Essence of Poetry (En)
Presenter: Adrian
Host: Yun;
Panelist: Yingyin;
Organizer: 肥啾
这一期主讲人Adrian以“Poetry & Language”为题，梳理了英文诗歌的脉络，并引入了诗歌的力量，诗歌的语言背景和影响等话题进行讨论。 Linglin则从中古古典诗词入手，引起大家对诗歌音乐性的讨论。 在讨论环节，先以日文俳句和和歌等为例，从语言与诗歌切入；后又提及粤语歌的歌词引发方言与诗歌的讨论。
【主讲人Adrian 报告音频】
【Panelist Linglin对中国古典诗歌的分析及讨论音频】
以下为本次讨论活动的演示文稿及文字回顾
PART I: Presentation — Poetry & Language: an Introduction to Poetry
My name is Adrian Salazar. I am a lead Software Developer for 8 years in designing online applications and high traffic websites. Essentially, I am a bookworm who enjoys learning many things, and today I’d like to work on doing something different — presenting.
This presentation will be divided into 5 different parts: Introduction, the Sound, the Visual, and the Lingual and an extra part the Beyond.
I. Introduction: an Overview and the Essence of Poetry
To start us off, I will ask a very straightforward question.
【What makes poetry be known as poetry?】
Poetry does have recognizable characteristics. We can start by thinking by its sound — its rhyme.
Poetry is condensed;
Poetry offers intense feelings — Creating a resonance;
Poetry challenges simple definitions — reasoning.
The Essence of Poetry by Alicja Gescinska.
II. The Sound: How Poetry emphasizes on musical qualities of language
Poetry emphasizes the musical qualities of language — rhyme, rhythm, and meter.
To wake the soul by tender strokes of art (Prologue to Mr. Addison’s Cato 1713) — IAMB.
- On Rhyme
“A goddess of secret and ancient coincidences […] she comes as happiness comes, hands filled with an achievement that is already in flower” — Rainer Maria Rilke
Start Rhyme and End Rhyme
Slant Rhyme and Internal Rhyme
- Assonance and Alliteration
- Iamb
“To wake | the soul | by ten-|der strokes | of art,
To raise the genius, and to mend the heart;
To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold,
Live o’er each scene, and be what they behold
For this, the tragic Muse first trod the stage.”
- Alexander Pope
Trochee — ardor
Dactyl — ra|di|ant
Anapest — in a blaze
Spondee — a|men
- Meter
Meter serves… as a frame for the poem, separating it from a ground of less highly structured speech and sound
III. The Visual: How poetry can break thru the barriers of the art
Sometimes we think POETRY is nothing but the sound, the rhyme, that just because we hear something soothing, it is the only requirement for it to be considered a poem. But let’s reason quickly: why then the following is regarded as a poem?
THE apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
Darkness.
I stop to watch a star shine in the boghole –
A star no longer, but a silver ribbon of light.
I look at it, and pass on.
Poetry doesn’t need to be lyrical.
The effect of the stanza is gained by the combination of accumulating sense, from stanza to stanza, combined with repeated sound through the repetition of lineation and rhyming.
Let’s take an example of Oigen Gomrinje’s silencio, and it creates a line between sound and art.
Poetry’s linebreaks ease the reader’s ability to go through poems.
More forms:
IV. The Lingual: How poetry has morphed our concept of language
Literary Elements of Poems: Metaphor (non-literal similarity (your smile is warm sun) ), Symbols, Themes, Irony (incongruence of what was expected vs. what really happens), Contradiction, Obscurity, Narration, and Tone( characteristic state of feeling and complexity of sound)
- Irony
- Contradictions
- Obscurity
Poetry cannot be judged as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ based on its perceived clarity or obscurity. There is no absolute definition by which we can judge poetry as ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ Poetry isn’t something objective to be found in the world like rocks or trees, and poetry is invented by people. The only guide we have for judging poetry is tradition, how others have defined poetry in the past — and it is a changing tradition, always in flux. What we consider to be the excellent poetry of the twentieth century probably wouldn’t have been considered poetry at all in the sixteenth century.
- Narration
- Metaphors
Believe it or not, they are so crucial to our way of speaking, our way of understanding. Metaphors let us tell the way we perceive the world. For instance: think of a group, our group, it’s a living breathing being, a seed that has become a plant.
We are growing
We blossom our knowledge
We branch
See how the way I describe things makes you have a feeling that we are a living being?
In the middle of life’s road
I found myself in a dark wood
— Dante’s Divine ComedyThy eternal summer shall not fade
— William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18An elephant, a ponderous house A melon strolling on two tendrils.
— Sylvia Plath’s Metaphors
V. The Beyond: Sometimes poetry goes beyond a structure
“Riding on dragons” apid associative imagination.
- Beyond sound and visual:
Viewing poetry less of a form but more as a concept, we can see in things such as hymns, speeches, famous quotes, and even social media, which posts the essence of poetry. We talked before about how the essence is the human itself — their experiences, their sorrows, and successes, their passions, and regrets, all of them, make our poetry. As we evolve, our use of poetry has, as well as we can see, the lines of prose, music, visual art, and more blur on every new interaction.
