the Chinese critic Shen Qi has termed it (Shen 1995: 247–249), that
comes from the double diaspora in which the poet lives. Reading alle-
gorically through his work does not ultimately unlock the door to the
definitive meaning of each line, which still functions like a receding
horizon before the road of interpretation, but it does help us under-
stand the overall sentiment conveyed by his remarkable body of work.
Note
- Yang notes in many cases how Zheng actually violates the rules of syntax
by inverting word order (Yang 1974: 24) and of semantics by, for example,
changing nouns into verbs, pressing adjectives into the service of verbs, and
employing catachresis—insights that are supported by Julia Lin (Lin 1985: 5),
Shen Qi (Shen 1995: 252), among others.
46 Christopher Lupke