A Concise History of Chinese Literature (2 Volume Set)

A Concise History of Chinese Literature Brill’s Humanities in China Library Edited by Zhang Longxi, City University ...

Author: Luo Yuming. Translated with Annotations and an Introduction by Ye Yang

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A Concise History of Chinese Literature

Brill’s Humanities in China Library Edited by

Zhang Longxi, City University of Hong Kong Axel Schneider, Leiden University

VOLUME 4/1

A Concise History of Chinese Literature Volume 1

By

Luo Yuming Translated with Annotations and an Introduction by

Ye Yang

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2011

This book is the result of a copublication agreement between Fudan University Press and Koninklijke Brill NV. This work was translated into English from the original (Luo Yuming, A Concise History of Chinese Literature). This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Luo, Yuming, 1951– [Jian ming Zhongguo wen xue shi. English] A concise history of Chinese literature / by Luo Yuming ; translated by Ye Yang. p. cm. — (Brill’s humanities in China library ; v. 4) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-20366-2 (set : hbk. : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-90-04-20368-6 (v. 1 : hbk. : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-90-04-20369-3 (v. 2 : hbk. : alk. paper) 1. Chinese literature—History and criticism. I. Ye, Yang, 1948– II. Title. PL2264.L9313 2011 895.1’09—dc22 2011000381

ISSN 1874-8023 ISBN 978 90 04 20366 2, set ISBN 978 90 04 20368 6, volume one ISBN 978 90 04 20369 3, volume two Copyright 2011 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change.

CONTENTS Volume 1

Introduction (Ye Yang) ...................................................................... ix Glossary ........................................................................................... xix References ....................................................................................... xxi Author’s Preface .................................................................................. xxiii Chapter One The Early Period of Chinese Literature: The Formation of Its Characteristics ........................................... 1. Culture in the Shang and Zhou Period: A Synopsis ............. 2. Ancient Mythology ................................................................... 3. The Undertakers of Early Literature ....................................... 4. The Spoken and the Written Language as Factors ...............

1 1 6 8 13

Chapter Two The Book of Songs and The Songs of the South ..... 1. The Book of Songs ...................................................................... 2. The Songs of the South ..............................................................

15 15 30

Chapter Three Prose of the Pre-Qin Age ..................................... 1. Historical Prose ......................................................................... 2. Prose of the Masters .................................................................

51 51 62

Chapter Four The Rhapsody of the Qin and Han ....................... 1. The Background of the Flourish of the Rhapsody and Its Characteristics ..................................................................... 2. The Rhapsody of the Qin and the Western Han ................... 3. The Rhapsody of the Eastern Han ..........................................

75 76 80 92

Chapter Five The Prose of the Qin and Han ............................... 1. Prose of Argumentation .......................................................... 2. Lyrical Prose .............................................................................. 3. Historical Records and History of the Han .............................

101 102 107 112

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Chapter Six Poetry of the Han Dynasty ....................................... 1. The Rise of Chu Songs ............................................................. 2. The Formation of Pentasyllabic and Heptasyllabic Poetry ......................................................................................... 3. The “Nineteen Old Poems” and Others ................................. 4. The Music Bureau Poetry ........................................................ Chapter Seven Literature of the Wei-Jin Period ......................... 1. The Social Trend and Literary Consciousness of the Wei-Jin Period .................................................................... 2. Poetry and Prose of the Jian’an Period ................................... 3. Poetry and Prose of the Zhengshi Period .............................. 4. Poetry and Prose of the Western Jin ...................................... 5. Poetry and Prose of the Eastern Jin ........................................ 6. Fiction of the Wei-Jin Period .................................................. Chapter Eight Literature of the Northern and Southern Dynasties and the Sui Dynasty ..................................................... 1. Trends of Literary Thought during the Northern & Southern Dynasties and the Sui Dynasty .............................. 2. Poetry and Prose of the Liu-Song Dynasty ........................... 3. Poetry and Prose of the Qi and Liang Dynasties .................. 4. Poetry and Prose of Northern Dynasties, the Chen, and the Sui ........................................................................................ 5. The Folk Song of the Music Bureau of the Northern & Southern Dynasties .................................................................. 6. Fiction of the Northern & Southern Dynasties .................... Chapter Nine Poetry and Prose of the Early and the High Tang ....................................................................................... 1. Poetry of the Early Tang .......................................................... 2. Poetry of the High Tang ........................................................... 3. The Variations of the Prose of the Early and the High Tang .................................................................................. Chapter Ten Poetry and Prose of the Mid-Tang and Late Tang ......................................................................................... 1. Mid-Tang Poetry ....................................................................... 2. Late Tang Poetry ....................................................................... 3. Prose of the Mid-Tang and the Late Tang .............................

125 125 127 131 136 147 147 152 166 172 180 189

193 194 203 214 233 254 261

267 268 279 305

309 310 360 376

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Chapter Eleven Tales of the Marvelous and Popular Literature of the Tang Dynasty ....................................................................... 1. Tales of the Marvelous of the Tang Dynasty ......................... 2. Popular Literature of the Tang Dynasty .................................

391 392 405

Chapter Twelve Song Lyrics of the Tang, the Five Dynasties, and the Northern Song ................................................................. 1. Song Lyrics of the Tang Dynasty ............................................ 2. Songs Lyrics of the Five Dynasties ......................................... 3. Song Lyrics of the Northern Song Dynasty ...........................

411 411 419 428

Chapter Thirteen Poetry and Prose of the Northern Song ........ 1. Cultural Background of Northern Song Poetry and Prose ................................................................................. 2. Poetry and Prose of the Early Northern Song ...................... 3. Poetry and Prose of the Middle Northern Song ................... 4. Poetry of the Late Northern Song .......................................... Chapter Fourteen Literature of the Southern Song and the Jin Dynasty ............................................................................... 1. Poetry and Song Lyric of the Early Southern Song .............. 2. Poetry and Song Lyric of the Middle Period of the Southern Song ........................................................................... 3. Poetry and Song Lyric of the Late Southern Song ............... 4. Fiction and Drama of the Song Dynasty ............................... 5. Literature of the Jurchen Jin Dynasty ....................................

459 459 466 474 497

507 508 519 538 557 563

Volume 2 Chapter Fifteen Literature of the Yuan Dynasty ......................... 1. The Variety Play of the Earlier Yuan Period .......................... 2. The Variety Play of the Later Yuan Period ............................ 3. The Southern Play of the Yuan Dynasty ................................ 4. The Individual Aria of the Yuan Dynasty .............................. 5. Poetry and Prose of the Yuan Dynasty .................................. 6. Fiction of the Yuan Dynasty ....................................................

573 575 593 597 605 617 634

Chapter Sixteen Poetry and Prose of the Ming Dynasty ........... 1. Poetry and Prose of the Early Ming Period ...........................

653 655

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2. Poetry and Prose of the Mid-Ming Period ............................ 3. Poetry and Prose of the Late Ming ......................................... 4. Individual Aria and Folk Song of the Ming Dynasty ...........

664 683 704

Chapter Seventeen Drama and Fiction of the Ming Dynasty ... 1. Drama and Fiction from the Early to the Middle Ming Period ......................................................................................... 2. Late Ming Fiction ..................................................................... 3. Late Ming Drama ......................................................................

719

Chapter Eighteen Poetry and Prose of the Qing Dynasty ......... 1. Poetry and Prose of the Early Qing Period ........................... 2. Poetry and Prose of the Middle Qing Period ........................ 3. Poetry and Prose of the Late Qing Period .............................

769 773 793 823

Chapter Nineteen Drama and Fiction of the Qing Dynasty ..... 1. Drama and Fiction of the Early Qing Period ........................ 2. Drama and Fiction of the Middle Qing Period .................... 3. Fiction of the Late Qing Period ..............................................

839 839 861 882

Coda .....................................................................................................

899

Glossary-Index ...................................................................................

901

719 733 753

INTRODUCTION Ye Yang

Writing, Literature, and the Rise of Literary History The rise of literary history is a relatively recent development, both historically and worldwide, but a sense of literary development as history can be traced to very early times in the Chinese tradition. In ancient China, just as in the cases of ancient Egyptian and Sumerian civilizations, what may be acknowledged as literature today was not identified as such and remained, for ages, undifferentiated from other forms of writing. Etymologically, the Chinese word wen denotes crisscrossing drawing, and throughout history it has carried a variety of meanings as enumerated by Bernhard Karlgren (1889–1978), the renowned Swedish sinologist: “drawn lines, designs; striped; ornaments, ornate; written character; literary document, literature; accomplished; civil (as opposed to military); embellish.” [Minford and Lau 3] Likewise the Chinese term wenxue, which stands for literature in modern Chinese, vaguely refers to the study of the above in its ancient usage, as when Confucius employed it to describe the specialty of his disciples, Yan Yan (Zi You) and Bu Shang (Zi Xia) [Analects, Xianjin XI]. The Shi (Songs), the oldest Chinese poetry anthology that was later canonized as the Shi jing (The Book of Songs) during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Western Han dynasty (206 B.C.–A.D. 24), was only one of several textbooks used by the Master who left behind a number of comments in the Analects on its special contents, function, and purpose. During the early Western Han dynasty, the literary writings of Qu Yuan, Song Yu and other authors from the Chu kingdom of the Warring States Period received their due recognition. The fu (rhapsody), a genre with a strong intention to entertain and to dazzle with its elaborate word-play, became the most popular form of writing of the age. With such development, literature began to distinguish itself from other forms of writing and eventually, to become a self-conscious genre for its writers.

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By the late Western Han, the scholar Liu Xiang (ca. 77–ca. 6 B.C.) was commissioned by Emperor Cheng to edit and proofread the book collections at the imperial library, the Tianlu Ge (Hall of Celestial Tribute). This was an enormous task to which he devoted the last two decades of his life, and which was continued after his death by his son Liu Xin (ca. 50 B.C.–A.D. 23). The latter composed the Qi lüe (Seven Summaries), the earliest Chinese bibliography. After a “General Summary,” it discusses six categories of writings, each of which is further divided into several sub-genres, and for the first time in history, “Poetry and Rhapsody” stood apart from other writings with distinct features of their own. Liu Xin’s work is no longer extant today, but its basic structure, as well as some of its contents, has been preserved in the Yiwen zhi (Monograph on Arts and Literature) within the Han shu (History of the Han) by Ban Gu (32–92), a leading historian of the Eastern Han dynasty (25–220). Ban Gu’s history, however, largely followed the historiographical structure of Sima Qian (ca. 145–ca. 86 B.C.), the Grand Historian. In his magnum opus, Shi ji (Historical Records), Sima Qian had initiated the form of shu, offering eight individual accounts on such special topics as rites, music, law, and astrology, providing within each a historical survey. Ban Gu included in his work ten zhi (treatises), which observed the same format as Sima Qian’s shu, while also including two additions. Of these two, the one on arts and literature may be considered as the earliest prototype of literary history in the Chinese tradition. With very few exceptions, the historiographical structure of Sima Qian and Ban Gu was imitated by almost all subsequent dynastic histories. During the subsequent Age of Division (220–589), literature continued taking on—and getting recognized for—characteristics of its own, and it also marked the rise of literary theory. A monumental work on theory was the Wenxin diaolong (Literary Mind: Carving Dragons) by Liu Xie (ca. 465–ca. 532). While literature still gets mixed with other forms of writings, such as history, in Liu Xie’s work, twenty-one of its fifty chapters are devoted to different genres, most of which are literary, each providing a historical survey of its origin, purpose, changes, and variations. Compared to the works of Liu Xin and Ban Gu, these chapters are much closer in spirit to a miniscule literary history. Many subsequent works display a similar sense of the historical development of literature, but the first history of Chinese literature surprisingly did not appear until the beginning of the twentieth century.

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Histories of Chinese Literature in English It was not mere contingency that the first history of Chinese literature was written by an Englishman, Herbert Allen Giles (1845–1935), as the rise of literary history had taken place in England in the eighteenth century, marked by the publication of the first three volumes of Thomas Warton’s History of English Poetry (1774–1781). A diplomat who spent many years in China, Giles was appointed, in 1897, as only the second Professor of Chinese at Cambridge University, succeeding another British diplomat and sinologist, Thomas Francis Wade (1818–1895). In 1901, Giles’s A History of Chinese Literature was published in London. As the author claims in his “Preface,” at that time a succinct history of the whole subject had not yet been attempted by the Chinese themselves, notwithstanding their “critiques and appreciation of individual works.” Much as we should make allowances for a pioneer, Giles’s work, which devotes half of its content to citations of primary texts in his translation, contains serious errors and misconceptions due to its author’s extremely limited understanding of the topic. A great number of important authors throughout the ages have been omitted, such as Liu Xie, Xie Lingyun, Li Shangyin, Li Qingzhao, Lu You, Xin Qiji, and Guan Hanqing, to give just a few examples. On the other hand, authors and texts of little or no literary significance, such as Emperors Kangxi and Qianlong, or works on gardening, legal codes, and religious propaganda, are given disproportionate discussion, and frequently copious citation. With all its obvious errors, Giles’s book remained the only general introduction to Chinese literature in English for some sixty years, until the appearance of the 665-page Chinese Literature, A Historical Introduction (1961). Its author, Chen Shou-yi (1899–1978), belonged to the older generation of Chinese scholars who received traditional education in China but completed their graduate studies in the West. Chen, with a doctoral degree from the University of Chicago, taught for many years at Pomona College. Notwithstanding its solid historical background and a commendatory foreword from Lin Yu-tang, the famous Chinese American author, the book contains many factual errors and inaccuracies, which have been rightly pointed out by David Hawkes, a distinguished scholar and translator of Chinese literature. Within a few years of Chen’s work, more Chinese literary histories in English emerged. Among them, the two books by Burton Watson and Liu Wu-chi, both leading scholars from the American academia,

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stand out in depth, scope, and scholarship. The former’s Early Chinese Literature (1962) is a learned introduction to Chinese literature, understood in the broad sense to include philosophy and history as well, from the early beginnings through the Han dynasty. The latter’s An Introduction to Chinese Literature (1966) adopts a generic approach, discussing in turns the major genres of poetry, prose, drama, and fiction, within a historical background. In the last few decades, however, the studies on Chinese literature have reached unprecedented breadth and depth in the West, and the composition of a general history of Chinese literature, increasingly seems beyond the reach of any individual scholar. The Columbia History of Chinese Literature (2001), a monumental work of 1,342 pages, features numerous scholars as its authors, both senior and junior ones, from North America and Europe, under the general editorship of Victor H. Mair, Professor of Chinese at the University of Pennsylvania. Breaking free from the dynastic and historical structure, the work contains fifty-five essays, by some forty-five scholars, under the seven categories of “Foundations,” “Poetry,” “Prose,” “Fiction,” “Drama,” “Commentary, Criticism, and Interpretation,” and “Popular and Peripheral Manifestations.” It certainly reaches an unprecedented scope compared to similar books in English or any European language, and it also includes more than three hundred pages of very helpful scholarly material, including an extensive bibliography, glossary of terms, names, and titles, and an index. The above categories, however, may strike the reader as somewhat confusing and misleading. Included under “Foundations,” for example, are such diverse topics as language and script, mythology, Confucian classics, wit and humor, proverbs, and women in literature. Due to the wide range of topics and the large number of authors who vary in scholarship, inevitably there are some contradictions in perspectives and statements, as well as some overlapping and repetition. Another such collective effort, undertaken more recently, is the much-awaited work, The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, which is still in progress. According to Ronald Egan, this work, with contributions from a group of senior scholars including himself, adopts the traditional dynastic approach, but with considerable flexibility. Stephen Owen’s chapter on the Tang dynasty, for example, extends into the period of the Five Dynasties, and even into the first few decades of the Northern Song dynasty, as the later periods are identified as a continuation of the former in literary evolution. Accordingly, Egan’s

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chapter on the Song dynasty is to begin from the middle years of the Northern Song period. As Egan has observed, it would be hard to imagine such a format in any similar work in Chinese. [Egan, Ji and Yu 115]

Histories of Chinese Literature in Chinese The first history of Chinese literature from a Chinese scholar was written, presumably, three years after the publication of Giles’s pioneer work in English, but it did not appear in print until 1910. The author, Lin Chuanjia, was a teacher at the Imperial University of Beijing, a previous incarnation of Beijing University. In his preface Lin claims that he has modeled his work on some earlier Japanese effort on the topic. The book, focusing on philology and prose, is primarily a collection of the author’s lecture notes, and took its author only four months to complete, which may account for its slipshod writing and extremely restricted range of discussion. After the May Fourth Movement (1919), with accelerated Westernization in China, histories of Chinese literature proliferated in the following decades. Among the several scores of general histories of Chinese literature published during this period, more significant works include those from leading scholars such as Hu Shi (1928), Hu Yunyi (1932), Zheng Zhenduo (1932), Zhao Jingshen (1936), and Liu Dajie (Vol. 1, 1941; Vol. 2, 1949). There also appeared a number of important histories of specific genres or periods, such as Wang Guowei’s study of the drama of the Song and Yuan dynasties (1913), Liu Shipei’s on literature of the Early Imperial period (1917), and Lu Xun’s on fiction (1925). Following the founding of the People’s Republic of China (1949), the writing of literary histories on the Chinese mainland was dominated by political orientation. Liu Dajie (1904–1977), for example, had to make several revisions, including a notorious one during the so-called Cultural Revolution, of his earlier work in adaptation to the changing agenda of propaganda. As a sign of the subdued individual voice of the time, several histories of Chinese literature, used as college textbooks on their publication, were collectively written. An influential sample of this kind was published under the name of the Literature Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (1962). In a brief preface of the 3-volume work, a short passage of only a few lines

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discloses that it was written by a group of eighteen authors, headed by such leading scholars as Yu Guanying (1906–1995) and Qian Zhongshu (1910–1998). Since the 1980’s, scholars from the Chinese mainland have gradually freed themselves from political bonds in academic research. Contrary to the trend that went from the individual to the collective effort in the composition of literary histories as seen in the West, exemplified by the works from Columbia and Cambridge as discussed in the above, we see a return to the rise of the individual voice in China. A landmark of this new trend was the 3-volume history of Chinese literature from the Fudan University Press in 1997. While still written by a total of nine scholars, it was nevertheless published in the name of Zhang Peiheng and Luo Yuming, both faculty members of Fudan University’s Chinese Department and its general editors. The book, which took more than a decade to complete, has pioneered a number of innovative moves which have set it apart from almost all previous works of the same kind. In its discussion of various authors and texts through history it has focused on literature in a stricter sense of the word, excluding those which, notwithstanding their fame in history, belong to the field of intellectual history or philosophy. It confirms the aesthetic function of literary texts rather than their social values, and tries its best to provide an evaluation of literary texts within their historical context. By doing so, it has managed to avoid putting premodern authors and works to the Procrustean bed of contemporary criteria. Since its publication, its strong influence has been demonstrated by its widespread use as a required textbook in Chinese college classrooms.

