Chapter 3: Symbolism in Modern Poetry
Section 1. The Primary Element of Symbolism: Indirect Suggestion
Symbolism refers to the indirect expression of deeper implications (symbolic meaning) through suggestive techniques. "Suggestion refers to a method of expression in which a particular meaning or content is not stated directly, but another meaning or content related to it is presented instead. With the aid of the reader's or listener's association, the intended meaning or content is conveyed indirectly." 1 The characteristics of suggestion are as follows:
(1) Indirectness of expression: Rather than directly describing a certain object or idea, the writer allows readers to use association and imagination as a bridge to understand content that has never been explicitly stated.
(2) Interrelatedness of things: The object that is directly mentioned and the object that remains unspoken possess a certain relationship. This relationship is often concealed, implicit, and intrinsic.
Section 2. The Formal Structure of Symbolism
The formal structure of symbolism consists of the symbolic object, the symbolic meaning, and the connecting element. Symbolism employs concrete images to suggest abstract principles. In rhetorical symbolism, the symbolized subject generally does not appear; instead, the concrete image (the symbolic object) alone undertakes the task of conveying meaning.
The symbolic object is usually a concrete medium (a concrete image). For example, the phoenix, according to legend, can be reborn through fire and is therefore known as the "immortal bird." Likewise, the language of the red rose symbolizes passion and the longing for love. Consequently, when a boy confesses his love to a girl, he will most often bring her a bouquet of red roses.
Who, then, among Taiwanese modern poets, primarily employs symbolism as a major expressive technique? The names most commonly mentioned are Qin Zihao, Shang Qin, the husband-and-wife poets Luo Ying, and Bi Guo. Qin Zihao was the inheritor and transmitter of Symbolism in Taiwan, while the latter three all belonged to the Genesis Poetry Society.
In addition, the poet Lo Fu believed that Zhou Mengdie's poetry also made use of suggestion and symbolism. 2 However, in terms of the overall quality of his works, the present author believes that Zhou Mengdie relied more heavily on the expressive techniques of Imagism, excelling at using concrete imagery to convey abstract philosophical reflections, with metaphor as his principal device and symbolism as a supplementary one.
In Chapter 12 of my Aesthetics of Expressive Methods (New Poetry Rhetorical Aesthetics, Volume II), I discussed Ye Weilian's "Wild Geese," Shang Qin's "Giraffe," and Xiang Ming's "Hanging Plant." These three poems are symbolic poems of the object-chanting type. I also discussed Ya Xian's "The Actress," which is a symbolic poem of the character poem type.
In this chapter, I shall analyze several symbolic poems that I have encountered, dividing them into three categories: object symbolism, character symbolism, and event symbolism.
Furthermore, with very few exceptions, almost all fable poems are symbolic poems. Besides possessing a surface meaning, they also contain a deep meaning that lies "beyond the words." This deep meaning is precisely the symbolized subject, left for readers to contemplate and interpret, and every reader is allowed to arrive at a different understanding.
Section 3. Analysis of Symbolic Techniques in Modern Poetry
I. Symbolism in Object Poems
"Beast" / Su Shaolian
I wrote the character "beast" on the dark green blackboard and added its phonetic notation, "ㄕㄡˋ." Turning to face the elementary school students, I began teaching them this character. I taught for the entire morning, exhausting all my efforts, yet they still could not understand it. They merely kept staring at me, and I became utterly distressed.
Behind me, the blackboard had become a dark green jungle. The white chalk character "beast" crouched upon the blackboard, roaring at me. I picked up the eraser, intending to wipe it away, but it dashed into the jungle instead. I chased after it, searching everywhere, until white chalk dust covered the entire teacher's platform.
I burst out from the blackboard and stood upon the platform. My clothes had been torn apart by the beast's claws. There were bloodstains beneath my fingernails, and the sounds of insects echoed in my ears. Looking down, I could hardly believe my eyes. I had become a four-legged vertebrate covered entirely with fur.
I roared,
"This is a beast! This is a beast!"
The elementary school students all burst into tears.
This poem, "Beast," employs surrealist techniques to stage the absurd plot of a human being transformed into a beast. In order to help his elementary school students understand the word "beast," the teacher standing at the podium actually throws himself wholeheartedly into the performance, personally acting out the farce of becoming a beast. Through witnessing the transformation from human into beast, the students gain a concrete sensory experience of the concept of "beast."
The symbolic meaning (deep meaning) of this poem may be contemplated from two perspectives:
(1) Human beings gradually evolved from primitive beasts that lived by wearing animal skins and consuming raw flesh.
