The Matrix of Lyric Transformation

The Matrix of Lyric Transformation

Poetic Modes and Self-Presentation in Early Chinese Pentasyllabic Poetry

Zong-qi Cai

CENTER FOR CHINESE STUDIES
THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
ANN ARBOR

Open access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities/Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.

MICHIGAN MONOGRAPHS IN CHINESE STUDIES

ISSN 1081-9053

SERIES ESTABLISHED 1968

VOLUME 75

Published by Center for Chinese Studies

The University of Michigan

Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1290

First Edition 1996

© 1996 Center for Chinese Studies

The University of Michigan

Printed and made in the United States of America

The paper used in this publication conforms to the American National Standard for Information Sciences—

Permanence of Paper for Publications and Documents in Libraries and Archives ANSI/NISO/Z39.48—1992.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cai, Zong-qi, date.

The matrix of lyric transformation :

poetic modes and self-presentation in early Chinese pentasyllabic poetry / Zong-qi Cai.

p. cm. —

(Michigan monographs in Chinese studies; 75)

ISBN 0-89264-111-8 (alk. paper)

1. Chinese poetry— Ch’in and Han dynasties— History and criticism.

2. Yueh fu (Chinese poetry)— History and criticism.

3. Ts’ao, Chih, 192-232— Criticism and interpretation.

4. Juan, Chi, 210-263— Criticism and interpretation.

5. Poetic.

I. Title. II. Series

PL2314.C35     1996

895.1’2209—dc20     96-9730

CIP

ISBN 978-0-89-264111-6 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-47-203805-3 (paper)
ISBN 978-0-47-212749-8 (ebook)
ISBN 978-0-47-290144-9 (open access)

The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

For my mother
Wei Renqiu
and in memory of my father
Cai Wenxian

Contents

Acknowledgments

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

Chapter 1
An Overview:
Pentasyllabic Poetry from the First to the Third Century

Chapter 2
Han Yüeh-fu:
Dramatic and Narrative Modes

Chapter 3
Han Ku-shih:
The Emergence of the Lyrical Mode

Chapter 4
Ts’ao Chih:
The Development of the Lyrical Mode

Chapter 5
Juan Chi:
The Formation of the Symbolic Mode

Chapter 6
Synthesis:
Poetic Modes and Changing Forms of Self-Presentation

Notes

Glossary

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgments

Along with the growth of this study from a dissertation to its present form, my contacts with the academic world have widened, and my debts of gratitude to other scholars have accrued accordingly. It gives me great pleasure to express my heartfelt thanks to all those who have helped me along the way.

I must first thank Professors Yu-kung Kao, Willard J. Peterson, and Andrew H. Plaks, who supervised my dissertation at Princeton and have ever since remained a source of scholarly guidance and encouragement in the preparation of this book. My greatest debt of gratitude is owed to Professor Kao, under whom I studied classical Chinese poetry. I have constantly drawn from his tremendous scope of knowledge and benefited from his advice and criticism through conversations and correspondence.

I am immensely grateful to Professor Shuen-fu Lin, who guided my postdoctoral work at Michigan, to Professor Dore J. Levy, who offered constructive comments on the substance and style of my manuscript, and to Professor David L. Rolston, the Director of Publications of the Michigan Center for Chinese Studies, who oversaw the review process in a thoroughly professional manner and yet never ceased to be thoughtful and supportive.

Other scholars, friends, and colleagues have also read my manuscript, either in part or in its entirety, at different stages of its preparation. Professors Eugene C. Eoyang, Donald Holzman, Victor H. Mair, and Donald Munro read different parts of the manuscript and offered many valuable suggestions and criticisms. Professor Jonathan Chaves and my colleagues William L. MacDonald and Chuan-kang Shih recommended various useful works on Chinese oral traditions. My colleague Patricia Ebrey first read the introductory and concluding chapters and suggested ways to improve their form and content. Later she read through the entire manuscript and offered many valuable suggestions. My friend Xiaobing Ji gave generously of his time to read the entire manuscript and suggested stylistic improvements. I am deeply indebted to all of them for saving me from many errors of content and style.

Despite the guidance and help I received from all quarters, there must still be inaccuracies and mistakes of varying gravity, for which I assume full responsibility.

I would like to acknowledge financial support from various institutions. A postdoctoral fellowship from the University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies in 1991-92 gave me much-needed time to transform my dissertation into a book. A William and Flora Hewlett Summer International Research Grant from the University of Illinois, and a research grant from the East Asian Studies Department of Princeton University enabled me to concentrate on the final revision of my manuscript in the summer of 1994. An Arnold O. Beckman Award from the Research Board of the University of Illinois provided me with the resources to enlist the help of Ms. Yao Ping, a graduate assistant, in typing the Chinese and Japanese characters in the aftermatter of this book.

I am grateful for the courtesies shown by the staffs of the Gest Library of Princeton University, the Asian Library of the University of Michigan, and the Asian Library of University of Illinois. A special note of thanks is due to Ms. S. W. Kim at Princeton and Ms. Mamiko Nakamura and Ms. Kazuko Sakaguchi at the University of Illinois, who helped romanize the titles of Japanese books and articles, to Ms. Margaret Mirabelli who copy-edited the manuscript meticulously, and to Norman Mangouni, publications editor at the University of Michigan’s Center for Chinese Studies.

Finally, my thanks go to my wife, Jing Liao, whose love, caring, and encouragement ensured the steady progress of this study toward this final moment of completion.

The Matrix of Lyric Transformation

List of Abbreviations

CKLT

Kuo Shao-yü , ed. Chung-kuo li-tai wen-lun hsüan . Rev. Ed. 4 vols. Shanghai: Ku-chi ch’ u-pan-she, 1979-80.

HCHW

Lu Ch’ in-li , ed. Hsien-Ch’ in Han Wei-Chin Nan-Pei-Ch’ ao shih . Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1983.

JCCC

Juan Chi . Juan Chi chi chiao-chu Ed. Ch’ en Po-chün |. Peking: Chung-hua shu-chii, 1987.

KSSC

Ku-shih shih-chiu shou chi-shih . Ed. Sui Shusen . Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1955.

SPPY

Ssu-pu pei-yao .

SPTK

Ssu-pu ts’ung-k’an .

STTL

San Ts’ ao tzu-liao hui-pien . Ed. Department of Chinese, Hupei Normal Institute. Peking: Chung-hua shuchü, 1980.

TCCC

Ts’ ao Chih . Ts’ ao Chih chi chiao-chu . Ed. Chao Yu-wen . Peking: Jen-min wen-hsüeh ch’ u-pan-she, 1984.

Introduction

The aim of this book is to undertake a systematic study of the evolution of pentasyllabic poetry through Han yüeh-fu (Music Bureau poems), Han ku-shih (ancient-style poems), Ts’ ao Chih (192–232), and Juan Chi (210–263). It has two main thrusts. The first is to set forth thematic, formal, and generic transformations in these four groups of works and to examine these transformations in the larger framework of the development of four distinct poetic modes in early pentasyllabic poetry. The second is to understand the inner dynamics of this poetic evolution in terms of the poets’ continual endeavors to broaden and deepen their self-presentations by adapting and transforming existent poetic modes, and to consider to what extent these endeavors for self-presentation are impacted by the poets’ changing relationships with their sociopolitical worlds, their audiences, and their poetic traditions.

Critical studies of pentasyllabic poetry date back to the earliest systematic works of Chinese literary criticism by Liu Hsieh (ca. 465 to ca. 532) and Chung Hung (468 to ca. 518), two of the greatest Chinese critics. When Liu Hsieh discusses poetic evolution after the Han in Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons (Wen hsin tiao lung), he almost completely ignores tetrasyllabic poetry and makes pentasyllabic poetry his sole subject of study.[1] In elevating the status of pentasyllabic poetry, Chung Hung went one step further than Liu Hsieh. In Grading of Poets (Shihp’ in), he declares that he “limits himself to a discussion of pentasyllabic poetry” and excludes all other poetic types.[2] Throughout the subsequent dynasties, traditional Chinese critics continued to examine pentasyllabic poetry as a leading poetic type in their writings, and to compile various comprehensive anthologies of it. In Anthology of Literature (Wen hsüan), Hsiao T’ ung (501–531) collects a preponderance of pentasyllabic poems, more than all other poetic types in his twelve chapters on shih poetry.[3] Hsü Ling (507–583) makes his anthology, New Songs from a Jade Terrace (Yü-t’ ai hsin yung), almost exclusively a collection of pentasyllabic poetry.[4] Later, Shen Te-ch’ ien (1673–1769) devoted more than half of his anthology Source Book of Ancient-Style Poems (Ku-shih yüan) to it. Wang Shih-chen (1634–1711), another leading Ch’ ing critic, gives it equally extensive coverage in his anthology Commentaries on Ancient-Style Poems (Ku-shih chien).

When traditional Chinese critics discuss pentasyllabic poetry, they usually give allegorical interpretations of individual works, make general observations about social backgrounds and the lives of poets, or offer impressionistic comments on the aesthetic qualities of the works of given poets. Based on what they discover in these studies, they sketch a broad outline of similarities and differences among poets of different dynasties. Although such an outline points to the path of the evolution of pentasyllabic poetry, it does not reveal the changing configurations in terms of thematic, formal, and generic transformations. Nor does it shed any light on the motive force behind this poetic evolution. The challenge to a modern critic is to transcend these limitations of traditional Chinese criticism and set forth the evolution of this poetic form in an analytical, systematic manner. In spite of the dearth of Western language publications on pentasyllabic poetry as a separate entity, we do find examples of an admirable critical endeavor to systematically examine the development of it over different dynasties in scholarly works such as Kang-i Sun Chang’s recent book, Six Dynasties Poetry, and Burton Watson’s earlier book, Chinese Lyricism.[5] The present study intends to continue the critical endeavors begun by these scholars and trace the evolution of pentasyllabic poetry through its formative stages from the first to the third century.

The analytical frame of this study emerges from the concept of the “mode” borrowed from Western poetics. In Poetics, Aristotle distinguishes epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, dithyramb, and other genres on the basis of their different objects, means, and manners of imitation or representation.[6] In adopting the “mode of representation” as the determinant of generic distinctions, he establishes the concept of “mode” as the highest critical category. That other classical and neoclassical Western critics followed his lead is only natural: as long as they saw literature as a process of imitating or representing a kind of universal, absolute Truth, they could not but embrace the “mode of representation” as the highest category in the taxonomy of literary analysis. Since the Romantic Movement, however, many critics have chosen to talk about a mode of “presentation” rather than “representation,” aptly reflecting their rebellion against the classical and neoclassical tenet of representation or mimesis. Nonetheless, whether couched as presentation or representation, the concept of “mode” retains its preeminent importance in the domain of Western critical discourse. In fact, it lies at the very core of some of the most important theoretic formulations in modern Western criticism. It has led to the emergence of some of the most sophisticated and integrative analytical schemes, such as, M. H. Abram’s scheme of four critical coordinates, René Wellek and Austin Warren’s typology of criticism, Northrope Frye’ s anatomy of criticism, and Roman Jakobson’ s analysis of poetic creation.[7]

Unlike many recondite categories and paradigms we encounter in contemporary Western criticism, the concept of “mode” is readily understandable and, in fact, universally applicable in the study of literature in that it elegantly integrates the four most important aspects of artistic creation—artist, universe, work, and audience—or the four critical coordinates as M. H. Abram calls them. Whenever we talk about the presentation of a literary work, we must, of necessity, consider these four artistic aspects, not in isolation, but within a unique pattern of relationship. This is true of the study of any literature, Western or otherwise. So, if one adopts the concept of “mode” as the highest category for classifying and analyzing literature, one can set up an integrative analytical framework within which one may not only examine in depth any of the four artistic aspects, but also explore how the interplay of these four aspects shapes the configurations of a work, a subgenre or a genre, or a tradition.

Traditional Chinese critics, however, do not privilege a mimetic concept of literature and hence have not developed the concept of modes of representation or presentation as an overarching analytical category superseding that of the genre. Introducing the concept of “mode” in this study allows me to construct an integrative, analytical framework for examining the evolution of pentasyllabic poetry in the light of the interplay of its four artistic aspects.[8] On the one hand, this critical framework will help me overcome various one-sided views of poetic evolution stemming from the almost exclusive attention to “universe” and “artist” in traditional Chinese allegorical and biographical criticisms, to the origins and transmissions of “work” in traditional Chinese and Sinological textual criticisms, and to the aesthetic impact of “work” in traditional Chinese impressionistic criticism and Western New Criticism. On the other hand, this critical framework will enable me to draw useful insights from all these critical schools and integrate them into my investigation of the dynamic interplay of artistic aspects in the development of pentasyllabic poetry.

In constructing this critical framework, I must first identify a complex array of literary and extraliterary phenomena to be studied under the four artistic aspects. Since what one can include under these aspects is, theoretically, inexhaustible, I must choose only what is the most relevant to the specific subject in each chapter as well as to the overall goal of this study. Under “artist” and “universe,” I will discuss the lives of common folks in an oral community, the Han literati class, Ts’ ao Chih, the princely poet, and Juan Chi, one of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove. Under “audience,” I will consider the different impacts of an interactive audience, a noninteractive audience, and silent readership on the process of poetic composition. Lastly, under “work,” I will document the thematic, formal, and generic features in Han yüeh-fu, Han ku-shih, and in the works of Ts’ ao Chih and Juan Chi. I will assess the innovative character of these features in the context of the poetic traditions that precede and follow them.

Next, I must establish a principal axis along which I am to organize my discussion of the four artistic aspects. To establish this axis I must first evaluate their relative importance. They cannot be construed as constants with a fixed scale of importance; rather, they are variables that differ in significance according to the purpose and subject under investigation. Since this study aims to approach the evolution of pentasyllabic poetry as a literary issue, it goes without saying that “work” should be the primary focus of my investigation. Since lyric poetry, the subject proper of this study, is born of the poet’s self-presentation, I should examine “work” from the angle of “artist.” Given the importance of these two artistic aspects, I will establish the “artist”–“work” relationship as the principal axis and incorporate into it my considerations of “universe” and “audience.” I will examine the four groups of works as unique, evolving forms of self-presentation, and will also give due attention to the impacts of “universe” and “audience” on the development of these forms of self-presentation.

My application of this critical framework entails three kinds of inquiry—synchronic, diachronic, and theoretical. My synchronic inquiry attempts to bring forth major thematic and formal features in the four groups of works. My chapter organization reflects this synchronic concentration. Chapter 2 is devoted to Han yüeh-fu, chapter 3 to the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems,” chapter 4 to Ts’ ao Chih, and chapter 5 to Juan Chi. While I give close readings of representative works by these poets, I will focus on the development of the central theme of inconstancy and constancy and the unique formal qualities of each group of these works.

My diachronic inquiry is an effort to see the interconnectedness of the four groups of works. I will arrange my explication of poetic texts under the rubric of genre and subgenre, hoping thereby to reveal the complex pedigree of generic and subgeneric transformations. When I analyze one particular text, I will compare it with a similar text from an earlier group or set the context for subsequent comparisons. I seek not only to distinguish the unique qualities of the text in question, but to reveal the diachronic development of motifs, topoi, themes, structures, and formal devices. In the course of my comparative analyses, I will show how this development results from the poets’ efforts to adapt and transform poetic conventions in order to find new, effective ways to present their outer and inner lives. Through such comparative analyses I wish to bring into sharp focus the thematic, formal, and generic transformations of pentasyllabic poetry and to delineate its four major modes of presentation.

If my synchronic and diachronic inquiries represent my effort to trace the evolution of pentasyllabic poetry along the principal axis of the interaction between the poets and the poetic traditions, my theoretical inquiry attempts to explore the causes and conditions for this interaction by bringing various modern and contemporary critical theories to bear. Some of these theories yield insights into the inner dynamics of this interaction itself, as they deal with issues such as self-reflexivity, symbolization, intertextuality, or originality and tradition. Others address issues such as politics and aesthetics, orality and literacy, and are therefore applicable to my analysis of the impact of “universe” and “audience.” These theories furnish me with new ways to see how the poets’ changing relationships with the sociopolitical world led them to adapt and transform the poetic traditions in different ways and how their changing relationships with the audience opened up new horizons for self-expression and self-contemplation.

It is my hope that these three kinds of inquiry, pursued within an integrative analytical framework, will not only set forth the outer configurations of early pentasyllabic poetry as marked by four distinct poetic modes with their attendant thematic, formal, and generic features, but will also reveal the inner dynamics of its evolution as defined by the poets’ ceaseless endeavors to present their own lives by adapting or transforming the existent poetic modes. In my opinion, it is this continual interaction between the thrust of self-presentation and the limitations of existent poetic modes that constitutes the very matrix of the transformation of early Chinese pentasyllabic poetry, and perhaps of Chinese lyric poetry as a whole.

CHAPTER 1

An Overview: Pentasyllable Poetry from the First to the Third Century

What a reader wishes to find at the outset in a scholarly work is perhaps comparable to what a tourist looks for in a tour book: a marking of points of interest, an outline of areas for exploration, a description of various routes to follow, and a proposed plan for the journey. The primary goal of this chapter is to provide such information and to prepare the reader for an exciting journey into the world of Chinese pentasyllabic poetry from the first to the third century. In the Introduction, I proposed the outlines of this journey, explaining the analytical framework and theoretical perspectives I have adopted in the chapters that follow. The first section of this chapter will define the metric and aesthetic qualities of pentasyllabic poetry, marking it off as our principal subject of investigation. The second section will situate pentasyllabic poetry within the development of classical Chinese poetry as a whole and outline the formative stages of early pentasyllabic poetry for our exploration. The third and fourth sections will map out the routes of our inquiries. We will follow the bypaths of themes, forms, and genres through four groups of works and trace the evolution of dramatic, narrative, lyrical, and symbolic modes.

This overview is intended for general readers who have had little exposure to Chines prosody. I must beg the indulgence of my specialist readers who may ignore the first two sections on metric rules and historical development, or even skip this chapter altogether. Perhaps, without being influenced by the frame of reference to be established here, they will examine my readings in a more critical light and come to insights of their own to enrich our understanding of pentasyllabic poetry.

Metrical Rules

Before beginning my discussion of metrical rules, I must first explain my choice of “pentasyllabic poetry” as the translation of wu-yen shih. Pentasyllabic poetry is one of the three most frequently used translations of wu-yen shih. The literal meaning of these three Chinese characters are “five,” “character,” and “poetry.” However, the literal translation “five-character poetry” can be quite misleading for someone without prior knowledge of classical Chinese poetry, as it may give the mistaken impression that wu-yen shih is an extremely truncated form of poetry with a total of only five characters. In reality, “five-character” does not denote the fixed length of an entire poem but of a poetic line; an unregulated poem written in five-character lines has no fixed length and can well exceed one hundred lines. “Five-character-line poetry” is a less literal translation that seems to aim at avoiding this confusion. But although this translation comes closest to the actual meaning of the Chinese term, it is too cumbersome to use, especially when we want to employ it as an adjectival modifier. Just imagine the translation of the poetic genre wu-yen yüeh-fu: “five-character-line Music Bureau poetry.” One may wonder whether such a phrase is intelligible at all in English.

“Pentasyllabic poetry” is yet another translation of wu-yen shih. Since all Chinese characters are monosyllabic, a five-character line is technically a pentasyllabic line. Since the stem “syllabic” is a concept pertaining to line length in Western prosodies, the prefix “penta” is unlikely to be mistaken as anything other than an indicator of line length by a Western reader. However, this translation may give rise to a confusion of a different kind with regard to versification. In Western prosodies, both the prefix “penta” and the stem “syllabic” usually pertain to the syllable count of a particular metrical system such as iambic pentameter. Consequently, pentasyllabic poetry may wrongly suggest that Chinese poetry has a metrical system comparable to Western ones. Chinese prosodies operate through tonal variations rather than syllabic variations (long versus short syllables, stressed versus unstressed syllables, etc.). Therefore, syllable count (as opposed to character count) is of no consequence in Chinese prosodies. Of these three imperfect translations, I choose the last one simply because it is the least cumbersome to use when writing in English.

What distinguishes pentasyllabic poetry from other Chinese poetic types are the following metrical rules: 1) there are five characters per line; 2) the number of lines in a poem is variable; 3) the lines are usually organized into couplets; 4) rhyme occurs every other line, or in other words, at the end of the second line of each couplet; 5) all five characters in a line are monosyllabic, the first two making up an initial disyllabic unit (a disyllabic compound) and the remaining three a final trisyllabic unit (a monosyllabic word and a disyllabic compound or vice versa). All these five metrical rules are illustrated in the following four lines taken from the first of Juan Chi’s eighty-two poems in the collection Yung-huai:

It is far into the night and I cannot sleep,

2

I sit up to strum my melodious zither.

Thin curtains reflect the bright moonlight,

4

A pure wind blows against my lapels.[1]

Metric Breakdown

The first and second rules set forth the spatial configuration of a pentasyllabic poem; the third and fourth, the rhyming pattern; and the fifth, the semantic rhythm. Of these five rules, the last represents an important metrical innovation. Before the rise of pentasyllabic poetry, disyllabic compounds were the basic metrical unit in Chinese poetry. A tetrasyllabic line is normally made up of two disyllabic compounds and consequently a 2 + 2 beat constitutes the standard semantic rhythm in tetrasyllabic poetry from the Book of Poetry onwards. With the addition of one monosyllabic word, pentasyllabic poetry creates a semantic rhythm less monotonous than the even beat of tetrasyllabic poetry. In a pentasyllabic line, a semantic pause, generally treated as an unmarked caesura, falls between the second and third characters and divides the line into an initial unit and a final one. Thus, a 2 + 3 semantic rhythm becomes a distinctive trait of pentasyllabic poetry. This semantic rhythm can be further divided because there is a secondary caesura between the monosyllabic word and disyllabic compound in the final unit. Depending on whether the secondary caesura occurs after the third or fourth character, a 2 + 3 semantic rhythm can be broken down into either a 2 + (2 + 1) rhythm as in line 1 cited above, or a 2 + (1 + 2) rhythm as in the other three lines. In short, the imbalance of the disyllabic and trisyllabic units, together with shifting of the secondary caesura, creates a varied, fluid rhythm hitherto unseen in Chinese poetry.[2] This new rhythm is often thought to mark the change from what Northrop Frye calls “song melos” (a rhythm determined by external music) to “speaking melos” (a rhythm determined by internal semantics),[3] or the change from what Cheng Ch’iao (1104–1160) calls the “poetry with music” to “poetry without music.”[4]

Stages of Development

Pentasyllabic poetry is one of the most enduring poetic types of classical Chinese poetry. It arose after the Book of Poetry (Shih ching) and Songs of Ch’u (Ch’u tz’u) at the beginning of the Former Han dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 25), achieved predominance over all other poetic types from the end of the Later Han dynasty (25–220) through the T’ang dynasty (618–907), and remained a dynamic, important poetic type until the beginning of this century. A glance at the major practitioners of pentasyllabic poetry will yield a list of the most famous Chinese poets: Ts’ao Chih and Juan Chi in the period of Three Kingdoms (220–280) and Western Chin (265–317); T’ao Ch’ien (372–427), Hsieh Ling–yün (385–433), Pao Chao (4147–466), Hsieh T’iao (464–499), and Yü Hsin (513–581) in the Six Dynasties; Ch’en Tzu-ang (661–702), Chang Chiu-ling (673–740), Wang Wei (669–759), Li Po (701–762), Tu Fu (712–770) in the T’ang; Mei Yao-ch’en (1002–1060), Su Shih (1037–1101), and Huang T’ing-chien (1045–1105) in the Sung dynasty (960–1279).

The development of pentasyllabic poetry before the Six Dynasties[5] may be traced through these successive stages of growth: a period of germination in the folk yüeh-fu; a period of burgeoning in the literati yüeh-fu[6] and the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” (“Ku-shih shih-chiu shou”) during the Later Han; a period of full flowering in Ts’ao Chih’s yüeh-fu and ku-shih and in Juan Chi’s yung-huai shih (introspective poetry) during the transitional period between the Wei and Chin; and a period of fruition in T’ao Ch’ien’s self-reflective poetry around the end of the Eastern Chin (317–420). This pattern of development is neither the work of my imagination nor an imposition of a teleological scheme. Rather, it is a summation of the time-honored opinions held by traditional Chinese critics on the achievements of pentasyllabic poetry at different ages.

Both Liu Hsieh and Chung Hung perceive periods of incubation, formation, and maturation in the growth of pentasyllabic poetry. They hold that it developed its embryonic form in the popular traditions of songs and ballads reaching from the Former Han back to ancient times. In The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, Liu Hsieh devotes one chapter (“An Exegesis of Poetry”) to tracing poetic evolution from the earliest days to his own time. He reckons that pentasyllabic poetry originated not in literary compositions, but in the popular songs found in the Book of Poetry and Songs of Ch’u:

When Emperor Ch’eng (32–7 B.C.) ordered the examination and collection of poetry, more than three hundred poems were collected. As this collection includes works collected from inside the court and from throughout the country, it can be said to be a comprehensive one. However, in the writings left behind by men of letters, we find no trace of pentasyllabic poetry. Therefore, there are doubts about the authenticity of [the pentasyllabic poems attributed to] Li Ling (?–74 B.C.) and Pan Chieh-yü (fl. 58–75 B.C.). In “Hsing-lu,” half the lines are in pentasyllabic lines.[7] “Ts’ang-lang,” a song sung by boys, is entirely in pentasyllabic lines.[8] “Hsia yü,” a song of a court jester, dates far back to the time of the Ch’un-ch’iu period,[9] and the folk song “Hsieh-ching” is as recent as the time of Emperor Ch’eng.[10] So when we examine different times and look for evidence, it is evident that the pentasyllabic form has long been in existence.[11]

In his “Preface” to the Grading of Poets (Shih-p’in hsu), Chung Hung also cites titles and lines of quasi-pentasyllabic poems from the Book of Poetry, the Book of Documents, and Songs of Ch’u, and regards those works as the origin of pentasyllabic poetry.[12]

These two prominent critics also agree that pentasyllabic poetry goes through its formative stages within the ku-shih tradition, culminating in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.” Although Liu Hsieh acknowledges the origin of pentasyllabic poetry in popular songs and ballads, he contends that it is brought to a fixed form by Mei Sheng (?–140 B.C.), Fu I (fl. 58–75), Chang Heng (78–139) and the anonymous poets of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.”[13] So he does not even mention pentasyllabic poetry in connection with popular songs and ballads in his chapter on yüeh-fu.[14] Like Liu Hsieh, Chung Hung maintains that Li Ling first “introduced verse in five-character lines as a form in its own right” and that the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” demonstrate distinctive literary qualities.[15] However, Chung notes the difficulty of taking the formation of pentasyllabic poetry as an exclusively literary development, as he underlines the dearth of pentasyllabic poetry during the period between Li Ling and Pan Chieh-yü and in the 200 years of the Later Han.[16]

According to Liu Hsieh and Chung Hung, pentasyllabic poetry attains maturity in Ts’ ao Chih’s yüeh-fu and ku-shih and Juan Chi’ s introspective poems. They both regard Ts’ ao Chih as a major milestone in the development of pentasyllabic poetry. Liu writes, “At the beginning of the Chien-an reign (196–220), pentasyllabic poetry advanced by leaps and bounds. Emperor Wen [Ts’ ao P’ i, 187–226] and Ch’ en Ssu [Ts’ ao Chih] galloped ahead with a free rein, while Wang [Ts’ an, 177–217], Hsü [Kan, 171–218] and Liu [Chen,?–217], with eyes fixed on the road, raced along in competition.”[17] Chung Hung echoes these laudatory remarks with his own enthusiastic praise: “Ts’ ao Chih is the towering literary figure in the Chien-an period, flanked by Liu Chen and Wang Ts’ an.”[18] As for Juan Chi, Liu Hsieh considers his poetic achievements to be the equal of Ts’ ao Chih’ s and regards him as a poet “who had far-reaching and profound ideas and thus acquired outstanding stature.”[19]

When later critics discuss the history of pentasyllabic poetry, they often seek to improve on the evolutionary pattern envisaged by Liu Hsieh and Chung Hung. For instance, both Shen Te-ch’ ien and Wang shih-chen include the Han yüeh-fu in five-character lines under pentasyllabic poetry in their poetical anthologies. Shen Te-ch’ ien includes pentasyllabic yüeh-fu compositions in Source Book of Ancient Poems and considers them to be as important as ku-shih for the development of pentasyllabic poetry. In the preface to his anthology, he presents a cogent argument to justify his revision of the traditional lineage of this form:

Within pentasyllabic poetry there are two genres. Su [Wu]’s and Li [Ling]’ s poems of presentation and reply (tseng-ta) and the anonymous “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” are of the ku-shih genre. “The Wife of a Petty Official of Lu Chiang,” “The Yü-lin Official,” “Mulberry along the Lane” are of the yüeh-fu genre. Chao-ming [Hsiao T’ ung, 501–31] was merely fond of courtly expression and left out all yüeh-fu compositions [in his Anthology of Literature]. Nevertheless, yüeh-fu excel in poetic expression and in narration of events. For this reason, I will add what Chao-ming did not select in his anthology.[20]

Wang Shih-chen also seeks to broaden the traditional scope of pentasyllabic poetry delimited by Hsiao T’ ung. For him as well as for Shen Tech’ ien, it is a poetic type that encompasses both yüeh-fu and ku-shih. And when he justifies his inclusion of pentasyllabic yüeh-fu in Commentary to Ancient Poems, he follows Shen Te-ch’ien’s line of arg ument:

Yüeh-fu possesses its own musical pattern and its own shape, and reveals a notable difference from ku-shih. Nonetheless, the Han pieces like “Petty Official of Lu Chiang,” “The Yü-lin Official,” and “Mulberry along the Lane” display great ingenuity in their expression and narration. I am so fond of those pieces that I cannot bring myself to exclude them. Why are Consort Pan [Chieh-yü’s] “Song of Lament” and Cho [Wen-chün’s] “The White Head Lament”—though labeled as yüeh-fu—not regarded as shih poetry? The Ts’ aos, father and brothers, often used yüeh-fu titles for accounts of events that took place toward the end of the Han. At places I have included many of those yüeh-fu pieces, although it is quite acceptable for me to label them as ku-shih as well.[21]

Both Shen and Wang add T’ ao Ch’ ien, who was ignored in his own time but canonized after the T’ ang, to the list of the leading practitioners of pentasyllabic poetry. They are of the opinion that pentasyllabic poetry approaches perfection in the work of T’ ao Ch’ ien. Shen Te-ch’ ien writes that “toward the end of the period after the river-crossing [the move of the Chin capital to Chien-k’ ang south of the Yangtze] there emerged T’ ao Ch’ ien, a poet who wrote poetry spontaneously and yet reached perfection and who was nothing less than the greatest poet of the Chin.”[22] While Shen regards T’ ao Ch’ ien as the greatest poet of his time, Wang pays homage to him as the greatest poet of all time. Wang writes that “after the river crossing, there emerged Yüan-ming [T’ ao Ch’ ien] whose accomplishments cannot be rivaled by his predecessors and successors and cannot be assessed within the confines of a single age.”[23]

If we survey pentasyllabic poetry in relation to other poetic types, especially tetrasyllabic poetry, we will discern its distinctive stages of evolution. When pentasyllabic poetry was in its nascent form among popular traditions of songs and ballads, it was a poetic type whose contents were deemed too immoral and whose form too undignified to be used on ceremonial occasions.[24] Neither of the two kinds of ceremonial yüeh-fu (ta-yü yüeh and ya-sung yüeh) were composed in pentasyllabic meter. It is in the two lesser kinds of yüeh-fu (huang-meng ku-ch’ ui yüeh, and tuan-hsiao nao-ko), which were collected from the populace and performed for entertainment at banquets, that pentasyllabic yüeh-fu works were found.[25]

When pentasyllabic poetry assumed a more developed form in the hands of professional musicians, it began to gain popularity over tetrasyllabic poetry and became the preferred poetic type in the realm of public entertainment. Half of the extant “harmonious pieces” (hsiang-ho) were composed in pentasyllabic lines.[26] With the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems,” it became a written genre widely practiced by intellectuals at the end of the Han. And when it flourished during the Chien-an period, it acquired the importance and prestige of an elevated poetic type sanctioned by the court. Ts’ ao Ts’ ao, Ts’ ao P’ i, Ts’ ao Chih, and the Seven Masters of the Chien-an period all developed a special liking for this new poetic type.[27] They composed pentasyllabic poems not only on the traditional subjects for ku-shih and yüeh-fu, but also on military campaigns, courtly banquets, imperial excursions, and other subjects belonging to tetrasyllabic poetry in earlier ages.

After the Chien-an period, pentasyllabic poetry became the primary poetic medium through which poets could strive to achieve fame and distinction. While Juan Chi gained prominence through his merging of diverse pentasyllabic subgenres in his introspective poetry, T’ ao Ch’ ien rose to eventual preeminence through his perfection of various existing pentasyllabic subgenres and his creation of new ones. Those generally regarded as a lower order of poets achieved recognition mainly by excelling in one subgenre or another—ch’ ing shih (poems on love) for Chang Hua (232–300), ni ku-shih (imitation ku-shih) for Lu Chi (261–263), tao-wang (elegiac poems) for P’ an Yiieh (247–300), and yung-shih (poems of historical reflection) for Tso Ssu (250?–305?), tsa-shih (miscellaneous poems) for Chang Hsieh (?–307), and yu-hsien (poems on visiting the land of immortals) for Kuo P’ u (276–324). The flowering of all these subgenres attests to the popularity of pentasyllabic poetry at that time.

Thematic, Formal, and Generic Transformations

In tracing the evolution of pentasyllabic poetry, Liu Hsieh considers it essential to grasp the patterns of change in poetic theme, form, and genre. Summarizing the guidelines for his study of poetic development, he writes:

As we trace the poetic development through successive periods, we can detect a developing trend in poetic sentiments. And as we single out which features are common to and which are unique in various periods, the main outline of the trend will become clear.[28]

Of all extant traditional Chinese poetic types, pentasyllabic poetry displays the most unheroic kind of sentiment. The great majority of early pentasyllabic poems deal with these unglamorous subjects: the routines of farm work, courtship, laments over separation from loved ones, the sorrow of the neglected wife, the homesickness of the fortune-seeking wanderer, desires for sensual pleasure and longevity, dreams of immortality, nostalgia for ancient times, the anguish of political alienation, the bewailing of dynastic changes, and mental conflicts between Confucian commitments and Taoist withdrawal. The development of these subjects revolves around two central issues: inconstancy and constancy in the human world.[29] Most of these poems deal with instances of human inconstancy—a lover’ s change of heart in folk yüeh-fu; the abandonment of a wife, the broken promise of a one-time friend, and the transience of human life in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems”; the violation of brotherly bonds and political vicissitudes of an exiled prince in Ts’ ao Chih; a shift of dynastic loyalty and change of doctrinal belief in Juan Chi. These subjects reveal a gradual thematic shift from the external observation of inconstancy in the realm of action to the inward reflection on treachery in relationships, inconstant values, beliefs, and the ephemeral nature of human existence itself. While these poets sometimes conjured up an unchanging world like the land of immortals or set forth an abstract ideal of constancy like an immortal reputation, as Ts’ ao Chih did, most often they seemed to think that the only constant in the world was the constancy of human fickleness. In any event, they were almost uniformly given to an ever deepening sense of despair at the disaffection all around them. It is this existential sorrow that prompts them to contemplate the ultimate meaning of human existence in the changing contexts of their lives and from their diverse philosophical perspectives. Indeed, this brooding melancholy was so pervasive that they could not but succumb to it even when they wrote about the most joyful occasions in their lives. In the final analysis, an incessant struggle to deal with human inconstancy is the unifying theme of pentasyllabic poetry in its various subjects, forms, and genres.

Pentasyllable poetry also underwent gradual formal changes. We can observe a shift from the composite structure in folk yüeh-fu, to a sequential structure in literati yüeh-fu, to a binary structure in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems,” to a tripartite structure in Ts’ ao Chih’ yüeh-fu and ku-shih, to the nonlinear, and often disjointed structures in Juan Chi’s introspective poems. In poetic texture, we see an evolution from stock situations, dramatic characters, multiple points of view, heavily formulaic syntax and word-for-word repetitions in folk yüeh-fu; to more varied situations, first-person storytellers, dual points of view, less heavily formulaic syntax and diction in literati yüeh-fu; to abundant emotional expressions, inward-turning personae, single point of view, nonformulaic syntax, covert repetition in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems”; to personal situations, blending of the poet’ s experiential self with personae, parallel syntax, and refined diction in Ts’ ao Chih; and finally to the symbolic use of yüeh-fu and ku-shih images, motifs, and topoi in Juan Chi.

A poetic genre is, as James J. Y. Liu says, what we perceive to be “the appropriate interrelations between forms, subjects, and styles.”[30] So our investigation of thematic and formal changes naturally leads us to consider how thematic and formal changes result in generic transformation in pentasyllabic poetry. Through the thematic and formal changes described above, we can trace a gradual process of generic transformation. The trajectory from dramatic, interactive performance in folk yüeh-fu to the narration of interior experience in literati yüeh-fu marks the departure of the yüeh-fu genre from collective oral composition. The ascendancy of the lyrical over the narrative elements in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” signifies the disappearance of storytelling and the rise of the nonperformative ku-shih genre. Ts’ ao Chih’s merging of his experiential self with various yüeh-fu characters brings about a transformation of both folk and literati yüeh-fu into vehicles of lyric expression. Similarly, his introduction of scenes from his private life heralds the evolution of the ku-shih genre into a form of personal lyric. Juan Chi’s symbolic use of both yüeh-fu and ku-shih elements gives birth to his unique subgenre of introspective poetry. All these generic and sub-generic transformations mark the evolution in pentasyllabic poetry from the first to the third century.[31]

Modes of Poetic Presentation

On a more general level, we can conceive of these thematic, formal, and generic changes as the result of the evolution of four major poetic modes: dramatic, narrative, lyrical, and symbolic.

Before proceeding to my analysis of these modes over the next four chapters, let me first give a brief sketch of their main characteristics. The dramatic mode is the representative mode of presentation in folk yüeh-fu compositions in the Han. A folk yüeh-fu piece like “Mulberry along the Lane” (“Mo shang sang,” HCHW, 259) seems to contain many vestiges of collective oral composition and performance in a communal setting. In such a work, we often find traces of dramatic interaction among diverse characters responding to an external event. All internal textual evidence—multitude of characters, ongoing dialogs, ahistorical presentation, multiple points of view, and so on—suggests that the speaking characters in such a composition are not figures in the mind of a single composer, but dramatic roles played by different people in the course of collective composition and performance, probably in front of a live communal audience. Insofar as folk yüeh-fu works were born of collective oral composition and continued to be performed by multiple performers at later times, and insofar as the performance of those works necessarily involved some kind of meaningful interaction among multiple performers, it seems appropriate to use the term “dramatic” to describe the mode of presentation in folk yüeh-fu. The term is used in this qualified sense throughout the book. It is not my intention to suggest that Han folk yüeh-fu are dramatic compositions involving stage action and theatrical trappings.

The narrative mode prevails in literati yüeh-fu. A literati yüeh-fu composition is chiefly a reenactment of an event or a series of events in the mind of a single composer. A literati yüeh-fu composer usually plays the role of a third-person narrator or a first-person character (a human or nonhuman being) or both, telling us the stories of immortals, ordinary men, historical personages, animals, or plants. Sometimes his stories unfold in the land of immortals and provide a mental escape from the cares of our world. Sometimes his stories are set within the mental horizon of a human character, as in “Ballad to a Yen Song” (“Yen ko hsing,” HCHW, 273), an account of the sorrow of a homesick husband. Sometimes his stories involve a group of historical figures living in different times, as in “Ballad of Breaking the Poplar and Willow” (“Che yang liu hsing,” HCHW, 268), a didactic argument against committing oneself to a political cause. At other times his stories are cast in an explicitly allegorical frame, as in “Yü-chang Ballad” (“Yü-chang hsing,” HCHW, 263–64), a lament of political estrangement and dislocation. Notably, such stories contain few elements of living drama involving real people, as occurs in folk yüeh-fu. All such stories happen merely on the mental screen of a composer and, therefore, should be taken as narration of inner experience, interspersed with brief emotional utterances. It is quite conceivable that some critics may object to my use of the term “narrative” to describe the storytelling in literati yüeh-fu. In the studies of Western fiction, the term “narrative” usually carries a narrowly defined meaning as a fully developed story structure, in which the narrator recounts a sequence of situations or events for the purpose of guiding the audience to the discovery of certain facts or the attainment of certain knowledge, and meanwhile entertaining the audience through the exploitation of surprise and suspense in arranging those situations or events.[32] This narrow definition of “narrative” is surely inapplicable to the storytelling in literati yüeh-fu. The real intention of a yüeh-fu storyteller is usually not to reveal facts or communicate knowledge, but to project his feelings into a series of stock situations and events so that the audience can experience his feelings vicariously as they go through those familiar situations and events. Such an inwardly oriented storytelling offers a counterpoint to the more externally oriented storytelling in the West and compels us to broaden the definition of “narrative” to accommodate the former tradition.[33] It is in this spirit of revision that I choose to use “narrative” in a broadly defined sense to characterize the mode of presentation in literati yüeh-fu.

The lyrical mode predominates in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” and later pentasyllabic poetry. Unlike the storytellers in literati yüeh-fu, the anonymous poets of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” tend to cast themselves in the role of a lyric speaker and express in the first person their emotional responses to an external scene or event. The lyrical mode in this group of works is an outgrowth of the narrative mode. We can easily see this metamorphosis if we compare literati yüeh-fu with them. In both traditions the lyrical and the narrative blend together, but in reverse proportion.[34] Whereas literati yüeh-fu subordinate lyrical elements to a narrative sequence, the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” foreground the lyrical process and minimize the significance of narrative elements. Narrative elements occur mostly at the beginning of these poems, and even there, are frequently punctuated by emotional utterances. Truncated and fragmented, these narrative elements do not form a sequence of action as in literati yüeh-fu. Instead, they merely indicate the barest outline of an event—a peg on which to hang the poet’ s sentiments. Narrative elements are more radically reduced in Ts’ ao Chih’ s ku-shih works, where lyrical elements hold an absolute sway. Having so outgrown the influence of the narrative tradition, the lyrical mode attains its full maturity and begins its long dominance of pentasyllabic poetry after the Han.

The symbolic mode is used by introspective poets like Juan Chi who wish to maintain a measure of aesthetic distance when they explore their inner experience. The symbolic mode is distinguished from the narrative and lyrical modes by its innovative use of poetic images. In the narrative mode, poetic images are used chiefly for a referential function—to depict the details of a concrete place or event. In the lyrical mode, poetic images are interwoven with the process of emotional expression. They call forth emotional responses when they occur at the beginning of a poem (a function described as hsing in traditional Chinese criticism) and enhance emotional responses through metaphorical correspondence.[35] In the symbolic mode, poetic images are used chiefly to convey the poet’ s inexpressible thoughts, feelings, and moods. Like the narrative mode, the symbolic mode represents a tendency to express oneself indirectly. Whereas a yüeh-fu composer communicates his own thoughts and feelings by telling stories of stereotyped characters or historical figures, a symbolizing poet like Juan Chi expresses his innermost self through an adroit exploitation of the rich connotations of imagery.

Juan Chi exploits the evocative power of imagery on both the textual and intertextual levels. On the textual level, he often maneuvers along what Roman Jakobson calls the axis of selection (semantic choice) and deliberately mixes disparate categories of images in order to divert our attention from a narrative or descriptive continuum to the symbolic significance of images themselves. He also maneuvers along what Jakobson calls the axis of combination (syntactic connection).[36] He often substitutes poetic parallelism for the ordinary syntax based on a sequential relationship. In so doing, he manages to suspend the temporal flow and intensify the interplay of diverse images for the greatest aesthetic effect. On the intertextual level, Juan Chi taps beneath words and images into a rich reservoir of meanings from earlier texts. He draws images from a wide range of early poems and brings into a poem a plenitude of thoughts, feelings, and moods associated with their images.

CHAPTER 2

Han Yüeh-fu: Dramatic and Narrative Modes

This chapter closely examines those Han yüeh-fu works composed in pentasyllabic lines in order to shed light on the earliest stages of the evolution of pentasyllabic poetry. Here, I wish to accomplish three things: first, I will argue for the reclassification of Han yüeh-fu poems into two broad groups—folk yüeh-fu and literati yüeh-fu—on the basis of their intrinsic qualities. Second, I will set forth the features of dramatic presentation in folk works and trace them to collective performance in a folk community. Third, I will examine the features of solo narrative presentation in the literati works and relate them to the inner lives of the Han literati.

Intergeneric Distinction: Yüeh-fu versus Ku-shih

In the extant corpus of Han poems, the number of pentasyllabic poems exceeds those of tetrasyllabic poems and other poetic types. Fang Tsu-shen estimates that there are as many as 280-odd pentasyllabic poems out of some 600 surviving Han poems. Even if all the poems written during the Chien-an period are excluded, there are still about 120 pentasyllabic poems.[1]

Han pentasyllabic poems are traditionally divided into three major groups: 1) tsa ko (miscellaneous songs), yao (folk rhymes), yen-yü (proverbs), and t’ung-yao (children’s rhymes); 2) yüeh-fu; and 3) ku-shih. The miscellaneous pieces in the first group have attracted little critical attention because they are regarded by literary critics as a hodgepodge of crude emotional utterances. They are mostly words of explicit praise or condemnation of the administrative performance of local officials, as indicated by the titles such as “The Pa People Sing in Praise of Ch’en Chishan” (HCHW, 214) and “A Song [Complaining] about Fan Yeh by the People of Liangchou” (HCHW, 208).[2] Short and often fragmentary, these pieces are gleaned from a wide range of nonliterary sources: political works like Discourses on Salt and Iron (Yen-t’ieh lun); philosophical works like Huai-nan Tzu; local records like Records of the Hua-yang Region (Hua-yang kuo chih); and official histories such as Records of the Grand Historian (Shih chi), History of the Former Han (Han shu), and History of the Later Han (Hou Han shu).

The yüeh-fu poems in the second group are performative works. As I shall explain, these pentasyllabic yüeh-fu poems can be classified into two subgroups: folk yüeh-fu and literati yüeh-fu. Like the songs and ballads in the first group, folk yüeh-fu pieces are sung, with or without musical accompaniment, in response to everyday occurrences in a folk community. However, they demonstrate a measure of artistic distance from the social concerns of the day. They seldom involve specific personages and events that could be verified by historical sources. Nor do they give vent to untutored expressions of social praise or condemnation as do the first group. The titles of folk yüeh-fu, a tell-tale sign of this artistic distance from social and political issues, seldom contain explicit references to specific persons or places as do the titles of the first group. The folk yüeh-fu titles are normally taken from an external description in the opening line of a poem (e.g., “South of the River” [HCHW, 256]) or from the general setting of a poem (e.g., “Mulberry along the Lane” [HCHW, 259–61]). Folk yüeh-fu pieces were born not of a sociopolitical need but of a psychological one—to transform immediate emotions into an artistic experience through a rhythmical use of language. With literati yüeh-fu, this artistic distance between text and social phenomena becomes even greater. Literati composers distanced themselves from the concrete events in daily life and turned inward in search for the general meaning of their lived experience. Their reflections on the historical past, the prospect for transcendental escape, the dangers of political life, and the melancholy of homesickness constitute the staple themes of songs to be performed in literate or semi-literate circles.

The ku-shih in the third group are considered by most traditional and modern critics to be nonperformative works written by and for the literati class. As noted in the previous chapter, the birth of the nonperformative ku-shih was a difficult one. Although Han poets like Pan Chieh-yü and Pan Ku (32–92) tried their hands at the pentasyllabic form early on, they could not establish a nonperformative pentasyllabic genre that would appeal to the literati class. The few pentasyllabic poems they wrote, like Pan Ku’s “On History” (HCHW, 170) are described by Chung Hung as “unadorned and wooden in style.”[3] Not until the end of the Later Han did the literati class begin to appropriate the pentasyllabic yüeh-fu form as a vehicle of inward reflection and gradually transform it into the nonperformative pentasyllabic genre later known as ku-shih.

In studying the evolution of Han pentasyllabic poetry, critics concentrate their attention on yüeh-fu and ku-shih. But they usually treat these two major pentasyllabic genres separately in spite of their close kinship. This is largely due to the difficulty in dating and assigning authorship to many yüeh-fu and ku-shih works. Yüeh-fu and ku-shih works are preserved not in dynastic histories or local gazetteers written during or close to the Han, but in literary anthologies compiled many centuries after the Han, such as Hsiao T’ung’s Anthology of Literature and Hsü Ling’s New Songs from a Jade Terrace. To propose a date or authorship for a yüeh-fu or ku-shih composition, critics would have to draw from these three sets of circumstantial evidence: 1) elusive comments by the early critics on its possible date or authorship, 2) discovery of allusions to particular places, events and persons during the Han, and 3) identification of certain stylistic features in poetic writings of particular periods during the Han.[4] Since such evidence is never conclusive, critics find it difficult to convince one another of their proposed dates and authorship for various yüeh-fu and ku-shih compositions.

Probably out of a desire not to compound the controversies over dates and authorship, critics seldom venture to explore the interaction between yüeh-fu and ku-shih or to trace the thematic, generic, and formal evolution of Han pentasyllabic poetry as a cross-generic development. They tend to conceive Han pentasyllabic poetry either in terms of the elite tradition of ku-shih or in terms of the popular tradition of yüeh-fu. As noted above, traditional critics like Liu Hsieh and Chung Hung seek to establish a lineage of literary pentasyllabic poems through the Han, although they do acknowledge the ultimate origin of Han pentasyllabic poetry in popular songs. As modern critics tend to set great store by the popular tradition, they are often tempted to minimize the significance of the ku-shih tradition and identify the development of Han pentasyllabic poetry with that of Han yüeh-fu. For instance, Hsiao Ti-fei discusses the growth of Han pentasyllabic poetry in terms of a four-stage development of yüeh-fu alone: 1) a seminal stage from the beginning of the Former Han to the time of Emperor Wu (r. 140–86 B.C.); 2) a burgeoning stage during the time between Emperor Wu and Emperor Hsüan (r. 73–48 B.C.); 3) a stage of rapid growth from the time of Emperor Yüan (r. 48–32 B.C.) and Emperor Ch’eng (r. 32–6 B.C.) to the beginning of the Later Han, and 4) a stage of generic fruition from the middle of the Later Han to the Chien-an period.[5]

To reduce the growth of Han pentasyllabic poetry to the lineage of ku-shih or to equate it with the development of yüeh-fu is equally undesirable. The Han dynasty was a time of great cultural dissemination and assimilation. Confucian scholars were sent out in large numbers by the imperial court to educate the populace on Confucian moral values as part of the program of chiao-hua (moral transformation). Moreover, elements of popular culture—divination, astrology, folk beliefs, and so on—were assimilated into the Confucian cosmological and ethical systems and in some cases were even incorporated into the Confucian classics.[6] In the realm of poetry, the influence of folk traditions on the elite tradition can be seen in the collecting, editing, and imitating of popular songs and ballads by members of the Han literati, especially those working for the Music Bureau. The counterinfluence of the elite on popular culture is borne out by the metamorphosis of folk yüeh-fu into literati yüeh-fu as a result of the intrusion of literati concerns. In view of the active interchange between the Han elite and popular cultures, we cannot possibly isolate the oral and literary traditions from each other in our study of Han pentasyllabic poetry.

Intrageneric Distinction: Folk Yüeh-fu versus Literati Yüeh-fu

Having clarified the relationship between between yüeh-fu and ku-shih, I can now address the issue of differences within the genre of Han yüeh-fu. To identify intrageneric differences in Han yüeh-fu and construct a scheme of classification have long been central tasks in both traditional and modern studies of Han yüeh-fu. Due to the limitation of space, I will give only a brief review of traditional and modern classification schemes before I present my own two-fold scheme.

Most traditional Chinese critics foreground the issue of oral performance when they classify Han yüeh-fu works. They often go to great lengths to search for information about various aspects of musical performance: the use of instruments, the performative occasion, the sources of musical tunes in Han times. On the basis of their findings, they seek to classify Han yüeh-fu works into increasingly minute categories defined by these performative aspects. According to the “Treatise on Music” in History of the Sui (Sui shu), yüeh-fu is classified for the first time during the reign of Emperor Ming. This classification contains four broad categories defined by music types and ceremonial functions: 1) ta yü yüeh, music for suburban and temple sacrifices; 2) Chou sung ya yüeh, music of Chou hymns and banquet songs; 3) huang-men ku-ch’ui yüeh, music for the entertainment of ministers in the imperial court; and 4) tuan hsiao nao-ko, songs for military occasions.[7] When Ts’ai Yung (132–192) discusses yüeh-fu, he adopts these four categories without modification.[8] In the “Treatise of Music” of History of the [Liu] Sung (Sung shu), Shen Yiieh expands the number of categories to six by adding hsiang-ho and other types of folk music and songs.[9] In Commentary on the Essentials of Ancient Yüeh-fu Titles (Yüeh-fu ku-t’i yao chieh), Wu Ching (670–749) comes up with eight categories after excluding most courtly music types and more than doubling the number of folk music types.[10] In Compendium of Historical Information (T’ung chih lüeh), Cheng Ch’iao (1104–1162) devises five broad categories and further divides them into fifty-three subcategories.[11] In Anthology of Yüeh-fu Poetry (Yüeh-fu shih-chi), Kuo Mao-ch’ien (fl. 1084) incorporates most of the existent categories and brings forth a grand twelve-fold scheme of classification, replete with minute subcategories based on the differentiation of musical modes.[12] Tso K’o-ming (Yiian dynasty), Wu Na (1372–1457), Hsü Shih-cheng (1517–1580), Feng Ting-yüan (Ch’ing dynasty), Liang Ch’i-ch’ao (1876–1929), and most others remain content to stay within Kuo’s grand scheme while making rearrangements of his categories.[13]

If traditional Chinese critics show a predilection to multiply and refine the music-based categories and subcategories, modern critics exhibit a countertendency to simplify the music-based categories and to introduce new categories unrelated to musical performance. In reclassifying yüeh-fu, Lo Ken-tse subsumes most of the traditional music-based categories under five broad categories: 1) folk works adapted by musicians, 2) literati works adapted by musicians, 3) original works composed by musicians themselves, 4) works that imitate old music, and 5) works that radically change the style of old music. Meanwhile, he conceives of a broad nonmusic category that includes three major groups of nonper-formative works (those with old yüeh-fu titles, those using old yüeh-fu verse as titles, and those on traditional yüeh-fu themes).[14] While Lo’s conception of the nonmusic category seems rather pedestrian, his reclassification of the traditional music-based categories strikes us as truly innovative in that it marks a significant shift of the ground of classification from technical matters of performance (types of musical instruments, musical modes, contexts of performance, etc.) to matters concerning the origin and transmission of yüeh-fu works.[15] What is particularly noteworthy is his distinction between folk yüeh-fu (min-chien yüeh-fu) and literati yüeh-fu (wen-jen yüeh-fu). The former denotes those works of anonymous origin, presumably composed by common, illiterate folks; the latter designates those works of known authorship, written by members of the literati class. This distinction came to be used ever more frequently by other modern critics as the ground for reclassifying yüeh-fu in their critical studies or anthologies of yüeh-fu poetry. For instance, Liu Ta-chieh adopts it to organize his discussion of yüeh-fu poems,[16] as do modern Western critics like James Robert Hightower, whose distinction between ritualistic yüeh-fu and popular yüeh-fu apparently derives from this folk-literati opposition.[17] Likewise, Hans Frankel’s five-fold scheme of classification—an elaboration of Hightower’s two-fold scheme—is founded on the same folk-literati distinction. Three of his five categories (“ritual hymns of the Han dynasty,” “a special class of ritual hymns from the Southern Dynasties,” and “ballads in yüeh-fu style by men of letters”) are sub-divisions of literati yüeh-fu, while the other two categories (“anonymous ballads of the Han period,” and “anonymous ballads of the Southern and Northern Dynasties”) are subdivisions of folk yüeh-fu according to historical periods.[18]

All these modern reclassifications of yüeh-fu based on the folk-literati distinction represent an important progress in our understanding of the evolution of the yüeh-fu genre in general and Han yüeh-fu in particular. In my opinion, the traditional music-based classifications of Han yüeh-fu are not only unreliable as a historical description of actual yüeh-fu performance in Han times, but they are also unserviceable for literary studies. When Chinese critics first wrote about Han yüeh-fu, even though it was not long after Han times, they could not personally observe performances of Han yüeh-fu. The music, dance, and performed rituals for Han yüeh-fu had already disappeared. They could only conjecture and generalize based on indirect and often scattered accounts. Even if we grant their descriptions a measure of credibility, we still cannot find much use for such descriptions in our literary study. What is essential to our study of Han yüeh-fu as literature is internal textual evidence, not nontextual evidence of oral performance. Unlike historians of music, literary scholars inquire into the performative aspects of Han yüeh-fu to enrich our understanding of the texts as a unique form of literature. In other words, it is the intrinsic features of Han yüeh-fu texts, not the extrinsic factors of performance that should be our primary concern. Unfortunately, many literary critics often become so preoccupied with extraliterary issues like the differentiation of music types that they pay little attention to the intrinsic literary qualities of Han yüeh-fu works. For instance, in their chapter on Han yüeh-fu in A History of Chinese Poetry (Chung-kuo shih-shih), Lu K’an-ju and Feng Yuan-chün devote nearly the entire forty-seven pages to discussing the classification of Han yüeh-fu according to music types; they do not offer a detailed analysis of any extant text.[19]

The emergence of the folk-literati distinction in modern studies of Han yüeh-fu seems to be a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it helps us to go beyond unessential issues about musical instruments or musical modes to consider the dynamic interchange between folk and literati traditions in the development of Han yüeh-fu. On the other hand, it tends to distract our attention from a study of the texts to issues of dating and authorship of specific works. This unfortunate distraction is due largely to an unhappy definition by Lo Ken-tse and other modern critics of folk and literati yüeh-fu on the basis of anonymity and identifiable authorship, rather than on the basis of their intrinsic qualities. As long as they attempt to distinguish “folk” and “literati” on the ground of authorship, they have no choice but to commit themselves to the task of determining the nonauthorship or authorship. Only after they have ruled on the “folk anonymity” or “literati authorship” of a particular work can they go on to classify it as a folk or literati composition.

To determine the authorship or nonauthorship of Han yüeh-fu works is an impossible and fruitless task for two historical reasons. First, there exists no primary evidence of authorship or nonauthorship for any Han yüeh-fu works. They are not signed compositions like most pentasyllabic poems written after the Chien-an period. Nor are they unedited transcriptions of a live collective composition and performance. Rather, they are the finished products of several or all of the processes a work passes through over the course of oral and textual transmission: the original composition, selection and editing by an initial collector, subsequent revising or editing by additional performers, compilers, commentators and so forth. Considering this multiparty involvement in the course of composition and transmission, it is meaningless to talk about a purely folk or, to a lesser extent, a purely literati origin of any Han yüeh-fu composition.

Second, there exists no reliable secondary evidence concerning the origins of Han yüeh-fu works. In traditional Chinese criticism, comments on the origins of specific Han yüeh-fu works do abound. However, most of these comments are nothing more than guesswork that merely reflects commentators’ preference for folk or literati traditions. For every assertion about the origin of a single composition, we are bound to find an assertion to the contrary. “South of the River,” one of the simplest Han yüeh-fu works, is a case in point. While some critics like Ch’ih Ang (Ch’ing dynasty?) take this poem to be an anonymous folk song that depicts the beautiful scenery south of the Yangtze River, others like Ch’en T’ai-ch’u (Ch’ing dynasty?) consider it to be a political satire by a literary hand against the debauchery of a ruler.[20] Unreliable as they often are, such highly subjective comments often constitute the only available historical material upon which a modern critic must depend—however unwillingly—in tackling the issues of dating and authorship. To handle such secondary sources is a frustrating and perilous business, entangling the scholar in a maze of contradictory arguments that produce merely a defense or modification of an existing opinion.

Given the impossibility of assigning authorship reliably, we will do well to abandon the traditional distinction between folk and literati yüeh-fu. Here I propose to redefine these yüeh-fu types so that this distinction is made on the basis of a work’s intrinsic qualities. By my redefinition, what matters is not a poem’s assumed origin or mode of transmission. If a work demonstrates artistic features stemming from collective oral composition and performance in a communal setting, I will call it a folk piece, regardless of whether it may have been created by illiterate people, with or without minor editing by collectors, or written in faithful imitation by a literati author. By the same token, if a work displays qualities that I will show are associated with the solo narrative presentation of the literati composer, I will call it a literati piece. It does not matter whether it was composed and circulated solely among the literati, or a literati composition that was taken up by the folk community and went through modifications in the process of collective oral transmission. The redefinition of these categories will, I believe, enable us to bypass the unsolvable issue of authorship and focus on the thematic, formal and generic evolution of Han yüeh-fu.

Crucial to my classification scheme is the distinction between the qualities of an oral folk composition as opposed to those of a written work by a literary hand. This seemingly impossible distinction has been made possible by the discovery of a repertoire of thematic and formal features common to both ancient and living oral traditions across different cultural systems.[21] As extensive cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary (literary, historical, anthropological, etc.) studies of oral poetic traditions have time and again proved this repertoire to be nearly universal,[22] it may very well serve as the basis for distinguishing the degree of “folkness” in a Han yüeh-fu piece.[23] To the extent that a Han yüeh-fu piece operates solely within these traditions, we may assume that it demonstrates folk qualities to the fullest. But to the extent that a Han yüeh-fu piece transcends these traditions to deal with the concerns of the literati and remold oral forms for the expression of personal experience, we may take it to demonstrate literati characteristics. The borderline between these two categories is not always clear-cut. Some poems may fall under both categories. However, this borderline actually enables us to observe the transition from the dramatic mode of presentation in folk yüeh-fu to the narrative mode in literati yüeh-fu. The outline of this poetic evolution will become clearer as we examine representative works from both categories.

Folk Yüeh-fu: Collective Composition and Performance

The extensive studies of Western oral poetry in recent decades have yielded a long list of its thematic and formal features. Anne Birrell holds that many of these features are present in Han yüeh-fu works and summarizes them as follows. I have taken the liberty of rearranging her list and dividing it into three clusters because, as I will show below, these features are by no means uniformly present in all Han yüeh-fu.

1) detachment, impersonality, and objectivity in presentation; commonplace phrases; nonsense words; alliteration; re frain; repetition; colloquialism;

2) universality of view; stereotyped characterization, situation, and plot;

3) dialog; ahistoricity; no analysis; no introspection; no localized action or setting; little plot; weak narrative line; abrupt entry into the balladic story and equally abrupt transi tions; understatement; a homely style drawing on famil iar material rather than from the literary tradition.[24]

Of the three clusters, only the first comprises the commonly shared features of all nonritualistic Han yüeh-fu. The second cluster reveals the distinctive features of narrative yüeh-fu works: point of view, characterization, and plot are the three most important aspects of the narrative mode of presentation. The third cluster sets forth the distinguishing features of yüeh-fu works of dramatic character. Dialog, ahistorical presentation, absence of introspection, abrupt transition, and weak narrative line are all essential attributes of the dramatic mode of presentation.

The dramatic features in this third cluster seem to have arisen from the exigencies of collective composition and performance in a folk community. Insofar as Han folk performers were preoccupied with their present existence, they would naturally adopt an ahistorical manner of presentation and shy away from any historical perspective even when dealing with past occurrences. Insofar as they engaged themselves in direct, multiparty verbal communication, they would not need localized action or setting as much as a storyteller did. Insofar as they mainly sought to express their commonly shared feelings, they would allow little room for personal expression, analysis, introspection and would remain impersonal and objective throughout. Insofar as they responded impromptu to one another in the form of dialog, they could make abrupt entries or transitions and therefore weaken or even eliminate a narrative line. Insofar as they did not have written script as an aide-mémoire, they would have to use repetition more frequently than a script-based performer in order to carry on their thought process.

It is now impossible for anyone to prove the inherent relationship between the third cluster and collective composition/performance by observing live yüeh-fu performances. However, this relationship can be explored indirectly by comparing internal textual evidence with extant historical accounts of folk performance in the Han and also with the findings of anthropological fieldwork in a living oral tradition in China. Using critical comparison, I will examine two famous Han yüeh-fu pieces: “South of the River” and “Mulberry along the Lane,” for the features highlighted above in cluster three.

Solo and Choral Singing

“South of the River” (HCHW, 256) is often regarded as a Former Han composition on the grounds of its stark simplicity.[25] It displays the thematic and formal features of a work song born of collective composition and performance. In this work song, the lotus pickers sing about what they were doing at the time of composition and performance:

South of the River

South of the river [we] can pick lotus,

2

The lotus leaves are so luscious, luscious.

Fish play among lotus leaves.

4

Fish play east of lotus leaves.

Fish play west of lotus leaves.

6

Fish play south of the lotus leaves.

Fish play north of the lotus leaves.