About This Translation Professor Luo Yuming’s work, published in 2005, continues the rise of the individual voice. I shall refrain from any further commentary on its specifics here since the author himself, in his “Preface” and “Coda,” has elucidated the book’s connection with the previous 3-volume work (of which he was one of the two general editors), as well as some of its own idiosyncrasies and specific features. To my knowledge, the current translation is one of only a few, from Chinese into English, of the original works of general or topical histories of Chinese literature by Chinese authors. These include Lu

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Xun’s history of Chinese fiction and a short general literary history by Feng Yuanjun, both translated by the husband-and-wife team of Gladys Yang and Yang Xianyi, and more recently, Hong Zicheng’s history of contemporary Chinese literature included in the same book series from this publisher. I sincerely believe Luo’s work, now in its English version, may inform the Western audience, both the “Common Reader”—to use Virginia Woolf’s term—and those from the academia, of the more recent perspectives and scholarship on the topic from a leading Chinese scholar. It may also provide some grounds of comparison and contrast with equivalent works in the West. Yan Fu (1853–1921), the great pioneer Chinese translator, has singled out three words as representing the major challenges in translation, i.e., xin, accuracy or fidelity to the original, da, comprehensibility or intelligibility, and ya, literary gracefulness. They may also be understood as a set of criteria. In my translation, I have tried my best to meet such the criteria, especially in handling the 456 direct quotations from Chinese literary texts in the book, including 342 complete texts, mostly poetry. However, due to my limitations, I have often felt obliged to give priority to the first two of these three. The second of Yan Fu’s set is primarily aimed at the target audience. In this case, the translation should reach out, and make itself understood, to native speakers of English. It is primarily for that purpose that I have added a considerable number of footnotes throughout the book, providing information on literary allusions and cultural contexts. The author’s occasional original footnotes are marked as such. For the convenience of students and scholars of Chinese Literature or Comparative Literature in their further research, a bilingual Glossary-Index is provided at the end of the book. Therein I have used traditional Chinese characters, which in my opinion still reach the broadest readership in the Chinese-speaking world, including Hong Kong and Taiwan, and are still employed, not infrequently even in China, in publications of pre-modern literature. It has become a convention in Chinese writing, of which Luo Yuming’s book is no exception, to offer a list of the basic information about an author at first mention, which includes his various names—the formal name, the zi (style), and the hao (literary cognomen), the place of his birthplace or family origin, degrees acquired in the civil service examination as well as the years of their acquisition, and important official appointments in his lifetime. A direct rendition of such information would strike the English reader as rather awkward and strange,

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as there is no such convention in Western writings. I have therefore taken the liberty to exclude all such information from the main text, but have preserved it in the attached Glossary-Index under the respective name of the authors, alphabetically arranged. For the nomenclature of all official titles, government agencies, and other administrative terminology I have followed, with very few exceptions, Charles O. Hucker’s A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China (1985). In most, if not all, cases for the names of authors and works, I have followed those widely accepted or already in use in Western academic writings such as the song lyric for ci, music bureau poetry for yuefu, and rhapsody for fu. In the names of the Tang dynasty poets, Li Bo and Bo Juyi, the rendition of the character Bo observes the pronunciation of the Central Plains in the Imperial Period, validated by modern scholarship, rather than that in modern Putonghua, Guoyu, or Mandarin Chinese (as Li Bai or Bai Juyi). Occasionally, for cultural or philological reasons, I have chosen an English word which apparently deviates from the original. For example, the word yu, generally rendered as jade in English, is usually white in color in the Chinese context, unless modified by preceding words as in the name of Lin Daiyu in the novel, The Story of the Stone, while the English word refers primarily to pale green. Accordingly, when the context of the word calls for a connotation of the color, I have, on a few occasions, rendered the word as marble. For the Chinese term fengjian, I have avoided the usual rendition of “feudal” or “feudalism” in English, as in its modern Chinese usage it often has little, if anything, to do with political system or structure, but rather refers to anything conservative, outdated, or non-progressive.

Acknowledgements As a consequence of my engagement with the translation during the intermissions of my teaching obligations and other research projects, it has taken a long time to finish the task. I am indebted to many in the lengthy process. Professor Zhai Xiangjun has been a mentor and close friend of mine for more than three decades, ever since I first made his acquaintance through my late brother, Ye Zhi, in the late 1970’s. After he retired from teaching, he started his second career at the Fudan University Press as a senior advisor, and it was at his proposal that I was delegated

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to tackle the task. I am very grateful to him for his constant encouragement and gracious help. Charles Dickens has used the word “children” to describe his works. I want to thank the author, Professor Luo Yuming, for entrusting me with the care of one of his numerous children. I am happy to find, in meeting with him in person on a couple of occasions during my recent visits to China, that we share much in common in our opinion of many in the academic circles, both our favorites and our pet aversions. When I was an undergraduate at Fudan University at the beginning of the 1980’s, I was impressed by a young teacher who introduced to us, in his course on Western literature, Sigmund Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis, which was still a taboo in China at that time. Now a Senior Editor at the Fudan University Press, Professor Lin Xianghua has given my manuscript a thorough reading, suggesting many necessary corrections and sensible proposals for improvement. I could not help but categorize the continuation of our relationship, across nearly thirty years, as a kind of yuan (pre-destination). Over the years Mademoiselle Cao Zhenfen (Flora), also of the Fudan University Press, acted as an effective liaison across the Pacific, between the publisher and myself, through numerous email messages. This translation could not have been completed without her professional service. I remain indebted to Ms. Katelyn Chin and Mr. Michael J. Mozina, editors of Brill, who were unfailingly courteous to me in providing their invaluable help in the course of production and making this a better work in print. Last but not least, I am grateful to Professor Zhang Longxi of the City University of Hong Kong for his nod of consent to include this translation into the book series, Brill’s Humanities in China Library, of which he serves as one of the two General Editors. Ever since the days when we became fellow graduate students in Comparative Literature at Cambridge, Massachusetts, his stellar academic accomplishments have made him a wei you (“awe-inspiring friend”) of mine, in the complete sense of the Chinese phrase. For all the remaining errors and mistakes in the translation I am solely responsible.

GLOSSARY

Ban Gu 班固 Bo Juyi 白居易 Bu Shang卜商 (Zi Xia 子夏) Cao Zhenfen (Flora) 曹珍芬 Chu 楚 ci 詞 da 達 Emperor Cheng (of the Han) 漢成帝 Emperor Kangxi 康熙 Emperor Qianlong 乾隆 Emperor Wu (of the Han) 漢武帝 fengjian 封建 Feng Yuanjun 馮沅君 fu 賦 Guan Hanqing 關漢卿 Guoyu 國語 Han shu 漢書 hao 號 Hong Zicheng 洪子誠 Hu Shi 胡適 Imperial University of Beijing 京師大學堂 Li Bo 李白 Li Qingzhao 李清照 Li Shangyin 李商隱 Lin Chuanjia 林傳甲 Lin Daiyu 林黛玉 Lin Xianghua 林驤華 Liu Dajie 劉大杰 Liu Shipei 劉師培 Liu Xiang 劉向 Liu Xie 劉勰 Liu Xin 劉歆 Lu Xun 魯迅 Lu You 陸游 Luo Yuming 駱玉明 Putonghua 普通話

Qi lüe 七略 Qian Zhongshu 錢鍾書 Qu Yuan 屈原 Shi ji 史記 Shi jing 詩經 shu 書 Sima Qian 司馬遷 Song Yu 宋玉 Songs 詩 Tianlu Ge 天祿閣 Wang Guowei 王國維 wei you 畏友 wen 文 Wenxin diaolong 文心雕龍 wenxue 文學 Xianjin 先進 Xie Lingyun 謝靈運 xin 信 Xin Qiji 辛棄疾 ya 雅 Yan Yan 言偃 (Zi You 子游) Yang, Gladys 戴乃迭 Yang Xianyi 楊獻益 Ye Zhi 葉治 Yiwen zhi 藝文志 yu 玉 Yu Guanying 余冠英 yuan 緣 yuefu 樂府 Zhai Xiangjun 翟象俊 Zhang Longxi 張隆溪 Zhang Peiheng 章培恆 Zhao Jingshen 趙景深 Zheng Zhenduo 鄭振鐸 zhi 志 zi 字

REFERENCES

Chen Shou-yi. Chinese Literature, A Historical Introduction. New York: Ronald Press, 1961. Egan, Ronald 艾朗諾, Ji Jin 季進 and Yu Xiayun 余夏雲. “Qian Zhongshu, Jianqiao Zhongguo wenxueshi yu haiwai hanxue yanjiu 錢鍾書, 《劍橋中國文學史》與海外漢學研究” (“Qian Zhongshu, Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, and the Sinological Studies Overseas”). Shanghai wenhua 上海文化 (Shanghai Culture), No. 6 (2010), 112–119. Feng Yüan-chün (Feng Yuanjun). A Short History of Classical Chinese Literature. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1958. Giles, H. A. A History of Chinese Literature. London: Heinemann, 1901. Hucker, Charles O. A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985. Lai Ming. A History of Chinese Literature. New York: John Day, 1964. Liang Rongruo 梁容若. Zhongguo wenxueshi yanjiu 中國文學史研究 (A Study of the Histories of Chinese Literature). Taipei: Dongda tushu gongsi, 1967, 5th Edition, 2004. Lin Chuanjia 林傳甲. Jingshi Daxuetang guowen jiangyi 京師大學堂國文講義. (Lecture Notes on Chinese at the Imperial University of Beijing). 2 Volumes. Tokyo, Japan: Hongwentang, 1910. Re-published in one volume as Zhongguo wenxueshi 中國文學史 (A History of Chinese Literature). Taipei: Xuehai chubanshe, 1986. Literature Institute, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences 中國社會科學院文學研究所. Zhongguo wenxueshi 中國文學史 (A History of Chinese Literature). 3 Volumes. Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe. 1962. Reprint 1982. Liu Dajie 劉大杰. Zhongguo wenxue fazhanshi 中國文學發展史 (A History of the Development of Chinese Literature). 3 Volumes. New Edition. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1982. Liu, Wu-chi. An Introduction to Chinese Literature. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1966. Lu Hsün (Lu Xun). A Brief History of Chinese Fiction. Tr. By Yang Hsien-yi (Yang Xianyi) and Gladys Yang. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1959. Mair, Victor H. ed. The Columbia History of Chinese Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. Minford, John and Lau, Joseph S. M. ed. Classical Chinese Literature: An Anthology of Translations. Volume I: From Antiquity to the Tang Dynasty. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. Watson, Burton. Early Chinese Literature. New York: Columbia University, 1962. Wellek, René. The Rise of Literary History. The University of North Carolina Press, 1941. Reprint with a New Foreword by the Author. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966. Zhang Peiheng 章培恆 and Luo Yuming 駱玉明. Zhongguo wenxueshi 中國文學史 (A History of Chinese Literature). 3 Volumes. Shanghai: Fudan University Press, 1997.

AUTHOR’S PREFACE

Even a short and brief history of literature may be written in many different ways. This book aims to provide a higher level of information, and it also hopes to introduce, within a limited scope, a clear and complete account of the essentials and general sequence of the development of premodern Chinese literature. While I was writing the book, I had to keep reminding myself of its small scope and restricted length, and try my best to present clear ideas in concise language. Perhaps, precisely because of such an effort on my part, the reader may have an easier and more immediate access to the knowledge of our literary history. The history of literature is a subdivision of history in a wide sense of the word. If we are not supposed to consider every change in history as fortuitous and insignificant, and if we are not supposed to regard history as an accumulation of strange phenomena in a temporal order, then a description of history, inevitably, has to involve value judgment. On the other hand, if we are not supposed to believe that human history is eventually determined by the will of divinity, then we have no choice but to call history a process of self-creation of the human race. This issue has been under discussion, from various angles, by many modern historians. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels have also proposed a theory based on humanity. It may be summarized, from their works like Capital, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, and The Communist Manifesto, simply that the essence of human beings is freedom and the ideal destination of human history is to reach a world in which “every human being may develop comprehensively and freely.” At the same time, however, the degree of possible freedom is restricted by the development of productive forces in different historical stages. The human species may therefore realize their essence of freedom through materialistic and spiritual creation. The description of a literary history, I believe, is interconnected with such a view of history. “Literature,” it seems to me, is really a concept with blurred boundaries and complex connotations. Judging from its main characteristics, however, it may be called the representation of human emotions in the form of language. Literature is primarily based on perceptions: its values lie in its close connection with the inherent true nature of

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life. Human feelings, on the other hand, are extremely active and constantly changing, with their original state indistinct and elusive. In the process of developing human nature, whenever new contents of human feelings are represented in the form of language, it implies for human beings an examination and verification of their own feelings. The expansion and enrichment of the world of literature, after all, signifies the expansion and enrichment of the morphology of human life. Accordingly, I would like to emphasize that literature’s essential values lie in the way it allows human beings to verify their essence of freedom and fashion their own life. Literature certainly has its origin in real life, but by no means will it ever become a mere mirror image of life. Instead it always provides a representation of the life of intention, desire, and imagination. If such intention, desire and imagination are of a rational nature, they may in turn change the contents of real life and even the human beings themselves. In addition, the so-called “rationality” of literature has an idiosyncratic nature of its own. In general, some social ideologies are used to prove the legitimacy of the status quo and to preserve its continuous existence, while others attempt to suggest a precontrived order as its replacement. Literature, on the other hand, always proceeds directly from perceptions and from the desires that emerge from the inherent true nature of life. Hence literary works of excellence always reveal, in a profound way, the predicament of human nature and the contradictions between human desire and social restrictions. Literature does not assume the responsibility of supervising social reforms but frequently makes a latent demand to provide more freedom for human development. Precisely on account of the characteristics discussed above, we believe that literature is a “special way” for human beings to verify their essence of freedom and fashion their own life. At the beginning of this preface, I mentioned that “This book aims to provide a higher level of information,” which means that theoretical discussions will not be highlighted. However, for any work of literary history its vision and attitude in elucidating all the events in literary history are determined by its basic criteria of values. For this reason, I have offered a brief account of my views above. For any work of literary history periodization is an important issue. Most works of literary history are divided into parts by dynasty, which has been rather unsatisfactory to many scholars. The reason for their disappointment is simple: the change of dynasties is a political change, while the development of literature does not always coincide with

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political change. It certainly makes a good argument for an in-depth discussion of the periodization of literary history. However, this book is still divided into chapters roughly according to dynastic changes because of two reasons. First, the change of dynasties in Chinese history constitutes a natural division of time and has long been a framework for studying history. If a different sequence is used it will come into conflict with the framework people have long been accustomed to. Therefore, in order to provide a concise, informative history of literature, different sequences should be avoided. Second, within Chinese society politics have exerted a great influence on literature. While the changes in literary history did not always coincide with those in political history, the two were nevertheless closely related to one another on many occasions. Accordingly, the chapters of a literary history—i.e., its periodization—inevitably overlap with dynastic alternations and political changes. Considering these two reasons, this book adopts a position of compromise. On the one hand, for convenience’s sake, the chapters are still marked by the various dynasties. On the other hand, they are not necessarily restricted by the dynastic changes and, by paying full attention to the changes of literature itself, they will avoid, as much as possible, giving an explication of literary history that uses politics as its decisive factor. Judging from the meaning of the title, A Concise History of Chinese Literature, we need to reach two objectives in this book. First, it has to remain a history of “literature,” to persist in the position of maintaining literature’s true identity, and to focus on using literature’s specific criteria of values in its outlook. Generally speaking, a discourse with ideological contents, however well written, is not an object worth attention in a literary history. We should never appreciate a poet simply because his poetry, which keeps a record of some historical events, is invaluable as historical data, which should be discussed and evaluated in other writings. The second objective is how to make the book really concise, or in other words brief, but also succinct. It seems to be no more than a technical issue, but requires much effort and labor in practice. The outline of the development of literature, the main characteristics of the evolvement of literature in each time period, and the singular contributions in artistic creativeness of important writers and works are the core issues that this book is concerned with. Unlike a multi-volume literary history, the book has no choice but to omit some content. Conversely, the reader may notice that in some sectors of this book, the discussion and analysis are more comprehensive

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and detailed than most of the multi-volume literary histories. Whether this book eventually succeeds to be a really “concise”—“brief ” but “succinct”—“history” of “literature,” it is the decision of the reader, who is free to make comments or give advice. For many years, I have taught a course on the history of Chinese literature for Chinese majors at my university, which has been a process of continuous learning and improvement for myself as well. Literary history involves a broad range of contents, and I have encountered many perplexities in the process. In 1996, the three-volume work, A History of Chinese Literature, was published by Fudan University Press. On its cover, it was attributed to “Zhang Peiheng and Luo Yuming” as General Editors, though it was in fact a work co-authored by many. In the final stage, under the supervision of Professor Zhang Peiheng, I took the responsibility of the general editing of the entire manuscript. For many reasons, the general editing and accounting for oversights throughout the manuscript became a tremendous task. However, it is precisely because of that that I had the opportunity to sort out in a systematic way many of the problems I encountered and the ideas that haunted me ever since I began to engage myself in teaching and researching the history of literature. It also provided me the opportunity to consult and seek advice from Professor Zhang on a constant basis on issues that perplexed me. Since its publication that history of literature has been well received, and I also acquired a great learning experience while working on it. The present work, A Concise History of Chinese Literature, was written at the suggestion of my friends at Fudan University Press, who believe that a literary history of such scope would better accommodate the changing conditions of teaching at the college level and better answer the need of general readers looking for information. Needless to say, this book is interrelated with the three-volume Fudan edition of A History of Chinese Literature. First of all, although Professor Zhang Peiheng felt that it was inadequate for him to sign on as a co-author of the current book, I could not have completed it without his supervision of my work over the years. In addition, despite the fact that I have tried my best not to transfer the contents of the three-volume literary history into this book, some of the things in that work have influenced my thinking. For instance, traces of some of my friend Ge Zhaoguang’s analysis of Middle and Late Tang poetry, I am afraid, may be found in this book. Certainly the author of a literary history cannot help but to

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make use of other scholars’ achievements in academic research. Citations of recent publications including recent translations have been acknowledged in footnotes, but the usage of some well-known ideas from previous writers has not always been recognized. They all deserve a note of my gratefulness here. It is also my hope that some of my own oversights may be brought to my attention. The history of Chinese literature is a grand project. Limited as my knowledge is I have purely by chance been involved in such a project for quite a few years already. I have little that I really want to say about what I have already done, except that it is not up to my own expectations. My only hope is that one day the project will be done in a really nice way. July 8, 2004

CHAPTER ONE

THE EARLY PERIOD OF CHINESE LITERATURE: THE FORMATION OF ITS CHARACTERISTICS

Chinese literature goes back to ancient times. For several thousand years, although it has repeatedly assimilated elements from other cultures, it has nevertheless maintained a consistent and continuous process of development, which is a unique phenomenon in the world. As a result, some basic features of Chinese literature in its early formative period (here it refers roughly to the pre-Qin age), which have since exerted an extremely profound and far-reaching influence on its later development, merit our attention.

1. Culture in the Shang and Zhou Period: A Synopsis The earliest characteristics of a literature sprout and grow from the native soil of its culture. The culture of ancient (pre-Qin) China, after a lengthy breeding period, gradually reached maturity during the Shang and Zhou period, particularly the Zhou, when a series of early Chinese classics came into being, setting the direction of future development of Chinese culture, literature included. In remote antiquity, numerous primitive hordes lived scattered on the land which later came to be called the “Central States.” Over a long period of time, these hordes gradually merged into tribes of various sizes, which in turn formed into different alliances, during the process of which the form of the state took shape. In the past, the Yellow River valley was generally considered to be the sole birthplace of Chinese civilization. Modern archaeological excavations, however, have proved that Chinese civilization resulted from the gradual fusion of multiple sources. So far, several thousand sites of Neolithic culture have been discovered in China; they are scattered, like stars in the sky or pieces on a chessboard, across a vast geographical area, without any obvious regional differences between the primary and the secondary in their relationship. For instance, both the Hemudu site, representative of the Yangtze valley culture, and the Yangshao site, representative of the

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Yellow River valley culture, have received special attention, and they were more or less contemporaneous, though they in fact belonged to different types of culture. In addition, the former was by no means less advanced than the latter. In the course of the merging of the various cultures in early China, however, the Yellow River valley culture obviously played a dominant role. The so-called Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties were actually no more than northern Chinese tribal alliances in different periods, but the fact that they later came to be regarded as the “orthodox” representatives of Chinese civilization demonstrates the dominance of the Yellow River valley culture. What, then, accounted for such a kind of result? Our forefathers, who engaged in agricultural production in the Yellow River valley, lived under extremely harsh living conditions. On the one hand, they had to deal with armed plunder carried out by nomadic tribes from further north; on the other hand, they had to contend with a natural environment far more hostile than that in the south, especially in coping with the erratic flooding of the Yellow River system. Accordingly they felt an urgent need, in their struggle for existence, to gather their dispersed people together into large and powerful communities. It may be noted here that most of the large-scale wars of ancient times, whether legendary or recorded in authentic history, such as the war between Yan Di and Huang Di and that between Huang Di and Chiyou, the conquest of Jie of Xia by Tang of Shang, the conquest of Zhou of Shang by the Martial King of Zhou, took place in the north. Leaving aside the controversial Xia dynasty, both Shang and Zhou, the earliest Chinese dynasties confirmed by authentic historical records, had their center in the Yellow River valley. At the same time, there engendered all the intellectual thoughts, ritual and ceremonial systems, and cultural institutions, which were used to maintain the ruling order. In Shang and Zhou cultures, the ideology of the state reached maturity far earlier than in other regions. The oracle bone inscriptions, discovered during the late Qing and early Republican period, provide much information about Shang culture. All extant documents in oracle bone script, imbued with primitive beliefs, involve records of divination, toward gods and spirits, on matters of war, sacrificial ceremony, and farming, to ascertain whether these actions would be auspicious or ominous. These documents indicate that the Shang people’s faith in the gods of Nature and their worship of the spirits of their ancestors gradually blended into one, while