(2) Vestiges of animal instinct still remain within human nature. These instincts are survival mechanisms inherited from beasts, difficult to suppress by means of morality or law. Consequently, when a person's emotions collapse or the mind breaks down, this primitive beastliness emerges.
"Gloves and Love" / Du Ye
Upon the table quietly lies an English word in black type:
glove
I use it to resist the coldness of life.
The pair of black leather gloves
she placed upon the table
covers the first letter,
perfectly allowing love
to reveal itself completely.
love
Without phonetic symbols,
we can only read it
through silence.
She picks up the pair of gloves
from the table,
allowing love to hide,
quietly placing them
upon my cold hands,
allowing love
to remain completely hidden
inside the gloves.
The English words "glove" and "love" differ by only a single letter: g.
Gloves are accessories that keep the hands warm. The poet ingeniously uses a pair of black leather gloves as the symbolic object to indirectly convey the simple yet intimate concept of love—the act of giving another person a feeling of warmth. This feeling of warmth constitutes the poem's symbolic meaning.
Within the poem, the pair of gloves functions as the driving force behind the plot. Through their placement, which conceals the first letter, the word "glove" simultaneously comes to embody the essential meaning of "love." This ingenious conception is undoubtedly one of the poem's greatest strengths.
"Dog" / Zheng Jiongming
I am not an obedient dog,
because obedient dogs do not bark.
On such a pitch-black night,
my master puts a muzzle on me
so that I cannot open my mouth and bark,
lest I awaken
everyone's beautiful dreams.
—I understand his good intentions.
Yet I cannot help but bark.
As an awakened dog,
even if no sound comes out,
I must bark,
bark without ceasing,
bark within
the deep valley of my heart,
from darkness
until dawn.
I know
I am not an obedient dog,
because obedient dogs do not bark
on such a pitch-black night.
This poem adopts the technique of objectification (treating a person as an object), employing the narrative strategy of speaking positively to express the opposite meaning. By reproaching himself as a disobedient dog, the poet expresses his own grievances and his stubborn determination to "rather cry out and die than remain silent and live."
The poet first imagines (objectifies) himself as a dog, narrating the poem from the first-person perspective of "I."
"I" am not an obedient dog because my master wants me neither to bark nor to make a sound, so as not to disturb others' peaceful dreams. Yet I insist on being "an awakened dog." I would rather bark while wearing a muzzle than remain silent as an obedient dog. Naturally, such a dog cannot win the master's favor.
The symbolic object (surface meaning), the dog, indirectly suggests a symbolic meaning (deep meaning). Older readers may immediately associate it with the era of the White Terror, when the political atmosphere was suffocating. The master (the ruling Nationalist government) suppressed and restrained the house dog (the ordinary people), yet there were still those who preferred to bark while wearing a muzzle rather than remain silent as obedient dogs—those who would rather speak out and be silenced or imprisoned than become mute and compliant.
Through vivid imagery, this poem suggests the resistance of those on the island of Taiwan during the Martial Law period who refused to surrender their freedom of speech, defiantly acting despite knowing the odds against them. It embodies the spirit of resistance and the pursuit of freedom and human rights that characterized that era.
II. Symbolism in Character Poems
"The Abandoned Woman" / Ya Xian
The woman wounded by flowers—
spring
is not her true enemy.
Her skirt
can no longer form
a beautiful,
dizzying circle.
The night
of her hair
can no longer cause
that unlit youth
to lose his way.
The river
of her era
flows backward.
She is no longer
the woman
of this year's spring.
The pipa,
lifted
from that man's hands,
shatters at once,
falling
into desolation.
The thief of affection
has fled.
The magnetic field
of masculinity
is no longer north.
She is no longer
the woman
of this year's spring.
She hates hearing
the sound
of her own blood
dripping
upon that man's name.
She hates prayer
even more,
for Jesus,
too,
is a man.
In Ya Xian's poetry collection The Abyss, poems centered on human figures account for approximately one-third of the collection. Most of the people depicted in his poems belong to society's lower classes: sailors, abandoned women, madwomen, singers, and the like.
Throughout the poem, a humorous atmosphere subtly reveals the resentment and sorrow of the abandoned woman. From the third-person narrative perspective, the plot gradually unfolds section by section. Yet behind the story lies the poet's profound humanitarian concern and compassion.
The poet understands that our patriarchal society has never viewed such humble and vulnerable people as the madwoman or the abandoned woman with fairness or dignity. What he wishes is for readers to reflect amid their laughter upon how society ought to help these humble and marginalized individuals.
