays, poems and essays, and popular science discussions, and so on. For example, Lao She's Foreign Coach in Beiping, Ba Jin's Friends, Hu Shi's Biography of Mr. Almost, Feng Zikai's Formal Beauty of Modern Architecture, Zhou Zuoren's Xiaohe and Cai Yuanpei's Birthday Speech of Dr. Dewey are all included in this book. Valuably, the latest edition of this book has added three appendices, including two articles by foreign writers, such as Chekhov's distress.
Admittedly, the famous books are good and worth reading again. What's more commendable is that behind every famous book, Ye Lao personally wrote many pages of guidance. Some pointed out that the article is good and good; Some explain the characteristics and practices of such articles; Some even mentioned inappropriate places or illegal places in their articles. All review guides are designed to help readers think about what kind of articles are better, how to write better articles and how to avoid mistakes in writing. In short, after reading Ye Lao's comments, I knew that I was too "skimming" or that my level was not enough to digest and absorb. After reading these twenty-seven articles, that is, reading the original text and comments of each famous book, it is really like taking twenty-seven literature classes, improving the ability of literature appreciation and making the writing methods clearer.
Meng Jiao said, "It is effective to find ideas, and the strategic period is the most important." As for writing, it is of course important to make up literature classes, but the best way, as Ye Lao said, is to return to life and pay attention to "forming habits". The source of living water is in life, and the knowledge and skills of reading and writing are in the habits of life.
Reflections on "Twenty-seven Lessons of Youth Literature" (4): I made up a lesson in Chinese in middle school!
I just finished reading Ye Shengtao's son, Mr. Ye Zhishan's memoir "My Father's Longevity". Before that, I had read several books by Ye Shengtao, such as Wen Xin (in cooperation with Mr. Xia Mianzun) and Twenty-seven Lessons of Youth Literature, but this is the last book in this series of enlightening China. However, both in Mr. Shan Zhi's biography and in the collected works in front of Mr. Ye Shengtao, the book "Examples of Articles" (now published as "Twenty-seven Lessons of Youth Literature") is mentioned, which feels like opening a good book that has already been read.
If you know from the previous books that Mr. Ye Shengtao is not only the content of the entries we have learned in Chinese class, but also read so many insightful opinions about Chinese teaching from Mr. Ye, and then read Twenty-seven Literature Classes of Youth, you may understand how to read this book.
I still remember learning Chinese in middle school. In each class, the teacher will read, analyze paragraphs and refine the central idea. After several years of study, I now think about what's good about those articles, so you can say it now. I'm afraid you can't tell. Because I don't know why, it's hard to imagine that those once good articles will become your things, which will exert a subtle influence on you when you start writing.
Reading Twenty-Seven Literature Classes of Youth after many years is like a good teacher leading you to a new Chinese class.
Let's talk about the authors who have been selected as model essays. Almost all of them are famous writers who have been disobedient for many years. But in the era when Mr. Ye chose this book, these people were undoubtedly famous writers at that time, and their influence was no different from that of hundreds of thousands of official titles today. After more than half a century, people or things who read these articles have an inevitable sense of alienation from current readers, but from these articles, we can inadvertently glimpse the elegance of the Republic of China, which is also a reading accident.
Things are changing, but the guiding principle of writing is unchanged. This book makes up for the deficiency of our Chinese teaching.
Look at Mr. Contradiction's Sketch of the Bathroom and tell about a group of people who met while taking a bath in a Japanese bath. When analyzing this article, Teacher Ye said that the author must have written something that he was interested in and found interesting. As for the ordinary scene, although he saw it, he would not be happy to start writing. But after reading teacher Ye's instructions, you will understand the mystery if you encounter similar situations in reading and writing in the future.
Friends who study photography will certainly understand the principle of aperture size, and Teacher Ye also used this principle for reference in his analysis. He said, "To write this kind of article, we must draw a circle of boundaries in various apertures, enclose everything we want to write in the boundaries, and put everything we don't need outside the boundaries." When Mr. Contradiction wrote this article, he first drew such a boundary circle. "In this way, he took the readers to restore the scene carefully according to the group portrait described by Mr. Contradiction. After reading the analysis in this way, readers will suddenly realize why the original good article is good and there are traces to follow.
Therefore, one suggestion is that after reading the appreciation and reading the original text again, you will understand the beauty of the author's writing more truly.
As the ancients said, a good book never tires of reading, reading widely and knowing oneself. Having said that, if we had a famous teacher to guide us, we would definitely take fewer detours.