How to Read Chinese Poetry A Guided Anthology

116 t He Han Dy na s t y

We should note that the verse eye and metaphorical resonance each introduces

alien elements into the binary parts of a poem. But instead of destabilizing the

poem’s structure, these two devices only make it more dynamic and more aes-

thetically engaging. 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. Commenting on this movement of the mind, the famous

Ming critic Wang Shizhen (1526–1590) wrote:

When these ancient people wrote, if there was a forward movement, there

would be a backward movement; if there was a thrust downward, there had to

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 [the “Nineteen Old Poems”] are thought to

be “seamless like clothes made by heaven.”5

In the “Nineteen Old Poems,” both the binary structure and the multilateral

texture are born of a constant movement between outer and inner worlds in the

poets’ creative process. In turn, they activate a similar movement in the mind of

the reader. The intensification of this mental process can lead to a point where

the boundary between the outward and the inward dissolves and a poetic vision

emerges.

Zong-qi Cai

notes

1. Qian Qianyi, Mu zhai you xue ji (The Mu zhai Records of Learning) (SBCK ed.), 19.22a.


2. Liezi jishi (Collected Commentaries on“Liezi”) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1979), 221; transla-
   tion from A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, trans. Wing-tsit Chan (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
   University Press, 1963), 310–311, with minor changes.


3. Wang Changling, Shi ge (Rules of Poetry), in Xu Tang shihua (A Sequel to the Poetry Talks of the
   Tang), ed. Shen Bingxun (Qianlong ed.), A.1.16–21.


4. The Tartars and other nomadic tribes, broadly referred to as the Hu peoples, inhabited the
   vast region of northern China outside the Great Wall during the Han dynasty. Yue is a region of
   southern China that is within present-day Zejiang Province. The Tartar horse leaning into the
   north wind and the Yue bird nesting among southern branches are expressive of a yearning to
   return home.


5. Wang Shizhen, Yiyuan zhiyan (Drunken Words in the Garden of Art), 1, in Lidai shihua xubian
   (Poetry Talks of Successive Dynasties: A Sequel), ed. Ding Fubao, 3 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju,
   1983), 2:964.

suggest eD reaDings

e ng l i sH

Cai, Zong-qi. The Matrix of Lyric Transformation: Poetic Modes and Self-Presentation in Early

Chinese Pentasyllabic Poetry. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan,

1996.

Kao, Yu-kung. “The ‘Nineteen Old Poems’ and the Aesthetics of Self-Reflection.” In The Power of