"Prisoner of War" / Li Minyong
Lieutenant K
had no homeland.
When he was captured,
he swore
to abandon it.
On the day
he was repatriated,
he gazed
at those
who had come
from his homeland,
and silently
wished
to entrust himself
to them.
Weapons
were forbidden.
Militarization
was not forbidden.
The homeland
was gone.
The homeland
still remained.
A dual epistemology
was tested
upon Lieutenant K.
Perhaps one day
it will be
your turn
or mine.
The world
quietly wipes away
its tears.
The world
quietly sheds
its tears.
For Taiwanese soldiers who grew up in an age of dramatic historical upheaval, this poem fully reflects the changes in and contradictions of identity.
From the poem's narrative, we may infer that Lieutenant K was a Taiwanese youth who had been dispatched overseas to fight during the Japanese colonial period. After he was taken prisoner, Japan surrendered in defeat. According to the postwar treaties, Japan relinquished Taiwan, and consequently his nationality became that of the Republic of China, while his homeland became China.
At this point, his sense of identity became confused and conflicted. His original homeland had been Japan, but after Japan's defeat, when he was repatriated, his legal identity had become Chinese, and China became his homeland thereafter. This was the personal experience and unique historical circumstance shared by many Taiwanese of the Second World War generation.
The symbolic object, the prisoner of war, indirectly conveys precisely this psychological conflict and bewilderment over the replacement of one's homeland—the symbolic meaning embodied in the poem.
"Blood-Red Cherry Blossoms" / Chen Qufei
—— In Memory of Yukio Mishima
The stab driven into the lower abdomen severed
the tangled knots of sorrow within the intestines,
and also severed all beauty and melancholy.
Crimson blood gushed forth,
flowing toward the row of scarlet cherry blossoms before the steps.
(I heard flower fairies, seven-tenths intoxicated,
together with travelers who had journeyed from afar in search of blossoms,
calling out as they played the traditional drinking game.)
At last, Mishima,
you removed your mask,
facing, in the dusk,
The Temple of the Golden Pavilion,
as inscrutable as a Zen gāthā.
You raised the blade,
mercilessly dissecting
the youthful flesh of your own body.
Yet death can neither
nor should ever
be rehearsed.
Spring Snow, sharp as a knife's edge,
slashes across again and again.
A delicate and exquisitely refined palace romance
was destined to become
a tragedy that had to be relinquished.
Yet when I hurried back
from The Sea of Fertility,
Mishima,
you had nailed yourself
upon the thorns of roses,
like the bluebird of legend
that abandoned worldly love.
That incomparably poignant elegy
was, after all, only meant
to make every wall
and every mountainside,
as though by prior agreement,
cast forth
an eternal echo
that shall never perish.
Amid the crimson petals covering the ground,
every petal
is saturated with the color of blood.
After Confessions of a Mask,
how many red blood cells
could possibly remain
within the veins,
unable to flee in time?
Those tragic notes
that froze
before they had time to cry out,
frozen within the wind—
what kind of dazzling sparks
must they strike
from your very soul,
to ignite,
within the deepest valleys of human hearts,
the withered branches
and yellow leaves
of fame and profit
that have accumulated
throughout the years?
In this poem, the author employs the concrete image of the "blood-red cherry blossom" (the symbolic object) to portray the rapidly declining spirit of Bushidō (the symbolic meaning) in postwar Japanese society under American occupation. The tragic novelist Yukio Mishima becomes the very embodiment of the blood-red cherry blossom: at the moment when the cherry blossoms bloom in their greatest splendor, he resolutely brings his uncompromising life to an end with a tragic sense of beauty.
"Through all eternity, death alone remains the hardest trial." Mishima Yukio's ritual suicide by the sword manifests the most heroic spirit of martyrdom embodied in Bushidō.
Within the poem, the author weaves several of Mishima's celebrated novels into the unfolding narrative, dramatizing his brief yet magnificent life, radiant and resplendent like the blood-red cherry blossoms themselves.
III. Symbolism of Things
"Out of Thin Air" / Chen Li
A spider—I think of
occupying several branches,
spinning poetry—
transparent warp and weft of verses,
an empire,
a complete sky.
After the rain,
the wind blows.
In this poem, the author uses the pun "spinning poetry", whose pronunciation echoes "spinning silk," to describe the spider occupying several tree branches and spinning poetry. This prompts the author to associate the spider with the poet, who diligently "weaves an empire with transparent warp and weft of verses," erecting a utopian heavenly web of poetry (and silk).
The spider and its web are the concrete symbolic objects, indirectly referring to the poet and the heavenly web woven through poetry (the symbolic meaning).
