— On the philosophical meaning of Shipwrecked by Aerdingfu Yiren
By Li Li
[Shipwrecked]
It is a ship sailing from the distant past: the hull is old, and some spare parts malfunction. What is loaded is a nation, through darkness and obscuration, finally to obtain freedom and civilization. The nation itself is a ship, not without vicissitudes and tribulations, glory and dream, but today, it finds itself facing unprecedented crisis and puzzlement. How to let it sail out of haze, how to prevent it from sinking down owing to its asthma and deficiency of the kidney, this is the purpose and meaning of the long poem by Mr. Aerdingfu Yiren, captain of the ship. As a poem, it is obviously a great piece which is full of compassion for the state of the world and its people. With his abundant vigor and vitality, the author writes about brightness and darkness, birth and death, imbrutement and civilization, humility and dignity, blood-shedding and peace, as well as waiting and the future, etc. As the descendant of Salar, Mr. Yiren, with his own heroism, consciously composes a majestic epic for his own nationality. In this sense, it is also a brief history of more nations and countries, and even of human beings. Therefore, its significance has transcended poetry itself, to enter into thinking and questioning about the present status and the future of human beings. In order for the profound poem to be popularized, the paper attempts to analyze some words which appear and reappear in the poem — these key words may be called lexical items.
[Day]
In the former part of Shipwrecked, “day” is a word which often appear, together with “sun”, “dawn”, etc. These words metaphorically refer to the direction and future of the ship. In order for the dawn to befall, in order for the day to be long or to be eternal, people on the ship have paid the price of blood and life from generation to generation. Even when we are reading, our hearts are closely tightened by the rope, as if walking on the cliff, wary and careful of each step. It is obvious that Yiren is quite laborious in his writing, afraid that casual description can not express its hardships and stirring emotion. Walking toward the day, their eyes are brimming tears, but they have to undergo tribulations, and be ready for sacrifice. Therefore, “A head in place of another head / To pursue a black hawk which is wounded”. But the result is: “And the west wind is past / Without revealing a more intrinsic day”. The day is stubborn, but what is more stubborn is determination and
perseverance. Bit by bit they drive their soul and flesh as well as their hopes and expectations into the dark night, to exchange for brightness and future which are more precious than gold — this is the reason andtemperament for a nation to live and multiply. Shipwrecked, in such a way bordering on cruelty, expresses people’s wish and behavior for justice, happiness, and beauty.
[Dark —]
What is relevant to darkness is dark night, dark wolf, as well as despair, death, and burial, etc. This is a set of words and status which are contradictory to day. It symbolizes the tribulation people have to suffer while pursuing brightness and beauty, as well as the oscillation and persecution people have to undergo. This is the fate. And in spite of disasters, happiness is not a sure thing. Sacrifice, sometimes, is invalid. However, unavoidable are sacrifice and disaster: occasionally they come of themselves even if uninvited, so long as you are on the ship, so as you are still alive. Therefore, after disaster and despair, even after the test of death, people are accustomed to darkness and sacrifice, even optimistic: “Along the cold winter / In the shadow of doomed death / Warmth rises now / The storm attacks the endless desert while / A pair of lovers are madly in love / But when the nightfall falls / Only a few words are left behind: “When I die I would die in your bosom …” This at least contains two layers of meaning: the first is darkness and death fail to frighten people who love brightness; the second is love make people despise death and fill death with glory. This is the answer to darkness and death by Mr. Yiren, which echoes the poetic lines by somebody: even if all the roads are blocked with heavy snow / there are people who start off to the distance.
[Pursue]
This is a word with the most frequency in this long poem: the result and detail of the former two key words. It is suggestive of sacrifice, martyrs, and heroes. Really, the long poem has created the image of a person who dares to sacrifice anything in order to pursue something. The image is not concrete, and it is even trivial and insipid; vague, but the verve and mettle of charging ahead is to be felt from time to time. Perhaps this is the author’s hero complex. But to pursue what? The goal is not obvious; perhaps it is to live on and multiply, not without peace and beauty. For this, more cruel test, even sacrifice, is lying in wait. Looming before my eyes are the images of Socrates and Qu Yuan, standing against the wind. They are unafraid of any hardships or tribulations for the sake of their own thought and truth-seeking. They know that it needs the foundation of countless deaths to live beautifully, and such a death is the most brilliant beauty. As Simmel, German poet-philosopher says, “death the highest form of life, and death must be taken as its sacrifice.” This is for the most concentrated life to reach the purest form. Of course, its premise is belief, and he who dies for his own belief is an immortal martyr. And for this kind of sacrifice the poet is generous and tender: “If the action is said to be a love letter / It will be the most intimate friend of ours my love / Or in the following days we are more dependent on each other for survival / No matter how distant is the journey the burning flame / Is awakening crowds and crowds of gathering people / To leap into the inmost depth my garden of roses.”
[Life]