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their realistic significance lay in the confirmation of the authority of the sovereigns of this world. This is expressed in an especially obvious way in another kind of document from the Shang period, such as the “Pangeng” section in The Documents of High Antiquity, which consists of the transcript of a lecture issued to his subjects by the title hero, a ruler of the Middle Shang period, on his decision to move the capital. It manifests the belief that, although the ancestors of the rulers and their subjects through the ages had long since left this world, they nevertheless maintained a ruler-subject relation in the heavenly sphere. If the subjects of this world went against the will of their rulers, their ancestors would ask the rulers of the past to bring calamities down on them as punishment. On the contrary, if they were obedient to their rulers, they would enjoy the blessing and protection of their ancestors. This shows that in the mind of the Shang people, the ancestral gods of the rulers had already become identified as the source of power in the human world, and the order of the heavenly sphere and that of the human world shared a similar structure, with the former serving to prove the legitimacy and rationality of the latter. The rulers, on the other hand, could not do whatever they liked. In “Pangeng,” the speaker repeatedly cautions his subjects to control what they have in their minds, and “to heed the planning of one single person, mine,” i.e., to yield to his plans, while he, on the other hand, promises to “carry none except my people” and “nurture thee, my people,” which is to say that he will serve the people and see to it that they live well. If he fails to do that, the ancestral rulers in heaven will call him to account, “for why art thou maltreating our people”—question why he is abusing his subjects, and mete out great punishment to him. This clearly shows that, closely associated with ancestral worship, there was an awareness of the need to safeguard the existence of the community. In principle at least, the need of the community was given priority. The belief in gods and ghosts and the worship of the spirits of ancestors constituted the most common mentality among primitive people, which was transformed into the earliest ideology of the state by Shang culture. After the Zhou superseded the Shang, many changes in culture and thought took place. Wang Guowei went so far as to observe: “No change in Chinese politics and culture was greater than that between the Yin (Shang) and Zhou periods.” (An Examination of Yin and Zhou Institutions) Due to the great importance attached to the bonds of the patriarchal clan system and their function in governing, ancestral worship

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remained one of the most important political activities of the Zhou royal house and the feudal states. Compared to the Shang dynasty, however, belief in and worship of gods and spirits were much weaker. Thereupon one finds in the scholia on The Book of Rites the observation that the Zhou people “paid homage to gods and spirits, but kept them at a distance.” The “Lord” or “Lord on High” still existed as someone who was in supreme command above everything, but he was no longer lumped together with the ancestors of rulers as in Shang culture. On more occasions, he was simply called “Heaven,” transcending all clans. He also no longer participated in human activities, or acted as a judge over their acts, conferring either blessing or disaster on them, at any time. Instead he would stay high above, supervise everything beneath him, confer the “mandate of heaven” on the appropriate ruler in the human world and, when necessary, change the “mandate of heaven,” as its conferral is determined by the moral conduct of the ruler. We may see herein that, as far as the nature of his Will was concerned, “Heaven” or “Lord on High” was close to a religious god, though to a great extent he had already turned into an abstract idea, becoming an incarnation of virtue and justice. With the gradual decline of dependence on divinity, codes and norms of human behavior and human relations became even more important, hence the establishment of the “rites.” In the Shang period, rites referred only to the protocol of sacrificial ceremonies, but the Rites of Zhou, said to have been established by Ji Dan, the Lord of Zhou, consisted of a variety of contents which included political institutions, ceremonial protocol, and codes of moral conduct. One of the important principles of the rites was, according to Confucius’ explanation, to “restrain oneself ”—what is known in the saying: “Humanity consists in restraining oneself and restoring the rites.” This saying must have been in accordance with the original intention of the Lord of Zhou in establishing the rites. In the section of “Against Idleness” of The Documents of High Antiquity, an early Zhou text, the Lord of Zhou defined “restraining oneself and controlling fear” as a principle to be observed by the sovereign. In short, the function of the rites was to restrain individual consciousness and, by doing so, to consolidate the social hierarchy and to protect the interests of the community. The establishment of the rites implies that Zhou culture had, in many respects, freed itself from the spell of primitive religion, and instead


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made use of rational political means and moral consciousness to regulate social relations. If it was a common feature of Shang and Zhou culture to restrain the individual and promote the community, then the enhancement in status of “Rites” and “Virtue,” as well as the watering down and abstraction of “Lord” and “Heaven,” in Zhou culture, was significant in another respect. While it acknowledged the existence of a transcendent supreme authority to account for the legitimacy of human power, it also helped, objectively, to prevent a binary separation of religious and political authority. Scholars have mostly regarded the relative strength or weakness of religious power as a fundamental difference between Chinese and Western culture, which is an indication of the profound and lasting influence of the establishment of Zhou culture. The environment in the Yangtze valley was in many respects different from that in the Yellow River valley. In the Yangtze valley, the climate was hot and humid, there were many mountains, forests, lakes, and marshes, it was rich in natural resources, and natural calamities were not as severe as in the north; it was relatively easy to lead a simple existence there. Consequently, even though there was a similar need to form large, powerful communities, it was by no means as pressing as that in the north. Thus, in the Yangtze valley, although the evolution of civilization was not any slower than that in the Yellow River valley, the ideology to preserve social order and strengthen community power through restraining the individual was not as well developed as that in the north. Certainly, in the course of continuous annexation among tribal groups and states, people here also had to confront the problems of the struggle for existence, and in this respect, the culture of the Yellow River valley enjoyed an obvious superiority. As a result, they surely had to respect and learn from the culture of the Yellow River valley. Take Qu Yuan for example: the system of ancient sages that he extolled in his works, as well as the basic political concepts that he advocated therein, clearly originated in northern culture, an indication that by Qu Yuan’s time, some important elements from the latter had already taken deep root in the culture of the Yangtze valley. Nevertheless, Qu Yuan’s works still possess many southern characteristics and indeed, throughout ancient Chinese history, all kinds of differences existed between northern and southern culture, which account for the rich, colorful aspects of Chinese literature.

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chapter one 2. Ancient Mythology

In the early stages of literary history, mythology constitutes an important and singular phenomenon. First, we need to point out that in the society of remote antiquity, the realm of mythology extended way beyond literature. Mythology was the synthetic ideology of primitive human beings, their recognition and explanation of the world, their encyclopedic system of knowledge, as well as the expression of their aspirations. In the beginning, human beings lived in a world of mythology. Where, then, lies the literary significance of mythology? First, the thinking of mythology was full of instinct and fantasy. It was the way of thinking in an age when the logic of human reason had not yet reached its maturity. Although it was unconscious, it nevertheless displayed the artistic nature of mankind. At the same time, the stories from mythology provided excellent material for later literary creation. However deep the traces eventually left by mythology in the literature of a people, however great the impact of mythology on its development, they were nevertheless related to a number of other conditions. In other words, the existence of a mythology did not lead directly to the prosperity of literature and the arts. This was because the primordial function of mythology lied essentially in explaining nature or, as Karl Marx argued, in the conquest of the forces of nature with the aid of imagination. (See the “Introduction” to A Critique of Political Economics.) If mythology had remained at this stage, it would be of very limited concern to the human being per se. Only when mythology devoted more attention to human beings themselves, when it reflected, increasingly, the emotions, contradictions, and conflicts of life in human society, would “mythological literature,” in the strict sense of the term, come into being. The Homeric epics and many plays in ancient Greece are such works. A salient feature of mythological literature is that the “gods” and the “heroes” possess rich human nature, have worldly aspirations, and suffer from the same hardship as ordinary human beings. Such a perspective sheds more light on ancient Chinese mythology. The extant materials of ancient Chinese mythology are primarily found in a few works of various types, including The Book of Mountains and Seas, the Huainanzi, The Songs of the South, and the Zhuangzi; some of them provide a preposterous account of geographical knowledge,


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some offer philosophical discussions with the aid of ancient legends, and some find an outlet for the ennui in one’s heart in strange imagination, but none of them focuses on the narration of mythological tales. From what is recorded in these and other ancient texts, one may find a host of names of divinities and scraps of events, but not a complete system of mythology. Various mythological tales and figures are rather loosely related with one another, and each of them has been recorded in fragmentary form. In the past, this phenomenon has been explained in different ways. Lu Xun and Hu Shi, for instance, believed that ancient Chinese mythology was undeveloped in the first place. Since the nineteen fifties, many have suggested that there was originally a rich mythology in ancient China, but it was either “historicized” or lost. The problem here is that one must differentiate between primitive mythology and mythology that has been transformed into literature. In terms of the latter, it is obvious that ancient Chinese mythological literature is underdeveloped. The main reason behind this phenomenon is that, when the documentation of Chinese history started, Zhou culture, characterized by respect for the community, restraint of the individual, attention to reality, and distaste for fantasy, already occupied a dominant position. Such a cultural system could not tolerate the idea that great personages would possess the same weaknesses, and suffer from the same miseries, as ordinary people, and was unfavorable for the growth of a flourishing literature of “wild fantasy.” Consequently, there was no way the ancient divinities could acquire rich human emotions, or be transformed into well-developed literary images. There were, of course, also regional differences. Within the range of the Yellow River valley culture, mythology had, by the Zhou period, diminished remarkably. The historical age when The Book of Songs took shape was about the same as that for Iliad and Odyssey in ancient Greece, the Rig Veda in India, and the Hebrew Psalms in the Old Testament, but poems in The Book of Songs, whether narrative or lyrical, had little, if any, flavor of mythology. Nor did any other work in the north involve much mythology. However, it was a different story with the Chu cultural system in the south. Right up until the Warring States period, and even during the Han dynasty, there was frequently a pretty strong flavor of mythology in southern works, especially in The Songs of the South. As mentioned in the above, it was simply insufficient to change the basic situation wherein ancient Chinese mythological literature remained underdeveloped. On the other hand, this is nothing

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to be ashamed of; it was precisely because of this that Chinese literature formed its own different characteristics from the very beginning. Among the various fragments of extant materials, the most famous myths involve, in general, the explanation of nature and, through imagination, the conquest of nature. One illustration of that is the myth of Nüwa as savior of the world, as recorded in the chapter “A Contemplation of the Obscure” in the Huainanzi: Once in ancient times, the four poles collapsed and the nine continents cracked. The sky no longer covered all, and the earth no longer supported everything. Fire flamed up and was not extinguished; floods raged and did not recede. Wild beasts ate the common folks, and birds of prey seized the old and the weak. Thereupon Nüwa smelted stones of various colors to patch up the sky, cut the feet off the giant turtle to set up the four poles, killed the black dragon to relieve the Jizhou, and piled up reed ashes to stop the overflowing waters.

The background of this tale was probably a great flood. A similar background gave rise to the popular tales about the control of floods by Gun and Yu, father and son. One may see that the gods and heroes who appear in ancient Chinese myths are totally different from those in ancient Greek mythology, who are frequently motivated by their personal desires, honor, dignity, gratitude or resentment, in their struggles, even going so far as to challenge figures with greater authority and power. Most of the Chinese gods and heroes are portrayed as those who rid the people of the evil. They usually respect the existing authority and order, are imbued with the spirit of self-sacrifice, and can hardly afford to look after themselves or their own families. Such an image reflects the severity of the living environment of the ancient Chinese, and the virtues admired by people in such an environment.

3. The Undertakers of Early Literature By “the undertakers of literature” we refer to those who undertake the composition, evaluation, collation and transmission of literature. They exert the most direct impact on the formation of the literary features of an age. In different times, the social status of literary undertakers often varies greatly. Such differences are one of the sources of change and development in literary history. As regards the pre-Qin era in China, since literature was generally still in a spontaneous stage, none who engaged in literary activities as a profession ever existed. Some


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men, due to their social status, nevertheless had a closer relation than ordinary people with the production, circulation and preservation of literature. In China’s ancient times, two types of people, the Shaman and the Scribe, assumed charge of cultural activities. The former primarily took care of the activities of communication between divinities and human beings, such as sacrificial offering and divination; the latter, the recording of the sayings and acts of the rulers and important state affairs, as well as the collation, collection and safekeeping of documents. However, the functions of the Shaman and the Scribe often overlapped. The Shaman’s activity of mediating between divinities and human beings was often connected with literature. In An Explication of Simple and Compound Characters, the Chinese word cí is defined as “spring offering, with only a few items to be offered but much discourse.” It means that at such sacrificial ceremonies, the one in charge had to offer as tribute a large amount of “discourse.” The ancients obviously believed that language, used in a special form, possessed a special efficacy, and was able to achieve all kinds of mysterious communion. For this reason, one may say that the Shaman, in ancient times, was someone who possessed a special linguistic accomplishment. The activity of the Scribe, on the other hand, was most directly related to the formation of written documents, and he was also considered to be accomplished in language and refined in literary talent. Confucius once said, “Rhetoric outweighing substance: that’s the Scribe.” The Scribe must have made a considerable contribution to the beautification of language. In addition, according to historical records, in the rulers’ court no later than the Spring and Autumn period, there was already a kind of jesters, who were good at telling stories and making jokes, and were capable of giving performances. Not only were they connected to literary activities in a broad sense, they could also be said to be the forefathers of the court literati of later ages. Of course, literature was not generated within the domain of the court or in official activities alone; a large amount of it was also produced in the daily life of the common people. However, at least during pre-Qin times, what was produced among the people could only be passed on to later generations, in written form, through the collection and collation by government officials. In this respect, The Book of Songs serves as a typical example. It contains many popular ballads and folk songs, as well as many songs used exclusively in official

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ceremonies and at high-level banquets and gatherings. At the time, the Zhou royal house and the feudal states all had officials in charge of music, and one of their functions was to collect and collate all kinds of popular ballads and folk songs. The Book of Songs was thus the fruit of the cultural activities of the Zhou royal house. What it presents in its final form was of course restricted by the dominant official culture of the times. As regards ancient ballads and songs, we all know that in ancient Greek times, there was a kind of poets known as the minstrels, who wandered from place to place, chanting and singing long narrative poems (the epic, translated into Chinese as the “history poem”), that had been passed on from generation to generation. The so-called Homeric epics are just such works, and they were produced at about the same time as some of the earliest pieces in The Book of Songs. However, so far as extant Chinese literary material is concerned, there was no comparable work until the appearance of “Southeast the Peacock Flies.” As a matter of fact, several texts among the Major Odes of the Kingdom in The Book of Songs, which describe the rise of the Zhou nation, originally had the potential to develop into works of a similar type, yet what we have today lack certain basic features of narrative poetry. Was it the case that in the age of The Book of Songs, there were no such traveling minstrels among the Chinese people, and that no such long narrative poems had ever been produced? It is actually extremely difficult to say, but in general there were indeed no such elements in the main-stream cultural structure of the times. Long narrative poems necessarily involve conflicts between human character and desire, but the representation of such conflicts was apparently not something that would have been appreciated by the upper classes in that period. As far as the aesthetic literary taste is concerned, lyrical and narrative works have different values that are not interchangeable. Both are needed in the spiritual life of human beings. Lyrical poetry flourished in the early stages of Chinese literature, and long narrative poems and drama, both of which come under the category of fictional narrative literature, did not emerge. There appeared features that were rather different from those of early literature elsewhere, particularly in Europe. Here we need to note that the general qualities of a culture have a strong impact on the formation of the features of its literary history. Roughly speaking, before the Spring and Autumn period, the academic culture of Chinese society was controlled by government institutions. By the Spring and Autumn period, however, there appeared


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the phenomenon of what was known as “cultural down-reaching,” which expanded during the Warring States period. During this stage, the social class of the “Elite” was particularly active in the domains of ideology and culture, and they exerted the greatest influence on the development of literature in the broad sense of the word. The so-called “Elite” originally referred to aristocrats at the lowest level. By the Spring and Autumn period, the term was in fact applied to those who used their knowledge and talents to serve rulers and to advance their own interests, and some others who made a profession of imparting general cultural knowledge. Some of them were called the “Elite as Wandering Political Advisors,” who specialized in using stimulating rhetoric to persuade rulers to adopt their suggestions. Most of them had learned the art of polemics, and were highly sensitive to language. They were not only good at rationalizing through their logical power, but also adept in moving their interlocutors emotionally through their literary skills. Some of them were called the “Literary Elite.” The word “literary” here referred either to general knowledge or even exclusively to Confucian learning, but they were also widely acknowledged as being accomplished in the use of beautified appealing language. (The distinction between the “Elite as Wandering Political Advisors” and the “Literary Elite” was certainly not one of profession. They were so called only from different points of view.) It was precisely through their efforts that the Chinese language gradually became richer, more diversified, and more energetic in representing thinking and emotion. One may observe the growth of literary elements in the political and philosophical prose produced during the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States periods, mostly from the hands of the social class of the Elite. Historical writings were also worthy of notice. Earlier historical works like The Documents of High Antiquity and the The Spring and Autumn Annals had been completed primarily through the compiling and editing of official government documents, and they contained sparse literary elements. On the other hand, works like the Zuo Commentary, Conversations from the States, Intrigues of the Warring States, and Records from the Outlying Yue, written by those from the social class of the Elite during the Warring States period, were from more complex sources. These works apparently made use of both government documents and unofficial material, including that of a legendary nature, and they are characterized by stronger narrative elements. In the Zuo Commentary, one may find many vivid,

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interesting details. For instance, its account of a war between Jin and Chu provides the humorous detail of how the Chu soldiers taught their Jin counterparts to escape while chasing after them at the same time. In the Intrigues of the Warring States, dated even later, many stories already border on fiction. It was unlikely that any official government files would contain many stories with such vivid details, so they must have come from different sources in circulation. According to records, there was a kind of blind officials in the ancient courts, who were in charge of recording and reciting, and the historical accounts passed on by them probably continued adding vivid details. Even among the common people, artists who recited historical stories for an audience may well have indeed existed. Such orally transmitted historical stories, which contained considerable fictional elements, satisfied people’s spiritual need to experience life through the stories of others. They penetrated into the historical works of the social class of the Elite, and created a fusion of literature and history, the significance of which in literary history should not be underestimated. It not only compensated for the lack of advanced fictional narrative literature in early China, but also constituted the source of many important elements in classical Chinese fiction. As regards the question of the undertakers of early Chinese literature, the group of authors of The Songs of the South, during the latter part of the Warring States period, merits our special attention. When we single out Qu Yuan as the first great poet in the history of Chinese literature, we should keep in mind that poetry is not only a product of passion, but also one of training and techniques which need to be cultivated in a proper environment. According to the account in the Historical Records, in addition to Qu Yuan, people like Song Yu, Jing Cuo, and Tang Le also “loved rhetoric and were known for their rhapsody,” i.e., they liked literary compositions and became famous for their skills in composing the rhapsody, at the time. Authors in this group lived at about the same time and, according to The Annotated Songs of the South, there was at least a close connection between Qu Yuan and Song Yu. It suggests that there existed in the Chu upper classes, during the latter part of the Warring States period, a group of people who loved, and were accomplished in, literary compositions. Be that as it may, Qu Yuan, in terms of his status in the society of his time, was a statesman in the first place, rather than a “poet” in the general sense of the word, and there was no evidence whether any of the other authors acquired their social status chiefly through their literary accomplishments.


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Nevertheless, as far as one can tell from extant records, this was the very first time that such a phenomenon appeared in the history of Chinese literature, indicating that literature had, in a certain way, become an important part of the social life of the upper classes.

