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赏析
柳宗元笔下的山水诗有个显著的特点，那就是把客观境界写得比较幽僻，而诗人的主观的心情则显得比较寂寞，甚至有时不免过于孤独，过于冷清，不带一点人间烟火气。这首《江雪》正是这样，诗人只用了二十个字，就描绘了一幅幽静寒冷的画面：在下着大雪的江面上，一叶小舟，一个老渔翁，独自在寒冷的江心垂钓。
诗人向读者展示的，是这样一些内容：天地之间是如此纯洁而寂静，一尘不染，万籁无声；渔翁的生活是如此清高，渔翁的性格是如此孤傲。其实，这正是柳宗元由于憎恨当时那个一天天在走下坡路的唐代社会而创造出来的一个幻想境界，比起陶渊明《桃花源记》里的人物，恐怕还要显得虚无缥缈，远离尘世。诗人所要具体描写的本极简单，不过是一条小船，一个穿蓑衣戴笠帽的老渔翁，在大雪的江面上钓鱼，如此而已。可是，为了突出主要的描写对象，诗人不惜用一半篇幅去描写它的背景，而且使这个背景尽量广大寥廓，几乎到了浩瀚无边的程度。背景越广大，主要的描写对象就越显得突出。
首先，诗人用“千山”、“万径”这两个词，目的是为了给下面两句的“孤舟”和“独钓”的画面作陪衬。没有“千”、“万”两字，下面的“孤”、“独”两字也就平淡无奇，没有什么感染力了。其次，山上的鸟飞，路上的人踪，这本来是极平常的事，也是最一般化的形象。可是，诗人却把它们放在“千山”、“万径”的下面，再加上一个“绝”和一个“灭”字，这就把最常见的、最一般化的动态，一下子给变成极端的寂静、绝对的沉默，形成一种不平常的景象。因此，下面两句原来是属于静态的描写，由于摆在这种绝对幽静、绝对沉寂的背景之下，倒反而显得玲珑剔透，有了生气，在画面上浮动起来、活跃起来了。也可以这样说，前两句本来是陪衬的远景，照一般理解，只要勾勒个轮廓也就可以了，不必费很大气力去精雕细刻。可是，诗人却恰好不这样处理。这好像拍电影，用放大了多少倍的特写镜头，把属于背景范围的每一个角落都交代得、反映得一清二楚。写得越具体细致，就越显得概括夸张。而后面的两句，本来是诗人有心要突出描写的对象，结果却使用了远距离的镜头，反而把它缩小了多少倍，给读者一种空灵剔透、可见而不可即的感觉。只有这样写，才能表达作者所迫切希望展示给读者的那种摆脱世俗、超然物外的清高孤傲的思想感情。至于这种远距离感觉的形成，主要是作者把一个“雪”字放在全诗的最末尾，并且同“江”字连起来所产生的效果。
“雪”字笼罩全诗。“千山”、“万径”都是雪，才使得“鸟飞绝”、“人踪灭”。就连船篷上，渔翁的蓑笠上，当然也都是雪。可是作者并没有把这些景物同“雪”明显地联系在一起。相反，在这个画面里，只有江，只有江心。江，当然不会存雪，不会被雪盖住，而且即使雪下到江里，也立刻会变成水。然而作者却偏偏用了“寒江雪”三个字，把“江”和“雪”这两个关系最远的形象联系到一起，这就给人以一种比较空蒙、比较遥远、比较缩小了的感觉，这就形成了远距离的镜头。这就使得诗中主要描写的对象更集中、更灵巧、更突出。因为连江里都仿佛下满了雪，连不存雪的地方都充满了雪，这就把雪下得又大又密、又浓又厚的情形完全写出来了，把水天不分、上下苍茫一片的气氛也完全烘托出来了。至于上面再用一个“寒”字，固然是为了点明气候；但诗人的主观意图却是在想不动声色地写出渔翁的精神世界。试想，在这样一个寒冷寂静的环境里，那个老渔翁竟然不怕天冷，不怕雪大，忘掉了一切，专心地钓鱼，形体虽然孤独，性格却显得清高孤傲，甚至有点凛然不可侵犯似的。
这个被幻化了的、美化了的渔翁形象，实际正是柳宗元本人的思想感情的寄托和写照。由此可见，这“寒江雪”三字正是“画龙点睛”之笔，它把全诗前后两部分有机地联系起来，不但形成了一幅凝炼概括的图景，也塑造了渔翁完整突出的形象。用具体而细致的手法来摹写背景，用远距离画面来描写主要形象；精雕细琢和极度的夸张概括，错综地统一在一首诗里，是这首山水小诗独有的艺术特色。
appreciation
Liu Zongyuan’s landscape poetry has a remarkable feature, that is, he writes the objective realm more secluded, while the poet’s subjective mood is lonely, and sometimes even too lonely, too cold, without any earthly fireworks. The poem “Snow on the River” is just like this. The poet only used 20 words to describe a quiet and cold picture: on the snowy river, a small boat, an old fisherman, fishing alone in the cold river center.