Here, the poetic lines seem to arise simultaneously with the actual action of lotus picking: looking around and around, spotting fish hither and thither. Through this verbal, rhythmic articulation of what they are doing, the lotus pickers seek to turn their physical experience into an artistic pleasure of the crudest kind. We may assume that they would repeat this work song again and again in the course of their lotus picking. So bound up with the present work activities, this song allows no room for looking back on the past or looking ahead into the future. In “Eastern Light” (HCHW, 256) and “Ancient Yen Song” (HCHW, 292) and other folk yüeh-fu works, we notice the same persistent concern with the present and the same neglect of the past and the future. Such a persistent concern with present activities, or “homeostasis” as Walter Ong calls it,[26] is one of the most prominent thematic features of folk poetry of the simplest kind. Seen in a larger historical perspective, “South of the River” continues the homeostatic tradition developed in kuo-feng (folk songs) in the Book of Poetry.[27]

“South of the River” is characterized by word-for-word repetitions. For instance, the word “lotus” is repeated 7 times, once in each line. From line 1 through line 3, this word performs different syntactical functions: that of an object in line 1, and (together with the word “leaves”) that of a subject in line 2, and that of an adverbial of place in line 3. As this central image shifts from one syntactical position to another, it performs the function of a nexus interweaving different images into a coherent, vibrant scene of spring. As we follow the continuous shifts of this central image, we mentally replicate this sequence of perception: a broad view of lotus plants south of the river, then a glimpse of the lotus fields, and then a close-up of fish playing among the lotus plants. The way the repetitive images link in the first two lines seems to typify “thimble phrasing” (ting-chen t’i; also known as lien-chu ko), first seen in poem 247 in the Book of Poetry and used extensively in Han yüeh-fu.[28] Such a use of repetitions is also quite common in Western folk poetry and is described by Ong as “‘beads on a frame,’ the formulaic and aggregative mode of oral culture.”[29]

The repetitions in lines 4–7 are quite different, as the phrase “lotus leaves” occurs four times in the same syntactical position, that of an adverb of place. Set within such a rigid syntax, these repetitions function mainly to amplify an emotion by the sheer force of repetition. These four lines have the absolute minimum of four variant words (east, west, south, north) and are generally thought of as a continuous choral response to the first three lines. The chant-like repetitions effectively intensify the lotus pickers’ joyous emotions.

Both traditional and modern critics point to these four lines as an evidence of collective composition and performance. In “A Great Preface to Yüeh-fu,” for instance, Fan Hsiang (Ch’ing dynasty) writes that “The song ‘South of the River’ does not employ a rhyme except for its first three lines, and shows the traces of the practice seen in ancient yüeh-fu of ‘one verse sung solo and three verses sung in a choral response (i ch’ang san t’an).”‘[30] Modern critics also hold that the first part of the poem is sung by a lead singer, and the second part is sung in unison by other singers.[31] To support this view they often identify the poem with instances of collective oral performance revealed in ancient ritualistic texts. For instance, they relate the poem to the following lines inscribed on an oracle bone dating back to the Shang times:

Crack-making on the day kui-mao,

2

Today comes the rain.

From west comes the rain?

4

From east comes the rain?

From north comes the rain?

6

From south comes the rain?[32]

These lines are believed to be divinational prayers for rain—with the first two lines uttered by a chief diviner and the other lines chanted by all present for the occasion.[33] Whatever its function, this inscription strikes us as an archetype for later folk songs like “South of the River.” To it, we can trace not only the model for interaction between the solo singer and the chorus, but also the formulaic use of the four directions as a means of emotional intensification. The obvious structural similarity between this oracle inscription and “South of the River” seems to be yet another strong piece of evidence for the collective oral composition and performance in the latter piece.

In sum, “South of the River” represents the simplest kind of folk yüeh-fu work born of a collective rhythmic utterance in the course of a work activity. Such a piece does not contain a story line, nor any direct expression of emotion, still less a clearly stated meaning. Its very meaning seems to be a vocal replication of the rhythm of actual physical work—an imitative activity that helps maintain the work rhythm and affords a sense of pleasure over the proper execution of the work. This kind of “nonsensical” work song is often regarded as the origin of poetry in traditional Chinese criticism. For instance, in Huai-nan tzu, we find a mention of the origin of poetry in a nonsensical work song: “When lumberjacks lift a heavy log of wood, those in the front utter, ‘Heave ho!’ and those at the back join in. Thus a song is sung while trying to put together bodily strength to lift a heavy object.”[34] Although “South of the River” is made up of far less ejaculatory utterances than this lumberjack song, it is nonetheless similar in kind and betrays the same process of collective composition and performance in an early oral poetic tradition.

Dramatic Situations

The vestiges of collective composition and performance can be found not only in simple, rhythmical work songs like “South of the River” but also in songs about normal events or situations in a folk community. “The Treatise on Food and Commodities” (“Shih huo chih”) in History of the Former Han includes an account of how the common people went about their collective composition and performance during the winter season:

In winter time, people were indoors. Women stayed in the same alley and went about spinning thread day and night.… If men and women could not live their normal lives, they would come and sing together, telling their sorrows to one another.[35]

“Mulberry along the Lane,” one of the best-known Han yüeh-fu compositions, seems to belong to this kind of folk compositions. Unlike “South of the River,” it is not a simple transformation of the rhythm of bodily movement into nonsensical rhythmic speech, but rather it reenacts an event, the dramatic encounter between Lo-fu, a mulberry picker working in the fields, and her unwanted suitor.

Mulberry along the Lane

The sun rises at the southeast corner

2

It shines on our house, the Ch’ins.

The Ch’ins have a pretty daughter,

4

She is called Lo-fu.

Lo-fu likes to raise silkworm and pick mulberry,

6

She picks mulberry at the south corner of the wall.

Green silk for [her] basket strap,

8

Cassia branch for [her] basket handle.

On her head a curving-down hairdo,

10

At her ears bright moon pearls.

Below, apricot silk for [her] skirt,

12

Above, purple silk for [her] blouse

Passers-by, on seeing Lo-fu,

14

Lay down their loads and stroke their beards.

Young men, on seeing Lo-fu,

16

Take off their caps and arrange their headbands.

The plowmen forget their plows,

18

The hoers forget their hoes.

They come home angry with one another

20

All because they have seen Lo-fu.

A prefect comes from the south,

22

His five horses stop and stand waiting.

The prefect sends his attendant forward:

24

“To whom does this pretty girl belong?”

“The Ch’ins have a pretty daughter

26

She is called Lo-fu.”

“Lo-fu, how old is she?”

28

“Twenty, not quite yet,

Fifteen, a bit more.”

30

The prefect asks Lo-fu:

“Why don’t you ride with me?”

32

Lo-fu comes forward and replies:

“Prefect, why so foolish!

34

The Prefect has his own wife,

Lo-fu has her own husband.

36

“In the east more than a thousand cavalry steeds,

My husband takes the lead.

38

How would you recognize my husband?

His white horse is followed by a black colt,

40

Green silk decks his horses’ tails,

Golden bridles on his horses’ heads.

42

At his waist hangs a Lu-lu sword

Its worth more than ten million cash.

44

“At fifteen [he was] a ‘small clerk,’

At twenty a ‘big master,’

46

At thirty a ‘middle courtier,’

At forty lord of a city of his own.

48

“His is a complexion of pure white

How very fine the whiskers on his face!

50

So majestically he strides into court!

How solemnly he walks in the Hall!

52

Of the several thousand in audience

All say my husband is extraordinary!”[36]

(HCHW, 256)

This folk song depicts the multiple facets of Lo-fu the heroine through different concrete situations drawn from her life.[37] It consists of three major parts that can be further divided into seven segments as indicated by my stanza divisions. The three segments in the first part reveal her family background through a glimpse of her residence and daily routine, her elegant and dignified carriage through a description of her clothes and ornaments, her physical charm through the bewitchment of passers-by. The fourth segment in the second part reveals Lo-fu’s moral chastity through a rapid exchange of flirtation and repartee between the prefect and the heroine. The remaining three segments in the last part display Lo-fu’s unbounded admiration for her husband as expressed in her praises of his equestrian spirit, his administrative accomplishments, and his majestic manner at court. This portrayal of Lo-fu exemplifies what Ong calls “situational thinking,” a prominent mode of thought in an oral culture.[38] When the performers come to depict Lo-fu, they simply think in terms of concrete situations that can most effectively evoke their images of her. Indeed, admiration of Lo-fu’s upbringing, deportment, beauty, and moral virtues is not expressed in any of those abstract terms, but through an array of concrete situations shedding light on all those facets of her character.

It is important to note that all these situations are organized in the form of a “mini-drama,” replete with highly interactive characters. Those in the first part are mute characters engaged in nonverbal interaction. The encounter between Lo-fu and her admirers—young men, a plowman, and an hoer—is told to us by an invisible narrator. All the characters in the second part play speaking roles. Lo-fu engages the messenger and then the prefect in brief, yet lively, sharp-witted exchanges. In the last part, Lo-fu assumes the role of a solo speaker. In response to the prefect’s flirtatious remark, she launches into a laudatory description of her husband, and thus tactfully silences the aggressive suitor. The blend of silent and speaking characters, the swift changes of scene, the forthright dialogs, and the successive appearance of different characters all indicate the dramatic nature of this composition.

Although the dramatic qualities of “Mulberry along the Lane” are hardly disputable, the poem itself is seldom regarded by critics as a specimen of the dramatic mode of presentation. More often than not, critics account for the shifts of character within a broad narrative scheme. In his study of Han and post-Han yüeh-fu, Hans H. Frankel conjectures that it is a single performer who plays the multiple and shifting roles of “narrator and actor, impersonating one or more characters.”[39] Accepting this explanation, Anne Birrell identifies a yüeh-fu performer as a storyteller and considers his composition a work of narration enlivened by dramatic techniques.[40] While we may do well to take many yüeh-fu pieces as narrative poems, we run into difficulty if we attempt to turn a dramatic piece like “Mulberry along the Lane” into a narrative. The bulk of internal textual evidence stands at odds with the idea of this poem being a narrative work.

Ahistorical Presentation

“Mulberry along the Lane” does not contain the temporal scheme essential to a narrative work, though it presents a wide range of situations. Although an invisible narrator does control the opening two segments, that narrator disappears soon afterwards. The narrator’s function is to introduce a dramatic presentation rather than to act as a storyteller who controls the development of an entire composition. No words or phrases indicate the concrete times in which the activities take place. Nor do any textual elements suggest a particular order to those activities. If we suspend our customary inclination to impose temporal order on a long poem, we will be able to perceive this poem as an accumulation of momentary observations of the heroine rather than the sequential development of events in a story about her encounter with an unwanted suitor.

The ahistorical aspect of the poem lends support to a dramatic interpretation of it. When folk performers depict a past occurrence in a dramatic context, they normally see its significance only in terms of the present. Unlike a storyteller, they do not seek to organize past events into a temporal sequence. Rather, they strive to recreate those events simultaneously as a living drama unfolding in the present moment. This dramatic transformation of past occurrences into immediate, tangible actions clearly reflects homeostasis, the persistent preoccupation with present experience typical in folk composition. So we may very well take the ahistorical aspect of “Mulberry along the Lane” as a textual vestige of a homeostatic, dramatic presentation. Indeed, when reading this poem, it is not at all difficult to picture multiple performers playing different characters in an effort to imitate Lo-fu’s dramatic encounter with the prefect.

Abrupt Transitions

Abrupt transitions constitute still another form of textual evidence illustrating the importance of collective role-playing in “Mulberry along the Lane.” In the poem we can easily find at least four abrupt transitions among its seven segments. We note an abrupt shift in the appearance of Lo-fu from a peasant girl working in a mulberry grove to an elegant, well-dressed and bejeweled lady in the second segment; an abrupt shift of scene from Lo-fu’s private life to her exposure to the public gaze in the third segment; an abrupt shift of people from a group of uncouth peasants to a prefect and his entourage in the fourth segment; and an abrupt shift of speech form from snappy repartee to an earnest enumeration of merits by Lo-fu in the last three segments.

All these abrupt shifts seem to underscore the kind of freedom the folk yüeh-fu performers enjoyed in the course of their collective role-playing. When one performer took up the action, replacing a fellow performer, he was free to introduce a new point of view and switch to the level of language most familiar to him. He might either compose his own lines or simply draw lines from one or more existing compositions—without worrying too much about whether his lines would follow what had been going on. The immediacy of the interactive role-playing more than compensates for any abrupt shifts in content or form.

Composite Structure

In consequence of these abrupt transitions, the poem demonstrates a composite structure. Although this structure is likely to be regarded as a serious fault in a literati narrative work, it is perfectly acceptable in a folk yüeh-fu piece. In fact, it has been hailed as a hallmark of yüeh-fu artistry, for it creates ambiguities that make a composition dramatic, provocative, and intriguing.[41] Shen Te-ch’ien praised the unique charm of the composite structure in “Mulberry along the Lane” when he said “there seems to be structural coherence, yet there seems not to be structural coherence. This is where the ancients entered the realm of spirit.”[42]

Yü Kuan-ying developed a “jigsaw” theory of yüeh-fu composition and listed eight different ways a yüeh-fu performer may piece together borrowings from diverse sources: 1) combine two borrowed parts into a new piece; 2) combine two borrowed parts with an interlude; 3) intermingle one piece with stock phrases and formulas from other works; 4) break down one piece and use its fragments for a new piece; 5) put in one section from other texts; 6) piece different fragments into a new one; 7) use the ending of a piece as the beginning of a new piece; and 8) use formulaic expressions.[43] While Yü has aptly spelled out the features of composite structure with this eight-fold categorization, he has erred in seeing composite structure as the brainchild of a single yüeh-fu performer. The bulk of internal textual evidence and external evidence to be examined later suggests quite the opposite: composite structure is the outcome of collective role-playing. A folk yüeh-fu work displays a composite structure simply because it involves the participation of several performers who each bring to the work a different point of view, a different set of oral formulas or expressions, and probably a different style of performance as well.[44]

My analysis of the composite structure in “Mulberry along the Lane” falls in line with some Ch’u tz’u scholars’ attempts to envision dramatic performance through an analysis of the composite structures in “Nine Songs” (“Chiu-ko”) in Songs of Ch’u. Among the eminent Ch’u tz’u scholars, Ch’en Pen-li (1739–1818), Aoki Masaru, and Ch’en Tzu-chan all regard the composite structures in “Nine Songs” as solid textual evidence of collective role-playing, though they disagree about who the performers were and how they went about their collective role-playing. Ch’en Pen-li holds that collective role-playing takes two forms in Songs of Ch’u. He writes that “there is the case of female shamans (wu) and male shamans (hsi) dancing and singing together, and there is also the case of solo singing by one female shaman with choral responses by multiple female shamans.”[45] Aoki Masaru also thinks the composite structures in “Nine Songs” attest to two forms of collective role-playing. In contrast to Ch’en, he holds that the two forms are: 1) antiphonal singing and dancing between a male shaman playing the role of a god or a chief sacrificer and a female shaman playing the role of either a chief or assistant sacrificer; and 2) choral singing and collective dancing by multiple shamans.[46] Ch’en Tzu-chan seems to have synthesized the views of Ch’en Pen-li and Aoki Masaru. For him, the composite structures indicate different dramatic situations: solo, choral, and/or antiphonal singing and dancing by different combinations of male and female shamans.[47] All three views are relevant to our understanding of the composite structures in Han yüeh-fu, a genre that has descended from the southern oral traditions represented by Songs of Ch’u. If the two-part division in “South of the River” reveals the kind of the solo singing and choral response proposed by Ch’en Pen-li, the tripartite division of “Mulberry along the Lane” seems to signify the combined solo singing (first section), antiphonal singing (second section), and perhaps choral singing as well (last section may be joined by a chorus) as adumbrated by Ch’en Tz’u-chan.

Compendium of Repetitions

The abundance of repetitions is still another kind of internal textual evidence for collective role-playing in “Mulberry along the Lane.” Jean-Pierre Diény identifies six types of repetitions in this work:

1) repetition of words that serve to link verses (2.3–4 [namely verse 2, words 3–4] and 2.1–2; 4.4–5 and 5.1–2; 5.5 and 6.2; 26.4–5 and 27.1–2)

2) repetition of words in consecutive verses at identical places (7.3–4 and 8.3–4; 11.3 and 12.3; 17.2–4 and 18.2–4; 33.1–2 and 34.1–2; 34.3–4 and 35.3–4; 40.4 and 41.4)

3) remote echoes (1.4–5 and 6.4–5; 7.1–2 and 40.1–2; 21.1–2 and 23.1–2 and 30.1–2; 33.1–2 and 34.1–2).

4) repetition of an entire verse (3–4 and 25–26)

5) progressive numerals (44.1–2, 45.1–2, 46.1–2, 47.1–2)

6) repetition of grammatical constructions (4.3, 7.3, 8.3, 11.3, 12.3, 26.3; and 49.1–2, 50.1–2, 51.1–2).[48]

These six types of repetition almost amount to a compendium of repetitions used in Chinese poetry up to Han times. While these six types of repetition frequently appear in both folk and literati yüeh-fu, they are seldom employed all together in a single poem. This unusual concentration of the six forms in “Mulberry along the Lane” may very well be due to the consecutive use of repetitions by different performers. Each performer may have chosen a particular type of repetition to frame the syntactical formulas best suited to conveying his thoughts. In the first segment, for instance, the third-person narrator uses the first type of repetition to construct a “thimble phrasing” frame. This enables him to arrange the miscellaneous details of Lo-fu’s family background:

The sun rises at the southeast corner

It shines on our house of the Ch’ins.

The Ch’ins have a pretty daughter,

She is called Lo-fu.

Lo-fu likes to raise silkworm and pick mulberry,

She picks mulberry at the south corner of the wall.

(Lines 1–6)

In the second segment, the narrator uses the second type of repetition to construct three couplets, which effectively convey Lo-fu’s charming appearance :

Green silk for [her] basket strap,

Cassia branch for [her] basket handle.

On her head a curving-down hairdo,

At her ears bright moon pearls.

Below, apricot silk for [her] skirt,

Above, purple silk for [her] blouse

(Lines 7–12)

In the fourth segment, a performer repeats verbatim two verses from the first segment (the fourth type of repetition) in order to link the encounter between the prefect and Lo-fu with the earlier narrative segments. In the sixth segment, the performer who plays the role of Lo-fu uses not only progressive numerals (the fifth type of repetition) but also three spatial coordinates to construct a syntax which helps him enumerate the important official posts allegedly held by Lo-fu’s husband:[49]

“At fifteen [he was] a ‘small clerk,’

At twenty a ‘big master,’

At thirty a ‘middle courtier,’

At forty lord of a city of his own.

(Lines 44–47)

In the last segment, the performer makes use of reduplicatives (lien-mien tzu), the sixth type of repetition, and vividly conveys his impressions of the majestic manner of Lo-fu’s husband:

“His is a complexion of pure white

How fine (and fine), the whiskers on his face!

So majestically (and majestically) he strides into court!

How solemnly (and solemnly) he walks in the Hall!

Of the several thousand in audience

All say my husband is extraordinary!”

(Lines 48–53)

My analysis shows that “Mulberry along the Lane” exhibits most of the prominent features of folk yüeh-fu outlined at the beginning of this section.[50] Those thematic and formal features constitute evidence of collective composition and performance in a communal setting. Situational thinking rather than conceptual thinking predominates in folk performances. The direct nonverbal and verbal communication among the narrator and characters provide clues to the original context of collective roleplaying at the time of composition and performance. The poem reveals an almost exclusive interest in immediate experience (homeostasis). The composite structure reflects abrupt shifts of character and multiple points of view characteristic of spontaneous collective composition. The presence of six different repetitions perhaps indicates the performers’ freedom to introduce new patterns of expression in the course of performance. Hence we have good reason to argue that a folk yüeh-fu composition like “Mulberry along the Lane” is not in its original form a narrative work by a single storyteller. Rather, it is likely to have been a dramatic composition born of collective effort and kept alive through collective performance until the work was collected and edited by Music Bureau officials. As a subgenre, folk yüeh-fu represents a unique dramatic mode of presentation in the evolution of pentasyllabic poetry, standing in contrast to the narrative mode in the literati yüeh-fu and the lyrical mode in the ku-shih.

Corroborative Evidence of Folk Dramatic Performance

My analysis of the two poems has yielded much internal evidence of collective composition and performance in a folk community and has led me to conceive of the existence of a distinctive dramatic mode in Han yüeh-fu. My discussion of this dramatic mode represents a rather radical departure from the prevailing view of the entire Han yüeh-fu corpus as narrative works. So it is incumbent on me to provide corroborative external evidence in support of my argument. I will seek to corroborate my textual analysis with three kinds of evidence: 1) historical accounts of folk collective performance in Han times, 2) the testimony of drama historians on the protodramatic nature of such collective performance, and 3) anthropological findings on the living tradition of oral performance in a Chinese minority group in southwest China.

In my discussion of “South of the River,” I have already cited an explicit description in the Huai-nan Tzu of the process of composing a work song collectively. Although we cannot find a similar description of the collective composition of a Han yüeh-fu piece, we do have a detailed description of evolving forms of collective performance in the Han yüeh-fu tradition in “The Treatise on Music” of the History of the [Liu] Sung:

The four tan-ko pieces originated in the Han. They were sung without the accompaniment of stringed instrument and rhythmic beat and without a dance performance. First, a leader would sing, then three other singers would respond in chorus. The Martial Emperor of Wei [Ts’ao Ts’ao, 155–220] was particularly fond of them. There was then a person called Sung Jung-hua, who had a clear and beautiful voice and was good at leading this song and achieving a marvelous effect. However, these songs have been lost since Chin [times], Hsiang-ho pieces are old songs from the Han. Stringed and pipe instruments were brought into harmony, and those who used clappers did the singing.”[51]

According to this passage Han folk yüeh-fu were originally sung collectively without musical accompaniment and were called tan-ko. Wang Yün-hsi argues that such tan-ko pieces can be traced back to songs of the Ch’in dynasty, such as those mentioned by Sung Yü (Warring States) in his famous “In Reply to the King of Ch’u” or the famed “Song of the Great Wind” attributed to Liu Pang (2567–195 B.C.), the founder of the Han. Wang also believes that tan-ko pieces evolved into hsiang-ho or “harmonious pieces” after they were collected and set to music at a later date.[52] In Records of Music Ancient and Present (Ku-chin yüeh-lu), we are told that the performance of “harmonious pieces” in Han times involved the use of seven different musical instruments by multiple performers.[53] Further developing Wang’s argument, Masuda Kiyohide contends that the transition from tan-ko to hsing-ho occurred during the reign of Ts’ao Jui (r. 227–238) when a large number of folk songs were collected and adapted to musical instrument.[54] In the opinion of Wang Ia, such a musical adaptation entails only a minor addition or subtraction of words to fit certain tunes and hardly changes the configuration of the original work.[55]

If the evolution from tan-ko to hsiang-ho marks a process of complication in the manner of collective performance, the development from hsiang-ho to ta-ch’ü (songs of the grand mode) in the Chin court represents a stylization of collective performance. In the ta-ch’ü form, a yüeh-fu work is divided into two or more fixed performative blocks known as chieh. Each block constitutes a stylized performance of songs, music, and dance by multiple performers. The sequence of these blocks is also set. The beginning block is called yen; the middle block, cheng-ch’ü; and the ending block, ch’ü. As a ta-ch’ü piece is normally made up of at least two blocks, its performance necessarily involves coordinated execution of these blocks by multiple performers. In “Treatise on Music” of the Sung s hu Shen Yiieh confirms this sequence for the ta-ch’ü form of “Mulberry along the Lane.” He writes that the poem has a complete set of “three chieh, begun by a tune of yen and ending with ch’ü,”[56] According to Shen, lines 1–20 (first part) are yen, which serve an evocative function like an overture; lines 21–34 (second part) are cheng-ch’ü, which brings forth the central action; and lines 35–52 (third part) are ch’ü, which bring the story to a climax through a quickened tempo of performance.[57]

In the development of Han yüeh-fu, the rise of the ta-ch’ü did not by any means displace the tan-ko and hsiang-ho forms. It is generally believed that all three forms coexisted in Han and Wei-Chin times. Masuda Kiyohide holds that “Mulberry along the Lane” continued to circulate in its unrefined form among common folk even after it was adapted for performance in the Chin court in the form of ta-ch’ü[58] This coexistence of the three forms suggests not only the vitality of collective performance in Han folk traditions, but also its influence on Chin courtly traditions.

As collective performance is one of the most essential attributes of a dramatic work, it is no wonder that some modern drama historians came to regard works like “South of the River” and “Mulberry along the Lane” as prototypes of Chinese drama. An anonymous scholar in the 1920s considers Han yüeh-fu to be the pan-pen (“texts for dramatic performance”) of Han times and the prototype of modern pan-pen.[59] In his A History of Chinese Drama (Chung-kuo hsi-chil shih), Chou I-pai contends that the performance of “harmonious pieces” should be called dramatic for three reasons: 1) the use of multiple musical instruments by multiple performers; 2) the harmony of singing, musical accompaniment, and dancing; 3) the sequencing of performative blocks that anticipates the use of song set in the fully developed drama of later ages.[60] This assessment of “harmonious pieces” seems to be accepted by many drama historians. When tracing the origins of Chinese drama, Meng Yao offers similar observations about the dramatic performance of some Han yüeh-fu works.[61] In his own A History of Chinese Drama, Wei Tzu-yün maintains that some Han yüeh-fu works are dramatic not just because of collective performance of songs, music, and dance, but also because of the dramatic actions in the texts themselves. In commenting on the dramatic situations in “Mulberry along the Lane,” he goes so far as to argue that the poem’s three parts represent three acts of a mini-drama.[62] Whether or not we agree with these drama historians that Han yüeh-fu are a form of protodrama, what they say does shed light on the dramatic mode of presentation in Han folk yüeh-fu works like “South of the River” and “Mulberry along the Lane.”

Recent anthropological fieldwork on a Chinese ethnic group turns up factual evidence of folk dramatic performance not dissimilar to what we have envisioned in “Mulberry along the Lane.” In 1988, 1989, and 1993 Shanshan Du studied the relationship between the collective singing of love songs and love-suicide songs and the unusually high rate of love-pact suicide among the Lahu Na (the Black Lahu), a preliterate ethnic group living in the Lancang Lahu Autonomous County in the southwestern province of Yunnan in China. The following passages describe in detail the dramatic performance of these songs:

During the process of singing, both the romantic emotions and the suicidal decisions of the lovers are constructed. In extreme circumstances, some of the enchanted listeners to love-suicide songs can be so moved that they accompany the singers in committing suicide because of intense aesthetic satisfaction and deep sympathy for the lovers.

The sessions of singing love songs are arranged antiphonally between females and males, who sit separately beside camp fires outside the village at night during the courting seasons. The courting season extends from the end of harvesting (October) to the beginning of spring ploughing (February), but is especially intense during the Lahu New Year celebration.

Like most of the Lahu Na folk songs, love songs and love-suicide songs are sung in the form of antiphonal questioning and answering. The optimum composition for the performing group is two people—one male and one female singer. The singing of love songs is scrupulously restricted to the courting context: sung by the unmarried for the purpose of courting. The antiphonal songs are usually listened to by many people with the purpose of gaining aesthetic satisfaction, accumulating knowledge, or practising the antiphonal responses silently. In this sense, many of the silent listeners are, in fact, active participants in the antiphonal singing.…

There is great variety in the degree of flexibility one has in singing the texts of the Lahu folk songs. The singing of certain texts requires absolute accuracy. Any error in the singing of the “Year Song” to celebrate the New Year, is believed to result in destruction of the crops during the coming year. But the singing of the texts of most songs is modular and flexible and the singers need to have not only enough knowledge but also the creativity to piece the parts together.… The love-suicide songs are among those with the greatest flexibility. In addition to piecing together the fixed modules, the singers of love-suicide songs have to spontaneously create metaphors, puns, and verses related to the context of the antiphonal singing.[63]

This description seems to match well my textual analysis of “Mulberry along the Lane.” While I have reconstructed the scene of a dramatic folk performance on the ground of internal textual evidence, Du here gives a factual account of a folk dramatic performance and briefly comments on some of the formal features shaped by such a performance. Du tells us that during the off-season the Lahu Na people have communal gatherings in which they sing together various folk songs depicting courtship, marriage, and other aspects of their life. Such a communal singing reminds us of what the History of the Former Han says about the practice of collective singing in folk communities in Han times. By the same token, what Du says about the dramatic interaction among the singers and between the audience and singers seems to bear out my discussion of the shifts of voice in”Mulberry along the Lane.” Her description of the antiphonal singing offers a ready comparison with the pattern of questioning and answering in that work. Her comments on the use of modules in the Lahu songs lend support to my analysis of the composite structure and abrupt transitions in “Mulberry along the Lane.” Finally, her observation about the freedom the Lahu singers have in modifying and creating the language of songs accords with what I have said about shifting levels of language when commenting on the presence of six patterns of repetition in this poem. Du’s account of the Lahu Na traditions provides a living example of the kind of folk dramatic performance envisioned in “Mulberry along the Lane.” Her findings constitute valuable corroborative evidence in support of my effort to distinguish a dramatic mode in Han yüeh-fu and trace its origin to collective composition and performance in a folk community.[64]

To support my analysis further, let me cite the Ch’ing scholar Li T’iao-yuan (1734-?) who wrote of dramatic performances akin to what I have envisioned in “Mulberry along the Lane” in his study of Lang-ko or the songs of the Lang people (a non-Han ethnic group in eighteenth-century Nan Yüeh, or present-day Kuang-hsi Province). In his Random Notes on Nan Yüeh (Nan Yüeh pi-chi), he gives this account of the dramatic performance of Lang love songs:

In the customs of the Lang, people begin to practice singing when they are young. Men and women depend on singing to find their mates. When a woman comes of age, she is set alone in the wild hills. Young men who follow her number in the dozens. They take turns singing to her. Depending on the responses shown by the intent of her song, one of these young men stays on. Then the two exchange gifts. The man leaves the woman with a shoulder-pole inscribed with the words of a few songs.… The woman presents the man with an embroidered pouch and a decorated silk belt to be engaged as husband and wife.[65]

In this passage, we witness the actual unfolding of a dramatic situation similar to what we encounter in “Mulberry along the Lane”: the appearance of a woman, a parade of her admirers, the emergence of a dominant admirer, and the interaction between that admirer and the woman. Of course, in “Mulberry along the Lane,” the suitor is a married man and the woman is also married. As the identities of the characters are different, so is the nature of the courtship. A natural search for a marital bond is replaced by an unnatural endeavor to undermine a good marriage. Consequently, the courtship does not lead to a happy engagement, but ends with an angry condemnation of the suitor by the woman. While Lang singers go through a rite of singing love songs in a genuine search for a mate, the performers of “Mulberry along the Lane” act out a debased version of the rite of courtship in order to denounce the unnatural sabotage of a marriage. Li T’iao-yüan’s account of the dramatic performance of courtship by the Lang people is indeed reminiscent of what we have seen in “Mulberry along the Lane.”[66]

Is it possible, we may ask, that this poem and the Lang songs may be connected in some way? If we accept Aoki Masaru’s view that Lang songs can probably be traced to the southern folk traditions of Songs of Ch’u,[67] we may speculate that a similar courtship rite was practiced by the Miao and other ethnic groups in and around the Ch’u areas during Han and earlier times and that “Mulberry along the Lane” may imitate such a rite. This courtship rite must have been practiced in more or less the same way century after century. A testimony to the continuation of this Miao tradition is Shen Ts’ung-wen’s account of courtship songs performance practised by another Miao tribe in “Lung Chu,” a short story he wrote in 1929, based on his knowledge of the Miao tribes living in the western part of Hunan province:[68]

The boys and girls of the Lang Chia tribe came together through singing. At the Greater New Year’s Festival, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Mid-Autumn Festival of the eighth month, and the great sacrifices of Dancing for the New Year and Stabbing the Ox, boys and girls would form into groups to sing and dance. Each of the girls would be decked out in a tunic and skirt of tribal brocade, with flowers in her hair and a carefully powdered face, to offer herself to a boy. Ordinarily, when the weather was good, whether it was early or late in the day, in a deep mountain valley or by a riverbank, boys and girls would be drawn together by their singing. Then, under sunlight or moonlight, they could come to know each other and do those things that can only be done by the most intimate of lovers. With these customs, a boy who could not sing was in disgrace, and a girl who could not sing could not get a good husband. Plucking out one’s heart and tendering it to one’s lover depended not on money, appearance, family status, or anything of pretense, only on genuine and passionate songs.[69]

This account is practically identical with what Li T’iao-yüan tells us about the rite of courtship in the Lang tribe. Apparently, early in this century the Lang Chia tribe of west Hunan practiced the same rite as the Lang tribe of Kuang-hsi had done in the eighteenth century.[70] This leads us to believe that this singing rite is indeed an unbroken Miao custom observed by the Miao tribes of different places and times. Although there are not definitive records of this tradition among the Miao and other minority groups in Han times, there is little reason to doubt the existence of such a custom in minority communities then and earlier. In the opinion of Shen Ts’ung-wen, similar customs must have existed in Han folk communities as well, since he envisions the “Miao life as that of the Han when they ‘were young.’”[71] Probably what Shen has in mind is the primitive life of the Han people in the period of the Book of Poetry, the early Chou. As Jeffrey C. Kinkley points out, Marcel Granet’s detection of “signs of similar customs among the ancient Han” in the love songs of the Book of Poetry seems to bear out Shen Ts’ung-wen’s vision of ancient Han Chinese culture.[72] In fact, there is strong evidence to support Shen’s assumption about the existence of collective singing among ancient Han Chinese groups. In Comprehensive Discussions at the White Tiger Hall (Paihu t’ung), Confucius is said to condemn such singing and to hold this custom responsible for the debased qualities of the airs of the Cheng state in the Book of Poetry:

Confucius said, “Why are the airs of Cheng licentious? The indigenous people of Cheng lived in the mountains and bathed in the valleys. Men and women mingled together. With the airs of Cheng, they seduced each other with sensual pleasures. Therefore, they were perverse and indecent, and their airs are all airs of licentious qualities.[73]

Except for its moral condemnation, this account is very similar to those of Li T’iao-yüan and Shen Ts’ung-wen. If we agree with Granet’s and Shen’s views, we can then see a meaningful connection between “Mulberry along the Lane” and the Lang songs. This connection may be understood in three different ways. We may see “Mulberry along the Lane” as a reflection of the custom of collective singing in the Book of Poetry, a custom that resembles the one practiced by the Miao peoples. Or we may attribute the dramatic qualities of “Mulberry along the Lane” to the influence of the rite of courtship being practiced by the Miao and other minority groups in Han times. Or we may assume that “Mulberry along the Lane” is also influenced by the ancient customs of the Book of Poetry and contemporary non-Han traditions of love-song singing.

In addition to his account of the Lang rite of courtship, he collected eleven Lang love songs in his Airs of Yüeh (Yüeh feng), an anthology of popular songs in Yüeh or Kuang-hsi and Kuang-tung. Like “Mulberry along the Lane,” these love songs are all pentasyllabic poems. They may be conceived either as eleven antiphonal songs, or as a loosely connected song sequence with eleven antiphonal sections sung by a girl and her suitor(s) during a prolonged singing session. The reliability of these song texts as records of live dramatic performance is enhanced by the fact both the original transcriber and the annotator sought to present the songs as faithfully as possible. The original transcriber, a man identified as Wu Tai by Li T’iao-yüan, recorded the songs in a mixture of Chinese and the Lang language, often transliterating into Chinese written characters. Recorded in such a macaronic form, these songs were comprehensible only to those who knew both languages. To make these song texts accessible to the general reader, Li T’iao-yüan glossed most of the characters as sound indicators of Lang speech and provided a rough paraphrase of each line. Thanks to these efforts, Wu and Li successfully preserved the original character of these songs and passed on to us a reliable record of live dramatic performance. Due to the limits of space, I cite only the first two of the eleven antiphonal songs and offer a literal translation of them based on the Li’s annotations.

Yüeh Feng: Lang Songs

Singing:

Sing to me, you sister,

2

The song you sing [is like] a small yellow flower.

Sing to me, you sister,

4

Sing two lines to relieve my boredom.

I brother do not deal with others well,

6

But if you love me, I will respond.

If you meanto follow me,

8

I will not let go the one that matches my years.

Replying:

Sing, so I will sing, you brother,

10

[What] I sing [is not as] dark as ink.

Sing, so I will sing, you brother,

12

[What] I sing [is not as] firm as stone.

Seeing you are so fine,

14

I feel my heart itching.

One loves, one plays along,

16

My heart itches, and I won’t let you go.

Singing:

Today I come by here,

2

Like water returning to river.

Today I meet [you] here,

4

Like being two butterflies.

Days are gone, so are months,

6

The one that matches my years, where are you?

P’ing-nan, T’eng, and Kui [counties],

8

I come and see you sister, so beautiful.

Replying:

Today I meet [you] here,

10

Like bamboo greeting spring.

Today we meet here,

12

Like clouds dropping down from heaven.

Waiting until the door shed tears,

14

Waiting until the doorpost shed more tears.

? ? ? [meaning unclear].

16

? ? ? [meaning unclear].[74]

In these Lang song texts, we can observe practically all of the prominent formal features seen in “Mulberry along the Lane”: situational thinking, ahistorical presentation, abrupt transition, and composite structure.[75] As these texts are reliable records of live dramatic performance, we can maintain that their formal features are undoubtedly shaped by the dynamics of dramatic presentation. Once we can see the inherent connection of these formal features with dramatic performance, we can say that other songs in which we find a preponderance of these formal features are likely to have been born of dramatic performance as well. Thus, the fact “Mulberry along the Lane” shares the same repertoire of formal features with these Lang songs is particularly revealing. It not only constitutes what may be the strongest corroborative evidence of the dramatic nature of the former work, but also reaffirms the advisability of taking these formal features as textual evidence of dramatic performance in this study of Han folk yüeh-fu.

Literati Yiieh-fu: Noninteractive Storytelling

The next four Han yüeh-fu poems present textual evidence of noninteractive storytelling by a solo performer and illustrate the narrative mode of presentation in literati yüeh-fu.[76] To accentuate the sharp contrast between dramatic and narrative modes and between two clusters of artistic features germane to these two modes, let us first compare the following poem by Hsin Yen-nien, an obscure poet in the Later Han, with “Mulberry along the Lane”:

The Yii-lin Official

Once there was a servant in the house of Huo,

2

His name was Feng Tzu-tu.

Presuming on the general’s power,

4

He teased a foreign girl in a wineshop.

The pretty foreign girl was fifteen.

6

In spring she was tending the bar alone.

The halves of her long skirt were tied together with ribbons;

8

Her broad-sleeved coat had a floral design of happy union.

On her head she wore jade from Lan-t’ien,

10

Behind her ears, Byzantine pearls.

Her hair in two buns, so attractive,

12

Surely without equal in her time,

One bun worth five million.

14

Two buns more than ten million.

Surprise! An imperial guard officer,

16

A show-off, passes my bar.

His silver saddle, how it glitters!

18

His carriage, decked with kingfisher feathers, loiters in idleness.

He comes to me and asks for clear wine;

20

By the silk cord I lift the jade pot.

He comes to me and asks for a choice dish;

22

On a gold platter I serve him thin-sliced carp.

He gives me a green bronze mirror,

24

And ties it to my red silk skirt.

I don’t care if the red silk gets torn,

26

Not to mention my unworthy body.

A man always desires a second wife,

28

A woman esteems her first husband.

In human life there is new and old;

30

Noble and base can’t trespass on each other.

No, thank you, Officer of the Guard!

32

Secret dalliance can’t ever amount to anything.[77] (HCHW, 198)

This poem dwells on a theme identical to that of “Mulberry along the Lane”: a virtuous beauty’s triumph over her unwanted suitor in a dramatic confrontation. However, the handling of the theme is radically different in the two poems. The dramatic features prominent in “Mulberry along the Lane” are now all gone. First, there is a marked shift from multiple to dual points of view. While “Mulberry along the Lane” suggests a dramatic reenactment by multiple performers, this poem is undoubtedly a narrative account by a single performer, who first speaks as a third-person narrator and then assumes the voice of the heroine herself. Second, the number of characters has been greatly reduced. There are no longer a host of minor characters parading before the heroine. The heroine and the suitor are the only two characters. Third, the dramatic confrontation has become less intense, as they are no longer engaged in repartee. The heroine’s narrative account has taken much of the dramatic tension out of the confrontation. Fourth, ahistorical presentation has given way to a temporally coherent description begun by “hsi yu” (line 1), a phrase equivalent to “once upon a time” in English. Fifth, composite structure is replaced by a sequential structure without traces of abrupt transition. Sixth, folk situational thinking has all but disappeared, as the heroine expresses her thoughts in abstract conceptual terms (lines 27–32) unseen in “Mulberry along the Lane.” From this brief comparison of the two poems, we can catch a glimpse of the transition from dramatic mode in folk yüeh-fu to the narrative mode in literati yüeh-fu[78] To deepen our understanding of the narrative mode, let us examine its three essential features (literati concern, sequential structure, and dual points of view) and consider how these features result from the efforts by Han literati to contemplate their own inner experience.

Literati Concerns

While the dramatic mode contains vestiges of collective composition and performance in a folk community, the narrative mode bears the imprint of solo presentation of a storyteller struggling to convey his inward experience to his audience in a story form. I have already noted that folk collective composition and performance usually revolve around an external event affecting the life of a folk community. By contrast, we shall see in the next four poems that the solo presentation of a storyteller tends to center on his inner awareness of the impermanence of human life, values, and relationships—a perpetual Han literati concern. This thematic shift from external occurrences to inner experience is evident in “Ballad to a Long Song,” a poem on the subject of transcendental escape where the performer depicts his flight to the fairyland of immortals:

Ballad to a Long Song

The immortal rides a white deer,

2

His hair is short and his ears so long.

Having led me up to Mount T’ai Hua,

4

He picks magic mushrooms and gathers red fungus.

When I arrive at the Master’s gate,

6

I offer the Master the drug in a jade box.

The Master takes the drug,

8

His body becomes healthier and stronger each day.

His white hair has turned black again,

10

His years are extended and he will live long.[79] (HCHW, 263)

Short as it is, this piece contains all the situations essential to its type: an encounter with an immortal, a ride with an immortal to a heavenly paradise, a search for a cure for aging and mortality, and an instantaneous rejuvenation after taking a drug of longevity. The order in which all these situations are presented is unambiguously sequential and gives the illusion of a real journey. By taking us along his journey, the performer intends us to share his illusionary escape from the cares of our mundane existence and achieve, however momentarily, a mental transcendence of human transience.

This poem has two major components: abstract concepts—”lifespan” (shou-ming) and “extending one’s life” (yen-nien)—as well as concrete images—long ears, flying deer, drug of immortality, and so forth. Both components can be traced not to folk origins, but to earlier courtly and literati traditions. Konishi Noboru points out that conceptual terms like “human existence” (jen-sheng), “everlasting life” (ch’ang-sheng) “lifespan” (shou-ming), and “extending one’s life (yen-nien) are practically nonexistent in the Han and preHan folk songs. According to Konishi, these expressions were first used by Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju (179–117 B.C.) and other court poets in “Songs for Suburban Sacrifices” (“Chiao-ssu Ko”) for the purpose of wishing the Emperor immortal life; later they appeared in court banquet songs (i.e., tuan-hsiao nao-ko) for the same purpose. In “Ballad to a Long Song” and similar pieces in the “harmonious mode,” these terms began to be used together with concrete images of an immortal.[80] In Konishi’s opinion these concrete images also trace back to earlier literary sources. He argues that they derive not from popular cults of immortality but from the written Taoist classics Chuang Tzu and Huai-nan Tzu.[81] This argument is supported by the fact that the immortal in “Ballad to a Long Song” fits perfectly the descriptions of an immortal in those two Taoist texts—a human being with superhuman abilities (e.g., flying, living a celestial life).[82] Moreover, this immortal does not exhibit any nonhuman physical features (e.g., the feet of a beast, the wings of a bird, a feathered body) characteristic of immortals in the folk cult.[83] Having identified literary origins for both abstract terms and concrete images used in “Ballad to a Long Song,” we have good reason to regard the poem and other similar pieces as literati yüeh-fu works.

“Ballad of Breaking the Poplar and Willow,” a poem of historical reflection, bears unmistakable signs of the Han literati concern about the impermanence of human relationships. It is simply inconceivable that the composer of this poem could be anyone other than a literate person well versed in the classics and historical texts. The composer introduces, often obliquely, scores of historical figures, events, anecdotes and legends which attest to the danger of committing oneself to a political cause:

Ballad of Breaking the Poplar and Willow

Darkly, darkly the ruler acts in a perverse way,

2

Punishments will always follow his acts.

As he doted on Mei Hsi and slew Lung-feng,

4

Chieh found himself exiled to Ming-t’iao.

As Tsu I’s advice was not taken;

6

Chou’s head got hung from a white standard.

[As he trusted Chao Kao] who would point to A deer but say it was a horse,

8

Hu Hai ended up losing his life.

Fu-ch’ai, approaching the end of his life,

10

Then said that he had wronged Tzu-hsü.

The Jung king accepted girl musicians as a gift,

12

For this reason he lost Yu-yü.

When jade tablets and horses brought disaster to K’ui,

14

The two states both fell into ruins.

A rumor from three men, loosed a tiger in the market.

16

A kind mother threw down her shuttle and ran.

Pien Ho got his feet amputated.

18

Chieh-yü returned to his thatched cottage. HCHW, 268)

Unintelligible as it is to us today without copious explanations, this poem would have been readily understandable to a literate audience in the Han. Its extensive historical allusions center on the evils of court politics—intrigues, assassinations, betrayals, mutilation, and annexation of kingdoms. Most of the allusions tell of catastrophes that befell ancient kings and their ministers. Of those kings—Chieh, the last king of the Hsia dynasty (ca. 2100–1600 B.C.); Chou, the last king of the Shang dynasty (ca. 1600–1000 B.C.); Fu-ch’ai, king of the state of Wu (ca. 500–400 B.C.); and the King of the state of Jung—all but one (King Hu-hai in line 8) came to tragic ends because they did not heed the admonitions of their loyal ministers. Similarly, of those ministers—Lung Feng, a worthy minister of King Chieh; Tsu I, a worthy minister of King Chou; Wu Tzu-hsü, an old, loyal minister of the Wu state; and Yu Yü, a worthy minister of the Jung state—all but one (the Chao Kao alluded to in lines 7–8) wasted their talents and even lost their lives because they served their sovereigns blindly. So the tragic ends of both groups mock their blindness to fate. This motif of blindness is, in the last stanza, carried further by two allusions about the difficulty of telling truth from rumor—the story of a rumor becoming truth after being repeated by three different persons, and the story of a mother believing a false accusation of murderagainst her son. This motif receives its most poignant expression in the story of Pien Ho, who twice suffered the amputation of a foot because two kings failed to see a rare gem embedded within an uncut jade he presented. The story of Pien Ho leads to the moral of the poem—that political involvement should be avoided. Having suffered enough to see the treachery of politics, Pien Ho rejected the honors offered him by a third king, who recognized the worth of the jade. This didactic message becomes explicit in the final line, which alludes to the story of the Madman of Lu, who refused an offer of a high official post and returned to his hermitage.[84]

Sequential Structure

A famous composition often attributed to Ts’ai Yung (132–192) is a ballad about a neglected wife (hereafter refered to as “Watering Horses”):

Ballad of Watering Horses at a Long Wall Hole

Oh, how green is the grass on the river bank,

2

How endless is my longing for the distant road.

The distant road I long for only in vain,

4

In bed last night I saw him in a dream.

In the dream I saw him by my side,

6

Suddenly I awoke to find him still in another town.

Another town, each of us in different counties,

8

Tossing and turning, I could see him no more.

Bare mulberry knows wind from the skies,

10

Sea water knows chill from the skies.

All have gone indoors, each to his loved ones,

12

Who cares to speak with me?

A traveler comes from far away,

14

He brings me a doublecarp.[85]

I call my servant boy, “Cook the carp”;

16

Inside there is a white silk letter.

I kneel down and read the white silk letter,

18

What in the world is in the letter?

First it says, “Try and eat more”;

20

Last it says, “I’ll always miss you.”

(HCHW, 192)

Like “Mulberry along the Lane,” this poem depicts the life of a woman character through an array of stock situations. However, it displays none of the dramatic qualities of a folk yüeh-fu composition. We do not find a multitude of characters, nor direct verbal and nonverbal interaction among characters, nor abrupt shifts of speaking roles, nor multiple points of view, nor the instantaneous unfolding of events. Instead, the poem unfolds in the mind of one singer-performer who plays the role of a neglected wife absorbed in a process of recollection. This handling of stock situations betokens the thematic shift from external occurrence to inner experience in literary yüeh-fu.

“Watering Horses” has also outgrown the composite structure of folk yüeh-fu. The wife’s recollective process helps establish a well-defined narrative line with a single, consistent point of view. At the sight of the green grass by a river, the wife abandons herself to an endless yearning for her husband. Absently, she turns her gaze to the distant road on the horizon and wanders into a world of reverie. She revisits the dream scene of a happy reunion with her husband in a foreign land, only to suffer once more that disheartening moment of awakening to the real world. After a brief lyrical outpouring (8–12), she relapses into the world of memories. What crosses her mind are a visit from a traveler, a doublecarp brought by the traveler, her discovery of her husband’s letter, and her holding dear her husband’s pledge of love. This narrative account of the wife’s inner experience manifests a sequential structure characteristic of literati yüeh-fu.

The new sequential structure in “Watering Horses” is, however, built with old syntactic formulas borrowed from folk yüeh-fu:

… the distant road …The distant road.… in dream, In dream … another town … Another town … from the skies … from the skies … a doublecarp … to “cook the carp”… a white silk letter… the white silk letter … First it says … Last it says.…

Most are of the first two types of repetition used in “Mulberry along the Lane.” They form “thimble phrasing” formulas that contribute to the sequential development of the poem. The reason for the continued use of such repetitions in literary yüeh-fu may be twofold. First, they function as welcome aides-mémoire for the oral performance of literary yüeh-fu. As long as a literary yüeh-fu composition is still orally delivered to a real audience, such repetition helps a performer memorize his story and an audience comprehend it. Second, literati yüeh-fu performers had yet to outgrow their habit of thinking in terms of repetitions and formulas.[86]

Dual Points of View

“A Yen Song, Whenever” is a variation on the theme of separation in the form of animal allegory. The performer takes us into a world of nonhuman beings and enables us to examine the miserable experience of separation through the eyes of two swans.[87] He first plays the role of a third-person narrator and sets the scene by explaining the cause of the separation. From line 9 onward, he shifts to the voices of the male swan and its mate to give a first-person account of their unending sorrow:

A Yen Song, Whenever

Flying this way are two white swans,

2

From the northwest they have come.

Ten pairs, five pairs,

4

They follow one another in formation.

The wife suddenly becomes ill,

6

Flying hard she can’t keep up.

Five leagues and the other looks back,

8

Six leagues and the other hesitates.

“I would carry you away in my beak,

10

But my beak is closed and will not open.

I would carry you on my back,

12

But how badly my feathers would be crushed!”

“So happy are those new pairs of flock-mates!

14

Such sorrow comes with this parting.

Looking at all those couples,

16

I cannot even feel my tears falling

“Thinking of this parting with you,

18

My breath stops, and I can’t utter a word.

Let us each care for ourselves,

20

The way is far, a return is hard to expect.

I will keep myself in an empty bedroom,

22

Shut the door and let down the double-bolt.

If we live, we will see each other again,

24

If we die, we’ll meet in Yellow Springs.

Today rejoice for your happiness,

26

May you extend your life to ten thousand years!”

(HCHW, 272)

After the narration section, the poem moves smoothly from one realm of inner experience to another—the male swan’s sorrow over his inability to carry his mate, his sense of loneliness aroused by the sight of the other pairs of swans, the female swan’s fear of separation and loneliness, her vain hope for a union in the afterlife, and her wish for her mate’s longevity. These segments, though presented by two characters, do not give the impression of a live dialog like that between Lo-fu and the Prefect in “Mulberry along the Lane.” Instead, they strike us as a sustained monologue of the performer who empathizes with the two swans and expresses his own thought through them. Anne Birrell has noted this kind of noninteractive role-playing in her quote of Hans Frankel, “What particularly distinguishes the genre [Han yüeh-fu] is the ‘multiple and shifting role of a single performer as narrator, actor, impersonating one or more characters.’”[88]

The shifting of roles in this poem betrays a mental habit traceable to the collective role-playing in folk yüeh-fu. However, these two kinds of role-playing must be clearly distinguished. While the role-playing in folk yüeh-fu is person-to-person interaction in the real world, the role-playing in literati yüeh-fu takes the form of a poetic speaker who impersonates multiple characters in a sustained monolog. In “A Yen Song, Whenever,” the performer has no other people to interact with and carries his monologue to the very end, giving a strong sequential coherence to the poem’s second half. When the second part is juxtaposed with the narrative section, the poem reveals dual points of view seldom found in folk yüeh-fu. Such dual points of view abound in literati yüeh-fu and can be seen as a transition from multiple points of view to a single point of view characteristice of Han ku-shihß[89]

The poems I have just examined exemplify the four major thematic categories in literati yüeh-fu and mark a shift from external occurrences to inner experience.[90] They set forth four of the most common kinds of inner experience shared by the Han literati class: their lamentation of physical separation from loved ones or political alienation from the court, their emotional empathy with nonhuman beings plagued by the same fate, their imaginative flight to the world of immortals, and their reflection on past political events.[91] These four kinds of inner experience are born of the same effort by the Han literati to grasp the meaning of their fleeting earthly existence. Given this, we may say that the internalization of subject matter in literati yüeh-fu toward the end of the later Han results from literati concerns about the impermanence of political and moral order and the transience of human existence. In the vast corpus of poetry composed before the Later Han, including the Book of Poetry and all but a few of the Songs of Ch’u, there are no reflective poems on the transience of human existence. Toward the end of the Later Han, however, the issue of human transience suddenly looms prominently and becomes the thematic matrix in both the yüeh-fu and ku-shih genres.[92]

These four poems also attest to the major formal changes in literati yüeh-fu. A sequential structure takes the place of the composite structure; single or dual points of view replace multiple points of view; and a fairly free flow of lines often substitutes for the chain of syntactical formulas in folk yüeh-fu. These formal changes can be attributed to the new role of the performer as a narrator or single speaker. Since the performer in literati yüeh-fu no longer interacts with other performers, he can engage in an uninterrupted mental process and set forth his inner experience in a narrative form. In the process he naturally develops a sequential structure and dispenses with syntactic formulas that impede the flow of his thought. However, insofar as he continues to compose his work for public performance, he still needs to engage the audience. He cannot turn inward completely, but must maintain a considerable amount of story interest and retain oral devices familiar to the audience. Notably, this compromise between narrative and lyrical needs is reflected in the use of dual points of view. By adopting dual points of view, the performer seeks on the one hand to play the part of a third-person narrator and observe his inner experience as if it were someone else’s, and on the other hand to assume the role of a character and describe his inner experience in a first-person voice. Dual points of view are particularly well suited to recounting one’s inner experience to a live audience. The initial third-person point of view establishes a narrative frame that provides a familiar context for the experience in the poem and evokes in the audience a heightened sense of sympathy. The ensuing first-person point of view compels the audience to overcome any lingering sense of separation from the story and achieves the illusion of immersion in the experience.

Note

* This chapter contains material that first appeared in Zong-qi Cai, “Dramatic and Narrative Modes of Presentation in Han Yüeh-fu,” Monumenta Serica 44 (1996). © 1996 Monumenta Serica. Reprinted with the permission of Monumenta Serica.

CHAPTER 3

Han Ku-shih: The Emergence of the Lyrical Mode

The “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” are generally considered to be the most coherent and most representative group of Han ku-shih works. The dating and authorship of this group have long been a subject of critical controversy. A number of traditional Chinese critics attribute some of the nineteen poems to certain famous writers in the Former Han. For instance, Liu Hsieh says that the poems may be called the work of Mei Sheng (d. 140 B.C.) and singles out Poem 8 as written by Fu I (fl. 58–75).[1] Hsü Ling identifies Poems 1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12, and 19 as the work of Mei Sheng and thus moves the dates of these poems to as early as the T’ai-ch’u period (104–100 B.C.) in the Former Han.[2] In our time, however, the great majority of critics tend to discredit the traditional views for these six reasons: 1) lack of a similar poetic style in the Former Han, 2) appearance of taboo words for the Former Han, 3) borrowing from yüeh-fu works supposedly composed in the Latter Han, 4) use of object names unknown in the Former Han, 5) use of Latter Han idioms, and 6) use of place names particular to the Latter Han.[3] On the ground of such internal textual evidence, they come to the conclusion that the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” are anonymous works written toward the end of the Latter Han by a literati group living in the capital city of Lo-yang.[4]

This collection of Han ku-shih works, though quite small in number, occupies an unusually prominent place in the history of traditional Chinese literature, as it marks the transition from a performed to a non-performed tradition in the evolution of pentasyllabic poetry. If Han yüeh-fu is distinguished by its ties with singing, music, and dance, this collection of Han ku-shih works is characterized by its complete separation from oral performance. The nonperformed nature of these ku-shih works is one of the least debated issues in the study of Han pentasyllabic poetry. Few critics doubt the divorce of Han ku-shih from oral performance, even though they often regard this or that particular ku-shih work as performed and argue for its reclassification as a yüeh-fu composition. The disappearance of oral performance is a matter of the greatest significance. It opens up an entirely different mental horizon for the anonymous poets of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.” Since they are freed from any need of communication with a live audience, they now turn deeply inward and pursue a process of self-reflection. As they brood over their inner experience, they explore the meaning of their lives on an abstract, philosophical level unseen in earlier poetry.[5] This transition to nonperformed poetry brings about fundamental changes with respect to thematic emphasis, lyrical process, structural organization, and textural arrangement.[6]

Thematic Emphasis: Lamentation over Human Transience

Perhaps no Chinese critic, traditional or modern, has given a more concise and penetrating description of the theme of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” than Shen Te-ch’ien:

“Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” mostly dwell upon the life of disfavored officials and abandoned wives; the long separation of friends; and feelings about life and death, the new and that which is past. Of these poems, some are direct and some are allegorical in their expression.[7]

This passage covers the three important thematic aspects I will examine in this section: the identity of the speaking subjects, the new treatment of the time-honored subject of separation, and the evolution of this subject into a hitherto unknown theme on human transience.

Neglected Women and Fortune-Seeking Wanderers

In Poems 1, 2, 8, 9, 17, 18, and 19, the speaking subjects are abandoned wives or neglected women. They bear a remarkable resemblance to the group of female characters or personae we have encountered in Han yüeh-fu. In Poem 1, for instance, the speaking subject endures the sorrow of separation commonly depicted in Han yüeh-fu:

On and on, and on and on [you go],

2

I cannot but live apart from you.

The distance has grown ten thousand li and more,

4

We are now at opposite ends of the sky.

The road is rugged and long,

6

How can I know when we shall meet again?

The Hu horse leans toward the north wind,

8

The Yüeh bird nests among southern branches.

Day by day our parting seems more remote,

10

Day by day robe and belt grow looser.

Drifting clouds hide the white sun,

12

The wanderer does not care to return.

Thinking of you makes one old,

14

Years and months are suddenly gone.

Abandonment—I will say no more about it,

16

But exert my utmost to eat my meals.[8]

(KSSC, 2.1–3)

Her keen awareness of the passage of time since the separation, her lament over the widening distance from her husband and her abandonment all remind us of similar motifs in a Han yüeh-fu piece like “Watering Horses.” A highly conventional figure, this speaker may very well be taken as a poetic persona or a fictional mask through which the male poet conveys his feelings of estrangement. If we accept the consensus view that the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” were written by a group of literati men living in the capital city of Lo-yang who were out of favor, we can take it that the author of this particular poem is adopting the persona of a neglected woman as a vehicle for the subtle expression of his personal grievances. By depicting the miseries of a neglected wife, he may be trying to express his sense of alienation from court politics, his grief over abandonment by his powerful friends, or his forlorn pledge of loyalty in the hope of regaining trust and favor from his former patrons.

If the allegory of love is a vehicle of political satire or remonstration in the Book of Poetry and Songs of Ch’u, it is a thinly disguised form of self-pity in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.” Through emotional empathy with a frail, sad woman, the poets try to express how miserable, how wretched, and how helpless they themselves are. In Poems 5, 10, and 12, we can actually find a description of such an empathetic process by the poets themselves. In Poem 5, for instance, the poet breaks through the normal neutrality of a third-person observer and explicitly expresses his wish for a spiritual union with a sorrow-ridden sing-song girl:

Alas, so few people understand this song!

If only we were a pair of whooping cranes,

And could beat wings and soar into the sky!

(Lines 14–16, KSSC, 2.7–8)

In Poems 3, 4, 6, 7, 11, 13, 14, 15, the speakers appear as weary fortune-seeking wanderers (yu-tzu). Through the lives of such wanderers, the poets project their bitter despondence onto a strange, friendless landscape, their endless longing for the warmth of their native homes, and their anguish over the inevitability of death. Here is Poem 11:

I turn my carriage and set out on a long trip,

2

Far, far away over unending roads.

All around, the wilderness stretches on and on,

4

East wind sways the hundred grasses.

Of everything I meet, none is familiar,

6

How can man not grow old swiftly as well?

Growth and decay, each has its own time,

8

Success in life, why didn’t I strive for it sooner?

Man is not made of metal or stone,

10

How can he live long and not grow old?

As all things pass, his life will end,

12

To him, the only thing precious is a glorious name.

(KSSC, 2.17–18)

The image of this wanderer seems less fictional than the neglected woman in Poem 1. This is partly because of the disappearance of gender difference between the speaker and the poet and partly because of some genuine reflections about the conditions of the poets’ actual world. What we encounter in this and seven other poems about wanderers are these two recurrent motifs: 1) a lonely wanderer contemplating a desolate scene (either a wintry landscape or a graveyard) and 2) a group of wanderers reveling in wine, music, and women. Drawn from the yüeh-fu repertoire, the first motif strikes us as quite stereotyped.

The second motif is less frequently seen in Han yüeh-fu and seems to reflect the actual decadent life of this group of poets in the capital. Indeed, we find in Poem 3 some explicit references to the capital city and its major landmarks:

Green, green, grows the cypress on the hilltop,

2

Heap upon heap stand stones in mountain streams.

Between heaven and earth is man’s life,

4

Rushing like a traveler with a long way to go.

Let this dipper of wine be our entertainment;

6

Little as it is, we do not think little of it.

I drive my carriage and whip my slow horses

8

To roam and seek pleasure in Wan and Lo.

Here in Lo-yang, what a hustle and bustle!

10

Those who wear caps and belts chase one another.

Long thoroughfares flanked with narrow alleys,

12

Mansions of princes and nobles arranged in ranks.

The two palaces look at each other from afar,

14

Paired towers rise over a hundred feet.

Let me feast to my heart’s content,

16

Why should I let worries oppress my heart.

(KSSC, 2.4–5)

According to Sui Shu-sen, “Lo” and “Wan” on line 8 are, respectively, the capital city of Lo-yang and a smaller city south of Lo-yang; lines 9–14 are realistic descriptions of the royal palaces and mansions.[9] However, even when we encounter a wanderer in such a realistic locale, we still find it difficult to identify him with the poet as a unique individual. In this and seven other poems, the real world of the wanderers, their pursuit of worldly pleasure, their existential anxiety, and their solutions to emotional crises are too general and too uniformly described. As a result, they still seem too fictional or too conventional to be perceived as portraits of individual poets in real life. Indeed, it is practically impossible to find any evidence of outward or inward life of a unique individual behind the persona of the wanderer. This is even more true of the persona of a neglected woman. So if we want to assign any measure of selfhood to these two personae in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems,” that selfhood must be the group identity or the collective selfhood (if this oxymoron can be accepted) of a disenchanted literati group.

Sorrows of Aging

By casting themselves in the roles of the neglected woman and the male wanderer, the authors of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” did not merely intend to mourn over their political misfortunes and express their bitter despondence. They also reflected on the sorrows of aging and the fear of death through these two personae. By foregrounding the issues of aging and death, they transformed the sorrow at separation into a deeper pain over life’s transience. Human transience, hitherto unknown as a poetic theme, was to become central to Chinese pentasyllabic poetry.

Let us first see how these poets handled the sorrow of aging, again using Poem 1 as our example. In demonstrating the conventionality of the neglected woman in this poem, I have pointed out her resemblance to female yüeh-fu characters and identified her life situation with the common separation motif in yüeh-fu works. But there are differences in the treatment of the separation motif in Poem 1 and in Han yüeh-fu. The yüeh-fu piece I have chosen for comparison is “A Yen Song, Whenever,” already discussed in the previous chapter.

When we compare these two poems, we find that both begin with the motif of departure. However, the two personae describe the departure scene from different angles of time. In “A Yen Song, Whenever” the composer projects himself to the time of the departure and recounts the event as if it were happening then and there. As a storyteller, he follows the sequence of events and provides many narrative details. He tells us about the setting for the separation in lines 1–4, the reason for this separation in lines 5–6, the male’s reluctance to leave behind his mate in lines 7–8, and his parting words in lines 9–12.

By contrast, in Poem 1 the poet enters the mind of the neglected wife at a particular moment of reflection. This moment is what we often call the lyrical present, in which all temporal elements become irrelevant, leaving only the present emotional state of the poet. In other words, the lyrical present frees the poet to arrange all temporal experiences in whatever way appeals to his imagination at the moment of composition. The reason a lyric poet can have this license is rather simple: a he does not speak to others, but murmurs to himself in such a way that he can be overheard. He need not tell himself what has happened or will happen—and where, when, how, or why—when speaking to himself. So, he can reorder all temporal experiences in whatever way seems most meaningful to him at that moment. Instead of recounting the story of her husband’s departure the way the swan does, the wife of Poem 1 condenses what takes twelve lines in the other poem to a single line: “On and on, and on and on [you go].” This single line captures what her husband’s departure means for her: the beginning of an endless process of waiting, yearning, and pining. With the reduplicatives, “on and on (hsing-hsing),” the wife conveys how painful it was to watch her husband disappear down the long road, and how slowly time dragged on as she waited for him at home, knowing that he was moving from place to place, but not returning to her. The third and fourth lines show her husband eventually reaching his destination, but the completion of this journey does not mean the end of her waiting. Since her husband now lives at the opposite end of the world, she begins a new kind of waiting—waiting for him to return. Awaiting his return proves even more painful than enduring his outbound trip, since she cannot know when, if ever, he will make his return. So, she sighs, “The road is rugged and long, / How can I know when we shall meet again?” Judging by this treatment of the departure motif, what affects the persona most is not so much her husband’s physical separation as her painful awareness of the slow passage of time measured by her waiting for his news, by the accumulation of geographical distance from him, and by the endless deferment of his return.