4. The Spoken and the Written Language as Factors Literature is the art of language. Some characteristics of literature are determined by the spoken and the written language. Quite a number of scholars believe that the signs inscribed on the Neolithic pottery, excavated in Dawenkou, Shandong, already constituted primitive Chinese characters, though these signs are difficult to decipher. By the time of the oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang dynasty, Chinese characters had already assumed their basic form, and their most important characteristics had already taken shape. The Chinese script is a monosyllabic one based on pictographs. Generally speaking, each individual symbol contains three elements: sound, shape, and meaning. In Chinese sentences, a word does not vary in terms of its part of speech and tense. The character that exists as a word, with a pictographic element, is not “swallowed” within a complete sentence; instead it still has the function of denoting an image directly. The grammar and syntax of Chinese are not strictly or tightly organized. The meaning expressed by a sentence is not to be understood only in terms of grammatical usage and rules, but also needs to be comprehended through the images collectively formed by a certain number of words. Such a language has considerable difficulties in expressing complex logical thinking, but is quite adept at representing poeticized impressions and associations, and at conserving ambiguities and conveying hints. In addition, the monosyllabism of Chinese characters makes it easy to achieve uniformity and symmetry of syllables in Chinese writings, and facilitates the formation of antithesis therein. Enhanced by appropriate rhyming, they become more beautiful aesthetically. Therefore, the wide use of verse is found not only in poetry but also in all kinds of pre-Qin writings, such as The Book of Changes, the Laozi, the Zhuangzi, and the Xunzi, etc. Paired parallel phrases, that are not very strict in form and seem to have been produced quite naturally, are also found frequently. What accounted for such a phenomenon was probably the

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need for easiness in reciting, which had an extremely important practical significance in ancient times, when it was not so convenient to write things down. On the other hand, one cannot say for sure that there was not a psychological factor, a pursuit of aesthetic satisfaction in the language form itself. Almost from its very beginning, Chinese poetry was in search of clear formal features of its own. The pieces collected in The Book of Songs span a wide range of time and geographic regions, but almost all of them use the neat form of four-character lines, undoubtedly the result of editorial polishing. This phenomenon may be related to the characteristics of the music played at the time. However, upon investigating cases where literary compositions were set to music in later ages, one may find that the unevenness of lines is not necessarily an obstacle to the matching of writing and music. So a more important reason for the phenomenon was probably that, according to those who composed or edited the compositions, poetry had to possess a special form that differed from both the spoken language and ordinary writings. Indeed the pursuit of formal refinement became, in later times, a truly remarkable feature of classical poetry. The search for formal linguistic elegance became increasingly widespread, and was manifested not only in the rhapsody, a special literary genre somewhere in between verse and prose, and in the parallel prose, but also in many prose texts in which meticulous attention was paid to meter and rhythm. In summary, Chinese may in general be called a language with extremely strong poetic features. Moreover, language is not a mere tool for thinking. The world that human beings can know and understand is none other than the world that they can provide an account for in language. The special features of a language reveal, in a direct way, the structure of thinking and psychology of the people who use that language. For this reason, although Chinese civilization had long since become detached from the envelopment of mythology, the above mentioned special features of the Chinese language prove that, in their daily life, people still preserved many habits of thinking with a penchant for the poetic. Spiritual phenomena such as sensitivity to images, susceptibility to suggestion, and the lively and untrammeled association of ideas, have always played a considerable role in people’s efforts to understand the world and human life. Literature, especially poetry, was clearly of particular importance in the spiritual lives of people in ancient China, and there were obviously extremely profound reasons for that.

CHAPTER TWO

THE BOOK OF SONGS AND THE SONGS OF THE SOUTH

The Book of Songs and The Songs of the South represent the best in literature of the culture of Central Plains and the culture of Chu in the pre-Qin times. The distinctively different artistic features of these two kinds of poetry have respectively exerted a widespread influence on poetry of later ages. The Book of Songs and The Songs of the South have become the important fountainheads of Chinese literature, so much so that the words Feng (Lyric Songs) from the former (name of one of its three sections) and Sao (trouble) from the latter (from the title of “Li Sao,” or “On Encountering Trouble”), when used together, have become a synonym in Chinese for literature.

1. The Book of Songs The Book of Songs: A Brief Introduction The Book of Songs, China’s first poetry anthology, contains three hundred and five poems, ranging across a period of more than five hundred years, from the early Western Zhou dynasty (the eleventh century B.C.) to the middle of the Spring and Autumn period (the sixth century B.C.). In addition, there are six “Poems of Sheng (reed pipe)” that are listed in the table of contents but do not have extant words. At the beginning it was called the Songs only. After its canonization by the Confucian scholars in the Han dynasty, it received the title of The Book of Songs. The Book of Songs is divided into three sections: Feng, Ya (Odes) and Song (Hymns). Feng includes a hundred and sixty poems from the fifteen groups of the Songs of the States, namely, South of Zhou, South of Zhao, Songs of Bei, Songs of Yong, Songs of Wei, Songs of the Kings, Songs of Zheng, Songs of Qi, Songs of Wei, Songs of Tang, Songs of Qin, Songs of Chen, Songs of Kuai, Songs of Cao, and Songs of Bin. Ya includes thirty-one Major Odes of the Kingdom and seventy-four Minor Odes of the Kingdom. Song includes thirty-one Hymns of Zhou, five Hymns of Shang, and four Hymns of Lu.

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These poems served originally as word texts for songs. According to the statement in the chapter of “Gong Meng” in the Mozi, all of the more than three hundred poems may be recited and chanted, performed with instruments, and being sung to the accompaniment of dancing. That statement was perhaps not entirely accurate, but the close relationship between The Book of Songs and music and dancing in ancient times was beyond any doubt. The division of its three sections has generally been regarded as based upon musical differences. Feng has generally been defined as local airs, i.e., songs with musical features of various geographical regions. With the exception of South of Zhou and South of Zhao, which were from the Yangtze, the Han River, and the Ru River areas, they were all from the Yellow River valley from Shaanxi to Shandong. Ya referred to music from the Kings’ Estates of Western Zhou, geographically known as Xia, with the two words, Ya and Xia, being interchangeable in ancient times. The word Ya was also defined as proper. At the time, the music of the Kings’ Estates was regarded as the proper sounds, the music that served as model. The division of Major Odes and Minor Odes has been quite controversial, but there were definitely differences between the two in terms of their musical features and occasions of usage. Song was music used exclusively for sacrificial offerings in ancestral temples. As regards the dates of composition, Song and Ya, generally speaking, were produced earlier, primarily during the Western Zhou. The Songs of the States, with the exception of Songs of Bin and some texts in South of Zhou and South of Zhao, were produced in the early and middle years of the Spring and Autumn period. The authors of The Book of Songs were from a variety of background, ranging across a vast geographic territory. Aside from the music and songs produced and circulated in the central districts of the Zhou royal court, how were the songs from various feudal states collected? The ancients had two different theories on that. One is the theory of “poetry collection” which goes that the Zhou royal court sent official poetry collectors to search for and collect folk songs from the people, so as to stay informed of the rise and decline, as well as the pros and cons, of politics and customs. The other is the theory of “poetry presentation” which holds that songs from various states were presented to the Son of Heaven during His Majesty’s hunting and inspection trips. It is difficult to confirm either of the two theories. However, generally speaking, songs that had arrived from various channels gradually came to be preserved by the Minister of Music of

the book of songs and the songs of the south

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the Zhou royal court, the Grand Master. In the original they should have been different from one another. In the process of polishing and arrangement, they became somewhat uniform in form and language. It was roughly during the middle years of the Spring and Autumn period that these songs were compiled into such a book called the Songs. In the Analects, Confucius twice refers to “the three hundred Songs,” which proves that the Songs had been somewhat finalized in form before Confucius’ lifetime. Each of the pieces included in The Book of Songs originally served a specific use of its own. Later on, they became texts for cultural education widely used for aristocrats, and the study of these texts constituted an integral part of their cultural attainments. On the one hand, such an education served to beautify one’s language, especially for diplomatic occasions wherein one often needed to cite lines from The Book of Songs in order to express oneself in an indirect way. It was known as “reciting the Songs to express one’s thinking;” the Zuo Commentary abounds in records of such use. On the other hand, the learning of The Book of Songs also carried moral and political significances. The chapter “Interpretation of the Classics” in The Book of Rites cites a saying of Confucius which goes that, through the “teaching of the Songs,” one may become “warm, gentle, honest, and sincere.” One of the Confucian sayings included in the Analects also goes that, by learning the Songs, one could “learn the more immediate duty of serving one’s father and the remoter one of serving one’s sovereign,” namely, learning the principles of serving one’s elders and the rulers. Texts in The Book of Songs came from numerous sources of various kinds, so it was difficult not to impose on some of them distorted interpretations that deviated from their original meaning, when they were used for the education of the children of the aristocrats. By the Han dynasty, The Book of Songs came to be honored as an important Confucian classic that embodied Confucian moral values, and its original inclination towards a concern for politics and social ethics was severely exaggerated by the interpretation of the Confucian scholars of the times. Through the extremely long ages of the feudal society, the study of The Book of Songs was a part of the study of Confucian classics, not of literature. In early Han times, there were four different schools in the teaching of The Book of Songs, referred to briefly as the Qi, Lu, Han and Mao poetics. After the Eastern Han period, the first three, which belonged to the sect of the so-called “Contemporary Study of the Classics,” were gradually on the wane, while the

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Mao poetics, which belonged to the sect of the “Archaic Study of the Classics,” grew increasingly strong. Eventually, the text of The Book of Songs used by the latter has been handed down in its entirety. The Art of The Book of Songs The pieces in The Book of Songs, which were produced from various backgrounds and served different uses, vary greatly from one another in their respective artistic features. As mentioned in the above, some of the pieces in The Book of Songs were composed for specific purposes and used exclusively for special occasions. For example, the Hymns of Zhou were poems for sacrificial offerings of the royal house of early Western Zhou. Besides singing the praises of the accomplishments of ancestors, some of the songs were used as a prayer to divinity for a bumper harvest year between spring and summer, or as a tribute to divinities between autumn and winter. They reflect the social characteristics of the Zhou people, who founded their state on the basis of agriculture, and also the condition of agricultural production in early Western Zhou. These songs, while being solemn in tone, are stiff and dull in sentiment, and not so appealing. The five pieces from the Major Odes of the Kingdom, “Birth to the People,” “Lord Liu,” “Spreading,” “Sovereign Might,” and “Great Light,” likewise composed during early Western Zhou period, provide an account of the history from Hou Ji, the earliest ancestor of the Zhou people, to the elimination of the Shang by the Martial King, the founder of the Zhou royal dynasty. These songs were also used by the Zhou royal court for major events like sacrificial offerings and court assemblies. Compared to the Hymns of Zhou, poems in this group, enriched with concrete description of details, sound much livelier. “Birth to the People” tells how Jiang Yuan, the mother of Hou Ji, gets pregnant after she steps into a divine footprint and gives birth to Hou Ji. Not having the courage to bring him up, she deserts him. Hou Ji, however, survives all the hardship: So he was placed in a narrow lane: oxen and sheep hid and fed him. So he was placed in the woods by the plain: they came to log at the woods and found him. So he was placed on cold ice: birds covered him up with wings.


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When the birds flew away, Hou Ji started wailing. It was long, it was loud: his voice went far and wide.

The description gives a mythological touch to the story of Hou Ji. “Lord Liu” tells how Lord Liu, Hou Ji’s great-grandson, led the tribe on an exodus from Tai to Bin (Xunyi and Bin counties in Shaanxi today). The poem describes the scene when they first settled down in the Bin area: The lands around the town: here they made their homes, here they stayed for nights, here they spoke with one another, here they talked with one another.

A scene that abounds with cheerful voices comes through vividly. This group of poems has often been known as “the epics of the Zhou people.” Indeed it illustrates some important historical events of the Zhou people. However, it should be noted that the gist of the group of poems, from the Major Odes of the Kingdom, is to eulogize the ancestors: all the historical contents and the elaboration of details serve such a laudatory purpose. Accordingly, these poems fail to provide a complete account of the progress of the events, and they focus only on the accomplishments of the characters, not on their personalities. In terms of literary types, they are totally different from long story-telling poems like the Homeric epics. If one is to consider them as narrative poetry, then they are quite incomplete as such. More or less similar to these in many respects, there are also a few poems among late Western Zhou works in the Major and Minor Odes, which glorify the “restoration” of King Xuan of Zhou, such as “Valiant as Ever,” “Bring Out the Chariots,” “Plucking the White Millet,” and “Sixth Month.” In short, from these poems in particular, one can see that Chinese poetry has had a tendency to focus on the expression of emotions, but not so much on the narration of events, ever since The Book of Songs. In the Minor Odes of the Kingdom, there are a number of songs that were used exclusively for formal banquets in court and composed mostly in the early Western Zhou period. They are close in nature to the poems discussed in the above, though they have a stronger flavor of everyday life and convey an intimate and pleasant mood. For instance, the first stanza of “Deer Cry” says:

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chapter two Yow, yow, cry the deer nibbling the herbs in the wild. I have some honored guests, so we play zithers and reed pipes. We play reed pipes and organs, and offer baskets of gifts. Those who like me will show me the great way.

According to a record, it was a song used by the Son of Heaven in feasting his subordinates and guests. The poem uses the cry of the deer for one another to symbolize the amity between the host and his guests. It moves on to describe the musical performance and presentation of gifts at the banquet, and closes in an expectant tone: you who like me, please show me the way to the bright future! As a response from the subordinates, “May Heaven Protect” uses highly respectful lines to give their blessings to the Son of Heaven: “Like the moon rounding up to its full, / like the sun on the rise, / like the southern mountains that stand forever, / . . . like the lush pines and cypresses.” Poems like these illustrate the ideal way of how the sovereign and his subordinates get along with each other. From the late Western Zhou period to King Ping’s exodus to the east, great social turbulences occurred as a result of the invasion of the Rong tribes and the undermining of the ruling order. Among the poems composed during this period in the Major Odes and the Minor Odes, there are many that contain political criticism, all from the hand of scholar-officials. It might have much to do with the system of “presentation of poems from senior ministers down to various officials” as described in ancient classics, such as in the section “Conversations from the Zhou” of the Conversation of the States. In poems like “Looking Up” and “Northern Hills,” one may see the cataclysmic changes in social relations at the time. Some people moved up in social status, while others went down. Some worked very hard for “the affairs of the king” but gained nothing, while others idled away their time but still enjoyed rank and honor. The author of such poems was critical of such confusing and unjust phenomena in social order within the ruling class, and yearned for the restoration of “justice” in the good old days. More of the poems that contain political criticism express their authors’ extreme anxiety for the difficult and dangerous political situation of the time, and their strong grievance against the ruling clique to which they themselves belonged, including


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the supreme rulers. For instance, “Solar Eclipse in the Tenth Month,” according to the Mao preface, is a text wherein “a Grand Master railed against King You.” The author starts by describing the abnormal weather, generally considered to be calamitous at the time, and moves on to issue a serious warning against the ruler. It says: Rumbling thunder and flashing lightning— how unsettling, how bad it is! Rivers are running wild, mountains collapsing. High shores turned into deep ravines, deep ravines rose as hills. How sad are the people of today— they’ll see no end of their trouble.

This portrays the scene of imminent calamities and turbulences. What was so painful to the author was that the “people of today” were by no means scared by, and watchful of, the situation, and led their idle life as usual, as if drunk or living in a dream. However, while being critical, the author was nevertheless rather cautious, lest that he be found intolerable by others: “Working hard on my task, / I dare not complain; / I commit no crime, make no mistake, / But slanders still abound.” Another illustration of that is “First Moon,” in which the author, while expressing his indignation against the affairs of the state, is nevertheless extremely scared: “Speaking of the sky: it is high indeed, / One dare not not to bend over. / Speaking of the earth: it is truly thick, / One dare not not to toddle.” In these poems, one may see that the poets expressed therein a strong concern for the destiny of the state and the life of the masses. They denounced the destruction of a just and decent social order. Assuming the correct stand and moral principles generally recognized by the ruling clique as their point of departure, they felt that they had the duty to uphold such stand and principles, and precisely because of that, they were unwilling to highlight themselves. As individuals they were prudent and modest. That represented the virtue of a “Gentleman.” The above-cited examples, as well as similar poems from the Major and Minor Odes, may be said to have initiated the convention of Chinese political poetry. The concern for the state and the people, as expressed in such poems, as well as the attitude to criticize only from the generally recognized moral stand, became in later ages the model for the multitude of authors of political poetry.

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As regards the nature of poetry, most of the poems in the Odes and the Hymns, including those used in ceremonies and rituals and those for political criticism, were composed for specific purposes, and the occasions for their application were mostly within the upper-class society of the aristocrats. The Songs of the States, on the other hand, were mostly ordinary lyric songs in wider circulation. (Some in the Minor Odes are similar to these.) However, we need to make clear two points here. First, as a matter of fact, even in the Songs of the States there are poems used for ceremonies and for political criticism, though they do not show a remarkable difference from ordinary lyric songs. In other words, these poems do not manifest any strong specific purpose. Second, the poems in the Songs of the States have often been called “folk songs,” which should be considered no more than just a general term. These poems, after being composed by unknown authors, went through continuous revision in the process of their circulation; hence, at least to a certain extent, they may be regarded as collective mass compositions. In short, it is totally unnecessary to understand the word “folk” in the term “folk songs” in a strict sense. If we consider the social status of the personae in these poems to be that of the authors, they were in fact people from all walks of life; in addition, those from the aristocratic class of the “Elite” or the “Gentlemen” were in the majority. Folk songs from the Songs of the States reflect a much broader scope of life than the Odes and the Hymns, and they are imbued with a much stronger smack of everyday life. In these folk songs, one sees the expression of some of the most fundamental and most universal emotions of human life. Such emotions constitute the eternal themes of folk songs, and give shape to the earliest features in Chinese poetry, which strike us as both age-old and intimate. First there is the awareness of life’s importance evoked by the fleeting of time. For instance, the author of “Fallen Leaves,” upon seeing fallen leaves whirling in the wind, starts singing in grief and cries out for company. The author of “The Cricket,” hearing the chirping of the insect in autumn, comes to realize that all the bygone days are not to return, and feels the need to make merry while one can. The author of “Thorn-Elm in the Mountain” goes even further to say bluntly: You have your long robe, but do not throw it on. You have your carriage and horses, but do not take a ride. Once you are dead, others will enjoy having them.


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It is precisely in the shadow of death that people become aware how precious life is. No sufficiently strong religion has ever been founded in Chinese civilization. Because of that reason, such an expression of yearning for life and the reluctance to part with it, which has started from observing the changes in nature, has almost run through the entire history of Chinese poetry. The most exciting affair in one’s life is the love between men and women in their prime of youth. The most beautiful and moving poems in the Songs of the States are those dealing with this subject, such as the song of “Creeper Grows in the Wilds” (Songs of Zheng): Creeper grows in the wilds: dew drops on it are round in shape. There is a beautiful one there with bright eyes, oh, how lovely! To run into her by chance— is indeed what I wish!

For another example, “In the Wilds There Is a Dead River Deer” (South of Zhao) describes how a man who is hunting tries to seduce a young woman “fair as jade” in the woods, and how the young woman tells the man not to act rashly and not to startle the dog, revealing the nuances of her subtle feelings that contain both delight and fear. “A Nice Maiden” (Songs of Bei) tells how two lovers have a date at the corner of the city wall. The maiden, however, hides herself on purpose. The man, who arrives late, becomes so anxious that he starts to “scratch his head and walks up and down.” Only then does the maiden show herself, and she also presents to the man a “red pipe” as a love keepsake. The man cannot help but feel pleasantly surprised. In the time of The Book of Songs, it was relatively free for men and women to socialize with one another, and the strict restrictions of feudal ethics in later ages had not yet taken shape. Accordingly some of the love songs in the book were written in a daring and vivid manner, making them very pleasant reading. However, social restrictions became, after all, increasingly rigid, so the lovers had to somehow restrain themselves in their behavior. In “Zhongzi, Please” (Songs of Zheng), a young woman asks her lover not to take the risk to see her by climbing up the tree and across the wall. It is because that, while she misses him, she nevertheless fears “the gossip of people,” and her parents and elder brothers. Accordingly we also see that some of the poems in the Songs of the States sing about a kind of baffled, melancholy, and unattainable love, such as:

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chapter two The moon rises—how white it is! Lo, the beautiful one, how nice she is! She moves slowly, oh, how graceful! My heart aches, oh, how doleful! “The Moon Rises” (Songs of Chen) How lush, the young reeds grow! White dews have turned into frost. That person who I’m talking about is on one side of the waters. To go against the current to look for her will be a tough and long route. So I’d go downstream to look for her— but now she seems to be in midstream! “Reeds” (Songs of Qin)

From the view of later generations, this may have been a result of artistic pursuit, but originally it may well have been a natural revelation of pent-up emotions. No artistic style of any poetry is formed without a reason. A forthright and passionate style is surely the product of free, untrammeled emotions, while the expression of the implicit and the ambiguous must have resulted from inhibited feelings. This is especially true in the early stage of the development of a literature, in a time when people have not yet started searching consciously for a variety of artistic styles. Love usually leads to marriage, but marriage is not always happy. In the Songs of the States there are quite a few poems that portray the world of emotions between husband and wife. Among them, two poems which describe deserted wives, “The Valley Wind” (Songs of Bei) and “That Fellow” (Songs of Wei), are quite well-known. “The Valley Wind” is the sad lament of a woman who is kind-hearted, but meek and mild in character. It tells how she lives through the hardship of poverty with her husband, and how that, by the time when their family situation has improved and when she gets old, the husband falls in love with another woman and drives her out of the house. It also tells how extremely tough it is for her to leave her husband’s house, because she finds it so difficult to stop all the lingering memories of the past. The poem creates the image of a typical character, a virtuous Chinese woman with great forbearance. “That Fellow” recounts a woman’s painful experience, starting from her falling in love and getting married all the way to her eventually being deserted. At first, smiling broadly, a man buys silk from her and by doing so, makes her


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acquaintance. She agrees to getting married to him; in the days waiting for the wedding, she often climbs above a ruined city wall, hoping to see him coming. Only a few years after they are married, however, she is deserted by her husband. She angrily denounces her husband: “It’s the man who has broken his faith.” “The man is simply inconstant / and he keeps changing his mind.” She also warns other women not to trust their men readily: Alas, oh my young woman, do not abandon yourself to a man. When a man indulges himself, he is able to get free. When a woman indulges herself, she’s unable to get away.

