If most of the poems in The Book of Songs are written by folk poets, and the animal images used in them are closely related to their lives, then the animal images used by Qu Yuan, a great poet in the pre-Qin period, are different from those used in folk songs. For example, in his masterpiece Li Sao, Qu Yuan used some animals to express his feelings:
"Birds of prey are not crowded, since past lives";
"I use owls as a medium, owls accuse me of being bad, and the dove dies, but I still hate its coincidence";
"I drive a flying dragon, dazzling like a car";
"Phoenix wings carry flags and fly high";
"Driving eight dragons gracefully, holding the cloud flag as a snake", and so on.
In Qu Yuan's poems, there is such a famous saying:
"The phoenix is far from the phoenix, and the swallow is in the nest" (see Shejiang). There are six kinds of birds in these two poems: Luan, Feng, Yan, Sparrow, Thrush and Magpie.
Among the two Han Yuefu poems, there are many poems that use animal images. In the long poem "Jiao Zhongqing's Wife", peacocks and mandarin ducks are used to express the feelings between men and women, which begins with "peacocks flying southeast and wandering five miles" and ends with:
"There are two birds in it, calling themselves Yuanyang; Raise your head and sing to each other, reaching the fifth watch every night. Pedestrians stop to listen, and widows are embarrassed. "
There is a saying in "Joining the Army in the Fifteenth Ancient Poem" that "the rabbit enters from the dog's sinus and the pheasant flies from the beam". The poem "Jiangnan" especially depicts the scene of fish playing in the water: "Jiangnan can pick lotus leaves, and the fish play among them." Fish plays lotus leaf east, fish plays lotus leaf west, fish plays lotus leaf south and fish plays lotus leaf north. " Five of the seven short poems are about fish. The famous sentences related to animals in this period are: "A pair of orioles who wish to return to their hometown" ("Ancient Poetry Stepping Out of the East Gate of the City"); "Humayu crosses the south branch of bird's nest in accordance with the north wind" ("Ancient Poetry Biography") and so on.
In the last twenty poems of the historical figure Cao Cao, there are not a few who use animal images. For example, in "Although Retreating", three kinds of animals are written:
"Although the tortoise is long-lived, it is still sometimes; Turn a snake into fog, and it will eventually turn to dust. The old horse crouches, aiming at thousands of miles; In the year of martyrs, go forward bravely. "
In his poems, there is such a poem:
"White bones are exposed in the wild, and there are no crows in a thousand miles." (Hao)
"Bears are respectful to me, while tigers and leopards crow." ("Journey to the Cold")
Let's look at the poems of great poets in the Tang Dynasty, such as Li Bai, Du Fu and Bai Juyi.
Li Bai's famous sentence is:
"The apes on both sides of the strait are crying, and the canoe has passed Chung Shan Man." ("Xiajiangling")
"When you, my love, rode on a bamboo horse, trotted around in circles and threw green plums ... then in the fifth month, I couldn't help it anymore ... Huang Die in August, hovering around the grass in our west garden." (Long March)
However, among the famous poems in Shu Dao Nan are Yu Fu, Bird Island, Six Dragons, Yellow Crane, Ape Face, Sad Birds, Zigui, Wolf, Tiger and Long Snake.
In Du Fu's poems, there are many animal images. The famous poem is:
"When the morning glory is rolled up at night, Yuanyang lies side by side." (Beauty)
"Later, your dragon horse, born from heaven, drove the horses on the ground for ten thousand generations." (Hu Feng)
"Angels ride horses to the paradise capital near Polaris, some of them are diaphragm gods, others are unicorns." ("Imperial edict to Han Zhu")
"Its bitter heart may now be occupied by black ants and white ants. Ye Xiang used to stay with her husband and wife." ("Cooper")
"Petals fall like tears, and lonely birds sing their sorrows." (Hope in Spring)
Bai Juyi's long poems are the most famous. He left a famous saying to future generations: "We hope that two birds will be one, fly in the sky, grow together on the ground, and have two branches in one tree." ("Song of Eternal Sorrow"); "What can you hear here in the morning and evening? The cuckoo's blood cries and the ape's sobs are often recited by later generations.
