Dictionary of Common Essay Writing Categories for Describing Scenery

Author: Du Mu Xiu
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2005-02-01
Features: In my youth, I had a deep love for literature, reading both Chinese and foreign novels and masterpieces. Besides the vivid and diverse characters that left a lasting impression, the poetic and picturesque descriptions of landscapes with rich lyrical charm also etched unforgettable memories in my mind. For example:
- Pushkin's verse novel Eugene Onegin depicts the rural scenery of Russia and the outlines of St. Petersburg and Moscow;
- Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time describes the snow-capped Caucasus peaks;
- Turgenev's Notes from a Hunter portrays summer dawn, twilight, and night, as well as dew, wind, sunlight, and moonlight;
- Tolstoy's War and Peace vividly depicts the old oak tree that induces Prince Andrei's contemplation in different ways;
- Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre-Dame introduces the cathedral and streets of Paris in the 15th century;
- Sienkiewicz's The Lighthouse Keeper portrays the turbulent sea and isolated island;
- Andric, the Nobel laureate and Bosnian writer, in The Bridge on the Drina, describes the eleven-arched stone bridge standing in the rapids;
- Cao Xueqin's Dream of the Red Chamber renders the setting where Lin Daiyu and Shi Xiangyun secretly meet by the water's edge at the Moonlit Pavilion on the Mid-Autumn Festival;
- Mao Dun's The Midnight depicts the bustling, glamorous, and noisy capitalist metropolis of Shanghai in the 1930s.
All of these, like character portrayal, are also a creation and discovery of beauty.
At that time, there were many prose collections, but the landscapes that still enchant me are Bing Xin's Letters to Little Readers and Huang Yamen's The Black Sea, the Beautiful Black Sea. Letters to Little Readers describes foreign landscapes—whether the morning and evening light on the lake, the stars and shadows among the trees, the snow-covered mountains, or the heavy rain and thick clouds, or the pine groves, small pavilions, or the wind and sea waves, the wild birds and flowers—the language is elegant and pure, and the expression is exquisite and divine, unmatched to this day. The Black Sea, the Beautiful Black Sea records observations from traveling in the Soviet Union, with the two chapters describing the sanatorium on the northern coast of the Black Sea particularly free, fresh, and ethereal, as if readers were strolling on the beach under the vast sky, bathed in moonlight, smelling the sea breeze, hearing the faint piano music, and breathing air so clean that not a single speck of dust is visible—readers and the author together dream of the sea. These two books were written 20 years apart—one about America, the other about the Soviet Union—but their excellence in landscape description is the same.
In foreign prose, Washington Irving's The Alhambra deeply impressed me. It describes the palace gardens built by the Moorish kings in Granada, Spain, in the 13th century. With unique and beautiful prose, the author portrays the desolate mountains and plains of Spain and the delicate and magnificent Islamic-style court architecture, blending them with beautiful legends to depict courtyards, corridors, baths, gardens, castles, towers, and monasteries, the nights filled with the sound of guitar and castanets, the patterns on weathered columns, and rooms that once shone brilliantly but now decayed, creating an illusion of fantasy and fear in the night. The scenery and emotions are intertwined, making it a treasure trove of landscape writing—no matter which passage is chosen, it surpasses ordinary writing by far! And Heine's Journey to the Harz Mountains, thanks to Mr. Feng Zhi's translation, though not a thick book, sparkles with the author's free and unrestrained thoughts and wit. In an era of spiritual repression, it can be considered a rare gem.
As for landscape and object description, it is an indispensable part of literary writing. Writers "speak through images and pictures," and literature belongs to the realm of art. It has been proven that landscape and object description are not mere "decorations" or "ornaments" but possess unique artistic value.
Excellent landscape descriptions can reveal the historical background and regional features; they can introduce characters' identities, enhance their emotions, set the atmosphere, and display their personalities; they can evoke poetic and artistic feelings, and deepen the themes of the work.
Prose, poetry, and fiction are different genres with different requirements for landscape description and varying roles. In novels, it serves character portrayal; in poetry and prose, it strives for emotional expression. The general requirement is "to describe the indescribable scene as if it were before your eyes" (a quote by Song Meiyong, as seen in Ouyang Xiu's Notes on Poetry). Therefore, most renowned writers, both Chinese and foreign, are masters of landscape and object description, leaving us countless beloved passages and highly praised works.
