Course10 ReaderGC2 C10F Liu Lo Intro to Chinese Poetry

8/13/2019 Course10 ReaderGC2 C10F Liu Lo Intro to Chinese Poetry

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IntroductionI

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n what ways does Chinese poetry differ fromWestern poetry? First, it enjoys an unbrokenthree-thousand-year-old tradition out of which

have evolved many forms, meters, and styles. Te wordshih, for example, is used by the Chinese as a genericlabel for poetry in a rather broad sense, excludingonly the tzu (poems in the lyric meter) and the ch(song-poems), or to refer specifically to the earliestanthology of Chinese poetry known as the Shih Ching.Chinese verse compositions of the shih form are oftencalled by their subgeneric names such as ssu-yen shih(four-word poems), l-shih (regulated verse poems),etc. 1Even when one form is no longer in vogue, it is

never completely supplanted, and often continues toappeal to contemporary poets for its archaic flavor.

Secondly, from the very beginning, Chinese poetry hasbeen intimately related to music. Te Shih Ching is madeup of (1) folk songs and ballads; (2) festive songs sung atcourt banquets; and (3) temple hymns performed to theaccompaniment of music and dance. With only a few ex-ceptions, these songs were compiled by unknown poets inthe Yellow River region in North China. Te sao tradition,which developed quite independently in the South, and

which crystallized in the works of the poetic genius ChYan (343?-278 BC), may have originated from shaman-istic chants performed as part of folk religion practiced by

the people of the Yangtze region in what is now Hunanand Hupeh. Ancient music, not having been transcribedon bamboo tablets or stone monuments, proved moreephemeral than ancient verse, and has been, for the mostpart, lost. But new musical instruments and tunes were

introduced into the Middle Kingdom from the borderpeoples of the West and the Northwest and helped torevitalize folk poetry at different times. 2Even when themusical context for lyrics had been forgotten, poems werestill written to be chanted, not just read aloud.

Tirdly, underlining the affinity of poetry with musicis the nature of the Chinese language itself, which dic-tates that each written graph, or character, has a mono-syllabic pronunciation. Hence, the rhythmic quality ofChinese verse is based not on a system of stressed and

unstressed syllables, but (except for ancient poetry)on a patterned alternation of words of different tone,or pitch. 3Te use of tonal meter has been the mostdistinctive character of Chinese verse since the seventhcentury; other auditory devices used by Chinese poetsinclude those familiar to students of Western poetrysuch as end rhyme, internal rhyme, alliteration, asso-nance, and onomatopoeia.

A fourth difference, and another characteristic of thelanguage that has imparted a special flavor to Chinesepoetry, is the frequent omission of the subject of a sen-tence in classical Chinese. In Chinese grammar, thereare also no explicit distinctions made in tense for verbs,

Introduction to Chinese PoetryWu-chi Liu and Irving Yucheng Lo

1976, Indiana University Press.

Reprinted with permission from Sunflower Splendor: Tree Tousand Years of Chinese Poetry, edited by Wu-chi Liu and Irving Yucheng Lo, pp. xiii-xxiii (Bool-

ongton, IN: Indiana University Press, 1975).

Wu-chi Liu came from a literary family in China. His America degrees included his Ph.D. in English literature from Yale. He has taught in both countries

and has authored and edited many books.

Irving Yucheng Lo studied in China, also, prior to taking his Ph.D. in English literature (University of Wisconsin). A professor of English and world litera-ture, he has authored many scholarly articles.


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number for nouns, or case and gender for pronouns.Tus, a line of Chinese poetry tends to be more com-pact, almost telegraphic. Sometimes this grammaticalsparseness contributes to deliberate ambiguity as, forinstance, in a line by Li Shang-yin (813?-858):

tso ying tang chiu chung

sit oriole like wine heavy

A perch for orioles, as if weighed down with wine(Little Peach Blossoms in the Garden)

But, more often, the context of a poem indicates veryprecisely both the implied subject and tense of verbs, asin the following line by Shen Yeh (441-512):

yi

lai

shih cho-(I) remember (she) come time bright

cho shang chieh- chih

bright (she) climb-up

steps-in-courtyard

I recall the time she came,

Radiantly treading up the steps.