Both poems end with reflections on the duration of life. Where the swan in “A Yen Song” concludes her lament by using a stock expression to wish for her husband longevity, the wife in Poem 1 deepens her reflection on the time’s passage by measuring it against her own lifespan. Up to line 10, her sense of time is measured by unhappy events. Time seems to drag because she yearns for the end of the separation. But when she notices how pining has changed her body, she awakens to a different kind of time measured against her own biological life. As life is one of the few things, if not the thing, we treasure most, any passage of time is too swift and any sign of aging is too saddening for us. Seeing time’s passage in this light, the wife breaks into this lament: “Thinking of you makes one old, / years and months suddenly go by.” This dramatic, ironic shift in her perception of time marks the transformation of her sorrow at separation into a profound sorrow about aging. To distinguish this sorrow from the doleful responses to specific events described in earlier poetry, Yoshikawa Köjirö describes it as a “shifting sorrow” (suit no hiai),[10] that is, a sorrow that permeates the entire life of the poetic persona and sublimates into an enduring mood of dark melancholy over the inexorable passage of time.[11]

Indeed, we can regard Poem 1 and other similar pieces in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” as the earliest Chinese poems with the sorrow of aging as the central theme. The phenomenon of aging does appear in pre-Han poems. But when this phenomenon occurs, it normally serves as a foil to the pursuit of pleasurable activity or a political enterprise. Here it suffices to give two examples, one from the Book of Poetry and the other from Ch’ü Yuan’s “Encountering Sorrow” (“Li Sao”):

If today we are not merry,

In time we shall be too old.…

If today we are not merry,

In time we shall be gone.[12]

(Book of Poetry, Poem 126, lines 9–10; 15–16)

Swiftly I sped, as in fearful pursuit,

Afraid time would race on and leave me behind.

In the morning I gathered the mountain angelica;

In the evening I plucked the islet sedges.

Days and months hurried on, never delaying;

Springs and autumns sped by, one after the other.

I thought of the trees and flowers fading and falling,

And feared that my fairest’s beauty would fade too.

(“Encountering Sorrow,” lines 13–20)[13]

In the first example, the speaker merely sees aging as a limitation to the ability to make merry and reveals no sign of sorrow about it. In the second example, the approach of old age does cause sorrow in the heart of the poet, but that sorrow is essentially over the time he’s lost for making a name through great accomplishments, a sorrow that reminds us of a remark Confucius made before the swift flow of a river: “Could one but go on and on like this, never ceasing day or night.”[14] In neither example is aging, in and of itself, something to be mournful about. But in Poem 1, aging means not an inability to act, but the gradual destruction of one’s very physical being. This important difference becomes even clearer if we compare briefly Ch’ü Yuan’s passage with this passage from Poem 8:

I am saddened to see those orchids and angelica,

Opening their petals and radiating glory.

If not plucked in their time,

They will wither along with the autumn grass.…

(Poem 8, lines 11–14, KSSC, 2.12–14)

For Ch’ü Yuan, the change of seasons, the fading of flowers and the aging of beauties are metaphors for the loss of time needed to fulfill his ideal. But for the persona in this poem, these same phenomena give a truthful reflection of the loss of her youthful looks and the deterioration of her physical body.

Lamentation over Human Transience

By now it should be clear that what distinguishes the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” from earlier poetry is first and foremost its theme of human transience. Ch’ien Ch’ien-i (1582–1664) points to this distinguishing trait when he remarks: “‘Man’s life is between heaven and earth, /Rushing through like a traveler with a long way to go.’ These poetic lines convey a meaning not to be found either in the Three Hundred Poems [Book of Poetry] or in Songs of Ch’u.”[15] As we have seen, all the poems of neglected women treat the theme of human transience in a subtle way. Instead of dealing with death directly, they focus on the sorrow of aging and merely imply the approach of death through metaphor. By contrast, the poems of fortune-seeking wanderers confront death head on—imagining scenes of an underworld and expressing fear of it, lamenting death’s inevitability, and groping for the meaning of life in the face of impending doom. It is probably for the sake of decorum that the authors of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” choose to address these themes through the voice of a wanderer, since they may seem too morbid or horrid to be described by an exquisite woman. Moreover, neglected women confined to their native places probably would not wander alone past the graveyard on Mount Mang, as does the wanderer in Poem 13:

I ride my carriage to the Upper East Gate,

2

Gazing at the graves north of the wall.

White poplars, how they weep in the wind!

4

Pine and cypress flank the broad paths.

Underneath them, the dead from long ago,

6

Dark, dark is their long night.

Lost in sleep beneath the Yellow Springs,

8

Come a thousand years, they will not awaken.

Seasons of growth and decay march on and on,

10

The years allotted to man are like morning dew.

Man’s life is as transient as a sojourn,

12

His frame is not as firm as metal or stone.

Ten thousand years have gone by,

14

No sages or worthies can cross the flow of time.

Some take drugs and hope to become immortals,

16

Many of them only end their life with poison.

Far better to drink fine wine

18

And wear clothes made of choice white silk.

(KSSC, 2.20–21)

This poem contains three recurrent motifs: that of visiting the world of the dead (lines 1–8), that of lamenting the fleetingness of human life (lines 9–12), and that of searching for the best solution to human transience (lines 13–16). I shall examine these three motifs and locate their sources in earlier poetic, historical, and philosophical texts.

The first motif normally consists of descriptions of a graveyard and the underworld beneath it. In Poem 13, the speaker first tells us that he catches a glimpse of the grave yard on Mount Mang when his chariot passes through the northern gate of Lo-yang. What he sees there are white poplar trees weeping in the wind, and pine and cypress standing sparsely by the roads. All three trees are associated with the dead because they were often planted to mark grave sites. At the sight of these trees, he feels a dark mood of melancholy welling up in his heart. This leads him to conjure up an even more dismal and pathetic world below. There, there is no life, but a mass of dead bodies from long ago; there is no light, but an everlasting darkness; and there is no awakening, but an eternal sleep. If we cannot imagine a more poignant description of the world of the dead, we need only to look at Poem 14, the next piece in the sequence:

“Day by day those who are gone go farther away,

2

Day by day those who have come become closer to one another.”

Go outside the gate of the wall and look afar:

4

All you see is hills and graves.

Ancient tombs have been plowed into fields,

6

Pine and cypress have been chopped into firewood.

White poplars sigh and weep in the wind,

8

Their sounds send sorrow deep into the heart.

“I long to go back to my native land,

10

But cannot find a way to return.”

(KSSC, 2.21–22)

This poem is rightly regarded by many critics as a companion piece to Poem 13. Here the speaker also catches sight of hills and graves when he goes out a city gate. However, he finds that ancient tombs have been leveled off and turned into farmed fields, and pine and cypress have been felled and chopped into firewood. So even the dead cannot have the peace of eternal sleep; nor are they spared the woes of temporal change. This is indeed an even more disturbing picture than the one in Poem 13. Gazing at white poplar trees left weeping in the sad wind, the speaker finds this scene utterly unbearable. What makes the poem a truly heart-rending depiction of the underworld is its beginning and ending couplets. In a normal reading of the poems, we would take it that these four lines are direct observations made by the speaker. The opening couplet is his observation about the dead fading from the memory of the living; and the ending couplet is his expression of homesickness. When read in this way, the poem does not seem to be at all out of the ordinary. However, if we follow Wu Ch’i’s (Ch’ing dynasty) suggestions and take those four lines as spoken by the dead (in the imagination of the speaker), this poem becomes much more compelling.[16] When the dead arise to tell us how they sink deeper and deeper into oblivion with each passing day and how they struggle in vain to return to their home on earth, they strike the horror of death deep into the heart of the living. Not only do the dead suffer eternal darkness and oblivion, they have to endure the gnawing consciousness of their suffering and of their failure to rid themselves of that suffering. In my opinion, this is an excellent reading of the poem, for it not only reveals the otherwise unnoticeable link between the beginning and the ending couplets, it also helps us to place the poem in relation to other works with an imaginary posthumous speaker. On the one hand, the poem reminds us of the speaking skeleton’s account of his experience in Chuang Tzu.[17] On the other, it looks forward to T’ao Ch’ien’s description of his own funeral in his three self-mourning songs.[18]

The second motif is usually made up of laments about the evanescence of human existence. As we can see in the passages cited below, these statements display a typical “topic + comment” syntax. Almost without exception, the topic is this binóme: jen-sheng (human life); and the comment is a simile (formed with the function words ju or jo) comparing human life to an evanescent phenomenon like dew or dust, or comparing it unfavorably with something firm and durable like metal or stone. A brief look at the following examples will confirm this point:

Between heaven and earth is man’s life

Rushing through like a traveler with a long way to go.

(Poem 3, lines 3–4; KSSC, 2.3–5)

Man’s life is as transient as a sojourn;

His frame is not as firm as metal or stone.

(Poem 13, lines 11–12; KSSC, 2.20–21)

Man’s life does not reach a hundred years,

Yet his heart is filled with the worries of a thousand years.

(Poem 15, lines 1–2; KSSC, 2.22–23)

Ch’ien Ch’ien-i is right to point out that such statements are not found in pre-Han poems. Only in historical or philosophical writings before the Han do we occasionally run across statements on the brevity of human life:

Human life races along between heaven and earth. Just like a galloping white colt seen through a hole, it is gone in an instant.[19]

(‘Chuang Tzu, chapter 22)

Man’s life in this world is a brief as the passing of a white colt glimpsed through a crack in the wall. Why do you punish yourself like this?[20]

(Records of the Grand Historian, chapter 55)

The statement in Chuang Tzu is intended to warn against a stubborn attachment to human life; that in Record of the Grand Historian urges one to treasure one’s time and not impose suffering on oneself. Neither of these writers sees the brevity of human life itself as a cause for sorrow, nor do they show signs of sorrow like those in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.” In fact, the Chuang Tzu passage leads directly to a dismissal of human sorrow over death. Not until Han times do we find expressions of sorrow at life’s brevity in yüeh-fu works like these two famous funeral songs:

Dew on the Shallot

Dew on the shallot,

2

How easily it dries away.

Drying away as it does, it falls again the next morning.

4

But after a man dies and goes away,

When can he return?

(HCHW, 257)

Wormwood Village

Wormwood village, whose home is this?

2

It is for the gathering of spirits and ghosts—with no distinction between the worthy and the stupid.

4

The Lord of Ghosts, how he hurries all along,

Man’s life gets not even a short reprieve.

(HCHW, 257)

With the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” we notice that such elegiac expressions have evolved into a uniform kind of lament, and that these laments appear in contexts other than that of a funeral. As these statements occur with a frequency probably unrivaled by any earlier or later poetic collection, they become an important thematic feature of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.”

The third motif entails a sustained reflection on the efficacy of different philosophies in coping with human transience.[21] In Poem 13 the speaker first dismisses the Confucian pursuit of ming (a name) as useless, since even sages and all others of great name must die just as common people do. Then he ridicules the popular Taoist practice of taking longevity drugs, declaring that those taking such drugs will only shorten, if not end, their own lives. Finally, he settles on the idea of carpe diem as the only sensible thing to do here on earth. So he exhorts himself and all others to seek the pleasure of wine and fine clothes. Advocacy of carpe diem abounds in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems”:

Let this dipper of wine be our merriment;

Little as it is, we do not think little of it.

(Poem 3, lines 5–6)

The day is short and the night is too long to bear,

Why not take a candle and go out wandering?

Seek out pleasure in time,

How can we wait for next year?

Fools are those who grudge all expenses,

Only to be laughed at by later generations.

(Poem 15, lines 3–8; KSSC, 2. 22–23)

This Chinese version of carpe diem seems to be the poetic rendering of hedonist ideas attributed to Yang Chu (fl. third century B.C.) in this passage:

The myriad creatures are different in life but the same in death. In life they may be worthy or stupid, honorable or humble. This is where they differ. In death they all stink, rot, disintegrate, and disappear. This is where they are the same.… The man of virtue and the sage die; the wicked and the stupid also die. In life they were Yao and Shun [sageemperors]; in death they are rotten bones. In life they were Chieh and Chou [wicked kings]; in death they are rotten bones. Thus they all became rotten bones just the same. Who knows their difference? Let us enjoy our present life. Why should we worry about what comes after death?”[22]

Here Yang Chu elucidates three points central to his hedonist philosophy: 1) death is the final end for the existence of an individual; 2) man cannot overcome death, that is, the destruction of his physical form, with something extraneous to his body such as fame and glory; and 3) given the preceding two points, man must enjoy the present and forget about death. Yang Chu’s argument appears to underlie the entire reflective process in Poem 13. Although Yang Chu’s hedonist ideas echo in many Han yüeh-fu works, they are never so fully expressed and so systematically advanced as in Poem 13 and other similar pieces. The predominance of hedonist ideas has long been seen as another important thematic feature of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.”

My thematic analysis here is merely a footnote to the excellent summary of the thematic features of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” given by Shen Te-ch’ien. I have merely pointed out the inherent relationships of those features he identified. These relationships may be summarized in one sentence: in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” there are two alternate speaking subjects (neglected women and fortune-seeking wanderers), who dwell upon two aspects of human transience (aging and death) and who express their sorrow over human transience in two different ways (melancholic brooding and outright lamentation).[23]

Lyrical Process: Self-Reflection

I have already touched upon two distinct poetic processes in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.”[24] If the poet assumes the persona of a neglected wife, he normally explores the sorrow of separation through the life history of an individual and expresses his hedonistic desires as an understatement of sorts—a quiet wish for eating well and living a long life. If a poet takes on the persona of a fortune-seeking wanderer, he usually contemplates the sorrow of separation as a general issue in human life in general, decries the pursuit of wealth and fame, and launches into an unabashed carpe diem exhortation. To grasp the lyrical nature of these two poetic processes, we can do no better than to compare them with the process of storytelling in Han literati yüeh-fu.

From Storytelling to Lyrical Expression

Both Han literati yüeh-fu composers and the authors of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” shared the same goal of exploring their inner experience. However, the ways they presented it are markedly different. Yüeh-fu composers set forth their experience in story form; they foreground concrete situations and keep their emotional responses in the background. In the four literati yüeh-fu pieces discussed in the previous chapter, the composers project their experience through the life stories or situations of a neglected wife, a swan, a transcendental roamer, and historical figures.

The authors of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” wrote chiefly for the purpose of self-reflection. They chose to reveal their inner experience, not by arranging stock situations into a story sequence, but by describing emotional responses to those situations. They dispensed with the narrative frame characteristic of literati yüeh-fu, and cast themselves directly in the roles of a wanderer or a neglected wife. In this way they manage to establish a single point of view and control the development of the entire poem. In the process, they reduce narrative elements to a bare outline and fill in emotional descriptions of all kinds. We can observe the reversed balance of narrative and lyrical elements by comparing “Watering Horses” with three different pieces from the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems”:

Watering Horses

Oh, how green is the grass on the river bank,

How endless is my longing for the distant road.

The distant road I long for only in vain,…

(Lines 1–3)

Poem 6

I cross the river to pluck hibiscus flowers,

2

In the orchid swamps grow many fragrant herbs.

After I gather them, whom shall I send them to?

4

The person in my thoughts lives far away.

I turn and look toward my home village,

6

The long road stretches off into the distance.

We are of the same heart, but live separately,

8

This sorrow will always be ours until the end of our days!

(KSSC, 2.9–10)

“Watering Horses” opens with a neglected wife standing by a grassy river bank, gazing down a long road. The performer uses the word “longing” twice to indicate her emotional state. Poem 6 introduces a similar situation: a fortune-seeking wanderer plucking flowers by a river. But here the poet does not merely touch on the emotional state of the wanderer; he lets him complain about the distance preventing him from sending flowers to his wife, lets him look longingly toward home and lament their separation.

In bed last night I saw him in a dream,

In the dream I saw him by my side.

Suddenly I awoke to find him still in another town,

Another town, we each in different counties.

Tossing and turning, I could see him no more.

(Lines 4–8)

Poem 16

Having given the embroidered quilt to the Beauty of the Lo River,

6

He is now estranged from me, his bedfellow.

I sleep alone night after night

8

In my dream I see the radiance of his face.

My dear one thinking of our old joys,

10

Graciously comes and extends to me the rope handgrip for boarding his carriage.

“I hope to see your beautiful smile often,

12

Let us hold hands and return together in my coach.

Come as he did, he would not stay long,

14

Nor did he go with me to the inner chamber.

Truly without the wings of a soaring bird,

16

How can I ride on the wind [and fly to him]?…

(KSSC, 2.23–25)

The contrast between narrative and lyrical treatments of a similar situation can also be seen in these two passages. The only major difference is that here we deal with a dream, a different kind of inner experience. Both pieces describe a neglected wife’s dream of a reunion with her husband. In “Watering Horses” the performer merely tells us when the neglected wife falls asleep, whom she sees in her dream, and where she finds herself to be upon waking. In Poem 16, by contrast, the poet looks into the neglected wife’s changing emotions throughout her dream. He describes how her feeling of estrangement accompanies her into her dream (lines 6–7); how she gleefully renews her old joys with her husband—a subliminal fulfillment of what she cannot fulfill in her waking life (lines 9–12); and how she mournfully awakens to the impossibility of regaining her lost love (lines 13–20). With this detailed description the poet lets us experience her complex emotions changing from elation to utter despair.

A traveler comes from far away,

He brings me a doublecarp

I call my boy, “Cook the carp.”

Inside there is a white silk letter.

I kneel down and read the white silk letter.

What in the world is in the letter?

First it says, “Try and eat more.”

Last it says, “I’ll always miss you.”

(Lines 13–20)

Poem 17

A traveler came from far away and

Handed a letter to me.

First it says, “I am always thinking of you,”

Last it says, “What a long parting!”

I keep the letter inside my robe;

After three years, not a single word has faded.

My whole heart is devoted to you,

But I fear you may not see that.

(Lines 7–14; KSSC, 2.25–26)

The similarities between these two passages are conspicuous. Both pieces depict a neglected wife’s receiving a letter from her husband. They are of the same length and begin with an identical line. Against the background of these similarities, we can clearly see the difference between a narrative and lyrical presentation. In “Watering Horses” the performer devotes six of the eight lines to a description of the event itself. To enhance the story interest, he includes the detail of the surprise discovery of the letter in the doublecarp. Not until the last two lines does he reveal the emotive purport of this event: a pledge of love. While the narrative elements prevail over the emotive purport in “Watering Horses,” the reverse is true in Poem 17. There, all but two lines are devoted to the wife’s self-scrutiny. With narrative elements kept to a minimum, the poet can within the same space of eight lines explore a much richer world of feelings and thoughts, describing not only the husband’s profession of love but more importantly the wife’s complex responses to it.

Complex Time-Frames

The shift of balance from the narrative to the lyrical in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” is undoubtedly a consequence of the disappearance of oral performance. Once oral performance is gone, the poets no longer need to assume the role of a storyteller. As they begin to turn inward, a scrutiny of their own emotional condition becomes the central concern of their works. In exploring their own inner worlds, they are no longer bound by a temporal sequence as the composers of literati yüeh-fu are when telling stories to a live audience. Very often they survey their present condition in the first breath, drift back into memory in the second, and then leap into an imagined future in the third. Following their reflective impulse, they move among these three temporal realms in any order they please. These complex timeframes of emotional response in fact occur in twelve of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems”.[25]

Poetic Structure: From Sequential to Binary Structures

Considering the preponderance of complex timeframes, we can almost automatically rule out the existence in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” of a sequential narrative structure. In the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” the poets usually let their personae observe one or more external situations in the first part of a poem and respond to them emotionally in the second part. This gives rise to a distinctive binary structure of external observation and inward reflection. We can easily perceive such a binary structure in Poem 17:

The first winter month and the cold air comes,

2

North wind, sharp and relentless.

Full of sorrow, I know how long the night is,

4

As I look up at the myriad clusters of stars.

On the fifteenth, a bright moon waxes;

6

On the twentieth, toad and hare wane.

A traveler came from afar and

8

Handed a letter to me.

First it says, “I am always thinking of you,”

10

Last it says, “What a long parting!”

I keep the letter inside my robe;

12

After three years, not a single word has faded.

My whole heart is devoted to you,

14

But I fear you may not see that.

(KSSC, 2.25–26)

In the first half of the poem, we enter a desolate wintry scene through the mind’s eye of the lonely lady. The bitter, forlorn winter becomes increasingly unbearable as there appear a succession of chilling images. “North wind” stirs the sense of touch; “stars” appeal to the sense of sight; “the moon” and its metaphor “toad and hare” arouse through a mythical association the imagination of supernal coldness in the Cold Palace (another metaphor for the moon). All these images convey a compelling scene of desolation in the mind of the lonely lady. In the second part of the poem, we probe deeper into her mind and go through the entire process of her reflection: her memory of her husband’s first and only letter, her gratitude for the words of love from him, her pledge of loyalty to him, and her fear of his failure to see her fidelity and profound love.

This binary structure represents a merging of the yüeh-fu narrative tradition and the lyrical tradition of the Book of Poetry. In this structure we find on the one hand the kind of narrative or descriptive coherence characteristic of Han literati yüeh-fu but seldom seen in the popular songs. On the other hand, we see a dichotomous presentation of natural description and emotional responses unknown to Han literati yüeh-fu. In Han yüeh-fu, emotional responses seldom exceed two couplets and are generally tacked on to the end of a poem. Apparently, the even balance between natural description and emotional responses in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” should be traced to the hsing construction in the Book of Poetry, which has long been regarded as the source of the lyricism of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.” Chung Hung argues that “old poems originated in the kuo-feng (songs from particular states).”[26] Wang Shih-chen assumes that the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” carry on early lyrical traditions: “after feng (songs) and ya (odes) there came the Songs of Ch’u; after the Songs of Ch’u there came the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.” [The] ieng [form] has gone through various changes by itself, not through human efforts; but its source remains the same.”[27] Modern critics, too, like to place the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” in a direct line of lineage from the Book of Poetry[28] However, few critics have undertaken formal analyses to reveal the intrinsic relationship between these two lyrical traditions.

In my opinion, the evolution of pi-hsing from a binary syntagm in the Book of Poetry to a binary structure in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” constitutes an important link between the two lyrical traditions.[29] Pi and hsing are the two major lyrical modes in the Book of Poetry. When “pi” and “hsing” first appeared in the text of the Rites of Chou (Chou Li), they were not clearly defined. It was Cheng Hsüan (127–200) who used the term for the first time to denote two of three major poetic modes in the Book of Poetry in his annotation to “Preface to the Mao Text of the Book of Poetry” (“Mao-shih hsü”).[30] Both the pi mode and the hsing mode present natural phenomena and human situations in a binary syntagm as shown in the following examples:

Big rat, big rat,

Do not devour my millet.

Three years I have toiled for you,

Yet you do not care about me.[31]

(Book of Poetry, Poem 113)

“Kuan, kuan,” cry ospreys

On the islet in the river.

Lovely is this fine maiden,

Good bride for a gentleman.[32]

(Book of Poetry, Poem 1)

These two modes are differentiated on the basis of the perceived relationship between the natural phenomena and human situations in a binary syntagm. Pi describes an analogical and allegorical relationship, as shown in the first example; and hsing, an associational and psychological relationship, as shown in the second example. In practical criticism, however, pi and hsing are often indistinguishable. The reader can take a syntagm as pi or hsing, depending on whether he sees it as an allegorical reference to a historical event or reads it solely in aesthetic terms. At an early stage Chinese critics became aware of the intricate interpénétration of the two modes and began to discuss them together, creating the compound pi-hsing,[33] I have adopted this inclusive compound because the present study is concerned with the evolution of poetic structure, not the distinction of pi or hsing in particular poems.

In the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” pi-hsing has evolved from a syntactic construction to an organizing structure for an entire poem. In other words, the presentation of natural phenomena and human situations has been extended from syntactic level (as shown in the two examples above) to structural level (as shown in Poem 17). Indeed, we can locate a binary structure of external projection and inward reflection in all but one of the nineteen poems. We see a binary structure identical to that of Poem 17 in Poem 2 (6:4, namely, six lines for external projection and four lines for inward reflection), Poem 4 (8:6), Poem 5 (8:8), Poem 6 (4:4), Poem 7 (8:8), Poem 9 (4:4), Poem 10 (6:4), Poem 11 (6:6), Poem 13 (10:8), Poem 14 (6:4), Poem 17 (8:6), Poem 18 (6:4), and Poem 19 (6:4). In addition, we find a binary structure in reverse order—namely, inward reflection coming before external projection—in Poem 3 (8:8); and two binary structures in Poem 1 (4:2/6:4), Poem 8 (6:2/4:2), Poem 12 (6:4/6:4), and Poem 16 (6:6/4:4).[34]

The transformation of pi-hsing from a binary syntagm to a binary structure has greatly extended the scope of the description of nature and emotional expression. In the Book of Poetry, natural images are few in number and variety and often highly repetitious. Cast in a rigid syntagm, these images usually do not link up consecutively and thus cannot form a coherent scene. As Ch’ien Chung-shu points out, “in the Three Hundred Poems there are ‘descriptions of objects,’ but no descriptions of scenes; what the pen touches upon is confined to single objects: grass, wood, water, or stone.”[35]

In contrast, natural images not only abound in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems,” they coalesce into a coherent scene through the process of perception in Poems 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 14; and following a narrative outline in Poems 1, 4, 6, 8, 13, 16, 18, and 19. The extended scope and internal coherence of the description of nature in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” have not gone unnoticed by critics. For instance, the early T’ang poet-critic Wang Ch’ang-ling (d. 756) attempts in his Shih ko to explain the new features of the evolved pi-hsing in pentasyllabic poems like the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.”[36] First, Wang indisputably recognized the extension of the description of nature beyond the fixed length of two lines in the Book of Poetry, for he cited the extended descriptions in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” (four lines from Poem 16, six lines from Poem 1) as characteristic of the evolved hsing. Indeed, had he not recognized the substantial extension of the description of nature, he would not have devised his laborious, fourteen-fold categorization of hsing. Second, Wang was aware of the emergence of perceptual and narrative coherence within descriptions of nature,[37] as he organized his fourteen categories of hsing largely on the basis of these two underlying processes. Of the twelve categories illustrated with poetical citations, eight categories can be subsumed under these two processes. Categories 1, 11, 12, 13 bear upon the perceptive process, focusing respectively on its temporal, visual, auditory, and emotive aspects.[38] Categories 4, 5, 6, 9 deal with the narrative outline, spelling out its varied orders and modes.[39] Third, Wang considered the evolved hsing best exemplified in “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems,” as he cited that collection with greater frequency than other works—four times in the discussions of the fourteen categories of hsing and six times on other occasions in Shih fco.[40] What Wang failed to point out is that the emergence of perceptual and narrative coherence in these new hsing categories attests to the beneficial influence of the yüeh-fu narrative tradition on the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.”

The presentation of the inner world also underwent profound changes as a result of the structural reordering of pi-hsing. The emotive speeches of these two collections strike us as being very different. While in the Book of Poetry we hear short, emphatic emotional utterances about a particular external event, we find in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” sustained melancholic reflections on the meaning of human life.

Poetic Texture: Dynamics of Silent Writing and Reading

Of all the changes brought about by the disappearance of oral performance in “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems,” the formation of a new kind of poetic texture is perhaps the most noteworthy. If poetic structure is the framework of a poem, poetic texture is the interface process—if I can borrow a catch phrase from computer science—whereby each word is linked to every other word in an organic whole. Just as networking denotes a process of multilateral linkage, poetic texture means a process of multilateral interplay among words of a poetic text. In examining poetic texture we seek to understand not only the contiguous relationship of any word with other words in the same line or the same syntactic unit, but also the noncontiguous relationship of that word with other words placed in either a corresponding or noncorresponding position in different lines. To take a concrete example, when we focus on the third word of the fourth line of a pentasyllabic poem, we must consider on the one hand how it links up with the other four words in the same line, and on the other how it relates to, say, the fifth word of the second line or with the third word of the sixth line. The contiguous relationship is a temporal organization of words to indicate the sequence of an external or internal activity. The noncontiguous relationship is a spatial arrangement of words to create mutual correspondence or echoing that enhances their evocative power.[41] In performed and nonperformed poems alike we can find these two kinds of relationship at work. Owing to the different dynamics of oral and written communication, these two relationships demonstrate different kinds of importance. Generally speaking, they are established by different means and serve different purposes in a poem.

In performed poetry, to establish and maintain a tight contiguous relationship of words is a task of primary importance. An oral presentation is essentially a temporal sequence of sounds or auditory signs delivered within an expected duration of time. Once a composer or performer has started his oral presentation, he cannot stop it at will or else he will frustrate the live audience. To maintain a smooth, rhythmic flow of words without the aid of a script is a great challenge for an oral composer or performer. He must retain the memory of what he has just said, while figuring out what he is to say in the next breath. In making this effort, he depends greatly on the use of repetitions as his aides mémoires and his cues for the continuation of his presentation. The beginning passage of the yüeh-fu piece, “Mulberry along the Lane,” provides a typical example of this use of repetition:

The sun rises at the southeast corner

It shines on our house, the Ch’ins.

The Ch’ins have a pretty daughter,

She is called Lo-fu.

Lo-fu likes to raise silkworm and pick mulberry,

She picks mulberry at the south corner of the wall.

Green silk for [her] basket strap,

Cassia branch for [her] basket handle.

On her head a curving-down hairdo,

At her ears bright moon pearls.

Below, apricot silk for [her] skirt,

Above, purple silk for [her] blouse.

(Lines 1–12)

In the first segment, the composer or performer uses interlocking repetitions, the so-called “thimble phrasing,” to link different details about the life of Lo-fu. In the second segment, he begins to use syntagmatic repetitions, that is, repetitions of words in positions corresponding to a preceding line. This seems to be a very primitive kind of repetition in the sense that it often allows a composer or performer to repeat many words and introduce merely one or two new words per line (as in the case of most pi-hsing syntagm in the Book of Poetry). Yet, rather ironically, it is this kind of repetition that establishes a noncontiguous relationship of words. As these repetitions replicate the same syntax, they tend to create the illusion that the temporal flow of words has been suspended, and we leap from a word back to the word in the corresponding position of the previous line. For example, when hearing lines 7 and 8, we feel compelled to relate “green silk” to “cassia branch,” and “handle” to “pole.” The contrast between these four words seems to represent a meaningful, though primitive, noncontiguous relationship of words in an oral composition.

In nonperformed poetry, the importance of the contiguous relationship decreases as the noncontiguous relationship of words strengthens. This change has much to do with the different dynamics of written communication. Writing and reading are not as immediate and instantaneous a form of communication as speaking (or other ways of oral delivery) and listening. In most circumstances, when two parties are in the presence of each other, they will choose to address each other orally. Only when the parties are separated from each other, or when one party is not quite sure how to best express his thoughts impromptu, or when one party wants to convey thoughts that are too awkward or too embarrassing to say out loud, or when one party wants to say something that he thinks the other party will need time to think about before responding, will he decide to write to the other party. Judging by these common circumstances for the use of writing, we can see that writing, as compared with speaking, is a delayed (often purposely) form of communication. In most cases the writer and the reader are not compelled to respond to each other within a certain time. Consequently, a writer may pause as many times as he wants to think about how to better put his thoughts into words. By the same token, a reader may freely go over the words of a writer again and again before deciding what they mean.

As written communication allows ample time for the coding or decoding of messages, neither the writer nor the reader need depend on word-for-word repetitions to maintain a smooth temporal flow of words. A writer may leave considerable gaps between his words and reasonably expect his reader to work out their contiguous relationships. The great advantage of leaving many gaps between his words is that he can compel the reader to conjure up a series of images and place them in a meaningful continuum.[42] In this way he not only makes his feelings and thoughts known to his readers, but lets them go through his contemplative process and experience his emotional condition as if they were their own. In short, for a writer to establish a contiguous relationship of words is an effort to oblige his reader to transform a continuum of written signs into a vision of the mind. For this reason, the authors cease to weld their words together with word-for-word repetitions and other oral formulas, and begin to develop new devices like rhetorical questions and linking couplets which effectively lead the reader through in the process of inward visualization.

The process of written communication also allows the writer and the reader to explore noncontiguous relationships of words for the purpose of enhancing emotive impact. As a writer pauses to review what he has written and makes revisions in light of what he is to write next, he naturally builds a system of textual resonance among words placed in different parts of a poem. And in fact, this is exactly what the authors of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” began to do in their works. When they described a natural scene in the first part of a poem, they were already anticipating the feelings and thoughts to be expressed and deliberately blended words suggestive of the emotive tenor of the second part into the initial scene. This device is called the “verse eye” (shih yen) in traditional Chinese criticism. Conversely, when they wrote out their feelings and thoughts in the second part, they often harked back to the initial natural scene, purposely using metaphors that would resonate with the natural images there. This device I will tentatively call “metaphoric resonance.”

Of course, this intricate poetic texture, marked by sophisticated devices for temporal linkage (rhetorical questions, linking couplets, etc.) and for spatial correspondence (“verse eye,” metaphoric resonance, etc.), cannot be lost on readers of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.” In a sense, those readers enjoy even greater freedom in making associations of poetic words than the authors themselves. While the authors do not have the spatial configuration of the poem in their mind until they complete it, readers always have the entire poem, a short lyric at that, spatially set out before their eyes. So a single glance can draw their attention to both the temporal linkage and the spatial correspondence of the words. This interplay of temporal and spatial imagination affords a kind of intense aesthetic experience unknown to the audience of performed poetry but accessible to the readers of well-wrought written poetry like the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.” In the last section of this chapter, we will see how traditional Chinese critics not only intuitively grasp the nature of this new aesthetic experience, but actually explain it in terms of the dynamics of temporal and spatial movements in the course of reading. But first let us look at the devices that make this temporal and spatial resonance possible.

Temporal Linkage: Rhetorical Questions and Linking Couplets

In the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” the poets successfully adapt a number of syntactic formulas from the yüeh-fu tradition for their exploration of inner experience. Here it suffices to discuss how these poets transform the function of the question-answer formula. In the folk yüeh-fu, a question-answer formula is nothing more than a linking mechanism, as shown in the following passage (lines 13–35) from “Mulberry along the Lane”:

Passers-by, on seeing Lo-fu,

Lay down their loads and stroke their beards.

Young men, on seeing Lo-fu,

Take off their caps and arrange their headbands.

The plowmen forget their plows,

The hoers forget their hoes.

They come home angry with one another,

All because they have seen Lo-fu.

A prefect comes from the south,

His five horses stop and wait around.

The prefect sends his attendant forward:

‘To whom does this pretty girl belong?’

‘The Ch’ins have a pretty daughter,

She is called Lo-fu.…’[43]

‘Why don’t you ride with me?’

Lo-fu comes forward and replies:

‘Prefect, why so foolish!

The Prefect has his own wife,

Lo-fu has her own husband.

This question-answer formula (lines 24–26) serves as a transition between two compositional motifs. On the one hand, the question establishes a link with the previous segment on Lo-fu’s physical charm (lines 13–20); on the other, the answer leads into the ensuing segment on Lo-fu’s moral chastity (lines 31–35). As the answer repeats verbatim lines 34 of the poem, it should also be taken as a rote response intended to contribute to the structural cohesiveness of the entire composition.[44]

In the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems,” the question-answer formula evolves into rhetorical questions that facilitate inward reflection in various ways. When rhetorical questions occur at the end of the outward observations in Poems 5, 6, 7, 11, 16, they usher in emotional responses to the outside world and thus begin a long contemplative process. In Poem 11a rhetorical question launches the speaker into a melancholy contemplation of human transience:

Of everything I meet, none is familiar,

How can man not grow old quickly as well?

Growth and decay, each has its own time,

Success in life, why didn’t I strive for it sooner?

(Lines 5–8)

When rhetorical questions occur at the end of the first binary structure in Poems 1, 8, 12, they significantly prolong the contemplative process by bringing in another round of external projection and inward reflection. In Poem 12 a rhetorical question leads the speaker from his autumnal lament to a narration of the life of sing-song girls, which in turn will strike an even more melancholy chord in him.

Let us give free rein to our passions.

Why should we impose bondage on ourselves?

Yen and Chao boast many fair ladies:

Beautiful ones whose faces are like jade.

All wear clothes made of fine silk,

In the doorway they practice music in the pure mode.

These strains of music, how sad they are!

(Lines 9–15, KSSC, 2.18–19)

When rhetorical questions occur amidst the emotional responses in Poems 4, 11, and 19, they prompt the speakers to grope for a solution to their predicaments and pursue their contemplative process into the realm of future. In Poem 11, a rhetorical question prompts the speaker to ponder the worth of a glorious name in the future.

Man is not made of metal or stone,

How can he live long and not grow old?

As all things pass, his life will end,

To him, the only thing precious is a glorious name.

(Lines 9–12)

Finally, when rhetorical questions occur toward the end of the contemplative process, in Poems 7, 8, 10, 18, they signify the speakers’ despairing recognition of their wretched fates. In Poem 4 the speaker, having lamented human transience in general terms, asks himself:

Why shouldn’t I make a leap upward

And be the first to command the path to power?

What is the point in remaining poor and humble,

Stranded forever in misery and hardship

(Lines 11–14, KSSC, 2.6–7)

This question can be seen as the culmination of his soul searching in the face of human transience. It reveals his bitter realization of the irony of fate: his moral and intellectual cultivation did not bring the reward of a great name, but wasted his precious, evanescent life.

In the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” the interaction of the two binary parts is also enhanced by transitional couplets placed between them. These couplets are generally less imagistic than the description of nature in the first part, but more concrete than the emotional expression in the second part. Thus they provide a smooth transition between the two parts; Poem 13 provides a clear example of this:

Underneath them, the dead from long ago,

Dark, dark is the long night.

Lost in sleep beneath the Yellow Springs,

Come a thousand years, they will not awaken.

Seasons of growth and decay march on and on,

The years allotted to man are like morning dewß[45]

Man’s life is as transient as a sojourn,

His frame is not as firm as metal or stone.

Ten thousand years have gone by,

No sages or worthies can cross the flow of time.

(Lines 5–14)

The transitional couplet sums up the preceding observation of the graveyard and leads into a contemplation of human transience. Similar transitional couplets are employed in Poems 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16, and 19. Often they are so interwoven with the two parts that they can be interpreted either as the ending of one part or as the beginning of the other. Thus they fuse external projection and inward reflection into a coherent, sustained mental process. Internal coherence has long been recognized as the distinguishing trait of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.” Wang Shih-chen writes, “The Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” are as seamless as clothes made by heaven.”[46] Indeed, it is such an uninterrupted process of thought that warrants the treatment of each poem as an undivided piece in modern Chinese typeset editions and in English translations.[47]

Spatial Correspondence: Covert Repetition, Verse Eye, and Metaphor

The function of repetition changes from a linking mechanism to a device of spatial correspondence for exploring inner experience in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.” The literary yüeh-fu performers use word-for-word repetitions mainly to link words into a syntactical formula such as a “beads-on-a-frame” construction. But in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” the poets seldom use word-for-word repetitions. Few phrases or words are repeated in adjacent lines. Instead, we observe the semantic categories of one line being matched in the corresponding positions of the next line. For instance, in Poem 17 the noun “winter” is coupled with “north wind”; the verb “wane” with “wax”; the substantive “moon” with its traditional metaphor, toad and rabbit; and the phrase “undying remembrance” with “parting long endured.” Such coupling becomes complete in lines 5 and 6 and lines 9 and 10—that is, all the semantic elements of these lines correspond to one another.

The use of such covert repetition is not limited to adjacent lines. At the beginning of Poem 1 the sorrow of separation is effectively enhanced by covert repetitions in alternate lines:

On and on, and on and on [you go],

I cannot but live apart from you.

The distance has grown ten thousand li and more,

We are now at opposite ends of the sky.

(Lines 1–4)

In this passage, line 3 may be construed as a covert repetition of line 1 because both lines lament the separation in terms of physical distance measured by walking feet. By the same token, line 4 may be taken as a covert repetition of line 2 because both lines deplore the separation in terms of psychological distance, as indicated by the idea of remoteness in the phrases “away from,” “live apart,” and “at opposite ends of the sky.”

Clearly repetition has shifted in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” from the verbatim repetition characteristic of Han yüeh-fu to covert substitution of semantic elements belonging to the same grammatical category. This radical shift enhances the sense of unity without the monotonous effect of mechanical repetition and increases the evocative or associative power of semantic elements through imagistic correspondence. This shift signifies important changes from a rhythm of recurrence to that of association, “from the Shih-ching meter to the wu-yen meter, or from representational poetry to reflexive poetry.”[48]

In addition to the internalization of existing formal devices, we must look at two new devices which enhance the interplay between external description and inward reflection—the “verse eye” in the first part and metaphorical resonance in the second.

“Verse eye” is a term used in traditional Chinese criticism to describe words, mostly verbs or adjectives, that animate the description of nature in a verse.[49] In Poems 1, 4, 7, 8, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, and 19, such “verse eyes,” or animating words, vividly embody the speaker’s emotional involvement in the external scene. For instance, in the famous lines “The Hu horse leans toward the north wind; / the Yüeh bird nests in southern branches” (Poem 1, 7–8), the words “leans” and “nests” unmistakably bring into the scene the speaker’s own sense of homesickness. Without them, these lines would reveal far less of the speaker’s inner world. The animation of a natural scene through emotion-suggesting words so revamps the hsing construction that Wang Ch’ang-ling in Shih ko marks it off as a distinct category of hsing, using as his example a very similar couplet by Wang Tsan (?—311): “North wind disturbs the autumn grass, / The border horse harbors the intent of returning” (my emphasis).

While “verse eyes” anticipate the emotional developments in the second part of a poem, metaphorical resonance in the second part harks back to the natural scene in the first part.[50] Poem 7 provides a good example:

Bright moon shines in the clear night,

2

Crickets chirp near eastern wall.

The jade handle points to early winter,

4

The myriad stars, how they crowd into one another!

White dew gathers on the wild grasses,

6

The cycle of seasons suddenly changes again.

Cicadas buzz among the trees,

8

Dark swallows, where have they gone?

Once we were friends studying together,

10

High you soared, strong, beating wings.

Our friendship you have not remembered,

12

And abandon me like a footprint left behind.

Southern Winnow, Dipper in the North,

14

Or Draught Ox that cannot carry a yoke.

Truly, without the firmness of a rock,

16

What good you can gain from these empiy names?

(KSSC, 2.10–11)

The flight image “soared on high, beating strong wings” in line 10 appears as a metaphor for unscrupulous self-advancement. The constellation names Southern Winnow (13), Dipper in the North (13) and Draught Ox (14) appear as metaphors for empty, false friendship. These three images acquire the same metaphorical meaning of emptiness and falsehood because they “falsely” use concrete things to represent intangible or even “nonsubstantial” stars. Meanwhile, the images recall what we have seen in the first part. The beating wings (10) evoke the flight images of cicadas (7), and dark swallows (8); the three stellar names recall the polar star or “jade handle” (3) and the crowding stars (4) in the first part. Through such imagistic resonance, the four metaphorical images endow the opening autumnal scene with strong emotional overtones, intensifying the interaction between the binary parts, but in the reverse direction of “verse eyes.”

We should note that “verse eyes” and metaphorical resonance each introduce alien elements into binary parts, destabilizing the structure. However, they do not subvert the structure, but instead make it more dynamic and more aesthetically engaging. They intensify our aesthetic responses by opening up new channels for the outer-inner-world interaction. Like aesthetic catalysts, they oblige the mind to transcend the boundary between the outer and inner worlds and to constantly move back and forth between them.

Aesthetic Movements: Temporal and Spatial Imagination

In the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” both the binary structure and the multilateral texture are born of the constant movement back and forth between the outer and inner world in the poets’ process of imagining. In turn, they activate similar movements of the temporal and spatial imagination of the silent reader. In the mind of poet and reader alike, the intensification of these two aesthetic movements will lead to a point where the boundary between the outward and the inward dissolves and a timeless and spaceless poetic vision emerges.

Traditional Chinese critics often go to great lengths to praise this transforming aesthetic effect and attribute it to the perfect fusion of all poetic elements within the seamless poetic structure and texture in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.” For instance, Wang Shih-chena writes:

There are no syntactic rules in the ‘Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems,’ some people say. That is not true. Those poems surely follow syntactic rules of their own, but leave no signs of their distinctions for us to trace.[51]

Wu Ch’i is also of the opinion that the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” are so seamless that “one cannot find meaning by just picking up an individual sentence or by looking at individual words.”[52] Ho Yang-ling, a modern critic, seems to elaborate on Wang’s and Wu’s view when he says: “‘Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems’ have almost reached the perfection of a transformed vision, as they leave no traces of segments, no clues of division and combination, no signs of a seam in their intricate texture.”[53] While these critics merely point out the seamless fusion of all poetic elements, Fang Tung-shu (1772–1851) tries to explain how the authors achieve this fusion:

When these ancient people wrote, if there was a forward movement there must have been a backward movement; if there was a thrust downward there must be a thrust back upward. To soar like a startled wild goose or to wind along like a swimming dragon: this is the way we follow their rules of composition and the way we seek to understand their meaning. Having grasped this point, we will understand why these poems are thought to be “seamless like clothes made by heaven.”[54]

In this single passage Fang sums up all I have said about the two aesthetic movements—the thrust of temporal imagination led by devices like rhetorical questions and linking couplets and the counterthrust of spatial imagination aided by devices like “verse eye” and metaphoric resonance—and identifies the interplay of these two movements as the new aesthetic principle for written poetry. While this aesthetic principle was established with the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems,” it became the ultimate matrix for all the intricate rules of temporal progression and spatial correspondence—in rhythm, meter, grammatical category, and semantic meaning—in T’ang regulated verse. Later this aesthetic principle is often spoken of with this common phrase “moving in a circle; going and returning” (hsiin-huan wang-fu), and is observed as a golden rule for writing and reading Chinese poetry.

Of course, this aesthetic principle is not for Chinese poetry alone, but for the written poetry of all nations. To prove this, we need only to read the following passage by Coleridge, where he not only explains the aesthetic principle in similar terms as the interplay of forward and backward movements, but actually compares the ideal aesthetic process to the winding movement of a snake:

The reader should be carried forward, not merely or chiefly by the mechanical impulses of curiosity, or by a restless desire to arrive at the final solution; but by the pleasurable activity of the mind excited by the attractions of the journey itself. Like the motion of a serpent, which the Egyptians made an emblem of intellectual power; or like the path of sound through the air; at every step he passes and half recedes, and from the retrogressive movement collects the force which again carries him forward.[55]

This passage vividly depicts the aesthetic process of our minds excited by the attractions of the binary structure and multilateral texture in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.” Our minds are flooded with abundant images and in their wake come the emotions and thoughts. As the images collide with the thoughts, the sense with the emotion, they interact intensely and modify one another, the images being colored by the emotions and the emotions being objectified by the images. Thus our minds get caught in cycles of progressive movement from nature to feelings and back again—absorbed in a pleasurable journey of aesthetic appreciation.

For Coleridge as well as for traditional Chinese critics, such an aesthetic process culminates in a perfect blending of subject and object, thus raising the reader’s consciousness from a mundane to a transcendental vision of poetry. For this reason Coleridge regards the aesthetic movement as indicative of the loftiest human faculty: the creative imagination that “reveals itself in the balance or reconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities: of sameness, with difference; of the general, with the concrete; the idea, with the image; the individual, with the representative.…”[56] In a similar fashion Chinese critics praise and idealize the imaginative modification of discordant qualities in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.” In doing so, they emphasize the inexhaustibility of their own aesthetic responses. For instance, Chung Hung holds that the poems are “tragic and far-reaching, capable of touching the heart and moving the soul to the extent that one can almost say one word is worth one thousand pieces of gold.”[57] Lü Pen-chung (1084–1144) contends that “the poems all express profound thoughts and possess inexhaustible meanings; the words have their boundaries but meanings are boundless.”[58] Ch’en Tso-ming (fl. 1665) believes that “the capacity to express [common human feelings] but not exhaust them in words reaches perfection in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.”[59] Like Coleridge, Hu Ying-lin (1551–1602) holds that the inexhaustible aesthetic responses ultimately penetrate the realm of the spirit. He observes that, “the Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems and miscellaneous poems … with luminous images, and profound, subtle meanings, are really capable of bringing ghosts and spirits to tears, and moving the heaven and earth,” and “[these] poems embody miraculous meanings and probe the li [inner principle of things] in the metaphysical realm; they contain what the ghosts and spirits cannot comprehend and what nature cannot claim as its own.”[60]

Note

* This chapter contains material that first appeared in Cai Zong-qi, “Shih-ching yu ‘Ku-shih shih-chiu shou’: ts’ung pi-hsing de yen-pien lai k’an t’a-men de nei-tsai lian-hsi,” Chung-wai wen-hsileh 17.1 (1989). © 1989 Chung-wai wen-hsüeh yüeh-k’an. Reprinted with the permission of Chung-wai wen-shüeh yüeh-k’an she.

CHAPTER 4

Ts’ao Chih: The Development of the Lyrical Mode

Of all the poets living between the Chien-an and the T’ai-ho periods (227–232), Ts’ao Chih left us with the greatest number of poetical and prose works. His extant corpus includes twenty-seven ku-shih poems,[1] forty-two yüeh-fu poems, ten poems in tetrasyllabic line, forty-five rhapsodies (fu), about thirty-five memorials (piao), and many other types of prose.[2] His poetical works are unrivaled by his contemporaries not only in quantity but also in quality. In Grading of Poets, Chung Hung places him in the first rank of Chinese poets while relegating his father Ts’ao Ts’ao (155–220) to the third rank and his brother Ts’ao P’i (187226), the Emperor Wen (reigned 220–226), to the second rank.[3] In Anthology of Literature Hsiao T’ung collects as many as thirty-eight poems and three prose pieces by Ts’ao Chih, a number exceeding that of any other poet of his time.[4] Perhaps no one more eloquently and more dramatically speaks to Ts’ao Chih’s stature as the finest poet of his time than does Hsieh Ling-yün in this passage:

All the talent under the heaven amounts to one bushel: Ts’ao Tzu-chien [Ts’ao Chih] alone got eight-tenths, I got one-tenth, and all others from ancient antiquity to the present share one-tenth.[5]

Ts’ao Chih’s greatest literary achievement is his creation of a multifaceted individual self in his poetical works. He is among the first Chinese pentasyllabic poets to step out of anonymity and make his own individual life the center of his poetic compositions. This new tendency to cast one’s own life into poetry owes much to the influence of a new conception of literature as a way to achieve immortality. Ts’ao Ch’ih himself and by his brother Ts’ao P’i both championed this conception. Long before them, language (yen) had been acknowledged as a way to immortality, but it was moral teachings, not belles-lettres, that were then thought to have an immortalizing power. Only after Ts’ao P’i and Ts’ao Chih glori fied literature in this way did literary writings begin to enjoy a status comparable to that of moral teachings by sages. In his famous treatise “On Literature” Ts’ao P’i declares:

Literature, like the grand task of governing a state, is a great enterprise that promises immortality. One’s life has its allotted span and ends in due course. Honors and pleasures end with one’s body. The certainty of the end of both does not compare with the eternal existence of literature. Authors of antiquity entrusted themselves to brush and ink and transcribed their thoughts onto writing slips. Thus, though unaided by the words of a fine historian or the status of a high-riding official, their names and reputation were nonetheless passed on to posterity.[6]

Like his elder brother, Ts’ao Chih considers literature as a means of achieving immortality or, metaphorically speaking, a way “to pass on flower-like fragrance” to posterity. In his poem “Dew on the Shallot,” he unabashedly compares his writing of belletristic works to Confucius’s editing of ancient classics:

Confucius edited Poetry and Documents,

And his kingly enterprise was luminously clear.

I race with my inch-thick brush,

To display literary elegance and

Leave a wake of flowery fragrance.[7]

(TCCC, 433)

However, Ts’ao Chih’s glorification of literature was not as unqualified as Ts’ao P’i’s. On some occasions he deplored the business of writing poetry as an ineffectual substitute for political accomplishments in an effort to establish one’s eternal fame. In his famous letter to his friend Yang Hsiu (175–219), he writes:

Yet tz’u [songs in the style of Songs of Ch’u] and fu [rhapsodies] are but a minor endeavor that is not capable of illuminating great truths and enlightening future generations. Even Yang Hsiung [53 B.C.-A.D. 18] a mere lance-bearer of the last dynasty, said that it was unworthy of a man in his prime. Although my virtue is limited, I as a feudal lord long for an opportunity to serve the country, to benefit the common people, to carve out a career that will be known by all generations, and to strive for accomplishment worthy of inscription on metal and stone. How can I allow myself to be known only for my accomplishment in ink and brush and to be regarded as a gentleman only for my tz’u and/u?[8]

This passage stands in sharp contrast to Ts’ao P’i’s view that literature is no less glorious an activity than the governing of a state. It seems that Ts’ao Chih and Ts’ao P’i came to hold conflicting views on the comparative merits of literature and politics largely because political power meant different things to these two brothers of the same royal family. If the governing of a state meant to Ts’ao P’i a free exercise of his birthright based on primogeniture, it meant to Ts’ao Chih only a conditional right to be granted or revoked at the whim of his brother, Ts’ao P’i, the Emperor Wen. Given this fundamental difference, it is quite natural that Ts’ao P’i could—graciously or rather condescendingly—assert that literature was as noble an activity as the governing of a state, while Ts’ao Chih would think of literature as a lesser endeavor and would always strive for an opportunity to serve, if not to rule, his state. Yet in spite of the fact that he thought less of literature than politics, Ts’ao Chih did devote himself to literature after his defeat in the political rivalry for the throne, for it became the only way left for him to achieve an immortal name. His political failures contribute to his literary successes in more ways than one. He not only took his literary pursuits more seriously, but his constant inward struggle with political setbacks became the very source of complex feelings and thoughts that enrich his poetry.

In view of his conception of literature, we may assume that for Ts’ao Chih writing poetry was not just a natural mode of emotional expression, but also a way to create an individual self for recognition by future generations. Indeed, no Chinese poets before or contemporaneous with him created a more multifaceted or compelling self-image. This poetic self is neither an actual image of his experiential self nor a fictional poetic speaker, but a seamless merging of both. The significance of this creation is two-fold: 1) the poet’s private emotions and thoughts were transformed into artistic presentations with universal appeal for readers of all generations; and 2) the generalized, collective modes of presentation in Han ku-shih and Han yüeh-fu became vehicles of personal reflection for an individual poet.[9]

The Poet’s Life: Experiential Self and Poetic Self

Ts’ao Chih (courtesy name Tzu-chien) was born in 192 to Ts’ao Ts’ao and Lady Pien, who had become Ts’ao Ts’ao’s principal wife in 179.[10] when he was just over ten years of age, he was able to recite poems, essays, and rhapsodies—totaling several hundred thousand words. When Ts’ao Ts’ao asked his sons to compose a rhapsody to mark the completion of the Bronze Bird Terrace in the city of Yeh, Ts’ao Chih dashed off a rhapsody in an instant, much to the amazement of his father. He had an ingenuous and easy-going disposition and did not bother to cultivate a dignified demeanor. Each time he was summoned for an audience, he would answer hard questions the moment they were put to him. For this, he won the affection of his father.

In 211 (Chien-an 16) he was enfeoffed as Marquis of P’ing-yüan; his enfeoffment was changed to Marquis of Lin-tzu in 214. Although Ts’ao Ts’ao appreciated his literary talent and several times came close to making him heir apparent, he eventually chose his eldest son, Ts’ao P’i, as his successor partly because he hesitated to break the rule of primogeniture and partly because he disliked Ts’ao Chih’s willful temperament, his neglect of self-cultivation, and his habit of excessive drinking. The decline of his favoritism toward Ts’ao Chih has been attributed to two incidents, Ts’ao Chih’s breach of imperial protocol by refusing to get out of his carriage when passing through a palace gate and his failure to come to the rescue of Ts’ao Jen (168–223) because he was drunk. Indeed, after the latter incident, Ts’ao Ts’ao not only removed Ts’ao Chih from his post, but also executed his close friend and adviser Yang Hsiu.

When Ts’ao P’i ascended the throne in 220 (Huang-ch’u 1), he executed Ting I and Ting I and all of their sons and sent Ts’ao Chih and other feudal lords to their principalities.[11] Under the reign of his brother, Ts’ao Chih’s life went from bad to worse. In 221, because of his drunken and disrespectful behavior before an imperial envoy by the name of Kuan Chün, Ts’ao Chih was demoted to Marquis of An-hsiang. Had not his mother, the empress dowager, intervened on his behalf, he would have been subjected to a much more severe punishment. From this point onward, he began to lead the rootless life of an exiled prince. In the next two years, his fief was changed twice. He became Marquis of Juan-ch’eng with a fief of only 2,500 households in 222 and Lord of Yung-ch’iu in 223.

When his nephew Ts’ao Jui succeeded to the throne, Ts’ao Chih’s life improved somewhat because he now did not have to fear for his life and could now submit memorials frequently to the new emperor. In his memorials he rather explicitly expressed his resentment at not being given a chance to serve in court and implored the emperor not to put members of other powerful families in key positions for fear of usurpation. Apart from this greater freedom of speech, however, Ts’ao Chih’s exiled life remained unchanged under his nephew’s reign. His fief was changed to Chün-i in 227 (Tai-ho 1) and then back to Yung-ch’iu in 228, and then to Tung-e in 229. In the first month of Tai-ho 6 (232), he was summoned, together with other feudal lords, to the imperial court, and in the next month he was given four counties of Chen and became Prince of Chen. Although he repeatedly sought a private audience with the emperor to talk about the current state of government and to express his hope for a trial term of office, he failed. Despondent and despairing, he returned to his tiny fief, staffed with inept officials and sick and disabled soldiers totaling less than 200. Only a few months later he died at the age of forty-one.

Chinese scholars have used this outline of the poet’s life under three different reigns as the basis for periodizing and classifying his works. The two earliest comprehensive editions of Ts’ao Chih’s writings—Chu Hsü-tseng’s (fl. 1837) Ts’ao Chih k’ao-i,[12] and Ting Yen’s (1794–1875) Ts’ao Chih ch’iian-p’ing[13]—both classify his poetical works under generic headings such as shih and yüeh-fu. While Huang Chieh (1874–1935), in his Ts’ao Tzu-chien shih-chu,[14] follows this traditional scheme of generic division, Ku Chih (1887-?) in Ts’ao Tzu-chien shih-chien integrates a chronological arrangement within the larger framework of generic division. Specifically, he introduces two chronological subheadings (Chien-an period versus Huang-ch’u and Tai-ho periods) under his two generic headings (shih versus yüeh-fu).[15] Most recently, Chao Yu-wen has dispensed with generic division altogether and simply classifies Ts’ao Chih works under the three different reign periods.

In yet another variation, critics have periodized Ts’ao’s poetic works not by the broad division of reign periods, but by a chronology of events that affected his personal life. Lu K’an-ju and Feng Yuan-chün regard Ts’ao Chih’s youthful life before and after his becoming the Prince of P’ing Yüan as two distinct periods (192–211 and 211–220), thus substituting a four-fold scheme for the traditional three-fold scheme solely based on reign periods.[16] Itö Masafumi adopts Lu and Feng’s four-fold scheme but redefines the periods as follows: 1) the period of his cultivation and learning from his birth to 210, the year before he became Marquis of P’ing-yiian; 2) the period of his happy and carefree youth, beginning with the conferral of his feudal title in 211 and ending in 217 with his defeat in the rivalry with Ts’ao P’i for the throne; 3) the period of his political ostracization by his brother, extending from 218 to 226 or the last year of the Huang-ch’u reign period; and 4) the period of his continued political exile under the reign of his nephew from 227 to his death in 232. Itö Masafumi further characterizes Ts’ao Chih’s works as impassioned and forlorn in the first period, melancholic yet ardent in the second period, melancholic and lamenting in the third period, and gloomy and despairing in the fourth period.[17]

For more than a thousand years, the relationship of Ts’ao Chih’s life to his poetical works has been the central issue not only for the classification and periodization of his works but also for their critical inter pretation. Most traditional Chinese critics see his poems as a faithful, unmediated representation of the historical Ts’ao Chih. They simply identify the life experience of his poetic speakers with that of the poet himself. Regarding his poetic works as his biographical records, they scrutinize them as part of a moral examination of his life. This moral examination in turn becomes grounds for assessing the literary merits of his poetical works. The more highly they regard his moral character, the more generously they acclaim his poetic achievements. Over the centuries traditional Chinese critics have gradually formed into two major camps: those who extol Ts’ao Chih as a moral paragon and poetic genius, and those who find fault with his character and decry the imperfections of his poetic art.[18]

There are four major figures in the first camp. Chung Hung implicitly praises Ts’ao Chih’s moral character and explicitly lauds his poetic accomplishments by saying “Ts’ao Chih is to the art of literary composition what Confucius is to the principle of human relationships.”[19] Wang T’ung (584–618) depicts Ts’ao Chih as moral paragon whose sagely “abdication from the throne was not recognized by his contemporaries” and whose “literary writings are profound and abound in allusions.”[20] Chang Pu (1602–1641) presents Ts’ao Chih as a Han loyalist “whose entire life was devoted to the Han court and whose heart was like that of Duke Wen of Chou.”[21] And Ting Yen concludes that “Tzu-chien displayed his loyalty for the monarch and his patriotism, and established himself through his moral virtues and his literary works. Even if we speak of literary talent, feeling, and form alone, Ts’ao P’i cannot come close to him.”[22]

Among the important figures in the second camp, Liu Hsieh is the first to challenge the popular tendency to underestimate Ts’ao P’i’s literary talent because of the dubious basis of his political success and to overestimate Ts’ao Chih’s poetic achievement because of sympathy for his political failure. “Since critics followed popular sentiment to elevate [Ts’ao Chih] and demote Ts’ao P’i,” Liu Hsieh observed, “they tend to echo one another and strike a uniform note.”[23] To counter this prevailing tendency, Liu Hsieh brushed aside all moral questions about Ts’ao P’i and claimed only literary merit for him. Moreover, he went to considerable lengths discussing the faults of Ts’ao Chih’s works in spite of the popular adoration for Ts’ao Chih the man.[24] Wang Fu-chih (1619–1692) goes much further than Liu Hsieh in promoting Ts’ao P’i and demoting Ts’ao Chih. While Liu Hsieh refrained from giving a moral assessment of Ts’ao P’i, Wang actually called him a poet-sage (shih-sheng),[25] the highest possible praise of any poet of moral character. Moreover, Wang Fu-chih sought to demote Ts’ao Chih by discounting the importance of Ts’ao Chih’s poetic achievement. In his Ancient Poetry: Commentaries and Selections (Ku-shih p’ing-hsiian), he included sixteen poems by Ts’ao P’i but only two by Ts’ao Chih in the yüeh-fu section, and nine poems by Ts’ao P’i with only three by Ts’ao Chih in the ku-shih section.[26] In addition, he consistently compared Ts’ao Chih’s works unfavorably with those of Ts’ao Ts’ao and Ts’ao P’i. That he called Ts’ao Chih’s poems “bug-infested peaches and bitter plums”[27] reveals quite clearly his attitude toward Ts’ao Chih’s poetic achievement.

These two critical camps not only persist in modern studies, but have actually become radicalized, due largely to Kuo Mo-jo’s controversial article “On Ts’ao Chih.”[28] In that article Kuo launches a relentless attack on Ts’ao Chih’s moral character and his poetic style. In demoting Ts’ao Chih, traditional detractors normally compared his works unfavorably with Ts’ao P’i’s or Ts’ao Ts’ao’s; they seldom foregrounded his moral character. But when Kuo Mo-jo seeks to diminish Ts’ao Chih, he begins by exposing three serious faults of his character: his flamboyant and irresponsible early lifestyle; his political ineptitude, shown in his choice of incompetent advisers; and his predilection for incessant self-pity after his hopes for the throne were dashed. Kuo contends that, on the occasion of the abdication of the Han dynasty, Ts’ao Chih actually wept at his lost opportunity to ascend the throne, rather than for the demise of the Han as those in the first camp would have it. Kuo also holds that in his famous rhapsody “The Goddess of the Lo River” Ts’ao Chih does not seek to offer a loyal minister’s remonstrance with his monarch, but to express a depraved youth’s secret love for his brother’s wife. Next, Kuo proceeds to associate Ts’ao Chih’s frivolous life with his fondness for novel expressions and florid rhetoric. He argues that Ts’ao Chih’s imitative, highly rhetorical style goes against the healthy trend of lyricization in both ku-shih and yüeh-fu at the time and leads to the vogue of grandiose rhetoric in the ornate parallel prose of the Six Dynasties.

To counter Kuo’s wholesale denigration of Ts’ao Chih, Chia Ssu-jung essentially reiterates the view of Ts’ao Chih held by the first camp, portraying him as a great moralist and a poetic genius. In doing so, however, he seeks to recast the traditional praise of Ts’ao Chih’s moral character and his poetic achievement in terms of what he sees as a remarkable display of “critical realism” in Ts’ao Chih’s poetical works. In a way, Chia Ssu-jung’s critique of Kuo Mo-jo serves to resituate the centuries-old debate on Ts’ao Chih within the purview of Marxist criticism and leads to the establishment of “critical realism” as the new criterion for evaluating Ts’ao Chih.[29] Indeed, even when Chang Te-chiin rises to defend Kuo Mo-jo from Chia’s criticism, he cannot but frame his argument around the issue of critical realism. He argues that Ts’ao Chih should be relegated to the status of a lesser poet because his critical realism is not so penetrating and soul-searing as is that of contemporaries like Wang Ts’an.[30]

Conflicting though they are, these two views of Ts’ao Chih each result from a “biographical reduction” achieved by obscuring the complex relations the poet established between his experiential self and his poetic texts.[31] When the poet projects his experience into his works, he does so through the prism of poetic form. Hence the individual self in Ts’ao Chih’s poems is not a truthful record, but a virtual presentation of the poet’s life, an artistic presence that arises out of the interaction between his inward experience and poetic form.

