How to Read Chinese Poetry A Guided Anthology

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These fourteen reduplicatives are of a kind rarely used in earlier poetry but
quite frequently used by Qiao Ji and some other sanqu poets. Originally employed
as comment in the originative Shijing topic + comment construction, reduplica-
tives were continually reinvented over the millennia as a prized means of emo-
tional expression. In Li Qingzhao’s “To the Tune ‘One Beat Followed by Another, a
Long Tune,’” all the reduplicatives are produced from established verbal and adjec-
tival binomes. The making of such reduplicatives betrays a process opposite to the
evolution of Shijing reduplicatives. Many, if not all, of the Shijing reduplicatives can
be regarded as unmediated, “preconceptual” responses to external stimuli, and
only over time did some of them become conceptualized as established adjectives
or adverbs. By contrast, the making of new reduplicatives by Li Qingzhao speaks
to a process of “deconceptualization”—that is, taking a binome apart and turning
its two characters into reduplicatives to create a succession of rhythmic and emo-
tionally expressive sounds. For instance, xumi (search for) becomes xu xu mi mi,
and lengqing (cold and lonely) becomes leng leng qing qing.
With Qiao Ji, this process of deconceptualization became even more radical. To
him, seemingly no part of speech was off-limits to deconstruction and deconcep-
tualization. In “Of This Occasion,” he turns all the words—monosyllabic words
(“oriole” and “person”), binomes (“delicate, tender”), adjectives (“vivid”), and nouns
(“flower” and “willow”)—into reduplicatives. If the radical reduplication in this
poem is undone, we can perceive a series of four topic + comment constructions:

Orioles and swallows—the spring,

Flowers and willow—vivid.

Things—graceful,

Delicate, tender.

Perfect—the person

The topics are two common objects of observation in Chinese poetry: the flora and
fauna of springtime and a beautiful woman. Like earlier poets, Qiao Ji presented
the two in juxtaposition for the best effect of mutual illumination. The blending
of nature’s luster and a beauty’s radiance makes each ever more enchanting. The
comments are fairly commonplace adjectives. Here Qiao Ji could have deconcep-
tualized and turned these adjectives into reduplicatives, as Li Qingzhao did, while
leaving the topics in their regular nominal form. The poem would then have as-
sumed the form of the originative Shijing topic + comment. But this is not what
Qiao Ji chose to do. To achieve a dramatic novel effect, he turned every single word,
whether originally the topic or the comment, into a reduplicative. As the topics,
too, become emotionally charged reduplicatives, they practically merge with the
comments into one. Thus each word captures not only what the poet saw but also
his delighted response to it. The extraordinary syntax of this poem shows how far
the topic + comment construction evolved from its originative Shijing form.

In this brief chapter, I have been able to depict the evolution of Chinese poetic
syntax and poetic vision in only the broadest strokes. The five major genres feature

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