(Four Recollections)

Te non-inflectional nature of Chinese and the terse-

ness it permits are matters of linguistic conventionrather than poetics: readers should not assume thatpoetry lies in brevity alone. 4

Fifthly, on the social provenance of Chinese poetry,one must conclude that, despite the exalted statusenjoyed by poetry as a literary form, there is no specialclass of people, or profession, in traditional Chinese so-ciety designated as poets. Chinese poetry has, from theearliest days, drawn its inspiration from two distinctgroups; namely, the common people, with their col-loquial idiom and plain style of speech, and the literati,with their vast erudition and sophisticated sensibilities.From time to time, there are interactions between thetwo groups (cf. Bamboo Branch Song or other villageditties, which attracted many a literary poet and wereimitated by them). Te patronage of literature beforethe seventh century, however, was generally confinedto the nobility and the courtiers (cf. the Chien-anpoets). When poetry emerged, under the ang, asan important, if not the chief, criterion in the selec-tion of officials, many scholarsby means of imperial

examinations (or, in special cases, private audience)

achieved the coveted chin-shih (a term meaningpresented scholar) degree and appointment to officialposts. Terefore, a number of poets, especially duringthe ang and early Sung eras, were primarily high of-ficials; and the writing of poetry was considered among

the literati as an avocation, a personal accomplishment,or a means of self-expression. Te broad class of peopletrained in the writing of poetry included many women,either from good families or from the courtesan pro-fession; some aoist and Buddhist monks were alsonoted for their poetic talent. Tis tradition has contin-ued to the present time.

Tere were, to be sure, disaffected intellectuals suchas the ang poet Meng Chiao (751-814), or ban-ished officials like Ch Yan. But they were notpotes

maudits: the training they had received in the Confu-cian classics had imbued them with a sense of duty andservice. When literary excellence was no longer valuedby the rulers, as under the Yan (Mongol) dynasty, ar-tistic talents of the time were channeled into other artforms such as drama and painting. Or, when the roadto officialdom was beset with insurmountable obstaclesand dangers, as under the autocratic rule of the Mingemperors, poets earned their living by selling calligra-phy and painting in which they excelled. Even in themodern era, a fighter for social and political reform, Lu

Hsn (1881-1936), who was also a giant of modern(pai-hua, or colloquial) literature, chose to express hisinnermost thoughts in traditional verse. Chinese poetssee as their primary mission in life not the writing ofpoetry, but the fulfillment of their ambition and aspira-tions for a successful career. And this includes thebusiness of governing the empire, as in the case of thefounder of the Han dynasty, Liu Pang, and the leaderof the Chinese Communist Party, Mao se-tung.

Finally, with respect to themes in Chinese poetry,

perhaps a few explanations are needed to account forthe high incidence of certain topics. Chinese poetry hastraditionally been closely related to the life and activitiesof the people. For the last three thousand years, Chinahas been an agricultural country; hence, the impor-tance attached to the change of seasons, the observanceof rituals, or the concern for the lot of the farmers isreadily apparent in the poetry of any period. Te use ofpoetry as a form of social intercourse has also been apronounced feature. As early as during the Spring andAutumn period (770-466 BC), verses were recited frommemory at state functions by officials in the course of


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Wu-chi Liu and Irving Yucheng Lo

diplomatic receptions; as recently as February 26, 1974,Premier Chou En-lai of the Peoples Republic of China,in welcoming President Boumediene of Algeria at abanquet in Peking, quoted a line, Flowers fall off, dowhat one may, 5from Yen Shus (991-1055) lyric, to

prove a point. Another popular practice is the exchangeof poems between friends, written by using either thesame rhyme-words as the original poem or words fromthe same rhyme-category. 6

Te particular fondness of the Chinese poets for thetheme of parting should be understood in the real-life context of the difficulties of travel in pre-modernChina. In addition, a monarch with absolute powercould decree the banishment of any of his subjects toa remote, often uninhabitable part of the empire, and

such separation usually meant lifetime exile, or evendeath. By the traditional way of thinking, to live faraway from ones native district (except in the capi-tal or while serving as officials in the provinces) wasconsidered undesirable since it would mean that onecould not care properly for ones ancestral tombs, norfulfill ones duties to the family. In conformity with theConfucian teaching, the concept of f riendship is alsoviewed with special reverence: regarded as one of thefive basic human relationships, it closely follows inimportance the relationship between the emperor and

subject, father and son, husband and wife, elder brotherand younger brother.