"The Sanzhangli Shooting Range" / Lo Fu
Just as I was about
to write a poem about war,
the echoes
of the Sanzhangli Shooting Range
fell one by one
upon my manuscript paper.
When there were
no side dishes for drinking,
the bullets crackled and popped,
stir-frying for me
a plate of green peas.
Wait—
How can I
raise a toast
with another person's blood?
"The echoes falling one by one upon the manuscript paper" shifts from the auditory sense to the visual sense, a synesthetic technique that transforms sound into form.
The bullets and the green peas not only resemble each other visually but also acoustically, constituting a double association through similarity.
The intensive gunfire from the shooting range causes the author, who is drinking wine while eating stir-fried green peas, to experience an illusion, as though he had returned once again to a battlefield strewn with casualties amid a hail of bullets. Thus he hesitates and asks himself:
"How can I raise a toast / with another person's blood?"
The poem is rich in irony and subtle wit.
The symbolic objects in this poem include the shooting range, bullets, and green peas—several concrete central images that collectively evoke the author's memories of having experienced the horrors of brutal warfare, reminding himself never to forget the experiences and lessons of war (the symbolic meaning).
"When the West Wind Passed By" / Zheng Chouyu
Merely passing by in this manner—
the west wind—
merely extinguished my candle
and passed by just like that.
Leaving only
an unfinished book
in my hand,
yet causing
the darkness filling the room
to reflect
the deep blue beyond the window.
When the falling parasol leaves
drift
like echoes from distant years,
like a leaf
lightly pressed
between one's fingers;
when the melancholy
of evening
congeals within my eyes
because the candlelight
has gone out—
at this moment,
I cannot help
remembering
those youthful years.
Ah,
those years—
love passed by
just as
the west wind
passed by.
The west wind is the poem's central image and also its symbolic object, developing into two layers of symbolic meaning: youth and love that could never be held back.
The drifting parasol leaf resembles an echo from distant years. Although one may comprehend it, one can never retain those vanished voices and images of the past.
The poem begins with emotion arising from a scene: the west wind extinguishes the candle. At that moment, the author is reading beneath the candlelight. As the room suddenly falls into darkness and a parasol leaf drifts past the window, memories of youth naturally return. Yet the deeper the recollection, the more profoundly the poet sinks into the melancholy of life's twilight.
IV. Fable Poems
"The Snail and the Oriole" / Chen Hongwen
A grapevine stands before Amen, Ah-Qian.
Tender green shoots
have only just begun to sprout.
The snail,
bearing its heavy shell,
climbs upward
step by step.
Upon the tree,
two orioles
laugh and giggle at it.
"The grapes
are far from ripe.
Why climb up
so early?"
"O golden oriole,
please don't laugh.
By the time
I reach the top,
the grapes
will have ripened."
This children's song first appeared around the 1970s during the rise of Taiwan's Campus Folk Song movement. Its story is vivid and lively.
The protagonist is an honest and sincere snail; the antagonists are two flippant orioles. The principal setting is a grape trellis surrounded by several trees.
The opposing attitudes toward the ripening of the grapes sharply contrast with one another. The orioles ridicule the snail for beginning its climb far too early, while the snail calmly replies that by the time it reaches the top of the trellis, the grapes will have ripened, allowing it to enjoy them to its heart's content.
In this children's song, with animals serving as the principal characters, the snail and the orioles function as contrasting symbolic objects representing positive and negative values. They symbolize the truth that those who work steadily and diligently with both feet firmly on the ground will ultimately enjoy sweet rewards (the symbolic meaning). The poem's thematic significance is wholesome and affirmative.
"Sky Burial Poem" / Fei Ma
Panting for breath,
they carried
a nearly decayed
poetic body
onto the sky-burial platform.
Before they even had time
to hack it apart
with axes and knives,
it collapsed
and dismembered itself.
After applying fragrant oil,
they flung
those once magnificent,
resonant
fragments of words
and blocks of characters
high into the sky,
allowing
the messengers of death
to escort them
into transcendence.
Perched
upon withered branches
not far away,
a flock of vultures
kept their wings tightly folded,
allowing
those bloodless,
fleshless things
to flutter
throughout the sky.
They merely looked on
without the slightest concern.
Having been deceived
several times before,
they had all
grown wiser.
Upon the sky-burial platform lies a poetic body (Symbolic Object 1). Through the homophonic pun between poetic body and corpse, a phonetic association is established.
Before the sky-burial master can even dismember it, the poetic body collapses and disintegrates by itself, producing an effect characteristic of magical realism.