These are her heartfelt words and, at the same time, more or less sound like a moral admonition. Starting from The Book of Songs, various kinds of works which articulate the distress of the deserted wife and denounce man’s fickleness have appeared throughout the entire literary history. It has much to do with the great significance attached to family harmony in the Chinese cultural tradition. The representation of the impact of war and corvée labor on people’s lives is also an important subject in The Book of Songs. In the above we have mentioned that some of the poems in the Minor Odes are similar to those in the Songs of the States. Among them, the most remarkable pieces are those dealing with this subject, which we will discuss here. For instance, “Picking Ferns,” “Lush Pear-Trees,” and “What Plant Yellows Not” from the Minor Odes, “Broken Axes” and “Eastern Hills” from the Songs of Bin, “Beating Drums” from the Songs of Bei, and “Oh Brother” from the Songs of Wei, are all well-known poems of this category. Unlike those that sing the praise of the rulers’ accomplishments, these poems present the views of ordinary soldiers on their experience and thoughts, with their keynotes devoted to the weariness about war and homesickness, making them extremely appealing to the reader. Among these poems, “Eastern Hills” conveys the complicated feelings of a soldier, who has been away on a campaign for many years, on his way home. At the beginning of every stanza, he sings: “I went to the eastern hills, / it was long, long before I return. / Now as I set out from the east, / it rains gently in mist-like drops.” He has been away to the eastern hills for a long time. Now that he is on his way home,

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his heart flutters with sorrow while the gentle rain falls all around him. At one moment he is thinking about the joy of returning to a civilian’s life. At another moment it occurs to him that his old home may now lie in waste, and he may witness a scene of desolation right in front of him. The next moment his thoughts turn to his wife, who may be expecting his return: “The new couples are indeed great, / for the old ones, what would it be like?” The entire poem is a vivid and realistic description of the soldier’s thoughts on his way home. It represents people’s yearning for a peaceful life. “Picking Ferns” illustrates the distress of a soldier who takes a part in the Zhou kingdom’s war against the ethnic group of Xianyun. He cannot go home; he is unable to take a rest: “I have no house, no home, / because of the Xianyun. / I have no time to sit still, / because of the Xianyun.” Dejectedly, he sees the days pass, one after another: “To go back, go back! / The year is coming to the end.” Finally, the day to go home, the day that he has looked forward to, has arrived. He walks on the road. The snowflakes swirl in the air. He is hungry and thirsty, and sorrow wells up in him: Erewhile, when I left, the willows waved gently. Now that I return, the snowflakes fly. The road ahead is still long, I’m thirsty and hungry. My heart is laden with sorrow, but no one knows my grief.

The first four lines here, as the model for description of scenery and expression of emotion, have always been highly treasured by men of letters of later ages. While poems of this category in The Book of Songs articulate a weariness of life in the army and a yearning for peaceful family life, they are not directly against the war, and they do not denounce those who have called them up for service. The dominant emotion in these poems is sorrow, with hardly any place for anger. This was because, from the collective view, joining the army and going on an expedition was a commitment that had to be carried out by any individual. Even if it might jeopardize the personal happiness of the soldier, there was simply nothing he could do about it. This is even more obvious in “Oh Brother” (Songs of Wei):


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Oh Brother, you’re brave, oh, a hero of the state! Brother holds his staff and charges ahead for the king. Since Brother left for the east, my hair has been like the fleabane. It’s not that I have no shampoo to wash it— but for whom am I to make up myself? Let it rain, let it rain! Instead the sun shines so bright. I keep thinking about Brother— I don’t mind even if my head aches. Where can I find the day-lily to plant north of the house? I keep thinking of Brother— it makes my heart sick.

This poem assumes a woman’s voice. She is proud of her husband, because he is “a hero of the state” who “charges ahead for the king.” On the other hand, she also suffers greatly from her husband’s absence and the violation of her family life. The feelings expressed by the poet are both reserved and truthful. In the Songs of the States there are also quite a number of poems with political and moral criticism. Such poems largely reflect the dissatisfaction of people of the middle and lower strata of society with the rulers of the upper level. However, in terms of the basis for, and principles of, making the criticism, these poems are similar to poems of the same category from the Odes. One example is the famous “Cutting Sandalwood” (Songs of Wei): Tat! tat! we cut sandalwood and put it on the bank of the river where the waters are clear and rippling. You don’t sow, you don’t reap, why do you take hundreds of crops? You don’t chase, you don’t hunt, how come one sees badgers hanging in your courtyard? Gentlemen like that do not live off others!

In explaining this poem, the Mao commentary calls it “a gibe at greed. The rulers are insatiably avaricious, reaping profit without deserving it.” It rings true. In other words, the poet believes, based on principles widely accepted in society, that the “Gentlemen” are not supposed

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“to live off others,” and that to make profit without deserving it is a shameful thing. For another example, “Behold the Rat” (Songs of Yong) also blasts those “without dignity” and “without decency,” and rails at them: “Why not die sooner?” However, that the author dares to write in such a fiercely incisive tone is because the upholding of decorum and propriety is widely recognized as the “correct” stand in society. From the introduction to The Book of Songs in its different categories in the above, we may come to a conclusion about its major artistic characteristics. First of all, lyric poetry is the mainstream in The Book of Songs. Poems eulogizing ancestors in the two Odes sections, as well as poems about deserted wives in the Songs of the States, do contain narrative elements, but they have not really developed into genuine narrative poetry. Almost without exception, The Book of Songs comprises of lyric poems, and its artistry is obviously represented in its lyrical features. Just as the Homeric epics laid the foundation for Western literature to develop in the direction of a narrative tradition, The Book of Songs laid the foundation for Chinese literature to develop in the direction of a lyrical tradition. Secondly, the poems in The Book of Songs, with the exception of an extremely small number, represent primarily the daily life and experience of the actual human world. Here, the world of myth created by means of sheer imagination that transcends the human world, and the peculiar images and extraordinary experience of divinities and heroes, do not exist. One finds here instead the joy and sorrow about political disturbances, the spring ploughing and the autumn harvest, and love affairs between men and women. In later Chinese poetry, and in some other literary genres, figures and events of an everyday and practical nature have always become a main literary subject. In connection with that, The Book of Songs has in general a conspicuous political and moral flavor. Either in the Major and Minor Odes, produced in the upper level of society, or in the more folk-like Songs of the States, a considerable number of poems have made sharp criticism on the political moves and morals of the rulers, which initiated the convention of Chinese poetry in attaching much importance to social functions. In addition, in representing personal feelings, the lyric poems in The Book of Songs are in general more restrained and, consequently, sound mild in tone. Confucius has said that the “teaching of the Songs” would help to make one warm, gentle, honest and sincere, which is


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quite insightful. Some poems in The Book of Songs do seem to show heated emotions as well, but on such occasions, the authors are usually upholding social principles and reprimanding a small number of “evil guys,” with the support of the community behind them. In regard to the expression therein of personal grievances, war-weariness and homesickness while on a military campaign, and love affair between men and women, these poems generally do not show any extremely strong grief, indignation, or joy. As an inevitable outcome of this, the feeling expressed most frequently in The Book of Songs is melancholy. It is worth noting here that in later Chinese lyric poetry, melancholy is also the more commonly expressed feeling. Restraint, especially melancholy, is a rather subtle feeling. It does not gush forth and spill all over the place like intensive grief, indignation or joy; instead it is mild, roundabout, and in fits and starts. This accounts for the formation, in The Book of Songs, of its characteristic of delicacy and suggestiveness in the expression of emotions, which has since exerted a great impact on later Chinese poetry. Speaking of the art of The Book of Songs, one has no choice but to come to the issue of the “Six Principles of the Songs.” The Rites of Zhou has mentioned that a Music Master “teaches the six (aspects of the) Songs,” and the “Great Preface” of the Mao Commentary has also remarked that “there are six principles in the Songs,” the contents and order of which are the same: lyric songs, exposition, comparison, associated image, odes, and hymns. The explanation of the so-called “six principles” is quite divided and confusing, but the most widely accepted opinion is that lyric songs, odes, and hymns are the three categories and divisions of The Book of Songs, while exposition, comparison, and associated image are its three basic modes of expression. The extensive use of exposition, comparison, and associated image is artistically effective in strengthening the imagery of the poems. The so-called “exposition” refers to elaboration. In addition to giving an account in the general sense, some texts in The Book of Songs resort to a large amount of elaborated depiction of scenes so as to create a lively atmosphere. “Comparison” is simply figure of speech, the use of which in The Book of Songs is rich in variety. In particular, the frequent analogy between scenes of everyday life and more abstract things in nature brings about a visual sense. For instance, “That Fellow” likens the vicissitudes of love to the change from lushness to withering of the mulberry tree, and “A Crane Cries” uses the lines “Stones from other hills / may be good for working jade” as a metaphor for the need to

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use the talented in governing the state. The associated image (xing) is somewhat sui generis. The Chinese word xing originally means “to start.” It is usually used at the beginning of a poem, or that of a stanza. In its earliest use, it is probably just a kind of beginning unrelated to the subsequent lines in meaning, representing a kind of arbitrary, drifting mental connection. Further on, the associated image has also been used as a figure of speech, a symbol, or to set off something by contrast, all of which carry more weight in meaning. However, since the associated image is originally meant to be produced by arbitrary, drifting mental connection, even when it does carry more weight in meaning, it is never fixed and rigid, but is rather intangible and subtle. For example, at the beginning of “The Ospreys,” the two lines, “Guan! guan! cry the ospreys / at the islet in the river,” are perhaps meant in the original simply to talk about what is in the singer’s vision, and from that move on toward the subsequent lines of “The graceful and chaste maid / is a mate for our lord.” On the other hand, the wooing cry of the ospreys may also be used as a comparison with the courtship, or the harmonious affection, between men and women, although the figure of speech here is not so clear and certain. For another example, at the beginning of “The Lush Peach,” the lines “Lush, lush, are the peach trees / with its blossoms all ablaze,” in describing the beautiful scene when the peach blooms in the spring, may be called a realistic portrayal. But it may also be understood as a metaphor for the beauty of the bride, or a way to throw into sharp relief the festivity of the wedding. Since the associated image is such a subtle rhetorical means that may be used rather freely, poets in later ages, who relished the implicit and roundabout charm in poetry, were particularly interested in its use. They competed with one another in their respective skills, which accounted for a special feature of classical Chinese poetry.

2. The Songs of the South The latest pieces collected in The Book of Songs were from the middle of the Spring and Autumn period. After that period, new poems and songs certainly continued being composed in the north, but they did not get compiled and circulated. Nearly three hundred years after the compilation of The Book of Songs, a group of poets in the state of Chu in the south, headed by Qu Yuan, composed quite a number of excellent works in a new poetic form, which have since been preserved


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most completely in The Songs of the South, compiled by Liu Xiang of the Western Han. In documents from the Han dynasty, one finds two different common names for this new poetic form. One is the “rhapsody.” For instance, Sima Qian’s Historical Records says that Qu Yuan “composed the rhapsody of ‘Embracing Sand’.” “Rhapsodies of Qu Yuan” and “Rhapsodies of Song Yu” are listed items in the Treatise on Arts in Ban Gu’s History of the Han. The other name is The Songs of the South. To prevent it from being mixed up with the Han rhapsodies, the latter name is mostly adopted nowadays. Besides these two, the “style of Sao or Trouble” (from “Li Sao” or “On Encountering Trouble”) has been another frequently used name since the ancient times. The Chu Culture and the Inception of The Songs of the South As has been previously discussed, an ancient culture had been cultivated independently in the Yangtze valley since early times. After its rise, the Chu nation became the representative of the culture of this region. Yu Xiong, the founding father of Chu, established the state at Jingshan (in the area of Nanzhang county in Hubei today) in early Western Zhou period. For a long time, the natives of Chu were called the “Savage Jing” by the states of the Central Plains. By the time of the Spring and Autumn period, the state of Chu had already developed into a strong power. It annexed many big and small states along the middle reaches of the Yangtze, and was in the position to contend with the entire Central Plains. By the Warring States period, Chu moved further on to conquer and annex Wu and Yue. With its sphere of influence reaching Hanzhong to the west and the open sea to the east, it claimed the vastest territory and largest population among the powerful states of that period. At one time there went the saying, “Horizontally Qin became the lord, and vertically Chu made the king.” Later, Chu was eliminated by Qin, but subsequently the anti-Qin troops in the Chu region turned out to be the main force in overthrowing Qin. In this way, during the Han dynasty, the first convergence of the northern and the southern cultures in history was eventually completed. The Chu nation began to assimilate the culture of the Central Plains from early times. During the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States periods, such northern cultural classics like the Songs, the Documents, the Rites, and the Music already came to be studied by Chu aristocrats. The Zuo Commentary indicates that the Chu natives were

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quite adept in reciting and quoting The Book of Songs. On the other hand, the Chu culture always preserved some of its own characteristics that were markedly different from the culture of the Central Plains. As regards the characteristics of the Chu culture, what is noteworthy, in the first place, is that the environment for living in southern China has some of its advantages. The Treatise on Geography in History of the Han tells that the land of Chu “has the resources of the rivers, ponds, hills and forests along the Yangtze and the Han River,” and that “in the vast territory of Jiangnan,1 people can employ either fire or water in their farming activities, feed themselves on rice and fish, engage themselves in fishing, hunting and woodcutting in the mountains, and enjoy a sufficient supply of food like fruit, melons, mussels and clams.” As the means of livelihood was relatively easy, it was possible to have a bigger labor force that was detached from mere life preservation and engaged in more advanced and complicated activities in their material and spiritual production. As a consequence, at least after the Spring and Autumn period, the financial and material resources of Chu had already been envied by the northern states. Judging from underground archaeological excavations, the bronze vessels from Chu during the Warring States period are representative of the highest achievement of pre-Qin bronze smelting and founding. As for the exquisite lacquerware and silk fabrics from the land of Chu, they were simply inimitable in the north. Due to the same reason, there was no urgent need to form a strong collective force to conquer nature and preserve living, and hence the political system of the Chu state was looser than that of the northern states. In such an environment for living, the individual lived under less pressure from the collective, and had a relatively strong self-consciousness. All the way until the Han dynasty, the Chu natives were widely known for being stubborn and unruly in character. One may find many illustrations of that in the Historical Records and History of the Han. According to historical records, when shamanistic features apparently disappeared from the culture of the Central Plains, shamanism was nevertheless still popular in the Chu region. In The Annotated Songs of the South, Wang Yi mentions that in Qu Yuan’s time, many

1 Jiangnan, literally “south of the (Yangtze) river,” is a region in the lower Yangtze valley, including southern Jiangsu and Anhui and northern Zhejiang, much celebrated in poetry for its beauty and rich products.


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temples of the former kings of Chu contained pictures with supernatural content, and that folk customs and habits “believed in the ghost and were fond of making sacrificial offerings, wherein they would use singing and dancing with music and drum-playing to please the divinities.” Such a mythological atmosphere facilitated the formation of the Chu natives’ character, which was more dynamic and took a fancy to weird and uncanny thought. The superior natural conditions, as well as the emotions in life which were relatively free from suppression and seemingly more active, accounted for the prosperity of arts in the Chu region. In the culture of the Central Plains, which centered on “rites,” music, dance and singing were regarded as the means to regulate community life and to carry out an ethical purpose; moderation and peacefulness, accordingly, were considered to be the ultimate artistic attainment. The main functions of the arts of Chu are represented, however, in providing the satisfaction of aesthetic pleasure, and in this way fully display the dynamism of human emotions. Qu Yuan’s “Summons of the Soul,” in its description of the animated and vivacious music and dancing in the royal palaces of Chu, demonstrates an ambience of extravagant indulgence in sensual pleasures. Various kinds of lacquerware and silk fabrics, excavated in the Chu area, are not only exquisitely manufactured, but often carry bright-colored and magnificent patterns that are full of fantastic dynamism. Today, in looking at the archaeological finds of the Chu region, we are naturally reminded of The Songs of the South, because they all contain passions of life in their fantastic and magnificent forms of representation. Roughly speaking, we can see the background of the composition of The Songs of the South in the general characteristics of Chu culture. However, due to the scarcity of documented data, it is rather difficult to give a detailed account of the production of The Songs of the South. Scholars of literary history have usually suggested that “The Broad Han,” from the group South of Zhou in The Book of Songs, may be a remote prototype of the folk songs of the Chu state. It was produced in the Yangtze and the Han River valleys, which turned into Chu estates in later ages. The poem tells a man’s love for the goddess of the Han River, sharing something in common in its temperament with the “Nine Songs” in The Songs of the South. The Mencius also includes a song that Confucius presumably heard during his travel in Chu, being sung by local children: “When the Canglang’s waters are clear, I can wash my hat-strings in them; when the Canglang’s waters

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are muddy, I can wash my feet in them.”2 It is markedly different in form from the poems in The Book of Songs. In addition, Liu Xiang’s Garden of Tales includes a “Song of the Yue Native” which is also similar in form; it is said to be the Chu translation of a boatman’s song of Yue. From The Songs of the South and some other books, one also finds the listing of many titles of musical compositions from the Chu region, such as “Laoshang,” “Nine Arguments,” “Nice Songs,” “Warm Spring,” “White Snow,” and so forth, but no details about them are known. Perhaps one may say that a kind of folk songs with local features had always circulated in the Chu area; they followed a varied sentence pattern and could be uneven in the length of the line, unlike the orderly four-character lines in The Book of Songs, and the word of mood xi was frequently used in the middle or at the end of a line. However, the questions that may be explained by such fragments of materials are quite limited in number. When later generations examine The Songs of the South, they are almost directly confronted with Qu Yuan, the great author. The poetic form should have gone through a lengthy process of development before Qu Yuan, but it is difficult to trace it today. One issue is worthy of notice here. Even if one may say that The Songs of the South was developed from the folk song of the Chu region, important changes had nevertheless taken place between the two forms. Qu Yuan’s works, such as “On Encountering Trouble,” “Summons of the Soul” and “Heavenly Questions,” may all be ranked as lengthy masterpieces. “Nine Pieces,” compared to texts in The Book of Songs, are also much longer. Only the “Nine Songs” are relatively short. People of the Han dynasty referred to The Songs of the South as rhapsody; their definition of the word was that “what is chanted but not sung is a rhapsody.” (Treatise on Arts in History of the Han). According to records from some ancient works, a rhapsody that was “recited but not sung” was supposed to be recited in a special manner and tone. This probably approximates the format of reciting as in the case of ancient Greek epics. In sum, with the exception of the “Nine 2 This poem is also found in The Fisherman in The Songs of the South. I have used David Hawkes’ English translation in The Songs of the South: An Ancient Chinese Anthology of Poems by Qu Yuan and other Poets (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1985), p. 207. The Canglang is the name of a branch of the Han River. For all the titles of texts in the Songs of the South, I have used Hawkes’ translation. Pagination of all further citations from Hawkes’ translation is to be given in braces right after the cited text.


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Songs,” Qu Yuan’s works were obviously not meant to be sung, as they were already detached from the form of the folk song. Precisely because of this reason, The Songs of the South were able to employ elaborate diction and extravagant style to have sufficient room for their complex content, and to represent rich feelings and thoughts. In the history of poetry, the significance of such a change is not to be underestimated. Qu Yuan’s Works “Without Qu Yuan, how could we have ‘On Encountering Trouble’?” (“The Characteristics of The Songs of the South” from Literary Mind: Carving Dragons) The establishment of the poetic form of The Songs of the South certainly could not have been possible without the creation of the great poet Qu Yuan. As regards the life of Qu Yuan, the most important account remains his biography in the Historical Records. Sima Qian himself, however, did not seem to have had access to much material, as he even resorted to fictitious texts like “The Fisherman” in The Songs of the South, using them as historical data. In addition, there is some confusion in this biography, making it difficult to understand at several places. In short, there are still a series of problems in Qu Yuan’s life that are yet to be clarified. Here, we can only provide a brief introduction based on existing materials and on what has reached some kind of scholarly consensus. Qu Yuan’s (ca. 339–ca. 277 B.C.) given name was Ping; Yuan was his style.3 He was an aristocrat sharing his surname with the Chu royal house.4 At a young age he was already much trusted by King Huai of Chu, serving as the Follower on the Left,5 who “while inside (the court), would discuss state affairs with the king to issue decrees, and when going outside, would receive state guests and deal with the lords of other states,” (from his biography in the Historical Records) a key

3 In pre-modern China, an adult male was normally referred to by their style, a second name given him at puberty. 4 (Original Note) In ancient times there was a difference between family name and collateral name. The royal name of Chu was Mi. Qu Yuan’s ancestors were enfeoffed at an estate by the name of Qu, so they used Qu as their surname thenceforth. 5 A senior official in the State of Chu during the Warring States period, the administrative responsibilities of which are described in the subsequent citation from the Historical Records.