Compared to friendship, sex seems to be a theme ofminor importance in Chinese poetry. When womensposition was generally cast in a subservient role, andthe institution of the pleasure houses existed, womenwere rarely the objects of adoration. Hence, Chineselove poems are seldom endowed with the same spiritu-al intensity as one finds in the love poems of the West.Still, there are disarmingly charming love songs of folk

origin, subtle and ironic impersonations of boudoirfeelings, and touching apostrophes between lovers.Tere are also love poems addressed to ones wife (dur-ing a period of forced separation and travel); elegieswritten for ones wife (a Chinese scholar is reticentto show in public his feeling for his wife while she isliving) or concubines; and passionate poems and lyricsinspired by unrequited love. A jaundiced view thatChinese poetry does not treat romantic love is verymuch mistaken: rather, the manners of expressing loveare different and reflect different social conventions.

IIHow is this assortment of themes treated and ac-commodated in Chinese poetry during the differentperiods of its long history? It must be said that Chi-nese poems will be found to show different levels of

technical accomplishment: from the simplest and theleast adorned to the most allusive and sophisticated.Compare these two poems, one a love song writtenbefore the sixth century BC, and the second a lyric bythe highly stylized poet of the ninth century AD, Wening-yn:

Lovely is the modest girl,

She awaits me at the corner of the wall

I love her, but do not see her;

I scratch my head, not knowing what to do.

(Lovely Is the Modest Girl)

Frozen in flight, two butterflies adorn

A blue pin, gold-stemmed, in her hair.

Who knows the inmost secrets of her heart?

Only the bright moon and the flowering branches.

(une: Deva-like Barbarian)

Te differences in verbal texture and emotional inten-sity are unmistakable. Or, take the following statementof the familiar sic transit gloria mundi theme made by

ao Chien (365-427), a poet noted for the spontane-ity of his style:

Bright blossoms seldom last long:

Lifes up-and-downs cant be charted.

What was a lotus flower in spring,

Is now the seed-husk of autumn.

(Miscellaneous Poems, No. 3)

And compare these lines with those of Han Y(768-824), a difficult and allusive poet:

Te cosmos turns in endless periods

And the essence given every thing differs

yet each, attuned to time, attains its place

no need to treasure the evergreen.

(Sentiments at Autumn, No. 2)

Te complexity of a Chinese poem, both technicaland intellectual, results from a confluence of severalintellectual sourceschiefly Confucianism, aoism,and Buddhism. While Confucianism inculcates the

ideals of order and stability and of human brother-hood, the teachings of Lao zu and Chuang zu


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expound the theory that the world is governed by im-permanence and flux, maintaining also that to live inharmony with nature is the only way to assure manssurvival. Philosophical aoism is reinforced by theteachings of Buddha introduced in China during the

Han dynasty. Te breakup of the first stable, universalempire ushered in an age of great creativity in manyareas: in philosophical debate, in studies of phonology(influenced by the study of Sanskrit), in literary criti-cism, in landscape appreciation, in calligraphy andpainting. Poetry, heir to all these intellectual pursuits,spoke for the first time with a multiple voice.

Te poets of the ang era 7devoted their exclusive en-ergy and talent to the refinement of the various formsof shih, culminating in the artistry seen in the works of

Li Po (701-62) and u Fu (712-70). Te break fromthe elegant tradition of the Six Dynasties verse oc-curred at the beginning of the dynasty in the poetry ofLu Chao-lin (c. 641-80), among others, and especiallyChen zu-ang (661-702); while even more individu-alistic voices began to be heard in the works of WangWei (701-61) and the Buddhist monk Han Shan, whoprobably lived during the eighth century.

