220 t He tang Dy na s t y
As Zong-qi Cai writes in chapter 5, the pentasyllabic line is made up of a disyllable
and a trisyllable separated by a caesura and presents semantic rhythm in either of
two patterns: 2 + (1 + 2) or 2 + (2 + 1). The extra two characters in the heptasyllabic
line are added to the beginning of the pentasyllabic structure, thus giving 4 + 3, or,
more specifically, (2 + 2) + (1 + 2) or (2 + 2) + (2 + 1).
Every two lines are a couplet, which is not only a formal unit but also a seman-
tic/thematic unit. A rhyming word always falls at the end of each couplet. The
basic rhyming scheme of jueju is xAxA, which presents the first half as one dis-
crete unit, followed by the second half comprising a unit of identical meter, with
the resonating punctuation of the rhyme at the very end. This scheme is typical
for wujue, although it is found occasionally in qijue as well. All but two—“Spring
Lament” and “Quiet Night Thoughts”—of the pentasyllabic quatrains discussed
earlier follow the pattern xAxA. The AAxA rhyming scheme is typical for qijue but
rare for wujue. Every one of the qijue examples follows the pattern AAxA, although
due to pronunciation change (especially the loss of entering tones), the rhymes are
not always evident in modern Mandarin.
Tonal patterning provides a textured pattern of sound that both demarcates the
individual couplets and unifies them in a balanced quatrain structure (chap. 8).
In short, there are only four possible tonal patterns for regulated jueju: standard
types I and II, and variant types Ia and IIa. As wujue seldom rhyme the first line,
types I and II are dominant; since qijue usually rhyme the first line, types Ia and
IIa are most common. Yet observance of tonal patterns is not quite as strict in jueju
as in lüshi. “Violations” can be found in all positions (words) of a pentasyllabic
or heptasyllabic line. Sometimes otherwise regulated poems break the nian rule,
which ties couplets together. Tonal patterns of jueju examples that contain viola-
tions are marked in the preceding as “imperfect.” Presumably, prosody for jueju
was more flexible due to the close connection that both wujue and qijue had with
music.
Moreover, as mentioned, a subset of Tang jueju examples does not conform to
normal tonal prosodic patterns and/or use oblique tone rhymes. Due no doubt to
the influence of the Six Dynasties yuefu tradition, these gujue examples are over-
whelmingly pentasyllabic. The qijue was primarily a Tang invention, so it follows
that heptasyllabic gujue are rare. The earlier examples without an identification of
a tonal pattern are gujue, composed during the Six Dynasties or the Tang. Notably,
these gujue works still often contain an element of prosodic design, although it
is idiosyncratic. Wang Wei’s “The Deer Fence,” for example, uses oblique tone
rhymes and displays clear tonal alternation in each line—but not between lines
in each couplet. Distinguishing between a regulated jueju with an imperfect tonal
pattern and a gujue with level-tone rhyme that displays some tonal design can at
times be a matter of opinion (see, for example, Li Bai’s “Amusing Myself ”).C l o s u r e
Closure is considered by many what jueju do best. Various epithets used to describe
jueju—“one note, three echoes” (yichang santan), “meaning beyond the words” (yan-