In his seminal article “Fifteen Poems by Ts’ao Chih: An Attempt at a New Approach,” Hans Frankel challenges the long tradition of biographical reduction in both traditional and modern Chinese criticism, redirecting critical attention from the poet’s experiential self to the formal characteristics of his poetical self. Influenced by New Criticism, Frankel believes that the individual self in Ts’ao Chih’s poems was a purely artistic entity, completely separate from the poet’s experiential self and understandable solely in terms of the aesthetic interplay of formal elements. So when he discusses the fifteen poems by Ts’ao Chih, Frankel dismisses the relevance of his biographical data to the interpretation of those poems and focuses almost exclusively on the formal techniques (mobile images, etc.) the poet used to create a distinct poetic self.[32] While Frankel’s formal analysis of this poetic self yields fresh insight into Ts’ao Chih’s art, his arbitrary separation of this poetic self from the experiential self introduces the practice of “biographical exclusion” into Ts’ao Chih scholarship.

Komori Ikuko takes issue with both the biographical reduction of most traditional and modern Chinese critics and the biographical exclusion of New Critics like Frankel.[33] In launching her two-pronged critique, Komori first takes on the practitioners of biographical reduction. Like Frankel, she draws a clear distinction between Ts’ao Chih’s experiential self and his poetic self, between a moral opinion of his life and an artistic evaluation of his poetical works. She believes that it is undesirable and unjustifiable to let an uncomplimentary view of the poet’s personal life obscure the merits of his poetry or, alternatively, to be led by a zealous veneration of his personal life to an overestimation of his poetic success. She expresses her strong opposition to either form of “biographical reduction”. For instance, she relentlessly criticizes Kuo Mo-jo’s denigration of Ts’ao Chih’s poetic accomplishments on account of flaws in his character, even though she agrees with Kuo’s unfavorable assessment of Ts’ao Chih’s personal life.[34]

In the second part of her critique, Komori goes on to expose the faults of biographical exclusion. While she sides with Frankel in fighting biographical reduction, she disapproves of his New Critical reading of Ts’ao Chih’s poems and deplores his unfortunate disassociation of Ts’ao Chih’s poetic self from his experiential self.[35] Even though she herself refrains from identifying details of Ts’ao Chih’s poems with concrete events in his life, she makes a point of examining his evolving patterns of outward observation and inward reflection in the context of his changing sentiment about himself and those around him at different stages of his life. Having negotiated a passage between these two extremes, she manages to complete a careful formal analysis of representative works, a thematic reclassification of them, and an appropriate placement of various thematic groups into a general outline of his personal life.[36] This integration of formal analyses and biographical consideration marks an important breakthrough in the recent study of Ts’ao Chih.

Following the path of Komori Ikuko, I propose to go beyond biographical reduction and exclusion to examine the dynamic relationship between Ts’ao Chih’s life and poetical works in terms of his life-long process of self-transformation and generic transformation. How for instance, does the poet blend his changing sentiment with the feelings customarily expressed in early ku-shih to transform his experiential self into an appealing poetic self? How does he cast himself in conventional poetic roles (the abandoned wife, the wanderer, the anthropomorphic object, etc.), identifying their stories with his own experience and conveying his complex feelings about his close friends, his brother Ts’ao P’i, his other brothers and his nephew?

I will consider how his thematic and formal innovations lead to significant reconfigurations of all major ku-shih and yüeh-fu subgenres. Specifically, I will observe how he enriches the repertoire of topoi, motifs, and images by adding details of his outer and inner life; how he reshapes conventional structural principles through an introduction of his modes of outward observation and inward contemplation. Finally, I will identify the connections between his transformation into a poetic self with his sweeping transformations of the ku-shih and yüeh-fu subgenres.

Early Ku-shih: Moral Encouragement for Friends

Of the extant corpus of Ts’ao Chih’s works, only about ten ku-shih poems are believed to have been written before 220. Of these the most noteworthy are five poems he wrote for presentation to his four close friends: Wang Ts’an, Hsü Kan, Ting Í, and his elder brother Ting I. Ts’ao Chih and his friends’ innovative use of the ku-shih form for personal communication gave birth to a new ku-shih subgenre: poetry of presentation and reply (tseng-ta). In Anthology of Literature Hsiao T’ung traces the origin of the tseng-ta subgenre to Ts’ao Chih and his friends and includes their works as its earliest examples.[37]

In his poems of presentation, Ts’ao Chih identified his intended readers in the titles and exhorted them to a Confucian moral ideal in the final lines. Within these structural brackets he encapsulated his personal reflections on important political and social issues affecting the lives of his readers and himself. In this manner he strove to achieve a communicative purpose without sacrificing the intensity of lyrical expression. The emergence of this format signals a gradual evolution of ku-shih from a generalized and publicly transmitted discourse to a kind of personal communication between two or more friends in a semi-private context.[38] As we examine the many thematic and formal changes in ku-shih, we will see to what extent Ts’ao Chih has transformed the existing form into a vehicle for conveying his thoughts and feelings to his close friends.

To begin with, let us consider how Ts’ao Chih’s compositions generate a tripartite structure in place of the binary structure typical of Han ku-shih. The rise of his new structure results from a lyrical process different than that of Han ku-shih[39] The authors of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” produced a binary structure simply because they all proceeded from outward observation to self reflection or vice versa. By the same token Ts’ao Chih produced a tripartite structure simply because he followed a three-step process: observing his own surroundings, contemplating the difficult circumstances of his friends, and exhorting them to a moral ideal. This structure may be clearly observed in this poem:

To Ting Í and Wang Ts’an

With the army I cross Han-k’u Pass,

2

Driving my horse, I pass the Western Capital.

The mountain peaks are high without end,

4

The Ching and the Wei raise waves, turbid and clear.

How magnificent! this home of emperors and kings,

6

Its grandeur and beauty surpass a hundred cities.

The Round Gatetowers rise above wafting clouds,

8

The Dew Receptacles rub up against the Empyrean.

The Imperial Aide extends his heavenly kindness,

10

And within the four seas there is no armed conflict.

While his strategists love victory in the battlefield,

12

He makes his good name by conquering a state without destroying it.

You gentlemen are both in low positions,

14

And cannot join us in singing praise of his virtues.

Mister Ting resents being left behind at court,

16

Master Wang finds joy in leading a life of his own.

But neither joy nor resentment show the right principle.

18

Moderation and harmony truly can be the norm.[40]

(TCCC, 133)

The poem begins with a view of the capital city from which a military expedition heads for the western regions. This opening is anything but a conventional ku-shih topos. In the Han ku-shih we do not encounter either a military campaign or the panoramic view of a metropolis so vividly described here. What meets the eye in this poem is the impressive outline of the capital: the great mountains rising beyond the waters of the Ching and Wei rivers, the grand imperial dwellings standing out among myriads of houses, the dome-shaped watchtowers piercing the wafting clouds, and the palm-shaped receptacles for celestial dew. The images afford a glimpse of the poet’s actual world and reveal the intensity of his emotional engagement with it.

In the middle part of the poem the poet expresses his emotional responses to the sublime vista of the capital city. First, he thinks of the magnitude of his father’s (the Imperial Aide) accomplishment in restoring peace throughout the country. But no sooner has he finished praising his father than he begins to lament the absence of his two friends on this occasion. He regrets that they do not have high enough a position to join the expedition and sing praise of his father with him. His emotional responses strike us as spontaneous and genuine, for they reveal his deep regret at the exclusion of his friends. If we compare his personal responses with the stock responses of Han ku-shih—the sorrow over separation and human transience—we see how far Ts’ao Chih has gone in personalizing the emotional response in ku-shih.

The close of this poem shows a marked contrast to the endings of most Han ku-shih. It is not a conclusion reached linearly from what has been said, but rather a sudden turn of thought. Ts’ao Chih abruptly shifts from a sympathetic observation of the conditions of his two friends to a moral commentary. He reproaches Mister Ting for his resentment and Mister Wang for rejoicing at his exclusion from court. For both, he recommends the Confucian norm of moderation and harmony and encourages them to adopt a correct attitude toward political life. With this moral commentary, he hopes to raise their spirits in the face of their personal setbacks and misfortunes.

His four other poems of presentation demonstrate a comparable tripartite structure. More often than not, his opening scene is drawn from the world around him. Instead of employing Han ku-shih topoi—the chamber of a lonesome lady, the sight of a graveyard, a desolate wintry scene, or the revelry of a fortune-seeking wanderer—he depicts the courtyard in the Wei Palace in “To Hsii Kan” and a private drinking party in “To Ting I.”

For a while I stroll in the night,

And wander between the twin gatetowers.

The Wen-ch’ang Hall rises like brooding clouds,

The Ying-feng Tower stands piercing the sky.

Spring pigeons coo among the flying roof beams,

Gusts of fierce wind swell the latticed porches.[41]

(“To Hsü Kan,” lines 7–12, TCCC, 42)

Distinguished guests fill the wall tower,

Fine delicacies come from the inner kitchen.

I and two or three friends,

Hold a private feast in this corner of the city wall.

A Ch’in lute plays the airs of the west,

A Ch’i zither raises songs of the east.

Meat dishes come, and do not go back finished,

Wine cups arrive, but they return emptied.

(“To Ting I,” lines 1–8, TCCC, 141)

Similarly, Ts’ao Chih’s emotional responses in the middle sections are markedly different from what we have seen in Han ku-shih. In responding to opening scenes, he does not lament the sorrow of separation and mourn over the inevitability of death. Instead, he proceeds to dwell upon the deplorable conditions of his friends and look for ways to console them. In “To Ting I,” the spectacle of this joyful party leads him first to hail the abundance of talents in his state:

A great country abounds in fine talents,

Just as the sea teems with bright pearls.

The gentleman is never in want of goodness,

Small men have no source of virtue.

One who accumulates goodness gives blessings to his posterity,

One’s fortunes may rise or fall at any moment.

August are those who adhere to great principles,

Most commoners cling to trivial rules.

The gentleman understands the great way,

And does not want to be a worldly scholar.[42]

(Lines 11–20, TCCC, 141)

In line 10, Ts’ao Chih turns to the miserable life of his friend. As if not to spoil the joyful occasion, he does not explicitly describe his friend’s circumstances as he does in “To Ting Í and Wang Ts’an.” Instead, he tries to alleviate his situation by exhorting him to emulate a gentleman (chün-tzu) who stands firm on moral principles and does not take to heart success or failure in worldly affairs.

When Ts’ao Chih responds to a sad scene, he thinks of the wretchedness of his friends. In “To Ting I,” as he looks on the devastation from excessive autumn rains, he thinks about his friends being as helpless and destitute as the farmers who have lost their crops to flooding:

The millet lies abandoned in the fields,

What can the farmers gather in?

Those in eminent positions mostly forget the humble ones,

In extending charity, who can embrace all?

As white fox fur shields one from the winter cold,

How can one even imagine strangers without warm clothes?[43]

(Lines 7–12, TCCC, 129)

In To Wang Ts an, when he sees a lone bird hopelessly crying for its mate, he thinks about his friends in need of his help:

In the pond is a solitary mandarin duck,

Crying dolefully in search of its mate.

I want to be a companion to this bird,

Alas, I have no light boat.

I want to return, but I’ve forgotten the old path,

Looking around, I am filled with grief.[44]

(Lines 5–10, TCCC, 29)

In “To Hsü Kan,” he sees birds perched on the beams of palace buildings and immediately thinks about his friends in dire straits:

Spring pigeons coo among the flying roof beams,

Gusts of fierce wind swell the latticed porches.

I think longingly of the thatched hut gentleman,

Who is poor, humble, and truly pitiful.

Wild beans and greens do not fill his empty stomach,

Skins and coarse clothes do not cover his whole body.

Noble and lamenting, he has a woeful heart,

Whatever he feels compelled to write becomes a good piece on its own.

(Lines 11–18, TCCC, 42)

What passes through his mind is his friend’s impoverished life, his endless struggle with cold and hunger, and his efforts to console himself through writing literary works. When he pictures his friend’s thatched hut, his coarse food, and his scanty clothes, Ts’ao Chih suffers a painful sense of guilt for letting such a genius go to waste, but he comes to a bitter realization of his own powerlessness (lines 19–22). Yet even after he has gone through this emotional ordeal, Ts’ao Chih does not sink into the depths of despair. In a typically abrupt turn of thought, he ends the poem with the unflagging optimism of a Confucian moralist:

The duty of a close friend is to encourage,

Having written this piece, what more do I have to say?[45]

(“To Hsü Kan,” Lines 27–28)

Each poem of presentation ends with the same kind of enthusiastic didacticism. In one Ts’ao Chih urges his friends to uphold moral principles and free themselves from worldly cares; in another he reminds them that the accumulation of virtuous deeds is a reward in itself; and in the last he simply reassures them of his continued help:

You dust off your cap and wait for your friends,

But who among them is not in the same sorry state?

(“To Hsü Kan,” lines 21–22)

August are those who adhere to great principles,

Most commoners cling to trivial rules.

The gentleman understands the great way,

And does not want to be a worldly scholar.

(“To Ting I,” lines 17–20)

You ought to set your mind at ease

The loyalty of your close friends is not tenuous.

(“To Ting Í,” lines 15–16)

These persuasive endings strike a note of unfailing optimism unknown in Han ku-shih works. This overflow of optimism not only attests to Ts’ao Chih’s extraordinary gift for hope in the face of adversity, but also underscores his persistent efforts to raise the spirits of his downtrodden friends.

To sum up, it can be said that in his poems of presentation Ts’ao Chih has personalized the three essential ku-shih components (opening scene, emotional response, modal ending) and established a tripartite structure unknown in Han ku-shih. The greatest merit of this tripartite structure is that it allows the poet to introduce his own personal world into an otherwise non-self-reflective subgenre. While Wang Ts’an and Liu Chen efface themselves, focusing solely on those they address in their poems of presentation, Ts’ao Chih often lets his own world take center stage and relegates the life of the addressee to the background. This shift of emphasis is desirable insofar as it enables the poet to reflect on his own life. Indeed, in adapting the ku-shih form for personal communication, Ts’ao Chih has boldly replaced fixed topoi, motifs, and images with the details of his own world; stock emotional responses with his own thoughts and feelings; and melancholy brooding over human transience with spirited moral suasion. This personalization of the three ku-shih components contributes to our sense of a tangible presence of the poet in these texts, who speaks to us as well as to his intended readers in his own voice. It is in these poems of presentation that we may come close to identifying the poetic speaker with the poet himself.

Yet in spite of this most remarkable personalization of the ku-shih form, these poems are not generally regarded as Ts’ao Chih’s finest works. This is largely due to the rough transitions between the three parts.[46] Ts’ao Chih has not taken enough care to weave the parts into a seamless whole. First of all, there is an imbalance between the depiction of his own surroundings in the first part and the depiction of his friends’ worlds in the second. In “To Ting Í and Wang Ts’an” the first part runs several times longer than the second part, even though he apparently aims to describe his friends’ lives rather than his own. Then, there is an abrupt transition between the second and third parts. In “To Hsü Kan” a sudden shift from a melancholy observation to a spirited moral encouragement strikes us as abrupt and clumsy. Finally, there is disharmony between the abundance of images in the first half and the wealth of abstract ideas and thoughts in the second half of the poems. In “To Ting I” imagistic description (lines 1–12) and the nonimagistic speech (lines 1320) seem placed together at random. Unlike the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems/’ we do not find evidence in Ts’ao Chih’s ku-shih of efforts to enhance the unity of the imagistic and nonimagistic parts through textural devices such as “verse eye,” metaphoric resonance, and rhetorical questions. Having identified these imperfections, we must nonetheless extend full credit to him for establishing the tseng-ta subgenre and opening a new avenue for the development of ku-shih poetry.

Early Yüeh-fu: Ideal Image of Self

If Ts’ao Chih aimed to set up a moral ideal for his friends in his poems of presentation, he strove to create an ideal image of self in his imitations of folk yüeh-fu. The folk yüeh-fu form is, as shown in “Mulberry along the Lane,” marked by a plurality of speakers or voices. Because of this, the form was ill-adapted for lyric purposes and thus was largely ignored by the increasingly self-reflective poets of the Chien-an period. Among the major poets of the time, only Ts’ao Chih sought to revive the folk yüeh-fu form. When Ts’ao Chih wrote a poem in this form, he kept its generic configurations largely intact in the sense that he continued to give exclusive attention to a central character and held off the intrusion of a self-scrutinizing speaker. But he also managed to project an ideal vision of himself through an array of characters ranging from a beautiful girl to a flamboyant youth to a heroic soldier on horseback. To understand his unobtrusive but effective transformation of the folk yüeh-fu form into a vehicle for self-presentation, let us examine how he created a semblance of his own image by remolding a conventional yüeh-fu character or introducing characters unknown to yüeh-fu tradition. We will also consider how he conveyed his profound admiration for his characters through intense, sustained observation of their outer and inner lives and how he, through this empathetic observation, transformed them into ideal images of what he himself aspired to be.

Of his yüeh-fu poems written before 220, I will discuss the three best known pieces: “Beautiful Girl,” “Famous Capital,” and “White Horse.” In the first, Ts’ao Chih reworks “Mulberry along the Lane.” He reshapes the traits of Lo-fu so that her beauty comes to stand for his own moral purity and her quest for love symbolizes his yearning for political patronage.

The Lo-fu in “Mulberry along the Lane” is static and unchanging. Her beauty is conveyed through a series of concrete images: her clothes, jewelry, hairpins, silk clothes, and other personal paraphernalia. She is an immobile object of beauty, attracting admirers ranging from young men, to farmers in the fields, to a prefect. Even though we take the last section of the poem as Lo-fu’s reply to the prefect, we have no details indicating how she delivers her reply. Throughout the poem she remains a static center upon which various details hinge: a general description of her family history (lines 1–6), the responses of passers-by to her beauty (lines 15–20), and the suitor’s dialog with an onlooker and with Lo-fu herself (lines 21–35). These fragments reflect the diverse perspectives of the poem’s multiple characters.

In “Beautiful Girl” Ts’ao Chih does not call the heroine by the name of Lo-fu. Yet few are likely to mistake her for anybody else because Ts’ao Chih depicts her with motifs and images drawn from “Mulberry along the Lane”—a glimpse of her residence, a view of her picking mulberry by the roadside, her fine clothes and ornaments, her encounters with admirers. However, unlike the heroine in “Mulberry along the Lane,” this Lo-fu is vibrant and changing. Her beauty is revealed not so much through static objects (clothes and ornaments) as by her physical grace:

Beautiful Girl

A beautiful woman bewitching and graceful

2

Picks mulberry leaves by the fork in the road.

Slender branches hang, luxuriant and swaying;

4

The falling leaves, how they flutter and float!

Her rolled-up sleeves reveal her white hands,

6

Her fair wrists are clasped with golden bands.

On her head, gold bird pins;

8

At her waist, she wears green jade.

Bright pearls adorn her delicate body,

10

Corals beads interlaced with green pearls.

Her gauze clothes, how airy and graceful!

12

Her light skirt dances in the wind.

Her backward glance casts a brilliant radiance,

14

Whistling the while, her breath fragrant as orchids.

Travelers halt their carriage,

16

Those who are resting forget their meal.

Here the tender, waving branches set off the elegant figure of the lady. Her joy at work reflects the vivaciousness of her spirit. Her bodily movement communicates her gracefulness. The way she casts her glances and whistles has an air of elegance. All these images of movement take us beyond visual pleasure to an intangible sense of beauty which emanates more from her character than from her physical appearance.

The change of Lo-fu from a static figure to a vibrant character results from the change of the perceptual mode, marked by reversed relations between the observed and the observer. In “Mulberry along the Lane” the observed (Lo-fu) remains static while the admirers revolve round her, observing her from changing points of view. This shifting, multifocal observation yields a series of fragmented impressions but provides no direct entry into Lo-fu’s inner life. In Ts’ao Chih’s “Beautiful Girl,” however, a single observer sustains an intense, prolonged observation, in which he not only penetrates the heroine’s inner life through her outward actions, but also achieves a great measure of empathy with her. He begins to see her beauty as an ideal image of his own vibrant personality.

The corroborative evidence of Ts’ao Chih’s empathetic identification with Lo-fu is his alteration of some important aspects of her love life. Judging by her responses to the prefect, the Lo-fu in “Mulberry along the Lane” seems to be a faithful, happily married woman. The heroine in Ts’ao Chih’s poem, however, is an unmarried woman confined to her maiden’s chamber:

“May I ask, where does this girl live?”

18

“Right near the south gate of the city wall.”

A green house stands near the main road,

20

Its tall gate is bolted by double bars.

Her face glows like the radiant morning sun,

22

Who would not long for her beautiful face!

What can the matchmakers plan to do next?

24

The gifts of jade and silk were given inopportunely.

The fair one admires lofty virtue,

26

To find a worthy man is for her truly hard.

This many people in vain clamor for her,

28

But how can they know whom she looks for?

In her prime she dwells in her chambers,

30

In the night she rises and gives long sighs.[47]

(TCCC, 384)

Because this heroine rejects the betrothal gifts of many wealthy suitors and longs for a noble-minded gentleman, she seems to personify an earnest quest for moral perfection. And this recreation of Lo-fu perfectly suits Ts’ao Chih’s allegorical needs. Not only does her quest for a worthy husband serve as an allegorical reference to his efforts to gain the trust of his father, the defacto sovereign, but her symptoms of love-sickness (lines 28–30) help convey Ts’ao Chih’s frustration at his inability to secure his father’s support in his rivalry for the succession.

If in “Beautiful Girl” Ts’ao Chih crosses the gender line and projects an ideal image of self onto the well-known yüeh-fu figure, Lo-fu, in “Famous Capital” he creates a flamboyant, carefree youth who embodies both his own youthful joie de vivre and melancholia. Although the figure of a flamboyant youth crops up here and there in Han folk yüeh-fu, it never becomes the central figure of a poem like the hero of this one:

Famous Capital

A famous capital has many bewitching girls,

2

From the Capital of Lo come many young men.

Their precious swords are worth a thousand in gold,

4

Their clothes are beautiful and bright.

They fight cocks on the road to the eastern suburb.

6

They race their horses between tall catalpas.

I have not galloped half through the course,

8

When I see two rabbits dash out before me.

I grab my bow, draw out a whistling arrow,

10

And race in pursuit of them up Southern Mountain.

On the left I draw my bow, to the right I shoot;

12

A single arrow shoots through both rabbits.

Before the remaining feats are performed,

14

I raise my hands and shoot right into a flying kite.

All the spectators say my skills are excellent,

16

The expert bowmen lavish praise upon me.

We return and feast at the P’ing-lo Gatetower,

18

The fine wine costs ten thousand a quarter gallon.

The minced carp and stewed shelled prawn,

20

Roast turtles and broiled bear paws.

I called out loud for my companions,

22

And we sit in a row, filling the long mat.

Then we dash back and forth, kicking a ball and tossing woodpegs,

24

Quick and nimble we play, in ten thousand ways.

The white sun rushes to the southwest,

26

Time cannot be brought to a halt.

We go back to the city, scattering like clouds,

28

But come morning we will return again.[48]

(TCCC, 484)

Just as Ts’ao Chih displays Lo-fu’s gracefulness and vivaciousness through her bodily movement, he demonstrates this hero’s admirable qualities through a succession of his feats—his keen vision in sighting the rabbits and kite, his horsemanship, his nimble drawing of the bow, his expert marksmanship transfixing animals on the run, and above all his exuberant disposition, shown in his delight at the spectators’ applause. Next, Ts’ao Chih captures the protagonist’s carefree spirit through his wild merrymaking—filling wine cups by the hundreds, eating one exquisite course after another, calling his companions and shouting for his friends, seating them along a long mat, playing kickball and pegs, and showing off his quickness and nimbleness. Finally, Ts’ao Chih reveals the hero’s melancholy over the onset of sundown following the frenzy of his day’s activities.

In “Famous Capital” Ts’ao Chih compellingly reveals many aspects of the hero’s inner life by controlling the tempo of his movement. As we follow the three paces of progression—a rapid series of feats within seconds, the hour-long feasting, and the day-long revelry—we do not merely enter the hero’s world, we also experience the poet’s empathy with the hero during an intense perceptual process. When commenting on this poem, Wu Ch’i (Ch’ing dynasty) explains how the poet blends his own life into the whirl of the hero’s activities:

Of this youth, there are only two events described: one is his trotting and galloping; and the other is his drinking and feasting. But what the poet wishes to tell us through these two events is this: before one event ends, comes another; before one day ends, comes another. Only because he is full of grievances and sorrow and wishes to kill the time, does this hero indulge himself in these activities. He has a great ambition but finds no way to fulfill it. The poet’s intent to identify himself with this hero is, we can say, very sincere and noteworthy.[49]

Wu Ch’i argues that Ts’ao Chih’s intense perception of the hero’s successive actions leads to his empathetic identification with him. Moreover, he asserts that through this sympathetic identification Ts’ao Chih effectively conveys the alternating sense of joie de vivre and melancholia which characterized his inner life during his father’s reign. Wu Chi’s interpretation is certainly sound and judicious, since details of the poem not only call up these two moods, but do so in a context that resembles Ts’ao Chih’s actual life. The hero’s proud display of archery brings to mind Ts’ao Chih’s fondness for showing off his literary talent during poetry competitions or audiences with the sovereign. The hero’s feasting reminds us of Ts’ao Chih’s excessive drinking, his love of the companionship of close friends, and his enjoyment of the good life at the capital. If the bulk of the poem is imbued with Ts’ao Chih’s joie de vivre, the darkening mood that colors its ending may well have arisen from the waning of his father’s trust and affection.

“White Horse” is often treated as a companion piece to “Famous Capital” because it also depicts a young man through a demonstration of his horsemanship and archery and reveals the poet’s empathy with him:

White Horse

The white horse adorned with a gold bridle,

2

Gallops in a winged flight toward the northwest.

“May I ask, whose household the rider is from?

4

He is a knight-errant from Yu and Ping.

At an early age he left his hometown,

6

And made his name known across the desert frontier

For many years he has carried his fine bow,

8

See his hu arrows—long and short!

Drawing his bow, he shatters the left target,

10

Shooting right, he smashes the yileh-chih [target].

Lifting his hands, he shoots into a flying monkey,

12

Bending down, he breaks up the horse-hoof [targets],

More nimble and speedy than a monkey or ape,

14

And as fierce and fleet-footed as a leopard or a dragon-like beast.

Many a time the border towns are on alert,

16

The mounted barbarians are often on the move.

A feathered dispatch comes from the north,

18

And he gallops off to a high embankment.

On and on he charges to crush the Hsiung-nu;

20

Turning to the left, he overruns the Hsien-pei.

He would throw himself onto the tip of a blade,

22

His life—how little he cherishes it!

He does not even think of his father and mother,

24

Not to mention his sons and wife!

With his name in the book of brave soldiers,

26

He cannot think of himself.

He lays down his life to relieve his country’s woes,

28

Seeing death as just a matter of going home.[50]

(TCCC, 411)

When this young man appears on the scene, he impresses us as a prodigal turned warrior. If his gold bridle reveals his old penchant for flamboyance, his embrace of the frontier life attests to his new ideal of patriotic heroism. We find a confirmation of this initial impression as we watch his display of horsemanship and archery against the background of a battle. This shift from hunting field (lines 9–14) to battlefield (lines 15–22) seems to reflect the growth of the young man from a carefree, flamboyant youth to a lofty-minded, valorous warrior. The young man goes through the same series of rapid motions as does the flamboyant youth in “Famous Capital”—the drawing of a bow, rapid shooting of arrows, swift bodily movement on horseback. But now he is not showing off his horsemanship and marksmanship by shooting small animals before spectators. Instead, he is charging and shooting enemy troops in defense of his country. This greatness of action is matched with the nobleness of his thoughts on the battlefield. Confronting the fierce enemy, he strengthens his courage by thinking about the insignificance of his life, the pettiness of his worries about his family, his sacred duty as a soldier, and the great honor of sacrificing his life for his country.

Ts’ao Chih’s empathetic presence in this poem has long been noted. Chu Ch’ien (Ch’ing dynasty) argues that “this poem conveys its meaning through a portrayal of a knight-errant in the area of Yu and Ping; it is actually the poet’s self-description.”[51] Chu Ch’ien identifies this heroic warrior with Ts’ao Chih because he believes that “the ideals of sacrificing one’s life (chiian-ch’ü), facing calamities head on, and seeing one’s death merely as homecoming had long been Ts’ao Chih’s own and therefore are not a general description.”[52] Komori Ikuko identifies the warrior with the introspective Ts’ao Chih in the late Chien-an period and the flamboyant youth in “Famous Capital” with the carefree Ts’ao Chih in the early Chien-an period. In her opinion, the shift from his joie de vivre to his quest for a heroic name marks the turning point in the poet’s emotional life.[53] While Komori’s identification of the flamboyant youth with the young Ts’ao Chih seems firmly grounded, her identification of the heroic warrior with the older Ts’ao Chih is somewhat problematic. Although Ts’ao Chih was by his father’s side during numerous military campaigns, he is not known to have led any battle himself or to have proved himself to be a heroic warrior. On the contrary, what we know about his military career in Chronicles of Three Kingdoms is his failure to lift the siege of Ts’ao Hung, an unpardonable negligence of duty that costs him his father’s trust and his candidacy for the throne. Given this, it seems better to take the hero of “White Horse” not as the poet himself, but as the ideal man the poet wishes to become. In his “Memorials Seeking to Prove Myself” Ts’ao Chih declares that he wishes to emulate one who “would worry about the fate of the country and forget the need of one’s own family, and would sacrifice one’s body to help the country in times of calamity.”[54] The hero of “White Horse” fits every description of such an ideal man.

In “Beautiful Girl,” “Famous Capital,” “White Horse,” and his other early yüeh-fu works, Ts’ao Chih introduces a new kind of tripartite structure. While the tripartite structure in his poems of presentation is marked by three different subjects of contemplation (the poet’s actual world, his friends’ way of life, the meaning of an active political life), the tripartite structure in his early yüeh-fu is defined by three different ways of observing one single hero or heroine. The poet first sketches a profile of his heroine or the hero against the background of the outside world—a mulberry grove, a playing field in the capital, a battlefield at the frontier. Then he takes a closer view of the central figure through a series of bodily movements—Lo-fu’s graceful gait and gestures, the flamboyant youth’s flurry of feats, and the warrior’s courageous charge against the enemy. Last, he empathetically follows the process of thought behind the central figure’s outward actions—Lo-fu’s conflicting passions for moral perfection and tender love, the flamboyant youth’s sudden change from gaiety to melancholia, and the warrior’s somber mood and lofty thoughts of self-sacrifice.

This tripartite structure bears the imprint of three different poetic traditions. The imitation of Han folk yüeh-fu is conspicuous in the opening section. In profiling his central figures, Ts’ao Chih does exactly what the composers of Han folk yüeh-fu do—describes their dress and places them in a setting that best reveals their way of life. So it is not surprising that his sketch of the beautiful girl is almost identical with that of Lo-fu in “Mulberry along the Lane” or that his sketch of the flamboyant youth is very similar to that of the equestrian noble in that same poem (lines 39–42). Ts’ao Chih’s prodigious use of elevated words and parallelisms in the middle section has long been attributed to his adoption of the grand descriptive style of Han rhapsodies. Some critics, like Hu Ying-lin, disapprove of his use of this style because they find it incompatible with the simplicity and directness of yüeh-fu works.[55] What these critics fail to see is that his elevated description sets forth not an aggregation of lifeless things, but a living human being and that this aesthetic effect more than offsets the imperfect unity of style. His creation of dynamic movement contributes to the lyricization of not only the folk yüeh-fu but also the rhapsodic form itself. For instance, in “Goddess of the Lo River” (TCCC, 282), his best-known rhapsody, he accomplishes on a grander scale the same task as he set himself in “Beautiful Woman”: to capture the beauty and complex feelings of a female figure, a goddess this time, through a felicitous description of her outward and inward movements. The influence of Han ku-shih is readily noticeable at the close of these poems. After Ts’ao Chih has achieved an empathy with his characters in the course of observing their movements, he delivers their thoughts in a manner reminiscent of a ku-shih speaker. For instance, in conveying the flamboyant youth’s melancholic thoughts, he laments the swift passage of time the way Han ku-shih poets do time and again. We cannot fail to notice a strong lyrical thrust unknown in Han folk yüeh-fu but characteristic of Han ku-shih.

In sum, Ts’ao Chih’s early yüeh-fu works are a hybrid of Han folk yüeh-fu and the other two Han poetic traditions: rhapsody and ku-shih. On the one hand, they retain the recognizable folk yüeh-fu depiction of a single character through the eye of a non-self-reflective speaker. On the other hand, they introduce new characters and new methods of observing them from the Han fu and ku-shih traditions. This deft integration of three divergent traditions enables the poet not only to select a character whose life resembles his own, but also to observe the character so intensely that he becomes one with the character in spirit. What emerges from such an empathetic observation is an ideal image of the poet’s own self.

Seen in the larger perspective of Han-Wei culture, Ts’ao Chih’s method of penetrating a character’s inner life constitutes a literary counterpart of the “characterology” developed in the philosophical and political discourses of the day. Characterology refers to a method of observing a human being’s inner life through his physical appearance and actions, developed by Liu Shao (fl. 240–250) in A Study of Human Abilities (Jen-wu chih) and Liu I-ch’ing (403–444) in A New Account of Tales of the World (Shih-shuo hsin-yu). Ts’ao Chih and these characterologists shared the same aesthetic ideal that set store by the evocation of inner spirit rather than mere representation of external features. Hsieh Ho (fl. 500), the first great Chinese art critic, formulated this new aesthetic ideal when he pronounced “spiritual resonance and rhythmic vitality” (ch’i-yün sheng-tung) to be the guiding principle of painting. Ts’ao Chih’s portrayal of human characters not only exemplifies this new aesthetic ideal, but anticipates the élan vital in later figure paintings. Whereas, centuries later, great painters like Wu Tao-tzu (c. 689-c. 758) brought out the spirit of human figures with the dynamic movement of their brushstrokes, Ts’ao Chih captures the spiritual life of his characters through the dynamic interplay of his poetic images. Furthermore, just as later painters endowed paintings with their own feelings, Ts’ao Chih reveals his spirituality through his portrayals of human characters. As he creates his portraits—a beautiful girl, a flamboyant youth, a heroic warrior, and so on, he imbues them with his own ideals. For this reason we cannot fail to find in his folk yüeh-fu works ideal visions of himself: his romantic temperament, his carefree lifestyle, his mastery of military arts, and his aspiration for political success. It is these visions of self that form the basis for the romanticization of the poet’s life in later centuries.

Later Ku-shih: Lamentation of an Exile

Upon ascending the throne in 220, Ts’ao P’i not only banished Ts’ao Chih to a small principality, but he also executed Ts’ao Chih’s close friends Ting Í and Ting I in an effort to isolate him from the political world. This physical and mental isolation took a heavy toll on Ts’ao Chih’s emotional life. With his political ambitions shattered and his spiritual companions executed, he grew ever more despondent and introspective with the passage of time. In utter despair, he frequently gave himself up to lamenting the life of an exile and expressing his vain hope for political rehabilitation. This drastic change is clearly reflected in his ku-shih poems written after 220. The predominant note changes from uplifting didacticism to disheartened lamentation here. I will discuss how Ts’ao Chih lamented the misery of his exile in his most famous poem of presentation, how he allegorized his grievances against his brother the emperor in his poems of the neglected wife, and how later he conveyed his yearning for an opportunity to serve the nephew who succeeded to the throne in his poems of the fortune-seeking wanderer.

Tseng-ta: The Misery of Banishment

After 220 Ts’ao Chih all but ceased to write poems of presentation for a simple reason: the friends to whom he used to present poems were now all dead either from natural causes or by execution. “To Ts’ao Piao the Prince of Pai-ma” may very well be the only poem of presentation Ts’ao Chih actually wrote after 220. Judging by its preface, the poem was composed for the occasion of his parting with his half brother, the Prince of Pai-ma, on an extremely harsh journey to their respective fiefs.

To Ts’ao Piao, the Prince of Pai-ma

In the 5th month of Huang-ch’u 4th year (A.D. 223), the Prince of Pai-ma, the Prince of Jen-ch’eng, and I all went to court at the capital to attend a gathering for marking the seasonal change. Upon his arrival in Lo-yang, the Prince of Jen-ch’eng passed away. In the 7th month, the Prince of Pai-ma and I returned to our fiefs. Before long the officials in charge decided that we the two princes, on the way back to our fiefs, should stop and lodge at separate places along the road. I was incensed and resentful of this. Because in a matter of days we would have to part for a very long time, I took occasion to unbosom my feelings and bid farewell to the Prince, writing this poem in bitter resentment.[56] (TCCC, 294)

Despite some lingering doubts about its authenticity, this preface is undoubtedly a fitting introduction to Ts’ao Chih’s longest ku-shih poem. By specifying the time, place, people, events, and emotional conditions surrounding the composition of the poem, it helps provide a historical context for our interpretation of the poem.[57] By all accounts this poem represents Ts’ao Chih’s poetry of presentation at its best: an intensely self-reflective monologue encapsulated within the frame of a genuine communication between the poet and his brother. Annotators ordinarily divided it into seven pieces or sections. Self-contained as its sections are to some degree, the poem as a whole displays a well-defined tripartite structure: 1) opening scenes (Section I and Section II); 2) sustained emotional responses (Section III, IV, V); and 3) the closure (Section VI, VII).

Section I gives a brief account of the poet’s meeting with his brother and describes what he saw when he set out on his journey of exile from the capital citv:

After an imperial audience in Ch’eng-ming Hall,

2

Now I am to return to my old territory,

In the early morning I left the imperial city,

4

At sunset I went past Mount Shou-yang.

The Yi and the Lo are wide and deep,

6

I want to cross over but there isn’t a bridge.

I board a boat and cut through the great waves,

8

While I lament the length of this eastward journey

I turn back and linger over the sight of city gates,

10

My neck stretched, my heart numbed with pain.

This opening scene contains many details which we have encountered in “To Ting Í and Wang Ts’an”: an outgoing procession, a backward glimpse at the capital city, a vista of mountains and rivers. But now the panoramic view no longer evokes an uplifting sense of the sublime in the poet. Great mountains and rivers appear as insurmountable obstacles that will forever separate the poet from the capital. When he casts his last look at the city gates, he simply cannot hold back his sorrow and bursts into sighs.

In Section II Ts’ao Chih turns to behold the T’ai-ku Pass and again confronts gloomy and treacherous mountains. He observes the depressing weather, unfriendly terrain, and the tortuous path of his grueling journey. He feels as if all these adversities are conspiring to exacerbate his suffering and crush his spirit:

This great valley, so vast and wild,

12

The mountains trees grow thick and dark green;

Endless rains turn my path into mud,

14

Torrents of rain rim wide, flooding everywhere.

Midway the tracks of the road are gone,

16

I change my tack and ride up a high ridge,

A lofty slope reaches clouds and the sun,

18

My black horses have turned yellow with fatigue.

Hereafter Ts’ao Chih makes use of “thimble phrasing” and introduces each new section by repeating the last word or phrase of the previous section. The image of the exhausted horses on line 18 ushers in the poet’s emotional responses in Section III:

Yellow with fatigue, they can still go on,

20

But my thoughts are in the grip of gloom;

In the grip of gloom, what can I think of?

22

My next of kin dwells in a separate place.

At first we expected to keep each other company;

24

But that changed midway—we couldn’t go together.

Kites and owls screech at the carriage yoke and bar,

26

Jackals and wolves prowl in the road.

Blue flies turn white into black, black into white,

28

Slander and glib talk cause estrangement of kin.

I wish to return but my road is cut off,

30

Holding the reins, I halt and hesitate to go on.

That the image of horses has a pivotal role in the transition from external descriptions to emotional responses may strike us as incidental. But if we recall how the sight of birds sends the poet brooding over his friends’ misfortunes in “To Hsü Kan,” we will see that Ts’ao Chih tends to be prompted by an animal image into reflecting on the conditions of his friends and loved ones. He has scarcely finished his thoughts about his brother Ts’ao Piao when images of kites, owls, jackals, and wolves crop up in his mind. These four animal images seem to exist in the borderline between a literal scene and a mental landscape. While they are plausibly part of the actual journey scene, they are also unmistakably symbolic descriptions of the despots and usurpers who infest the imperial court. From this point onward, Ts’ao Chih ceases to use images to suggest a real scene from his journey.[58] The blue flies in the next couplet betray little connection with his journey but express his deep hatred for the court sycophants. By comparing them to a swarm of flies, Ts’ao Chih exposes their ulterior motives and vents his outrage at their insinuations which estranged him from his brother and caused his banishment from the imperial court.

In Section IV Ts’ao Chih conveys his sense of alienation and deprivation through a cluster of generalized images:

Hesitate to go on, but why stay here?

32

My loving thoughts of you are endless.

Autumn wind brings a light touch of chill,

34

Cold cicadas are chirping by my side;

The vast wilderness, how bleak and desolate!

36

The white sun suddenly hides in the west.

Homing birds fly into the tall trees,

38

Their swift wings flapping and flapping.

A lone animal roves in search of its mates,

40

Having no time even to eat the grass in its jaws.

Moved by them, my chest fills with anguish,

42

I pass my hand over my heart and heave a long sigh.

Taken on their own terms, all the images in this section are highly conventional. They do not contain any references, explicit or implicit, to a real locale; nor do they give traces of the poet’s journey. Images of autumn winds, cicadas in the cold air, the desolate plain, rays of the setting sun, homing birds, and lonesome beasts all come from the existing repertoire of images developed in the yüeh-fu and ku-shih traditions. However, when these images occur in a personal context established by the beginning and ending couplets, they cease to be stock elements and become symbols of the poet’s sentiments. In early pentasyllabic poetry, we have not seen such a symbolic revelation of the inner world through an interplay of images, unhindered by formulaic syntax like pi-hsing in the Book of Poetry or by a prescribed process of observation in Han yüeh-fu or ku-shih. Ts’ao Chih’s transformation of conventional images into personal symbols represents an important breakthrough in Chinese poetic imagery. It shows that the Chinese pentasyllabic poets were awaken ing to the art of symbolic creation through a recasting of conventional images within a new private mental horizon. Juan Chi, whom we will examine in the next chapter, was the first Chinese poet to consistently recast traditional images as symbolic visions of his own.

Section V marks the climax of Ts’ao Chih’s emotional responses. His remembrance of the pitiable departure scene, his lament at the hardship of his journey, his contemplation of the causes of his exile, his sense of alienation and deprivation all lead up to this moment of existential crisis:

I heave a long sigh, but of what avail is that?

44

Heavenly fate goes against me.

What can come of this longing for my flesh and blood?

46

Once gone, his body cannot return.

His lonesome soul flies to his old domain,

48

While his coffin still remains in the capital.

The living, how swiftly they pass,

50

Upon death, their bodies rot away.

Man lives only a single lifetime,

52

And vanishes like the drying of the morning dew.

Our years are now between Mulberry and Elm,[59]

54

Like a shadow or echo, they cannot be recaptured.

Thinking how I am not durable like metal or stone,

56

I burst out wailing, my heart filled with grief.

Here Ts’ao Chih is struggling to come to grips with the meaninglessness of human life. The sudden, suspicious death of his brother Ts’ao Chang during a sojourn to the capital shocks him into a recognition of the frailty of the human frame and the utter helplessness of man in the hands of fate. When he turns to examine his own wretched circumstances at this nadir of his personal and political life, he cannot help bemoaning the inevitability of his own death. This lamentation of human transience, though couched in stock phrases, conveys a personal agony unknown in Han ku-shih works.

In Section VI Ts’ao Chih lays aside his personal sorrows and addresses his brother on a more positive note. Just as he has done in his other poems of presentation, he seeks to end this poem with a dramatic turn of thought:

My heart filled with grief, my soul is stirred,

58

But set it aside, I shall say no more!

A heroic man fulfills his ambitions within the four seas;

60

Ten thousand li are like next door for him.

So long as our affection does not wane,

62

Being far away will bring us closer each day.

Why must we share the same quilt and bed curtain

64

Before we can unbosom our deepest feelings?

But if we let melancholy become a serious illness,

66

Our affection will only be that of boys and girls!

So compelled by feelings for my own flesh and blood,

68

Can I not be weighed down with pain and suffering?

But here Ts’ao Chih cannot launch into a didactic Confucian homily, nor does he intend to inspire his implied reader to a heroic course of action for the country. The optimism that characterizes his other poems of presentation has all but disappeared. Now he merely tries to persuade his brother to make light of their separation for a mundane purpose: to preserve health and prolong life. His spirits have sunk to an unheroic plane.

In Section VII, his inability to pull himself out of his depression becomes even clearer. He again breaks into a pathetic lamentation, a self-pitying act he had decidedly shunned in the closure of his other poems of presentation.

Pain and suffering, but why worry and ponder?

70

Heavenly fate can surely be doubted.

Purely illusionary is the pursuit of the immortals,

72

Master Sung has deceived us for a long time!

Change and calamity are brewing this very moment,

74

Who can manage to live to a hundred years?

We part, never to see each other again,

76

When will we be able to clasp hands again?

My prince, take care of your precious self,

78

May we both live to enjoy a ripe old age.

Drying my tears, I turn back to my long road,

80

Holding up my brush, I bid you farewell here.

This closing brings back the very sorrows the poet resolved to lay aside at the very beginning of Section VI. Having suffered this relapse into his dark mood, he cannot possibly end the poem on a positive note. The best note. The best he can do is to bid what may be a final farewell to his brother and to wish for his good health and long life.

In “To Ts’ao Piao, the Prince of Pai-ma,” Ts’ao Chih has effected a personalization of the opening, the emotional responses and the closure. Just as in his other poems of presentation, he successfully merges his poetic voice and his experiential self, introduces a real historical person as his intended reader, and replaces ku-shih topoi and motifs with details of his personal life. Moreover he has smoothed all the transitions left rough in his earlier poems of presentation because he no longer has to move back and forth between his life and that of his addressee. As both are suffering the same physical hardship and spiritual ordeal, he need only describe what meets his eyes and what arises in his heart. In so doing, he can evoke the same powerful emotional responses from the addressed as he might by writing from the addressee’s point of view. For this reason he can undertake a thorough scrutiny of his own emotional life and broaden the expressive spectrum to cover the full gamut of his inward experience—ranging from his pathetic remembrance to his profound grievances, from his poignant sense of mortality to his yearning for a heroic life, and from his self-pitying lamentation to his compassionate concern for his brother. Because of its depth and breadth of emotional expression, this poem remains to this day one of the most intensely lyrical pieces ever written in the tseng-ta sub-genre.

Ch’i-fu and Yu-tzu: Yearning for Reconciliation and Heroic Action

Ts’ao Chih wrote approximately ten ku-shih poems in the style of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.” As in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems,” they fall into two groups defined by the gender of poetic persona: ch’i-fu (the neglected wife) and yu-tzu (the fortune-seeking wanderer). His poems of the neglected wife include “Miscellaneous Poems” (Nos. 3, 4, and 7) and “Seven Sorrows.” His poems of the fortune-seeking wanderer are “Miscellaneous Poems” (Nos. 1, 2, 5, and 6), another separate piece titled “Miscellaneous Poem,” and “Poem of Sentiment.”[60]

Ts’ao Chih’s poems on the neglected wife represent no significant improvement on their antecedents in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems,” except for a further reduction of narrative elements. In those works the structural principle has already shifted from a narrative sequence to an internal observer’s mental process, but there still remains an implicit order of events beneath images knit together by that mental process. In Poem 8, for example, the poetic persona reveals an outline of her life through a series of plant images: a lonesome maiden (solitary bamboo, winding plant), a woman at her prime (flower in full bloom), and an abandoned wife (withering flowers).

A reduction of such narrative remnants is quite evident in Ts’ao Chih’s poems on this theme. For instance, in the following poem, we can find neither an implicit narrative order among the images nor a linear process of reflection:

Miscellaneous Poem, No. 7

I, taking out my robe, leave the inner chamber,

2

And leisurely walk around the two porch columns.

The vacant bedroom, so still and silent,

4

Green grass blankets doorsteps and the courtyard.

The empty house itself produces winds,

6

The myriad birds fly southward.

Springtime passion, how can I forget?

8

Worry and sorrow are my companions.

My loved one stays out on the distant road,

10

My humble self is alone and solitary.

A joyful meeting is unlikely to happen again,

12

Sweet iris does not show its glory twice.

Men all cast off their old loves,

14

How can you remain faithful all your life?

Cleaving to pine, I am the dodder;

16

Depending on water, I am like floating duckweed.

I keep myself tidy, minding my belt and collar,

18

Morning to evening I do not let them fall awry.

If only you’d bestow upon me a backward glance,

20

Forever fulfilling my deepest affection.[61]

(HCHW, 457)

This poem contains an abundance of plant images similar to those seen in the eighth of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems”: grass, orchids, winding plants on a pine tree, and leaves of duckweed. However, we can no longer find in these images the biographical outline of the persona. They are either records of her sensory impressions (green grass) or metaphors of her bygone love life (sweet iris) and her continued loyalty to her husband (dodder and duckweed).

In adopting the conventional persona of a neglected wife, Ts’ao Chih apparently aims to convey a kind of sorrow quite different from that of the title character of “Beautiful Girl.” While the beautiful girl pines for the end of her confinement in her chambers and for the arrival of her ideal lover, the personae in poems on the neglected wife bemoan their virtual imprisonment in an empty house and vainly yearn for the return of their husbands. Assuming that the poet is exploiting the conventional allegory of love in this and other poems of this type as he has done in “Beautiful Girl,” we may see this new kind of sorrow as a reflection of his sorrow over his estrangement from the emperor, his brother Ts’ao P’i. We may further contend that all the drastic changes of poetic personae, settings, and sentiments are meant to indicate the profound changes in the poet’s life under his brother’s reign.

In changing the poetic persona from a much-sought-after maiden to an abandoned wife, the poet seems to tell us that he has fallen from being a prince with great expectations to an exile of no consequence. Then, in shifting the locale from a maiden’s chambers to an empty house, he probably intends to show the deterioration of his life circumstances from a somewhat circumscribed existence in his father’s court to virtual imprisonment in his tiny fief. Finally, in changing the emotive tenor from secret love-sickness to endless pining, he reveals a shift from melancholia to an anguished conflict between utter despair and a stubborn hope for a reconciliation. Although other critics have not spelled out the allegorical significance of these changes in such explicit terms, they do view this change from maiden-lover to wife-husband relationship as an allegorical reflection of Ts’ao Chih’s new relationship with his brother-emperor between 220 and 226. Ku Chih discusses the poem in the light of Ts’ao Chih’s perilous relationship with his brother: “After Ts’ao Chih incurred [his brother’s] enmity, he often feared for his life and therefore used this allegory of the husband-wife relationship in the hope of moving the heart of his sovereign.”[62] Komori Ikuko discusses Ts’ao Chih’s neglected wife poems as a group and considers them to be works written during Ts’ao P’i’s reign. She also discusses the significance Ts’ao Chih’s use of “husband-wife discord to allegorize the relationship between sovereign and ministers, between ‘bone and flesh,’ or in other words between Emperor Wen [Ts’ao P’i] and himself.”[63]

In reworking the Han ku-shih conventions, Ts’ao Chih goes one step further in his poems in the voice of the fortune-seeking wanderer. He not only eliminates many remnants of narrative, but also introduces scenes from his personal life.[64] Not hindered by gender difference, he readily identifies with his male personae and through them examines his own situation:

Miscellaneous Poem, No. 5

Early in the morning the driver prepares my carriage,

2

I am about to embark on a long journey.

A long journey to what end?

4

To the kingdom of Wu that has made an enemy of us.

I am about to gallop down this road of ten thousand li,

6

How can it be worth my while to take that road to the east?

The river banks breed much sad wind;

8

The Huai and the Ssu flow by swiftly.

If only I could cross over unencumbered;

10

Alas! I have no ark.

Idle living is not my goal,

12

I would gladly dedicate myself to relieving our country’s woes.[65]

(TCCC, 379)

Miscellaneous Poem, No. 6:

A flying tower stands over a hundred feet high,

2

In front of the window, I lean on the railing.

I gaze out over an expanse of a thousand li,

4

Morning and evening I watch the plain.

Heroic men have many sorrows,

6

Small men inordinately pursue leisure.

Our country’s enemies are not yet eliminated,

8

I would gladly give up my own head.

Holding my sword, I look toward the south and west,

10

And I long to go to Mount T’ai.

A quick plucking of strings brings out a sad air,

12

Please lend an attentive ear to my words of heroic lamentation.[66]

(TCCC, 65)

These poems hark back to two different Han ku-shih motifs: the first is that of a fortune-seeking wanderer embarking on a distant journey and expressing his desire for fame; the second is that of a wanderer contemplating a boundless landscape and searching for the meaning of his life. These motifs may be traced to the eleventh and thirteenth poems, respectively, of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.” In his poems, however, Ts’ao Chih develops the motifs, not against the background of Han ku-shih topoi, but in the context of his own life. He effects an intense personalization of them, especially in the opening scenes and emotional responses.

In the first poem, the opening scene strikes us as highly realistic as it describes the preparation of an expedition to revenge the depredations committed by the Kingdom of Wu. In his annotations to Anthology of Literature, Li Shan (d. 689) identifies this expedition as that led by Ts’ao P’i in 222 (Huang-ch’u 3) to crush the insurgence of Sun Ch’üan (182–252).[67] Ku Chih disputes Li Shan’s identification and argues that the expedition was a military campaign launched by Ts’ao Jui several years later to avenge the sudden strike against Ts’ao Hsiu’s (?–?) troops by the Wu army in 228 (T’ai-ho 2).[68] Whether one agrees with Li Shan or Ku Chih, it appears that an actual historical event is depicted. In the second poem, the panoramic view from a high watchtower also impresses us as a scene from the poet’s own life, for we do not find this sort of an image in the Han ku-shih corpus. Huang Chieh identifies the locale as the gate tower where Ts’ao Chih reviewed troops under his command in 214 (Chien-an 19), an event he himself described in his “Rhapsody on the Eastern Expedition.”[69] Ku Chih raises doubts about Huang Chieh’s identification because the poet had little grounds to complain about being left out of a military campaign during his father’s reign. According to Ku Chih, this poem must also have been written around the winter of 228 (T’ai-ho 2), after the poet failed to acquire a position under the general Chang Ho (?–?) and join the campaign to repulse an attack by the Shu army.[70] Ku Chih’s dating is more convincing than Huang Chieh’s because the poem registers the quality of tragic heroism (k’ang-k’ai) characteristic of his emotional life under the reign of his nephew.

The emotional responses in both poems strike a strong personal note unknown in Han ku-shih where emotional responses are uniformly pessimistic and decadent. For instance, in responding to their circumstances, the fortune-seeking wanderers in Poems 11 and 13 of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” lament human transience and make carpe diem exhortations. But the speakers in these two poems adopt an entirely different posture. They confront the scenes not as a reminder of their evanescent existence, but as an invitation to heroic action. Even rough winds and treacherous currents evoke in them a noble determination to sacrifice themselves for their country. While this refreshing note of heroism offers a striking contrast to the unbridled self-pity in Han ku-shih, the two poems are tinged with their own strain of melancholy. While the two speakers display their heroic temper through their pledges of self-sacrifice, they also convey how forlorn they feel through their expressions of helplessness. Unlike the hero of “White Horse,” they do not have an opportunity to prove their valor in battle in the poetic present, nor do they expect to do so in the future. Both are profoundly saddened by their inability to fulfill their burning desire for heroic self-sacrifice. In the culmination of his noble grievances, the speaker of the first poem describes this sorrow of a frustrated hero with the compound “k’ang-k’ai.”

The compound k’ang-k’ai is taken to mean that “a heroic man cannot achieve the ambition in his heart” in Explanations of Simple and Compound Characters (Shuo-wen chieh-tzu),[71] and is variously translated as “fortitudiously forlorn” by Paul Kroll, as “Restons fiers dans notre tristesse” by Robert Ruhlman and Yves Hérvouet, and as “impassioned indignation” by Robert Joe Cutter.[72] Taken together, all of these explanations help spell out the feelings of conflict between heroic ambition and tattered hope in the hearts of the two heroes. Traditional Chinese critics agree that Ts’ao Chih expresses through these heroes his own heroic ideal and his frustrations. During the T’ai-ho period, Ts’ao Chih submitted a series of imperial memorials, in which he conveyed to his nephew (then emperor) his noble intention to sacrifice himself for the country and persistently requested an opportunity to do so.[73] The sentiment of k’ang-k’ai in these two poems is nothing other than a reflection of his deepening sense of frustration and despair following the repeated rejection of his successive memorials.

Later Yüeh-fu: Self-Projections of an Exile

While most of Ts’ao Chih’s early yüeh-fu works are modeled on Han folk yüeh-fu, the yüeh-fu he composed after 220 are mostly adaptations of Han literati yüeh-fu. As I pointed out in chapter 2, in Han literati yüeh-fu, a narrator recounts a series of activities in the historical past (i.e., yung-shih subgenre), or in his personal past (i.e., ch’i-fu, yu-tzu, and yung-wu subgenres), or in the realm of his imagination (i.e., yu-hsien subgenre) and thereby reveals his emotional responses to the activities being described. Ts’ao Chih’s transformation of Han literati yüeh-fu is no less remarkable than what he did with the Han folk yüeh-fu. He transformed the literati yüeh-fu form into a medium of self-reflection by blending certain moral issues of his own life into events being described and by integrating his reflective process into the narrative process on the surface level. Since I have just discussed the ch’i-fu and yu-tzu subgenres, I will here focus on the yung-shih, yung-wu, and yu-hsien subgenres.

Yung-shih: Questioning Human Destiny

Ts’ao Chih’s yung-shih poems reveal a contemplative process marked by doubt and conflict over certain moral issues.[74] In “The Yü-chang Ballad,” No. 1, he questions the control of moral order over fate professed by Confucian cosmologists like Tung Chung-shu (c. 179-c. 104 B.C.). In the sequel to that poem, he ponders the rift between the common perception of consecrated kinship and the blatant abuse of it in reality, between fraternal loyalty and fraternal betrayal. A comparison of these two poems with the Han piece “The Gentleman Ballad” will demonstrate how Ts’ao Chih transforms the yung-shih from what was merely an enumeration of thematically related allusions to a form of personal reflection.

“The Gentleman Ballad” offers us a typical example of how an enumeration of allusions points to a clear-cut moral message in Han yüeh-fu:

The Gentleman Ballad

A gentleman guards against troubles that may arise,

2

And never lets himself into a suspicious role.

He does not adjust his shoes in a melon field,

4

Nor does he arrange his hat under a plum tree.

He does not exchange intimacies with his sisters-in-law,

6

Nor does he walk shoulder to shoulder with someone older or younger than himself.

He adheres to principles of diligence and modesty,

8

His unobtrusive strength is a virtue rarely obtained.

Duke Chou visited thatched huts [in search of worthies].

10

He could not eat a morsel of food without stopping [to attend to business],

Nor could he finish washing his hair without three interruptions,

12

He is called a sage by all under the heaven.

(HCHW, 263)

Here each couplet is constructed by means of repetition. In the first couplet, line 1 states the poem’s thesis that a gentleman ought to prevent any breach of morality, and line 2 restates this thesis by adding that one ought to avoid getting into a morally questionable situation. The next couplet follows the same principle of repetition: line 3 describes how a gentleman does not tie his shoes in a melon field (in order not to be suspected of bending down to steal a melon); and line 4 repeats the meaning of line 3 by adding another example of the same moral purport. This use of repetition continues through the four remaining couplets.

By the same token, the linkage of the five couplets bears out the principle of repetition. While couplet 1 states the thesis of the poem, the other five couplets build, through examples, support of that thesis. These examples of moral conscientiousness are drawn from everyday situations in couplet 2, from the realm of human relationship in couplets 3 and 4, and in couplet 5 from historical accounts of the Duke of Chou, a paragon of moral rectitude in the Confucian tradition. Such repetitive examples serve well the function of illustrating a known moral principle.

Ts’ao Chih’s “Yii-chang Ballad,” No. 1 also deals with a moral issue and, in fact, repeats two lines from “The Gentleman Ballad” (lines 9, 12) in praise of the Duke of Chou. However, it does not accumulate historical allusions within an enumerative frame, but orders them in accord with the poet’s frame of mind:

Yü-chang Ballad, No. 1

Failure and success are hard to predict,

2

So are misfortune and fortune.

If Yu Shun had not met Yao,

4

He would have remained farming in the fields.

If Grand Counselor Lü Shang had not met King Wen,

6

He would have spent his life angling by the Wei River.

Do you not see Confucius of the state of Lu,

8

Caught in dire straits between Ch’en and Ts’ai

The Duke of Chou descended to visit thatched huts,

10

And all under the heaven called him a sage.

(TCCC, 414)

Here the poet begins by making a general statement about the unpredictability of man’s fortune or misfortune, but he does not follow with concrete illustrative examples. Instead, he wonders what would have become of the sage king Shun and Grand Counselor Lti Shang if they had not chanced to meet their respective patrons (the sage king Yao and King Wen). Had they not, he reasons, these two historical figures would have ended their lives in obscurity. Next, he shows how Confucius, no less a sage than the other two, failed to achieve his political goals simply because he was not blessed with the right circumstances for success. After his contemplation of fate as the ultimate arbiter of success and failure for all, he suddenly paraphrases two lines from “The Gentleman Ballad” that praise the supreme virtue of the Duke of Chou. Although some critics see the notable inconsistency between this last couplet and the previous lines as evidence that the last couplet is a mere textual interpolation, I believe that it actually reflects yet another turn of the poet’s thought, as I will explain below.

Because of its forthright presentation of fate as the ultimate determinant of history, Chu Chia-cheng (1602–1684) holds that “this poem, coming after the ancient songs, establishes the convention [for later yung-shih poems].”[75] The yung-shih convention in his mind is none other than an interlocking of such historical ironies: “Yü [Shun] tilled the land and Lü [Shang] fished in the river, yet they did not end up being poor. Confucius worried about rituals and music, yet he did not in the end rise to distinction. The Duke of Chou, despite the rumors spread by Kuan and Ts’ai, did not come to calamity.”[76] For Ch’en Tso-ming, this interlocking of historical ironies gives birth to a new poetic structure that can generate a dynamic development of thought. He writes, “here are eight lines with four historical allusions; [I] like the sense of change and movement, and the way these lines progress.”[77] Indeed, only because Ts’ao Chih dispenses with the enumerative structure can he freely pursue his own process of thought and produce a dynamic sense of change and movement unknown in “Gentleman Ballad” and other Han yung-shih pieces. His progression from supposition to inference, from the hypothetical to the real represents a process of defamiliarization that compels the reader to reexamine historical incidents and discover new meanings in them. In assessing the influence of this poem on later yung-shih works, Huang Chieh points out that its fatalistic vision of history becomes a standard viewpoint and its play of irony often becomes a structural principle in later yung-shih works. For him, no other poem shows the influence of Ts’ao Chih more compellingly than Tso Ssu’s poem “On History,” No. 7 (HCHW, 734). Like Ts’ao Chih’s poem, this yung-shih piece “also consists of eight lines and employs four allusions, and winds up these eight lines with an elucidation of the truth of success and failure.”[78]

While Ts’ao Chih seeks to comprehend the role of fate in the foregoing piece, he strives to explore the issue of blood kinship through a series of contrasts in the sequel to it. As in the first poem, he expresses his complex thoughts on the issue through an examination of contrasting historical allusions:

Yü-chang Ballad, No. 2 3

Mandarin ducks become intimate pairs,

2

But they are not as close as birds with joined wings.

One may form an alliance with others,

4

But bones and flesh are natural bonds.

The Duke of Chou made friends with K’ang Shu,

6

Kuan Shu and Ts’ai Shu made rumors against him.

8

Tzu-tsang yielded a kingdom of a thousand chariots, Chi Cha emulated his virtue.

(TCCC, 414–15)

This poem presents an interlocking set of contrasts within as well as between its four couplets. Each couplet contains a contrast between non-blood and blood ties. The first couplet compares the nonblood ties to mandarin ducks living together and the blood ties to mythical birds flying with joint wings. It declares that the former is not as close a relationship as the latter for the lack of the natural bond. The next couplet contrasts a non-blood alliance unfavorably with blood kinship. The third couplet, however, contrasts the infidelity of the Duke of Chou’s blood brothers Kuan Shu and Ts’ai Shu with the faithfulness of his half-brother K’ang Shu, casting into doubt the idea of blood being thicker than water that is expressed by the first two couplets. This questioning of blood kinship is in turn questioned by the final couplet, which extols Chi Cha for his exemplary faithfulness to his brother. Whereas Kuan Shu and Ts’ai Shu schemed to usurp the leadership of their brother the Duke of Chou, Chi Cha learned from the moral example of Tzu-tsang and declined to accept his eldest brother’s offer of the throne.

The issues raised in both poems—the role of fate in one’s life, the importance of political patronage, the code of fraternity—were all important issues affecting the poet’s life. In the course of contemplating them, he experienced the agony of intense conflict. In the first poem, he laments the insurmountable odds against a triumph over fate but finds consolation in the fact that he is not the only one pitted against fate—even a sage like Confucius did not find political success. In the second poem, he is torn between his indignation at his brother’s violation of fraternity and the stubborn hope that he will rehabilitate him as an official with real power. In both poems Ts’ao Chih appears to work toward resolving these conflicts in favor of a reconciliation with Ts’ao P’i. By hoping against hope for rehabilitation, he can at least mitigate, however temporarily, his frustration at political setbacks and his outrage at his brother’s relentless persecution.