Following the great chaos of the An Lu-shan rebel-lion in the middle of the eighth century, there emerged

more loudly the voices of satire and realism, such asexemplified in the works of Po Ch-yi (772-846) andYan Chen (779-831). In the works of the best angpoets, a concern for craftsmanship goes hand in handwith the attempt to broaden the scope of poetry. Tetwo strains of realism and lyricism are combined in thefrontier poems, the earlier exponents of which stylewere Kao Shih (702?-65) and sen Shen (715-70),and in the narrative poems which are found in suchgreat numbers.

With the decline of the material culture, extraordi-nary geniuses who were poetic rebels like Han Y,Meng Chiao, or Pi Jih-hsiu (c. 833-83)manipulatedthe traditional themes even more boldly; and someturned more and more inwardly to the abyss of theirsoul. While philosophical poetry had its champi-ons in Han Y and, to a lesser extent, in Liu sung-yan (773-819)becoming more and more Bud-dhistic toward the end of the era (cf. Ssu-kung u,837-908)there also occurred the exuberant, aestheticpoetry of u Mu (803-52), Li Shang-yin, and Wen

ing-yn (813?-70) toward the end of the dynasty.

During the second period of division (the Five Dynas-ties era, 907-60), the new vogue of the lyric meter,which started in Chang-an and spread as far as the re-mote frontier town of un-huang, miraculously flour-ished in two centers of civilization far apart f rom each

other: in the kingdoms of Shu (Szechwan) and South-ern ang (with its capital in what is now Nanking).Te sophisticated artistry of the tzu reached a newlevel in the works of Li Y, the Last Ruler of Southernang (937-78), and of the many poets represented inthe Hua-chien chi (the earliest tzu anthology, compiledin Shu, preface dated 960).

With the unification of the empire under the Sung,the early Sung poets continued for a time to imitatethe technical aspects of late ang poetry, resulting in

the so-called Hsi-kun style of verse. But the geniusof such poets as Mei Yao-chen (1002-60), Ou-yangHsiu (1007-72), and Su Shih (1037-1101) succeededin arresting this trend and brought poetry into closercontact with the life of the prosperous Northern Sungsociety in all its aspectssecular, intellectual, and ar-tistic. Te realistic poetry grew more and more popular,and the exponents of this style included most of themajor shih poets of the Southern Sung such as YangWan-li (1124-1206) and Lu Yu (1125-1210).

Te greatest achievement of the lyric poets of theSung eras appears to be their ability to assimilate notonly the new music and new vocabulary of the mar-ket place, but also the intellectual discourses of allpersuasions. Tis ferment, sustained by the heroic andpatriotic temper of the times, reached the highest levelof intensity in the works of Lu Yu and Hsin Chi-chi(1140-1207). Living in a vibrant yet precarious time,they were eager to accommodate all the forces of theirmilieu and to blend words and ideas and music intoone integrated art form. (It is probably not accidental

that many of these poets were also famous for theircalligraphy, the visual appeal being but another dimen-sion of Chinese poetry.) oward the end of the South-ern Sung period, when lyric poetry became more andmore concerned with technical details of embellish-ment, it soon lost its vitality.

During the one century of Mongol rule in the Yanperiod, new musical melodies and a new poetic genreemerged in China. Like the tzu, the chpoems inwhich the Yan writers excelled have multiple tune

patterns and a set of complicated prosodic requirements.But this new form admits even more freely the use of


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everyday colloquial speech, the idiom and slang of thecommon people, and extra or padded words in ad-dition to what is required by the melody; it also bearsthe mark of the vocabulary and music of the Mon-gol conqueror. Poems were again written to be sung,

especially by girls in pleasure houses and by actors andactresses. Te non-dramatic songs, known as san-ch(to be distinguished from the dramatic songs, hsi-ch),were compiled by poet-dramatists, usually commonersor minor officials, and by poets who were high officialsthough they still disdained the acting profession duringthe most flourishing period of Chinese drama. Of thepoet-dramatists, Kuan Han-chiing (c. 1220-c. 1300)and Ma Chih-yan (1260?-1334?) contributed signifi-cantly to the development of the ch, while poets likeChang Yang-hao (1269-1329) and Chang Ko-chiu

(1265?-1345?) consolidated this verse form by workingexclusively in it.

