f u P oe t ry : an anC i e n t-s t y l e r Ha P s oDy 77
Li Shou would have been unable to count them all.
The riches of the groves and forests—
In what were they lacking?21The attempt of the fu writer to provide an exhaustive account imbues the fu with
amplitude and all-inclusiveness, which E. M. W. Tillyard has identified as a quality
of the “epic spirit.”22 Completeness, comprehensiveness, and immensity are as im-
portant to the “large fu” as they are to the epic. The enumeration of the profusion
of things is a distinguishing feature of the dafu. The fifth-century Chinese literary
critic Liu Xie (ca. 465–ca. 522) said that Sima Xiangru’s “Fu on the Imperial Park”
achieved beauty because of its profusion of things “grouped by kind”—that is, his
catalogs.23 Han fu writers themselves speak about this feature of the genre. For
example, Yang Xiong (53 b.C.e.–18 C.e.) says the following about the process of
writing a fu: “[The writer of a fu] must speak by setting forth things by kind. He
uses the most luxuriant and ornate language, grossly exaggerates and greatly am-
plifies, striving to make it such that another person cannot add anything to it.”24
Yang Xiong calls attention to the full and overflowing quality of the fu, in terms of
both its style and its content. His statement that one should fill up the poem with
catalogs of names and a profusion of words to the point that no one could think
of anything else to add is a reflection of the aesthetic of the large that dominates
courtly fu writing.
There is even a statement attributed to Sima Xiangru that eloquently expresses
the fu aesthetic of completeness, totality, wholeness, and amplitude: “[T]he heart
of a fu writer embraces the entire universe and broadly observes humans and
things.”25 This statement is usually understood to mean that the fu writer attempts
to create an exhaustive definition of his subject. Thus “Fu on the Imperial Park” is
more than a simple description of the hunting park; it is, in effect, a praise poem
to the Han dynasty and its ruler. A distinctive feature of Sima Xiangru’s style is the
frequent use of lavish description and overstatement. Liu Xie termed this quality
“exaggerated ornamentation” (kua shi). According to Liu Xie, this practice began
with the Chu poet Song Yu (fl. third century b.C.e.) and reached its peak in what he
called the “eccentric effusions” of Sima Xiangru.26 One of Sima Xiangru’s favorite
devices of exaggerated ornamentation was hyperbole. Thus Shanglin Park’s lodges
are so high:
Shooting stars pass through doors and wickets; 奔星更於閨闥 (bēn xīng gēng yú guī tà)
Arching rainbows stretch over the rails and porches. 宛虹拖於楯軒 (wăn hóng tuō yú shŭn xuān)The park extends so far that it has separate seasons in its northern and southern
halves:
To the south 其南則 (qí nán zé)
In deepest winter there are germination and growth, 隆冬生長 (lóng dōng shēng zhăng)
Bubbling waters, and surging waves. 涌水躍波 (yŏng shuĭ yuè bō)