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figure in both internal affairs and diplomacy of the Chu state. Later, Grand Master Shangguan slandered him in front of King Huai, saying that Qu Yuan took the credit for all the decrees which he was charged to draft for the king as his own accomplishment. As a consequence, King Huai “got angry and was estranged from Qu Ping.” He lost his former position, and was also penalized one way or another—though no details were provided for in the Historical Records. Afterwards, a series of mishaps occurred with the domestic affairs and diplomacy of the Chu State. First, Chu’s alliance with Qi was destroyed by a plot of the Qin state. When King Huai found out that he had been tricked, he sent troops to attack Qin but suffered crushing defeats repeatedly. Subsequently, due to some ill-advised diplomatic moves, the Chu state came under attack from Qin, Qi, Han and Wei successively, and plunged into a sorry plight. By the thirtieth year of King Huai’s reign, King Huai was invited by Qin for a meeting at Wuguan. Qu Yuan opposed to the meeting, but King Huai’s youngest son Zilan and some others made every effort to advise King Huai to enter the state of Qin. As a result, King Huai was held in custody, and three years later he died in Qin. After King Huai was detained, King Qingxiang succeeded to the throne and Zilan served as the Grand Councilor. At one time, Chu broke off diplomatic relations with Qin. However, by the seventh year of King Qingxiang’s reign, a royal marriage was arranged between Chu and Qin to seek temporary peace. Because Qu Yuan objected to such a disgraceful position, and as there were also many in the Chu state who held Zilan responsible for King Huai’s death in humiliation, Zilan came to regard Qu Yuan as his personal enemy and instigated Grand Master Shangguan to start a rumor about Qu Yuan and slander him in front of King Qingxiang. This led to Qu Yuan’s banishment to the area of the Yuan and Xiang rivers, which probably took place around the thirteenth year of King Qingxiang’s reign. During the many years when Qu Yuan was on exile, the situation of the Chu state became even more desperate. By the twenty-first year of King Qingxiang’s reign, Bo Qi, the Qin military commander, seized Ying (Jiangling, Hubei today), the capital of Chu. In the following year, the Qin troops moved further into the land. Seeing no hope for the state of Chu but reluctant to leave his home land and move far to the other states, Qu Yuan, in sorrow and indignation, drowned himself in the Milo River. His noble personality was held in high esteem by the


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Chu people. Later, people made the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, a traditional festival in the Chu region, one in memory of Qu Yuan. Qu Yuan’s works included the five texts mentioned in his biography in the Records of the Grand Historian: “On Encountering Trouble,” “Heavenly Questions,” “Summons of the Soul,” “A Lament for Ying,” and “Embracing Sand.” The Treatise on Arts in History of the Han refers to “Qu Yuan’s twenty-five rhapsodies” without giving any titles. The Annotated Songs of the South, by Wang Yi of the Eastern Han, also includes twenty-five texts, i.e., “On Encountering Trouble,” “Nine Songs (eleven texts),” “Heavenly Questions,” “Nine Pieces (nine texts),” “Far-off Journey,” “Divination” and “The Fisherman,” but lists “Summons of the Soul” under Song Yu’s name. It is evident that even as early as in the Han dynasty, Qu Yuan’s authorship was already controversial. Modern scholars have mostly agreed that “Summons of the Soul” was written by Qu Yuan, whereas “Far-off Journey,” “Divination” and “The Fisherman” have been considered to be of dubious authenticity. “On Encountering Trouble” is Qu Yuan’s most important and representative work. The poem consists of more than three hundred and seventy lines, ranking as the best grand-scale lyric poem in ancient China. Some consider its date of composition to be during the later years of King Huai’s reign, after Qu Yuan was rejected for the first time; others consider it to have been written during King Qingxiang’s reign, after Qu Yuan was banished. The meaning of the title, “On Encountering Trouble,” was explained as “to be detached from trouble” by Sima Qian, while Ban Gu moved further to define the word li (to leave or to be detached from) as another li (to suffer from or to encounter), and observed that “On Encountering Trouble” was “a work composed when suffering from trouble.” It is Qu Yuan’s deliberation of the past and the future after he suffered a serious political setback, and when he faced both personal and national misfortunes. It is the autobiography of a noble soul in pain. In “On Encountering Trouble,” the author lashes out at the politics of the Chu state, and in consideration of that, proposes a “good governance” that he holds to be ideal. In this respect, Qu Yuan was clearly under the influence of the culture of the Yellow River valley. The governing of the “Three Kings” and the ruling of “Yao and Shun,” much admired by the poet, the political ideas of regarding people as the foundation, refining laws and moral standards, and promoting the virtuous and the talented in the government, all of which he has

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repeatedly proposed, may be regarded as a combination of Confucian and Legalist doctrines. On the other hand, the strong demand for selfcontrol, found in the culture of the Yellow River valley, does not seem to have much of an impact on Qu Yuan. When the social collective that he belongs to says no to his personality, when he realizes that he himself is in a directly opposite position against the aristocratic clique of the Chu state, he not only shows no sense of fear, rather he feels a pride instead in seeing his own superiority in isolation: “Eagles do not flock like birds of lesser species; / So it has ever been since the olden time.” (71) This is certainly because Qu Yuan firmly believes that his own position is fundamentally more in accordance with the interests of the Chu state, but also because he simply cannot give up his self-esteem. Ban Gu of the Han dynasty has criticized Qu Yuan for “showing off his talent and promoting himself ” (“Preface” to “On Encountering Trouble”); so far as the facts are concerned, Ban Gu has made a point. The first half of “On Encountering Trouble” mainly gives an account of the author’s conflict with the ruling clique of the Chu state. Here, people in three parties constitute the pattern of political relationship of the Chu state in the author’s mind. Starting from the very first line, “Scion of the high lord Gao Yang,” the poet devotes much space to highlighting his superior family background, his distinguished natural gifts, the noble personality and extraordinary talents that he has achieved through self-cultivation, so as to demonstrate his dedication to the ruler and the state, and his confidence in helping with the restoration of the Chu state. In doing so, the self-image in the poem stands out as representative of grace and justice. The “knaves,” those who band together for their selfish purposes, represent the party in opposition to the poet and stand for evil. All they care is to seek some temporary peace that limits and endangers the prospect of the Chu state. To satisfy their greed, they have made up their mind to get rid of the poet by wicked slander. The third party is the king of Chu who, by means of his authority and power, is able to determine the triumph or failure of the above two parties and, consequently, the destiny of the Chu state. He is endowed with some strange qualities. On the one hand, he symbolizes the Chu state, enjoys natural mandate, and wins the poet’s unreserved loyalty. [“I called on the ninefold heaven to be my witness, / And all for the sake of the Fair One, and no other.” (69)] On the other hand, he is fatuous and foolish; he is able to trust the poet at first, but eventually he is fooled by the “knaves”: “But the Fragrant One


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refused to examine my true feelings: / He lent ears instead to slander, and raged against me.” (69) This leads to the poet’s defeat and to the decline and peril of the Chu state. We are not in the position to know for sure if the political situation in the Chu state at the time was as simple and clear as described. But one may see that such a pattern manages to make a distinction between the ruler’s mistakes and the evil of the “knaves,” so that, based on the moral premise of one’s loyalty to the sovereign, the personality and ideal of the poet himself may be highly affirmed. (It is worth noting here that the same pattern has been repeatedly imitated and used in later times.) After suffering a serious setback, and even after being totally isolated, the poet’s pride and confidence are nevertheless aroused to a higher degree. He repeatedly employs various means of symbolism to represent his noble virtues: he drinks the dew that falls from the magnolia flowers, and eats the petals that drop from chrysanthemums in the autumn; he wears a hat that towers on his head, and carries a long sword that dangles from his waist; he places upon himself all kinds of fragrant flowers and grass. The poet observes firmly that he will never give up his ideal and compromise with the popular and vulgar, that he would rather die than change his own personality in any way: “I could not change this, even if my body were dismembered; / For how could dismemberment ever hurt my mind?” (71) However, the poet’s agony and confusion are not dispelled henceforth, because he still faces the problem of how life should continue to unfold. In the second half, “On Encountering Trouble” resorts to mythological material and describes the activities deep in his heart in the form of imagination. First, the poet makes up a certain “Nü Xu” who admonishes him for his “stubbornness” that is out of keeping with the times. Then, through the story of how he recounts his political ideal to the legendary ancient lord Chonghua (Shun), the poet refutes Nü Xu’s criticism. This actually represents the tumult of the poet’s inner feelings. Later, the poet takes command of various gods and goes up and down to seek his heart’s desire. He arrives in Heaven, but Heaven’s porter refuses to notify his arrival to the Lord of Heaven. He descends to the earth in search of “fair ladies,” but all the mythological and legendary beautiful women either “lack all seemliness” and show “proud disdain,” or are beyond his reach for want of a matchmaker. This indicates that his pursuit is continually thwarted, and that he is not even able to find anyone who can understand and help him.

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Where is the way out? The result of a fortuneteller’s divination is that there is no hope whatsoever for the state of Chu, and the only option is to leave the state. The poet thereby harnesses winged dragons and rides in a jade chariot; with flapping cloud-embroidered banners and tinkling jade yoke-bells about him, he travels freely. There arises an atmosphere of high spirits and great joy in the poem. However, just as “(t)he spirits soared high up, far into the distance,” he “suddenly caught a glimpse below of old home. / My groom’s heart was heavy and the horses for longing / Arched their heads back and refused to go on.” (78) He realizes that after all, he is simply unable to leave his home land. All options have turned out to be impossible for him, and he has no choice but to preserve his personality through death. The poem’s conclusive coda (luan) goes: Enough! There are no true men in the state: no one understands me. Why should I cleave to the city of my birth? Since none is worthy to work with in making good government, I shall go and join Peng Xian in the place where he abides. (78)

Frustration over politics and denouncement of political enemies are both among the emotions that have long been depicted in The Book of Songs. Compared to it, however, “On Encountering Trouble” has made a great leap in progress. The human dignity that is never to yield, the persevering wish to retain one’s individuality and the passionate, vivacious emotions justify the composition of such an autobiographical poem in its great length and complex techniques of expression, from which it holds its great artistic appeal. The “Nine Pieces” consist of nine texts: “Grieving I Make My Plaint,” “Crossing the River,” “A Lament for Ying,” “The Outpouring of Sad Thoughts,” “Embracing Sand,” “Thinking of a Fair One,” “Alas for the Days Gone By,” “In Praise of the Orange-Tree,” and “Grieving at the Eddying Wind.” Zhu Xi of the Song dynasty has observed that the title of the Nine Pieces was coined up by someone from later times, who put Qu Yuan’s nine texts together in one volume, as a general title for the collection. Most scholars of today have followed this theory. Similar to “On Encountering Trouble,” the contents of the “Nine Pieces” are all related to Qu Yuan’s life experience. Most of them, however, describe specific details in life and are shorter in length. In expression they are in general realistic, rarely resorting to fancy and imagination. Among texts of the “Nine Pieces,” “Crossing the River” has been most highly acclaimed for its artistic quality. Composed by Qu Yuan


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after he was banished to Jiangnan, it gives an account of his itinerary of crossing the Yangtze to its south, going westward along the Yuan River, and then living alone deep in the mountains, and his thoughts during the travel. It has a fine and delicate touch in style. One part of it carries a description of the landscape: When we entered the Xu valley, I halted uncertainly, Too distraught to think where I was going. Amid the deep woods there, in the twilight gloom, Are the haunts where monkeys live. The mountains’ awful height screens the noonday sun, And below it is dark and dim with perpetual rain; Sleet and snow fall there unendingly, And the heavy clouds begin where the roof-tops end. (160)6

The poet grasps the essence of the landscape and, in just a few lines, creates a highly succinct image of the serenity in lofty mountains and thick forests and, through it, sets in relief his feeling of loneliness and sorrow in just the right way. As a compact realistic representation of nature, it is the earliest of its kind in Chinese literature, and has rightfully been regarded as the prototype of landscape poetry in later ages. “A Lament for Ying” was written after Bo Qi, the Qin military commander, seized Ying, the Chu capital, in the twenty-first year of King Qingxiang’s reign. It depicts the author’s emotional attachment to Ying, the capital, and his anxiety about the future of the Chu state. The poem makes an abrupt opening by questioning Heaven, and then immediately brings the reader to the tragic scene of the dilapidated national capital and its people in suffering. Next, using the capital as a starting point, it moves from near to far, revealing the deep sorrow of the speaker in exile who keeps looking back with every step away from the city, finding it so tough to leave it behind. “I gazed on the high catalpa trees and heaved a heavy sigh, / And the tears in torrents, like winter’s sleet, came down. / We passed the head of the Xia; and once, when we drifted westwards, / I looked back for the Dragon Gate, but I could not see it.” (164) He moves further and further away from the capital; its tall trees and lofty city gates have gradually disappeared from his vision; and his tears unwittingly fall like snowflakes. Such

6

I have made one revision to Hawkes’ translation here. He has erroneously rendered Xupu in the original as Xia-pu in the first line (he also inadvertently used hyphen for his pinyin transliteration in the book), whereas I have changed it to “the Xu valley.” The Xu River flows into the Yuan River.

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an unbearable grief over one’s destroyed country and ruined family always stirs the reader’s heart to great agitation whenever similar moments of crisis arise in later times. “Embracing Sand” has generally been considered Qu Yuan’s last composition before his death. After making his final choice, the poet once again tells us how he is never to change his will, and his disdain for the philistine masses and society. At the end of the poem it says: “I know that death cannot be avoided, therefore I will not grudge its coming. / To noble men I here plainly declare that I will be numbered with such as you.” (172) Here the word “such” in the original may be understood as “models” in today’s language. The poet indicates that he hopes people in the world will learn the principles of human conduct from his suicide. None of the three works, “Summons of the Soul,” “Nine Songs,” and “Heavenly Questions,” involves Qu Yuan’s own life experience. From different perspectives, however, they all portray his character and thoughts in a circumlocutory way. “Summons of the Soul,” composed to summon the spirit of King Huai (“summon of the soul” was originally a custom in the Chu region), is full of strange imagination. The entire poem, with the exception of the opening section that serves as an introduction in giving the reasons for the summons, may be divided into two large divisions. The first half spares no effort in delineating the horror in all four directions, east, west, south, and north, and of both Heaven and the nether world, advising the spirit not to stay there too long. In the poet’s delineation, various monsters that feed themselves on humans and their spirits, poisonous snakes and savage beasts that are cruel and hideous, as well as the extremely grim and harsh natural environment, constitute scenes after scenes that are bizarre, grotesque, eerie and horrible. The second half indulges in elaborating on the grandeur and luxury of the palaces of the Chu state so as to persuade the soul to return. Magnificent palace and temple halls, sumptuous furnishings, bewitching women, great wine and delicious food, seductive singing and dancing—everything is so dazzling, so thrilling. At last the poem, in revelation of deep emotions, closes with the lines: “The eye travels on a thousand li, and the heart breaks for sorrow. / O soul, come back! Alas for the Southern Land!” (230) The imagination and creativeness of “Summons of the Soul” is simply amazing. Using hyperbole, it gives strong, sensational descriptions of horror and luxury, two different types of imagery in contrast,


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creating an extraordinary aesthetic effect. Later, in the works of writers like Bao Zhao, Han Yu, and Li He, one can see the continuation and development of the characteristics of “Summons of the Soul.” Its use of hyperbole made a direct impact on the rhapsodies of the Han dynasty. The title of the “Nine Songs” was originally used for a kind of ancient music that was somewhat of a folklore nature. Qu Yuan’s work is a series of eleven songs used for sacrificial rites in celebration of gods and goddesses. Each of the first ten songs is addressed to one divinity: the Great Unity, God of the Eastern Sky (the most respected of celestial divinities), the Lord within the Clouds (god of clouds), the Greater Master of Fate (god in charge of human lifespan), the Lesser Master of Fate (god in charge of posterity), the Lord of the East (god of the sun), the Lord of the Xiang7 and the Lady of the Xiang (god and goddess of the Xiang River), the River Earl (god of the Yellow River), the Mountain Spirit (goddess of the mountains), and Hymn to the Fallen (the spirits of soldiers who died in war). The last piece, “Honoring the Dead,” is a song used for the general purpose of seeing the god or goddess off for all the previous ten songs. The Nine Songs are generally considered to have been rewritten from folk songs used in sacrificial rites, but one can often perceive the poet’s personal feelings in them. The songs for sacrificial rites in The Book of the Songs are all solemn in tone and sound stiff and dull, wherein the distance between humans and gods is remote. The “Nine Songs,” however, have used beautiful diction in their description of the scenes of sacrificial rites that are grand, lively, and intimate. All the divinities and spirits have been endowed with human character and emotions; they are nice and friendly to human beings, and there is nothing scary about them. All these reflect the special features of southern folk beliefs wherein human beings and divinities lived together. What is most remarkable about the “Nine Songs” is that most of the poems in there contain stories of love between gods and goddesses, or between human beings and divinities, and such love affairs are all presented as abortive and fruitless, in a distracted and unhappy mood, revealing both an enduring pursuit in life and the sorrow and doubt

7 Following an entry in Sima Qian’s Historical Records, which takes Xiang jun as a female, David Hawkes has rendered it as “Goddess of the Xiang.” Here I have followed the author’s interpretation of treating it as a male god.

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when one fails in such a pursuit. It reminds one of Qu Yuan’s own feelings of solitude and desolation when he got lost in his own life. For instance, “The Lord of the Xiang” and “The Lady of the Xiang” sing the sad songs of a couple of divinities who love, but fail to meet with, each other. At the beginning of “The Lady of the Xiang” it goes: The Child of God, descending the northern bank, Casts on me her eyes that are dark with longing. Gently the wind of autumn whispers; On the waves of the Dongting lake the leaves are falling. (108)

In the picture created in the poem, the chill of late autumn and the feelings of solitude and uneasiness blend into one, building up an unspeakable feeling of grief and melancholy. “The Mountain Spirit” is also a beautiful song of disappointed love. It tells how the Mountain Spirit, dressed up in her best, goes for a date with her sweetheart, but the latter never shows up, sending her into despair and misery. She stands alone, high upon the mountain’s summit. Looking around, she sees no one and cannot help but lament: “What flowers can I deck myself with, so late in the year?” (116) Years go by; who is able to make my life shine in glory? Precisely because of such a sorrow about life, the image at the end of the poem is so moving. It is already late at night; all around her there are thunder and lightning, wind and rain; leaves are whirling down, and monkeys are crying sadly, while the Mountain Spirit still stands there in disconsolation, reluctant to leave. The feelings are entirely those of a young woman in the human world. “Hymn to the Fallen,” a ritual song in memory of soldiers who died in the war, has some distinctive features of its own. The poem depicts a battle wherein the soldiers of the Chu state are hopelessly outnumbered by their enemies and thus meet a fatal end, displaying their noble character that are not to be dishonored, when they look upon death as going home, in the tragedy of defeat. It is rather short in length, but is nevertheless a masterpiece in pre-Qin literature that represents a kind of tragic and solemn beauty at its very best. “Nine Songs” have great artistic merits. Among them are a small number of texts in pre-Qin literature that have entirely taken mythology as subject and have also gone through a literary transformation, using images of divinities to represent human life and emotions. Although they are not presented in a magnificent scale as in “On Encountering Trouble,” they display an excellence of their own in their exquisite


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diction and meticulous expression of emotions; in particular, in these poems the description of natural scenes and portrayal of human emotions blend well into, and set off in strong relief, one another. The poem “Heavenly Questions” asks, at one stretch, one hundred and seventy-two questions about nature, history, society and related mythology. Many of these questions have already had ready answers at the time, but the poet still wants to make a close inquiry, it “doubted all and sundry trifles from the pre-historic past to everything in the world, made unbridled observations that people before him had never dared to say.” (Lu Xun, On Māra’s Poetic Power) While its literary significance is perhaps not as important as the rest of Qu Yuan’s works, its revelation of a profound skepticism is simply invaluable. Song Yu and Other Authors of The Songs of the South At the end of Qu Yuan’s biography in the Historical Records, Sima Qian has observed: “After Qu Yuan’s death, in the Chu state, such authors like Song Yu, Tang Le, and Jing Cuo all liked writing and were known for their rhapsodies; they all modeled themselves on Qu Yuan in showing their literary eloquence, but none of them dared to remonstrate with straight talk.” Among the three, there is nothing extant from Tang Le.8 As regards Jing Cuo, Wang Yi’s The Annotated Songs of the South marks under the title of “The Great Summons” that it was by Qu Yuan, but then notes: “Some say it was by Jing Cuo;” the attribution is unreliable. Accordingly, the only one that we can discuss in specifics is Song Yu. Notwithstanding all this, the brief account in the Historical Records has suggested that, so far as literary composition was concerned, Qu Yuan’s authorship was not an isolated existence in the state of Chu, which is quite noteworthy. Wang Yi tells us that Song Yu was a disciple of Qu Yuan’s, and that he once served as a Grand Master, without providing any source of the information. The Treatise on Arts in History of the Han lists “sixteen rhapsodies by Song Yu” without providing the name of any of their titles. The Annotated Songs of the South contains two texts, “Nine Arguments” and “Summons of the Soul.” The Selections of Refined 8

(Original Note) Some stray fragments of bamboo slips of Han dynasty that were excavated in 1972 at Mt. Silver Bird had the name of Tang Le inscribed at the title slip. Some scholars have considered these to be Tang Le’s rhapsodies, but they have not provided sufficient evidence for their argument.