- Final Poem
As the last thing I want to present, a friend of mine shared this absolutely beautiful comment from her daughter. This, to me, just shows something so amazing. It does not matter our age, our background, poetry is a human feature.
Resources
- Finch, A., and Varnes, K., 2002. An Exaltation Of Forms. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
- Hirsch, Edward, 2014. A Poet’s Glossary. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
- Kovecses, Zoltan, 2010. Metaphor: A Practical Introduction. Oxford
University Press.
A Recommended Video: TED Talk on Poetry
Part II: 谁是那位江湖诗中人
Presented by Linglin
早上做了一个关于诗词的小topic，讨论还挺热烈。主要是谈了下我对诗词的两点体会
- 有了配乐的宋词更有魂
宋词是盛行的一种中国文学体裁，是一种相对于古体诗的新体诗歌之一。瞧，他的盛行他的出现都是配合着音乐。宋词有词牌名，固定的章法有它的节奏韵律，但是年代久远，我们无法再听到当时的配乐。工尺谱也没能像五线谱一样将经典代代相传。我们小时候学诗词多半是背枯燥无味，有些悟性时候就是押着韵背。但当我发现几首由现代人配乐的宋词之后，体会到配了乐宋词才是宋词最好的展现形式。
举个🌰
渔家傲·秋思
宋代：范仲淹
塞下秋来风景异，衡阳雁去无留意。四面边声连角起，千嶂里，长烟落日孤城闭。
浊酒一杯家万里，燕然未勒归无计。羌管悠悠霜满地，人不寐，将军白发征夫泪。
悠扬笛声和浑厚的男声配上这首塞北战争词，一种油然而生的凄凉感
再举个🌰
虽是“清平调”的词牌，但是是唐代诗人李白的作品
云想衣裳花想容 春风拂槛露华浓
若非群玉山头见 会向瑶台月下逢
一枝红艳露凝香 云雨巫山枉断肠
借问汉宫谁得似 可怜飞燕倚新妆
名花倾国两相欢 长得君王带笑看
解释春风无限恨 沉香亭北倚阑干
李白是我最喜欢的诗人，他的诗词看文字其实就很赏心悦目。
软软绵绵的旋律仿佛让人觉得就站在玄宗贵妃那个栏杆之外。
有好的音乐家若能根据不同词的特性配乐，其实能更好的展现我们的宋词意境。
- 现代流行歌曲也是一种文体传承
诗经，楚辞，汉赋，唐诗，宋词，元曲。回望千年文化，经典作品，灿若繁星。那到当今社会又能给后来者留下什么文明呢？传承不一定是一模一样，也可以是有相似精髓再加上时代特征。
配乐，押韵，抒发感情，短小，精练，共情，流行。
我总结了下这些文体都有这些特质。抒发感情或离愁别绪，或仕途感悟，或思春闺怨，在讲究规整的韵律对仗之外，这些文体更多是作者思想感情的载体。大诗人大词人都是情感非常饱满丰富的。天上明月，农耕人观察知节气，理性人可能就觉得就是个每天都在那的星体与我无关。但感性的诗人不一样，他/她心中的万千思绪能挥洒在这世间万物之上，是照渠沟之月，是送友人随风直到夜郎西之月，是感慨历史的秦时明月汉时光，也或许月亮是另外一个友人，我邀请他来一起小酌，或者月亮只是来悄悄来看我的斜光到晓穿朱户。是的，此恨无关风与月，都只是诗人情感世界太丰富，而且憋不住。
所以后来也是情感丰富的读者们才会在相似的命运或者场景下产生共情（也或许想象力丰富如同笔者一般 LOL）。多少人说小时候不喜欢背古诗，长大后才觉得他的精妙，古诗词还是那些古诗词，是读的人经历多了，心态变了，共情发生了。
我觉得有些好的现代流行歌曲其实也具备这些特征，两岸三地各举个我喜欢的填词人🌰，许嵩，方文山，林夕
乘一叶扁舟 入景随风望江畔渔火
转竹林深处 残碑小筑僧侣始复诵 — — 许嵩
我觉得挺有画面感的，并非词藻堆砌，南山忆还有一句侧面写物体现非常之悲。
千年碑易拓却难拓你的美，
情字何解，怎落笔都不对 — — 方文山
林夕的粤语词就更不用说了，说一晚上也列举不完，“在有生的瞬间能遇到你竟花光所有运气，到这日才发现曾呼吸过空气“ 小时候觉得粤语歌好听可能是比普通话多了些声调，但现在很多在想他到底经历了什么能写出这样的词，读出一种曾经沧海难为水之感，也读出了一种年少轻狂不懂珍惜的悔过。
或许很多人觉得现代歌词跟古诗词比技巧意境都太肤浅，不能与之媲美。但毕竟是这个时代表达感情的一种类似文体，已流行了几十年，其中的经典是否也能跨越时空让后之视今如今之视昔不得而至。
【讨论部分请听第二部分音频】
【版权声明】
以上内容仅代表分享人及讨论者个人观点，版权归分享人所有，如需转载或合作请与讨论小组及分享人联络取得授权。
Part II 文字先发表于微信公众号“琳檬的简书”，这里由作者尹小白授权发布。
排版编辑：Mingyue
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