Many critics believe that Ts’ao Chih wrote these two poems not only to relieve his own suffering but also to let his brother know that he wanted an opportunity to use his talents. By means of historical reflection, he also intended to remonstrate with his brother without overtly offending him and putting his own life in peril. This double intention becomes particularly noticeable in the ambiguous endings of the pieces, because we cannot determine the allegorical significance of the praise of Duke Chou, Tzu-tsang, and Chi Cha. While the endings are symmetrical in meaning and wording (the same phrase “to praise their virtues” occurs in both), they are each poorly connected with the rest of the poem. Because of this lack of linear coherence, it seems equally feasible to see the poet turning suddenly to present himself in the image of these historical figures or to express his hope that his brother will become a virtuous man like them. Many traditional Chinese critics support the first interpretation. Ting Yen wrote, “The last two lines [of the second piece] are a genuine revelation of the poet’s own intent. Do these two lines not vindicate what is said in Wen Chung-tzu [by Wang T’ung]: ‘Ch’en Ssu [Ts’ao Chih]’s abdication from the throne is not recognized by the people’?”[79] In other words, Ting Yen believed that the poet wished to tell his brother that he would emulate the fraternal loyalty of the Duke of Chou and Tzu-tsang and that he would not harbor any intention whatsoever for the throne. According to other critics, however, Ts’ao Chih intended to remonstrate his brother through those three shining examples of fraternal love and trust. Such an allegorical remonstrance is meant, as Ch’en Tso-ming says, “to lead to the awakening of the intended reader and yet leave no reason for the author to be blamed.”[80] I believe it is better to accept both interpretations because together they aptly mirror the poet’s conflicting feelings for his brother: indignation and hope, loyalty and distrust.

Yung-wu: Seeing the Self through the Other

Ts’ao Chih seeks to adapt yung-wu poetry for self reflection in a similar fashion. While yung-shih poetry provides a temporal distance between the poet and historical events, yung-wu poetry creates spatial distance between the poet and the objects he describes. Artistic distance may have shielded Ts’ao Chih from personal danger stemming from his brother’s anger. The story of the composition of “Seven Steps” (TCCC, 279) provides a dramatic example of how he exploited the artistic distance of yung-wu poetry. According to Liu I-ch’ing’s A New Account of Tales of the World, the poet was ordered by his brother to either compose a poem within the time it takes to walk seven steps or be executed. Ts’ao Chih dashed off a poem in which beans complain about beanstalks, their kinfolk, burning in order to cook them. By composing this poem in the required time, Ts’ao Chih not only saved himself but also delivered a strong condemnation of his brother’s brutal violation of kinship bonds.[81]

Ts’ao Chih often empathizes with the object of his description and expresses his sad thoughts and grievances through that object. This empathy represents a higher degree of integration of subject and object than analogical description in Han yung-wu ballads. A comparison of a Han yung-wu ballad and a yung-wu piece by Ts’ao Chih will illustrate the trajectory from analogical description to self-reflection.

The Yii-chang Ballad

When the white poplar first sprang up,

2

It was on Yii-chang Mountain.

Its leaves atop rubbed against blue clouds,

4

Its roots below reached the Yellow Springs.

In the cool of the eighth and ninth months,

6

Hill folk came, axes and hatchets in hand.

My [heartwood?] is so white,

8

As the ladder comes down [???].

With my roots and branches cut off,

10

I was laid upside down among the rocks.

A master carpenter held an ax and plumbline,

12

Chopped off my ends along the ink line-marks.

One single trip hauled me four or five li away,

14

My branches and leaves were torn apart.

[?????]

16

To be parched and made into a sailing boat.

My body stands in the Lo-yang palace,

18

My roots remain in the Yii-chang Mountain.

Tell this to my branches and leaves:

20

When will we be reunited?

My life is [ ? ] one hundred years,

22

Since [? ? ?] complete.

How could I know many men were so crafty

24

As to tear me from my roots and branches?[82]

(HCHW, 264)

This Han yung-wu ballad is constructed on an analogical model. On the literal level, the ballad tells the life story of a white poplar tree in six segments. Each segment represents a one-to-one correspondence with recurrent motifs in poems of the fortune-seeking wanderer: happy memories of one’s native place, forced separation from loved ones, the heart-rending moment of departure, endless yearning for home, and an awareness of human transience. As if to make sure that the audience will not miss this reference, the tree assumes a human voice from line 7 onward and recounts its sorrows and suffering in human terms.

Ts’ao Chih’s yung-wu poem “Alas” also describes an uprooted plant, a tumbleweed in this case, and dwells upon the sadness of its exile from home.

Alas

Alas, this tumbleweed,

2

How alone it is in the world!

Long adrift, its native roots gone,

4

Day and night it has no rest or leisure.

East and west it passes the seven paths,

6

South and north it crosses the nine roadways.

Suddenly caught in a rising whirlwind,

8

I am blown high into the clouds.

I tell myself that I’ll reach the end of heaven’s path,

10

When suddenly I go hurtling down into an abyss.

The frightful wind flings me out,

12

So I am returned to the midst of the fields.

Headed for the south, then sent to the north,

14

I am told to go east, then returned to the west.

Drifting, drifting, what can I depend on?

16

Suddenly I am gone, and then alive again.

In a whirlwind, I wander the Eight Marshes,

18

On wings of wind, I fly past the Five Mountains,

Drifting and shifting, I have no permanent place,

20

Who knows my bitter hardship?

If only I were grass in the woods,

22

To be burned by wildfires in autumn.

How can such destruction be not painful?

24

But I would rather be one with my roots.[83]

(TCCC, 382–83)

This poem contains many details similar to those in the previous poem: the loneliness of a plant severed from its roots, its lament of hardship, and its forlorn wish for reunion with its native soil. However, the details are arranged not in accordance with the life sequence of the plant but instead follow its erratic flight. A whirlwind catches the tumbleweed, carrying it toward the edge of heaven, then sends it back into an abyss, twirling it in all directions in mere seconds. With such a dramatic contraction of time and space, the poet aptly realizes the velocity of the destructive force sweeping the tumbleweed far away from its roots and conveys—allegorically—the intensity of his own dislocation and helplessness in exile. Indeed, traditional Chinese critics readily identify the tumbleweed with Ts’ao Chih and take the poem as his lament over his three consecutive exiles during the last eleven years of his life. Ting Yen holds that the emotive tenor of this poem fits the description of Ts’ao Chih’s emotional condition during these three exiles from his biography in History of the Chin. “This poem must have been written,” observes Ting Yen, “as the poet’s emotional response to those periods of exile. Its last two lines contain words of great sorrow.”[84]

The ending of this poem has attracted a great deal of attention from Chinese allegorists. The sorrow of separation becomes most poignant when the tumbleweed declares that it would rather die than be torn away from its native soil. For those allegorists, the ending is an understatement that not only compellingly conveys the poet’s sorrow, but also reveals the noble character of a true Confucian who could subdue his extreme emotions and maintain his dignified decorum. “[Ts’ao Chih] was so pained by his forced moves to different fiefs,” says Shen Te-ch’ien, “that he would rather return and die in his native place. About these moves, there are words he would not utter. Yet, when one does not utter one’s grievances, one’s remonstration becomes more effective. Ts’ao Chih’s subtle expression of his grievances alone achieves this norm of rectitude.”[85] On the grounds of its moral rectitude, Chu Hsü-tseng praises the poem as “a work of a virtuous man and a filial son—the only kind that carries on the tradition of the Three Hundred Poems [Book of Poems].” Chu regrets that this poem was not included by Hsiao T’ung in his Anthology of Literature.”[86]

But Ts’ao Chih was not always trying to reveal his innermost world through identification with an object in his yung-wu poems. He did not hesitate to use the analogical model when he desired to communicate a clear-cut moral message. His ballad “Wanting to Roam in the Southern Mountains,” a moral homily intended for his brother, is constructed on this model. The moral message—that a wise ruler should utilize all talents—is conveyed through a series of analogies:

Wanting to Roam in the Southern Mountains

The eastern sea is wide and deep,

2

Being humble, it embraces a hundred rivers.

High and great as the Five Mountains are,

4

They do not reject dirt and dust.

If a fine tree measures less than ten spans,

6

Its large branches find no support.

A respected elder is capable of universal love,

8

All under the heaven put their lives in his trust.

A master carpenter wastes no material,

10

Boats and carriages have their different uses.

Awls and knives perform their own special functions,

12

How can one be favored, the other disfavored?

Praise the good and pity the unintelligent,

14

Even the great sage [Confucius] did so.

The benevolent ones each enjoy a long life,

16

Those around them all live ten thousand years.[87]

(TCCC, 424)

The analogical structure here is even more outstanding than what we encountered in “The Yü-chang Ballad.” In that piece the images of the woods, the woodcutter, and the carpenter are strung together along the narrative history of a tree, but here similar images (mountains, tree, carpenter, boats, carriages, awl, knife, etc.) are detached from a real setting and brought together solely through their analogical correspondence—each pointing to the importance of making full use of all talents, great or small.

Yu-hsien: Sublimating Unfulfilled Ambitions

By my own estimate, Ts’ao Chih wrote a total of ten yu-hsien poems.[88] These poems account for nearly one quarter of his forty-two yüeh-fu works and constitute the most prominent yüeh-fu subgenre in Ts’ao Chih’s works. They are generally believed to have been written after 220. In Ku Chih’s edition, all but one are classified as later works. In Chao Yu-wen’s edition, they are also classified this way. Although these two scholars do not explain why they regard these poems as later works, we may conjecture that they do so on account of two biographical facts. First, Ts’ao Chih took a staunch anti-Taoist stand during his early life and ridiculed the search for immortality in his famous essay “An Analysis of Taoism” (“Pien Tao lun,” TCCC, 186). Second, sometime after 220 Ts’ao Chih reversed his anti-Taoist stand and wrote the essay “Dissolving Doubts” (“Shih-i lun,” TCCC, 396), in which he refuted many of the ideas he put forward in his “Analysis of Taoism,” and expressed his belief in the Taoist arts of obtaining immortality.[89] In view of Ts’ao Chih’s endorsement of the immortality cult in his later life, it makes good sense to classify his yu-hsien poems as later works.

While the drastic change of Ts’ao Chih’s attitude toward the Taoist pursuit of immortality lends support to the traditional dating of his yu-hsien poems, it does not warrant an oversimplified interpretation of these poems. Ts’ao Chih came to write yu-hsien poems for several different reasons, including his desire for earthly longevity,[90] his interest in writing banquet songs (with their recurrent motif of wishing longevity),[91] his fondness for the form of popular songs and ballads,[92] his interest in imitating Ch’ii Yuan’s allegorical description of a mystical journey,[93] and his attempt to find in Taoist myths a release from the misery of his everyday life.[94] We should not focus on some of these reasons to the exclusion of others. In an absolute sense, we cannot dismiss any of them as irrelevant to the study of Ts’ao Chih’s yu-hsien poems. Having said this, however, I must argue that the first two reasons are not as important as the other three to our understanding of the thematic and formal features of Ts’ao Chih’s yu-hsien poems as a whole. I de-emphasize the first reason because Ts’ao Chih was not a committed Taoist or Neo-Taoist like Juan Chi, who actually experimented with Taoist arts and wrote long, serious essays in defense of seeking immortality. Similarly, I consider the second reason to be only marginally relevant because neither banquet scenes nor the motif of wishing longevity figure significantly in his yu-hsien poems. In my opinion, the remaining three reasons are equally important because they reveal three inseparable goals of Ts’ao Chih’s writing these poems: poetic achievement, political satire, and psychological release. The convergence of these three goals gives rise to a dynamic poetic process culminating in the transformation of the yu-hsien subgenre from an essentially narrative form into a vehicle for expressing one’s disenchantment with the human world and envisioning the fulfillment of one’s thwarted aspiration on an imaginative plane. A comparison of Ts’ao Chih’s “Immortals” with “The Lung-hsi Ballad,” a typical Han yu-hsien poem, will shed light on how Ts’ao Chih brings about this subgeneric transformation.

“The Lung-hsi Ballad” describes a “real” visit to the paradise inhabited by immortals. It traces an entire sequence of happenings during such a transcendental excursion:

The Lung-hsi Ballad

A bypath passes an empty hut;

2

The good man often lives alone.

At last he attains the way of immortals,

4

High up he is hand in hand with the heavens.

He calls on King Father and Queen Mother,

6

And loiters on the fringe of Mount T’ai.

Still four or five li away from Heaven,

8

On his path he meets and accompanies Ch’ih-sung.

“Ch’ih-sung, hold the reins and drive for me;

10

Take me along to roam about Heaven!”

What is there in Heaven?

12

Rows upon rows of white elm are planted.

Cassia trees grow, lining the way;

14

Green dragons lie on pedestals, facing each other,

Phoenix sing, twittering and twittering,

16

A mother bird leads her nine chicks.

I glance back at the world of men below,

18

There is an extraordinary scene of joy.

A good wife goes out to welcome her guest,

20

Her face is gentle and cheerful.

She bows and kneels down twice,

22

Asking the guest if he has had a pleasant journey.

She invites the guest up to the northern hall,

24

And seats him on a woolen checked cushion.

Clear and white wines are held in separate goblets,

26

Over the wine are placed jade-like ladles.

She pours the wine and hands it to the guest,

28

The guest asks the hostess to take some.

She steps back and kneels down twice,

30

And then takes up one cup.

Before the talking and laughing come to an end,

32

She looks left to oversee the inner kitchen.

Hurriedly she orders a “coarse” meal prepared,

34

And makes sure there will be no delay.

Having served the meal, she sees the guest off,

36

Gracefully they walk through the house.

In seeing off the guest, she doesn’t go too far,

38

She doesn’t let her feet go beyond the door hinges.

If in taking a wife you get one like her,

40

Even Ch’i Chiang would not do as well for you.

When such a capable wife runs a household,

42

She does a better job than a stalwart man![95]

(HCHW, 267)

Here the speaker gives a rather pedestrian description of the land of immortals. He introduces few celestial images that can help create an ethereal ambiance. The white elm trees show no celestial grandeur; nor do the immobile dragon and phoenix manifest the magic power of heavenly creatures; nor does the transformed roamer carry any transcendental aura around him. Throughout the poem the speaker does not give the slightest intimation of the absolute freedom enjoyed by the immortals. In line 17 he suddenly looks back on the human world and expresses his nostalgia for the warmth of family life. He ends the poem in a most unheroic manner. Instead of celebrating his own transcendental transformation, he envies a worldly man for having a cheerful and courteous wife.

While “The Lung-hsi Ballad” strikes us as a realistic description of this-worldly life viewed from an other-worldly perspective, Ts’ao Chih’s “Immortals” impresses us as an imaginative vision of the world of immortals:

Immortals

Immortals are playing the double sixes

2

And taking their bets at one corner of Mount T’ai.

The nymph of the Hsing River is strumming a lute,

4

The Fairy of Ch’in is playing the panpipes.

Jade wine cups are filled with cassia wine,

6

The god of the Yellow River presents a mythical fish.

How circumscribed the Four Seas are!

8

What is there in the Nine Kingdoms to be missed?

Here are immortals Han Chung and Wang Tzu-ch’iao

10

Who invite me to this celestial thoroughfare.

Ten thousand li cannot match one footstep of mine

12

And I lightly roam within the Great Vacuity,

Flying past colorful ethereal clouds,

14

With high winds blowing against my body.

I ride my chariot to the Tzu Wei Palace

16

And match tallies with the Emperor of Heaven.

The Gate of Heaven soars to a great height,

18

With its twin towers measuring ten thousand chang.

Jade trees grow along both sides of a path,

20

White tigers are standing in front of the Gate.

I ride upon winds and roam above the Four Seas,

22

Passing east through the House of the Queen Mother.

I look down at the Five Great Mounts:

24

Human life is but a brief sojourn.

I will hide myself and groom my wings,

26

Slowly and leisurely, I will fly forward.

Do you not see the Yellow Emperor,

28

Riding a dragon out of Ting Lake?

I would wander around in the Nine Heavens,

30

And forever keep your company.

(TCCC, 263)

The speaker begins by describing an imaginary scene of perfect happiness. Mythical figures who once led a human life on earth are playing double sixes (a gambling game), strumming flutes, blowing pipes, and enjoying wine and food. Their reunion here in heaven betokens a transcendence of time and place. Next, the speaker tells us about his own roaming. His casual leaping over thousands of miles, his swift traversing of the entire cosmos underscore an absolute freedom from the bondage of time and space. His wandering around in the mythical realms of the Supreme Emperor and the Queen Mother of the West further enhances that sense of absolute freedom. Then, all of a sudden, the speaker wakes from his transcendental reverie. He looks down to the Five Sacred Mountains on the earth and confronts the inexorable fact of human transience. Having experienced absolute freedom, he now finds life on earth too care-ridden and takes delight in his flight from the human world. Finally, the speaker turns his thoughts to the legend of the Yellow Emperor, who is said to have ridden a dragon and soared into the heavens, and resolves to keep company with him there. This modal ending with the volitional word “yuan” (wish, would) is characteristic of Ts’ao Chih’s yu-hsien poems.

On a more abstract level, we may see the difference between “The Lung-hsi Ballad” and “Immortals” in terms of the selection, arrangement, and treatment of motifs related to seeking immortality. The first poem not only contains all the stock motifs of the Han yu-hsien subgenre, but it also arranges them along a standard linear story-line: a visit to an immortal on a high mountain, a flight to heaven with the immortal, and looking down at the human world. The treatment of these motifs is characterized by an accumulation of narrative details and stock emotional responses. Ts’ao Chih’s poem contains a slightly different set of motifs: a description of the immortals’ blissful world, the speaker’s roaming throughout the universe, and the speaker’s contemptuous look at the human world. The arrangement of these three motifs does not suggest a linear sequence of actions, but reveals the speaker’s constant comparisons of the heavenly and human worlds—shifting from his yearning for immortals’ blissful existence to his scorn of man’s circumscribed existence, from his enjoyment of absolute freedom to his contempt for man’s constrained manners, and from the “real” ascension of the Yellow Emperor to his own fantasy of becoming an immortal. The treatment of the three motifs in this poem represents the opposite of what we saw in “The Lung-hsi Ballad.” Instead of narrative details, this poem employs an abundance of poetic images that connote the poet’s personal feelings about the difference between the heavenly and human worlds.[96]

Of course, Ts’ao Chih’s yu-hsien poems do not always contain all of these motifs. However, no matter which of them he uses, he always arranges and treats them in such a way that they will convey his search for an ideal world, his alienation from the political world, and his yearning for freedom. In “Ascension to Heaven” he uses the first motif (the blissful world of immortals) almost exclusively, focusing on the frolicking of celestial animals in the first part and the movement of the sun chariot in the second. In “Roaming Afar” he again deals solely with imaginary scenes, this time those of a magnificent undersea palace. By depicting the fabulous abodes of immortals, he seeks not only to project his vision of an ideal world but also to fancy what will become of him upon entry into that world. With the second motif (transcendental roaming), the poet tells us that absolute freedom is what he most desires in that ideal world. He depicts the swiftness with which an immortal speaker traverses the entire universe in “Roaming Afar,” and in “Five-Fold Roaming” shows an immortal’s freedom of contact with all other celestial beings—whether God on high, his vassals, or other immortals.

If in “Alas” Ts’ao Chih reveals his lack of control over his life through the flight of a tumbleweed and signifies his alienation from his nephew through the separation of the tumbleweed from its roots, here he seems to do just the opposite. He uses the immortal’s swift roaming to show his absolute freedom of movement and action, and the free association with his kinsfolk to indicate his easy, casual contact with his nephew. Of course this absolute freedom of movement and association exists only in his fancy—an ineffective compensation for his virtual imprisonment in his fief and also, perhaps, for his failure to obtain a private audience with his nephew during his final years. Unlike the first two motifs, the third (the contemptible human world) is anything but imaginary. In using the human world as the backdrop for a transcendental escape in “Visiting the Immortals,” Ts’ao Chih seems to follow the Ch’u tz’u tradition and allegorize his disenchantment with the world of politics in a manner reminiscent of Ch’ii Yuan’s “Encountering Sorrow” and “Distant Journey.” In short, thanks to his deft handling of the three motifs, Ts’ao Chih achieves an imaginative sublimation of his unfulfilled and unfulfillable desires and aspirations—the founding of an ideal society, the end of his exile, the regaining of freedom of action and movement, and above all a reconciliation with his nephew. Such a merging of the descriptive and the lyrical, the allegorical and the imaginary in Ts’ao Chih’s yu-hsien poems represents a truly significant achievement in the lyricization of the yu-hsien subgenre.

* * *

This study of Ts’ao Chih has shown that the individual self in his poems should be seen not as a faithful biographical record, but as an artistic recreation of the poet’s experiential self. He achieves this chiefly by assuming the roles of the conventional narrators or speakers and by introducing new thought processes into various yüeh-fu and ku-shih subgenres.

Ts’ao Chih takes roles ranging from third-person narrators in folk yüeh-fu, first-person speakers in literati yüeh-fu (a contemplative observer of history, a self-observing tumbleweed, a roamer in the fairyland of immortals, etc.), and the two fixed personae in ku-shih (the fortune-seeking wanderer and the neglected wife). Only in interpersonal ku-shih works does he occasionally cast off these conventional roles and speak in his own voice. Meanwhile, he substitutes his own thought processes for the stock responses in the yüeh-fu and ku-shih subgenres. Specifically, he substitutes his process of spirit-penetrating observation for the fragmentary observation in Han folk yüeh-fu ballads; his process of reasoning for the enumerative illustration in Han yung-shih ballads; his process of heightened perception for allegorical presentation in Han yung-wu ballads; and his process of self-encouragement for the uniform lamentation in Han ku-shih poems. Furthermore, in a number of poems written for his friends and brothers, he combines self-reflection with personal communication and thus brings forth a new subgenre of interpersonal ku-shih.

Ts’ao Chih’s assumption of fictional roles and his introduction of new thought processes are two opposite, yet complementary, aspects of his artistic recreation of the self. On the one hand, his wearing of fictional masks enables him to blend his private emotions with existent poetic forms and recreate himself in the images of yüeh-fu and ku-shih figures familiar to his contemporary readers. On the other hand, the new thought processes in his yüeh-fu and ku-shih enable him to explore the whole gamut of his inward experience: ambition for moral accomplishments, admiration for knight-errantry, questioning of the existing moral order, indignation over the violation of kinship bonds, estrangement from the court, imaginary fulfillment of thwarted aspirations, compassion for downtrodden friends, and the misery and anguish of his exile. This merging of personal experience with conventional yüeh-fu and ku-shih forms not only defines the nature of the poetic self in his poems, but also epitomizes his lyricization of all the major pentasyllabic subgenres.

CHAPTER 5

Juan Chi: The Formation of the Symbolic Mode

The pivotal role of Juan Chi in the development of pentasyllabic poetry has been acknowledged by many critics. In his History of [Chinese] Vernacular Literature, Hu Shih (1891–1962) made the following comments:

Pentameter verse arose among the anonymous poets of the Han dynasty, and after receiving the favor of the poets of the Chien-an period, was formally established only by Juan Chi. He is the first man to have written pentameter poems with the full concentration of his energies. Pentameter poetic style only became formally established with him, and the scope of the poetry only became all embracing with him.[1]

* This chapter contains material that first appeared in Zong-qi Cai, “The Symbolic Mode of Presentation in the Poetry of Juan Chi,” Chinese Literature: Essays, Añides, Reviews (CLEAR) 15 (1993). © 1993 Indiana University Press. Reprinted with the permission of Indiana University Press.

In the history of Chinese poetry Juan Chi stands between two poets of towering achievement. Before him Ts’ao Chih transformed both yüeh-fu and ku-shih into highly personal forms of poetic expression, and after him T’ao Ch’ien was to develop a new kind of pentasyllabic poetry distinguished by its intense strains of personal recollection and imagination. Juan Chi’s poetic accomplishments are no less eminent than those of Ts’ao Chih and T’ao Ch’ien. He raises pentasyllabic poetry to an introspective plane unknown to earlier poetic traditions and lays the groundwork for a further intensification of lyricism in later pentasyllabic poetry.[2] Unlike Ts’ao Chih, he does not write about his emotional responses to concrete events in his life, but instead broods over his profound sorrow for human frailties of all kinds, his empty loneliness in a friendless world, and his anguished search for the meaning of life.[3] Since he examines these innermost feelings with little reference to the outside world, he does not need to choose and arrange his poetic images to indicate the sequence of events or the contours of a locale. Therefore, he can repeatedly use certain clusters of images most evocative of his feelings and cast them in a poetic structure coterminous with his introspective process. In so doing, he establishes a symbolic mode of presentation unseen in earlier pentasyllabic poetry.

Despite its pivotal role in the development of pentasyllabic poetry, Juan Chi’s symbolic mode has not yet been systematically studied. Traditional Chinese critics made serious efforts to understand his poems, but they did not have an analytical strategy that would enable them to grasp the indefinite, multiple significations in his poems. Insofar as traditional interpretive schemes were formulated to find fixed meanings in a text, they all prove inapplicable to the study of Juan Chi’s poems. For instance, a scheme of conceptual categorization proves less than useless. If we attempt to label his poems as the work of a Confucian, a Taoist philosopher, or a Taoist mystic, we are bound to run into ridiculous contradictions, for the poet at once embraced and rejected ideas and values from all these philosophical sources.

Nor is a scheme of political allegorization workable. As none of Juan Chi’s eighty-two yung-huai poems can be dated, we have no reliable grounds for making connections between his poems and contemporary political events. Moreover, Juan Chi tries hard to conceal his political attitudes and makes it impossible for anyone to plumb the hidden intentions in his poems. Even Yen Yen-chih (386–456), who lived only about 123 years after Juan Chi, acknowledges this point:

Ssu Tsung [Juan Chi] personally served a dynasty in disorder and was in constant fear of being slandered and meeting with disaster. That is why he expressed himself in song, and that is why each time he sighs, lamenting his life, although his aim is to criticize and reprimand [men in public life], his style is full of obscurities. Many centuries from now, it will be difficult to fathom his true intentions. Therefore I have explained the main ideas in these verses in a general way and touched on their hidden meanings.[4]

If Yen Yen-chih hesitates to read Juan Chi’s poems as satires of specific events in contemporary politics, it will be ill-advised and presumptuous for us even to attempt to find political allegories in Juan Chi’s works. Unlike an explicitly allegorical piece by, say, Ts’ao Chih, Juan Chi’s poems usually do not contain a coherent set of situations indicative of the poet’s relationship to other individuals or specific events and therefore do not lend themselves to any convincing allegorical interpretation. Most allegorical readings of Juan Chi’s poems are not convincing because they are grounded on tenuous and often far-fetched explanations of isolated images and motifs.[5]

Equally impracticable is a scheme of generic anatomy. Juan Chi draws images, motifs, and topoi from earlier yüeh-fu and ku-shih works, but does not organize them into a yüeh-fu narrative sequence or a ku-shih lyrical continuum. Instead, he casts them into a symbolic landscape that reflects the configurations of his inner world. This symbolic transformation of these yüeh-fu and ku-shih elements gives birth to a new pentasyllabic subgenre called yung-huai or, in literal translation, “poetry that sings out what is in my bosom.” The very name for this collection of poems, Yung-huai, probably chosen by the poet himself, aptly speaks to the distinctive quality of introspectiveness in this new subgenre. Since Juan Chi interfuses all poetic elements into a symbolic vision during his introspective process, it is impossible to discuss the significance of his works in terms of how he follows standard ways of organizing images, motifs, and topoi. A generic anatomy of his works would be tantamount to trying to dissect the workings of his mind.

Philosophical categorization, allegorical interpretation, and generic anatomy all fail because they are essentially tools for finding determinate meanings in an unambiguous text. They are not fit for an investigation into the generation of multiple significations in an ambiguous text. Juan Chi’s poems become meaningful only through their play of indeterminacy; their life ends the moment it is bound to a fixed meaning. Given this, I will resist the temptation to search for a definitive label to describe the poet or to hunt for determinate meanings in his texts. Instead, I will seek to come to terms with his propensity for contradictions in the realm of action and to show how he communicates his innermost thoughts through a deft exploitation of indeterminancy in imagery, structure, and allusion.[6]

The Poet’s Life: Contradictory Action and Eclectic Thought

It seems no accident that Juan Chi has a predilection for poetic indeterminacy. His life itself was full of ambiguities and contradictions stemming from his divided allegiance to Confucianism and Taoism, his ascription to opposed norms of behavior, and the dire necessity for him to avoid overt political stands that would endanger his life. To set a proper context for our discussion of his poetical works, let us first discuss his contradictory behavior and philosophical eclecticism.[7]

Contradictory Action

The official biography of Juan Chi in History of the Chin presents a life full of contradictions. Juan Chi was born in 210 (Chien-an 15, eighteen years after the birth of Ts’ao Chih) and died in 263 (Ching-yüan 4, thirty-one years after the death of Ts’ao Chih). We are told that he originally had the intention to help save the world. In 239 he served under Ssu-ma I (179–251) as a low-ranking advisory official (ts’ung-shih chunglang). About three years later he worked for Chiang Chi (d. 249), one of the highest officials in the Wei court. Around 247 he served under Ho Yen, the famous philosopher and Minister of State Affairs (shang-shu) in the administration of the regent Ts’ao Shuang (?–249), holding the title of Secretary of the Minister for the State (shang-shu lang). In 251 he served the regime of Ssu-ma Shih (208–255) in the same capacity of ts’ung-shih chung-lang as he had under Ssu-ma Shih’s father about twelve years earlier. But we also learn that Juan Chi was very much a hermit, aloof from the mundane world. He would lock himself up in his study for months and read his favorite books, Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu. Or he would make excursions into the mountains and forget to return for days on end. He also would indulge himself in wine, play the zither, and sing out his feelings. When he was beside himself with joy, he would reach a wild state of self-forgetfulness which, in the eyes of the people of his time, bordered on lunacy.[8]

His biography also furnishes us with a few anecdotal accounts of his contradictory actions. The most dramatic and outlandish are these two accounts about his reactions to the death of his mother:

He was playing a game of go with someone when his mother died. His opponent begged him to stop, but he insisted on staying until they decided who won the bet on the game. Then, he drank three dippers of wine, wailed out loud once and spit out several mouthfuls of blood.

When his mother was about to be buried, he steamed a fat young pig and drank two dippers of wine. And then, as he took his final leave of her, he simply uttered, “It’s all over!,” wailed out loud once, and again spat out several mouthfuls of blood. His frame wasted away and his bones stood out, and he nearly died of sorrow.[9]

These two anecdotes show us how Juan Chi’s unconventional behavior was perceived by his contemporaries. In the first part of both anecdotes, Juan Chi displays a resolute, Taoist defiance of the required demonstration of filial piety, even though in that era “one’s demonstration of filial piety, of actual respect and care for one’s parents, [was still] the cardinal virtue of a man’s entire existence.”[10] The ancient mourning rituals for one’s parents sanctioned by Confucius were not only a moral imperative for every family member, but also an important social occasion on which one judged a man’s moral virtue for an official appointment or promotion. To capitalize on this golden opportunity for self-advancement, not a few people carried the mourning rituals to extremes of self-sacrifice. As a result, mourning rituals had lost all their original meaning and often degenerated into a farce of feigned filiality. Seen against this historical background, Juan Chi’s drinking, eating, and playing at the time of mourning should be taken not as an impudent, outlandish display of irreverence, but as a scathing ridicule of the abuse of mourning rituals and a courageous rebellion against the entire system of morality endorsed by the state. If we interpret Juan Chi’s iconoclastic acts in a larger historical context of Taoist anti-ritualism, we find that they are a dramatic imitation of Chuang Tzu’s singing and beating a bowl after the death of his wife—a blunt denial of the sentiments and rituals sanctioned by Confucius.[11] However, Juan Chi is anything but an out-and-out Taoist aloof from all human sentiments. Unlike Chuang Tzu, Juan Chi could not or would not obliterate his feelings of grief. In the second part of both anecdotes, he all of a sudden abandons himself to a violent outburst of grief. Through this spontaneous act of mourning, he reveals himself to be an exemplary filial son.

It is characteristic of Juan Chi to move unpredictably between Taoist flouting of conventions and Confucian practice of traditional morality. Such contradictory behavior was as much a matter of survival as a moral choice. At a time of moral decay, political chaos, and ruthless persecution, he had no choice. If he had not been purposefully erratic and contradictory in his behavior, he could not have shocked others into a sober-minded recognition of the fanaticism and hypocrisy behind the facade of filial piety. Nor could he have assumed the role of a Taoist anti-ritualist and yet remained a true Confucian at heart. Still less could he have played the clown and disguised his political stands and attitudes for the protection of his family and himself. When we contemplate his behavior from an aesthetic point of view, we find that his actions epitomize the charm of the so-called “Wei-Chin manner” (Wei-Chin feng-tu) in its unique combination of irreverent behavior and moral sincerity, latitudinarian gaiety and philosophical seriousness.[12]

Eclectic Thought

While Juan Chi tended to alternate between Confucian and Taoist codes of behavior in the realm of action,[13] he embraced Confucianism and Taoism simultaneously in the realm of thought. This philosophical eclecticism is in keeping with the spirit of his age, one of “transition from Confucian classical scholarship (ching-hsüeh) to Neo-Taoist metaphysics (hsüan-hsiieh).”[14] The transition was not an outright rejection of Confucian values or a wholesale acceptance of the Taoist doctrines of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu. Rather, it was a long, complex process of mutual influence and transformation, leading to a phenomenon of philosophical eclecticism known as “Neo-Taoism.” Most leading Neo-Taoists displayed an allegiance to both the Confucian and Taoist canons.[15] As early as the Later Han, Ma Jung (79–166), a great Confucian scholar, began to study and annotate the Taoist texts Lao Tzu and Huai-nan Tzu as well as Confucian classics.[16] Continuing this eclectic tendency in the Wei-Chin period, Ho Yen (190–249) compiled a variorum edition of Confucius’ Analects and at the same time wrote the treatises, On Tao and Te (Tao te lun) and On Non-Action (Wu-wei lun), to elucidate Taoist ideas.[17] For his part, Wang Pi (226–249) wrote commentaries on both the Confucian classic The Book of Changes (I-ching) and the Taoist classic Lao Tzu.[18] These two Wei-Chin philosophers integrated Taoist metaphysics and Confucian ethics and thereby founded a philosophical system that was cos-mologically sophisticated, yet readily applicable to the administration of political and social affairs. A New Account of Tales of the World includes the following account of how Wang Pi explained the interrelatedness of Confucian and Taoist doctrines:

[Pei] Hui put a question to [Wang] Pi, “Indeed, non-being (wu) is that from which all things draw their subsistence, and the Sage [Confucius] would not discourse upon it. On the other hand, Lao Tzu elaborated on it without end. Why?” Pi answered, “The Sage embodied non-being, and non-being itself could not be explained. So whatever the Sage talked about pertains to being (yu). On the contrary, Lao [Tzu] and Chuang [Tzu] were not free from being. Therefore, they constantly expatiate on what they were lacking [i.e., on non-being].[19]

In Liu Shao’s Studies of Human Abilities (Jen-wu chih), we can find an example of how Neo-Taoists adapted Taoist metaphysics to the governing of political and military affairs:

Chung Hui (225–264) set out on his campaign against the Kingdom of Shu. When he bade farewell to Wang Jung, he asked him about what strategies to follow. [Wang] Jung said, “The Taoists say, ‘do one’s work but do not rest on one’s success.’ To achieve success is not difficult, but to hold on to what one has achieved is.”[20]

A contemporary of Ho Yen and Wang Pi, Juan Chi also combined Confucian ethics and Taoist metaphysics in his less rigorously philosophical but more poetic kind of prose writing. As if to emphasize his eclecticism, he paired off his writings on the two philosophies. His “Essay on Music” (“Yüeh-lun”), an elucidation of Confucian doctrines on hierarchical order and harmony, is matched by his “On Understanding Chuang Tzu” (“Ta Chuang lun”) and “The Great Man” (“Ta-jen hsien-sheng chuan”), which both preach spontaneity and absolute freedom beyond Confucian morality.[21] His “Understanding the I-ching” (“T’ung I lun”), a recasting of Confucian social philosophy within a cosmological framework set up by the divinational hexagrams in that work, is counterpoised by his “On Understanding Lao Tzu” (“T’ung Lao lun”), which probes Taoist metaphysics in the context of political events ascribed to the time of the three legendary Sages (Yao, Shun, and Yü).[22]

In his writings, Confucian and Taoist ideas are more complementary than not, as is also the case with Ho Yen and Wang Pi. In “Essay on Music” he first elaborates on music’s cosmological implications in Taoist metaphysical terms, and then endorses its practical functions in harmonizing all human relationships in a hierarchical society.[23] And he winds up “On Understanding Chuang Tzu,” reversing his tirade against Confucianism earlier in the essay and integrating Confucian social doctrine into Chuang Tzu’s metaphysics:

He [Chuang Tzu] can only [teach us] how we can prevent being harmed by the things in this world and nourish our body; when no damage is done by external things, our spirit will be purified. And when our body and spirit are both [intact] within us, then the Way and Virtue will be complete; men will not depart from loyalty and sincerity and the upper and lower [classes in society] will be peaceful.[24]

Here Juan Chi endorses the Confucian ideals of loyalty, sincerity, and social order, and seems to regard them as what should be Chuang Tzu’s ultimate goal. Juan Chi’s philosophical eclecticism is even more dramatically accentuated in his panegyrics on Confucius and Lao Tzu. Apparently inspired by a contemporary vogue for lauding the founders of Confucianism and Taoism, Juan Chi wrote “Eulogy for Confucius” (“K’ung Tzu lei”) and “An Encomium for Lao Tzu” (“Lao Tzu tsan”).[25] However, he did not concern himself, as did many other Neo-Taoists, with the question of whether Confucius or Lao Tzu was the greater thinker. Instead he presented both as cultural heroes who transcended the narrowly defined boundaries of Confucianism and Taoism. For instance, in “Eulogy for Confucius” he creates an image of Confucius as at once a teacher of morality and a master of metaphysics:

Eulogy For Confucius

He raised three thousand disciples,

2

Of whom seventy entered his hall.

He concentrated his spirit and pursued speculation,

4

Following history he wrote commentaries on the Book [of Documents].

He studied the Grand Oneness in formlessness,

6

And traced the process of creation to the Great Beginning

(JCCC, 195)

At the same time he portrays Lao Tzu as a Taoist Sage who not only communed with the mystery of the universe, but also perfected the ways of man with respect to government, moral education, and social order in his “On Understanding Lao Tzu”:

The sage grasps the principle of heaven and man, abides by the natural way of things, and understands the nature of administration and moral instruction.…[26] (JCCC, 159)

Juan Chi’s eclectic attitude is evident in the very appellation he uses for Lao Tzu, whom he honors with the title of Sage (sheng-jen), which is normally reserved for Confucius or the virtuous rulers of yore. He does not use Lao Tzu’s traditional title of True Man (chen-jen) or Perfect Man (chih-jen). He even goes so far as to identify the Tao of Lao Tzu with the t’ai chi (great beginning) of The Book of Changes and the yiian (the origin) of Spring and Autumn Annals.

Poetic Imagery: Coordinates of Human Frailty

In the realm of poetry Juan Chi displayed the same propensity for contradictions that he did in the world of action. If he worked toward a frictionless conflation of different philosophical ideas in his philosophical prose, he foregrounded the conflicts between Confucian, hedonist, and Taoist approaches in his yung-huai poems. While the eclectic tendency in his prose reflects his intellectual understanding of abstract philosophical ideas, the conflict in his poetry reveals his impassioned struggles to lead his own life in the light of those ideas.[27] In his poems he seldom strives to resolve his inner conflicts by deciding to follow one particular approach to life. Sometimes he pits certain ideas and attitudes against those diametrically opposite to them. Sometimes he endorses and denies them in the same breath. At other times he simply lumps them together without the slightest hint of his own preference. The resulting tension produces an aesthetic effect praised by Chung Hung in the highest of terms:

His yung-huai poems are capable of purifying our inner spirits and inspiring our deepest reflection. His words stay within the realm of what we can see and hear, but his feelings transcend the bounds of the universe!… His works make a man forget his shallow and narrow self and aim for what is profound and great. They are full of words of great emotional intensity. His intended meanings are so deep and unbounded that it is hard to fathom what they are.[28]

These words of praise spell out the prominent features of Juan Chi’s poetry: unadorned poetic form, profound emotional effects, and complex thoughts and feelings beyond language. These features are none other than the distinctive qualities of a symbolic mode of presentation. But while Chung Hung throws light on the symbolic nature of Juan Chi’s poetry, he offers no analysis of his symbolic mode of presentation. Like Chung Hung, most traditional Chinese critics rest content with making impressionistic comments on Juan Chi’s works. I propose to set forth the formal features of his symbolic mode and to analyze them in the light of his exploitation of indeterminacy on the levels of poetic imagery, structure, and intertextual relationship.

Let us first examine Juan Chi’s innovative use of poetic imagery. The import of poetic imagery is two-fold: its denotations and its connotations. The former are referents to determinate, usually external, phenomena. The latter are nonreferential qualities. Poetic images may function chiefly as determinate referents to the outside world or indeterminate symbols of the inner world, depending on whether the poet foregrounds their denotative or connotative aspect. Narrative or descriptive poets, who use images to create a scene or spectacle that approximates a real locale or event, tend to foreground denotative meanings. The more referential the images, the more realistic the scene. Conversely, to maximize the connotative meanings of poetic imagery is the primary concern of symbolizing poets. They often seek to disassociate images from a real scene so as to relocate them within a new construct of their literary imagination. The farther the images are removed from a real setting, the more effectively they will lose their referential meanings and acquire indeterminate, symbolic significance.[29] This symbolizing practice characterizes Juan Chi’s handling of poetic images.

Like Han yüeh-fu and ku-shih poets, Juan Chi dwells upon the theme of human frailty in his introspective poems. However, his use of poetic images is markedly different. He does not organize them into set scenes or topoi like those in the Han yüeh-fu, nor does he use them to construct narrative or descriptive outlines like those in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems,” which are to be filled in with abstract reflections on human transience. Instead, Juan Chi uses poetic images as coordinates of human frailty and organizes them into a mental landscape that suggests no real locale.

Yung-huai, Poem 18

The solar chariot hangs in the southwest,

2

Hsi Ho is about to drive it down;

Streams of its light shine on the Four Seas,

4

Then suddenly come evening and darkness.

It casts its radiance upon Hsien Lake in the morning,

6

The shores of River Meng receive its evening splendor;

Why is it that all men, successful or otherwise,

8

Once dead, are not born again?

Behold those blossoms of peach and plum!

10

Who can long maintain such a splendid luster?

Where is the perfect gentleman to be found?

12

I sigh for not having been one with him.

I fix my reverent gaze upon the pines of Ching Mountain,

14

For they can soothe my feelings.[30]

(JCCC, 276)

This piece abounds in images: the sun, the Four Seas, the lake, the river, flowers, fruit trees, pines, mountains, and the longing speaker. But from them we cannot picture a recognizable locale. The names of celestial places hardly present a scene of real skies, as they come from the mythical world created in the Taoist works Huai-nan Tzu and Chuang Tzu. The plant images do not really suggest a mountain scene as they stand apart from each other. While all these images cease to direct our attention to external referents, they call forth a wealth of connotative meanings. In lines 1–6, the images of sunrise and sunset, morning and evening, day and night evoke a profound sense of melancholy over the passage of time. In lines 7–8, the image of the ultimate dissolution of the human frame arouses the darkest moods of the soul. In lines 9–10, the image of blossoming flowers betokens ephemeral glory and the onset of decay. In lines 12–14, the image of the sorrow-stricken speaker further thickens the gloom of the poem. The connotations of all the images are bound up with the same issue—human frailty. So we can very well construe them as symbolic coordinates of that frailty: its projection onto temporal aspects of nature and onto the life of plants and animals, as well as its manifestation in the physical conditions and the emotional life of man.[31] These four coordinates seem to be the reverse of the coordinates of human happiness later developed by Hsieh Ling-yün (385–433)—opportune time (liang-chen) in one’s temporal existence, beautiful scenes (mei-ching) in the external world, delight of the heart (shang-hsin) in one’s inner self, and enjoyable activities (le-shih) in the realm of action.[32] Juan Chi focused on his four coordinates in most of his poems.

Poem 4 offers us a remarkable example of Juan Chi’s use of the first coordinate—projections of human frailty into the temporal aspects of nature:

The Heavenly Horses come out of the northwest,

2

And they come following the eastern road.

Spring and autumn cannot be brought to a halt,

4

How can wealth and honor be kept forever?

Clear dew covers the swamp orchids,[33]

6

Thick frost settles on prairie grass.

In the morning, he was still a good-looking youth,

8

By the evening, he has already become an ugly old man.

If not an immortal like Wang-tzu Chin,

10

Who can keep his youthful radiance forever?

(JCCC, 216)

Here Juan Chi observes reflections of human transience in the swift passage of time. His astronomical and meteorological images make up the great majority of the first coordinates used in these eighty-two poems. By Victor Mair’s estimate, images of the sun and moon occur 25 times; seasonal changes 47 times; dew, frost, and wind 27 times; and morning and evening 61 times.[34] Almost every time, Juan Chi strives to depict not a natural scene but a mental picture of the impermanence of human existence.

Poem 71 exemplifies Juan Chi’s use of the second coordinate—projections of human frailty into the life of plants and animals:

Luxuriant hibiscus overgrows the grave mounds,

2

Glistening with lustrous splendor;

But when the bright sun sinks into the forest,

4

Its petals flutter down to the roadside.

The cricket chirps by doors and windows,

6

The cicada hums amidst the brambles.

Ephemerids play for only three mornings,

8

Yet they swarm around preening their wings.

For whom do they display their finery,

10

Flying up and down as they bedeck themselves?

How brief is the time allotted to a life!

12

Still, each pursues his passionate endeavors.

(JCCC, 384)

In this poem Juan Chi contemplates human frailty through living things. These plant and animal images signify the impermanence of all living forms, including human beings. The inevitable dissolution of the human frame into nothingness makes all worldly pursuits trivial and pitiful. All human glories are, like the scintillating brilliance of hibiscus, gone only too soon. All human pleasures and freedom are, like the joys of crickets and cicadas, soon played out. In his poems Juan Chi uses plant images 67 times and animal images 61 times, a frequency rivaling his astronomical and meteorological images. The plant images, excepting a few mythical, celestial ones, are mostly those of annuals: grass and brambles, luxuriant foliage, and fragrant blossoms on the eve of their decay (49 times).[35] As for his animal images, they are mostly insects and birds chirping out their mournful notes and scurrying for shelter at the onset of wintry destruction (64 times).[36]

Poem 5 typifies Juan Chi’s use of the third coordinate—manifestations of human frailty in the physical condition of man himself:

Early on, during my youth,

2

I was frivolous and took to music and song.

I roamed westward to Hsien-yang,

4

Where I met with fair ladies like Chao and Li.

Before my revelries came to an end,

6

The bright sun suddenly sank.

I urged on my horse to return once more,

8

And turned around to look at the Three Rivers.

A hundred taels of gold were all gone,

10

There were, alas, too many things to spend money on!

Facing north, I came to the T’ai-hang road,

12

What will become of one who has lost his way?

(JCCC, 222)

Juan Chi here presents two kinds of corporeal symptoms of human frailty: the implied loss of his youth and restless actions and movements. The first is implied by the loss of the speaker’s youthfulness in lines 1–4. The second includes his horseback riding in line 7, his turning around and surveying a landscape in line 8, and his standing facing north on the road in line 11. All these actions and movements are none other than the motifs or stylized acts through which a fortune-seeking wanderer reveals his sorrow over human transience in both the yüeh-fu and ku-shih traditions. But where the author of a yüeh-fu or ku-shih piece normally presents such stylized acts as a coherent course of action against a realistic background, Juan Chi treats them as free-floating coordinates of human frailty and organizes them in such a way as to reveal his gloomy state of mind. Indeed, because of a complete lack of reference to real events, the wastrel’s actions and movements should be construed as symbols of frailty rather than a description of a real person in the real world. Such a symbolic transformation of the yüeh-fu and ku-shih motifs pervades Juan Chi’s poems. The poet frequently makes symbolic use of these three motifs of physical appearance: the “Fair One” (35 times), spent youth (25 times), and aging and death (46 times).[37] His symbolic motifs of action and movement are even more abundant: sighing, sobbing, weeping, and crying (19 times), looking, gazing, and observing (52 times),[38] forlorn gestures and postures (56 times), standing despondently next to some place (17 times), pacing to and fro (9 times), taking to the road (23 times), climbing mountains or other locations (15 times), and roaming (37 times).[39]

Poem 34 exhibits a high concentration of the fourth coordinate—manifestations of human frailty in the emotional life of man.

A day, and then another morning,

2

A sunset, and then another sunrise.

My appearance has changed from what it was,

4

My vital spirit has dissipated.

I raise my cup with much grief in my heart,

6

And think of my friends of bygone days.

Facing my wine, I cannot utter a single word,

8

My mournful heart is full of pathos and bitter sorrow.

I wish to farm on the sunny side of the eastern fields,

10

But with whom can I begin a life true to myself?

12

Worry and pain are but a momentary matter, High deeds will only do harm to my weak body.

How can I learn to bend and stretch myself?

14

I will let snakes and dragons be my neighbors!

(TCCC, 313)

Within the space of this short poem, Juan Chi uses a series of emotive words: spirits (ching-shen) in line 4, grief (ai-ch’u) in line 5, pathos (ch’i-ch’uang) and bitter sorrow (suan-hsin) in line 8, and worry (ch’ou) and pain (k’u) in line II.[40] These emotive words are just as hard to distinguish in the original classical Chinese as in translation. If we go over the commentaries on this poem, we find that traditional critics gloss ai-ch’u, ch’i-ts’ang and suan-hsin with the same synonym pei-shang (sorrow).[41] While they share the same core meaning, each has its own rich connotations. In using such highly nuanced words all at the same time, Juan Chi makes a radical departure from the practice of the poets before him. When his predecessors use vaguely defined emotive words, they strive to make their referents easily determinable by presenting those words as a response to a concrete situation. When they use the word shang (sorrow), for instance, they leave no doubt whether that sorrow stems from the separation of husband and wife, betrayal of friendship or love, political setbacks, or some other reason.[42] Seldom, if ever, do they use a string of emotive words, probably for fear of compounding the vagueness of these words. By contrast, Juan Chi tries to prevent emotive words from being perceived as determinable responses to external stimuli by dispensing with concrete settings. For this reason, Shen Te-ch’ien characterizes his poetic sentiments as “sorrows and joys arising from no apparent reasons.”[43] By heaping emotive words one upon another, he intensifies the interplay of the elusive connotations carried by each word and thus calls forth a world of thoughts, feelings, and moods.

Juan Chi’s transformation of abstract emotive words into artistic feelings is an important hallmark of his poetic talent. If we consult the concordance to his yung-huai poems, we find that his emotive words cover a wide spectrum of interior experience ranging from spiritual conditions (e.g., hun, p’o, ching, shen), moral disposition (chih), sensibility (e.g., hsin, ch’ing, kan), to all kinds of sorrow (e.g., pei, shang, ai, yüan, hsin, ch’ou)— with a total of 128 occurrences.[44] We also note that he has combined many of these emotive words into compounds that aptly capture the subtleties of interior experience.[45] Along with the other three coordinates, Juan Chi uses this wide range of emotive expressions to convey his otherwise indescribable consciousness of human frailty.

To enhance the power of his coordinates, Juan Chi often qualifies them with adverbs of time. In his yung-huai poems Juan Chi employs the present-time adverbs chin and its variants 8 times, future-time adverbs (chiang and its variants) 18 times, adverbs indicating instantaneous change (hsü-yü and its variants) 10 times, and adverbs indicating sudden change (hu and its variants) 23 times.[46] He uses present-time adverbs to emphasize the brevity of human happiness or the imminence of annihilation:

The best time is at this very hour,

And a drizzling rain sprinkles the dust.

(YH37: 1–2)

The autumn wind blows on flying bean leaves,

Withering and decaying begin at this time.

(YH3: 3–4)

He uses future-time adverbs mostly when he laments man’s inability to control his future in the face of mortality:

I pace back and forth: when shall I see you again?

Worry and anxiety break my heart.

(YH1: 7–8)

Rise and fall change in an instant;

We will part, and what shall become of us?

(YH7: 11–12)

“I study here below to reach what is above,”

But swiftly, swiftly time flies: what shall I do?

(YH78: 9–10)[47]

He uses adverbs indicating instantaneous change when he dramatizes how precariously our life hangs between success and failure, authority and subjection, life and death—a balance that can be tilted against us at any time.

I only fear that, in an instant,

My soul’s ether will be gone with the wind.

(YH33: 9–10)

Their leisure is a matter of moments,

The glory of youth will not shine again.

(YH30: 13–14)

Loss of power occurs in an instant,

They walked over my tomb wearing their swords.

(YH6: 7–8)[48]

He uses adverbs indicating suddenness of change to accentuate the unexpectedness with which the eternal darkness engulfs us:

Suddenly comes the darkness of night.

(YH18: 4)

In a trice, ten thousand generations are gone,

Rising and sinking again in a thousand years.

(YH74: 9–10)

We reach old age in the space of a breath,

For all our striving, there is always misery and worry.

(YH77: 1–2)[49]

In sum, Juan Chi’s handling of poetic imagery is distinguished by a heavy concentration on the four types of images examined above. Indeed, if we look through Mair’s “Concordance,” we find that these image types, together with other poetic allusions to be discussed later, make up almost the entire pool of Juan Chi’s images. This concentration on a few images and the frequency of their recurrence are not found in any earlier poetical collections of comparable stature. His transformation of these images into symbolic coordinates results from an artistic process in which he subdues their referential meanings and heightens their emotive connotations. His symbolic coordinates effectively call forth a multitude of indeterminate thoughts, feelings, and moods arising from his innermost awareness of human transience. Through his masterly exploitation of poetic indeterminancy, Juan Chi enables us to go beyond crude emotionalism and reflect on the full compass of human transience.

I noted above that Juan Chi dwells on physical frailty—that is, the inevitable dissolution of the human frame. Obviously, he has adopted the central theme of the Han ku-shih, but he broadens it to include the problems of depravity and other social ills. In other words, he dwells upon moral frailties as well. Here he usually focuses on the inconstancy of men in thought and action and in their relationships at different social levels. He exposes this inconstancy through the concrete failings of real historical personages. For instance in his Poem 20, to be discussed later, he alludes to the well-known examples of men’s inconstancy in doctrinal allegiance, in moral commitment, in familial bonds, and in feudal alliances as told in Lieh Tzu, Mo Tzu, and Strategies of the Warring States. Through these allusions he means to criticize conspicuous instances of inconstancy in his own political world: the imminent usurpation of the Wei reign by the Ssu-mas, a powerful family much trusted by the Wei rulers for a long time; and the eagerness of many Wei officials to serve the Ssu-ma clique. He also reflects on the shame of his own inconstancy—his failure to be a Wei loyalist like his friend Hsi K’ang, who dared to stand up against the usurpers at the cost of his life. For Juan Chi, the intrigues and treacheries of the Ssu-ma clique represent the worst kind of human inconstancy, or “venomous malice” (yiian-tu) as he calls it in Poem 13.[50] In the course of scheming to usurp the throne, the Ssu-mas committed numerous heinous acts: the executions of Ts’ao Shuang and Ho Yen in 249, the dethronement of Ts’ao Fang in 254, the decapitation of Hsi K’ang in 262, and so on. As the poet witnessed such cold-blooded atrocities over the years, the terror of death struck ever deeper into his heart. With his own life hanging in the balance, he ceased to bemoan the gradual approach of a natural death as did the authors of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.” Rather, he feared violent death of man’s own making. Indeed, judging by his frequent descriptions of the swift change from glory to disgrace, from wealth to poverty, from light to darkness, or from life to death in a single couplet, we can see that he fears not so much time’s passage as his sudden annihilation through an act of “venomous malice.” He laments human transience not merely as the consequence of man’s physical weakness, but as the result of his moral frailty.

While Juan Chi foregrounds his censure of human inconstancy in a piece like Poem 20, he more often blends his moral and political concerns into the background of his lament over human transience. In most of his poems, it is impossible to identify any specific references to contemporary events. Those who insist on doing so give forced allegorical readings based on the most tenuous of textual grounds. An example is the following interpretation of Poem 5. Liu Lü (1317–1379) reads it as an expression of Juan Chi’s regret over his own early association with the Ssu-mas, and Ch’en Hang (1785–1826) takes the words of the wastrel as a hidden lament over the fall of the Wei.[51] As for Ku Chih, he prefers to identify the wastrel as a satirical image of the licentious emperor Ts’ao Fang (231–74).[52] Without solid textual evidence, all these allegorical readings prove to be nothing more than critical fantasies. They cannot convince the reader because, as Holzman points out, “the poem is not a simple satire to be explained away once and for all by an identification.”[53] Since Juan Chi has linked his social satire so intimately with his lament at human transience in most of his works, it is difficult for us to address this issue without running the risk of reducing his complex works to a series of dry political statements.

Poetic Structure: Two Major Innovations

If Juan Chi’s use of what I call his four coordinates is the first step of his symbolic presentation, his structuring of them as a mental landscape is the second step. Like the first, this step is characterized by his attempts to minimize referential function and maximize the connotative meanings of poetic imagery. When poetic images are arranged in a coherent sequence, they usually guide our attention to a temporal progression of an event or a contiguous order of natural phenomena in the external world, or by extension, to a continuous process of reasoning in the mind of the poet. To suppress this referential function the poet must find ways to cast his images in a nonlinear structure so that the reader can follow multiple, possibly infinite ways of associating them and hence bring into full play their connotative meanings. Using just such an approach, Juan Chi frequently interweaves the four coordinates within two poetic structures seldom seen in earlier pentasyllabic poetry: cyclical structure and discontinuous structure.

Linear and Nonlinear Structures

To accentuate the contrast between the linear structures in earlier pentasyllabic poetry and the nonlinear structures of Juan Chi, let us compare Poem 13 of “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” with Yung-huai, Poem 24.[54] First, a reprise of Poem 13:

I ride my carriage to the Upper East Gate,

Gazing at the graves north of the wall.

White poplars, how they weep in the wind!

Pine and cypress flank the broad paths.

Underneath them, the dead from long ago,

Dark, dark is their long night.

Lost in sleep beneath the Yellow Springs,

Come a thousand years, they will not wake.

Seasons of growth and decay march on and on,

The years allotted to man are like morning dew.

Man’s life is as transient as a sojourn,

His frame is not as firm as metal or stone.

Ten thousand years have gone by,

No sages or worthies could cross the flow of time.

Some seek drugs and hope to become immortals,

Many of them only end their life with poison.

Far better to drink fine wine,

And wear clothes made of choice white silk!

The first half of this poem introduces a succession of images that evoke the contiguous relationship of natural phenomena in a real place identified as “the hill called Pei-mang northeast of the city [Lo-yang, Capital of the Latter Han].”[55] They also trace the temporal process of the speaker, narrowing the focus of his observation from the vistas outside the city gate to the graveyard, to the wood, and by an act of imagination, to the ancient dead beneath the Yellow Springs. In the second half of the poem, a different set of images and concepts—metal and stone, sages and worthies, drugs, poison, and soft white silk—reveal the linear process of syllogistic reasoning. The speaker proceeds from the general condition of man (major premise) to the futility of searching for a cure of human transience (minor premise), and finally, to his own choice of a hedonist lifestyle (conclusion). The structural linearity of this poem resembles that in most literati yüeh-fu and ku-shih works before Juan Chi. In contrast, let us look at Yung-huai, Poem 24:

Intense grief holds my will in check,

2

Timid and subdued, as if in a constant state of alarm.

Before the pleasure of roaming plays out,

4

The red sun suddenly plunges in the west.

The cricket cries by the doorsill,

6

The cicada buzzes in the courtyard.

Without a bonding of our hearts,

8

Who can say that he knows my feelings?

I wish I were a bird amidst the clouds,

10

Flying a thousand miles and uttering a mournful cry.

The three magic mushrooms cover the Isle of Ying,

12

Such distant roaming can prolong one’s life.

(JCCC, 291)

We cannot trace a clearly linear order in this poem. We cannot detect a temporal order of perception because the speaker does not play the role of a spectator who surveys, as in the previous poem, an extended field of vision. Nor can we conceive a contiguous order among the images. The red sun, crickets and cicada, and the magic mushrooms are but loosely strung together. By the same token we cannot find any evidence of a linear reasoning process behind these emotional utterances: “intense grief,” “timid and subdued,” “bonding of our hearts,” “my feelings,” and “I wish.” Here the speaker broods over his emotional state rather than philosophizing about the human condition. By suppressing structural linearity, the poet seeks to break the bondage of determinate referents and to probe deep into his indeterminate thoughts and feelings.

It is important to point out that not every ku-shih or yüeh-fu piece demonstrates as unambiguously linear a structure as Poem 13 does. In fact, in a small number of ku-shih works like some of the parting poems attributed to Li Ling,[56] we actually can discern a nonlinear arrangement of images similar to what we have seen in Yung-huai, Poem 24. But as a rule, nonlinear structures do not become a noteworthy phenomenon until Juan Chi uses them extensively.

Discontinuous Structure

Juan Chi often avails himself of discontinuous structures when he reflects on his own mental conflicts and delivers oblique moral messages. His suppression of linearity is much more thorough in his discontinuous structure than in his cyclical structure. Poem 66 provides a good example:

I cannot travel beyond the Gate of Coldness,

2

Nor can I float on the waters of the sea;

The rays of the sun become invisible,

4

In the darkness there is nothing left to be seen.

Holding a melon, I think of Tung-ling,

6

The yellow bird surely brought shame to itself.

Loss of power occurs in an instant,

8

They walked over my tomb wearing their swords.

I lament the man of the mulberry grove,

10

My tears roll down and cover all my face.

I shall borrow a mount between the Chien and the Wei,

12

Put on my saddle and ride away to roam.

(JCCC, 373)

To follow the development of this poem proves a formidable task. Its structural coherence is virtually nonexistent, with neither contiguous linkage of images, nor temporal order of actions, nor a linear process of reflection. It is practically impossible to see the connection among these actions: “I cannot travel … Nor can I float on the waters … [I hold] a melon … I lament… I shall borrow a mount.…” This radical suppression of structural coherence compels us to direct our attention to the allusive meanings of individual images.

With the aid of classical commentaries, we find that each of these disjointed images leads us to a different world of the past. The “Gate of Coldness” (line 1) seems to come from “Distant Journey,” a poem ascribed to Ch’ü Yuan, which describes his coming to the far end of the world, often identified with the North Pole.[57] The expression “float on the waters of the sea” (line 2) probably originates in Confucius’s Analects, V, 6, in which the Master says, “The Way makes no progress, I shall get on a raft and float out to the sea.”[58] The “melon” and “Tung-ling” (line 5) tell the story of the marquis, a loyalist to the Ch’in dynasty, who refused to serve in a new dynasty and lived a commoner’s life by raising melons.[59] The “yellow bird” (line 6) recalls the story of the yellow birds “who happily play among the trees, not knowing a young sportsman is about to shoot them down with his pellets and spring-action bow.”[60] This story is found in Strategies of the Warring States among a series of fables told by Chuang Hsin to King Hsiang of Ch’u in order to alert him to the dangers of his dissolute life.[61] Line 8 may allude to the fictional story of the Han Emperor Wu’s grave being desecrated by soldiers soon after his death.[62] Finally, the “man of the mulberry grove” (line 9) may refer to an account in The Tso Commentary (Tso chuan), Duke Hsüan, second year, about a man called Ling Ch’e, who was saved by Chao Tun when he was starving to death in a mulberry wood and who later paid his debt of gratitude by risking his own life to help Chao Tim out of a perilous situation.[63] Not until we bring out these allusive meanings can we associate those disparate images in a meaningful manner. Through them we can penetrate the poet’s interior consciousness and follow his brooding over the collapse of moral order, the danger of politics, the impossibility of escape from a corrupt world, and the unquenchable desire for absolute individual freedom.

Juan Chi’s Poem 76 is another case of the thorough suppression of structural linearity:

Where can one learn chariot-driving?

2

Master Tung-yeh lay exhausted by the road side.

The line goes deep and the fish dive deeper in the pool,

4

The arrow is readied and the birds fly high.

Adrift, adrift, I float in a light boat,

6

Riding the waves where the eye cannot see.

Who has ever benefited from mutual praise?

8

Let us forget one another and lose ourselves in the rivers and lakes.

It is hard to put on a charming and coquettish face,

10

To have a composed countenance is my constant wish.

Sung and Wang know the way to prolong one’s years:

12

Vague and nebulous, they live on without an end.

(JCCC, 394)

The links between all but the last couplets pose serious problems for comprehension. We find it practically impossible to relate these images on the ground of temporal sequence, spatial contiguity, or a linear process of reflection: the chariot-driving (lines 1–2), the line-fishing and bird-shooting (lines 3–4), the drifting in a boat (lines 5–6), the freedom of fish in lakes and streams (lines 7–8), and facial looks (lines 9–10). Once again we must forego our habit of linear comprehension and search the subterranean field of allusions for clues to the meanings of the poem.