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Literature includes a total of five texts, “Rhapsody on the Wind,” “Rhapsody on the Gaotang Shrine,” “Rhapsody on the Goddess,” “Rhapsody on Master Dengtu the Lecher,” and “Responding to the Question of the King of Chu.” Among the above, “Summons of the Soul” should be attributed to Qu Yuan. The five texts in the Selections of Refined Literature have generally been regarded to be of forged authorship, though some have argued to the contrary. Like the “Nine Songs,” the title of the “Nine Arguments” was a ready-made one for ancient songs of a folklore nature. Song Yu’s work presumably resorted to the convention of the title. Judging from the length and the use of prose in the work, they must have also been “recited but not sung.” Wang Yi says that Song Yu wrote the work to express his sorrow about Qu Yuan, his master, but it does not seem to agree with the work in reality. An examination of the work shows that the “Nine Arguments,” through a lament about the autumn season, primarily expresses a feeling of disappointment: “Afflicted: the poor esquire has lost his office and his heart rebels.” The work contains some exposure and criticism of the political situation in the Chu state, but unlike Qu Yuan’s works, it does not reveal a wide and profound indignation and a great passion in the pursuit of one’s ideal. While it shows some dissatisfaction about personal loss, it displays no such proud confidence and unyielding spirit of resistance as Qu Yuan does. In general, the work discloses the image of a talented man who is aloof from politics and material pursuits, exercises self-restraint, suffers from life’s frustrations, and feels pity for himself. The “Nine Arguments” frequently borrows or imitates lines from Qu Yuan’s works, and echoes Qu Yuan’s views, which indicates that Song Yu was obviously under Qu Yuan’s influence in writing. On the other hand, the “Nine Arguments” is by no means a work of simple imitation, as it holds some of its own characteristics; in terms of its fine delineation of the nuances of feelings and its exquisite use of diction, it may even excel Qu Yuan’s works. The opening section is most remarkable: Alas for the breath of autumn! Wan and drear: flower and leaf fluttering fall and turn to decay; Sad and lorn: as when on journey far one climbs a hill and looks down on the water to speed a returning friend; Empty and vast: the skies are high and the air is cold; Still and deep: the streams have drunk full and the waters are clear. Heartsick and sighing sore: for the cold draws on and strikes into a man;


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Distraught and disappointed: leaving the old and to new places turning; Afflicted: the poor esquire has lost his office and his heart rebels; Desolate: on his long journey he rests with never a friend; Melancholy: he nurses a private sorrow. The fluttering swallows leave on their homeward journey; The forlorn cicada makes no sound; The wild geese call as they travel southwards; The partridge chatters with a mournful cry. Alone he waits for the dawn to come, unsleeping, Mourning with the cricket, the midnight traveler. His time draws on apace: already half is gone; Yet still he languishes, nothing accomplished. (209–210)

Here, from the very beginning, we may perceive the author’s sharp insight. In particular, the first few lines, in refreshing originality, use the experience of wandering afar and the sense of the vast emptiness while climbing a hill and looking down on the water to imply the feeling of frustration in life. In order to convey such a feeling more fully, the author adopts some fine touches: he is extremely skilled in selecting a number of natural scenes with special aspects of their own, and having them blended into the representation of sad and melancholy feelings. The sound of wind and falling leaves, the crying of birds and chirping of insects, blend with the sound of the poet’s mournful sighing in desperation into a unified piece of melody. The desolate scenes of Mother Nature and the image of the solitary poet set off each other; the building up of the ambience succeeds in intensifying the depiction of the speaker’s mind. In addition, the language of the “Nine Arguments,” as compared to that of Qu Yuan’s, is more exquisite. The prosodic pattern of the poem is quite varied: long and short lines mix up with one another; the position of the word of mood, xi, keeps shifting in the text; the rhythm sounds free and lively. In the above, we have analyzed only one section of the “Nine Arguments,” but such special aspects are found throughout the entire poem. The artistic merits of the “Nine Arguments” may be directly accounted for by the characteristics of the expression of the author’s feelings as previously mentioned. Unlike Qu Yuan, Song Yu was not in a tense state of resistance against the outer world. As he said, “Melancholy: he nurses a private sorrow.” What is revealed here is rather a concern for his life, which leads to a feeling of helplessness, a kind of introverted sentimentality. Accordingly the author needed to look for a way of literary expression different from that of Qu Yuan’s, one that was milder, more circuitous, and more tactful, and he succeeded

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in that. Not without reason, Song Yu was ranked side by side with Qu Yuan as “Qu and Song” by later generations. The Significance of The Songs of the South in Literary History Between The Book of Songs and The Songs of the South, there was not only a difference between the culture of the north and that of the south, but also a time span of more than three hundred years; that lapse of time was a critical stage in the development of pre-Qin culture. Therefore, as a matter of course, the latter work, as compared to the former, made many important advances. We have mentioned in the previous chapter that Qu Yuan’s creative activities, along with those of Song Yu, Jing Cuo and Tang Le, indicate that literature had somewhat become an important part of the life of the upper society, the significance of which should not be underestimated. Accordingly, The Songs of the South began to reveal the author’s individuality. In general the texts in The Book of Songs were collective composition. Though a few of them made their authorship known, they were not much different from those from unknown authors. Instead, Qu Yuan and Song Yu, by writing about their respective aspirations, experiences and sufferings, left their own trademark in their works. It marked a new epoch of composition in classical Chinese literature. The Songs of the South broke free from the brief and plain format with its dominant usage of orderly four-character lines in The Book of Songs, initiating a new format of more lively prosodic patterns and grander scale and length. Such a change was determined by the necessity of the expression of feelings. In The Songs of the South, complex feelings were no longer treated in a simple way; instead they were represented in their variety through multiple means. For instance, in “On Encountering Trouble,” the author’s love and hate of the Chu state, and his consideration of whether he should stay or leave there, is revealed, layer by layer and in all its tumult, in a symbolized world. Similarly, in the “Nine Arguments,” we also see how the elusive sentimentality of life is delineated in all its nuances. Compared to The Book of Songs, The Songs of the South led the literature of lyricism towards complexity. In describing flora and fauna as subjects for comparison and association, The Book of Songs might give its reader a sense of beauty, but it was unconscious and simple. In The Songs of the South, plants,


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landscape, music, dancing and females—all elements of beauty that touch one’s heart, were given more deliberation. “For the beauty and the music are so enchanting, / The beholder, delighted, forgets that he must go.” (“The Lord of the East” in the “Nine Songs,” 113) Love for beauty was unrestricted with Qu Yuan. Accordingly, The Songs of the South abound with rich and beautiful diction. In general, one may say that, in ancient Chinese literature, all schools that paid attention to graceful style and grand diction may be traced to Qu Yuan and Song Yu. In short, while much was still left for latecomers to explore and develop, The Songs of the South surely opened an important new path for Chinese literature.

CHAPTER THREE

PROSE OF THE PRE-QIN AGE

Prose writings of the pre-Qin age were produced on the basis of all kinds of practical purposes, and involved various aspects of culture and thought in the society. Strictly speaking, pre-Qin prose writings are not literary works, but they nevertheless hold an important place in literary history. It is because such writings demonstrate the process of maturity of the written language of ancient times and the increase of its capability in expressing thought and feeling. In addition, one may say that in the early stage of literary history there is no clear dividing line between literature and non-literature; non-literary works often contain literary elements, and some of them are even of a strong literary nature, hence they have exerted an important influence on the later development of literature.

1. Historical Prose We have mentioned previously that great differences existed among various pre-Qin historical works. Generally speaking, the literary elements in this kind of writing went through a process of gradual increase. For example, with the exception of the forged parts, The Documents of High Antiquity, in its early stage, were entirely a collection of documents archived by official historians. On the other hand, the Intrigues of the Warring States, which took shape from during the last years of the Warring States period to the transitional period between the Qin and Han, already included many fictitious historical tales, and savored of fiction. The Documents of High Antiquity and the Spring and Autumn Annals The Documents of High Antiquity is a collection of historical documents, as well as some pieces in recollection of ancient events, from China’s remote antiquity. From the Spring and Autumn period to the Warring States period, it was known simply as the Documents (Shu).

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It was not until the Han dynasty when it came to be known as The Documents of High Antiquity. Confucians honored it as a classic, so it was also known as The Book of Documents. Originally The Documents of High Antiquity was known to have consisted of one hundred texts. After the burning of books during the Qin dynasty, only twenty-eight texts existed in the early Han. (Due to the difference of grouping, some believe that there should have been twenty-nine texts.) Because this version was written in the script of that age, it was known as The Documents of High Antiquity in Contemporary Script. During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han, a certain kind of The Documents of High Antiquity in Ancient Script was discovered, but was lost again shortly afterwards. During the Eastern Jin period, Mei Ze presented to the throne a kind of The Documents of High Antiquity in Ancient Script with fifty-eight texts, which turned into the most popular version of the book later and came to become the version included in The Thirteen Classics with Annotations and Scholia. Thirty-three of the texts therein are tantamount to the twenty-eight in The Documents of High Antiquity in Contemporary Script; the other twenty-five were judged to be forgery in the research of Yan Ruoqu, a renowned scholar of the Qing dynasty, and were generally referred to as The Forged Documents of High Antiquity in Ancient Script. In recent years, however, with the discovery of more excavated documents, the authenticity of these texts has been called into question again. The “Pangeng” section in the extant The Documents of High Antiquity is probably the earliest of all the texts. It is a record of the speech of Pangeng, the King of Yin, which he delivered to his subjects when he moved the capital. Notwithstanding its archaic and abstruse language, one can still feel, from time to time, Pangeng’s emotions and sharp eloquence during the speech, as in the following: I have not abandoned myself to vice and lost my virtue; only you people have held your good will and have not been in awe of me as a person. I am like a big fire, but I have refrained from using my force, accordingly you have become undisciplined. If a net is held by a head-rope, then it will be in good order and will not make a mess. If you are like the farmers, working hard in the fields, then you are also likely to have a good harvest in the autumn.

Within a short speech, three analogies are used in a lively way. In addition, when Pangeng cautions his ministers, telling them not to instigate the people to oppose to the moving of the capital, he says that

prose of the pre-qin age

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if they ever dare to try that, it would be “like a fire ablaze across the plain, that one cannot get close to,” namely, the situation may go out of hand. It is also an excellent use of the figure of speech. In The Documents of High Antiquity, the texts from the Shang dynasty to the Western Zhou are all intricate, obscure, and extremely awkward in reading. In referring to them, Han Yu has observed that “The ‘Pronouncements of Zhou’ and the ‘Proclamations of Yin’ are full of difficult and unpronounceable words.” (“An Explication of ‘Progress in Learning’”) Some has attributed it to the reason that they were produced an extremely long time ago, and that there had been textual errors in the process of the making of written copies. However, by checking them against a number of longer inscriptions from the excavated bronze vessels, one finds that the language of the age was precisely like that. The true reason may lie in the fact that the earliest Chinese writings like such made use of a written language that was still underdeveloped, incorporating some oral expressions of the age; it was frequently inconsistent in meaning, and the choice of the words was yet to become standardized. In the texts produced from later ages in The Documents of High Antiquity, the situation is different. For instance, “The Pledge of Qin,” from the early Spring and Autumn period, is a speech of repentance and self-reproach, given by Duke Mu of Qin after he suffered a defeat in his campaign against Jin, which shows the feelings of shame, regret, bitterness and sorrow. It goes as follows: There is a saying from the ancients: “Ordinary people are all like this: being too comfortable with themselves.” It is not hard to reproach others; but when one is reproached by others, to follow good advice with an open mind—that is truly tough to do! My heart is in sorrow: the sun and the moon keep moving, but what is gone is never to return!

Citing sayings from the ancients, he points out that if one considers oneself always in the right, one is sure to commit all kinds of mistakes. Then, in great distress, he explains that it is easy to reprove others and extremely difficult to follow good advice. From that he moves on to note that time is gone for ever, and that he is afraid that he may never have the chance to correct his mistakes. In this section of writing, there still exists some textual ellipsis, but the meaning is relatively clear, so it has a vivid touch. From this one may trace the process of how the written language gradually matured.

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The expression “Spring and Autumn” was formerly used as a general name for the history of the states in pre-Qin times. Later, the Spring and Autumn of the state of Lu turned out to be the only one extant, so the title became a specific one. The work was said to have been edited, revised, and endowed with special meaning by Confucius himself, so it also became an important Confucian classic. The Spring and Autumn Annals is a history in annalistic style. It follows the order of the twelve dukes of the Lu state, starting from the first year of Duke Yin’s reign (722 B.C.) and ending with the fourteenth year of Duke Ai’s reign (481 B.C.), keeping a record of the events for a period of two hundred and forty-two years. The account is in the form of outlines and the text is brief, almost devoid of any descriptive elements. However, its language of expression is noted for being compact, precise, refined and succinct. Like “The Pledge of Qin” from The Documents of High Antiquity cited in the above, it reflects the maturing process of the written language. It has been said that Confucius, while editing the Spring and Autumn Annals, made his evaluation of some historical events and personages based on his own views, and chose what he regarded to be the proper wording to pass his judgment in a subtle way. It has been known as the “style of the Spring and Autumn Annals.” Accordingly, the Spring and Autumn Annals has been considered by people of later times as a canonical work that contains “subtle words with profound meaning,” and a model to determine a person’s social status and to make laws. It has exercised some influence on the writing of history, and even on that of literary works, in later ages. The Zuo Commentary and the Conversations of the States In the study of Confucian classics during the Han dynasty, works that explained the “Books” were called “Commentaries.” The Spring and Autumn Annals has three Commentaries: the Master Zuo Commentary (called the Zuo Commentary for short), the Gongyang Commentary, and the Guliang Commentary. Judging from its actual contents, the Zuo Commentary is an annalistic history, and its presentation of events is systematic and detailed. In terms of its time of recording of events it is roughly similar to the Spring and Autumn Annals, though towards its end it goes further on for several years. In the old times, people thought that the main purpose of this work was to enumerate historical facts to elucidate the Spring and Autumn Annals. Most


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modern scholars, however, believe it to be an independently composed history at first, that it was paired with the Spring and Autumn Annals, with corresponding revisions, by people of later generations. As regards the author of the Zuo Commentary, both Sima Qian and Ban Gu attributed it to Zuoqiu Ming, and said that he was the Grand Scribe of the Lu state. Some believed that this Zuoqiu Ming was the same person mentioned in the Analects, a contemporary of Confucius’. That theory, however, became controversial after the Tang dynasty. Today, it has generally been considered as an anonymous work from the early years of the Warring States period. Among extant materials, the Zuo Commentary may be regarded as the first large-scale narrative work in China in the broad sense. Prior to it, narrative writings (such as the inscriptions on bronze vessels, the Spring and Autumn Annals, etc.) only include simple accounts of single events. In the Zuo Commentary, many complicated and ever-changing big events in history are treated in great coherence and order. The best illustrations of that may be found in the records of the five famous military campaigns of the Spring and Autumn period. The author is skilled in unfolding each of these campaigns within the context of the big states’ contention with one another for hegemony. Using a style that is concise but does not lack literary grace, he gives a succinct account of everything, from the remote and immediate causes of the war, the changing alignment in the relationship of various states, the planning before the war, the process of the military engagement, to the influence of the war afterwards. From the perspective of either historiography or literature, it was an extremely important development of narrative capacity. The diplomatic parlance recorded in the Zuo Commentary is also brilliant. Such use of language presumably should have been based upon firsthand official record, but it must have gone through the author’s polishing to sound so concise and succinct. When compared to the speech recorded in The Documents of High Antiquity, the difference is simply extraordinary. A good illustration of this may be found in the section of “Zhu Zhiwu Repulses the Qin Troops.” It recounts how, under a desperate situation when Zheng is besieged by the allied forces of Qin and Jin, Zhu Zhiwu enters the Qin barracks at night and persuades the Qin troops to retreat. The entire speech of persuasion is less than two hundred Chinese characters in length. It focuses on the situation of the Qin state which, in its attempt to expand eastward, is obstructed by the state of Jin; then it provides an analysis of the

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interrelation of the three states of Qin, Jin and Zheng, and argues that the Qin can only reap the best profits by preserving the state of Zheng as a base in the Central Plains. Easily, the alliance between the two big states of Qin and Jin is thereby disintegrated, and the state of Zheng, which seems to have been doomed to be eliminated, is saved. Reading it today, the arguments are still unassailable. It may be regarded as an excellent ancient sample of geopolitics. In terms of its literary merits, what is most remarkable about the Zuo Commentary is that, at the same time when it recounts historical events and teaches lessons of history, it often strives to make its stories lively and interesting, and it also manages to provide some initial outlining of the images of historical figures through vivid details. Such qualities are important to the development of literature. Generally speaking, the more detailed and lively the accounts in historical records are, the less reliable they become. It is because such details are not of much value as historical material, and at the time when they took place or shortly afterwards, they were unlikely to have been recorded realistically. Only when historical events are being presented as stories, due to the desire for novelty in people’s mind or, to move one step further, due to people’s spiritual need to understand society and life through the experience of others, will such events become more lively from the addition of details. From this, we may assume that the material which the author of the Zuo Commentary based upon not only included records of official historians, but also historical tales that had been circulated in different ways in the first place; and in the process of the completion of the work, the author might have made further additions based upon his own imagination of, and conjecture about, history. In other words, a considerable part of the contents of the Zuo Commentary, under the condition of the continuous growth of the written language, were composed by transforming orally transmitted historical stories into written texts. However, the composition of the work was obviously restricted by the cultural convention of official historians, so the fictionalization should not have been excessive. In the account of the exile of Prince Chong’er of Jin in the Zuo Commentary, the touch of fiction stands out more clearly and some parts of it even sound dramatic. When he passes by Wei, he begs for food from the rustics. In Qi, he indulges in ease and comfort, so he is taken away by force after Lady Jiang and his followers get him drunk. When he passes through Cao, Duke Gong of Cao peeks on him while


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he is naked in bath. When he arrives in Chu, he discusses the future relationship between the Jin and Chu states with the King of Chu. In Qin, after having offended Huaiying, he keeps himself in captivity and asks for forgiveness. Chong’er’s experience of being on exile for more than a decade is presented in all its turbulence. It was possible that Chong’er’s exile had already been a well-known story; accordingly both the Zuo Commentary and the Conversations of the States contain interesting contents about it. We can perceive in these stories that in the character of Chong’er, there is the side of hankering for ease and comfort and of being arrogant and willful, but there is also the other side, that of holding great expectations for himself and being good at self-control. Some details are quite lively: The Earl of Qin presented [to him] five women, and Huaiying was among [them]. [She] held a container and poured water [from it for him] to wash [himself ]. After [he was] done, [he] waved his hands at her. [She] said in a fury: “Qin and Jin are equals. Why humiliate me?” The prince was scared, changed into humble clothes, and kept [himself] in captivity.1

Huaiying, the daughter of Duke Mu of Qin, is formerly married to Duke Huai of Jin (Chong’er’s nephew), and is remarried to Chong’er. Holding a container in her hands, she pours water for Chong’er to wash his hands. When Chong’er finishes with washing, he waves his wet hands at her. It is no more than the willful manner of a young aristocrat, but Huaiying thinks it is a humiliation of her, so she becomes angry. At the time, Chong’er is asking the state of Qin to help him to return to Jin and to take back the power, so how dare he offend Huaiying? He has no option but to ask for forgiveness by means of a solemn protocol. This section of the writing, short as it is, discloses the state of mind of the two people under their respective situation. Furthermore, from this short section, we may also notice that the language of the Zuo Commentary still appears excessively terse; in particular, too frequently, the subject of the sentence is missing in the text. It indicates that the literary Chinese was still in the early stage of development.

