The "motif" and "prototype" of homesickness

In the history of China's new poetry in the 20th century, Yu Guangzhong's Homesickness is undoubtedly a masterpiece handed down from generation to generation. Its popularity and popularity are rare in new poetry works. For such a well-known new poem, it is obviously not enough or even irrelevant to be satisfied with superficial appreciation. We should explore Li Dezhu and further seek the deep-seated reasons for his great success, so that we can not only deepen the interpretation of this poem, but also deduce the regular factors of the success or failure of new poetry art from its success. The author believes that the interpretation of Yu Guangzhong's Homesickness and the mystery of its great success should focus on the motif of its connotation and the prototype significance of its performance.

"Motif" and "prototype" are terms in western literary theory. According to Jung, they refer to "original images" (the concept of collective unconsciousness) and "images that appear repeatedly in the historical process" (on the relationship between analytical psychology and poetry) in the sense of theology or psychology. There are both connections and differences between them. Raymond Tucson thinks that the motif is "a background or a big idea", and Goethe says that the motif is "a spiritual phenomenon that human beings have been repeating in the past and will continue to repeat in the future" (Weinstein's Comparative Literature and Literary Theory). Frye pointed out that prototype "is a typical and recurring image", which can "link a poem with other poems" and is "a symbol that helps to integrate and unify our literary experience" (literature is the whole connection, see myth-prototype criticism). Potkin said: "Some themes have a special form or pattern, which is preserved from time to time;" Moreover, this form or pattern corresponds to a certain pattern or collocation of those emotional tendencies in the hearts of people touched by this theme; We can get the consistency of such a theme in poetry "(see Myth-Archetypal Criticism of Archetypal Patterns in Tragic Poetry). On the whole, we can see that the motif and prototype are primitive, typical, repetitive and patterned. The motif focuses on the theme content and emotional concepts, while the prototype focuses on image techniques and forms of expression. They appeared earlier in the history of literature, and have typical significance because they fit the national emotional psychology, so they are repeated repeatedly and gradually accumulate into a pattern in the process of repetition, which affects and restricts the similar creation of later generations. Corresponding to the terminology of China's poetics theory, "motif" and "prototype" are roughly equivalent to "poetic embryo" or "poetic ancestor" in ancient poetics.

First, the motif nature of homesickness

The great success of "Homesickness" lies in its theme selection with the nature of "motif", and its emotional connotation is universal, which is completely consistent with the emotional connotation of homesick poems in the history of China's poetry.

In homesick poems, homesickness and homesickness, homesickness and affection are often linked and inseparable. The essence of homesickness is homesickness, and the essence of homesickness is affection, which is determined by the patriarchal clan system and blood relationship in ancient China. In ancient China, people's strong sense of clan and consanguinity gave birth to the ethical concept of "father loves filial piety, brothers love and brothers respect each other", which effectively restricted the emotional orientation of homesick people. The Book of Songs Feng Wei is the earliest "motif" work in the history of poetry, which shows that homesickness is actually homesickness, and homesickness is actually affection. "Preface to Shi Mao" says: "The dutiful son is in service and misses his parents." Judging from the actual work, this recruiter, who is far away from home and works as a layman, misses his parents as well as his brother. Missing one's parents is "filial piety" and missing one's elder brother is "filial piety", which conforms to the requirements of Confucian ethics for filial piety. When recruiting people to climb high and look far, I vaguely hear the words of my relatives in my hometown. I want to understand the hardships, remind you to take care, and wish you peace. This technique of "writing face to face and thinking about each other at the same time" created a "prototype" performance form, which was imitated by similar works in later generations. There is also "Tang Shiyu", which also expresses the strong anxiety and resentment that the recruiter can't support his parents in the eager homesickness. Chen's Review of Reading Poetry praised: "When you call your parents, you will call heaven again. The worse you get, the sadder you will be. It will hurt and destroy the liver. " The touching artistic effect of this poem comes from the blood-related ethical feelings that make people worry about the country and the people.

In the history of ancient poetry, there are many works of wandering homesickness, so I won't list them here. This strong ethical emotion contained in homesickness has obvious influence on new poetry. Ah by Lake Poet and Pan Mohua expresses the wanderer's deep memory of his dead father and his thoughtfulness for his widowed mother, and shows the young poet's infinite love for his parents! Wu Tianlai's Deep in the White Clouds expresses his yearning for his hometown deep in the white clouds, and the "mother of silver temples" is the focus of his memories and concerns when he is homesick. In Taiwan Province poet Qiu Zhenrui's Homesickness Rain, when he wrote about homesickness and rain in a foreign land, he felt that "the blood relationship between mother and son is so close". Zhang Mo's "Drink that lock of pale hair" was written after the separation of the two sides of the strait and the distant exhortation of her mother for "30 years" and "more than 10,000 days". In the twilight, the wanderer poured out his heart to the photo of his mother, and the undying affection between mother and son was very touching.

Just like the poems about homesickness in ancient and modern times, in the first section of Yu Guangzhong's Homesickness, people's hands cut into people's performance from the perspective of homesickness:

When I was a child/homesickness was a small stamp/I was here/my mother was there.

Write a wanderer who has left his hometown, and convey his attachment and concern for his mother and son by letters.