The “chariot-driving” (line 1) reminds us of a Chuang Tzu fragment about a disciple who one night dreamt about chariot-driving and the next day had its method taught to him by his master, although he had previously tried but failed to learn it from his master for three years. “Tung-yeh” (line 2) is the expert charioteer in Chuang Tzu, chapter 19, or in The Outer Commentary to the Han School Version of the Book of Poetry (Han-shih wai-chuan) who stumbled by the roadside because he drove his horses too fast and overworked them. The “fish” and “birds” (lines 3–4) may be identified with those in Chuang Tzu, chapter 6, which can freely go any place they like. In line 8, the phrase “to lose ourselves in the rivers and lakes” alludes to the fish described in Chuang Tzu, chapter 6, as symbols of individuals freed of any social constraints and obligations.[64] The “mutual praise” (ch’ui-hsii, literally meaning “to breathe out”) on line 7 appears to be a borrowing from Lao Tzu, and the “vague and nebulous” (huang-hu) to be the very word used to describe the mystical vagueness of the Tao in Lao Tzu, chapter 21.[65]

Numerous as they are, these allusions to Chuang Tzu and Lao Tzu are by no means a simple, linear enumeration of Taoist views. Intertwined with allusions to other non-Taoist texts, they acquire new contex-tualized meanings that differ from or even contradict those of the two Taoist classics.[66] For instance, the “fish” and “birds” (lines 3–4) occur as the likely targets of the fishing line and the dart, even though in Chuang Tzu they signify uninhibited freedom. So entering this labyrinth of images and allusions, we will not find any determinate meanings enabling us to disentangle the poem’s Taoist, Confucian, and mystic elements. Instead, we will remain in the vortex of feelings and thoughts stemming from Juan Chi’s brooding over the danger of politics, the impossibility of escape, social obligation, individual freedom, personal integrity, and the esoteric pursuit of longevity.

Cyclical Structure

While Juan Chi adopts a discontinuous structure for conveying his oblique moral messages and his mental conflicts, he opts for a cyclical structure when he dwells upon general human conditions. His cyclical structure manifests the process of a speaker brooding over certain feelings and thoughts, struggling to find psychological relief through symbolic projections, then reverting to those feelings and thoughts. We can observe this tripartite, cyclical development in Yung-huai, Poem 16:

I pace back and forth on the shores of P’eng Lake,

2

Turning around to look toward Ta-liang.

The green water tosses up great waves,

4

The vast plains stretch far and wide.

Scurrying animals cross the paths of one another,

6

Flying birds soar, one after another.

The stars of the Quail now make their appearance,

8

The sun and moon face each other in the sky.

The north wind sharpens the biting cold,

10

The chill air sends down a thin frost.

A sojourner, I am without a companion;

12

Sorrow and pain torment me as I look around.

The mean man chalks up his merits,

14

The superior man follows the way of constancy.

I do not regret being weary and careworn at the end,

16

And so I sing out my feelings here, in this verse.

(JCCC, 270)

At the beginning of the poem the speaker observes his own restless actions: “I pace to and fro … Turn around to gaze.…”[67] The middle contains a series of projections of the speaker’s melancholia into different aspects of nature: green water and wide plains; the scurrying animals and flying birds; the wintry stars, sun, and moon; the northern wind and dank air. Such images are not, as I have said earlier, organized along a linear process of description or narration. When the poet casts his images into self-contained couplets, he merely aims to set forth the gloomy moods of an alienated soul. To end the poem, the poet lets this alienated speaker describe his emotional state in explicit terms: his loneliness, his sorrow and pain, and his belief in moral constancy. For another example of cyclical structure, let us turn to Poem 61:

When I was a youth I learned to wield a sword,

2

My swordsmanship surpassed that of the Marquis of Ch’ü-ch’eng.

My heroic spirit soared through the clouds,

4

My reputation resounds beyond all bounds.

I brandished my sword at the edge of the desert,

6

And watered my horse on the fringes of the world.

How my flags fluttered in the wind!

8

I could hear nothing but the sound of gongs and drums

But warfare makes one feel sad;

10

So intense is the sorrow in my heart!

Thinking on the time of my youth,

12

I am filled with bitter regret.

(JCCC, 365)

The speaker begins by reminiscing about his youth and ends by returning to his reminiscence. This return signifies the formation of a cyclical, self-perpetuating process of introspection·. However, within this cyclical frame we do not find a clear temporal progression. There are no adverbs of time or other words indicative of a chronological order.

Cyclical structure appears more frequently than discontinuous structure in Juan Chi’s poems; we can find it in twenty-one poems.[68] It is particularly like Juan Chi to begin a poem with stylized, emotion-revealing acts or explicit descriptions of emotional conditions. Then he usually ushers in spatial or temporal manifestations of the emotions adumbrated by the beginning lines and concludes with the speaker’s scrutiny of his own feelings. We can also analyze this cyclical structure in terms of his four coordinates. What constitute a poem’s beginning and end are his third coordinate (emotion-revealing acts) and/or his fourth coordinate (emotive words). What make up the poem’s middle part are his first coordinate (temporal images) and/or his second coordinate (plants and animals).

Linear Coherence in Cyclical Structure

Juan Chi’s cyclical structure demonstrates a higher degree of coherence than his discontinuous structure. However, this coherence is essentially different from the linear structures in ku-shih and yüeh-fu works. We have already noted that Juan Chi’s cyclical structure does not lead us to any fixed referent—a locale, a course of action, or a conclusion drawn from reasoning. It is merely the order in which the poet transmutes his internal world into poetic symbols. More often than not, it effectively cuts off any linear development toward determinate resolution and turns a poem into a prolonged brooding over feelings and thoughts. To accentuate the fundamental difference between Juan Chi’s cyclical structure and the linear structures in yüeh-fu and ku-shih, let us revisit Yung-huai, Poems 16 and 61 and compare them respectively with “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems,” Poem 13 and Ts’ao Chih’s “White Horse.”

The first point of difference concerns spatial contiguity of descriptive images in the middle part of a poem. In Poem 13 the speaker brings his images into a contiguous pattern that reflects the topological features of a real place. The images of silver poplar, pine, and cypress, and the ancient dead strike us as realistic details depicting the speaker’s observation of an actual place, the Pei-mang graveyard. Conversely, the speaker in Yung-huai, Poem 16 casts his images into somewhat self-contained couplets which do not form a contiguous pattern indicative of a coherent external scene, although they are still contiguous in the broadest sense. As a result the image clusters—green water and wide plains, scurrying animals and flying birds—impress us as symbolic projections of his pained inner landscape.

The second point of difference concerns the temporal order in the middle sections of the poems. In “White Horse” Ts’ao Chih portrays a heroic figure not unlike the youthful Juan Chi—an equestrian knight-errant. In order to capture the knight’s character Ts’ao Chih takes special care to present him performing a rapid series of acts on horseback (lines 9–14). Through a masterly control of temporal progression Ts’ao Chih successfully transforms his warrior into a living example of brilliant horsemanship, unconquerable heroism, and unswerving loyalty to the country. Although the poet blends into this portrait his own ideals and sentiments, there is no mistaking that he depicts the warrior in earnest and, aesthetically speaking, creates an ideal but nonetheless believeable image. In Yung-huai, Poem 61 the speaker presents different episodes from his military life in a vague temporal order that shows how little he cares about their actual sequence. This prevents us from treating the episodes as a story and compels us to envisage them instead as a symbolic presentation of the poet’s feelings and thoughts. What concerns Juan Chi is his complex emotional state, not the biographical details of his life. Such a symbolization of narrative elements is typical of the portrayal of human characters in Juan Chi’s yung-huai poems. If we look at his treatment of Chiao-fu of Cheng in Poem 2, the wastrel in Poem 5, An-ling and Lungyang in Poem 12, the beautiful woman in Poem 19, the seductive lady in Poem 27, the heroic warrior in Poem 39, the wealth-scorning elder in Poem 59, the Confucian moralist in Poem 60, and the Confucian ritualist in Poem 67, we see that Juan Chi does not delineate these characters for their own sake, but as symbolic expressions of his own thoughts and feelings. It is his shift from the narrative to the lyrical that leads to the weakening of temporal order in these poems.

The third point of difference concerns the endings of the poems. In “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems,” Poem 13, the ending is the culmination of a process of outward observation and inward reflection. When a ku-shih speaker reaches the end of a poem, he is sure to have completed his self-scrutiny and gained a measure of emotional relief. Thus he normally steps out of his world of emotional experience at this point to philosophize about human fate or to contemplate his future. In both Yung-huai, Poems 16 and 61 the ending does not mark the end but rather a return to the beginning of an ongoing emotional process. When the speaker in Poem 61 concludes, he does not move from his personal life to the generality of human existence, nor does he try to pull himself out of his present sorrow and look for a practical solution. Instead, he returns to the emotions that stimulated the poem in the first place—a regretful reminiscence on his youthful days on the battlefield.

If we closely examine the endings of Juan Chi’s. poems, we find textual elements that confirm the poet’s retrogressive and retrospective thrust. The unusually large number of first-person pronouns (wo and wu) and emotive words indicate his habitual return to his own emotional experience. He employs the first personal pronoun wo in as many as fourteen poems.[69] In most of his endings he uses emotive words and phrases profusely, but seldom employs non-emotive, philosophical statements like those in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.” Seventeen of his yung-huai poems end with the speakers explicitly describing their sorrows and grief.[70] Unlike their counterparts in yüeh-fu and ku-shih, they do not speak to someone else, pledge their loyalty, or hope for the same from the addressee in return. Instead, these speakers almost always speak to themselves about their emotional state in the first person singular:

This barrenness comes from the Shang mode,

Desolation and sorrow break my heart.

(YH9: 11–12)

Only the art of prolonging life

Can console my heart

(YH10: 9–10)

I reverently look toward the pines on Ching Mountain,

For they can soothe my feelings.

(YH18:13–14)

Oppressed with this doubt, I am so perplexed

That I remain hesitant for a long time.

(YH41: 15–16)

All these self-effacing and circuitous manners—

Such an appearance makes me sick at heart.

(YH67: 13–14)[71]

The abundance of rhetorical questions also indicates his final introspective thrust. Thirty-five poems end with the speakers posing rhetorical questions to themselves.[72] Many of these represent hopeless sighs at the speaker’s futile attempts to relieve his dejection and heartbreak:

What great sorrow I feel for the yellow birds!

Tears trickle down my face, and who can stop them?

(YH11: 11–12)

The road to power leads to failure as well as success,

Alas! How can one travel on that road for long?

(YH25: 9–10)

Throughout my life I have been treading on thin ice,

Who knows that my heart is on fire?

(YH33: 11–12)

I wipe my tears and my heart is filled with grief,

To whom can I tell my bitter sorrow?

(YH37: 7–8)

Other rhetorical questions, especially those begun by the question-words ch’i and yen, express Juan Chi’s complex thoughts about the ways to overcome human transience advocated by different philosophies:

If one seeks to be virtuous, so will one become;

Why should I again sigh and moan?

(YH13: 9–10)

How can this compare with the abandonment of senses?

Ascend to a distant place and cast away all your sorrow!

(YH28: 17–18)

In the lofty mountains there is a singing crane,

How could I go and seek after it?

(YH47: 7–8)[73]

These rhetorical questions, unlike those in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems,” are not intended to facilitate a fixed reflective process marked by a rejection of fame and the elixir of immortality on the one hand and an advocacy of hedonism on the other. On the contrary, they reflect the poet’s wavering between Confucian, Taoist, and mystical theories of life. When a rhetorical question expresses a belief, a doubt, or a denial, it is normally overturned in the same or an adjacent poem by another statement or rhetorical question expressing the opposite attitude. For example, if read together, the rhetorical questions cited above reveal indecision and tension and conflicts rather than resolution in the mind of the poet.

In sum, Juan Chi’s endings are distinguished from those of yüeh-fu and ku-shih by the disappearance of a person addressed, by the inward turning of the speaker, by the shift from intellectual to emotional processes, and by the shift from a single to conflicting views of life. These unique features of Juan Chi’s poetic closure bespeak not only the state but the causes of the poet’s lonesome introspectiveness. As Yoshikawa Köjirö points out, the disappearance of a person to whom the poet can unbosom his heart attests to the poet’s loss of trust in his fellow human beings in a world ruled by slander, betrayal, and treachery.[74] His inability to commit himself to any single doctrine of life reflects his disillusionment with all human claims of permanent meaning. It is because of such a loss of faith in human constancy both in action and thought that he decides to withdraw into his innermost world. In the final analysis, Juan Chi’s poetic endings are the woeful lamentations of a lonesome soul completely alienated from the world.

Intertextual Relationship: Four Types of Allusion

In traditional Chinese poetics intertextual relationships are normally discussed in terms of allusions in two broadly defined categories: revelation of original sources (ch’u ch’u) and use of historical or pseudo-historical occurrences (yung-shih). The first category comprises textual allusions, which explicitly use images or diction from earlier texts. The second category consists of historical allusions, which describe figures or events in the historical or fictional past without directly using materials from earlier texts.[75] Juan Chi is the first Chinese pentasyllabic poet to make extensive use of various kinds of poetic allusions. He not only uses textual and historical allusions, but he also frequently blends them into each other. Some of his textual allusions carry subtle hints about historical figures or events and, to be accurate, may be called textual-historical allusions. Some of his historical allusions, especially those given with details, evoke the historical texts in which certain historical figures or events were first described. Such allusions may be appropriately called historical-textual allusions.[76]

Three of Juan Chi’s four types of allusion entail an active play of indeterminacy. This play distinguishes his use of allusions from his predecessors’ handling of intertextual materials. Probably owing to the influence of formulaic expressions in the oral traditions, the pentasyllabic poets before Juan Chi frequently repeat an entire line or even several lines from earlier poems. Such a verbatim or quasi-verbatim repetition establishes a determinate relationship between the present text and an earlier text and hence delimits the scope of intertextual association. Juan Chi seldom quotes an entire line from an earlier poem. Instead, he merely borrows isolated words and images and knits them into intricate patterns of allusion. This “elliptic” yet integrative use of allusion creates an indeterminate intertextual relationship, where the present text and the earlier text(s) are no longer linked explicitly but are associated through correspondence or contrast in emotional tones or moral significance.

Juan Chi’s dexterous interweaving of allusions intensifies the play of indeterminacy and generates four kinds of aesthetic responses: multiplication of imagistic associations in his textual allusions, interplay of literal scene and imaginary vision in textual-historical allusions, simple substitution of historical figures or events for abstract concepts in historical allusions, and evocation of conflicting thoughts and sentiments in historical-textual allusions.

Textual Allusion

To demonstrate Juan Chi’s textual allusions, there probably is no better example than Yung-huai, Poem 1, the most frequently studied and anthologized of his poems. What has fascinated critics for centuries is its depth of thought and feeling, and its haunting indeterminacies. To plumb its secret meanings critics have tried various methods of reading. Lü Yen-chi (fl. 700) and Lü Hsiang (fl. 720) sought to make a political allegory out of the poem. They identified the nocturnal scene with the then dark political realities, the lonely bird with loyàl officials estranged from the court, and swooping birds with the powerful, scheming courtiers.[77] Ho Cho (1661–1722) derided all those who attempted to assign fixed meanings, allegorical or otherwise, to the poem and thereby do violence to its integrity and complexity. He argued that “Juan Chi’s sad thoughts are those of a man for whom life is too much. How can commentators figure out what the poet means?”[78] Many critics assume that Juan Chi intended this poem as an introduction to a coherent sequence of eighty-two poems. Others, like Wu Ju-lun (1840–1903), see these poems as the work of an entire lifetime rather than a planned series written at one time, and strongly argues against any particular order among them.[79] When Donald Holzman examines these contending views, he tries to develop a balanced view on this issue. While he sees little reason to impose a preconceived scheme onto the collection, he believes that Yung-huai, Poem 1 serves as “a truly fitting introduction to the entire series”[80] because its excellent blend of personal melancholy and universal Weltschmerz captures the spirit of the collection as a whole. Now let us look at the poem itself:

It is far into the night and I cannot sleep,

2

I sit up to strum my melodious zither.

Thin curtains diffuse the bright moonlight;

4

A pure wind blows against my lapels.

A lone goose cries in yonder wilderness,

6

A gliding bird calls in the northern wood.

I pace back and forth: when shall I see you again?

8

Worry and anxiety break my heart.

(JCCC, 210)

If we were unfamiliar with the poetic tradition before Juan Chi, we would more than likely lose sight of the complex, ambiguous thoughts and feelings hidden behind this deceptively simple poem. We would doubtless wonder if the traditional Chinese critics were making a mountain out of a molehill when they hotly debated the significance of this poem. However, having examined the pentasyllabic tradition before Juan Chi, we easily note that this poem stands out from earlier pentasyllabic poems in two respects. The images strike us as different, being but loosely brought together and not strictly convincing as a realistic description. A cursory look at the classical commentaries will corroborate this initial impression. For centuries critics seldom discussed those images as descriptive of an actual scene, but instead interpreted them as symbolic of the poet’s state of mind.

As we pore over the classical commentaries on Yung-huai, Poem 1, we discover many textual allusions. In fact all of its eight lines are inspired by images and diction from pentasyllabic poems written by Juan Chi’s immediate predecessors, a coterie of highly self-conscious, accomplished poets. Lines 1 and 2 allude to insomniac scenes:

Alone at night I cannot sleep;

I take up my robes and strum my zither.

(Wang Ts’an, “Seven Sorrows, No. 2”: 13–14, HCHW, 366)

In the quiet night I cannot sleep;

And listen to myriad birds twittering.

(Ts’ao Jui, “Ballad to a Long Song”: 1–2, HCHW, 415)

Anxious and sad, I cannot sleep,

Grasping my robe, I rise to pace back and forth.

(“Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems,” Poem 19: 3–4, KSSCS, 27)

If the textual allusions in the two opening lines are obtrusive or even somewhat formulaic, those in the ensuing lines become more subtle. In line 3, the image of the “bright moonlight” (ming-yüeh) dancing on the bed curtains evokes the first two lines from the last of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems”: “How bright, bright the shining moon; / Casting its light on my bed curtains” (KSSCS, 27). In line 4, the first two characters “pure wind” (ch’ing-feng) allude to this line by Liu Chen: “The pure wind is chilling and cold”;[81] the last three characters “blow against my chest” (ch’ui wo chin) come from P’o Ch’in’s (d. 218) long poem “Calming Emotions”: “A chilling wind blows against my breast” (line 54, HCHW, 386). In lines 5 and 6, the images of “a lone goose” (ku-hung) and “gliding birds” (hsiang-niao) recalls “birds flying around their ‘old forest”‘(Wang Ts’an)[82] or ‘a swallow who has lost its flock’ (Ts’ao Jui),[83] and ‘solitary wild goose, swooping alone towards the south’ (Ts’ao Chih).”[84] Like the beginning couplet, the final two lines hark back to an entire couplet in an early text: “Its [wild goose] shape and shadow suddenly flies out of sight, / Beating, beating its wings—wounding my heart” (Ts’ao Chih, “Miscellaneous Poems,” No. 1, TCCC, 251). But here traces of textual allusion all but disappear. The poet does not explicitly use images and diction of an earlier text as he does in the preceding lines. He simply recasts elements of Ts’ao Chih’s couplet into one of his own:

I pace back and forth: when shall I see you again?

Worry and anxiety break my heart.

With this implicit allusion, the poet drops a hint of the otherwise unno-ticeable connection between the description of bird-flight in lines 5–6 and the upsurge of sad thoughts in the final two lines.

With each of these textual allusions, Juan Chi brings heightened emotional overtones to his poem. The insomniac scenes (lines 1–2) evoke the sense of loneliness and despair felt by Wang Ts’an during his flight from Ch’ang-an to Ching-chou, the painful feelings of separation in Ts’ao Jui’s ballad, and the homeward thoughts in the last of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.” The image of “bright moon” (line 3) carries associations with the contemplative mood in the last of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.” The “pure wind” (line 4) conveys the acute sensation of cold and desolation compellingly described by Liu Chen and P’o Ch’in. The “lone goose” and “gliding birds” (lines 5–6) capture the moments of emotive empathy with the homing birds in the poems of Wang Ts’an, Ts’ao P’i, and Ts’ao Jui. The disappearance of the flying birds (lines 7–8) imparts the poignant sense of loss that permeates Ts’ao Chih’s miscellaneous poems.

As the textual allusions set up these emotional resonances for the reader, they appear to be less referential detail depicting an external scene than emotive subtexts leading us into bygone worlds of thought and feeling. Consequently our experience of reading Yung-huai, Poem 1 is not a simple linear process of external observation or abstract reasoning. Rather it is a reciprocal or multi-directional process of intertextual association, a process that enables us to explore different nuances of feeling stemming the gamut of human difficulties depicted in various earlier texts.

Textual-Historical Allusion

From earlier works Juan Chi also chooses textual elements bound up with certain historical events or figures. More often than not, these elements carry not only the emotive charge of the earlier texts but also the moral messages pertaining to historical events depicted. Poem 11 is a case in point:

Deep, deep flow the waters of the Yang-tze,

2

With a wood of maple trees growing on their banks.

Swamp orchids grow wild over the paths,

4

Black coursers go galloping, galloping.

Gazing off into the distance makes me sad,

6

A breath of spring air touches my heart.

The three regions of Ch’u boast many refined men,

8

Who were nonetheless led to debauchery by Chao-yiin!

Red flowers sent forth their pleasant fragrance,

10

In Kao-ts’ai the king and his retinue pursued pleasures.

What great sorrow I feel for the yellow birds!

12

Tears trickle down my face, and who can stop them?

(JCCC, 251)

These images are drawn from three earlier texts, Sung Yü’s (ca. 290 B.C.–c. 223 B.C.) poem “Summoning the Soul” and “Kao-t’ang Rhapsody,” and Strategies of the Warring States. “Deep, deep” (chan-chan) and “[river] waters” ([chiang] s hui) in line 1, “Above them” (shang-yu) and “maple” if eng) in line 2, all but the last character in line 3, “black courser” (ch’ing-li) in line 4, “Gazing afar” (yiian-wang) in line 5, and “spring” (ch’un) and “touches my heart” (kan wo-hsin) in line 6 are all taken almost word for word from the ending passage of Sung Yü’s “Summoning the Soul”:

Black coursers come in teams of four,

With one thousand chariots.…

Swamp orchids grow wild over the paths,

Submerged in water hither and thither,

Deep, deep flow the river’s waters,

with maple trees growing above them.

The eye extends its gaze over one thousand li,

and the heart fills with pain on a spring day.[85]

(Lines 261–262; 275–280)

“Chao-yün” in line 8 is the famous nymph whom Sung Yü depicts in his “Kao-t’ang Rhapsody” and whose name later became a euphemism for sexual intercourse. The city of “Kao-ts’ai” in line 10 and the “yellow bird” in line 11 both come from “Ch’u Strategies 4,” in Strategies of the Warring States, where Chuang Hsin tries to persuade King Hsiang of Ch’u to give up his dissolute lifestyle.[86] To warn King Hsiang of the perils awaiting a self-indulgent king, he proceeds from the fable of yellow birds, to the death of the debauched King of Ts’ai (Ts’ai Sheng-hou) and finally to the doom of King Hsiang himself.

These images in Yung-huai, Poem 11 may be rightly called textual-historical allusions, as they perform a truly two-fold function. On the one hand they generate emotive subtexts, as do the textual allusions in Poem 1. The river, maple woods, swampy road, and marsh orchids in lines 1–6 all impart the melancholic air suffusing the end of Sung Yü’s “Summoning the Soul.” The description of licentious living in lines 8–11 echoes the satirical and didactic voices in the fables from Strategies of the Warring States. On the other hand they also recapture different historical events described in “Summoning the Soul,” “Kao-t’ang Rhapsody,” and Strategies of the Warring States, and display an unusual degree of interre-latedness in terms of moral significance. First, they all contain didactic stories connected with the state of Ch’u. Second, they all involve admonitions addressed to a Ch’u king by a loyal minister. Like “Kao-t’ang Rhapsody” and Strategies of the Warring States, “Summoning the Soul” describes how a loyal minister by the name of Luan urges his king to return from his hunting expedition.[87] Third, they all include court excursions described disapprovingly by loyal ministers for the purpose of exposing the extravagance of the king’s court.

The textual-historical allusions in Yung-huai, Poem 11 facilitate an aesthetic movement quite different from that generated by the textual allusions in Poem 1. They afford us aesthetic experience not only through a multiplication of moods, but also through an interplay between the literal and the allusive. The poem seems at first sight a literal description of the Yangtze River: deep-flowing waters, maple woods, swampy roads, and marsh orchids along the banks. For an informed reader, however, these images soon lead into worlds of thought and feeling’ in earlier texts, and through these association historical scenes fraught with moral significance emerge. These historical scenes are also a commentary on the moral conditions of the contemporary world, because corruption and dynastic collapse were the most serious political problems in Juan Chi’s time, as they were in the time of King Hsiang. A great many traditional critics spare no effort to relate every historical occurrence suggested by these allusions to contemporary politics. Liu Lü points out the parallels between the debaucheries of King Hsiang and those of Emperor Ming (Ts’ao Jui, 204–239) and Ts’ao Fang, the dethroned emperor. For their part, Ho Cho, Chiang Shih-yüeh, Ch’en Hang and Tseng Kuo-fan (18111872) take the fables of the profligate Ts’ai Sheng-hou and the yellow birds to be a hidden lament over the fall of the Wei kingdom.[88]

What interests us here is, of course, not the potential for allegori-zation but the aesthetic “refocus” between the present and the past, literal and allusive, visual and imaginary realms. With this refocusing, we experience a virtual transcendence of time and place and enter a world of symbolism. The coalescence of the literal and allusive in Poem 11 seems to be the first of its kind in Chinese poetry. Yet it already demonstrates a measure of sophistication that approximates Tu Fu’s use of global allusions “capable of generating a new level of meaning for the entire poem as well as serving as an organizing principle.”[89]

Historical Allusion

Alongside the aesthetic efficacy of textual allusions and textual-historical allusions, historical allusions pale into insignificance. Of our four kinds of allusions, the latter are the least operative in Juan Chi’s poetry. Lacking textual resonance, they can do little more than communicate generalized knowledge of the past. We come across them only when Juan Chi cites the names of the best-known historical figures:

If not an immortal like Wang-tzu Chin,

Who can keep his youthful radiance forever?

(YH4: 9–10)

I would like to climb up T’ai-hua Mountain

And roam over there with Sung-tzu;

(YH32: 13–14)

Look at Master Chuang Chou [who asked]

How can the blooming or withering of one’s fortune be depended on?

(YH38: 7–8)

Alas, the aspiration of Father Confucius!

Why did he wish to live among the nine barbarian tribes?

(YH40: 15–16)

These four allusions function mainly as nominal substitutions. “Father Confucius” stands for a way of life that aims at achieving everlasting fame through moral virtue, accomplishments and writing; “Master Chuang Chou” symbolizes a way of life that promises individual freedom and inner transcendence of worldly cares; “Wang-tzu Chin” and “Ch’ih-sung Tzu” both signify a life oriented toward transcending corporeal existence and obtaining immortality in a celestial paradise. Because these historical allusions scarcely interact with other images, unlike the textual allusions discussed earlier, they may best be viewed as substitutive metaphors.

Historical-Textual Allusion

In introducing historical events and personages, Juan Chi often alludes to early texts through which those historical events and personages have been made known to us. As compared with the other three types of allusions, historical-textual ones bear a more complex relationship to the text proper. They may serve to illustrate or to contradict the apparent meaning of the text proper, depending on how they are incorporated into it. Normally they perform an illustrative function as in the case of Yung-huai, Poem 20:

Yang Chu wept at a fork in the road,

2

Mo Tzu grieved over the dyeing of silk.[90]

There are courteous bowings before a long separation,

4

But those who have flown are difficult to see again.

These failings not only plague tender feelings,

6

But also affect matters of life and death.

Doleful desolation is what saddens men,

8

Calamity is what men cannot avoid.

The woman of Chao seduced Chung-shan,

10

Humble and soft, she was cheated all the more.[91]

Alas, for a man on the road,

12

What can be done to preserve oneself?

(JCCC, 282)

In this poem there are allusions to two famous philosophers and a fair princess of antiquity. Juan Chi does not merely cite the names of these figures as he does in historical allusions, but he also tells their stories as recorded in early texts. These three historical-textual allusions are linked together by the idea of an inconstant human nature. The story of Yang Chu demonstrates inconstancy in doctrinal allegiance and in the master-disciple relationship, the story of Mo Tzu, an inconstancy in moral commitment, and the story of the princess, an inconstancy in the relationship between brother and sister and between kingdoms. While the allusions underscore these instances of moral inconstancy, the text proper emphasizes the harsh physical conditions of men: physical separation from loved ones (lines 3–4), and the difficulty of preserving one’s life (lines 6–8, 11–12). This interplay between allusions and the text proper produces an aesthetic effect not too different from that of the textual allusions in Yung-huai, Poem 1. But where the allusions in that poem convey the subtle shades and nuances of sorrow, the allusions here make the notion of human failings keenly felt through tangible examples at different points in history.

If historical-textual allusions involve a controversial historical figure or event and are organized in an ambiguous poetic structure, they can convey the poet’s conflicting thoughts on a particular issue. This seems to hold true for the allusions in Yung-huai, Poem 6:

I have long heard of Tung-ling’s melons,

2

Growing just outside the Green Gate.

Footpaths connect the four borders of the fields,

4

Like babes and mothers, large and small melons hold fast to each other on their vines.

Their five colors sparkle in the morning sun,

6

Honorable guests gather here from the four quarters.

A lamp’s oil is consumed by its own flames,

8

Great wealth brings on calamity.

One can live out one’s life as a plain-clothed commoner,

10

How can one depend on favors and remunerations!

(JCCC, 229)

The central allusion of this poem concerns the brief biography, told in The Records of the Grand Historian, of Shao Ping, Marquis of Tung-ling under the Ch’in. Shao Ping refused to serve the new dynasty that had overrun the Ch’in and willingly lived a commoner’s life raising melons outside Ch’ang-an. Shao P’ing’s retirement from court, though often lauded as an exemplary act of loyalty, is by no means beyond question. The fact that he retreated no further than to the land under the shadow of the Green Gate suggests that he could not tear himself away from the capital after all. Here Juan Chi exploits this ambivalence. He projects Shao P’ing not as a commoner who has severed his social bonds but as a man of considerable means who enjoys the society of fine guests from different parts of the country. Indeed, the images of overcrowded fields (line 3), the clusters of melons (line 4), and the bright colors of the scene (line 5) convey little sense of the peace and solitude characteristic of the life of a recluse. On the contrary, these images suggest a hectic social existence. The ensuing couplet may reveal even more about Juan Chi’s opinion of Shao P’ing:

A lamp’s oil is consumed by its own flames,

Great wealth brings on calamity.

Since this couplet unequivocally spells out the perils of fame, talent, and wealth, some critics have taken it as the culmination of Juan Chi’s subtle lamentation at Shao P’ing’s incomplete withdrawal from the dangerous world of wealthy society. Ch’iu Kuang-t’ing (T’ang dynasty?) writes:

[The poem] means to say that Shao has not gone far enough to raise his melons. Because his melons are grown so close to the Green Gate and because they display such bright colors and strongly appeal to the palate, they unavoidably end up being devoured by men. So Juan Chi writes, “their five colors sparkle in the morning sun / Honorable guests gather here from the four quarters. / A lamp’s oil is consumed by its own flames, / Great wealth brings on calamity.’ What Juan Chi means is that if in times of chaos a man reveals his talents and stands out from other people, he will fall victim to his time, just as fine-looking melons and the oil in a lamp bring about their own destruction.[92]

However, if we follow Ch’iu Kuang-t’ing in interpreting Juan Chi’s allusion to Shao P’ing in the negative sense, we are hard put to account for the fourth couplet, which unmistakably echoes the traditional praise of the Marquis’s becoming a plain-clothed commoner. Conversely, if we concur with other critics like Shen Yüeh (441–513), Liu Liang (fl. 720), and Liu Lü, and consider this allusion an unreserved eulogy of Shao P’ing,[93] we find it equally difficult to explain why Juan Chi breaks into a mournful lament in the third couplet. Depending on whether they take this allusion as a positive or negative portrayal of Shao P’ing, traditional Chinese critics tend to regard the third or fourth couplet as a structural discontinuity that interferes with their interpretation of the poem as a whole. More often than not, they choose to ignore or explain away that discontinuity, seeking to dissolve the tension resulting from Juan Chi’s ambivalent attitude toward this controversial historical figure. In my opinion, the structurally discontinuous couplet (be it couplet 3 or 4) is not a compositional fault, nor is its resulting tension an undesirable effect. Quite the contrary. It is through the tension arising from this ambiguity that we can experience the poet’s conflict over his yearning for and doubts about an escape like Shao P’ing’s.

Three Philosophies of Life: Constancy and Inconstancy

Before closing this chapter I would like to investigate Juan Chi’s conflicting attitudes toward Confucianism, hedonism, and Taoism. In the foregoing sections I have observed how Juan Chi vacillates between belief and disbelief, affirmation and negation, ardent praise and relentless ridicule, as he ponders the significance of these three philosophies. I believe Juan Chi swings back and forth between these contradictory attitudes because he finds both constancy and inconstancy in all these philosophies.

He eulogizes the Confucian way of life because he discerns the virtue of moral constancy in exemplary Confucians: the steadfast gentleman in Yung-huai, Poem 18, the two stalwart warriors in Poems 38 and 39, and the poverty-stricken scholar in Poem 60. He expresses his profound admiration of these Confucian heroes by using the word ch’ang (constancy) to describe their moral character (Poems 39, 14) and their adherence to the Way (Poems 16, 14), and by comparing their steadfastness to the evergreen pine tree (Poems 18, 13). Moreover, he applauds the greatest reward for these Confucian heroes—a glorious name as constant and eternal as heaven and earth (Poems 38:11–12; 39:11–14).

At the same time, he questions the Confucian philosophy of life because he sees that two of the worst kinds of inconstancy often arise with the Confucian pursuit of fame: hypocrisy and treachery. In this regard he ridicules the false moral appearance assumed by Confucian ritualists like the Ssu-ma clique (Poem 67) and denounces the malicious schemes they adopt in their pursuits of “glory and fame” (jung-ming). He calls them contemptible “mean men” (hsiao-jen) in Poem 16, “glib-tongued men” (kung yen tzu) in Poem 25, “spineless sycophants” in Poem 53, “slanderers” (ch’an-fu) in Poem 56, and “bewitching seducers” (yao chi) in Poem 64. In view of their evil deeds, he believes that glory and fame are anything but constant and eternal as many Confucians say. Since glory and fame evaporate once one’s body is gone, he declares in Poems 8, 15, and 30 that they are worthless.

Juan Chi shows a far less ambivalent attitude toward hedonism. Even though he was as great a drunkard as T’ao Ch’ien, he never depicts drunkenness positively as T’ao Ch’ien does in his “Twenty Drinking Poems.” It is out of question for him to celebrate wine drinking, the cardinal activity of a Chinese hedonist, as T’ao Ch’ien does in his “Shadow, Shape, Spirit.”[94] Juan Chi mentions wine only a few times, mainly in the context of grieving rather than merrymaking. Given the prominence of wine-drinking in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” as a symbolic act of carpe diem, the disappearance of joyful wine drinking in Juan Chi’s poetry becomes all the more noteworthy. It seems to betoken the poet’s rejection of hedonism as a solution to the misery of human life. Even if he is not personally above hedonistic pursuits, he unequivocally disapproves them in his poetical works. He presents the most uncomplimentary images of a spendthrift in Yung-huai, Poem 5, a roaming youth in Poem 10, and an urban profligate in Poem 27. Instead of depicting their acts of merrymaking, he shows them repenting the waste of their youth and fortune, lamenting the sudden onset of aging, and groping for a new way of life. His depiction stands in sharp contrast to the sympathetic portrayal of fortune-seeking wanderers in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.” Juan Chi resoundingly rejects carpe diem as a cure for man’s sorrow over the inconstancy or evanescence of his physical existence.

Juan Chi’s attitude toward Taoism is as ambivalent as his attitude toward Confucianism. On the one hand, he glorifies the Taoist way of life because of its promise of physical immortality. He uses the word chen (real, authentic) to characterize the physical immortality to be achieved by religious Taoists. He tells how one can retain the original state of chen by leading a simple farming life in Poem 34, how one can attain chen by retiring from the political world and becoming a hermit like Tung-yüan Kung, Ch’i-li, or Lao Tzu in Poem 42,[95] and how one can taste “the reality of Tao “(too chih chen) by following men of antiquity and living a desireless, impoverished life in harmony with nature in Poem 74. Chuang Tzu, chapter 31, elucidates chen as follows:

Chen is what one receives from heaven; it becomes itself by itself (tzu-jan) and is not subject to change. For this reason, a sage models himself on heaven and treasures chen and is not bounded by worldly customs.[96]

For Chuang Tzu, a man with his chen intact is a spirit-like man “who mounts on (the ether of) heaven and earth in its normal operation, and rides the six elemental energies of the changing (seasons), thus enjoying himself in the illimitable.”[97] Although this passage of Chuang Tzu may be nothing more than a metaphorical description of one’s intuitive union with the entire universe, later religious Taoists took it as a literal description of the transformation of a mortal into a celestial being and sought to achieve such a transformation of their own bodies through alchemy, breathing exercises, and other occult methods. Heavily influenced by these religious Taoists, Juan Chi comes to espouse this kind of “physical immortality” as the ultimate promise of Taoism. He not only writes his famous “Biography of the Great Man” to set out in the minutest detail the celestial features of a Taoist immortal, but also delineates a host of Taoist immortals in his poems. As he describes the life of these immortals, he expresses his desire to master their art of extending life forever (Poems 10, 40, 76); to obtain their magic drug of longevity (Poems 24, 41); to taste the fruits they gather from celestial trees (Poem 43); to enjoy their freedom from all human cares and woes (Poem 28); to share the bliss of heavenly repose (Poem 23); and, above all, to roam the entire universe together with great immortals like Hsien-men Tzu, Ch’ih-sung Tzu, and Wang-tzu Ch’iao (Poem 81). However, no matter how Juan Chi imagines himself joining the company of immortals and relieving his innermost sorrows, he always comes back to the realization that he can never confirm the existence of immortals, let alone become one of them himself. This painful realization leads him to sigh at the impossibility of meeting an immortal in Poems 41, 49, 76, 80; to lament the nonexistence of a way to heaven in Poem 35; to express his anguished disillusionment in Poem 78; and to reject altogether a belief in physical immortality in Poem 55.

* * *

Juan Chi selects, structures, and exploits his poetic images in ways that best reveal his bitter anguish over human frailty of all kinds, his sense of loneliness in a treacherous world, and his fruitless search for the meaning of life. With his four symbolic coordinates, he sets forth his gloomy view of humanity in a most compelling manner. Aided by his discontinuous and cyclical structures, he broods over the depth of his loneliness and alienation from the sociopolitical world. Through his deft exploitation of allusions, he reveals his conflicted attitudes toward Confucian, hedonistic, and Taoist ways of life.

Juan Chi’s symbolic use of poetic images represents a radical departure from the poetic conventions of his time that opened up an entirely different route for poets that followed him. He is both more direct and more indirect than other Han and Wei-Chin poets. He is more direct because he no longer observes his inner life through the eyes of a stock character as do yüeh-fu composers, Han ku-shih poets, and Ts’ao Chih, but looks directly into his own agonizing soul. His cyclical and discontinuous structures attest to the process of direct introspection led solely by the thrust of his own thoughts. On the other hand, he is more indirect because he does not leave traces of his own circumstances, nor does he express his thoughts and feelings in explicit terms. More often than not, we have difficulty taking his abstract statements at their face value and have to reconstruct the meanings of his poems by examining the interplay of his poetic images. Seen in a broader historical context, Juan Chi’s new form of self-presentation signalled the rise of an aesthetic of personal reflection and impersonal expression, an aesthetic that achieved its full potential in the finest of T’ang lü-shih (regulated verse) and Sung tz’u (lyric songs).[98]

CHAPTER 6

Synthesis: Four Poetic Modes and Changing Forms of Self-Presentation

I have traced the evolution of early pentasyllabic poetry through Han yüeh-fu, Han ku-shih, Ts’ao Chih, and Juan Chi, to set forth thematic, formal, and generic reconfigurations in these four groups of poems and to discuss them in light of the development of four modes of presentation: dramatic, narrative, lyrical and symbolic. Each of these four modes arose as a result of the poets’ continual endeavors to present themselves and constitutes a unique form of self-presentation. In developing these modes, the poets were hindered or helped by their relationships with their sociopolitical world and with their audience.

If we compare the first poem I discussed, “South of the River,” and the last, Poem 20 by Juan Chi, we realize how remarkably different they are. In the first, the composers express their unmediated emotions with simple, rhythmical, and repetitive utterances. But Juan Chi looks into his innermost self and conveys his anguish and conflict through skillful exploitation of poetic allusions. If these two poems represent opposite poles of expression, nonreflective and introspective, the other poems I have discussed fall between these extremes and reflect a gradual increase in self-expressive and self-reflective activities. In view of the increasing importance of the poet in these poems, we may be easily tempted to conceive of a teleology of lyrical development, a consciousness dormant in Han folk yüeh-fu, but beginning to awaken in Han literati yüeh-fu, then registering a considerable measure of self-reflectivity in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.” It then seems to progress to the reflections of a single individual in Ts’ao Chih, and becomes full-blown introspection—that is, a deep examination of one’s own self-expressive and self-reflective activities—in Juan Chi. At first glance, such an argument seems to provide a simple, straightforward explanation for the evolution of early pentasyllabic poetry. Upon closer scrutiny, however, we find that it is fundamentally flawed because it amounts to imposing on Chinese literary history the Western view of human history as a process of the absolute subject’s self-awakening, a view held by idealist thinkers like Hegel and his followers. This is wrong-headed because it denies the existence of self-reflectivity in folk or illiterate traditions, denigrating these traditions as not yet fully human. It is also untenable because no one can prove that illiterate people are devoid of self-reflectivity simply because they do not observe themselves the way a literate man does, that is, by preserving their observations in writing. As a matter of fact, many scholars now believe that self-reflectivity is as old as human language itself. As soon as a human being invents and uses language, he ceases to be an unthinking animal and becomes a self-interpretive, self-reflective man.[1] Therefore, when we see the gradual increase of self-expressive and self-reflective activities in early Chinese pentasyllabic poetry, we should not envision progressive growth of Chinese lyric consciousness on a metaphysical plane. Instead, we should think in the practical terms of a gradual expansion of possibilities and opportunities for self-expression and self-reflection made possible by the changing circumstances surrounding the composition, transmission and reception of poetry. I believe Han and Wei-Chin poets developed the four poetic modes under changing circumstances which allowed them to pursue their self-expressive and self-reflective activities in ever greater depth and in an ever wider range.

The dramatic mode in Han folk yüeh-fu was in all likelihood born of collective composition and performance. Internal textual evidence of collective oral performance is abundant in Han folk yüeh-fu works. More often than not, we can envision a group of folk composers expressing their emotional responses to an on-going work activity or an imitated event by means of collective singing. Of course, such collective singing tells us little about the private feelings of any individual composer. This is because each composer is fully engaged in person-to-person interaction and has little opportunity to reflect upon his own life in the course of the performance.[2] He cannot simply project his own thoughts and feelings into a song that accompanies a collective work activity or imitates a communal event. His is an interactive audience whose other members are waiting for their own turn to join in a compositional process. They do not want an individual composer to digress into his own personal experience. Since whatever he says must be readily understandable to all participants, he cannot but stick to conventional poetic formulas. He must draw extensively from the existent stock of formulaic vocabulary and syntax and shy away from personal expressions. His only viable means of self-expression will be his facial expression, his gestures, his accentuation in oral delivery, and in the alternation of formulaic phrases. So, one can say that Han folk yüeh-fu represents a minimal, kinetic form of self-expression acoustically activated and textually untraceable in most cases.

The narrative mode in Han literati yüeh-fu seems to reveal the less interactive performance of a storyteller. In a literati yüeh-fu piece, we usually hear the story of a neglected woman or a fortune-seeking wanderer, of a plant or an animal, of an immortal roaming in heaven, or of the mythical or historical past. These stories are meant to set forth the four kinds of inward experience commonly shared by the literati class in the Later Han: sorrow over political alienation, empathy with nonhuman beings as a means of emotional relief, yearning for transcendental realization, and reflection on the historical past. The emergence of these subjects reflects a change of expressive content from unmediated emotional responses to generalized thoughts about the conditions of life. Of course, the folk dramatic mode is ill suited to the expression of generalized thoughts. To examine the general conditions of life requires at least a narration of the life stories of certain stock characters in whom the audience can see a reflection of their own life situations and examine their own responses to those situations. In telling these stories, literati yüeh-fu composers introduced a solo speaker as the central point to which all narrative details are anchored. If in folk yüeh-fu a solo singer merely ushers in choral responses to a given situation, the solo speaker of literati yüeh-fu tells the entire story. The poet may give a third-person account, or he may impersonate his character(s) and tell their story in the first person. More often, the poet begins with a third-person narrative and then impersonates the voice of the main character, thus creating a bifocal or multifocal but consistent point of view. The introduction of a solo speaker as storyteller transforms the dramatic mode into a narrative one, bringing about fundamental changes in all artistic aspects. Now the composer is no longer a self-effacing member of a group, but assumes the role of a single storyteller with a lyrical bent.[3] All textual evidence suggests that the audience he faces is largely a passive one; his relationship has changed from two-way interaction to basically one-way communication. The poet no longer interacts with other composers, and can retreat from the world of live dramatic action into the world of thought. As the dramatic mode of presentation disappears, so do many of its formal features. A sequential structure now takes the place of the composite structure used in folk yüeh-fu. A consistent point of view replaces the multiple points of view characteristic of folk yüeh-fu. There are few abrupt transitions or sudden changes of perspective that might suggest participation by an interactive audience. Some formulaic forms, however, do remain. As long as the poet addresses a live audience, he must continue to employ various formulaic expressions familiar to his audience. Nonetheless, he has incomparably more freedom for self-presentation than a folk yüeh-fu composer, because he takes full control of the entire composition and can tell the story in a way that reveals his own thoughts and feelings. Han literati yüeh-fu constitutes an indirect form of self-presentation by means of storytelling.

The lyrical mode in the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” is the product of the internalization of the narrative mode in literati yüeh-fu by Han poets. In these works, the poets wished to examine the general conditions of their own lives as did the literati yüeh-fu composers. Like the literati yüeh-fu composers, they usually presented their sorrow through the voice of the abandoned wife, lamenting their neglect by the court. They also saw a reflection of the misery and meaninglessness of their own existence in the story of the wanderer. However, these poets internalized these stories, not telling them to a live audience, but using them to brood over their own outer and inner lives. That the poets could become internal observers has much to do with shift from oral performance to writing, from interpersonal verbal communication to the private world of one’s own thought. Freed from the need to address a live audience, the poets could turn completely inward. This gave rise to lyrical processes, complex time-frames, and abstract philosophizing about the transience of human life unseen in earlier pentasyllabic poetry. Since the poets were now writing for the purpose of self-reflection, they dispensed with many conventional poetic forms associated with oral performance. Inspired by the ancient hsing constructions, they introduced a binary structure of external observation and inward reflection in the place of the composite or sequential structure used in yüeh-fu works. They replaced the rigid word-for-word repetitions with subtle imagistic resonance. They transformed question-answer formulas into rhetorical questions that initiate, sustain, and deepen the contemplative process. In addition, they developed new formal devices like the “verse eye” and transitional couplets that enhance the interplay of the binary parts. In short, the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” signify the birth of a direct, written form of self-expression, marked by internalization of the context of composition, poetic content, and audience in the self-reflective mind of a poet.

Ts’ao Chih’s work introduces a multifaceted poetic self in all the major yüeh-fu and ku-shih subgenres. It does this by blending his experiential self with an array of yüeh-fu and ku-shih speakers, effectively broadening the scope of self-presentation to include the full range of personal feelings and thoughts: his youthful ambitions, his admiration for knight-errantry, his commitment to Confucian ideals, his compassion for downtrodden friends, his feelings of love and hate for his brother and nephew, his stubborn search for political rehabilitation, and his imaginary escape from the misery of his exiled life. His successful creation of this multifaceted poetic self crowns his towering achievement of radically personalizing practically all yüeh-fu and ku-shih subgenres. What makes this achievement even more astounding is that he does so without violating their basic decorum. All his yüeh-fu and ku-shih are readily recognizable as such, even though they convey a new depth of personal expression.

In adapting the yüeh-fu form, Ts’ao Chih proved himself to be at once more conservative and more daring than his predecessors and contemporaries. He was more conservative because he seemed sentimentally attached to yüeh-fu forms. He unhesitatingly retained yüeh-fu titles, although he no longer wrote for oral performance and frequently wrote about events rarely found in the yüeh-fu repertoire. He did not limit himself to the ch’i-fu and yu-tzu subgenres, but actually reworked all the other major yüeh-fu subgenres, including that of folk yüeh-fu. Yet in spite of this strong attachment to the Han yüeh-fu tradition, Ts’ao Chih was more daring than his predecessors and contemporaries in remolding the yüeh-fu form. He succeeded in creating a unique poetic self in all major yüeh-fu subgenres as no other Han and Wei poets ever did. In his early yüeh-fu works he cast himself as a non-self-reflective spectator, observing one of several human characters (a beautiful girl, a flamboyant youth, a heroic warrior, etc.) whose lives resembled his in one way or another. In the course of observing those characters, he penetrated their innermost world and became one with them in spirit. By dint of this empathetic observation, he turned each character into an ideal image of the self. In his later yüeh-fu pieces he assumed the role of a reflective speaker who empathizes with an array of yüeh-fu figures and reflects on various moral and political issues affecting his own life. In his yung-shih works he brooded over human fate, dynastic strife, and imperial kinship. In his yung-wu works he lamented the hardship of his successive periods of exile and condemns his brother’s violation of the fraternal bond. In his yu-hsien works he strove for an imaginative fulfillment of his lofty ambitions.

Ts’ao Chih’s transformation of the Han ku-shih tradition is no less remarkable. Since ku-shih was a genre of explicit lyrical expression, he personalized it in a more overt mariner than he did the yüeh-fu genre. In his early pieces he adapted the ku-shih form for person-to-person communication and established in the process a tripartite structure—marked by a description of his own world in the opening, an expression of his sentiment about his downtrodden friends in the middle, and a spirited moral exhortation in the final section. These poems of presentation establish the tseng-ta subgenre as a means of lyrical expression. In his later ku-shih work, “To Ts’ao Piao, the Prince of Pai-ma,” he built a tripartite structure on a large scale and significantly broadened the range of self-presentation for the tseng-ta subgenre. In reworking the ch’i-fu and yu-tzu subgenres, he further reduced narrative elements and increased lyric intensity through a bold expression of his own thoughts and feelings. His ch’i-fu poems convey his sorrow over his estrangement from his brother through a deft exploitation of the traditional love allegory. His yu-tzu poems express his vain hope of rehabilitation by his nephew and his burning desire for heroic self-sacrifice through the creation of a noble-minded hero in place of the hedonistic, fortune-seeking ku-shih speaker. With its successful merging of inward personal experience and conventional yüeh-fu and ku-shih forms, Ts’ao Chih’s poetry marks the rise of a personalized form of self-presentation, developed by an individual poet in an effort to express thoughts and feelings particular to himself.

The symbolic mode in Juan Chi is born of an intense process of soul-searching in the face of personal sufferings and social calamities. If Ts’ao Chih attained a broader range of self-presentation than other Han and Wei poets, Juan Chi reached a greater depth. Whereas Ts’ao Chih observes the conditions of his life through the eyes of yüeh-fu and ku-shih speakers, Juan Chi directly looks into his own soul as it is being tried by the sudden dynastic change, malicious courtly intrigues, and the threat of political persecution. The title for his entire collection, Yung-huai, “poetry that sings out what is in my bosom,” betokens this turn from observation to introspection. He can, however, make no overt references to his own life nor can he address his close friends for fear of bloody reprisal. He must translate his thoughts and feelings into a symbolic mental landscape, a process best understood in the terms of his transformation of poetic imagery, his creation of new poetic structures, and his exploitation of poetic allusions.

Juan Chi introduces few fresh images, drawing instead on a pool of stock images from various yüeh-fu and ku-shih subgenres. However, his poetic images no longer evoke an external scene or situation. He makes a point of removing his images from their conventional topoi and uses them to embody his poignant awareness of human frailty in both the physical and spiritual sense. His images depict, almost exclusively, the passage of time; the withering of flowers, plants, and all other living things; the frailty of the human frame; and the emotional suffering of man. He treats these four kinds of images as symbolic coordinates of human frailty and organizes them to express his sorrow at the evanescence of human existence and to reveal his grief at the inconstancy of human relationships made manifest in dynastic usurpations, court intrigues, and political betrayals in his own time as well as in the past.

In organizing his symbolic coordinates, Juan Chi does not follow a well-defined narrative line, nor an unambiguous sequence of perceptions, nor a contiguous order of things in the external world, nor a linear process of reasoning. His mental processes, either brooding or conflicted over the Confucian and Taoist approaches to life, give rise to two new poetic structures. The first is his cyclical structure. In this structure the poet ruminates over his feelings, projects them onto the external world, and returns to brood over them once again. This perpetual return to the self speaks to the poet’s complete alienation from the outside world and his inward state of loneliness and desolation. The second structure is Juan Chi’s discontinuous structure, used to convey oblique messages of social protest or his own mental conflict. Here the suppression of linearity is more radical. It is often impossible to see connections among different poetic lines. We are compelled to look for hidden patterns of meaning arising from the interplay of allusions.

Juan Chi often compensates for the weak structural connection with close intertextual linkages. When he broods over his emotional state, he tends to borrow images from different works. Each allusion evokes a scene and its emotional overtones from an earlier text. By knitting them together, he calls forth a wealth of associations, feelings, and moods. Sometimes he chooses a cluster of images alluding to a historical event depicted in an earlier poetical work. In that case his allusions form a coherent historical subtext fraught with both the emotional overtones and the moral messages of the earlier work. He also makes extensive use of historical allusions, employing the names of Confucian worthies and Taoist masters as metaphors for the Confucian and Taoist ways of life. More often he presents historical figures in a different light from earlier historical texts. These historical allusions are often so ambiguous that we cannot determine the poet’s own attitude toward the figures in question. This extreme ambiguity reveals the poet’s intense conflicts over the Confucian and Taoist ways of life and his anguished search for the truth of life. Since Juan Chi so successfully conveys even thoughts and feelings that seem beyond words, we can surely contend that his poems exemplify a symbolic form of self-presentation, a new poetic mode that would be brought to perfection by Li Po, Tu Fu and other great T’ang poets.

This closing chapter has explored the interrelatedness of all the thematic, formal, and generic reconfigurations discussed in the present study within the larger framework of the development of the four poetic modes. It has shown that each mode constitutes a unique form of self-presentation arising from the poets’ continual efforts to adapt or transform poetic traditions for the purpose of presenting their life experiences through an ever broader range expression and to an ever greater depth. It has also considered to what extent the poets’ drive for self-presentation was conditioned by their changing relationships with the sociopolitical world, their audience, and poetic traditions. Of course, my argument for the interaction of the dynamic of self-presentation and the configurations of established poetic modes, and my view of the relation of literary to extra-literary phenomena are by no means comprehensive or definitive. They will certainly need further qualification and development. Nonetheless, supported by both textual and extra-textual evidence, they shed some light on the evolution of early pentasyllabic poetry. I hope that this study will stimulate readers to reexamine the four poetic modes and to carry the investigation further into other important poetic modes—say, T’ao Ch’ien’s autobiographical mode and Hsieh Ling-yün’s descriptive mode—thereby providing a fuller view of the development of diverse forms of self-presentation in early Chinese pentasyllabic poetry.

Notes

Notes to the Introduction

1. See, for example, the chapters “Ming shih” (An exegesis of poetry) and “Yüeh-fu” in Lu K’ an-ju and Mou Shih-chin, eds., Wen hsin tiao lung i-chu, 2 vols. (Chi-nan: Ch’ i-Lu shu-she, 1981), vol. 1, pp. 57-86; Vincent Yu-chung Shih, trans., Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1983), pp. 60-87.

2. See Ch’ en Yen-chieh, ed. Shih-p’ in chu (Peking: Jen-min wen-hsüeh ch’ u-pan-she, 1980), p. 4. In traditional Chinese criticism, poetic genres (ku-shih, yüeh-fu, etc.) are often subsumed under broader categories of poetry based on syllable count (e.g., tetrasyllabic poetry, heptasyllabic poetry, etc.). In this study I call the latter “poetic types” in order to distinguish them from poetic genres.

3. See Hsiao T ung, comp., Wen hsüan, commentary by Li Shan (d. 689) (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1977), pp. 277-455.

4. All but one (ch. 9) of the ten chapters in this anthology are devoted to pentasyllabic poetry. See Hsü Ling, ed., Yü-t’ ai hsin-yung chien-chu (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1985).

5. In contrast to the dearth of comprehensive studies of pentasyllabic poetry, however, there are quite a few critical works on individual practitioners of pentasyllabic poetry. For instance, see Donald Holzman, Poetry and Politics: The Life and Works of Juan Chi (A.D. 210-263) (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1976); A. R. Davis, V ao Yuan-ming: His Works and Their Meaning, 2 vols. (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1983); James R. Hightower, The Poetry of T’ ao Ch’ ien (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970; Charles Yim-tze Kwong, T ao Qian and Chinese Poetic Tradition: The Quest for Cultural Identity, Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies, no. 66 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies, 1995); J. D. Frodsham, The Murmuring Stream: The Life and Works of the Chinese Nature Poet Hsieh Ling-yün (385-433), Duke of K’ ang-lo, 2 vols. (Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press, 1967).

6. See James Hutton, trans., Aristotle’ s Poetics (New York: Norton, 1982), pp. 45-50.

7. See M. H. Abrams’ s discussion of his four-fold scheme of criticism in The Mirror and the Lamp (London: Oxford University Press, 1953), pp. 3-29; René Wellek and Austin Warren’ s two-fold classification of critical approaches (extrinsic vs. intrinsic) in Theory of Literature (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977), pp. 73-157; Northrop Frye’ s discussion of the theory of modes in Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957), pp. 33-67 and Roman Jakobson, “Linguistics and Poetics,” in Style in Language, ed. Thomas A. Sebeok (Cambridge, Massachusetts: M.I.T. Press, 1960), pp. 350-77.

8. During the final revision of this manuscript, I was delighted to discover an earlier attempt by Dore Levy to introduce the mode of presentation as an analytical category higher than that of genre for the study of Chinese literature. See her Chinese Narrative Poetry: the Late Han through T ang Dynasties (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1988), pp. 1-19 and note 5 to “Introduction” on p. 153.

Notes to Chapter 1

1. Ch’ en Po-chün, ed., Juan Chi chi chiao-chu (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1987, hereafter JCCC), p. 210. For a previous translation, see Holzman, Poetry and Politics, p. 229.

2. For a discussion of the metrical pattern, rhetorical rules and underlying aesthetics of pentasyllabic poetry, see Yu-kung Kao, “The Aesthetics of Regulated Verse,” in The Vitality of the Lyric Voice, ed. Lin Shuen-fu and Stephen Owen (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 332-345.

3. For a definition and discussion of “song melos” and “speaking melos,” see Frye, Anatomy of Criticism, pp. 278-79, 366. See also Andrew Welsh’s discussion of the same subject in Roots of Lyric: Primitive Poetry and Modern Poetics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), pp. 243-44ff.

4. See Kao, “The Aesthetics of Regulated Verse,” p. 335, note 3.

5. The term “Six Dynasties” is variously defined. Here it is used to mean these six successive dynasties: Western Chin (266-317), Eastern Chin (317-420), Liu-Sung (420-479), Ch’ i (479-502), Liang (502-557), Ch’ en (557-589). These six dynasties are often called “Periods of Division,” marked by incessant political upheavals and foreign invasions.

6. Yüeh-fu is the name for a Han government institution (Music Bureau) which was allegedly set up by Emperor Wu of Han (r. 140-86 B.C.) and was responsible for collecting folk songs and music to be examined as an indication of popular sentiment and to be adopted for use in court ceremonies and entertainments. It is also a broad generic term for four major kinds of poems collected by the Music Bureau: anonymous folk songs, ritual hymns composed by musicians at the Bureau, original works by known authors, and works written by men of letters in imitation of folk songs. For comprehensive English-language studies of yüeh-fu poetry, see Hans Frankel, “Yüeh-fu Poetry,” in Studies in Chinese Literary Genres, ed. Cyril Birch (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), pp. 69-107 and “The Development of Han and Wei Yüeh-fu as a High Literary Genre,” in The Vitality of the Lyrical Voice, pp. 255-86; Dore J. Levey, Chinese Narrative; Ann Birrell, Popular Songs and Ballads of Han China (London: Unwin & Hyman, 1988); and Joseph R. Allen, In the Voice of Others: Chinese Music Bureau Poetry, Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies, no. 63 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies, 1992).

7. Poem 17 in the Mao edition of the Book of Poetry. The numbering of the 305 poems in the Book of Poetry is that of the Mao text used in Kao Heng, ed., Shing ching chin-chu (Shanghai: Ku-chi ch’u-pan-she, 1979).

8. Mencius (Meng Tzu), 4A.8, cites this song and gives an account of Confucius’ discussion of it with his disciples. See Chiao Hsün (1763-1820), ed., Meng Tzu cheng-i, (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1987), vol. 1, p. 498.

9. This poem is mentioned in “Chin-yü,” (Conversations of Chin), Kuo yü (Conversations of the states), ed. Shanghai Shih-fan Ta-hsüeh ku-chi cheng-li-tsu (Shanghai: Ku-chi ch’u-pan-she, 1978), chüan 8, vol. 1, p. 286.

10. This folk song is mentioned in “Wu-hsing chih,” (Treatise on the five elements), Han shu (History of the Former Han), comp. Pan Ku (32-92) (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1962), 5/27B/1396. Please note that the first number indicates the sequence of volumes in the present typeset edition; the second number, the sequence of chüan in a pre-modern edition; and the third number, the page in the typeset edition. All subsequent citations of premodern texts from multivolume typeset editions will be documented in the same way.

11. See Lu and Mou, Wen hsin tiao lung i-chu, vol. 1, p. 62; See Shih, Literary Mind, pp. 65-67.

12. Ch’en, Shih-p’in chu, p. 1.

13. See Lu and Mou, Wen hsin tiao lung, vol. 1, p. 62; Shih, Literary Mind, pp. 65-67.

14. See Lu and Mou, Wen hsin tiao lung, vol. 1, pp. 73-86; Shih, Literary Mind, pp. 77-87.

15. Ch’en, Shih-p’in chu, p. 1.

16. Ibid.

17. Lu and Mou, Wen hsin tiao lung, vol. 1, p. 65; Shih, Literary Mind, p. 6. Translation slightly modified.

18. Ch’en, Shih-p’in chu, p. I.

19. Lu and Mou, Wen hsin tiao lung, vol. 1, p. 65.

20. Shen Te-ch’ ien, Ku-shih yüan (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1963), p. 1.

21. Wang Shih-chen, Ku-shih chien (Shanghai: Shanghai ku-chi ch’ u-pan-she, 1980), P. i.

22. Shen, Ku-shih yüan, p. 2.

23. Wang, Ku-shih chien, p. 2.

24. Popular songs and ballads were the prime targets of censorship during the reign of Emperor Ai (6 B.C. to A.D. 1). When Emperor Ai came to the throne, he issued an imperial edict disbanding the Music Bureau because he believed popular songs and ballads were in the style of Cheng-sheng (songs from the state of Cheng, which were collected in the Book of Poetry and traditionally censured by Confucians as excessive) and brought extravagance and corruption to the court. (Cf. “Li Yüeh Chih” [Treatise on rites and music], Han shu, 4/22/1072-73).

25. See Wang Yün-hsi, “Han-tai ti su-yüeh ho min-ko,” Yüeh-fu shih yenchiu lun-wen-chi (Peking: Tso-chia ch’ u-pan-she, 1957), pp. 18-20. For discussions of the earliest known, fourfold classification of yüeh-fu during the reign of Emperor Ming (58-76), see Lo Ken-tse, Yüeh-fu wen-hsüeh-shih (Peking: Wen-hua hsüehshe, 1931), pp. 11-13; and Hsiao Ti-fei, Han-Wei Liu-ch’ ao yüeh-fu wen-hsüeh-shih, (rpt. Taipei: Ch’ ang-an ch’ u-pan-she, 1976), pp. 9-13. For a brief survey of the yüeh-fu classifications from the Han to the Sung dynasty, see Chang Shoup’ ing, Han-tai yüeh-fu yü yüeh-fu ko-tz’ u (Taipei: Kuang-wen shu-chü, 1970), pp. 65-79. Wang Ia gives a more detailed discussion with various comparative charts in his Yüeh-fu t’ung-lun (Taipei: Kuang-wen shu-chü, 1964), pp. 43-86.

26. See Lu Ch’ in-li, ed., Hsien-Ch’ in Han Wei-Chin Nan-Pei ch’ ao shih, 3 vols. (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1983, hereafter HCHW), vol. 1, pp. 255-75. The meaning of “harmonious pieces” is explained in the second section of chapter 2.

27. The Seven Masters of the Chien-an period are Wang Ts’ an, Hsü Kan, Ying Yang (?-217), Liu Chen, K’ ung Jung (153-208), Ch’en Lin (1-217), and Juan Yü(?-212).

28. Lu and Mou, Wen hsin tiao lung, vol. 1, p. 69; Shih, Literary Mind, pp. 71-73.

29. I am grateful to Professor Donald Munro for suggesting the use of this conceptual framework of inconstancy and constancy to understand the development of Han and Wei-Chin poetry and thought.

30. The Interlingual Critic: Interpreting Chinese Poetry (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982), p. 34.

31. For studies of Chinese genre theory, see James R. Hightower, “The Wen Hsüan and Genre Theory,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 20 (1957): 512-33; Frenc Tôkei, Genre Theory in China in the Third through Sixth Centuries: Liu Hsieh’ s Theory on Poetic Genres (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1971); and David R. Knechtges, Wen Xuan, or Selections of Refined Literature, vol. 1: Rhapsodies on Metropolises and Capitals (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), pp. 1-70.

32. For a comprehensive survey of numerous definitions of the term “narrative” by Western critics, see Gerald Prince, ed., A Dictionary of Narratology (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987), pp. 56-66.