Te themes and contents of thechare as varied as anyother form of Chinese poetry. As a whole, the ch, againlike the tzu, is basically lyrical in nature. In spite of itsdramatic potentialities, the poets made little attempt inusing the chas a medium of narrative poetry, except insome of the song-sequences (tao-ch), several examplesof which are also included in this volume. On the otherhand, the writers of the non-dramatic songs were skilled

in their descriptions of sceneries and situations, per-sons and objects (sometimes trivial and humorous), andthoughts and sentiments. Tese are sometimes com-pressed into a single short song (hsiao-ling) or elaboratedinto the song-sequences which usually lend themselvesto political or social satire. While fresh and innovativein the early phase of its development, this new subgenrebecame formalized and conventional in later periods(from late Yan through the Ming and Ching dynasties),during which the chcontinued to be written but steadilylost its popularity as a form of poetry.

Te last six hundred years in China produced manytalented poets, but, compared to those of ang andSung, no major figures. Under the Ming, there werethe tragic genius Kao Chi (1336-74) and poet-painters like Shen Chou (1427-1509), ang Yin(1470-1523), and Hs Wei (1521-93). In the Chingdynasty founded by the Manchus, Chinese people la-bored in great restraint under a long tradition and for-eign rule; they compiled a large number of outstandinganthologies and established schools of poetry, as if insearch of a magic formula with which to produce great

poetry upon prescription. But this conformist age alsoproduced some unconventional geniuses: poets like theSinicized Manchu noble Na-lan Hsing-te (1655-85),the painter-calligrapher Cheng Hsieh (1693-1765),and the frustrated Kung zu-chen (1792-1841). o-

ward the end of the dynasty, providing continuity withour own age, were men like the reformist-poet Huangsun-hsien (1848-1905), a diplomat who had visitedfour continents; the revolutionary poet Liu Ya-tzu(1887-1958), founder of the Southern Society (Nan-she), active during the early twentieth century; and thepessimistic scholar-poet Wang Kuo-wei (1877-1927),whose suicide by drowning seemed to echo the legendof the death of Chinas first poet, Ch-Yan. Te worksof these men all reveal a painful awareness of the mod-ern temper, a deep consciousness of Chinas weakness

as a political entity, and a sense of estrangement frommodern society.

IIIIf one scans the long tradition of Chinese poetry,two salient features stand out clearly: (1) its utilitar-ian or didactic aspect, and (2) its function as a meansof self-expression or self-cultivation. o illustrate thefirst strain, we need only to point to the use of poetryas conventions in polite society or as attempts of thepoets to allegorize their situations in life. Indeed, fromCh Yan to Lu Hsn, the satiric thrust of Chinesepoetry has never been blunted: poetry is a tool forsocial reform to both banished officials and modernrevolutionaries. Te second tendency, to considerpoetry as no more than a skill in self-cultivation, mayalso be exemplified by both practice and precept. Asearly as the sixth century, the scholar Yen Chih-tui(531-91) wrote in a book of family instruction that thefunction of all types of literature was to develop onesnative sensibility, 8adding as an afterthought or to

give others unembarrassed advice. Remembering thisdual nature of poetry, Yens dictum seems consonantwith an earlier critical view, by Liu Hsieh (?-473), thatliterature can be dichotomized into refinements (wen;literally, the characteristic markings on animal skinand hence ornamentation) and utility (pi; literally,the brush, or pen). And one is tempted to say thata majority of Chinese poems, though written in theirmultifarious forms and styles belong to either of twotraditionsthose written by poets to please or consolethemselves and those written to move others (both

gods and men).


