r Hy tHm, s y n taX , anD v ision oF C H i ne s e P oe t ry 385The syntactic role of the disyllabic segment is determined by the connective
that precedes it. As shown in the excerpt, the connective zhi, roughly equivalent
to “ ’s” in English, introduces the disyllabic segment as the object of a transitive
verb (lines 15–16 and 19–20). The connective qi normally introduces the disyllabic
segment as the main verb while making the preceding trisyllabic segment the sub-
ject (lines 17–18). The connective yi, equivalent to “in order to” in English, almost
always introduces an auxiliary clause of purpose (lines 10 and 12). The list of con-
nectives used in Chuci lines is quite short, and they tend to recur very frequently in
a long poem like “On Encountering Trouble.” While these connectives each help to
form a particular kind of subject + predicate, they share one feature: they produce
strictly linear one-directional sentences and do not allow an inversion of the sub-
ject + predicate order. This undoubtedly contributes to the building of a forward
momentum highly desirable for an extended narration or description. It is perhaps
for this reason that these sao-style lines are heavily used not only in the Chuci but
also in the fu poetry of later times.
Fu Poetry
The fu genre features two dominant rhythms, 2 + 2 and 3 + 1 + 2, inherited from
the Book of Poetry and Lyrics of Chu, respectively. The preponderance of these two
rhythms in the Han fu corpus should not surprise us, as the rise of the fu genre
has been widely attributed to the influence of those two ancient collections. Some
fu works, like “Fu on the Imperial Park” (C3.1), by Sima Xiangru (179–117 b .C.e.),
extensively use the 2 + 2 Shijing rhythm along with a secondary Chuci rhythm of
3 + 1 + 2. Other Han fu works feature a parallel use of these two rhythms. These
poems seem entitled to the appellation of “four and six” given to “parallel prose”
(pianwen), a prose characterized by alternating tetrasyllabic and hexasyllabic lines.
In fact, they are often called parallel fu because of their likeness to parallel prose.
There is nothing particularly innovative about Han fu writers’ employment of the
2 + 2 and 3 + 1 + 2 rhythms. A noteworthy change is the tendency to use a long
succession of 2 + 2 lines to enumerate objects and things and then depict their
conditions or actions. In “Fu on the Imperial Park,” for instance, we see again and
again an exuberant catalog of splendid objects and things (lines 96–100, 202–208,
and so on), followed by an equally exhaustive description of their appearance and
motions (lines 101–107, 209–218, and so on).
Pentasyllabic Shi Poetry
Pentasyllabic shi poetry ushers in a 2 + 3 rhythm seldom consciously employed
before the Later Han. Once firmly established, this new rhythm quickly gained
popularity and became the core rhythm for all major shi subgenres developed
since the Later Han. Having already given a technical analysis of this rhythm in
chapter 5, I shall examine here how it enabled Six Dynasties and Tang poets to
remold both subject + predicate and topic + comment constructions. Let us begin
with a famous couplet from “Climbing the Lakeside Tower” (C6.7), by Xie Ling-
yun (385–433):