33. For discussions on the origin of yüeh-fu storytelling in thefu (narrative display, or enumeration) traditions developed in the Book of Poetry and the Songs of Ch’ u, see C. H. Wang, “The Nature of Narrative in T’ ang Poetry,” in Lin and Owen, Vitality of the Lyric Voice, pp. 217-21. For a theoretical discussion oifu as a principle of literary composition, see Levy, Chinese Narrative Poetry, pp. 34-53.

For studies on the unique features of Chinese narrative in general, see Kenneth DeWoskin, “On Narrative Revolutions,” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 5, 1 (1985): 29-45; Eugene Eoyang, “A Taste for Apricots: Approaches to Chinese Fiction,” in Chinese Narrative: Critical and Theoretical Essays, ed. Andrew H. Plaks (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), pp. 53-69; Yu-kung Kao, “Lyric Vision in Chinese Narrative Tradition: A Reading of Hung-lou Meng and Ju-lin Wai-shih,” also in Chinese Narrative, pp. 228-43; Victor H. Mair, “The Narrative Revolution in Chinese Literature: Ontological Perspectives,” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 5.1 (1985): 1-27; Andrew H. Plaks, “Conceptual Models of Chinese Narrative Theory,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 4.1 (1977): 25-47 and “Issues in Chinese Narrative Theory in the Perspective of the Western Tradition,” PTL: A Journal for Descriptive Poetics and Theory of Literature 2 (1977): 339-52; and John C. Y. Wang, “The Nature of Chinese Narrative: A Preliminary Statement of Methodology,” Tamkang Review 6. 2 and 7.1 (October 1975-April 1976): 229-45.

34. In Chinese Narrative Poetry, Levy points out that “the lyrical and narrative modes of expression interpenetrate to a far greater extent than they do in European traditions” and consequently “broad distinctions between ‘lyric’ and ‘narrative’ refer only to tendencies” in the expressive intent underlying a work of art in the case of Chinese literature (pp. 3, 153). I agree with this distinction between the narrative and the lyric because, in Chinese classic poetry at least, story-telling is essentially an expressive act, marked by a projection of one’ s inward experience into the life story of a commonly recognizable other and by occasional intrusions of direct emotive expressions. Given this expressive nature of the narrative in Chinese poetry, I must emphasize that the transition from the narrative to lyrical modes in pentasyllabic poetry is not an abrupt shift from non-expressive to expressive traditions, but an evolution from an indirect to a more direct way of expressing one’s inward experience.

35. For studies on the use of hsing in the Book of Poetry, see Ch’ en Shihhsiang, “The Shih Ching: Its Generic Significance in Chinese Literary Theory and Poetics,” Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology (Academia Sinica) 39.1 (1968): 371-413; reprinted in Studies in Chinese Literary Genres, ed. Cyril Birch (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974, pp. 8-41; C. H. Wang, Bell and Drum: Shih Ching as Formulaic Poetry in an Oral Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), and Pauline Yü, The Reading of Imagery in the Chinese Poetic Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), pp. 44-83.

36. Jakobson expounds the principles of selection and combination in his “The Two-fold Character of Language,” Fundamentals of Language (The Hague: Mouton, 1971), pp. 72-96.

Notes to Chapter 2

1. See Fang Tsu-shen, Han-shih yen-chiu (Taipei: Cheng-chung shu-chü, 1967), p. 2.

2. For other songs, ballads, proverbs, and children’ s folk rhymes with explicit titles and contents, see HCHW, 123, 126, 131, 132, 214, 216, 248, 249.

3. Ch’en, Shih-p’in chu, p. 1.

4. To see how traditional Chinese critics utilize these three kinds of circumstantial evidence, see, for instance, Fang Tsu-shen’ s summary of the numerous textual studies on the date and authorship of the seven poems attributed to Li Ling and Su Wu (?-60 B.C.) in Han-shih yen-chiu, pp. 48-67.

5. See his Han-Wei Liu-ch’ ao yüeh-fu wen-hsüeh-shih (rpt. Taipei: Ch’ ang-an ch’u-pan-she, 1976), pp. 18–22.

6. Yü Ying-shih discusses the interaction between the popular and elite cultures during Han times in his “Han-tai hsün-li yü wen-hua ch’ uan-po,” Chiu-chou hsüeh-k’an 1 (1986): 9-24; 2 (1986): 1-22; 3 (1987): 1-22.

7. See Wei Cheng (580-643) et al., eds., Sui shu (Peking: Chung-hua shuchü, 1973), 2/13/286.

8. See Shen Yüeh (441-513), Sung shu, (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1974), 1/20/565.

9. See Shen, Sung shu, 1/19/548-554.

10. See Wu Ching, Yüeh-fu ku-t’ i yao chieh, collected in Li-tai shih-hua hsüpien, ed. Ting Fu-pao (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1983), pp. 23-67.

11. See Cheng Ch’iao, T’ung chih lüeh (SPPY edn.), 49.1-32.

12. See his prefaces to the twelve categories as well as his table of contents in Yüeh-fu shih chi, ed. Editorial Board of Chung-hua shu-chü, 4 vols. (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1979). For an English translation of these twelve categories, see Birrell, Popular Songs and Ballads, pp. 207-08.

13. For the different schemes of classification by these critics, see Ch’ i T’ ing-t’ ing, Liang Han yüeh-fu yen-chiu (Taipei: Hsüeh-hai ch’ u-pan-she, 1980), pp. 44-55.

14. For a discussion and a diagrammatical presentation of these five categories and the subcategories under them, see Allen, In the Voice of Others, pp. 54-56.

15. See Lo, Yüeh-fu wen-hsüeh shih, pp. 11-25.

16. See his discussion of Han yüeh-fu in Chung-kuo wen-hsüeh fa-chan shih, 3 vols. (Shanghai: Ku-tien wen-hsüeh ch’u-pan-she, 1939), vol. 1, pp. 195–202.

17. See James R. Hightower, Topics in Chinese Literature (Cambridge, Massachusetts): Harvard University Press, 1953), pp. 51-52.

18. See Frankel, “Yüeh-fu Poetry,” pp. 70-72.

19. See Lu K’ an-ju and Feng Yuan-chün, Chung-kuo shih-shih, 3 vols. (Peking: Jen-min wen-hsüeh ch’u-pan-she, 1956), vol. 1, pp. 157–214.

20. For a collection of such comments, see Huang Chieh, ed., Han-Wei yüehfu feng-chien, 1924 (rpt. Taipei: Kuang-wen shu-chü, 1977), p. 4.

21. For an extensive, annotated bibliography of the studies on both ancient and living oral traditions, see John Miles Foley, Oral-Formulaic Theory and Research: an Introduction and Annotated Bibliography (New York: Garland Publishing, 1985).

22. For major discussions of this repertoire, see Eric A. Havelock, The Muse Learns to Write (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986) and “The Ancient Art of Oral Poetry/’Philosophy and Rhetoric 19 (1979): 187-202; Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy (London: Routledge, 1982); Ruth Finnegan, Oral Poetry: Its Nature, Significance, and Social Context (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1977); John Miles Foley, The Theory of Oral Composition: History and Methodology (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988); Benjamin A. Stolz and Richard S. Shannon, eds., Oral Literature and the Formula (Ann Arbor: Center for the Coordination of Ancient and Modern Studies, 1976); Pierre Maranda and Elli Köngäs Maranda, eds., Structural Analysis of Oral Tradition (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971).

23. For an earlier attempt to determine the oral, folk nature of some Han yüeh-fu works on the basis of internal features from this repertoire, see Gary Shelton Williams, “A Study of the Oral Nature of the Han Yüeh-fu,” Ph.D. diss., University of Washington, 1973, especially chapters 3 and 4.

24. See Birrell, Popular Songs and Ballads, p. 17.

25. For instance, see Hsiao Ti-fei, Yüeh-fu wen-hsüeh-shih, p. 45.

26. See Ong, Orality and Literacy, pp. 46-49.

27. I have discussed the “homeostatic” feature of folk songs in the Book of Poetry in “Shih ching yü ‘Ku-shih shih-chiu shou’ : ts’ ung pi-hsing ti yen-pien lai k’an ta-men ti nei-tsai lien-hsi, “Chung-wai wen-hsüeh 17.11 (1989): 118-126.

28. Gary Williams examines the use of this device in various Han yüeh-fu poems in “A Study of the Oral Nature of the Han Yüeh-fu,” pp. 57-61.

29. Ong, Orality and Literacy, p. 106.

30. Cited in Chang Ch’ ing-chung, Liang Han yüeh-fu-shih chih yen-chiu (Taipei: Shang-wu yin-shu-kuan, 1979), p. 39.

31. See, for instance, Yang Sheng-chih, Yüeh-fu shih-shih (Hsi-ning: Ch’ inghai jen-min ch’ u-pan-she, 1985), p. 74; Wang Ju-pi, Yüeh-fu san-lun (Hsi-an: Shan-hsi jen-min ch’ u-pan-she, 1984), p. 46 and Chang, Liang Han yüeh-fu shih chih yen-chiu, p. 39.

32. See Kuo Mo-jo, Pu tz u t’ ung-tzuan (Tokyo: Bunkyū-dō shoten, 1933), 3.77b-78a. This oracle bone is numbered 375 in the sequence of fragments annotated in Kuo’s book.

33. See Li Ch’ un-chr iang, Yüeh-fu shih chien-shang tz u Hen (Cheng-choü: Chung-chou ch’u-pan-she, 1990), pp. 18–19.

34. Liu An (180-123 B.C.), Huai-nan hung lieh chi chieh, ed. Liu Wen-tien (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1989), 1/12/380-381.

35. Pan Ku, Han shu, 4/24/1121.

36. 1 have based my translation on the extensive textual notes on this poem in Liang Han wen-hsüeh ts’ an-k’ ao tzu-liao, ed., Research Unit for Chinese Literary History at Peking University (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1962), pp. 515-20. I am grateful to Professor Eugene Eoyang for suggesting improvements in the translation of this and other poems in this chapter. For a previous translation of this and other Han yüeh-fu pieces, see Birrell, Popular Songs and Ballads.

37. A lot of ink has been spilled over the social status of Lo-fu in recent times. Depending on how they account for the incompatibility of Lo-fu’ s humble work and the aristocratic traits shown in her dress and her husband’ s official ranks, critics have come to hold these three different views of Lo-fu: 1) a peasant girl (assuming that she is not married), 2) an aristocratic lady, and 3) a Confucian moral model.

The proponents of the first view take the description of Lo-fu’ s dazzling dress to be an exaggerated expression used by a yüeh-fu narrator to attract the audience’ s attention, and consider Lo-fu’ s own description of her imaginary husband as a tactic intended to frighten away the seducer. See Wu Ching, Yüehfu ku-t’ i yao-chieh, in Li-tai shih-hua hsü-p’ ien, vol. 1, pp. 24-67; P’ eng Meisheng, “’ Mo-shang sang’ ti jen-wu ho chu-t’ i ssu-hsiang,” Yüeh-fu shih yenchiu lun-wen chi, ed. Tso-chia ch’ u-pan-she (Peking: Tso-chia ch’ u-pan-she, 1957), pp. 76-79; and K. C. Leung, “The Dramatic Qualities of Three Yüeh-fu Poems,” Chinese Culture 14.4 (1973): 36-47.

The proponents of the second view believe that Lo-fu’ s description of her husband is truthful and that she is an aristocratic wife who goes mulberry-picking for the love of it. See, for instance, Wang Chi-ssu, “Kuan-yü Jen, P’ eng teng t’ ung-chih tui ‘Mo-shang sang’ ti jen-wu i-wen so-t’ i i-chien ti ta-fu,” in Yüeh-fu shih yen-chiu lun-wen chi, pp. 80-83.

The main proponent of the third view is Jean-Pierre Diény, who regards Lo-fu as a composite character born of Han Confucian moralists’ effort to transform an erotic peasant girl into an apotheosis of moral virtue; see Pastourelles et magnanarelles: Essai sur un theme litteraire chinois (Paris: Libraire Droz, 1977), pp. 101-2. For a review of the development of these three views, see Joseph R. Allen, “Early Chinese Narrative Poetry: the Definition of a Tradition,” Ph.D. diss., University of Washington, 1982, pp. 240-50.

38. For his discussion of “situational thinking,” see Orality and Literacy, pp. 49-52.

39. “The Relation between Narrator and Characters in Yüeh-fu Ballads,” CHINOPERL Papers 13 (1984-85): 107. Frankel seems to take the term “performer” to mean a composer as well as a performer in a strictly defined sense. I, too, will use the term “performer” in the same manner. In the context of Han yüeh-fu, it seems best not to make an absolute distinction between a composer and a performer. Han yüeh-fu composers are more than likely to have been the initial performers of their own work. Conversely, Han yüeh-fu performers are more than likely to have altered—that is, recomposed—existent compositions in one way or another in the course of oral performance.

40. Cf. Popular Songs and Ballads, p. 18.

41. CL Ibid., p. 170.

42. Shen, Ku-shih yüan, p. 73.

43. See his Han-Wei Liu-chao shih lun ts’ ung (Shanghai: T ang-ti ch’ u-panshe, 1952), pp. 26-38.

44. A composite structure may also emerge from a long narrative composition like “The Narrative of the Crown Prince of the House of Liu During the Former Han dynasty” ("Ch’ ien Han chia Liu t’ ai-tzu chuan"), one of Tunhuang transformation texts (Tun-huang pien-wen). As Eugene Eoyang points out, this narrative of the Crown Prince is an “amalgam of history, myth, anecdote and story” (p. 110) and displays a composite structure on a large scale. This composite structure, however, is different from what we see in “Mulberry along the Lane” in that its components are not blocks of poetic lines, but narratively coherent mini-stories. It betrays an oral story-teller’ s tendency to move freely among associative themes and digressions in order to maintain the audience’ s interest. It is not the result of collective dramatic performance as is the case with “Mulberry along the Lane.” See Eugene Eoyang’s discussion of this composite structure in his “Word of Mouth: Oral Storytelling in the Pien-wen,” Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1971, pp. 89-114.

45. Ch’ en Pen-li, Ch’ u Tz’ u ching-i (rpt. Taipei: Kuang-wen shu-chü, 1964), 5.1a.

46. See Aoki Masaru, “Soji Kyūka no bukyokuteki kekkō,” in Aoki Masaru Zenshū (Tokyo: Shunjusha, 1970), vol. 2, pp. 431-32.

47. See his commentaries on “Nine Songs” in Ch’ u Tz’ u chih-chieh (Chiang-shu: Chiang-shu ku-chi ch’u-pan-she, 1988), pp. 83–121.

48. See his Aux Origines de la Poesie Classique en Chine: Etudes sur la poesis lyrical’epoque des Han (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1968), p. 136.

49. On repetition as a mnemonic aid to recitation by an improvisateur and to comprehension by the audience, see ibid., p. 136.

50. These thematic and formal features can also be seen in “Cock Crows” (HCHW, 257-58), “They Meet” (HCHW, 265), and “In Ch’ ang-an There is a Narrow Lane” (HCHW, 266).

51. Shen, Sung shu, 1/21/603.

52. See his article “Ch’ ing yüeh k’ ao lüeh,” collected in his Yüeh-fu shih lun-ts’ung (Peking: Ku-tien wen-hsüeh ch’u-pan-she, 1958).

53. Cited in Chou I-pai, Chung-kuo hsi-chü shih (Shanghai: Chung-hua shuchü, 1953), vol. 1, p. 30.

54. Masuda Kiyohide, Gakufu no rekishiteki kenkyū, (Tokyo: Sobunsha 1975), p. 81.

55. Wang Ia, Yüeh-fu t’ung-lun (Taipei, Kuang-wen shu-chü, 1961), p. 114.

56. Shen, Sung shu, 1/11/617.

57. On the distinct features of these three performative blocks, see Yang, Yüeh-fu shih shih, pp. 94-98.

58. On the evolution and coexistence of the three variant forms of this poem, see his Gakufu no rekishiteki kenkyū, p. 87.

59. See “Kuan hsi chi,” in Chung-kuo li-tai wen-lun hsüan, ed. Kuo Shao-yü and Wang Wen-sheng (Shanghai: Ku-chi ch’ u-pan-she, 1979, hereafter CKLT), vol. 4, p. 355.

60. See Chou I-pai, Chung-kuo hsi-chü shih, vol. 1, pp. 30-33.

61. See Meng Yao, Chung-kuo hsi-ch’ ü shih (Taipei: Wen-hsing shu-chü, 1966), vol. 1, pp. 15-19.

62. See Wei Tzu-yün, Chung-kuo hsi-chü shih (Taipei: Hsüeh-sheng shu-chü, 1992), pp. 42-51.

63. See Shanshan Du, “The Aesthetic Axis in the Construction of Emotions and Decisions: Love-Pact Suicide among the Lahu Na of Southwest China,” in Social Perspectives on Emotion, vol. 3, edited by Michael Flaherty and Carolyn Ellis (Greenwich, Connecticut: JAI Press, forthcoming).

64. For a similar attempt to corroborate the internal evidence of dramatic performance in ancient poems with the findings from anthropological fieldwork on the living oral traditions of non-Han ethnic groups, see Lin Ho, Chiu-ko yü Yüan Hsiang min-su (Shanghai: San-lien shu-tien, 1990).

65. Li T’ iao-yüan, Nan Yüeh pi-chi, collected in Han hai (rpt. Taipei: Hung-yeh shu chü, 1968), vol. 27, 1.15a, p. 16307.

66. For his broader survey of collective dramatic performance of songs by various Yüeh peoples, see the entire section of “Yüeh su hao ko” (The love of singing in the Yüeh customs) in Nan Yüeh pi-chi, collected in Han hai, vol. 27, 1.10a-16a, pp. 16297-308.

67. See Aoki Masaru, “Soji kyūka no bukyokuteki kekkō,” in Aoki Masaru zenshū, vol. 2, pp. 437-38. This view seems to be derived from Li V iao-yüan’ s assumption that the Lang people are most likely the southern descendants of the ancient Ch’ u people. See Li T’ iao-yüan, Nan Yüeh pi-chi, in Han hai, vol. 27, 1.13b, p. 16304.

68. For a brief comparision of this story with anthropological studies of the Miao customs done after the 1930s, see Jeffrey C. Kinkley, The Odyssey of Shen Congwen (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987), pp. 137-145.

69. Shen Ts’ ung-wen, “Lu Chu,” collected in Ch’ ün (Hong Kong: Wen-li ch’ u-pan-she, 1960), pp. 25-26. Translated by Kinkley in Odyssey, pp. 141-42. I have modified the translation slightly and changed the romanization of names from pinyin to the Wade-Giles system for the sake of consistency. For a free translation of this short story, see Shen Ts’ ung-wen, The Chinese Earth: Stories by Shen Tsung-wen, trans. Ching Ti and Robert Payne (London: Allen & Unwin, 1947), pp. 137-51.

70. There are different characters for the word “Lang” in the designations Lang tribe and Lang Chia tribe. One character means “wolf” or “wolf-like,” and the other “clear” [as in sky color] or “melodious” [as in voice]. The “Chia” in the Lang Chia literally means “home” or “clan” and is often attached to the name of a minority group (e.g., the T’ u Chia ethnic group). It is entirely possible that these two tribes had been closely related or even the same tribe before they were scattered in different places centuries ago and that they were both referred, rather derogatorily, to as “Lang” by the Han Chinese. Shen Ts’ ung-wen used the character “Lang” (clear) instead of its homonym (wolf) probably for two reasons. First, he wanted to get rid of the offensive denotation of “wolf-likeness.” Second, the Lang Chia tribe might happen to live in an area named after the river Lang Hsi (Clear Brook) in the Ch’ ien Yang County of west Hunan. The first reason is highly probable because Shen was keenly aware of the Han chauvinism reflected in the naming of minority peoples. In the later versions of this story, he removed the name “Lang Chia” and used instead “Pai Erh,” probably a transliteration of what the tribe called itself. Here I only mean to suggest a possible relationship between these two tribes. To determine whether these two tribes were actually related is a task for an anthropologist, not for a student of literature like myself.

71. Kinkley, Odyssey, p. 140.

72. Ibid., p. 140. For Granet’ s discussion of collective love-song sing in the Book of Poetry, see his Festivals and Songs of Ancient China, trans. E. D. Ewards (New York: Button, 1932), pp. 11-145; 190-206.

73. Pan Ku, Pai-hu t’ ung, chüan 3 (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1994), vol. 1, p. 97.

74. These two and other Lang song-texts are in the “Lang-ko” section of Yüeh feng, collected in Han hai, vol. 23, 3.1a-10b, pp. 14357-76. The terms “intent,” “love,” and “beautiful” do not appear in the texts and are used to translate the “nonsensical,” emotive words uttered by the singers.

75. These formal features may also be observed in the Miao songs collected by Shen Ts’ung-wen and translated by Kinkley in Odyssey, pp. 142-45.

76. For a study of the art of story-telling in later Chinese fiction, see David L. Rolston, “Oral Performing Literature in Traditional Chinese Fiction: Nonrealistic Usages in the Jin Ping Mei Cihua,” CHINOPERL Papers 17 (1994): 1-110.

77. The translation is taken, with slight modifications, from Frankel, “The Development of Han and Wei Yüeh-fu as a High Literary Genre,” in The Vitality of the Lyric Voice, ed. Lin and Owen, pp. 259-60.

78. In “From the Folk to the Literary Yüeh-fu,” Tamkang Review 5.1 (1974): 31-55, Marie Chan uses these two poems to illustrate the development from folk to literati yüeh-fu, although she does not make detailed comparisons between the two poems. According to her, what distinguishes folk yüeh-fu from literati yüeh-fu is the impulse of externalization in the former and the impulse of internalization in the latter. My analysis of the dramatic and narrative modes seems to lend support to this broad aesthetic distinction between the two. For a discussion of post-Han literati imitations of “Mulberry along the Lane,” see Allen, In the Voice of Others, pp. 209-23.

79. The text cited here is the first half of the poem that appears in HCHW, 262-63. In his explanatory note, Lu Ch’ in-li observes that the poem consists of two parts entirely different in meaning and that these two parts are taken by many critics including himself as two separate poems accidentally placed together in some editions of yüeh-fu texts. The opinion of these critics gives me the license to leave out the second half, which is totally unrelated to my subject. As Ballad to a Long Song” is a common yüeh-fu title, it is not necessarily a literal description of the length of this particular poem. This title does seem a misnomer especially after my reduction of its length.

80. Konishi Noboru, “Kandai Gafushi to shinen shiso,” collected in Mekada Makoto Hakushi kanreki kinen chūgokugaku ronshū, ed. Mekada Makoto kanreki kinen ronbunshū Kankōkai (Tokyo: Kabushikikaisha Daian, 1964), pp. 137-42. For an account of the literati involvement in the composition of “Songs for Suburban Sacrifices,” see Ssu-ma Ch’ ien (145?-? B.C.), Shih chi, 10 vols. (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1959), 4/24/1177; Pan Ku, Han shu, 4/22/1045.

81. See Konishi, “Kandai Gafushi to shinen shisō,” pp. 143-49. Sawaguchi Takeo also presents this argument in, “Kan gi gakufu ni okeru ‘RōSō’ Dōka no shisō,” Tōhō Shūkyō 44 (1974): 29-30.

82. See Kuo Ch’ ing-fan, ed., Chuang Tzu chi shih (Peking: Chung-hua shuchü, 1961), 1/1/28; 1/2/96. For a description of the famous immortals Wang Ch’iao and Ch’ih-sung tzu, see Liu An, Huai-nan hung-lieh, 1/11/361.

83. See the descriptions of such fabulous creatures in Ssu-ma Ch’ ien, Shih chi 4/28/1396-97.

84. Due to the limitation of space, I cannot give a more detailed description of the stories alluded to in this poem. Readers wishing to learn more about them may examine the extensive textual notes in Huang, Han–Wei yüeh-fu feng chien, pp. 48-51 and in Williams, “A Study of the Oral Nature of the Han Yüeh-fu,” pp. 203-08.

85. The doublecarp was a box used for sending a letter in Han times, and “cooking” refers to the act of opening it.

86. For a discussion of the adaptation of oral, formulary constructions in literati yüeh-fu, see Dieny, Aux Origines de la Poésie Classique en Chine, p. 3.

87. For other allegorical pieces, see “Ballad to a Long Song” (HCHW, 262), “The Yü-Chang Ballad” (HCHW, 264) and “A Yen Song, The Whenever Ballad” (HCHW, 272).

88. Birrell, Popular Songs and Ballads, p. 18.

89. For a discussion of the function of point of view in Chinese narrative poetry, see Levy, Chinese Narrative Poetry, pp. 54-79. See also David L. Rolston’ s article on point of view in “’ Point of View’ in the Writings of Traditional Chinese Fiction Critics,” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 15 (1993): 113-42.

90. In “The Development of Han and Wei Yüeh-fu as a High Literary Genre,” p. 284, Hans Frankel comes up with as many as twenty-five themes in Han and Wei literati yüeh-fu after he has broadened the meaning of the term “theme” to include topics, topoi, motifs, archetypes, and other categories.

91. By Wei-Chin times, these four themes had evolved into major subgenres of pentasyllable poetry: poems of the neglected wife (ch’ i-fu child shih), poems on object or things (yung-wu shih), poems on visiting the land of immortals (yu-hsien shih), and poems of historical reflection (yung-shih shih). I shall have occasion to discuss these subgenres in my chapter on Ts’ao Chih.

92. This sudden emergence of human transience as a central poetic theme may have much to do with, among other things, the loss of belief in the permanence of the soul and afterlife in the Han times. See Ying-shih Yü, “’ O Soul, Come Back!’ A Study in the Changing Conceptions of the Soul and Afterlife in Pre-Buddhist China,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 47.2 (1987): 363-95.

Notes to Chapter 3

1. Lu and Mou, Wen hsin tiao lung, p. 62.

2. Hsüs, Yü-tai hsin-yung, pp. 16-21. Cf. Fang Tsu-shen’ s discussion of the dating and authorship of these poems in “Han ku-shih shih-tai wen-t’ i k’ aopien,” published in three parts in Ta-lu tsa-chih 31.5 (1965): 13-16; 31.6 (1965): 30-35; 31.7 (1965): 31-35.

3. For a brief summary of these six kinds of internal textual evidence, see Sui Shu-sen, Ku shih shih-chiu shou chi shih (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1955; hereafter KSSC), pp. 1-2. I use this edition for both the citation and the numbering of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems."

4. See Liu, Chung-kuo wen-hsüeh fa-chan shih, vol. 1, pp. 208-209; Lu and Feng, Chung-kuo shih-shih, vol. 2, p. 279; Ma Mao-yüan, Ku-shih shih-chiu shou ch’u fan (Shansi: Jen-min ch’u-pan-she, 1981), pp. 8–16.

5. For a theoretical discussion of the self-reflectivity in this collection, see Kao, “Aesthetics of Self-Reflection,” in The Power of Culture: Studies in Chinese Cultural History, eds. Willard J. Peterson, Andrew Plaks, and Ying-shih Yü (Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 1994), pp. 80-102.

6. For a general discussion of the formal aspects of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems,” see Liao Wei-ch’ ing, “Lun ‘Ku-shih shih-chiu shou’ ti i-shu chich’ iao,” in Wen-hsüeh p’ ing-lun, ed. Liu Shou-i (Taipei: Lien-ching ch’ u-pan shih-yeh kung-ssu, 1977), vol. 1, pp. 65-92.

7. Shen, Ku-shih yüan, p. 92.

8. In translating this and other pieces of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems,” I have relied on the glosses in KSSC and the extensive textual notes in Liang Han wen-hsüeh ts’ an-k’ ao tzu-liao, pp. 573-596. For previous translations of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems,” see Burton Watson, Chinese Lyricism: Shih Poetry from the Second to the Twelfth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), pp. 15-32; and Arthur Waley, Translations from the Chinese (New York: Knopf, 1941), pp. 37-48.

9. See KSSC, 2.5.

10. See “Suü no hiai—’ koshi jūkushu’ no shudai,” in Yoshikawa Kōjirō zenshū (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1968-70), vol. 6, pp. 266-330.

11. Many critics have recognized this brooding melancholy as a distinct quality of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.” Burton Watson writes, “Looking back at the poems as a whole, we note that they are dominated by a tone of brooding melancholy. The songs of the Book of Poetry had often complained of hardship and sorrow, but they were for the most part complaints over specific human ills that presumably were capable of being remedied. With the poems of the Ch’ u Tz’ u, a more generalized air of grief was introduced into Chinese literature, and it is this air that pervades the ‘Nineteen Old Poems,’ expressed here for the first time in the new five-character shih form” (Chinese Lyricism, p. 30).

12. Kao, Shih ching chin-chu, p. 163; trans., Arthur Waley, The Book of Songs (New York: Grove, 1960), p. 89.

13. Wang I (fl. 89-159), ed., Ch’ u Tz’ u pu-chu (SPPY edn.), 1.5.; translation based on. David Hawkes, Songs of the South (Oxford: Clarendon, 1959), p. 22.

14. See Yang Po-chün, ed. Lun yü i-chu (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1980) p. 92, 9.17; trans. Arthur Waley, The Analects of Confucius (New York: Vintage, 1938), p. 142, IX.17.

15. Mu chai yu hsüeh chi (SPTK edn.), 19. 22a.

16. For Wu’ s detailed comment on this poem, see his Ku-shih shih-chiu shou ting-lun, in KSSC, 3.21. See also the endorsements of Wu’ s interpretation by Chang Keng (fl. 1728), Ku-shih shih-chiu shou chieh in KSSC 3.34-35; by Chiang Jen-hsiu (fl. 1789), Ku-shih shih-chiu shou i, preface dated 1789, in KSSC, 3.43; and by Jao Hsüeh-pin (Ch’ ing dynasty) in Yüeh wu lou ku-shih shih-chiu shou hsiangchieh, posthumously published in 1874, in KSSC, 3.80-82. My translation is based on Wu’s interpretation.

17. See Kuo, Chuang Tzu chi shih, 3/18/614-19.

18. See Lu Ch’ in-li, ed., T” ao Yuan-ming chi (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1979), pp. 141-42.

19. See Kuo, Chuang Tzu chi shih, 3/22/746-47.

20. Shih chi, 6/55/2048; trans. Burton Watson, Records of the Grand Historian (New York: Columbia University Press), 1958), p. 174. These remarks were made by Empress Lü to Chang Liang, Marquis of Liu.

21. For a discussion of different philosophical perspectives on human transience in Han times, see Aoki Masaru, “Go-Kan no shi ni arawaretaru mujōkan to raisei shisō,” Aoki Masaru zenshū (Tokyo: Shunjusha, 1970), vol. 2, pp. 42-47.

22. Lieh Tzu chi shih (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1979), p. 221; trans. Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), pp. 310-311. Translation slightly modified.

Lieh Tzu is a collection of stories, sayings and short essays attributed to a certain Lieh Tzu who is supposed to have lived between 600 and 400 B.C. However, most scholars believe that this book was written as late as the fourth century A.D. The present passage is cited from “Yang Chu,” one of the eight chapters of this collection. Unlike the other seven chapters, the “Yang Chu” chapter departs from the mainstream Taoist thought and expounds a hedonism that is only loosly associated with the idea of life preservation developed in Chuang Tzu. As this chapter is out of keeping, in content and style, with the remainder of the book, many modern scholars believe that it is the work of another writer in the third or fourth century A.D., who put his own hedonist ideas into the mouth of Yang Chu (c. 350 B.C.), a famous thinker living some six hundred years earlier. Cf. A. C. Graham, trans. The Book of Lieh-tzu: a Classic of the Tao (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), pp. 1-13, 135-37.

23. For a discussion of the theme of human transience in Han-Wei poetry in general, see Suzuki Shūji, Kan Gi shi no kenkyū (Tokyo: Taishukan shoten, 1967), pp. 364-438.

24. As critical terms, “mode” and “process” are both used to analyze the dynamics of artistic creation, but at different levels. As I explained in my Introduction, literary critics often use the term “mode” on a theoretical level to characterize the overall pattern of relationship of the four major aspects of artistic creation in a literary or critical tradition. They opt for the term “process” when they describe a continuum of psychological experience of a given poet or audience on the level of practical criticism. Following this critical convention, I have used the term “poetic mode” in like manner and here introduce the term “poetic process” for my descriptions of the interior experience of the poets and the readers in the course of writing and reading the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.” The term “poetic process” will be used for the same descriptive purposes in the subsequent chapters on Ts’ao Chih and Juan Chi.

25. The sequences in those twelve poems run as follows: Poem 1 (past: [lines] 1-4; present: 5-8; past as related to present: 9-11; existential problem: 13-14; future: 15-16), Poem 2 (present: 1-6; past: 7-8; present-future: 9-10), Poem 6 (present: 1-4; past: 5-6; present-future: 7-8), Poem 7 (present: 1-8; past: 9-12; present-future: 13-16), Poem 8 (present: 1-2; past: 3-8; present-future: 10-16), Poem 11 (present: 1-6; existential problem: 7-10; future: 11-12), Poem 13 (present: 1-4; past: 5-8; existential problem: 9-14; present-future: 15-18), Poem 14 (past-future: 1-2; present 3-8; future: 9-10), Poem 16 (present: 1-6; past: 7-8; future in dream: 9-12; present: 13-20), Poem 17 (present: 1-6; past: 7-12; future: 13-14), Poem 18 (past: 1-4; present: 5-8; existential problem: 9-10).

26. Ch’en, Shih-p’in chu, p. 17.

27. Lang T’ ing-huai, ed., Shih-yu shih chuan-lu (Hsüeh hai lei-pien edn.) 1.2-3.

28. See Sui Shu-sen, KSSC, 1.1-2; and Ma Mao-yüan, Ku-shih shih-chiu shou ch’u t’an, pp. 26-45.

29. I have discussed in greater detail the evolution of these two pi hsing structures in “Shih ching yü’ Ku-shih shih-chiu shou’ : ts’ ung pi-hsing ti yen-pien lai k’ an t’ a-men ti nei-tsai lien-hsi,” Chung-wai wen-hsüeh 17.11 (1989): 118-26.

Apart from formal affinities, these two structures are linked by their common susceptibility to allegorical exegeses and interpretations. For a comparsion of allegorical readings of natural images in the Book of Poetry and in the “ Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems,” see Pauline Yü, The Reading of Imagery in the Chinese Poetic Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), pp. 121-31.

30. On the evolution of the meanings of pi and hsing, see Kuo Shao-yü and Wang Wen-sheng, “Lun pi-hsing,” in Wen-hsüeh p’ ing-lun (1978, no. 4): 47-54; P’ ei P’ u-hsien, Shih ching yen-tu chih-tao (Taipei: Tung-ta, 1977), pp. 10-21; and Chao Chih-yang, Shih ching fu-pi-hsing tsung-lun (Taipei: Feng-cheng, 1974), pp. 25-28.

31. Kao, Shih ching chin-chu, p. 148; previous trans., Waley, The Book of Songs, p. 309.

32. Kao, Shih ching chin-chu, p. 1; previous trans., Waley, The Book of Songs, p. 81.

33. For instance, Liu Hsieh not only employs the two terms as a compound, but also uses the compound to name a chapter of his magnum opus Wen hsin tiao lung.

34. Owing to the presence of two binary structures, some traditional Chinese critics are tempted to consider these three poems as made up of separate pieces accidentally put together by careless compilers. According to Sun Chih-tsu’ s (1737-1801) Wen hsüan k! ao-i, Yen Yü (fl. 1180-1235) in Ts’ ang-lang shih-hua alleges that, based on [a certain lost Sung edition of] Yü-t’ ai hsin-yung, the second half of Poem 1 is to be taken as an independent poem. In Wen hsüan tsuan-chu, Chang Feng-i (1527-1613) divides Poem 12 into two pieces that, he contends, were confused as one poem because of their identical rhymes. However, these views are regarded as fallacious by the majority of critics, who believe that such deconstructions impair the meanings of these poems. For a summary of those debates, see Ma Mao-yüan, Ku-shih shih-chiu shou ch’ u t’ an, pp. 87-88, 111.

35. Ch’ ien Chung-shu, Kuan-chui p’ ien. 4 vols. (Peking: Chung-hua, 1979), vol. 2, p. 612.

36. For the sources of subsequent allusions to Wang Ch’ ang-ling’ s discussions of hsing, see Shih ko (Rules of Poetry), collected in Shen Ping-hsün, ed., Hsü Tang shih-hua (Ch’ien-lung edition), A.1.16–21.

37. On the aesthetic significance of the interaction between the perceptive and narrative processes, see See Kao, “Aesthetics of Self-Reflection,” pp. 89-92.

38. These four categories are kan-shih ju hsing, pa-sheng ju hsing, ching-wu ju hsing, and ching-wu chien-i ju hsing.

39. These four categories are hsien i-tai hou hsü-shih ju hsing, hsien hsü-shih hou i-tai ju hsing, hsü-shih ju hsing, and t’uo hsing ju hsing.

40. For a frequency tabulation of all citations in Shih ko, see Richard W. Bodman, “Poetics and Prosody in Early Medieval China: A Study and Translation of Kukai’ s Bunkyō Hifuron,” Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1978, pp. 60-61.

41. For a theoretical discussion of the functions of these two relationships in poetry, see Roman Jakobson,” Two Aspects of Language” in Fundamentals of Language (The Hague: Mouton, 1975), pp. 73-96. See also his “Linguistics and Poetics,” in Style in Language, ed. Thomas Sebeok (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1960), pp. 350-77.

42. For a theoretical discussion of the dynamics of reading, see Wolfgang Iser, “The Process of Reading: A Phenomenological Approach,” in his The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1978), pp. 274-94.

43. The emphasis is mine.

44. Ts’ ai Hsiao-liu takes the question-answer formula as one of the six most common structural formulas used in Chinese folk poetry from the earliest times. The other five are repetition of words in consecutive verses; repetitions of an entire verse; use of spatial, temporal, seasonal, and numerical ordinals; evocative beginnings (hsing); and regular alternations of end rhymes. See his “Tsung min-ko hsing-shih k’ an ‘Mu-lan Tz’ u’” in Yüeh-fu shih yen-chiu lunwen chi, ed. Tso-chia ch’ u-pan-she pien-chi-pu (Peking: Tso-chia ch’ u-pan-she, 1957), pp. 200-204.

45. The emphasis is mine.

46. Wu-yen shih hsüan-li, quoted in KSSC, 4.6.

47. Neither Sui Shu-sen nor Ma Mao-yüan uses stanzaic divisions in their type-set editions of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems,” While Arthur Waley and Dell R. Hales translate the poems without stanzaic divisions, Charles Hartman translates them as run-on sentences, eliminating the capitalizations at the beginning of all but the first lines and the punctuation at the end of all lines. See Waley, Translations from the Chinese, pp. 37-48; Liu Wu-chi and Irving Yucheng Lo, eds. Sunflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975), pp. 30-33.

48. Kao, “Aesthetics of Self-Reflection,” p. 88.

49. After the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems,” the conscious exploitation of “verse eye” became widespread in Chinese poetry. Subsequently, the poetic effect of “verse eye” became an established subject of critical inquiry, attracting comments by important critics like Lu Chi (261-303), Liu Hsieh, and Chung Hung and more detailed studies by Huang T’ ing-chien (1045-1105), Fan Wen (ca. 1100) and others. For a comprehensive study of “verse eye” in comparison with Western theories of metaphor, see Craig Fisk, “The Verse Eye and the Self-Animating Landscape in Chinese Poetry,” Tamkang Review 8 (1977): 123-53.

50. In the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems,” we can find an abundance of separate, and often metaphorical images in the second part of a poem. See, for instance, Poem 1 (7-8, 11), Poem 5 (15-16), Poem 6 (5-6), Poem 7 (10, 13-14), Poem 8 (11-14), Poem 12 (8, 19-20), Poem 14 (7-8), Poem 16 (15-16), and Poem 17(11-12).

51. I-yüan chihyen 1, collected in Li-tai shih hua hsü-p’ ien, ed. Ting Fu-pao, 3 vols. (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1983), vol. 2, p. 964.

52. Ku-shih shih-chiu shou ting-lun, in KSSC, 3.8.

53. Ku-shih shih-chiu shou yen-chiu (Shanghai: Ta-kuang shu-chü, 1935), p. 32.

54. Lun ku-shih shih-chiu shou, in KSSC, 3.74.

55. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, 2 vols. (London: J. M. Dent, 1975), vol. 1, p. 173.

56. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 174.

57. Ch’en, Shih-pin chu, p. 17.

58. Lü Pen-chung, Lü shih t’ ung meng hsün. Cited in Hu Tzu (fl. 1147-1167), Tiao-hsi Yü-Yin ts’ung-hua (SPPY ed.) A.1.12a.

59. Ch’ en Tso-ming (fl. 1665), ed. Ts’ ax-Shu t’ ang ku-shih hsüan (Ch’ ienlungedn.), 3.21.

60. Hu Ying-lin (1551-1602), Shih sou (Shanghai: Chung-hua, 1959), pp. 23, 26.

Notes to Chapter 4

1. Traditional Chinese critics often use the term ku-shih exclusively for Han pentasyllable poems like the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” and apply the term shih to all pentasyllabic poems written in the ku-shih style after the Han. However, when they wish to trace the historical evolution from Han ku-shih to later shih poems, they often extend the scope of ku-shih to include post-Han shih poems as well, just as Shen Te-ch’ ien and Wang Shih-chen did when compiling their famous poetic anthologies. Here I choose to describe these twenty-seven poems as ku-shih rather than shih poems because I, too, wish to trace the generic evolution from Han ku-shih to the shih poems of Ts’ao Chih.

2. This count is based on the edition and generic classification of Ts’ ao Chih’ s works in Chao Yu-wen, ed., Ts’ ao Chih chi chiao-chu (Peking: Jen-min wen-hsüeh ch’ u-pan-she, 1984; hereafter cited as TCCC). However, if we count Ts’ao Chih’ s poetical works collected in Ting Yen’ sTs’ ao chi ch’ üan-p’ ing, the number of his ku-shih and yüeh-fu works will be considerably larger. By the estimate of Lu K’ an-ju and Feng Yuan-chüm, there are forty-two ku-shih pieces and fifty-five yüeh-fu pieces in T’ ing Yen’ s edition; see Chung-kuo shih shih, vol. 2, p. 305. Unless indicated otherwise, all my citations of Ts’ ao Chih’ s works are from Chao Yu-wen’s edition.

3. See Ch’en, Shih-p’in chu, pp. 20, 56, 31-32.

4. For the titles of all these poetical and prose works, see Huang K’ an (1886-1935), Wen hsüan p’ ing-Hen (Shanghai: Ku-chi ch’ u-pan-she, 1985), pp. 9, 10, 12, 13, 17, 19, 27, 32, 39, 40, 45, 54.

5. Cited in San Ts’ ao tzu-liao hui-pien, ed. Department of Chinese, Hupei Normal Institute (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chu, 1980; hereafter cited as STTL), p. 95.

6. “Lun wen,” in CKLT, vol. 1, p. 159; previous trans., Siu-kit Wong, Early Chinese Literary Criticism, (Hong Kong: Joint Publishing Company, 1983), p. 21.

7. Previous trans., George W. Kent, Worlds of Dust and Jade: 47 Poems and Ballads of the Third Century Chinese Poet Ts’ ao Chih (New York: Philosophical Library, 1969), p. 66.

8. “Yü Yang Te-tsu shu,” TCCC, p. 154; previous trans, Wong, Early Chinese Literary Criticism, pp. 29–30.

9. For a study on the relationship between subjectivity and poetic discourse in Ts’ ao Ts’ ao, Ts’ ao P’ i, and Ts’ ao Chih, see Christopher Leigh Connery, “Jian’ an Poetic Discourse,” Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1991. The issue of subjectivity in Ts’ ao Chih is also addressed in Sung-sheng Yvonne Chang, “Generic Transformation from Yuefu to Gushi: Poetry of Cao Cao, Cao Pi, and Cao Zhi,” Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1985.

10. My account of Ts’ ao Chih’ s life is based on his biographical entry in Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms; see Ch’ en Shou, San-kuo chih chi-chieh, annotated by P’ ei Sung-chih (372-451) and re-edited as a variorum edition by Lu Pi (1876-1967), (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1982), 19, pp. 478-496. For a recent study on the biography of Ts’ ao Chih, see Teng Yung-k’ ang, ed., Ts’ ao Tzu-chien hsiensheng chih nien-p’u (Taipei: Shang-wu yin-shu-kuan, 1981).

11. The given names of Ting Ì (elder brother) and Ting I (younger brother) are homonyms with different tones. To distinguish these two figures, I have added diacritical marks to their given names.

12. See Ts’ ao Chih k’ ao-i, collected in Chin-ling ts’ ung-shu, ed. Weng Ch’ ang-sen (1857-1914) and Chiang Kuo-pang (Ch’ ing dynasty), 3rd series (Shang-yüan: Chiang shi kuo pang shen-hsiu shu-wu, 1916).

13. See Ting Yen, ed., Ts’ ao chih ch’ üan-p’ ing, preface dated 1865 (Peking: Jen-min wen-hsüeh ch’ u-pan-she, 1957), collected in Concordance des oeuvres completes de Cao Zhi, Travaux d’ index, de bibliographie et de documentation sinologiques publiés par 1’ Institut des Hautes Etudes Chinoises, no. 6 (Paris: Collège de France, 1977).

14. See Huang Chieh, ed., Ts’ ao Tzu-chien shih-chu (Peking: Jen-min wenhsüeh ch’u-pan-she, 1957).

15. See Ku Chih, ed., Ts’ ao Tzu-chien shih-chien (Taipei: Kuang-wen shuchü, 1961).

16. See Chung-kuo shih shih, vol. 2, pp. 299-302.

17. See Itō Masafumi, SōShoku, Chūgoku shijin senshū, no. 3 (Tokyo: Iwanami, 1964), pp. 4-15. For a free and often inaccurate translation of this book, see Chung Ching-to, trans., Ts’ao Chih (Taipei: Lin-pai ch’u-pan-she, 1980).

18. For a brief description of the formation of these two camps, see Chung Yu-min, Ts’ao Chih hsin-t’an (Ho-fei: Huang-shan shu-she, 1984), pp. 247-61.

19. Ch’en, Shih-p’in chu, p. 20.

20. STTL, 102.

21. See “Ch’ en Ss’ u wang chi ti tz’ u,” in Han-Wei liu-ch’ ao i pai-san chia chi, 26.2a, collected in [Ching-yin] Wen-yüan-ko ssu-k’ u ch’ üan-shu, eds. Chi Yün (1724-1805) et al. Rpt. (Taiwan: Shang-wu yin-shu-kuan, 1983), vol. 1412, p. 632.

22. This passage is cited without source identification by Kuo Mo-jo in his “Lun Ts’ ao Chih,” in his Li-shih jen-wu (Shanghai: Hsin wen-i ch’ u-pan-she, 1952), p. 149. It could not be located in Ting Yen’ s Ts’ ao Chih ch’ üan-p’ ing.

23. Lu and Mou, Wen hsin tiao lung i-chu, vol. 2, p. 365.

24. See STTL, 97-99.

25. See his Ku-shih p’ ing-hsilan, collected in Ch’ uan-shan ch’ üan-chi (Taipei: Ta-yüan wen-hua fu-wu-she, 1965), vol.15, 1.9a-13a, pp. 11695-11703; 1.13b, p. 11704.

26. Ibid., vol. 15, 4.8a-9b, pp. 11829-32; 4.9b-10b, pp. 11832-34.

27. Ibid., vol. 15, 1.13b, p. 11704.

28. See “Lun Ts’ao Chih,” in his Li-shih jen-wu, pp. 146-172.

29. See “Kuan yü’ Lun Ts’ ao Chih,’” Wen shih die 34 (1955), pp. 28-32.

30. See his “Kuan yü Ts’ ao Chih te p’ ing-chia wen-ti,” Li-shih yen-chiu (1957, no. 2), pp. 48-66.

31. For biographically oriented studies of Ts’ ao Chih in the English language, see Robert Joe Cutter, “Cao Zhi (192-232) and His Poetry,” Ph.D. diss., University of Washington, 1983; and Hugh Dunn, Cao Zhi: The Life of a Princely Chinese Poet (Peking: New World Press, 1983). Cutter’ s dissertation is a solid textual and biographical study that aims, in the author’ s own words, “to examine each of Cao’ s poems with an eye to whether or not it is informed by or reflects his personal condition” (p. 3). Dunn’ s book is a literary biography of Ts’ ao Chih intended for general readers. He meticulously interweaves Ts’ ao Chih’ s poems with historical and biographical data and recreates a touching drama of the life of Ts’ ao Chih—as a romantic youth, a valiant soldier, a Confucian moralist, a Taoist mystic, and above all a frustrated contender for the throne and a poetic genius. Coherent and chronologically unambiguous, this biography seems to have fulfilled the dream of many biographically oriented scholars of Ts’ao Chih.

32. See “Fifteen Poems by Ts’ ao Chih: An Attempt at a New Approach,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 84.1 (1964): 2-14.

33. See “Sō Shoku ron: shōzen,” Nagoya Daigaku Bungakubu kenkyū ronshū 75 (1978): 45-71.

34. See ibid., pp. 67-68.

35. See ibid., pp. 55-60.

36. See “Sō Shoku ron: shōzen shi shokan,” Nagoya Daigaku bungakubu kenkyū ronshū 63 (1974): 91-114; and “So Shoku ron,” Nagoya Daigaku bungakubu kenkyū ronshū 69 (1976): 267-302. For a critical summary of these two articles by the author herself, see her “So Shoku ron: shōzen."

37. These earliest examples are three poems by Wang Ts’ an, three poems by Liu Chen, and five poems by Ts’ ao Chih, see Huang K’ an, ed., Wen hsüan p’ing-tien, pp. 18-19.

38. In Ts’ ao Chih’ s poems of presentation, there seems to be nothing secretive that he does not want to be read by any other people—be they his other friends, the friends of his friends, or the reading public in general. As Ts’ ao Chih wished himself to be remembered for his poetic achievement, we may assume that he had an undeclared intention of letting his poems of presentation go into public circulation at a later date. So it seems appropriate to consider his poems of presentation to be of a semi-private rather than private nature.

39. For a discussion on the development of tripartite structure in the shih poetry from Ts’ ao Chih to Ch’ en Tzu-ang, see Kang-i Sun Chang, Six Dynasties Poetry (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 73-78; and Stephen Owen, The Poetry of the Early T ang (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), pp. 236-242.

40. Previous trans. Cutter, “Cao Zhi,” pp. 205-206; Kent, Worlds of Dust and Jade, p. 40.

41. Previous trans. Cutter, “Cao Zhi,” pp. 197-98; Kent, Worlds of Dust and Jade, p. 41.

42. Previous trans., Cutter, “Cao Zhi,” p. 86; Kent, Worlds of Dust and Jade, p. 44.

43. Previous trans., Kent, Worlds of Dust and Jade, p. 42.

44. Previous trans., Cutter, “Cao Zhi,” p. 203; Kent, Worlds of Dust and Jade, p. 43.

45. Previous trans., Cutter,” Cao Zhi,” p. 198; Kent, Worlds of Dust and Jade, p. 41.

46. For a criticism of the lack of unity in these five poems, see Komori Ikuko, “Sō Shoku ron shi shokan,” pp. 103-04.

47. Previous trans., Ann Birrell, New Songs from a Jade Terrace (London: Allen & Unwin, 1982), p.68; Cutter, “Cao Zhi,” pp. 401-402.

48. Previous trans. J. D. Frodsham, An Anthology of Chinese Verse (Oxford: Clarendon, 1967), p. 49; Cutter, “Cao Zhi,” pp. 355-56.

49. Cited in Huang, Ts’ ao Tzu-chien shih chu, 2.10a, p. 123.

50. Previous trans. Frodsham, Anthology, p. 43; Cutter, “Cao Zhi,” pp. 91-92.

51. Cited in Huang, Ts’ao Tzu-chien shih-chu, 2.8b, p. 120.

52. Ibid., p. 120.

53. “Sō Shoku shi shokan,” pp. 100-101.

54. TCCC, 369.

55. Hu, Shih sou, 2, pp. 29, 31.

56. For previous translations of this preface as well as the entire poem to be examined below, see Watson, Chinese Lyricism, pp. 41-43; Cutter, “Cao Zhi,” pp. 210-14.

57. On the aesthetic functions of prefaces in traditional Chinese lyrics, see Shuen-fu Lin, The Transformation of the Chinese Lyrical Tradition: Chiang K’ uei and Southern Sung Tz’ u Poetry (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), pp. 62-93.

58. For a discussion of the allegorical meanings of these images, see Huang, Ts’ ao Tzu-chien shih-chu, 1.29b, p. 74, and Yamaguchi Tamehiro, “Sō Shoku ‘Zō Hakuba ō pyō’ shik ō,” Kokugakuin zasshi 71 (1970): 43-46.

59. Mulberry and Elm are the names of two stars in the western sky. When the sun approaches these stars, it is about to set. Thus, in writing “our years are now between the Mulberry and Elm,” Ts’ ao Chih means that they were about to enter old age.

60. 1 have adopted Lu CIV in-li’ s grouping of the miscellaneous poems; cf. HCHW, 457-59.

61. Previous trans., Birrell, New Songs, pp. 67-68. This poem is not collected in TCCC and therefore HCHW is cited instead.

62. Ts’ao Tzu-chien shih chien, 2.20b.

63. “Sō Shoku ron,” p. 276.

64. Of course not all of Ts’ ao Chih’ s poems of the fortune-seeking wanderer reveal the same kind of personal quality. His “Miscellaneous Poems,” No. 1 (TCCC, 251), the single-piece “Miscellaneous Poem” (TCCC, 512), and “Poem of Sentiment” (HCHW, 459) all strike us as conventional ku-shih pieces, marked by fixed topoi, motifs, and generalized lamentation about separation and human transience.

65. Previous trans., Kent, Worlds of Dust and Jade, p. 48.

66. Previous trans., Kent, Worlds of Jade and Dust, p. 48; Cutter, “Cao Zhi,” pp. 363-64.

67. See Ku, Ts’ao Tzu-chien shih chien, 2.1a.

68. Ibid., 2.1b.

69. See Huang, Ts’ao Tzu-chien shih-chu, 1.11b, p. 38.

70. See Ku, Ts’ao Tzu-chien shih chien, 2.2b.

71. Hsü Shen (second century A.D.), Shuo-wen chieh-tzu chu, annot. Tuan Yüts’ai (1735–1815) (rpt. Taipei: I-wen yin-shu-kuan, 1974), 10B.26b.

72. See Paul Kroll, “Strength and Sentiment in the Poetry of Ts’ ao Chih,” unpublished paper, pp. 11-13; Paul Demieville, ed., Anthologie de la poé sie chinoise classique (Paris: Gallimard, 1962), p. Ill; and Cutter, “Cao Zhi,” p. 46. See also Goto Akinobu’ s discussion of the quality of k’ ang-k’ ai in Ts’ ao Chih in “Sō Shoku ni okeru kōgai ni tsuite,” Gogaku bungaku (Hokkaido kyōikudai) 16 (1978): 69-76.

73. For instance, see his “Memorial Seeking to Prove Myself” (TCCC, 368), “Memorial Seeking to Convey Familial Affection” (TCCC, 436), “Memorial on Making Careful Appointments” (TCCC, 444) and “Memorial on Proving Myself” (TCCC, 506). For a discussion of these memorials in connection with the sentiment of k’ ang-k’ ai in Ts’ ao Chih’ s poems, see Komori Ikuko,” So Shoku ron,” pp. 295-302.

74. For a study on Ts’ ao Chih’ s yung-shih poems, see Robert Joe Cutter, “On Reading Cao Zhi’ s ‘Three Good Men’ : Yongshi shi or Denglin shi,” Classical Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 11 (1989): 1-11.

75. Cited in Huang, Ts’ao Tzu-chien shih-chu, 2, p. 128.

76. See ibid., 2, p. 128.

77. STTL, p. 188.

78. Huang, Ts’ao Tzu-chien shih chu, 2, p. 126.

79. Cited in ibid., p. 128.

80. Cited in ibid.

81. See Liu I-ch’ ing, comp., Shih shuo hsin yü chiao-chien, ed. Yang Yung (Hong Kong: Ta-chung shu-chü, 1969), 4, p. 192; trans. Richard B. Mather, Shih- shuo Hsin-yü: A New Account of Tales of the World (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1976), p. 126.

82. Previous trans., Birrell, Popular Songs, p. 61.

83. Previous trans., Kent, Worlds of. Dust and Jade, p. 75; Cutter, “Cao Zhi,” pp. 234-35.

84. Cited in Huang, Ts’ao Tzu-chien shih chu, 2.22b, p. 148.

85. Ibid., 2.22a, p. 147.

86. Ibid., 2.22b, p. 148.

87. Previous trans., Kent, Worlds of Dust and Jade, p. 78.

88. See “Immortals” (TCCC, 263), “Ascending to Heaven” (TCCC, 266), Roaming Immortals” (TCCC, 265), “Anguished Yearning” (TCCC, 316), “The Flying Dragon” (TCCC, 397), “The Cassia Tree” (TCCC, 399), “Five-fold Roaming” (TCCC, 400), “East of P’ ing-ling” (TCCC, 400), “Roaming Afar” (TCCC, 402), and “Speeding in a Carriage” (TCCC, 404). Okamura Sadao includes three other poems in this group, increasing the number of Ts’ ao Chih’ s yu-hsien poems to thirteen; “Sō Shoku no gakufu: so no jojōteki tokusei ni tsuite,” Chūgoku chūsei bungaku kenkyū 8 (1971), p. 5.

89. Ko Hung (283-363), the foremost religious Taoist of his era, cites Ts’ao Chih’s about-face in his belief in the existence of immortals; see Wang Ming, ed., Pao-p’ u-tzu nei-p’ ien chiao-shih (Peking: Chung-hua shu chü, 1985), 2, p. 16. For a discussion of Ts’ ao Chih’ s conflicting attitudes toward Taoism, see Donald Holzman, “Ts’ ao Chih and the Immortals,” Asia Major, 3rd series, 1.1 (1988): 15-57.

90. See Chao Yu-wen’ s discussion of Ts’ ao Chih’ s quest of immortality in TCCC, 267, 400, and 402.

91. See Yü Kuan-ying, San Ts’ ao shih hsüan (Peking: Tso-chia ch’ u-pan-she, 1956), p. 55.

92. See Funatsu Tomihiko, “Sō Shoku no yū senshi ron: Toku ni setsuwa no tenkai o chūshin ni shite,” Tōyō bungaku kenkyū 13 (1965), pp. 50-52.

93. See Komori Ikuko, Sō Shoku to Kutsu Gen: tsuketari “fūkotsu” ron (Nagoya-shi: Maruzen Nagoya Shuppan Sābisu Sentā, 1989), pp. 208-41.

94. Holzman, “Ts’ao Chih and the Immortals,” pp. 55-57.

95. Previous trans., Birrell, Popular Songs and Ballads, pp. 75, 173-74.

96. For a discussion of Ts’ ao Chih’ s innovative use of the conventional yuhsien motifs, see Satake Yasuko, “Yūsenshi no keifu—Sō Hi kara Rinboku made,” Tōhoku Gakuin Daigaku ronshū: Ippan kyōiku 83-84 (1986): 101-65.

Notes to Chapter 5

1. Pai-huawen-hsüehshih, 1928; rpt. (Taipei: ch’ i-ming shu-chu, 1957), p. 51; trans. Donald Holzman, Poetry and Politics, p. 228.

2. See, for instance, Stephen Owen’ s comments on the influence of Juan Chi’ s introspective poetry on Li Po’ s fifty-nine” Poems in the Ancient Mode” (ku-feng) in his The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: The High T ang (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), pp. 8-9; 132-34.

3. For a comparison of emotive features in Ts’ ao Chih and Juan Chi, see Yoshikawa Kōjirō,” Gen Seki no Eikaishi ni tsuite,” Chūgoku bungakuhō 5 (1956): 2-3.

4. See Hsiao T’ ung, Wen hsüan, commentary by Li Shan (d. 689) (Peking: Chung-hua shu chü, 1977), 23.2a, p. 322; trans. Holzman, Poetry and Politics, p. 7. This comment has been attributed by some critics to Li Shan, the renowned annotator of Wen hsüan. Here I follow Jao Tsung-i and Donald Holzman in attributing this comment to Yen Yen-chih in spite of the possible anachronism of the phrase “many centuries later.” For a summary of the debates on the attribution of this comment, see Holzman, Poetry and Politics, pp. 248-49.

5. For a modern attempt to revive and synthesize such allegorical readings scattered in textual notes to individual poems, see Nakata Kōichi,” Gen Seki no seijiteki kanshin ni tsuite-shi no imejari o tōshite,” Shūkan Tōyōgaku (Tōhōku Daigaku) 34 (1975): 82-98; “Fushin—Gen Seki no shinteki taido,” Shūkan Tōyō gaku (Tōhō ku Daigaku), 32 (1975): 1-22.

6. My critical approach to Juan Chi seems to fall in line with what Stephen Owen calls the “typological interpretation” of Juan Chi begun by Yen Yen-chih. Owen points out that the earliest commentaries on Juan Chi by Yen and others represent a kind of typological interpretation marked by acceptance of the indeterminacy in Juan Chi’s poems, by reluctance to search for reference in his poems to particular political events, and by revelation of the typologies of his personality and historical circumstance. I agree with Owen that such a typological interpretation provides a proper avenue for understanding the dynamic relationship between poets and their worlds, between poetry and its historical ground-especially in the study of allusive poets like Juan Chi, Tu Fu, and Li Shang-yin (ca. 813-858). See Stephen Owen, “Poetry and Its Historical Ground,” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 12 (1990): 107-18.

7. For a recent study on the life and thought of Juan Chi, see Fang Dai, “Drinking, Thinking, and Writing: Ruan Ji and the Culture of His Era,” Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1994.

8. See “Juan Chi Chuan,” in Fang Hsüan-ling (578-648) et al., comp., Chin shu (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1974), 3/19/1359-69.

9. a)
b) Fang, Chin shu 3/19/1361. See also a similar passage in Shih-shuo hsin-yü, p. 552; trans. Mather, A New Account, 23, p. 374.

10. Holzman, Poetry and Politics, p. 7A.

11. Cf. Kuo, Chuang Tzu chi-shih, 3/18/614.

12. See the important studies on the Wei-Chin manner and literature by Lu Hsün, “Wei Chin feng-tu chi wen-cheng yü yao chi chiu chih kuan-hsi,” in Lu Hsün san-shih nien-chi (Hong Kong: Hsin-i ch’ u-pan-she, 1967), vol. 1; and by Wang Yao, Chung-ku wen hsüeh-shih lun-chi (Shanghai: Ku-tien wen-hsüeh ch’ upan-she, 1956), especially, pp. 1-68.

13. For discussions of these two norms of behavior (ming-chiao and tzu-jan), see Ch’ en Yin-k’ o, “T’ ao Yuan-ming chih ssu-hsiang yü ch’ ing-t’ an chih kuan-hsi,” in Ch’ en Yin-k’ o hsien-sheng wen-shih lun-chi (Hong Kong: Wen-wen ch’u-pan-she, 1973), vol. 1, pp. 381-407; and Richard B. Mather, “The Controversy over Conformity and Naturalness during the Six Dynasties,” History of Religion 9.2 & 3 (1969-70): 160-80.

14. Ying-shih Yü, “Individualism and the Neo-Taoist Movement in Wei-Chin China,” Individualism and Holism: Studies in Confucian and Taoist Values, ed. Donald J. Munro (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan, 1985), p. 130.

15. For general studies on Neo-Taoism, see Mou Tsung-san, Ts’ ai-hsing yü hsüan-li, 1962, (rpt. Taipei: Hsüeh-sheng shu-chü, 1975); Wei-Chin hsüan-hsüeh (Taichung: Tung-hai University, 1962); Liu Ta-chieh, Wei-Chin ssu-hsiang-lun (Kunming: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1939); and T’ ang Yung-t’ ung, Wei-Chin hsüan-hsüeh lun-kao (Peking: Jen-min ch’u-pan-she, 1957).

16. See his biography in Fan Yeh (398-446), comp., Hou Han shu (Peking: Chunghua shu-chü, 1965), 6/60a/1953-78.

17. See his biography in Ch’ en Shou (223-297), comp. San-kuo chih (Peking: Chunghua shu-chü, 1959), 1/9/292.

18. See Ch’en, San-kuo chih, 3/28/795.

19. Liu, Shih-shuo hsin-yü, 4, p. 152; previous trans., Mather, A New Account, p. 96.

20. Quoted in Liu Ta-chieh, Wei-Chin ssu-hsiang lun (Shanghai: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1939), p. 19.

21. See JCCC, pp. 77-103, 133-59, 161-93.

22. See JCCC, pp. 104-33, 159-61.

23. See JCCC, pp. 77-104.

24. See JCCC, pp. 156-57; Holzman, Poetry and Politics, p. 108.

25. See JCCC, pp. 193-96.

26. Hoizman discusses this issue in Poetry and Politics, p. 113.

27. For a discussion of Juan Chi’ s different treatments of philosophical ideas in prose and in poetry, see Yoshikawa Kōjirō, “Gen Seki no Eikaishi ni tsuite,” Chūgoku bungakuhō 6 (1957): 22-23.

28. Ch’ en, Shih-p’ in chu, p. 23; previous trans., Donald Holzman, Poetry and Politics, p. 233.

29. In Reading of Imagery, p. 134, Pauline Yü observes that the absence of referential details in Juan Chi’ s poems encourages a symbolic reading by the reader.

30. Previous trans., Victor H. Mair, Four Introspective Poets, Monograph No. 20, Center for Asian Studies (Tempe: Arizona State University, 1987), p. 21, and Holzman, Poetry and Politics, p. 211. In translating Juan Chi’ s poems, I have frequently consulted Mair’ s and Holzman’ s translations and drawn from their insights into the original texts as well as their word choices.

