Poetry is an important part of traditional Chinese culture and it has influenced countless generations of Chinese and certainly I am included. We Chinese students learn to recite Chinese poetry when we are quite young and our parents usually take pride in us if we can recite many poetries at an early age. Poetry has companied us almost the whole life. The method of appreciating poetry I learnt from high school is something that I can hardly forget.
When we are appreciating a poetry, the first thing we need to do is to make sure what the poet want to express. There are several possibilities. The poet might express happiness, ambition, worries and so on. If we know the intention of the poet, then we can understand the poetry better.
Secondly, we should learn the background of the poetry as much as possible, for it may help us understand the poetry better. For example, the country was very strong and rich in early Tang dynasty, so the poet made by that time usually described something magnificent and their emotions were usually proud and confident. While in late Tang dynasty, the country was being invaded by other countries and there were some evil people controlling the country, the poets at that time usually expressed their worries, ambition and detest to the society.
Thirdly, we need to learn the experiences of the poets. Usually the style of a poet was stable while sometimes the poetries written by the same poet could be so different, which in my opinion is because the poet had gone through different life. For example, Li Qingzhao, a famous Chinese woman poet, when she was young, her poetries were relaxing and bright, while when she was in her 40's, her poetry became very grieved and full of sorrow. As far as I have known, her husband died and she became homeless because of war during that time. Learning the experience of the poets can help a lot to understand their poetries.
Fourthly, it is very effective and interesting to involve ourselves into the situation the poet described. When appreciating a poetry, after we read the scene the poet described, we can imagine in mind what the scene is like. It is very romantic and it seems you knows what the poet knew and you feel what the poet felt. If you can imagine that, there will be no problem for you to understand the whole poetry.
Chinese poetry is very beautiful and kind of mysterious and I really enjoy it. Thanks for the poetry, life is more colorful and romantic.
i am really impressed about your memory on those miserable moments when we have to appreciate those chinese poetry. but you do provide a good guidence to do it
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad that you mentioned such a topic, which is very familiar to everyone of us. Appreciating poems takes up alot of marks in our exam papers, however, it is always the difficult part for me. I enjoy reading chinese poems, but I hate to read it for marks. When something become compulsory, I usually don't like it. Now everyday I am immersed in the English environment, I really want to do some questions about appreciating poems, even though it is compulsory.
ReplyDeleteDuring the period of my senior high school, one of the most difficult things for me was to appreciate the poetry. No matter how hard I had tried, I could not really understand what the poet really wanted to express, because of its circumbendibus. However, I have to admit that poetries are the soul of Chinese culture; they are really beautiful and romantic.
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