How to Read Chinese Poetry A Guided Anthology

Sh i P oe t ry oF t He m i ng anD q i ng Dy na s t i e s 375

teenth or eighteenth century), is obviously inspired by and modeled after the
Buddhist-inflected “nature” poems of the Tang poet Wang Wei (701–761), but one
that also embodies gendered experience. Yan Liu is learning to embroider and to
write poetry, requisite skills of cultured young women of gentry families in this
period. On the formal level, traces of literary practice are apparent. The poem has
the required rhymes and tonal antithesis; the prescribed parallelism of the second
and third couplets is largely met on the syntactic but not quite on the seman-
tic and grammatical levels. She borrows freely from the well-known vocabulary
and syntax of Wang Wei’s famous regulated verses: the sound of “wind through
the pines,” “watching clouds,” “beyond phenomena,” and the verb ye (sob, choke),
including inverting its syntactic position with the subject “sound of cicadas” in
line 4. But the one thing that is new in this poem is the motif of embroidering
and its seemingly natural place in a woman’s everyday life, which encompasses
seamlessly the enjoyment of nature, the art of poetry, women’s work, and spiritual
contemplation.
Similarly, in “Recited While Sick,” the Manchu woman Mengyue, a widow for
most of her life, fully exploits the attributes of femininity conventionally asso-
ciated with women’s illness and the spatial location of the inner quarters in her
self-representation:32

C 1 7. 1 4

Recited While Sick

Not aware that my fingers have turned slim, I find the dust heavy,
2 Surprised by the robe’s length, I didn’t realize that my shoulders had grown
thin.
With empty mind, I quietly chew over the flavor of the Odes and History,
4 In the silent room, I frequently smell the fragrance of ink.
Since ancient times the zither strings have emitted unusual sounds,
6 So many wild phrases when I put the brush to write pure poetry.
From the flavor experienced in illness I attain true inspiration,
8 I savor slowly the hidden leisure beyond things.
[GGZX 5.17a]

病中詠 (bìn zhōng yŏng)

not feel finger delicate dislike dust heavy 不覺指纖嫌塵重 (bù jué zhĭ xiān xián chén zhòng)
who know shoulder thin surprised robe long 那知肩瘦訝衣長 (nă zhī jiān shòu yà yī cháng)
heart empty bland chew Odes History flavor 心虛淡嚼詩書味 (xīn xū dàn jiáo shī shū wèi)
room quiet frequent hear quill ink fragrant 室靜頻聞翰墨香 (shì jìng pín wén hàn mò xiāng)
zither strange emit string sound since ancient 琴怪出弦音自古 (qín kuài chū xián yīn zì gŭ)
poetry pure put down brush line many wild 詩清下筆句多狂 (shī qīng xià bĭ jù duō kuáng)
illness middle nourish flavor obtain true interest 病中滋味得真趣 (bìng zhōng zī wèi dé zhēn qù)
thing outside secluded leisure finely finely taste 物外幽閑細細嘗 (wù wài yōu xián xì xì cháng)
[Rules of tonal patterning not observed]