The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry

by Tony Barnstone

  Qu Yuan not only diversified the symmetrical rhythmic patterns of Chinese poetry but also steered the literati in a new direction. His major contribution was a conscious construction of parallelism in paired lines, which is found throughout his writing; this would become the model for the creation of a multidimensional yin-yang symmetry in regulated verse. For example, in Qu Yuan's major work, Encountering Sorrow (lisao), we can find lines like “” (“Mornings I gathered mountain magnolia,/evenings I picked winter grasses on the shoals”) and “” (“Mornings I drink the dew that drips from the magnolias,/evenings feed on fallen petals of autumn chrysanthemums”). Though these lines are not perfect according to later standards for parallel couplets (for they contain repeated characters and a beat marker between two lines), they do signal an important new dimension. He has made the yin-yang symmetry conceptual as well as rhythmic.

  For a long time in the Han dynasty, the period almost immediately after Qu Yuan, Chinese literati were fascinated by Qu Yuan's experiment with language. They directed their creative energy toward the fu form (a kind of crossbreed between poem and prose, often translated as “prose poem,” “rhyme prose,” or “rhymed prose”), inspired by Qu Yuan's new patterns of rhythm combined with parallelism. In our collection, Jia Yi's “The Owl” is a work in this category. In translating it we maintained the rhymes in English. This was not always possible, or even desirable, and so in translating Lu Ji's Art of Writing, a very well-known piece of rhymed prose, we rendered it in free verse form, determining that the poem read better as English-language poetry in that format.

  While the Han dynasty literati were obsessed with symmetry, the folk tradition during this period was a wide-open field. People tried different line lengths, not only from one poem to the next but also within poems, as in the anonymous poem “The East Gate,” presented in this volume as one of the Music Bureau poems. In this time the newly developed five-character poem had become an established form. It represents a key step in the evolution of Chinese verse. One can find five-character lines in both the Book of Songs and the Verses of Chu, but not really as a sustained form. During the Han dynasty one of the most mature works composed in five-character form was the “Nineteen Ancient Poems,” written by scholars who were familiar with the life of the lower classes and who chose to remain anonymous. The Han dynasty also saw a change in the rhythmic pattern of the five-character lines. The old pattern for the division of the two beats, exemplified by the poems in the Verses of Chu, was typically three characters/caesura/two characters; it was replaced by two characters/caesura/three characters. This would remain the standard pattern in later periods.

  After the Han dynasty many poets contributed to the popularity of the five-character form, among them Cao Zhi, Ruan Ji, and Tao Qian. It became the dominant form among literati writers. The seven-character form was a latecomer; literati poets did not accept it as a standard form until after the fifth-century poet Bao Zhao. There are many theories about its evolution, but the Chinese love of yin-yang symmetry helps to explain it. For quite a long time the seven-character form rhymed on every line, and the lines were not always in a paired relationship.3 Starting with Bao Zhao, paired lines were used conspicuously in the seven-character form. This form soon became very popular because it provided more space for expression in each line as well as satisfaction of the symmetry gestalt.

  Under Sanskrit influence during the Yong Ming reign (483–493), when the Buddhist canons were translated into Chinese, the four tones of classical Chinese were established. Two critics, Zhou Yong and Shen Yue, wrote to promote regulated usage of the four tones in poetry, introducing yet another aspect of elegant symmetry into the construction of the Chinese poem. The old style verse, which did not follow a regulated use of tones, came to be called Ancient Style poetry (gushi ), while regulated verse came to be called Modern Style poetry.

  The Tang Dynasty and Regulated Verse

  During the Tang dynasty (618–907), the golden age of Chinese poetry, a diversity of poetic forms helped poets find their own highly individualized voices. Authentic folk poetry continued to exist in its natural, anonymous state and continued to be used by literati poets such as Li Bai, who found it a source of inspiration and a handy form for experiments in writing distinctive poems in the Ancient Style. Also during the Tang, after many years of experiments in earlier dynasties, regulated verse, containing the most exquisite symmetries in poetry, reached its apex. Other important forms flourished as well, such as the quatrain (jueju ), a truncated regulated verse poem. The diversity of forms certainly contributed to the glory and the variety of achievement in Tang poetry, but there were other factors as well. The sociopolitical climate attracted talented people to poetry, since excellence in writing poetry had become a necessity for those who wished to achieve high official positions. Poetry brought rewards in terms of social mobility as well as celebrity status, so good poetry was written during the Tang by people from all walks of life, including nuns and monks. The diverse backgrounds of the Tang poets and the sense of writing as a form of competition for fame and power made Tang poetry more vital and powerful than in any preceding or subsequent period. Much of the best poetry from the period was written in the very difficult regulated verse form. Du Fu's poem “Gazing in Springtime” is a good example of the sort of multidimensional architectural balance that regulated verse poems achieved:

  This five-character verse consists of four paired lines. Their symmetries can be analyzed on three levels: (1) rhythmic pattern, (2) lexical parallelism, (3) tonal pattern. Rhythmically, this verse employs the standard pattern of five syllables (two syllables, pause, three syllables). With the same rhyme on even lines, the first two characters form one beat while the following three can either be taken as a single beat, or split into two sub-beats if one wants to read the poem slowly. If we transcribe the poem phonetically, its rhythmic symmetry in paired lines is easier to perceive:

  Guo po//shan he/zai,

  Cheng chun//cao mu/shen.

