Seen the content and theme of the long poem, it seems to be of plural meanings, though it is difficult to make a clear anatomy. Still we find some hidden meaning from the clues or traces revealed by the poet. Generally speaking, long poems involve some understanding of history, yet they have the dimension of reality; it has something to do with the tribulation of souls, though it seems deep and painful, it does not appear totally empty; it also has something to do with individual fate, among which some complicated emotions are involved; the poet seems to be conscious of the individual loss in history, but at the same time he appears hesitant and perplexed; the poet has obvious expectation of the confrontation between an individual and history, but he seems to be enmeshed in a deep sense of loss. Therefore, the theme of the long poem does not lead to a transparent entity, which shows the poet’s sense of history is perhaps divergent, and shows the poet’s hesitation about history and alertness about reality. Of course, there if a sense of feebleness before history; history is, after all, invisible, and arrayed with no things; the devouring force is easy to make people so panic-stricken that they sink into deeper perplexity. In the tension structure formed by history, reality, imagination, existence, and mythical element, the long poem hides a deep meaning structure of spiritual root-seeking. The poet thus says in his preface:
I know a riverWhich is called the Yellow River
Which is Salar’s eternal memory
And far-reaching echo
Of the river
On the surface of it, spiritual root-seeking is retreating, or escaping into emptiness, but at
the same time it means search and convert; it is a spiritual form which faces self reflection, which
contains a kind of sound historical reason and realistic criticism. On the other hand, this kind of spiritual root-seeking means convert and savior; the process of root-seeking is also the process of historical construction and spiritual construction, which manifests itself as yearning for spiritual home, search for pure existence of poetry — this makes the long poem divulge a deep concern and worry about the reality. The preposterous elements occasionally revealed in the poem seem to disclose the worries in the heart of the poet; at the same time, the poet’s melancholy is strengthened and magnified, and the theme of the long poem is tinctured with a complicated emotion arising from spiritual root-seeking, which is easily shown in the movement of the long poem:
Out of the door the mountain greets
Behind the door it is the river O mountain and river
For the existent the origin of the world
The fleet gaze at the floating cloud overhead
Flowing past agedly — let the master of the river wonder and marvel
Whose feet attempt to step into the same river?
In face of the attack of a storm a wisp of smile still remains intact
Lo the thought enveloped in bitter water is building a nest in your belly
The spectacular view under Aerdingfu Yiren’s pen seems to function as a hint: the hard process of spiritual root-seeking also contains an open-minded rational spirit. Actually, spiritual root-seeking, in a sense, means escaping— but escaping is not equal to shirking historical responsibility and realistic duty, but to search for hope and redemption; it is to realize a sound will of life in the layer of opposition. The same scene repeats itself for many times, which metaphorically refers to the corresponding connection between escaping and spiritual root-seeking:
O, river the swan song of life
The idea of myriads of things and beings
The symbol of the world is like blood and duskLike a lotus blossom growing out of the ruins
With the most touching smiling face to open to all sides
Exhibiting countless bloody flowers
Escaping may be said to be a literary theme throughout the world, but in the hands of different writers, it is dealt with different literary imaginations. For example, The Wild Grass by Lu Xun is an escaping from perplexity to sobriety, and the author is lost in emptiness owing to his too much sobriety, and he leaves a big pain to the readers — so as to exhibit the sharpness and profundity of thought, while showing the writer’s irrepressible pain and contradictory psychology when facing reality; The Border Town by Shen Congwen is a spiritual escaping when the writer abandons himself: it is of course an escaping when the author goes out of his native place in the west of Hunan Province, but when he is bodily in a city and spiritually retreating to his hometown so as to steep himself in the construction of “the world of the west of Hunan Province” in his literary creation, it is also a kind of escaping. The border town is no more than a mirage created in the literary heart of Shen Congwen; he covers up the sadness and pain which he so sharply feels in realistic life with his smiles, and he doodles his seemingly happy mood in a landscape tantamount to Peach-Blossom-Eden, while he hides himself in an aesthetic Utopia; in Fortress Besieged by Qian Zhongshu, the life tragedy and spiritual dilemma of modern people are disclosed — it is also with the theme of escaping: whether people within or without the fortress, they are all in the state of spiritual wandering and, owing to the inherent weakness of human beings, the inner heart of each person is a closed fortress, whose entrance is difficult not only for other people, but also difficult for himself.Therefore, substantially, each person is a lonely fortress: not only it is difficult for him to communicate with
