358 t He y uan, m i ng, anD q i ng Dy na s t i e s
mandarin ducks head white because love much 鴛鴦頭白為情多
(yuān yāng tóu bái wèi qíng duō)
waist between jade pendant jade ring thousand year thing 腰間珮玦千年物
(yāo jiān pèi jué qiān nián wù)
drunk after topsy-turvy calligraphy ten [Chinese] yard wave 醉後顛書十丈波
(zuì hòu diān shū shí zhàng bō)
near day compose poetry heart turn fine 近日裁詩心轉細
(jìn rì cái shī xīn zhuăn xì)
each take long line study Dong- po 每將長句學東坡
(měi jiāng cháng jù xué Dōng pō)
[Tonal pattern Ia, see p. 172]
Yuan Hongdao’s use of the conventional title “Composed at Random” calls at-
tention to the very casualness of the occasion of writing itself. The poem begins by
projecting the image of a carefree rustic man, wearing a straw raincoat, enjoying
himself with a bottle of wine, and making music. The melodies of Wu and songs
of Chu are precisely the kind of regional folk tunes and ditties that he endorses as
genuine poetry of the people. Even when Yuan Hongdao has to observe the strict
rules of tonal antithesis and syntactic and semantic parallelism required in the
regulated form, as in the second and third couplets, he avoids erudite language and
allusive imagery. Instead, he draws on birds with common cultural associations to
further highlight his natural inclinations. The crane, a symbol of immortality, is
here the poet’s self-image—old but clearheaded. The mandarin ducks, a symbol of
conjugal love, represent the poet’s depth of feeling and romantic devotion. In the
third couplet, the antique pendants worn at the waist and the free-flowing calligra-
phy convey the literati culture in which Yuan Hongdao participates; their unique
characteristics suggest his individualistic manner. In the closing couplet, the poet
explicitly comments on his poetic practice—his turning to the more discursive
style of the great Song poet Su Shi (style name Dongpo, 1037–1101), one of whose
poetic trademarks is his carefree attitude and inimitable wit.
While Yuan Hongdao’s poetic theory proved to be a powerful antidote to the
Archaist influence, his poetic practice did not merit much commendation by later
critics. The early Qing critic Zhu Yizun (1629–1709) castigated the worst of Yuan
Hongdao’s poetry for being vulgar, facetious, and flippant in expressing his un-
restrained inclinations and feelings.11 Although not all above partisanship, poets
of the late Ming and early Qing—such as Chen Zilong (1608–1647), Qian Qianyi
(1582–1664), and Wu Weiye (1609–1672)—were prolific writers who produced
poetry that stood on their own merits. Chen Zilong infused his poetry with inten-
sity of emotion more akin to Tang verse; Qian Qianyi wrote extremely erudite and
difficult poems, some reminiscent of the dense, allusive Late Tang style and others
of the Song style; and Wu Weiye was acclaimed for his long narrative poems, redo-
lent of his nostalgia for and guilt toward the fallen Ming dynasty. Wang Shizhen
(1634–1711), of the younger generation, impressed his contemporaries as a tal-
ented poet and theorist. With a preference for Tang poetry, his poetics turn on