In Chinese classical literature, the emphasis on landscape and object description can be traced back to an ancient tradition. The famous lines in poetry, ci, sanqu, zaju, and chuancheng are too numerous to count here. Works like The Commentary on the Waterways Classic and Records of the Monasteries of Luoyang, the grand prose of the Han Dynasty, the parallel prose of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the descriptive essays, the writings of Liu Zongyuan, Bai Juyi, and Su Shi on mountains and waters, the landscape essays of Yuan Hongdao and Zhang Dai, as well as the masters like Lu Xun, Guo Moruo, Yu Dafu, Xu Zhimo, Zhu Ziqing, Ye Shengtao, Zheng Zhenduo, Liang Shiqiu, Feng Zikai, Ye Lingfeng, Ai Wu, Zhong Jingwen, Ji Xianlin, Sun Li, Ye Junjian, and Wang Zengqi—all have led the way, each excelling in their time.
Therefore, I believe that studying and learning from the techniques and examples of outstanding writers in China and abroad in describing landscapes will greatly benefit the improvement of literary appreciation and writing skills.
Over the past 20 years, the introductions or reintroductions of writers like Tatsuo Yoshida, Mark Twain, Rabindranath Tagore, Henry James, Kahlil Gibran, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Edith Wharton, E.M. Forster, Arthur Morrison, Robert Louis Stevenson, Ivan Bunin, Ivan Shmelyov, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Prosper Mérimée, Robert Louis Stevenson, Paul Gaultier, Charles Baudelaire, Stefan Zweig, Chateaubriand, Buffon, Anatole France, George Sand, and Karel ?apek have shown us unfamiliar or entirely unknown natural environments and life scenes, revealing the richness and vitality of natural landscapes and the animal and plant worlds, while also depicting the countless remnants and magnificent realities of human civilization shaped by different cultures. Though they wrote in different languages, through the creative efforts of translators, their works were beautifully expressed in Chinese, making them natural subjects for our appreciation and learning.
In China, a new generation of prose writers has begun to sing their songs, and overseas Chinese writers are continuously sharing the charm of foreign lands, opening windows for us to see a variety of landscapes.
Based on these thoughts, we have, like bees, gathered widely and compiled this Common Writing Landscape Description Classification Dictionary over several years.
This dictionary differs from general "Student Writing Description Dictionaries" in its emphasis on exemplarity and its nature as a specialized literary description dictionary. Therefore, all descriptive passages are selected from the prose and novels of renowned Chinese and foreign writers, without including excerpts from students' writings.
This dictionary is divided into 10 major categories and 70 subcategories, with over 1,000 entries, including thousands of descriptive passages. It is a specialized dictionary of landscape description with fine classification and rich entries. We strive to be comprehensive and specific, providing readers with more information, which not only facilitates retrieval but also adds interest. Opening the book, one is immediately struck by its diversity and richness. The descriptions cover landscapes from all five continents—sun, moon, clouds, and stars; wind, frost, rain, and snow; high mountains and great rivers; secluded valleys and deep pools; forests and grasslands; famous flowers and rare plants; birds, beasts, fish, and insects; grains and fruits; rural fields and gardens; famous cities and great metropolises; ancient and modern scenic spots; and exotic landscapes. I believe this dictionary will not only benefit middle and high school teachers and students but also and writers.
In the Eastern Han Dynasty, Yang Xiong said, "One who reads a thousand fu will become skilled in fu" (as cited in Yilin from Huan Tan's New Discourses). In the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the great critic of the Wenxin Diaolong said, "One who plays a thousand tunes will understand music, and one who observes a thousand swords will recognize weapons." For beginners, if they further read widely among the works of renowned Chinese and foreign writers and reflect deeply, they will come to understand the truth in Wang Guowei's Words on Human Life that "all descriptions of landscapes are expressions of emotions." All descriptions of landscapes and objects ultimately express and reflect human thoughts, emotions, and spiritual worlds—how many descriptions by literary masters are truly unrelated to "emotion"?
If this dictionary serves as such a bridge, the compilers' purpose will have been achieved.
Here, on behalf of the compilers, I extend sincere gratitude to Shanghai University Press and the editor-in-chief for their enthusiasm in publishing this book. Any omissions or errors are inevitable, and we warmly welcome feedback and criticism from readers.