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用英语讲好中国故事之古诗赏读：登鹳雀楼 Poetry language is metaphor or allusion in Bloom’s term. This means understanding a poem is to decipher the metaphor or allusion underlying. Following this principle,we can see through the elaborate arrangement of words in a poem and discover the truth of the poet about his or her feelings and thoughts. It may be universally acknowledged that the stanzas of the lines in the poem AscendingGuanque Tower by Wang Zhihuan: To see one thousand mile farther, You climb one more stair higher. have a spiritual allusion, though they depict a real image. But what on earth the spiritual allusion is it? Different readers may give different answers and they may argue with each other. There is no doubt that the perspective of the poet is enormous, the view wide and the mind broad. No wonder many literature critics consider the poem as the symbol of the spirit of early Tang dynasty. However,in my opinion this viewpoint can’t reveal the whole truth of the poem and the picture of allusion has not been fully reflected. Why? It’s just because the readers including critics of generations were, are and will be attracted to the visionary description of the sun and the river in a wide perspective but forgetting that the sun is a setting sun and the river is an river in its final stage. Behind the mountain the sun is setting, Into the ocean Huanghe is running. By rereading the first stanzas of the poem, you may have been able to notice that the sun is setting and the river is running into the ocean, which means both of them are facing death. In ancient China, it was a popular idea that the sun setting behind the mountain is dead and revive the next morning from the east and the river is at the end of its life when running into an ocean. I should give you examples but pity that my books about this subject are not at hand,anyway, I firmly believe that you can understand what I mean because this idea is still lingering in Chinese minds. So the first stanzas are something about death, but it’s not a bitter one but an optimistic one. When the poet describe a scene allusive of death in a picture full of grandeur, death is no more a bitter and terrible thing but a subject leading to deeper thought and enlightenment. This way, the composer leads the readers to a spiritual world after reading the poem and think about death and soul. At this point, we can say the poem is one about seeking eternity when faced with death. Everyone has mortality but not everyone has a transcendental thought about birth and death. The poet is among those who seek eternity when facing death. The sun is setting, in which the poet implies everything is dying and all will be in darkness and death seemingly cover the world without hesitation and the river is running into the ocean, in which the poet implies the end of the river, that is, death. After a long journey full of ups and downs, the river runs into the ocean,which means death to a river and what will happen to it next? Only heaven knows. Does it continue to survive in a new way or death is death and there is nothing like revival? No one can be 100% sure that a new sun, a reviving sun will appear in the east the next morning. To answer such questions and dissolve such puzzles, one should climb one more stair higher. That is to say, one should learn to think transcendentally and spiritually.Only when one thinks transcendentally and spiritually can one understand the truth of death and begin to seek eternity and turn mortality into immortality. The philosophy behind the poem is deep and wide. It leads readers to think about the true meanings of birth and death, naturally to seek after eternity and find more about how one should live and how to live up to the mission of a life. |
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