  Gang shi//hua/jian lei;

  Hen bie//niao/jing xin.

  Feng huo//lian/san yue;

  Jia shu//di/wan jin.

  Bai tou//sao/geng duan,

  Huan yu//bu/shen zan.

  As required by the form, the two middle pairs have to be parallel couplets. In other words, symmetry also exists on the conceptual level. Therefore, there must be a one-to-one parallelism between characters at the same positions: (i) parts of speech should match; (2) conceptually, the corresponding words should be chosen from the same category as prescribed by tradition. We can use the second pair of lines as an example:

  In comparison with the rhythmic balance and the conceptual parallelism demonstrated above, the tonal symmetry is very difficult to perceive, even for Chinese readers. The tonal qualities of Chinese characters have undergone a dramatic change since Mandarin was made the standard speech. One of the traditional tones, namely the fifth or the ru tone , is absent in Mandarin and was redistributed into other tones. However, in many dialects the fifth tone still exists. For example, in Changsha dialect, there are still five tones: ma (1), ma (2), ma (3), ma (4), ma (5), while in Mandarin the fifth tone ma (5) does not exist and can be pronounced only as a first tone—e.g., ma (1) bu (4). According to traditional prosody, the first two tones belong to the category of smooth tones , while the other three are classified as sharp tones .

  In regulated verse, the key tonal positions in the five-character lines are 2, 4, and 5. There are two basic rules governing the arrangement of the tones: within a pair of lines, characters placed at the key tonal positions should always form a contrast between a smooth tone and a sharp tone, while between the paired lines, i.e., in the second line of a preceding pair and the first line of the pair to follow, characters placed at positions 2 and 4 should actually share a tone in the same category (either a smooth tone or a sharp tone), though the contrast at the end positions is still maintained. Here is the tonal chart for Du Fu's poem “Gazing in Springtime”:

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sp; The musicality of the lines is best explored by their intrinsic tonal qualities since the first rule guarantees a tonal yin-yang balance within a pair, while the second rule helps to break the monotony of repeating the same pattern in the next pair. Depending on the first line, many different tonal charts can be worked out for regulated verse. If it is a seven-character verse, an extra key tonal position (position 6) is added, and the basic rules remain the same. To write regulated verse is often compared to dancing in chains. Many poets enjoyed their chains and wrote great works in this restrictive and elegant form.

  After the maturity of regulated verse (both five-character and seven-character forms) in the Tang dynasty, the essence of the verse tradition was stabilized, coming to include both the old forms (unregulated) and the new forms (regulated) , the long forms and the short forms By the end of the Tang dynasty, regulated verse had become the dominant form in poetry writing, and yet the pleasures of its symmetry began to be outweighed by the negative impact of its restrictive form. Though shi poetry continued to be written in the Song and later dynasties, the stage was set for new forms to gain predominance, and to revitalize the tradition.

  The Song Dynasty and Lyric Songs

  Verses in the shi tradition written in the Song dynasty (960–1279) are manifestly different from Tang poetry. As a reaction to the Tang tradition, Song verses appeal more to human intellect than to emotions. As a result, the poet's individuality often becomes hidden behind the form and wit. On a sociopolitical level, there was also a major change in the notion of poetry: it was now more a vehicle for ideology than an expression of self. Nonetheless, human emotions and individuality always need an outlet in poetry, and so lyric songs prospered in the Song dynasty. In fact, poets were already experimenting with this new form of poetry in the Tang dynasty, even though they were considered only “leftovers of poetry” composed to fill in fixed tunes. The best-known lyric poet using this form in the transitional period between the Tang and Song dynasties was Li Yu, a Southern Tang emperor who lost his throne and palace to the Song court, was taken captive, and then was poisoned for writing lyric songs mourning his lost state. In the Song dynasty many masters of lyric songs emerged who authentically expressed their personalities and experiences in this form. To illustrate the difference between lyric songs and verses, we should take a close look at a poem written by Li Yu:

  When we compare this poem to Du Fu's “Gazing in Springtime,” there are some obvious differences. With its form determined by specific tunes, a lyric song often consists of a mixture of long and short lines (hence this form is also called long-and-short lines Meanwhile, its rhyme scheme does not always fall on even lines. As a lyric song is supposedly to be appreciated by the ear, it is naturally easier to understand than a shi verse, which is presented in written form, to be read and reread many times. In comparison with parallel movement prescribed by the paired symmetrical lines in verse, the movement in a lyric song is normally linear and narrated from a fixed perspective. Moreover, the poem is often set at a clearly perceivable geographical location. As a result, the points of entry and and exit in a lyric song are more distinct than those in a verse, which sometimes gives the Western reader a sense of an abrupt beginning followed by an unexpected ending with no fixed location. The high-water mark in poetry of the Song dynasty was reached by lyric songs; however, as with shi verse after the High Tang, lyric songs became too regulated and refined by the end of the Song dynasty, and the momentum and vitality of the form were lost.