A poetic body that disassembles itself suggests that the poem possesses a loose and disorganized structure.
The sky-burial master therefore simply anoints it with fragrant oil and throws those once magnificent and sonorous fragments of words and blocks of characters high into the sky, allowing the messengers of death to escort them into transcendence.
The messengers of death (Symbolic Object 2) suggest to the author those literary critics who insist upon forcing interpretations upon poems (fortunately, I do not count myself among them). These messengers solemnly guide these rather unreliable drifting images into transcendence, extravagantly praising them with obvious satirical intent.
Meanwhile, the vultures perched upon the dead branches remain remarkably calm in the face of these bloodless and fleshless things drifting through the air. They understand perfectly well that these insubstantial poetic bodies possess neither genuine spirit nor real flesh and bone. Having been deceived several times before, they have become wiser, responding only with complete indifference.
These vultures (Symbolic Object 3) symbolize readers who have repeatedly been deceived yet have become increasingly discerning and composed.
Viewed as a sequence of continuous visual scenes, this poem overflows with the satirical pleasure of lashing and exposing the hypocrisy and pretentiousness found within the modern poetry world. This constitutes the poem's deeper symbolic meaning.
From the perspective of an observer, the author ridicules the abundance of poor poetry in literary circles. Literary critics, acting like messengers of death, ramble endlessly, fabricating extravagant interpretations and insisting on ushering these poems into literary salvation, whereas the calm, observant readers—symbolized by the wise vultures—simply ignore them, refusing to join in the empty commotion.
"I Met Snow White at the Fruit and Vegetable Market" / Luo Renling
It happened this morning.
I met Snow White
at the fruit and vegetable market.
She looked
aged and melancholy,
busy bargaining
over a green apple.
"But weren't you poisoned...?"
"Who told you that?"
she replied,
turning
her plump waist.
"The fairy tale book
I read as a child!"
I answered loudly.
"As a child?
I stopped believing
in fairy tales
long ago."
She counted
on her thick fingers,
continuing
to haggle
over a peach.
"But...
the Prince Charming
kissed you awake,
and afterward..."
I persisted.
"Afterward?
You mean
Prince Charming?
He invested
in the stock market
and lost
thirty million."
"But the book says
you both lived
happily ever after..."
I murmured.
"I told you.
That was only
a fairy tale.
However...
I really did
play Snow White once."
Carrying
her apples and peaches,
she seemed
to sink
into profound contemplation.
This poem belongs to a type of meta-poetry. Its preexisting text is the familiar fairy tale of Snow White.
Its fascination lies in combining parody with an intention to subvert the original narrative, calmly constructing an imagined continuation of the story.
Through dialogue, the author gradually reveals the vulgar realities of the married life of Snow White and Prince Charming.
Snow White has become overweight, aged, and melancholy. At the produce market she bargains with fruit vendors over a few pieces of fruit.
Narrated in the first person, the speaker repeatedly questions the unexpectedly encountered Snow White while observing her immediate reactions and behavior. Her replies continually shatter the narrator's romantic expectations of the fairy tale:
(1) She never actually ate the poisoned apple given by the Evil Queen.
(2) Her obesity, aging, and melancholy obviously have nothing to do with any poisoned apple, but instead arise from the hardships of everyday life together with her own fondness for good food.
(3) Her difficult circumstances result from Prince Charming's disastrous stock-market investments, through which he lost an enormous fortune.
The ending delivers the greatest surprise. Snow White bursts the narrator's long-held bubble of imagination by explaining that she truly did play the role of Snow White—but only as a stage performer entertaining children. In real life, she lives an ordinary, difficult, and thoroughly unromantic existence.
The poem possesses highly distinctive characteristics of a fable. The symbolic object is Snow White, while the setting is the bustling fruit and vegetable market. Its symbolic meaning (moral) points directly to the truth that the world of fairy tales has always been fictional, a comforting illusion created by adults for innocent children. Though this moral may appear cruel, it is nevertheless a reality that everyone must eventually confront in the course of growing up.
Notes
- Quoted from Comprehensive Guide to Rhetoric, edited by Cheng Wei-jun and two co-editors, Taipei: Jianhong Publishing, 1998, p. 1092.
- In his review of Resurrection Grass, Lo Fu wrote: "Zhou Mengdie's poetry concerns not merely the expression of his emotions or his personal philosophical attitude and method, but rather the way a modern poet, through an inner sense of profound solitude, universalizes his personal (the lesser self) tragic experience into the universal (the greater self) by means of suggestion and symbolism, while offering a serious critique of that tragic condition."