What the poet shows the readers is that the world is so pure and silent, spotless and silent; The fisherman’s life is so noble, and his character is so aloof. In fact, this is exactly a fantasy created by Liu Zongyuan because he hated the declining society of the Tang Dynasty at that time. Compared with the characters in Tao Yuanming’s “The Peach Blossom Garden”, it may be more illusory and far away from the world. What the poet wants to describe specifically is very simple. It’s just a small boat, an old fisherman in coir raincoat and hat, fishing on the snowy river, and that’s all. However, in order to highlight the main description object, the poet did not hesitate to use half of the space to describe its background, and made the background as vast as possible, almost to the extent of vastness. The wider the background, the more prominent the main description object.
First of all, the poet used the words “thousand mountains” and “ten thousand paths” to set off the following two sentences of “solitary boat” and “solitary fishing”. Without the words “thousand” and “ten thousand”, the following words “solitary” and “alone” would be insipid and have no appeal. Secondly, birds flying on the mountain and people on the road are the most common things and the most general images. However, the poet put them under the “Thousand Mountains” and “Thousand Paths”, and added a word “Jue” and a word “Mie”, which turned the most common and general dynamic into extreme silence and absolute silence, forming an unusual scene. Therefore, the following two sentences originally belong to static description. Because they are placed in this absolutely quiet and silent background, they appear exquisite, lively and floating on the screen. It can also be said that the first two sentences were originally the background of the vision. According to the general understanding, it is OK to just draw a outline, without much effort to elaborate. However, the poet did not deal with it this way. It’s like making a movie. With the close-up lens magnified many times, every corner of the background is clearly explained and reflected. The more specific and detailed the writing, the more generalized and exaggerated it appears. The latter two sentences, originally intended to highlight the object of the description, used a long-distance lens, instead reducing it many times, giving the reader a feeling of ethereal clarity, visibility and unreachability. Only by writing in this way can the author express the kind of lofty and aloof thoughts and feelings that the author is eager to show to the readers to get rid of the secular world. As for the formation of this sense of distance, it is mainly because the author puts a word “snow” at the end of the whole poem and connects it with the word “river”.
The word “snow” covers the whole poem. “Thousands of mountains” and “thousands of paths” are all snow, which makes “birds fly away” and “people disappear”. Even the canopies and fisherman’s rainbows are of course snow. However, the author did not clearly associate these scenes with “snow”. On the contrary, in this picture, there is only the river and the center of the river. The river, of course, will not store snow, will not be covered by snow, and even if the snow falls into the river, it will immediately become water. However, the author uses the words “cold river and snow” to connect the two most distant images of “river” and “snow”, which gives people a feeling of emptiness, remoteness and shrinking, which forms a long-distance lens. This makes the main objects described in the poem more concentrated, more dexterous and more prominent. Because even the river seems to be full of snow, and even the places where there is no snow are full of snow, this completely describes the situation that the snow is heavy, dense, thick, and sets off the atmosphere that the water and the sky are indistinguishable and the sky are vast. As for the use of the word “cold” above, of course, it is to point out the climate; But the poet’s subjective intention is to write down the fisherman’s spiritual world quietly. Imagine that in such a cold and quiet environment, the old fisherman was not afraid of the cold weather and heavy snow, forgot everything, and concentrated on fishing. Although his body was lonely, his character seemed aloof and arrogant, even a little awe inspiring and inviolable.
This illusory and beautified image of the fisherman is actually the sustenance and portrayal of Liu Zongyuan’s own thoughts and feelings. It can be seen that the words “cold river and snow” are just the finishing touch. They organically link the front and back parts of the whole poem, forming not only a concise and general picture, but also a complete and prominent image of the fisherman. Use specific and detailed techniques to describe the background, and use remote pictures to describe the main image; Elaborate and extreme exaggeration are integrated into one poem, which is the unique artistic feature of this landscape poem.
