Appreciation of Su Shi's poem Nostalgia from Mianchi to Harmony

What is life like everywhere? It should be like Hong Fei stepping through the snow.

Fingers and claws were accidentally left in the mud. What did Hong Fei do?

The old monk is dead and has become a new tower. There is no reason to look at the old topic with a broken wall.

Remember the rugged past? The road is long and the donkey hisses.

-Su Shi

In the sixth year of Emperor Renzong's reign (106 1), Su Shi was appointed as our envoy to Fengxiang Prefecture (now Shaanxi Province), and his brother Su Zhe sent him to Zhengzhou, then returned to Kaifeng, the capital, and sent him a poem "Huai Mianchi sent his son to look after his brother". Su Shi reconciled this poem, completely according to the original rhyme of Su Zhe.

Su Zhe/Kloc-was appointed as the principal bookkeeper of Mianchi County when he was 0/9 years old, but he was a scholar before he took office, so he had special feelings for Mianchi. In a poem he gave to his younger brother, he said, "Have you ever been a county magistrate? The wall of the old monk's house is a common topic. " Very nostalgic. So Su Shi made notes in the first four sentences of this poem.

As far as a person is concerned, either to make a living, or to study, to be promoted, and to be an official, he runs around. Like what? Like a swan goose. Hongyan either goes to the south for the winter or goes back to the north to breed, and comes and goes. Paws stepped on the snow mud, accidentally leaving only traces of fingers and paws, and then flew away in an instant; As for the traces left, how can it remember? Besides, the traces will soon disappear.

This is a philosophical argument. Su Shi summed it up in four poems with profound images, so it spread quickly. Since then, "red claw snow mud" has become a common idiom.

However, these four poems are appreciated by readers not only because of their rational interest; In terms of artistic skills, it is also admirable. In Qing Dynasty, Ji Yun commented on this poem and said: "The first four sentences are single-line, and the Tang people are conservative; The artistic conception is the true color of Dongpo. " Three or four sentences in a law poem should be opposite and have opposite meanings. Some poets deliberately break this restriction and become antagonistic rather than antagonistic. In other words, words are opposites, but their meanings are not the opposite. This is called "one-way entry". This is the format of the first four sentences in Cui Hao's poem "Yellow Crane Tower", and he completely ignores the antithesis. Wang Wei's "Giving Hundred Officials Cherry Blossoms" begins: "A thousand officials will be under the Lotus Que, and Zhu Ying will be forbidden to leave Orchid. Always after the spring recommendation, the birds in the garden are disabled. " The second couplet, between the lines, means that it runs through from top to bottom, and it is also Su Shi's "fingers and claws accidentally left in the mud, and Hong Fei is counting things." From the original text, it is also a kind of confrontation, but it means that it is a direct connection, so it is also a "one-way street" because if this format is not adopted, the whole meaning will be difficult to express satisfactorily, and the momentum of writing will be greatly affected, so it must be broken.

Break the original shackles and write down the arguments you want to play directly, so that you can fully understand and speak freely, showing the momentum and breakthrough of writing. It's not the rules that limit me, but I'll drive them away. This is where Su Shi's ability is high.

The following four sentences are homesickness in He Ying's younger brother's poems. "The old monk died and became a new tower. There is no reason to look at the old topic with a bad wall." According to the annotation of Su Zhe's poem, "Yesterday Zi Zhan visited the temple house in Suxian County, and asked the old monk to serve the idle wall." Su Shi and his brothers once lived in a monk temple in Mianchi County and wrote poems on the wall. But now that the old monk is dead, only the newly built tower is left to bury the ashes; As for the poem of that day, I can't find it because the wall is broken. These two sentences not only coincide with the meaning of "snow mud and red claws", but also answer the homesickness of Su Zhe's original work "The old monk's house wall has the same topic". It can be seen that it is a natural law that people leave traces occasionally in their lives and disappear at any time. There is no need to miss them too much.

Finally, Su Shi mentioned a past event, which shows his attitude towards life. He said, brother, do you remember? That year, you and I passed by Lushan Mountain and stumbled between two graves. Unexpectedly, the horse we rode died and we had to rent a donkey instead. At that time, the road was long and sparsely populated, and the lame donkey kept barking. Do you remember this scene?

Look carefully, these two sentences are not nostalgia, but hope that my brother will cherish the present and open up the future. The subtext is this: my brother and I have experienced many hardships in the past, and now we are both scholars with a bright future, which is very different from the past. Why should those memories miss him? Even if I miss him, I just want to push myself forward. I think his brother can understand this.

This poem is Su Shi's masterpiece. From this, we can see the inside story of his early positive attitude and optimism.