200 t He tang Dy na s t y
- Where the first couplet is nonparallel and the second parallel, it constitutes
the first half of lüshi. - Where the first couplet is parallel and the second nonparallel, it constitutes
the second half of lüshi.
A major implication is that jueju aesthetics also derived from those of lüshi. How-
ever, it is now generally accepted that the term jueju dates to earlier than the advent
of lüshi and was related to the Six Dynasties practice of multiple authors’ com-
posing pentasyllabic “linked verse” (lianju). When an individual quatrain segment
was taken out of context of a lianju, or if it never had other quatrains linked to it,
then it was called cut-off lines (jueju) or broken lines (duanju). Moreover, the fixed-
length quatrain form long predated the fixed-length octet. Although the truncated
lüshi theory is ahistorical, there is no doubt it influenced the interpretation and
composition of jueju during the Song and later dynasties. Yet, for reading Tang
poetry, we can start from the premise that jueju development and aesthetics are
independent of the lüshi forms.3
I begin this chapter with close readings of representative poems, to provide
readers a sense of the thematic scope and aesthetic potential of jueju. A detailed
examination of common jueju features then follows.w u j u e
Although Tang poets all used wujue to record concentrated poetic experience, and
pursued the same fundamental aesthetic goals for the form, differing styles of
poems can be discerned. Here I present two basic styles of Tang wujue, differen-
tiated primarily by the choice of themes and the type of language employed. The
first can be called a “colloquial style” and the second a “descriptive style,” although
both terms require qualification. For a context in which to approach these styles, a
brief look back at pentasyllabic quatrain composition in the Six Dynasties period
(222–618) is helpful.
Six Dynasties yuefu songs were a major source for wujue. These anonymous
songs fall into three subcategories: “Wu songs of the Jiangnan region” (Jiangnan
Wu sheng), from the southern capital area (present-day Nanjing); “western songs
of Jing and Chu” (Jing Chu xisheng), from the area around the confluence of the
Yangtze and Han rivers (present-day Wuhan); and “songs accompanied by drum,
horn, and transverse flute” (gu jiao hengchui qu), from the north. These quatrains,
predominantly love songs in a first-person female voice, were cited as a source for
Tang wujue by literary historians as early as Gao Bing (1350–1423) and Hu Yinglin
(1551–1602). Thematically, the songs are limited mainly to broken love affairs—and
the occasional happy reunion. Description of the settings and characters is also
quite limited. The language is colloquial, direct, and highly emotionally charged.
Analysis of linguistic elements suggests the oral performance milieu: the extant
texts are characterized by strong and continuous syntax, a use of first- and second-
person pronouns, and often puns. Most tellingly, a continual use of the linguistic