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In the sense of affording self-cultivation, or self-expression, on the one hand and purposefulness on theother, poetry is generally regarded by the Chinese moreas a literature of power than as a literature of knowl-edge. While Chinese poetry is deeply rooted in the

daily lives of the people, the Chinese never lose sightof its loftier goal, shared by all imaginative literature(which, typically, in the West reaches the highest levelof development in epic and drama). As described bythe critic De Quincey, in discussing Homer, Sophocles,and Shakespeare, this goal is to restore to mans mindthe ideals of justice, of hope, of truth, of mercy, of retri-bution, which else (left to the support of daily life in itsrealities) would languishfor want of sufficient illustra-tion. (Italics mine.)

Irving Yucheng Lo

Notes1 For other forms see Explanations, No. 7: Subgeneric Names

of Poetry: Shih, zu, and Ch. While tzu and chare

composed according to the prescribed prosody of the tune

pattern used, every one of the shih forms can be in the four-

syllabic meter, the five-syllabic meter, or the seven-syllabic

meter and are called the four-word, five-word, or seven-

word poems. Te four-syllabic line, the most common meter

in the Shih Ching, was not popular in later times; but ao

Chiens (365-427) Te Seasons Come and Go and Kungzu-chens (1792-1841) Te Lute Song were composed in

this meter.

2 Tis took place at least twice in Chinese history: once dur-

ing the early Han, when the Music Bureau (Yeh-fu) was

reactivated around 120 BC to supervise the collecting of

court music and folk tunes, as well as of songs and music

of nomadic artar tribes, thus contributing to the birth of

a genre of balladry known as theyeh-fu. Another instance

was during the eighth and ninth centuries, when new music

was brought to the ang capital by traders and soldiers from

Persia and other parts of Central Asia, exerting decisiveinfluence on the tunes and melodies of the tzu.

3 Te two contrasting groups of tones used for poetry are

called level or even (ping, meaning the high-level or

high-rising pitch) and deflected (tse) tones, the latter

referring to the three low-rising (shang), high-falling-to-

low (ch), and entering (ju) tones. Te entering tone,

though no longer present in modem Chinese (except in some

dialects), is still used in the writing of classical poetry; in

ancient Chinese it had a consonantal ending ofp, t, or k. For

paradigms of major verse forms of the modern-style poetry

(chin-ti shih) of ang and some of the tune patterns of tzu,readers may consult James J. Y. Lius Te Art of Chinese Poetry

(University of Chicago Press, 1962); pp. 26-27, 32-33 and

LiusMajor Lyricists of the Northern Sung (Princeton Univer-

sity Press, 1974).

4 It is this quality that endeared Chinese poetry to many

imagist poets in America during the twenties, and may have

fostered a style of translation which dispenses with preposi-

tions and articles, akin to pidgin English. Conceivably, when

carried to an extreme, the translation of Li Shang-yins line

quoted above might read as Sit oriole like wine-heavy. We

believe in preserving the structure of the original, but withinthe control of the target language, and not at the expense of

intelligibility. Chinese grammar must be understood in terms

of English grammar. For example, stative verbs in Chinese

may occur as adjectives. Hence, to supply a verb in the trans-

lation in this instance, or a subject when it is implied, need

not necessarily detract from a line of poetry as poetry.

5 Peking Review 17:10 (March 8, 1974), 6 and Renmin Ribao

(February 28, 1974). For a translation of this lyric, see James

J. Y. Liu,Major Lyricists of the Northern Sung, pp. 18-20.

6 Te terms used for this kind of poetry are either tzu-yn, or

ho (sometimes translated as harmonizing); they are ren-

dered as Following the Rhyme of or Replying to in this

volume.

7 Te ang dynasty produced so many poets and poetic styles

that Chinese literary historians, since the Ming, often speak

of them in terms of four periods: the Early ang (618-712),

the Flourishing, or High, ang (713-65), the Mid-ang

(766-846), and the Late ang (847-907).

8 A more literal translation of this phrase: tao-yeh hsing-ling

is to mold and shape [ones] own nature and spirit; cf.

Family Instructions for the Yen Clan, translated and annotatedby eng Ssu-y (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1968), p. 85. We follow

James J. Y. Liu in his translation of hsing-ling as native

sensibility (Te Art of Chinese Poetry, p. 74).

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Course10 ReaderGC2 C10F Liu Lo Intro to Chinese Poetry