In their poems and those of other poets in the Tang Dynasty, all kinds of animal images can be seen everywhere. Limited by space, I won't go into details here.
Song ci developed on the basis of Tang poetry. Animal images can also be seen everywhere in Song Ci. For example, the famous poet Ouyang Xiu wrote:
"That's all, let all the tourists go, just feel the spring is empty. Hanging curtains, Shuang Yan is drizzling. " ("picking mulberry seeds")
"When the Nanyuan spring outing was halfway through, the wind blew the smell of Ma Si. Green plums are like beans and eyebrows, and butterflies fly every day. ..... The swing is sleepy, and the painting hall is in Shuang Yan. " (Ruan Langgui) In this poem, the author wrote about three kinds of animals: horse, butterfly and Shuang Yan.
The great poet Su Shi left some famous sentences for later generations:
"Flowers fade, red apricots are small, swallows fly, and green water people are around." (Recent Love)
"Foot bud short dip creek. There is no mud on the loose sand road, and it is raining at dusk. " ("Huanxisha")
In the dream of Li Qingzhao, a poetess, there is something like this:
"Fight for the ferry, fight for the ferry, and start the gull heron pool."
Xin Qiji wrote three kinds of animals in one sentence:
"At the beginning of the three paths, the crane complains that the ape is surprised, and Jiaxuan will be in the future. ..... On the Qiu Jiang, watch the geese and avoid, and the waves will return. " ("Qinyuanchun, a new house with a lake will become a success")
In another of his poems, there are also three kinds of animals:
"The bright moon don't branch surprised magpie, the wind cicadas in the middle of the night. In the fragrance of rice flowers, it is said that the harvest year is good and the frogs sound. " (Xijiangyue)
Sanqu, a new form of poetry, prevailed in Yuan Dynasty. Poets are still inseparable from the use of animal images in Sanqu. Here only take Ma Zhiyuan's Qiu Si as an example:
"Old vines faint crows, bridges flowing water. The ancient road and the west wind are thin. When the sun sets, heartbroken people are at the end of the world. " In a short poem, there are two animal images (black crow and thin horse).
What we have introduced above are the works of ancient poets. In fact, contemporary poets also use animal images to express their feelings in their works. Here we only take the poems of Comrade Mao Zedong as an example. As early as 1925, there was a saying in Mao Zedong's first poem "Qinyuanchun Changsha": "The eagle hits the sky and the fish jumps shallow."
Many famous poems by Comrade Mao Zedong contain animal images, such as:
"Yellow crane know where to go? There are still tourists left. " ("Bodhisattva Man Yellow Crane Tower")
"Wan Zhang Changying wants to tie Kun Peng." ("Dead Hua Lian, from Tingzhou to Changsha")
"The west wind is strong, and the geese in the sky are called Frost Morning Moon." ("Recalling Qin E Lou Shan Guan")
"The horse was whipped, but it was not saddled." "Ten thousand horses are still fighting." ("Three Sixteen-character Orders")
"Chang Ying is in hand today, when will the black dragon be tied?" ("Qingpingle Liupanshan")
"A generation of Tianjiao, Genghis Khan, only knows how to shoot an eagle with a bow." ("Qinyuan Spring Snow")
"The dragon plate of the tiger is better than in the past, upside down and generous." ("Seven Laws, the People's Liberation Army Occupy Nanjing")
"Sharpening the knife in Kunming is shallow, and watching fish is better than Fuchun River." (Seven Laws and Mr. Liu Yazi).
"Singing a rooster is all white on earth." (Huanxisha and Mr. Liu Yazi)
"Unique heroes drive butch, no heroes are afraid of bears. It is not surprising that plum blossoms warm the snow and freeze flies. " ("Seven Laws and Winter Clouds")
"Ants exaggerate the country, and trees attract the wind." (Comrade Man Jianghong and Guo Moruo)
"Singing and dancing everywhere." ("Shuidiao Song Heading on Jinggangshan")
People's Literature Publishing House 1976 edition of "Poems of Chairman Mao" contains 39 poems, 48 of which are related to animals, involving more than 20 kinds of animals, such as eagles, fish, turtles, snakes, cranes, geese, swallows, horses, cows, sheep,