31. ror a discussion of the preponderance of the motifs and images of human transience in Juan Chi’ s yung-huai poems, see Hayashida Shinnosuke, “Gen Seki Eikaishi kō: Sono kozetsu no ishiki ni tsuite,” Kyūshū Chūgoku gakkai hō 1 (1960): 63-66.

32. See HCHW, p. 1181.

33. The correct botanical translation of Ian is “thoroughwort,” not orchid. However, I have chosen to follow a long-standing tradition of translating it as orchid because thoroughwort is too technical and to little known to evoke a poetic image. For a discussion of the translation of Ian, see David R. Knechtges, trans, Wen Xuan, or Selections of Refined Literature, vol. 1 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), p xiii. I am grateful to Dr. Martin Kern for alerting me to this issue.

34. See Mair, “Concordance,” Categories 212-13, 152-53, 215-17, 147-48, in Four Introspective Poets, pp. 212-13, 213-14, 190-92, 189-90.

35. See Mair, “Concordance,” Categories 240-44 in Four Introspective Poets, pp. 221-24.

36. See Mair, “Concordance,” Categories 142-43; 236 in Four Introspective Poets, pp. 187; 220-21.

37. See Mair, “Concordance,” Categories 19-21; 23-24; 25, 27, 29, 169, 171 in Four Introspective Poets, pp. 154-55; 156-57; 156-59, 185-97.

38. Ōue Masami points out that the character chien ("see") nearly always occurs in negative or interrogative phrases such as “I cannot see,” “When can I see?” “How can I see?” and that this motif of “not seeing” is a revelation of the poet’ s sense of alienation from the world; “Gen Seki Eikaishi shiron—kyōgen kō zō ni miru shijin no haiboku sei ni tsuite,” Kanbun gakkai kaihō (Tokyo Kyōiku Daigaku) 36 (1977): 34.

39. See Mair, “Concordance,” Categories 10-11; 38-39; 56; 51; 78; 229; 54; 41 in Four Introspective Poets, pp. 149-50; 160; 165; 164; 168; 218; 165; and 161. For an interpretation of the motifs of climbing mountains and driving long distances as indicative of the poet’ s attempts to relieve his great sorrow, see Hayashida Shinnosuke, “Gen Seki Eikaishiō: Sono Kozetsu no ishiki ni tsuite,” p. 60.

40. See Fukunaga Mitsuji’ s comments on the unusual abundance of emotive words for sorrow in Juan Chi; “Gen Seki ni okeru osore to nagusame: Gen Seki no seikatsu to shisō,” Tōhō gakuhō 28 (1958): 140-41. See also Numaguchi Masaru’ s discussion of the use of abstract emotive words in Juan Chi; “Gen Seki no Eikaishi ni okeru shigo ni tsuite no ichi kosatsu,” Jimbun ronkyū 29 (1969): 15-27.

41. See JCCC, pp. 260, 302, 314.

42. For the use of shang as a response to such concrete situations, see for instance the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems,” 6.8; 12.8; and 16.19 (KSSCS, 9, 18, 24). See also Ts’ ao Chih’ s “Miscellaneous Poems,” 1.12 and “For Ts’ ao Piao, the Prince of Pai Ma,” section 4.11 (TCCC, 251, 297).

43. Shen, Ku-shih yüan, p. 2.

44. See Mair, “Concordance,” Categories 121; 117; 105-106; 104 in Four Introspective Poets, pp. 180; 179-80; 176-77; 175-76.

45. See Mair, “Concordance,” Category 104 in Four Introspective Poets, pp. 175-76.

46. See Mair, “Concordance,” Categories 160, 161, 162, and 163, in Four Introspective Poets, pp. 194-95.

47. All emphases are mine.

48. All emphases are mine.

49. See also YH 5.6, 24.4, 27: 10, 32.2, 36.6-7, 52: 4, and 80.7. All emphases are mine.

50. The term yüan-tu is first used by Ssu-ma Ch’ ien to describe base treachery in the political world when he comments on the tragic life of Wu Tzuhsü, who fell victim to the calumny of evil ministers and was ordered to kill himself by the King of Wu whom he served faithfully till his death; “Wu Tzuhsü lieh-chuan,” Shih chi, 7/67/2183. For a discussion of Juan Chi’ s denunciation of “venomous malice” in his poems, see Yoshikawa Kōjirō “Gen Seki no Eikaishi ni tsuite,” Chūgokū bungakuhō” 6 (1957): 1-9.

51. See JCCC, pp. 227-28.

52. See Ku Chih, ed., Juan Ssu-tsung shih-chien (Taipei: Kuang-wen shu chü, 1966), p. 4b.

53. Holzman, Poetry and Politics, p. 226.

54. For a discussion of general differences between the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” and Juan Chi’s poems, see Yü, Reading of Imagery, pp. 136-39.

55. Watson, Chinese Lyricism, p. 29.

56. See, for instance, the third of these parting poems collected in HCHW, p. 339.

57. See JCCC, p. 374.

58. Arthur Waley, trans., The Analects of Confucius (London: Allen & Unwin, 1938), p. 108.

59. See JCCC, p. 230.

60. Holzman, Poetry and Politics, p. 33.

61. See JCCC, pp. 252-53.

62. For the discussion of this fictional account, see JCCC, pp. 374-75.

63. See Huang Chieh, ed., Juan pu-ping yung-huai shih chu, p. 114-15; Ku Chih, ed., Juan Ssu-tsung shih-chien (Taipei: Kuang-wen shu-chü), p. 48.

64. On all these allusions to Chuang Tzu, see Juan pu-ping yung-huai shih chu, pp. 59-60.

65. On these allusions to Lao Tzu, see Juan pu-ping yung-huai shih chu, pp. 47, 130.

66. Ibid., pp. 130-31; JCCC, pp. 394-96.

67. The speakers in Juan Chi’ s poems do not possess the distinctive features of either conventional personae like those in the yüeh-fu and ku-shih or the personalized voices of those in T’ ao Ch’ ien’ s poetry. So it seems best to treat them as speakers as I do here.

68. These poems are YH 1, 13, 15, 17, 21, 30, 33, 34, 35, 36, 47, 49, 54, 55, 56, 58, 60, 61, 62, 77, 80.

69. These poems are YH 9, 10, 17, 18, 19, 23, 30, 31, 33, 41, 61, 64, 67, 79.

70. These poems are YH 1, 2, 7, 9, 10, 16, 17, 18, 19, 23, 30, 31, 41, 61, 64, 67, 79.

71. All the emphases are mine.

72. These poems are YH 4, 5, 6, 11, 13, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 33, 34, 37, 38, 40, 43, 45, 47, 49, 51, 54, 56, 58, 62, 68, 69, 70, 71, 75, 78, 82.

73. See also YH 38, 11-12, YH 40, 15-16.

74. “Gen Seki nō Eikaishi ni tsuite,” Chōgoku bungakuhō 5 (1956): 5-7.

75. For studies on the use of allusions in classical Chinese poetry, see James R. Hightower, “Allusion in the Poetry of T’ ao Ch’ ien,” in Studies in Chinese Literary Genres, ed. Birch, pp. 108-32; Kao Yu-kung and Mei Tsu-lin, “Meaning, Metaphor, and Allusion in T ang Poetry,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 38, 2 (1978): 281-356; Chou Shan, “Allusion and Periphrasis as Modes of Poetry in Tu Fu’ s ‘Eight Laments,’” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 45.1 (1985): 77-128; and David Lattimore, “Allusion in T’ ang Poetry,” in Perspectives on the T ang, eds. Denis Twitchett and Arthur Wright (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973), pp. 405-39.

76. 1 must emphasize that these four kinds of allusion are not to be taken as rigid, immutable cateories. They are only meant to shed light on the complex intertwining of multiple texts and historical or pseudo-historical references in Juan Chi’s use of allusions.

77. See Huang, Juan pu-ping yung-huai shih chu, p. 15.

78. Ibid.

79. Ibid.

80. Holzman, Poetry and Politics, p. 232.

81. Quoted by Huang Chieh in Juan pu-ping yung-huai shih chu, p. 14. This line cannot be found in HCHW.

82. HCHW, p. 366.

83. HCHW, p. 415.

84. See Huang, Juan pu-ping yung-huai shih-chu, pp. 14-15. See also Holzman’s discussion of this poem in Poetry and Politics, p. 230.

85. Wang I, Ch’u Tz’u pu-chu, 9.14a, 15a.

86. See the textual notes on these two allusions in JCCC, pp. 252-56.

87. See David Hawkes, trans., The Songs of the South, pp. 101-103. According to Hawkes, the unknown king Luan addressed in this poem might be King Hsiang of Ch’u.

88. For these critics’ allegorical readings of Poem 11, see JCCC, pp. 251-56.

89. Kao and Mei, “Meaning, Metaphor, and Allusion in T ang Poetry,” p. 332. Their analysis of the global use of allusions has inspired my reading of Juan Chi’s textual-historical allusions.

90. Line 1 recounts the story from Lieh Tzu, chapter 8, about Yang Chu surmising how easy it would be for his disciple to deviate from the Tao after he learned that his neighbor’ s sheep got lost at a fork in the road. Line 2 tells a story from Mo Tzu, chapter 3, about Mo Tzu sighing that man can be easily influenced by others just as silk can be easily dyed any color. Juan Chi casts these two allusions into a couplet in the same way Huai-nan Tzu, chapter 17, lumps together these two stories of different times and places.

91. Lines 9-10 relate a story from The Records of the Grand Historian about a princess of Chao whose younger brother (the King of Chao) married her to the King of Tai (a kingdom north of Chungshan) only for the purpose of killing him and annexing the territory of Tai. Line 10 alludes to the suicide of the princess upon learning that her brother assassinated her husband during a banquet in her husband’s honor. See Shih chi, 6/13/1793-94.

92. This passage is quoted by Ch’en Po-chün in JCCC, p. 231.

93. For these critics’ discussions of this allusion, see JCCC, pp. 230-32.

94. See Lu Ch’ in-li, ed., T ao Yuan-ming chi (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1979), p. 35-38.

95. See Shih chi, 6/55/2045, for the story of Tung-yüan kung and Ch’ i-li Chi’ s escape from the chaotic Ch’ in dynasty; and 7/63/2141, for an account of Lao Tzu’s withdrawal from the declining Chou dynasty.

96. Kuo, Chuang Tzu chi-shih, 4/31/1032.

97. Kuo, Chuang Tzu chi-shih, 1/1/17; trans. James Legge, The Texts of Taoism (New York: Dover, 1962), vol. 1, p. 169.

98. Tu Fu’ s “Autumn Meditations,” for instance, offers an excellent example of the perfection of this aesthetic. In this work, Tu Fu broods over the vicissitudes of his life, the decline of the T’ ang, and the destiny of Chinese civilization in a highly personal manner. However, he does not express his thoughts and feelings in explicit terms, but indirectly through the interplay of his poetic allusions. See Mei Tsu-lin and Yu-kung Kao, “Tu Fu’ s ‘Autumn Meditations’ : An Exercise in Linguistic Criticism,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 28 (1968): 44-80. For discussions of the aesthetic of personal reflection and impersonal expression in Sung tz’ u, see Chia-ying Yeh Chao, “Wu Wenying’ s Tz u: A Modern View,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 29 (1969): 53-92; and Lin, Transformation of the Chinese Lyrical Tradition, pp. 142-97.

Notes to Chapter 6

1. For instance, Paul John Eakin argues that “it is preferable to conceptualize the relation between the self and language as a mutually constituting interdependency, for study of early human development reveals an intimate and necessary linkage between the acquisition of language and the emergence of self-awareness” (Fictions in Autobiography: Studies in the Art of Self-Interpretation) [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985], p. 8). For a study of the evidence of reflectivity in early Chinese civilization, see Thomas A. Metzger, “Some Ancient Roots of Ancient Chinese Thought: This-worldliness, Epistemo-logical Optimism, Doctrinality, and the Emergence of Reflexivity in Eastern Chou,” Early China 11-12 (1985-1987): 66-72.

2. As shown in my discussion of “South of the River,” Han folk yüeh-fu pieces consist of solo and choral parts. The solo part is usually too brief to permit the solo singer to develop a sustained narrative or descriptive passage in which he might convey his own feelings either explicitly or surreptitiously.

3. This lyrical bent is best seen in the endings, where the composer tends to express feelings and thoughts in explicit conceptual terms. Such an explicit depiction of feelings and thoughts is not seen in folk yüeh-fu.

Glossary of Chinese Characters

ai-ch’u

Chan-kuo ts’e

ch’anfu

Chang Chiu-ling (673–740)

Chang Feng-i (1527–1613)

Chang Heng (78–139)

Chang Hsieh (?-307)

Chang Hua (232–300)

Chang Keng (fl. 1728)

ch’ang-sheng

“Chao hun”

Chao Tun

“Che yang liu hsing”

chen-jen

Ch’en Hang (1785–1826)

Ch’en Lin (?-217)

Ch’en Shou (223–297)

Ch’en Tai-ch’u (Ch’ing dynasty?)

Ch’en Tso-ming (fl. 1665)

Ch’en Tzu-ang (661–702)

Cheng Ch’iao (1104–1162)

cheng-ch’ü

Cheng Hsuan (127–200)

cheng-sheng

ch’i-ai

ch’i-fu chih shih

ch’i-ch’uang

ch’ i-yün sheng-tung

Chiang Chi (d. 249)

Chiang Jen-hsiu (fl. 1789)

Chiang Shih-yüeh (1743–798)

chiao-hua

chiao-ssu ko

chieh

Ch’ ien Ch’ ien-i (1582–1664)

“Ch’ien Han chia Liu t’ai-tzu chuan”

Ch’ien Yang

chih-jen

Ch’ih Ang (Ch’ing dynasty?)

Ch’ih-sung Tzu

ching-hsüeh

ching-shen

ching-wu chien-i ju hsing

ching-wu ju hsing

ch’ing shih

“Chiu-ko”

Ch’iu Kuang-t’ing (T’ang dynasty?)

Chou li

Chou sung ya yüeh

ch’ou

Chu Chia-cheng (1602–1684)

ch’u-ch’u

Ch’u Tz’u

Chung Hui (225–264)

Chung Hung (468–518?)

ch’ü

chüan-ch’ü

chün-tzu

Fan Hsiang (Ch’ ing dynasty)

Fan Wen (ca. 1100)

Fan Yeh (298–446)

Fang Tung-shu (1772–1851)

feng

Feng Ting-yüan (Ch’ing dynasty)

Fu I (fl. 58–75)

Han-shih wai-chuan

Han shu

Ho Cho (1661–1722)

Ho Yen (190–249)

Hou Han shu

hsi

hsiang-ho

hsiang-ho ko

hsiao jen

Hsiao T’ung (501–531)

Hsieh Ho (fl. 500)

Hsieh Ling-yun (385–433)

Hsieh T’iao (464–499)

hsien hsü-shih hou i-tai ju hsing

hsien i-tai hou hsü-shih ju hsing

hsin-suan

Hsin Yen-nien

Hsü Kan (171–218)

Hsü Ling (507–583)

hsü-shih ju hsing

Hsü Shih-tseng (1517–1580)

hsü-yü

hsüan-hsüeh

hsün-huan wang-fu

Hu Tzu (fl. 1147–1167)

Hu Ying-lin (1551–1602)

Hua-yang kuo chih

Huai-nan Tzu

huang-men ku-ch’ui yüeh

Huang T’ing-chien (1045–1105)

i ch’ang san fan

I-ching

Jao Hsüeh-pin (Ch’ing dynasty)

jen-sheng

Jen-wu chih

Juan Chi (210–263)

Juan Yü (?–212)

kan-shih ju hsing

k’ang k’ai

Ko Hung (283–363)

Ku-chin yüeh lu

ku-shih

Ku-shih chien

Ku-shih yüan

“Kuan hsi chi”

kung-yen

kung yen tzu

“K’ung Tzu lei”

K’ung Jung (153–208)

Kuo Mao-ch’ien (fl. 1084)

Kuo P’u (276–324)

kuo-feng

Lahu Na

Lan Ts’ang

Lang-ko

Lang Hsi

Lang T’ing-huai (Ch’ing dynasty)

Lao Tzu

“Lao Tzu tsan”

Li Ling (?-74 B.C.)

Li Po (701–62)

Li sao

Li Shan (d. 689)

Li Shang-yin (ca. 813–58)

“Li yüeh chih”

liang-ch’en

Liang Ch’ i-ch’ ao (1876– 1929)

Lieh Tzu

lien-chu ko

Lien-mien tzu

Ling Che

Liu An (179–122 B.C.)

Liu Chen (?-217)

Liu Hsieh (ca. 465 to ca. 532)

Liu I-ch’ing (403–44)

Liu Liang (n. d.)

Liu Lü (1317–1379)

Liu Pang (256?-195 B.C.)

Liu Shao (fl. 240–250)

Lu Chi (261–303)

Lü Hsiang (fl. 720)

Lü Pen-chung (1084–1144)

lü-shih

Lü shih t’ung-meng hsun

Lü Yen-chi (fl. 700)

Ma Jung (79–166)

“Mao-shih hsu”

mei-ching

Mei Sheng (d. 140 B.C.)

Mei Yao-ch’ en (1002–1060)

min-chien yüeh-fu

ming-chiao

“Mo shang sang”

Mo Tzu

“Nan Yüeh pi-chi”

pa-sheng ju hsing

Pai Erh

Pai-hu t’ung

Pan Chieh-yü (fl. 32–7 B.C.)

Pan Ku (fl. 32–92 B.C.)

pan-pen

P’an Yüeh (247–300)

Pao Chao (414?-466)

pi-hsing

piao

“Pien tao lun”

San-kuo chih

shang-hsin

shang shu (Official title)

shang shu lang

Shen Te-ch’ ien (1673–1769)

Shen Yüeh (441–513)

sheng-jen

“Shih i lun”

Shih chi

Shih ching

Shih-huo chih

Shih-p’in

Shih-shuo hsin-yü

Shih sou

shih-yen

shou-ming

Ssu-ma Ch’ ien (145?-?B.C.)

Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju (179–117 B.C.)

Ssu-ma I (179–251)

Ssu-ma Shih (208–255)

Su Shih (1037–1101)

Su Wu (?-60 B.C.)

Sun Chih-tsu (1737–1801)

Sun Ch’üan

Sung Yü (Warring States)

“Ta Chuang lun”

ta-ch’ü

“Ta-jen hsien-sheng chuan”

ta-yü yüeh

t’ai chi

tan-ko

tao chih chen

tao-wang

T’ao Ch’ien (372–427)

T’iao-hsi yü-yin ts’ung-hua

ting-chen t’i

Ting Í (d. 220)

Ting Í (d. 220)

Ting Yen

tsa ko

tsa shih

Ts’ai Sheng-hou

Ts’ai-Shu-T’ang ku-shih hsüan

Ts’ai Yung (132–192)

Ts’ ang-lang shih-hua

Ts’ao Chih (192–232)

Ts’ao Fang , the dethroned emperor, (231–274)

Ts’ao Jen (168–223)

Ts’ao Jui Emperor Ming (r. 204–239)

Ts’ao P’i (187–226)

Ts’ao Shuang (?-249)

Ts’ao Ts’ao (155–220)

Tseng Kuo-fan (1811–1872)

tseng-ta

Tso chuan

Tso K’o-ming (Yuan dynasty)

Tso Ssu (250 ?-305 ?)

ts’ung shih chung lang

Tu Fu (712–770)

T’u Chia

tuan-hsiao nao-ko

Tun-huang pien-wen

Tung Chung-shu (c. 179–104 B.C.)

“T’ung I lun”

“T’ung Lao lun”

t’ung-yao

t’uo hsing ju hsing

tzu-jan

tz’u

Wang Ch’ ang-ling (d. 756)

Wang Ch’iao

Wang Fu-chih (1619–1692)

Wang Pi (226–249)

Wang Shih-chen (1634–1711)

Wang Shih-chena (1526–1590)

Wang Tsan (?-311)

Wang Ts’an (177–217)

Wang T’ung (586–618)

Wang Wei (669–759)

Wei Cheng (580–643)

Wei-Chin feng-tu

Wen Chung Tzu

Wen hsüan

Wen hsüan k’ao-i

Wen hsüan tsuan-chu

wen-jen yüeh-fu

wu

Wu Ch’i (Ch’ing dynasty)

Wu Ching (670–749)

“Wu-hsing chih”

Wu Ju-lun (1840–1903)

Wu Na (1372–1457)

Wu Tai

Wu Tao-tzu (c. 689-c. 758)

“Wu Tzu-hsü lieh chuan”

Wu-wei lun

wu-yen shih

Wu-yen shih hsüan-li

ya

ya-sung yüeh

Yang Chu (fl. third century B.C.)

Yang Hsiu (175–219)

Yang Hsiung (53B.C.-18 A.D.)

yao

yao chi

yen

“Yen ko hsing”

Yen Yen-chih (386–456)

Yen Yu (fl. 1180–1235)

yen-nien

Yen-t’ieh lun

yen-yü

Ying Yang (?-217)

“Yü-chang hsing”

yu-hsien

yu-hsien shih

yu-tzu chih shih

Yü Hsin (513–581)

Yü-t’ai hsin-yung

yüan tu

Yüeh chi

“Yüeh feng”

yüeh-fu

“Yüeh-lun”

“Yüeh su hao ko”

yung-huai

yung-shih

yung-shih shih

yung-wu

yung-wu shih

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CHINESE AND JAPANESE WORKS

Aoki Masaru Shina bungaku shisōshi Tokyo, 1948.

. “Go-Kan no shi ni arawaretaru mujōkan to raisei shisō.” In Aoki Masaru zenshū Tokyo: Shunjusha 1970. Vol. 2, pp. 42–47.

. “Soji kyūka no bukyokuteki kekkō Aoki Masaru zenshū Tokyo: Shunjusha 1970. Vol. 2, pp. 425–38.

Cai Zong-qi ”Shih ching yü Ku-shih shih-chiu shou: ts’ ung pihsing ti yen-pien Iai k’ an t’ a-men ti nei-tsai lien-hsi” Chung-wai wen-hsüeh 17, no.11 (1989): 118–126.

Chang Chih-yüeh “Lüeh-lun Juan Chi chi ch’ i yung-huai shih” In Wei-Chin Liu-ch’ ao shih yen-chiu lun-wen chi Ed. Chinese Language Society. Hong Kong: Chinese Language Society, 1969.

Chang Ch’ing-chung Liang Han yüeh-fu-shih chih yen-chiu Taipei: Shang-wu yin-shu-kuan, 1979.

Chang Keng (1681–1756). Ku-shih shih-chiu shou chieh Collected in KSSC 3. 24–38.

Chang Pu (1602–1641), ed. Han Wei liu-ch’ ao i pai san chia chi [Ching-yin] Wen Yuan Ko Ssu-k’ u ch’ uanshu , ed. Chi Yun et al. Reprint. Taiwan: Shang-wu yin-shu kuan, 1983, vol. 1412.

Chang Shou-p’ ing Han-tai yüeh-fu yü yüeh-fu ko-tz’ u Taipei: Kuang-wen shu-chü, 1970.

Chang Te-chün “Kuan yü Ts’ ao Chih ti p’ ing-chia wen-t’ i” Li-shih yen-chiu (1957, no. 2), pp. 48–66.

Chao Chih-yang . Shih ching fu-pi-hsing tsung-lun Hsin-chu, Taiwan: Feng-cheng ch’u-pan she, 1974.

Chao Yu-wen . Ts’ ao Chih chi chiao-chu Peking: Jenmin wen-hsüeh ch’u-pan she, 1984.

Ch’ en Pen-li (1739–1818). Ch’ ü tz’ u ching-i Rpt. Taipei: Kuang-wen shu-chü, 1964.

Ch’ en Po-chün , ed. Juan Chi chi chiao-chu Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1987.

Ch’ en Shou (233–287), comp. San-kuo chih chi-chieh Annotated by P’ ei Sung-chih (372–451) and re-edited as a variorum edition by Lu Pi (1876–1967). Peking: Chunghua shu-chü, 1982.

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Ch’ ien Mu (1895–1990). Chung-kuo hsüeh-shu ssu-hsiang shih lunts’ ung Vol. 3. Taipei: Tung-ta t’ u-shu yu-hsien kung-ssu, 1977.

Chin Chung-lieh Shih-k’ ung yü jen-sheng Taipei: Huang-kang ch’u-pan yu-hsien kung-ssu, 1970.

Ch’ iu Chen-ching Juan Chi yung-huai-shih yen-chiu Taipei: Wen-chin ch’u-pan she, 1980.

Chou Chen-fu Shih-tz’ u li-hua Rev. ed. Peking: Chung-kuo ch’ing-nien ch’u-pan she, 1979.

Chou I-pai Chung-kuo hsi-chü shih 3 vols. Shanghai: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1953.

Chu Hsü-tseng (fl. 1873). Ts’ ao chi k’ ao i Collected in Chin-ling ts’ ung-shu edited by Weng Ch’ ang-sen (1857–1914) and Chiang Kuo-pang (Ch’ ing dynasty). 3rd series; vol. 23. Shang-yüan: Chiang shih kuo pang shen-hsiu shuwu, 1916.

Chuang Tzu (fl. 369 B.C.). Chuang Tzu chi-shih edited by Kuo Ch’ing-fan Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1961.

Chung Hung (469–518). Shih-p’ in chu , edited by Ch’ en Yenchieh Peking: Jen-min wen-hsüeh ch’u-pan she, 1980.

Chung-kuo mei-hsüeh shih tzu-liao hsüan-pien edited by Department of Philosophy, Peking University. 2 vols. Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1980.

Chung-kuo ts’ ung-shu tsung-lu edited by Shanghai Library. Shanghai: ku-chi ch’u-pan she.

Chung Yu-min Ts’ ao Chih hsin-t’ an Ho-fei: Huangshan shu-she, 1984.

Fan Yeh (398–445), comp. Hou Han shu Peking: Chung hua shu-chü, 1963.

Fang Tsu-shen “Han ku-shih shih-tai wen-t’ i k’ ao-pien” Τα-lu tsa-chih 31. 5 (1965): 13–16; 31.6 (1965): 30–35; and 31.7 (1965): 31–35.

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Fukunaga Mitsuji “Daijin fu no shisōteki keifu: Jifu no bungaku to Rō Sō no tetsugaku” Tōhō gakuhō 41 (1970), pp. 97–126.

. “Gen Seki ni okeru osore to nagusame: Gen Seki no seikatsu to shisō.” Tōhō gakuhō 28 (1958), pp. 139–74.

Funatsu Tomihiko “Gi Shin bungaku ni okeru shōgō tsuite” Tōyō bungaku kenkyū 11 (1963), pp. 34–50.

. “Sō Shoku no yūsenshi ron: Toku ni setsuwa no tenkai o chūshin ni shite” Tōyō bungaku kenkyū 13 (1965), pp. 49–65.

Gotō Akinobu “Sō Shoku ‘Zatsushi rokushu’ ronkō” Kanbun Gakkai kaihō (Tokyo Kyōikudai) 31 (1972), pp. 52–56.

. “Sō Shoku ni okeru kōgai ni tsuite” Gogaku bungaku (Hokkaido kyōikudai) 16 (1978), pp. 69–76.

Hayashida Shinosuke “Gen Seki Eikaishi kō: Sono kozetsu no ishiki ni tsuite” Kyūshū Chūgoku gakkai hō 1 (1960), pp. 53–68.

Ho Ch’ i-min Wei-Chin ssu-hsiang yü t’ an-feng Taipei: Chung-kuo hsüeh-shu chu-tso chiang-chu wei-yüanhui, 1967.

Ho Yang-ling Ku-shih shih-chiu shou yen-chiu Shanghai: Ta-kuang shu-chü, 1936.

Hsiao Ti-fei Han-Wei Liu-chao yüeh-fu wen-hsüeh shih Rpt. Taipei: Ch’ang-an ch’u-pan she, 1976.

. Yüeh-fu shih-tz’ u lun-sou Chi-nan: Ch’ i-Lu shushe, 1985.

. Tu-shih san cha-chi Peking: Tso-chia ch’ u-pan she, 1957.

Hsiao T’ ung (501–531), ed. Wen hsüan Commentary by Li Shan (d. 689). Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1977.

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Hsü Shen (30–124). Shuo wen chieh tzu chu Annotated by Tuan Yü-ts’ ai (1735–1815). Rpt. Taipei: I-wen yin-shu-kuan, 1974.

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Hu Ying-lin (1551–1602). Shih sou Shanghai: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1959.

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, ed. Wei Wen-ti shih chu Peking: Jen-min wen-hsüeh ch’u-pan she, 1958.

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Huang K’ an (1886–1935). Wen hsüan p’ ing-tien Shanghai: Ku-chi ch’u-pan she, 1985.

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Jao Hsüeh-pin Yüeh wu lou ‘ku-shih shih-chiu shou’ hsiang-chieh Posthumously published in 1874. Collected in KSSC, 3.80–120.

Jen Che-hsung “Kuan-yü mo shang sang ti jen-wu ti t’ ao-lun In Yüeh-fu shih yen-chiu lun-wen chi, pp. 70–75.

Juan Chi (210–263). See under Ch’ en Po-chün, Huang Chieh, and Ku Chih.

Kao Heng ed., Shih ching chin-chu Shanghai: Shanghai Ku-chi ch’u-pan she, 1979.

Komori Ikuko “Sō Shoku shi shokan” Nagoya Daigaku Bungakubu kenkyū ronshū 63 (1974), pp. 91–114.

. Sō Shoku to Kutsu Gen: tsuketari ‘fūkotsu’ ron Nagoya-shi : Maruzen Nagoya Shuppan Sābisu Sentā, 1989.

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. “Sö Shoku ron: shözen” Nagoya Daigaku Bungakubu kenkyü ronshü 75 (1978), pp. 45–71.

Konishi Noboru “Kandai Gafushi to shinsen shisö.” Collected in Mekada Makoto Hakushi kanreki kinen chügoku ronshü Ed. Mekada Makoto kanreki kinen ronbunshü Kankökai. Tokyo: Kabushikikaisha Daian , 1964.

Ku Chih (1887-?), ed. Ts’ ao Tzu-chien shih-chien Taipei: Kuang-wen shu-chü, 1961.

. Juan Ssu-tsung shih-chien Taipei: Kuang-wen shuchü, 1966.

Ku Ts’ eng-ping Han-shih yen-chiu Shanghai: Ch’i-chih shu-chü, 1934.

Kükai Bunkyö Hifuron Peking: Jen-min wen-hsüeh ch’u pan-she, 1975.

Kuo Mao-ch’ ien comp. Yüeh-fu shih-chi Ed. Editorial Board of Chung-hua shu-chü. 4 vols. Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1979.

Kuo Mo-jo (1892–1978). Pu tz’ u t’ ung tsuan Tokyo: Bunkyüdö shoten 1933.

. “Lun Ts’ ao Chih” In his Li-shih jen-wu Shanghai: Hsin wen-i ch’u-pan she, 1952, pp. 146–172.

Kuo Shao-yu and Wang Wen-sheng eds. Chung-kuo litai wen-lun hsüan. Shanghai: Ku-chi ch’ u-pan she, 1979.

Kuo Teng-feng ed. Li-tai tzu-hsü-chuan wen-ch’ ao 2 vols. Shanghai: Shang-wu yin-shu-kuan, 1937.

Kuo yü Ed. Shanghai Normal University. Shanghai: Ku-chi ch’ upan she, 1978.

Lang Τ’ ing-huai (Ch’ ing dynasty), ed. Shih-yu shih chuan-lu Hsüehhailei-pien edn.

Li Ch’un hsiang Yüeh-fu shih chien-shang tz’ u-tien Chengchou: Chung-chou ch’u-pan she, 1990.

Li Τ’ iao-yüan ed. Han hai Rpt. Taipei: Hung-yeh shu-chü, 1968.

Liang Han wen-hsüeh shih ts’ an-k’ ao tzu-liao Ed. Research Unit for Chinese Literary History at Peking University. Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1962.

Liao Wei-ch’ ing ”Han-tai min-ko ti i-shu fen-hsi” In Wen-hsüeh p’ ing-lun Ed. Ko Ch’ ing-ming Taipei: Chü-liu T’ u-shu kung-ssu, 1980, Vol.6, pp. 31–117.

. “Lun Ku-shih shih-chiu shou ti i-shu chi-ch’ iao” In Chung-kuo wen-hsüéh p’ ing-lun Ed. Liu Shou-i Taipei: Lien-ching ch’ u-pan shih-yeh kung-ssu, 1977, Vol. 1, pp. 65–92.

Lin Ho Chiu-ko yü Yüan Hsiang min-su Shang hai: San-lien shu-tien, 1990.

Liu An (179–122 B.C.). Huai-nan hung lieh chi chieh Ed. Liu Wen-tien Peking : Chung-hua shu-chü, 1989.

Liu I-ch’ ing (403–444), comp. Shih-shuo hsin-yü chiao-chien Ed. Yang Yung Hong Kong: Ta-chung shu-chü, 1969.

Liu Ta-chieh (1904–1977). Chung-kuo wen-hsüeh fa-chan shih Rev. ed. 3 vols. Shanghai: Ku-tien wen-hsüeh ch’u-pan she, 1957–58.

. Wei-Chin ssu-hsiang lun Kunming: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1939.

Lo Ken-tse (1903–1960). Yüeh-fu wen-hsüeh shih Peking: Wen-hua hsüeh-she, 1931.

Lo Lien-t’ ien ed. Chung-kuo wen-hsüeh shih lun-wen hsüan-chi Vols. 1 & 2. Taipei: Hsüeh-sheng shu-chü, 1978.

Lu Ch’ in-li ed. Hsien-Ch’ in Han Wei-Chin Nan-Pei Ch’ ao shih Vol. 1. Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1983.

. T’ao Yuan-ming chi Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1979.

Lu Hsün (Chou Shu-jen 1881–1936). “Wei-Chin feng-tu chi wen-chang yü yao chi chiu chih kuan-hsi” In Lu Hsün san-shih nien chi Hong Kong: Hsin-i ch’u-pan she, 1967.

Lu K’ an-ju and Feng Yuan-chün Chung-kuo shih-shih 3 vols. Peking: Tso-chia ch’u-pan she, 1957.

Lu K’ an-ju and Mou Shih-chin eds. Wen hsin tiao lung i-chu 2 vols. Chi-nan: Ch’i-lu shu-she, 1981.

Lü Pen-chung (1084–1144). Lü-shih t’ ung-meng hsün Cited in Hu Tzu, T’iao-hsi yü-yin ts’ung-hua.

Ma Mao-yüan Ku-shih shih-chiu shou ch’ ut’ an Shansi: Jen-min ch’u-pan she, 1981.

Mao Ping-shen Ts’ ao Tzu-chien shih ti Shih ching yüan-yüan yenchiu Taipei: Wen-shih-che ch’ upan she, 1985.

Masuda Kiyohide Gakufu no rekishiteki kenkyū Tokyo: Sōbunsha, 1975.

Meng Yao Chung-kuo hsi-ch’ ü shih 4 vols. Taipei: Wen-hsing shu-chü, 1966.

Mou Tsung-san Chung-kuo che-hsüeh ti t’ e-chih Hong Kong: Jen-sheng ch’u-pan she, 1963.

. Ts’ ai-hsing yü hsüan-li 1962. Rpt. Taipei: Hsüehsheng shu-chü, 1975.

. Wei-Chin hsüan-hsüeh Taichung: Tung-hai University, 1962.

Nakata Köichi “Gen Seki no seijiteki kanshin ni tsuite—shi no imejari o töshite” Shūkan Töyögaku (Tōhoku Daigaku) 34 (1975), pp. 82–98.

. “Fushin—Gen Seki no shinteki taido” Shūkan Tōyōgaku (Tōhoku Daigaku) 32 (1975), pp. 1–22.

Numaguchi Masaru “Gen Seki no Eikaishi ni okeru shigo ni tsuite no ichi kōsatsu” Jinbun ronkyu (Hakodate Jinbun Gakkai) 29 (1969), pp. 15–27.

Öba Yōko “Sō Shoku kenkyü nōto” Kyoto Kyōiku Daigaku kokubungaku kaishi 16 (1981), pp. 63–67.

Ogawa Tamaki “To Emmei no banka” In Kaze to kumo Asashi Shinbunsha, 1972, pp. 340–44.

Okamura Sadao “Sō Shoku no gakufu: so no jojōteki tokusei ni tsuite” Chügoku chusei bungaku kenkyü 8 (1971), pp. 1–10.

Öue Masami “Gen Seki Eikaishi shiron—hyōgen kōzō ni miru shijin no haiboku sei ni tsuite” Kanbun Gakkai kaihō (Tokyo Kyōkudai) 36 (1977), pp. 26–38.

Pan Ku (32–92), comp. Han shu Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1962.

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P’ ei P’ u-hsien Shih-ching yen-tu chih-tao Taipei: Timg-ta t’ u-shu kung-ssu, 1977.

P’ eng Mei-sheng “Mo-shang sang ti jen-wu ho chu-t’i ssuhsiang” In Yüeh-fu shih yen-chiu lun-wenchi pp. 76–79.

San Ts’ ao tzu-liao hui-pien Edited by Department of Chinese, Hupei Normal Institute. Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1980.

Satake Yasuko “Yüsenshi no keifu—Sō Hi kara Rinboku made” Tohoku Gakuin Daigaku ronshu (Ippan kyōiku) 83–84 (1986), pp. 101–65.

Sawaguchi Takeo “Kan no gakufu ni okeru shinsen RōSō Dō ka no shisō.” Tōhō shükun 44 (1974), 29–30.

Shen Te-ch’ ien (1673–1769). Ku-shih yuan Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1963.

Shen Ts’ ung-wen “Lung Chu” Collected in Ch’ un Hong Kong: Wen-li ch’u-pan she, 1960.

Shen Yüeh (441–513), comp. Sung shu Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1974.

Ssu-ma Ch’ ien (145–86 B.C.), comp. Shih chi 10 vols. Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1959.

Su I-wen Shih-ching pi-hsing yen-chiu M. A. the sis. National Taiwan Normal University, 1981.

Sui Shu-sen ed. Ku-shih shih-chiu shou chi-shih Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1955.

Suzuki Shuji “Kei Kō, Gen Seki kara To Emmei e: mujun kanjin no bungakuteki shori ni okeru mittsu nota” Chu goku bungaku ho 18 (1963), pp. 25–30.

. Kan Gi shi no kenkyü Tokyo: Taishukan shoten, 1967.

Suzuki Takeo “Gogenshi hassei no jiki ni taisuru gimon” Shina bungaku kenkyü Kyoto: Kōbundo, 1925.

T’ ang Hua Chung-kuo jen-sheng-lun che-hsüeh ssu-hsiang Taipei: Chi-wen shu-chü, 1979.

T’ ang Yung-t’ ung Wei-Chin hsüan-hsüeh lun-kao Peking: Jen-min ch’u-pan she, 1957.

Teng Yung-k’ ang ed. Ts’ ao Tzu-chien hsien-sheng chih nien-p’ u Taipei: Shang-wu yin-shu-kuan, 1981.

Ting Fu-pao ed. Li-tai shih-hua hsü-pien 3 vols. Peking: Chung hua shu-chü, 1983.

Ting Yen (1794–1875). Ts’ ao chi ch’ üan p’ ing Preface dated 1865. Peking: Wen-hsüeh ku-chi kan-hsing-she, 1957. Collected in Concordance des oeuvres completes de Cao Zhi. Travaux d’ index, de bibliographie et de documentation sinologiques publiés par 1’ Institut des Hautes Etudes Chinoises. No. 6. Paris: Collège de France, 1977.

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Tsuru Hamo ”Tō Emmei no egaku shizen ni tsuite” In Yoshikawa Hakase taikyü kinen Chügoku bungaku ronshü Tokyo: Chikuma shobō, 1968, pp. 209–27.

Ueki Hisayuki “Sō Shoku kansa hen kō” Chügoku koten kenkyu 20 (1975), pp. 122–36.

Wang Ch’ ang-ling (1177–1239). Shih ko Collected in Hsü T ang shih-hua Edited by Shen Ping-hsün. Ch’ien-lung edn.

Wang Chi-ssu “Kuan-yü Jen, P’ eng teng t’ ung-chih tui Moshang sang ti jen-wu i-wen so t’ i i-chien ti ta-fu” In Yüeh-fu-shih yen-chiu lun-wen chi, pp. 80–83.

, “Mo shang sang ti jen-wu” Yüeh-fu shih yen-chiu lun-wen chi, pp. 67–69.

Wang Fu-chih (1619–1692). Ku-shih p’ ing-hsüan Collected in Ch’ uan-shan ch’ üan-chi Taipei: Ta-yüan wen-hua fu-wu-she, 1965.

Wang Ia Yüeh-fu t’ ung-lun Taipei: Kwang-wen shuchü, 1964.

Wang I (Later Han Dynasty), ed. Ch’ u tz’ u pu-chu SPPY edn.

Wang Ju-pi Yüeh-fu san-lung Hsi-an: Shan-hsi jenmin ch’u-pan she, 1984.

Wang Ming ed. Pao-p’ u-tzu nei-p’ ien chiao-shïh Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1985.

Wang Shih chen (1634–1711). Ku-shih chien Shanghai: ku-chi ch’u-pan she, 1990.

Wang Shih-chena (1526–1590). I-yüan chih-yen Collected in Li-tai shih hua hsü-pien Edited by Ting Fu-pao 3 vols. Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1983.

Wang Yao Chung-ku wen-hsüeh feng-mao Shanghai: T’ang-ti ch’u-pan she, 1951.

. Chung-ku wen hsüeh-shih lun-chi Shanghai: Kutien wen-hsüeh ch’u-pan she, 1956.

Wang Yün-hsi ” Han-tai ti su-yüeh ho min-ko.” In Yüeh-fu shih yen-chiu lun-wen-chi Peking: Tso-chia ch’u-pan-she, 1957, pp. 18–20.

; “Ch’ ing yüeh k’ ao lüeh” Collected in his Yüeh-fu shih lun-ts’ ung Peking: Ku-tien wen-hsüeh ch’ u-pan-she, 1958.

Wei Cheng (580–643) et al, eds. Sui shu Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1973.

Wei-Chin Liu-Ch’ ao shih yen-chiu lun-wen chi Edited by Chinese Language Society. Hong Kong: Chinese Language Society, 1969.

Wei Tzu-yün Chung-kuo hsi-chü shih Taipei: Hsüeh-sheng shu-chü, 1992.

Wu Ch’ i Ku-shih shih-chiu shou ting-lun Collected in KSSC, 3.7–24.

Wu Ching Yüeh-fu ku-t’ i yao chieh Collected in Ting Fu-pao, ed. Li-tai shih-hua hsü-pien, pp. 24–67.

Wu Hung-i and Lu Cheng-hui eds. Chung-kuo ku-tien wen-hsüeh lun-wen ching hsüan is’ ung-k’ an—shih ko lei Taipei: Yu-shih wen-hua shih-yeh kung-ssu, 1980.

Yamaguchi Tamehiro “Sō Shoku ’Zō Hakuba ō pyō’ shikō” Kokugakuin zasshi 71 (1970), pp. 38–49.

Yang Sheng-chih Yüeh-fu shih-shih Hsi-ning: Ch’ inghai jen-min ch’u-pan she, 1985.

Yang Po-chün ed. Lun yü i-chu Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1980.

; Lieh Tzu chi shih Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1979.

Yao Ta-yeh Han yüeh-fu hsiao-lun T’ien-chin: Paihua wen-i ch’u-pan she, 1984.

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. “Suü no hiai—Koshi jūkushu’ no shudai” In Yoshikawa Kōjirō zenshū, vol. 6, pp. 266–330.

Yü Kuan-ying Han-Wei Liu-Ch’ ao shih lun-ts’ ung Shanghai: T’ang-ti ch’u-pan she, 1952.

. San Ts’ ao shih hsüan Peking: Tso-chia ch’ u-pan she, 1956.

Yü Ying-shih “Han Chin chih chi shih chih hsin tzu-chüeh yü hsin ssu-ch’ ao” In Hsin Ya hsüeh-pao 4. 1 (1959), pp. 25–144.

.” Han-tai hsün-li yü wen-hua ch’ uan-po” Chiu-chou hsüeh-k’ an 1 (1986), pp. 9–24; 2 (1986), pp. 1–22; 3 (1987), pp. 1–22.

Yüeh-fu shih yen-chiu lun-wen chi Edited by Peking: Tso-chia ch’u-pan she, 1957.

Index

Abrams, M. H., 3, 197 n.7

allusion: in yung-huai poems, 175–185 passim

Anthology of Literature (Wen hsüan), 1, 95, 129, 138

Aoki Masaru, 38, 46, 205 n.46, 206 n.67, 210 n.21

Birrell, Anne, 29, 35, 57, 198 n.6, 217 n.47

Book of Changes (I ching), 152, 154

Book of Poetry (Shih ching), 10, 58, 67, 69, 79, 80, 81, 84, 123, 138; repetition in, 31; Poem 1 of, 80; Poem 126 of, 67–68; Poem 113 of, 80; pi and hsing in, 80, 123; singing customs in, 47

Chan-kuo Ts’e. See Strategies of the Warring States.

Chang Chiu-ling, 10

Chang Heng, 11

Chang Hsieh, 14

Chang Hua, 14

Chang, Kang-i Sun, 2, 216 n.39

Chang Pu, 100

Chang Te-chün, 101

Chao Yu-wen, 99, 139, 214 n.2, 219 n.90

Ch’en Hang, 163, 181

Ch’en Pen-li, 38, 205 n.45

Ch’en Tai-ch’u, 27

Ch’en Tso-ming, 94, 133, 135

Ch’en Tzu-ang, 10, 216 n.39

Ch’en Tzu-chan, 38

Cheng Ch’iao, 25, 202 n.11

Cheng Hsüan, 80

ch’i-fu chih shih. See poems of the neglected woman.

Chia Ssu-jung, 101

Ch’ien Ch’ien-i, 69, 72

Ch’ien Chung-shu, 81

Ch’ih Ang, 27

Chin shu. See History of the Chin.

Ch’iu Kuang-t’ing, 184

Chou I-pai, 43, 205 n.53, 205 n.60

Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms (San-kuo chih), 215 n.10, 221 n.17, 221 n.18

Chu Chia-cheng, 133

Chu Ch’ien, 116

Chu Hsü-tseng, 99, 138

Ch’u tz’u (Songs of Ch’u), 10, 38, 58, 63, 69, 80, 96, 145; “Distant Journey,” 145; “Encountering Sorrow,” 68. See also Ch’ü Yuan.

Ch’ü Yuan, 67, 140, 145, 167, 181, 182. See also Ch’u tz’u.

Chuang Tzu, 151, 152, 153, 186

Chuang Tzu, 52, 71, 150, 153, 156, 168; on brevity of human life, 72; on chen (the real), 186, 154

Chung Hui, 153

Chung Hung, 1, 23, 79–80, 93, 100, 213 n.49; on Juan Chi, 155; on the three Ts’aos, 95

Coleridge, William Taylor, 93

Commentaries on Ancient-Style Poems (Ku-shih chien), 1, 13

Comprehensive Discourses at the White Tiger Hall (Pai-hu t’ung), 47

Confucius, 68, 153, 154, 181, 182

Conversations of the States (Kuo-yü), 199 n.9

Coordinates of human frailty: in Juan Chi’s poems, 154–162

Cutter, Robert Joe, 130, 216 n.31, 218 n.74

Dieny, Pierre, 38–39, 204 n.37, 205 n.49, 208 n.86

Discourses on Salt and Iron (Yen-t’ieh lun), 22

dramatic mode, 17; and collective performance, 41–49, in Han folk yüeh-fu, 16–17; and self-presentation, 190–191

Du Shanshan, 43

Eoyang, Eugene, 200 n.33, 203 n.36, 204 n.44

Fan Hsiang, 31

Fan Yeh, 22, 221 n.16. See also Hou Han shu.

Fang Tung-shu, 92

Feng Ting-yüan, 25

Feng Yuan-chün, 26, 99, 209 n.4

Frankel, Hans, 26, 35, 57, 102, 198 n.6, 204 n.39, 207 n.77, 208 n.90

Frye, Northrope, 3, 197 n.7

fu (rhapsody): and Ts’ao Chih’s yüeh-fu, 117–118

Fu 1, 11, 61

Grading of Poets (Shih-p’in), 1. See also Chung Hung.

Granet, Marcel, 47

Han folk yüeh-fu: composite structure of, 37–38; dramatic situations in, 33–36; as prototype of Chinese drama, 43; formal features of, 29–30; use of repetition in, 31–32, 38–41; Ts’ao Chih’s imitation of, 110; versus literati yüeh-fu, 26–29. See also Han literati yüeh-fu, Han yüeh-fu cited, yüeh-fu.

Han literati yüeh-fu: formal features of, 29, 58–59; four thematic categories in, 58; literati concerns in, 51–54; narrative mode in, 50–51; point of view in, 55, 56–58; sequential structure in, 54–56; Ts’ao Chih’s adaptations of, 130–146; use of repetition in, 55–56. See also Han folk yüeh-fu, Han yüeh-fu cited, yüeh-fu.

Han shu. See History of the Former Han.

Han yüeh-fu cited: Folk yüeh-fu: “Ballad of Breaking Poplar and Willow” 17, 53–54; “Ballad to a Yen Song” 17; “Dew on the Shallot” 72; “Mulberry along the Lane” 16–17, 33–41, 43; “South of the River” 30–33, 43, 189; “The Yü-chang Ballad” 17, and “Alas,” 136–138.

Han yüeh-fu cited: Literati yüeh-fu: “Ballad to a Long Song” 51–53; “Ballad of Watering Horses at a Long Wall Hole” 54–56, 83–84; “The Gentlemen Ballad” 131–33; “Lung-hsi Ballad” 141, and “Immortals,” 140–145; “A Yen Song, Whenever” 56–58; “The Yü-lin Official” 49, and “Mulberry along the Lane,” 49–51. See also Han folk yüeh-fu, Han literati yüeh-fu, “Mulberry along the Lane,” yüeh-fu.

Hightower, James Robert, 26, 197 n.5, 200 n.31, 202 n.17, 224 n.75

History of the Chin (Chin shu), 220 n.8

History of the Former Han. (Han shu), 22, 33, 199 n.10, 200 n.24, 208 n.80

History of the Later Han (Hou Han shu), 22, 221 n.16

History of the [Liu] Sung (Sung shu), 41, 42, 202 n.6, 202 n.9, 205 n.56

History of the Sui (Sui shu), 24

Ho Cho, 176, 181

Ho Yang-ling, 92

Ho Yen, 152, 153, 163

Holzman, Donald, 164, 177, 197 n.5, 219 n.89, 219 n.94

Hou Han shu. See History of the Later Han.

Hsi K’ang, 163

Hsiao Ti-fei, 23, 200 n.25

Hsiao Tung, 1, 23, 95, 104, 138, 219 n.4

Hsieh Ho, 118

Hsieh Ling-yun, 10, 157, 196; on Ts’ao Chih, 95

Hsieh T’iao, 10

Hsü Kan, 12, 104, 200 n.27

Hsü Ling, 1, 23, 61

hsüan-hsüeh, Neo-Taoist metaphysics, 152

Hu Shih, 147

Hu Ying-lin, 94, 117, 22

Huai-nan Tzu, 32, 52, 152, 156, 203 n.34

Huang Chieh, 99, 129, 133, 202 n.20, 208 n.84, 217 n.49, 217 n.58, 223 n.63

Huang Ting-chien, 10, 213 n.49

I-ching. See Book of Changes.

Jao Hsüeh-pin, 16

Jen-wu chih. See Studies of Human Abilities.

Juan Chi, 1, 9, 123, 150–151; and Confucianism, 152–154, 185; and hedonism, 185–186; attitudes toward Taoism, 152–154, 186–187; eclectic thought of, 152–154; and T’ao Ch’ien, 147; traditional studies of, 148–149; and Ts’ao Chih, 147. See also Yung-huai, yung-huai shih.

Juan Chi prose pieces cited: “K’ung Tzu lei” 153–154; “Lao Tzu tsan” 154; “Ta Chuang lun” 153; “Tajen hsien-sheng chuan” 153, 187; “T’ung I lun” 153; “T’ung Lao lun” 153; “Yüeh-lun” 153

k’ang-k’ai (frustration and despair), 130–131

Kao, Yu-kung, 198 n.2, 198 n.4, 200 n.32, 209 n.5, 212 n.37, 213 n.48, 22 n.75, 224 n.89, 225 n.98

Kinkley, Jeffrey C, 47, 206 n.68, 206 n.69, 207 n.71

Knechtges, David R., 200 n.31, 222 n.33

Komori Ikuto, 102, 103, 116, 127, 217 n.46, 218 n.73, 219 n.93

Kroll, Paul, 130

Ku Chih, 99, 127, 129, 139, 163, 223 n.63

ku-shih (ancient-style poems), 1; motifs of, 128–129; motifs of, transformed in Juan Chi’s yung-huai shih, 159; personalized by Ts’ao Chih, 109–110, 125, 127–130, 145–46. See also “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.”

Ku-shih chien. See Commentaries on Ancient-Style Poems.

Ku-shih shih-chiu shou. See “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems.”

Ku-shih yüan. See Source Book of Ancient-Style Poems.

Kuo Mao-ch’ien, 25

Kuo Mo-jo, 101, 102, 203 n.32, 215 n.22

Kuo P’u, 14

Kuo yü. See Conversations of the States.

Lao Tzu, 150, 152, 153, 154, 168

Levy, Dore, 198 n.8, 201 n.34, 208 n.89

Li Ling, 11, 166

Li Po, 10, 195

Li Shan, 129, 197 n.3

Li T’iao-yuan, 45, 206 n.67

Liang Ch’i-ch’ao, 25

Lieh Tzu, 163

Lin, Shuen-fu, 188 n.2, 217 n.57, 225 n.98

Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons (Wen hsin tiao lung), 1, 11. See also Liu Hsieh.

Liu Chen, 12, 109, 177, 178, 200 n.27, 216 n.37

Liu Hsieh, 1, 11, 14, 23, 61, 100, 213 n.49

Liu, James J. Y., 16

Liu I-ch’ing, 118, 135, 218 n.81

Liu Liang, 184

Liu Lü, 163, 180, 184

Liu Shao, 118, 152

Lo Ken-tse, 25, 200 n.25

Lu Chi, 14, 213 n.49

Lu Kan-ju, 26, 99, 197 n.1, 209 n.4, 214 n.22

Lü Hsiang, 176

Lü Pen-chung, 93

lü shih (regulated verse), 188

Lü Yen-chi, 176

lyrical mode: in “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems,” 18; in Ts’ao Chih, 18, 192–193; and narrative mode, 75–78; and self-presentation, 192–194

Mair, Victor, 162, 200 n.33, 221 n.30, 222 n.34–37, 222 n.39, 222 n.44–46

MeiSheng, 11, 61

Mei Yao-ch’en, 10

Mencius, 199 n.8

Meng Yao, 43

“Miscellaneous Poems” (Ts’ao Chih): Nos. 3, 4, 7, 125–127; Nos. 5–6,” 128–130

Mo Tzu, 183

Mo Tzu, 163

“Mulberry along the Lane” 16–17, 33–41, 43; and “Beautiful Girl,” 111–113; and love songs in the Book of Poetry, 43–45; and love songs of the Lahu Na, Lang, and Miao, 45–49; and “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems,” 86–87; and “Ballad of Watering Horses at a Long Wall Hole,” 55–56; and “A Yen Song, Whenever,” 57–58; and “The Yü-lin Official,” 49–51

narrative mode, 17–18; and self-presentation, 191–192

A New Account of Tales of the World (Shih-shuo hsin-yu), 118, 135, 152, 218 n.81, 221 n.19

New Songs from a Jade Terrace (Yüt’ai hsin-yung), 1

“Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems” (Ku-shih shih-chiu shou), 15, 16, 125, 156, 177; aesthetic qualities of, 93; complex time-frames in, 78; dating and authorship of, 61; lamentation of death in, 69–74; nonperformed nature of, 61–62; Poem 1 of, 63, and “A Yen Song, Whenever,” 89; Poem 3 of, 65, 73; Poem 4 of, 88, and Ts’ao Chih’s “Miscellaneous Poem,” No. 7, 126; Poem 5 of, 64; Poem 6 of, 75–77; Poem 7 of, 78–79, 90–91; Poem 8 of, 68; Poem 11 of, 64, 87, 129; Poem 15 of, 73; Poem 12 of, 87; Poem 13 of, 69–74, 88, 129; Poem 13 of, and Yung-huai Poem 24, 164–166; Poem 13 of, and Yung-huai Poem 16, 171–172; Poem 14 of, 70–71; Poem 16 of, 76–77; Poem 17 of, 77, 78–80; sorrows of aging in, 65–68; rhetorical questions in, 86–88

Ong, Walter, 31, 35, 203 n.22

Owen, Stephen, 198 n.2, 216 n.39, 219 n.2, 220 n.6

Pai-hu t’ung. See Comprehensive Discourses at the White Tiger Hall

Pan Chieh-yü, 22

Pan Ku, 22, 208n80

P’an Yüeh, 14

Pao Chao, 10

pentasyllable poetry (wu-yen shih), 8; anthologies of, 1; formal evolution of, 15–16; major writers of, 10; themes in, 14–15; metrical rules of, 8–10; and other poetic types, 197 n.2; stages of development (changing forms of self-presentation) in, 10–14, 23–24, 189–190; subgenres of, 14; studies of 1, 2, 197 n.5

performance: collective (tan-ko, hsiang-ho, ta-ch’ü), 41–43; three-stage stylized, (chieh, cheng-ch’ü, ch’ü), 42; and singing customs in Book of Songs, 47; vestiges of collective, in yüeh-fu, 16–17

pi-hsing: in Book of Poetry, 80; in “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems,” 81; Wang Ch’ang-ling on, 81–82

P’o Ch’in, 177, 178

poems of the fortune-seeking wanderer (yu-tzu chih shih), 64, 130; essential motifs in, 64, 70–73; lamentation of death in, 69–74

poems of historical reflection (yung-shih shih), 14, 130; essential motifs in, 54; personalized in Ts’ao Chih, 131–135

poems of the neglected woman (ch’i-fu chih shih): Han yüeh-fu, 54–58; Han ku-shih, 63, 125–127

poems of presentation and reply (tseng-ta), 104–109, 119–125; tripartite structure in Ts’ao Chih’s, 104, 109

poems on objects (yung-wu shih), 130; personalized by Ts’ao Chih, 135–139; “Yü-chang Ballad,” 136–38

poems on visiting the land of immortals (yu-hsien shih), 14, 51–53, 130; essential motifs in, 52, 143–144; “Lung-hsi Ballad,” 140–45; personalized by Ts’ao Chih, 139–146

poetic modes: as analytical category, 2–5. See also dramatic mode, lyrical mode, narrative mode, symbolic mode.

poetic structure: binary, 78–91, passim, and pi-hsing, 81–82, and spatial correspondence, 89–91, and temporal linkage, 86–89; cyclical, in yung-huai, 169–175; discontinuous, and linear, 164–166; discontinous, in yung-huai, 166–169; sequential, in literati yüeh-fu, 54–56; tripartite, in Ts’ao Chih’s tseng-ta, 104, 120, and yüeh-fu, 117–118

Records of the Grand Historian (Shih chi), 72, 183, 208 n.80, 208 n.83, 223 n.50, 224 n.91, 225 n.95

repetition: covert, in ku-shih, 89–90; in folk yüeh-fu, 31–32, 38–41; in literati yüeh-fu, 55–56; thimble phrasing, 121

San-kuo chih. See Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms.

Shen Ts’ung-wen, 46, 47

Shen Te-ch’ien, 1, 37, 74, 138, 160; on “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems,” 62

Shen Yüeh, 25, 42, 184, 202 n.6, 202 n.9, 205 n.56

Shih chi. See Records of the Grand Historian.

Shih ching. See Book of Poetry.

Shih-p’in. See Grading of Poets.

Shih-shuo hsin-yü. See A New Account of Tales of the World.

Source Book of Ancient-Style Poems (Ku-shih yüan), 1

Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju, 52

Ss-ma 1, 150

Ssu-ma Shih, 150

Strategies of the Warring States (Chan-kuo Ts’e), 163, 167, 179, 180

Studies of Human Abilities (Jen-wu chih), 152

Su Shih, 10

Sui shu. See History of the Sui.

Sui Shu-sen, 65, 209 n.3, 211 n.28, 213 n.47

“Summoning the Soul” (Sung Yü), 179, 180

Sung shu. See History of the [Liu] Sung.

Sung Yü, 180

symbolic mode, 18–19; and self-presentation, 194–195

T’ao Ch’ien, 10, 13, 147, 185–186, 196

thimble-phrasing, 39, 121

Ting Í and Ting Ì, 98, 119

Ting Yen, 99, 100, 135, 138, 215 n.23, 215 n.22

Ts’ai Yung, 25

Ts’ao Chih, 1, 95, 97–104, 150, 178; New Critical studies of, 102–103; on literature, 95–97; personalization of ku-shih, 109–110, 125; tripartite structure in his poetry, 106, 117–17

Ts’ao Chih poems cited: Yüeh-fu: “Alas” 137, and “The Yü-chang Ballad,” 136–138; “Beautiful Girl” 127; “Dew on the Shallot” 96; “Famous Capital” 113–115. “Immortals” 142, and “Lung-hsi Ballad,” 140–145; “Goddess of the Lo River” 101, 117; “Roaming Afar” 144; “Wantingto Roam in the Southern Mountains” 139; “White Horse” 115–116, 130, and Yung-huai Poem 61, 171–172; “Yü-chang Ballad” No 1, 132; No.2, 134. Ku-shi: “Seven Steps” 135; “To Hsü Kan” 106, 108, 122; “To Ting Ì “ 106, 108; “To Ting Í “ 107, 109; “To Ting Í a nd Wang Ts’an” 104–106, 121; “To Ts’ao P’i the Prince of Pai-ma” 119–125; “To Wang Ts’an” 107; “Visiting the Immortals” 145

Ts’ao Fang, 163

Ts’ao Jui, 177, 178

Ts’ao Pi (Emperor Wen), 12, 127, 129, 134, 178; compared with Ts’ao Chih as men and as poets, 99–102; on literature, 95–97

Ts’ao Shuang, 150, 163

Tseng Kuo-fan, 181

tseng-ta. See poems of presentation and reply.

The Tso Commentary (Tso Chuan), 167

Tso K’o-ming, 25

Tso Ssu, 14, 133

Tu Fu, 10, 181, 195, 225 n.98

tz’u (lyric songs), 188

verse eye (shih-yen), 90–91

Wang Ch’ang-ling, 81, 212 n.36

Wang Fu-chih, 100

Wang I, 210 n.13, 224 n.85

Wang Ia, 42, 200 n.25

Wang Pi, 152, 153

Wang Shih-chen, 1, 13,

Wang Shih-chena, 92

Wang Ts’an, 104, 109, 177, 200 n.27, 216 n.37

Wang T’ung, 100, 135

Wang Yün-hsi, 42, 200 n.25

Warren, Austin, 3, 197 n.7

Watson, Burton, 2, 209 n.8, 209 n.11, 210 n.20, 223 n.55

Wei Tzu-yün, 43

Wellek, Ren, 3, 197 n.7

Wen hsin tiao lung. See Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons.

Wen hsüan. See Anthology of Literature

Wu Ch’i, 71, 92, 114, 115,

Wu Ching, 25, 204 n.37

Wu Ju-lun, 176

Wu Na, 25

Wu Tao-tzu, 118

wu-yen shih. See pentasyllabic poetry.

Yang Chu, 73, 182, 210 n.22; on death, 74

Yang Hsiu, 96

Yang Hsiung, 96

Yen-t’ieh lun. See Discourses on Salt and Iron.

Yen Yen-chih, 148

Yoshikawa Kōjirō, 67, 174, 219 n.3, 221 n.27, 222 n.50

Yu, Pauline, 201 n.35, 211 n.29

yu-hsien shih. See poems on visiting the land of immortals.

yu-tzu chih shih. See poems of the fortune-seeking wanderer.

Yü Hsin, 10

Yü Kuan-ying, 37, 219 n.91

Yü-t’ai hsin yung. See New Songs from a Jade Terrace.

Yüeh-fu (Han dynasty Music Bureau), 198 n.6

yüeh-fu (Music Bureau poems): censorship of, in the Han, 200 n.24; dating and authorship of Han, 27–28; collective performance of, 41–43; traditional classifications of, 13–14, 24–26; folk vs. literati, 26–29; personalized by Ts’ao Chih, 110–119; 131–146; versus ku-shih, 21–24; vestiges of collective performance in, 16–17. See also Han folk yüeh-fu, Han literati yüeh-fu, Han yüeh-fu cited.

yung-huai shih (poems that sing out what is in my bosom), 149; cyclical structure in, 169–175; discontinuous structure and linear structure in, 164–166; discontinous structure in, 166–169; rhetorical questions in, 173–174; symbolic use of imagery, 155–156, 162, 187–188; and use of time-adverbs, 161–162; and yüeh-fu and ku-shih genres, 149

Yung-huai (Juan Chi): Poem 1 of, 9, 176–178; Poem 5 of, 158–159; Poem 4 of, 157; Poem 11 of, 179–181; Poem 16 of, 169–170, and Poem 13 of the “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems,” 171; Poem 18 of, 156; Poem 20 of, 182–183, 189; Poem 24 of, and Poem 13 of “Nineteen Ancient-Style Poems,” 164–166; Poem 34 of, 159–160; Poem 61 of, 170; Poem 61 of, and Ts’ao Chih’s “White Horse,” 171–172; Poem 66 of, 166–167; Poem 71 of, 158; Poem 76 of, 167–169

yung-shih shih. See poems of historical reflection.

yung-wu shih. See poems on objects.