  The Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties and Operatic Arias

  Though China's history is one of unending conquest and invasion, of rising and falling dynasties, sometimes in quick succession, the Mongolian invasion of China in the thirteenth century was a particularly important watershed in Chinese poetic writing. During this period, known as the Yuan dynasty (1280–1367), Confucian scholars and literati poets were ranked number nine on the social ladder, between prostitutes and beggars. For about a hundred years the world of Chinese poetry shrank to its smallest size, even as the actual territory of China expanded considerably. The only literary form encouraged by the Mongolian rulers was Yuan opera, and so opera songs, or arias (qu ), rose in importance and became the dominant form in poetry writing. The specific term for songs intended to be sung in the theater is “dramatic aria” (xiqu ). Most of the opera songs selected for this anthology were composed as “separated arias” (sanqu ), arias written to be totally independent from plays. Here is an example by Ma Zhiyuan:

  This is one of the most famous poems in classical Chinese poetry. Opera songs are typically highly colloquial and direct, though some of them are highly imagistic. In this example the absence of verbs in the first three lines makes them unfold like a series of cinematic scenes, and the juxtaposition of images carries on the Tang tradition. A Chinese reader can learn this poem by heart after reading it just once or twice.

  When the Han Chinese regained the throne from the Mongolians in the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), the creative talent was more involved with fiction than poetry, and it took some time for the Chinese to reconnect with their poetic heritage. In the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) the Chinese were again invaded by outsiders, and the Manchus ruled China for about three hundred years. It was a time of literary inquisition, and individuality in poetry writing was stifled. In fact very little innovation can be found in poetry during the Ming and Qing dynasties, as the poets were largely engaged in searching for their roots back in the Tang and the Han dynasties. Although some of the literary output of this period has been reeval-uated, it seems unlikely that there will be a rediscovery of a major poet who can match the caliber of the Tang talent.

  Ambiguity in Classical Chinese Poetry

  To understand the reasons why the move from classical Chinese poetry to the poetry of the modern era is often perceived as a further decline from the tepid and imitative poetry of the Ming and Qing dynasties, a discussion of aspects of ambiguity in the classical Chinese poem is helpful. With the emergence of the five-character line as the dominant form and the increasing employment of parallelisms in the classical Chinese poem, functional words were gradually reduced to a minimum. As a result, the lines often work like a shooting list for a movie director, conveying an amazing sense of cinematic time and space. But for all the gains in intensity of content and imagery, there was a corresponding rise in ambiguity, since words were juxtaposed without any signs of relationship between them. Given the fact that Chinese characters do not have inflections in themselves, it is almost like writing in English with only nouns, verbs, and adjectives and without personal pronouns to indicate speaker. Consequently, classical Chinese poetry, especially Tang poetry, possesses an exceptional intensity and ambiguity. Ranging from general to specific, various ambiguities exist in classical Chinese poems. One of the most common is the indeterminacy of perspective. Wang Wei's “Birds Sing in the Ravine” is a good example:

  The first character in this poem, ren (human), forces a choice in the translation. It refers to the poet himself, and yet the sense is that the speaker observes himself as well as nature from the third-person perspective. In English it is difficult to reproduce the effect of having the speaker himself in the picture yet seen from the outside. In Wang Wei's world, human beings and nature exist in great harmony, and the poet registers activities both in nature and in himself like a monitoring camera. And yet the sensory effects in this poem require more than a camera to discern. The intoxicating sweet smell of the acacia flowers cannot be captured with lenses no matter how powerful they are. Moreover, the tiny acacia petals' landing is rendered with such ambiguity that it cannot be captured with a camera, either. The effect at first seems to be visual, but it is only when the first two lines collide with the last two that the reader realizes that the poet experienced the falling of the petals totally in the dark, before moonrise. This realization intensifies the effect of the first two lines and clarifies the meaning of being “at rest”—the mind must be totally free either to hear the soft l
anding of the acacia petals on the ground or to feel their weightless impact on one's clothes. The quietness of the night, the emptiness of the mountain, as well as peace in the mind, are all captured in the motion of the falling petals. The poet is there in the picture, and yet he observes himself from outside, with internal and external experience combined. By contrast, the second pair of lines is purely external. The scene is loud and dramatic, even though it is only a description of a chirping bird startled by the rising moon. One can almost see the bird dart across a huge, low moon, followed by an eye-line tele-photo lens tracking the intermittent sound of the bird. In a moment, after the collision of these two pairs of lines, tranquility reigns again, and the sudden movement and sound of the bird only heightens the emptiness of the mountains. What derives from this ambiguity in perspective is a new appreciation of nature through a transparent and perceptive Zen mind.