1 Those placed within the brackets are not in the original Chinese text, but have to be added to make sense in English. Check this with the comments towards the end of the subsequent paragraph.

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In the entire history of Chinese literature, the production of fiction and drama was quite late, but literary elements related to them, especially the “touch of fiction” as noted in the above, were unlikely to have emerged very late. However, they had to be nurtured within the “mother’s body” of historical writings for a long time before they became detached from it. The Zuo Commentary, as it turned out, was the first work of history that contained rich literary elements of the kind. It exerted a direct influence on the style of writing in the Intrigues of the Warring States and the Historical Records, initiating the convention of incorporating literature into history. Such a convention not only offered an experience for the composition of fiction and drama in later times, but also provided a rich amount of subject matter for theses genres. The Conversations of the States is sectioned by various states and mainly keeps records of speeches and conversations, hence the title. (Some sections of the book, however, are of a narrative nature.) The layout of the book is not so systematic and coherent. The historical events involved in the work, from the eight states of Zhou, Lu, Qi, Jin, Zheng, Chu, Wu and Yue, are uneven in their respective length and details. Among them, the 9-volume “Conversations of Jin” takes nearly half of the work; the dating of its record starts from King Mu of Zhou and ends with the early years of the Warring States period, covering a total of more than five hundred years. Except for the “Conversations of Zhou,” which is more coherent and consistent, only some individual events are recorded in details for all the other states. Accordingly, some scholars have observed that the firsthand material obtained by the author was probably in fragments, and what he engaged in was primarily the task of compiling and collating of data and material. As regards the author of the Conversations of the States, Sima Qian has remarked, in “A Letter in Reply to Ren An,” that it was also by Zuoqiu Ming, but it has been controversial ever since. Today, it is generally considered to have been written during the early years of the Warring States period by an anonymous author. This work dates roughly from the same time as the Zuo Commentary, but scholars have not reached a consensus about any specific dating and on the question which work was produced earlier. The Conversations of the States, though in many ways different from the Zuo Commentary, shares some common features with the latter as it is likewise a work that has combined official documents and orally transmitted stories. For example, while some of the lengthy


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discussions related with important historical events in the book may have been based on written documents, some other speeches, in fragments and more interesting, are more likely to have been embellishment from orally transmitted tales. In general, the Conversations of the States is not as refined as the Zuo Commentary in terms of its narratives, though some parts of it are just as fine. The story of the “Disaster of Consort Li” in “Conversations from the Jin,” for one example, is more detailed and complicated than that in the Zuo Commentary. In one section, it tells how Consort Li wants to frame Shen Sheng, the crown prince, but is afraid that Li Ke, a senior minister, may intervene, so a jester in her service, Shi, offers to go to Li Ke on her behalf to persuade him to stay aside. He invites Li Ke for a drink, and then gets up to sing and dance in the middle, making a hint to Li Ke that something is going to happen and that the latter should take efforts to protect himself. Li Ke comes to realize that there is something big going on politically from what Jester Shi says, so he summons the latter at midnight, and finds out from him that “the sovereign (referring to Duke Xian) has already promised Consort Li to kill the crown prince and establish Xiqi as his successor.” Accordingly he reaches a political bargain with Consort Li’s party by promising to observe neutrality. This part of the story, about a conspiracy in the palace, not only contains great drama but also depicts well what goes on in the mind of the characters. In addition, the “Conversations from the Wu” and the “Conversations from the Yue,” which focus on the events of the contention for supremacy between the states of Wu and Yue and that of Goujian taking his revenge to wipe out his humiliation, are likewise brilliant in presenting stories with many a climax. The Intrigues of the Warring States The Intrigues of the Warring States is a work compiled by Liu Xiang of the Western Han dynasty, who put together in it numerous writings of the same category filed in the central government’s archives, all about the activities of political counselors of the Warring States period. The book was not written by any single author, and nothing is known about any of them. The materials included in the work were mostly from the Warring States period, with a few pieces from the Qin and early Han. The title of the book was coined up by Liu Xiang. It consists of thirty-three chapters arranged by various states, each including a number of individual pieces. In general, the dating of its narration

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starts from the end of the Spring and Autumn Annals and closes with the unification of the country under the Qin. In his lifetime, Liu Xiang already came upon numerous works about the activities of political counselors of the Warring States period (see “An Account about the Intrigues of the Warring States”). Among the relics from the 1973 Han dynasty tomb excavation at Mawangdui, there was also a book copied on silk, in twenty-seven chapters, that falls under the same category. It was later entitled the Records of the Political Strategists of the Warring States Period. Evidently such books were popular at one time. It was because the Warring States period was an age of violent annexations. States competed for power and tried to gain the upper hand on one another by resourcefulness, so alignments and divisions were taking place all the time. Such a special background led to the urgent need for those with ability and wisdom and also provided a big stage for their performance. Books like the Intrigues of the Warring States were probably authored by political counselors themselves. Besides singing the praise of the historical significance of political counselors, they perhaps also meant to provide models of practice for those who wanted to engage themselves in the profession. By custom the Intrigues of the Warring States has been classified as a work of history, but it is actually quite different from the Zuo Commentary and the Conversations of the States. While the latter also contain some contents of embellishment in its search for the “touch of fiction,” those are attached to historical facts. Some of the accounts in the Intrigues of the Warring States, on the other hand, cannot be considered as historical facts at all. For instance, the famous section of “Tang Ju Bullies the King of Qin” in the “Intrigues of Wei” tells how Tang Ju holds a sword in hand and bullies Yingzheng, the King of Qin (the First Emperor), in the Qin court. Scholars have long since pointed out by that it was absolutely impossible in reality. It is a complicated task to discuss how much of the contents of the Intrigues of the Warring States may match historical facts. In general, however, we may say that in composing those historical tales, their authors had little, if any, concern for authenticity. The ideological mentality of the Intrigues of the Warring States is also quite noticeable. It was an age when material benefit was treasured and the refinement of moral virtues was ignored. Political counselors used their ability and wisdom to win rank and wealth, and they mostly regarded personal success as their primary pursuit. For example, the


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“Intrigues of Qin” tells how Su Qin first uses the scheme of “horizontal alignment” in advising the King of Qin to unify “all under heaven,” and then uses the theory of “vertical alliance” in advising the King of Zhao to form a union with the six states against Qin. On coming home after his failure to persuade Qin, he is disdained by his entire family. Later, after he becomes rich and powerful, he returns to his home land, and now his parents, his wife, and his sister-in-law are all extremely respectful to him. He says in indignation: Alas! When someone is poor, his parents disown him as a son; when he is rich and powerful, his relatives are in awe of him. In a man’s life, how could anyone neglect rank and wealth?

In an appreciative tone, the author describes Su Qin’s complacence and pride. It is certainly not so graceful, and may be unworthy of praise, but in its keen observation, it grasps the grim reality. The Intrigues of the Warring States went through relatively little ideological restriction, and it was not at all bound by historical truth (from the perspective of historiography it is certainly a defect), so it sounds more lively and vivid when compared to previous works of history. From the outlook of literature, the development in the Intrigues of the Warring States is mainly represented in the following two aspects. First, it is beautiful in language. Regarding this, it should be noted in the first place that the language of the Intrigues of the Warring States, when compared with that of the Zuo Commentary and the Conversations of the States, has gone through great changes. It is lucid, lively, eloquent, free-going and diverse in style. The syntactic incoherence due to excessive ellipsis, and the inconsistency and disconnection of sentences, which appear so often in the latter two, are rarely found here. Both in the narration of events and in the reasoning of arguments, the Intrigues of the Warring States has become more eloquent and expressive. In addition, colorful rhetoric is widely used in the Intrigues of the Warring States for the purpose of moving its reader. In particular, figures of speech like elaboration and hyperbole are used to build up a lively and vivacious atmosphere. Here, language is not used only as a rational tool to explain fact and reason, but also serves to express emotions directly. Sections like “Su Qin Initiates the Horizontal Alignment” and “Zhuang Xin Persuades King Xiang of Chu” are outstanding illustrations of this aspect. Second, the Intrigues of the Warring States is more skilled in characterization. In the Zuo Commentary and the Conversations of the States,

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characterization is no more than simple outlining in most cases; there are some individual examples where some of the personality of the characters is revealed, but they in general sound rather sweeping. Take the example of Chong’er asking for Huaiying’s forgiveness as cited in the above, one has to think carefully to understand everything. In the Intrigues of the Warring States, however, there has already been a transition from event orientation to character orientation, so its description of characters is more detailed and meticulous and, accordingly, more lively and vivid. The “Intrigues of Qi,” for instance, tells the story of Feng Xuan. It starts by recounting how he taps at his sword three times and sings, asking for better material treatment, which displays his peculiar and deliberately mystifying personality. Subsequently, a series of tales with great drama, from “Feng Xuan Signs on for the Task of Accounting,” “Issuing False Order to Burn the Deeds,” “Purchasing Righteousness and Reporting Back,” and “Planning for the Reappointment as Prime Minister,” to “Asking to Build an Ancestral Shrine,” depict the graceful bearing of this unusual man of great talent, his courage and insight, his astuteness and resourcefulness, and at the same time, also how he is inordinately proud of his capabilities. The stories in the Intrigues of the Warring States frequently carry the obvious vestige of the fictitious; under the circumstances, the strife for meticulous and vivid characterization, here and there, give them a touch of fiction. In addition, the political counselors in the Intrigues of the Warring States often cite zestful fables in their speeches, which help to make their arguments by literary means. These fables, vividly graphic and with profound meanings, have become gems in the treasury of Chinese literature: “When the Snipe and the Clam Grapple, It’s the Fisherman Who Stands to Profit,” “Draw a Snake and Add Feet to It,” “The Fox Borrows the Might of the Tiger,” “To Mend the Fold after the Sheep Is Lost,” and “To Head for the South while Driving the Chariot North,”—they have long since become known to every household through the ages.

2. Prose of the Masters What is known as the Prose of the Masters refers to the writings elucidating their respective theories from the various academic schools of the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States periods, a product


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of the “Contention of the Hundred Schools of Thought.” It developed with the common practice of debate during the flourish of academic discussion at the time, with a primary tendency that moved from simplicity to complexity, from fragmentation to neat structure. The later the writings were, the larger the scale and the more close-knit their organization. Such a development was not made through the achievements of a literary nature, but it provided the ground for the advancement of literature. Of such writings, the Mencius and the Zhuangzi have the strongest literary qualities. The Laozi, the Analects, and the Mozi The dating of the book of Laozi, a canonical text of Taoism, has always been controversial. In recent years, with the excavation of some underground relics, especially with the 1993 discovery, at Guodian in Hubei, of the bamboo slip version of the Laozi in the Chu tomb from the Middle Warring States period, it has been affirmed that the work was produced during the last years of the Spring and Autumn period and was earlier than the Analects. However, the Laozi was unlikely to be by any single author in its entirety. Quite a number of maxims in the Zuo Commentary are clearly similar to those in the Laozi, and a few of these may even be traced all the way back to the inscriptions on the bronze vessels of the Western Zhou period. Obviously, some of the contents of the Laozi had been in circulation since early times, and were compiled and edited into a book later. “Laozi,” presumably the author of the book, was also a somewhat legendary figure. Regarding his life, Sima Qian’s Historical Records cites three different versions, the most famous of which states that Laozi was “an official of the storehouse” of the Zhou royal court, that his surname was Li and his given name was Er, with a style of Dan, and that Confucius once consulted him on the issue of “rites.” He was probably the one who finalized the book of Laozi. The Laozi is a politics-oriented work of philosophy that also involves the principles of individual conduct in society. It is different in style from the quotations in the Analects, nor is it like that of the “literary composition” in the general sense of the term. The complete book is about five thousand Chinese characters in length, and is divided into eighty-one sections, each of which is roughly centered on, or consistent about, a certain theme. However, the book is not so tightly structured, and there are frequent repetitions back and forth. In terms of

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contents, it consists of mostly short and pithy philosophical aphorisms, primarily in rhyme—though the rhyming was originally meant less for elegance than for the convenience of memorizing. For example, in the thirty-sixth section, it says, If one wants to compress something, one must first stretch it. If one wants to weaken something, one must first strengthen it. If one wants to dispose of something, one must first uplift it. If one wants to seize something, one must first give it away. This is what is called a subtle illumination.

In short, the book of Laozi is indeed a written handbook of the orally transmitted mottos from the system of classical Taoism. The gradual transformation from orally transmitted culture into written documents was in fact one of the special features of the cultural development of the Spring and Autumn period. The Analects is a record of the sayings of Confucius (551–479 B.C.). The Treatise on Arts in History of the Han says, “At the time, the disciples each took notes. After the Master passed away, the disciples discussed with one another and put together their notes in a collection, and it was entitled the Analects.” The book is rather loose in form and has no systematic organization, nor does the order of the book reveal any strict principles. The Analects abounds with terse, pithy sayings that are philosophical and stimulating, showing that Confucius often had a profound understanding of life and society. “To study without thinking is confounding; to think without studying is precarious.” (Book II) “Only when it turns cold will one know that the pine and cypress are the last to wither in the year.” (Book IX) Sayings like these have become popular, frequently cited proverbs in later ages. At the time, however, when Confucius was talking with his disciples, it was unlikely that he would say something like that, and then simply stopped. It could be the topic or the conclusion of a discussion. Obviously, the Analects still preserves the special feature of transforming thought into the form of aphorism for the convenience of memorizing—a common practice before Confucius. Confucius was for a long time a professional educator. Sayings that were jotted down or recalled by his disciples must have existed in a great number. Which among them were worthy to be included in the Analects? Those that were most representative of the thought and theory of Confucius were certainly indispensable. In addition, those that


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inspired everyone or those which were extremely interesting: probably they were easier to call to mind? Sayings in the latter category, due to the emotions involved or their zestfulness, demonstrate a literary flavor. For instance, in Book VII, “The Master said, ‘Eating coarse food at meals, drinking water, and using one’s bended arm as a pillow—a joy is to be found in this!” It reveals Kong Qiu’s somewhat poetic attitude towards life. Among the Confucian disciples, Zilu was the crudest, rashest and most straightforward one in character, which often led to his conflict with Kong Qiu. Dialogues between the two display much characterization. Once, Zilu asks Kong Qiu what his priority will be if the ruler of Wei asks him to take charge of state affairs. Kong Qiu says, “What must be done is the rectification of names.” Zilu ridicules him: “You really think so? What a pedant you are! What is there to rectify?” Confucius chides him: “Uncouth indeed, you! A gentleman should hold in when it comes to something he does not know.” Then he elaborates on the major principle of how the rectifying of names should precede all of governing. On another occasion, Kong Qiu goes to meet with Nanzi, the wife of Duke Ling of Wei, and Zilu is unhappy about it, on which Kong Qiu has to swear and curse: “If I have done anything improper, may Heaven renounce me, may Heaven renounce me!” This brings out the tone of speaking at the time, indicating that Kong Qiu has no choice but to put up with this disciple. Having died before Confucius, Zilu was missed by everyone, so his disputes with the teacher seemed to have been well remembered by all. In Book XI, a relatively lengthy section recounts how Kong Qiu, while in the company of Zilu, Zeng Xi, Ran You, and Gongxi Hua, asks them to tell their respective wish. It reveals their different character in comparison and contrast. Zilu abruptly rushes to reply before everyone else and makes some big talk. Ran You and Gongxi Hua tell their wish in modest language. Then, it is Zeng Xi’s turn: He stopped strumming his zither, and while it was still twanging, he put the zither aside and rose, saying: “I’m different from the three of them.” The Master said: “What does it matter? It’s only to talk about your respective aspiration.” Zeng Xi replied: “In late spring, after the spring clothes are made, in the company of five or six capped men,2 and six or seven boys, I would like to bathe in the Yi River, enjoy the cool

2 In pre-modern China, capping was a custom symbolizing manhood for young men who reached the age of twenty, somewhat similar to the ancient Roman ceremony of boys assuming the toga virilis at the age of fifteen.

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chapter three breeze at the Rain Altar, and then return, singing all the way.” The Master signed deeply and said: “I am with Dian (Zeng Xi’s style)!”

This section is not only vivid in tone, but also contains a simple story line and some description of the scene. Zeng Xi’s response, in particular, has a sense of beauty. All this makes it an extraordinary passage in the Analects. Along this trajectory, writings with the special features of both quotations and articles, like the book of Mencius, were to emerge. The Mozi, a book by Mo Di and his disciples and also his followers in later generations, is a collection of Mohist writings. It had seventy-one chapters during the Han dynasty, but only fifty-three are extant today. Mo Di lived roughly in between Confucius and Mencius, between the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period. He was said to have been a native of the Song state who lived for a long time in the state of Lu. A former Confucian, he established the Mohist school in opposition to the Confucian school, which became popular at one time and was numbered among one of the “illustrious and influential schools of thought.” Contents of argumentation of a systematic nature, not to be found previously in the Laozi and the Analects, appear in the book of Mozi, such as the doctrine of “universal love,” in opposition to the Confucian hierarchy which, based on the patriarchal clan system, differentiates the close and the distant, and the senior and junior, among relatives, the idea of the “condemnation of military offense,” which takes issue with the war for the purpose of plundering among the states, and the plea for “austerity in funerals” and “frugality in spending,” which goes against extravagant life styles and the institution of rites and music, etc. Each of the chapters of the book has a clear subject matter and is in greater length; the logic is strong, and it is skilled at using detailed examples in its reasoning. Its statement of ideas, having completely broken away from the form of aphorism and fragments, made it the earliest expository prose, in the strict sense of the word, in ancient times. It indicates that, with the intensifying ideological conflict of various schools of thought, there came a great change in prose writing. In that respect, the Mozi holds a pivotal place in the history of Chinese prose.


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Meng Ke and the Mencius Meng Ke (ca. 372–ca. 289 B.C.), a native of the Zou state (Zou County, Shandong today), lived during the early Warring States period. A descendant of the family of Meng Sun, an aristocrat of the Lu state, he claimed to have modeled himself after Confucius. Indeed he carried forward the theory of Confucius and became another great Confucian master, and came to be honored as the “Second Sage” in later times. His conduct in life was also similar to that of Confucius, having taken quite a number of disciples, and led them in traveling from state to state, drumming up support for his ideas. All the states were competing with one another by force; he, instead, advocated governing by virtue, preached benevolence and righteousness, and did not talk about profit, so eventually he failed to get any appointment. The Mencius consists of seven chapters. It has been classified as in the style of quotations, but is actually quite different from the Analects. In the first place, Mencius himself took a direct part in its composition, so he was able to express his thinking and feeling in a systematic way. While it has preserved the basic form of the recording of dialogues, it has actually gone through a meticulous treatment. In addition, many passages are centered on a certain theme and are developed step by step, the structure is tight and the reasoning is cogent; if entitled, they may readily turn into individual articles. As regards the prose of the pre-Qin thinkers, the Mencius and the Zhuangzi have the strongest literary features. In personality, Meng Ke was not as deep and serious as Confucius; instead he was a proud man who thought highly of himself and constantly made a display of his abilities. Whenever he bandied words with someone, he strove to prevail. Accordingly his writings not only focus on reasoning in a logical way, but also display a strong emotional coloring. In style, it never sounds like hemming and hawing; it is easy to understand, and reads smoothly; it is free from crude expressions, and is fond of using successive sentences of parallelism. All these form an outstanding aspect of the prose of the Mencius, namely, its forceful momentum, like that of the towering waves of a great river, rushing forward in majesty and pushing their way around, aggressive and overbearing in manner. The following is an illustration of this: In counseling the great, one should despise them. Don’t look at their pomp and circumstance. A hall several rods high, with beams stretching out for several feet—if I were to succeed in life, I won’t have any like

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chapter three it. Food spread out for an area of several yards in front, with several hundred maids in attendance—if I were to succeed in life, I won’t have any of these. Indulging oneself in pleasure and wine, galloping across the fields on a hunting trip with thousands of chariots following behind—if I were to succeed in life, it is not what I would like to have. What they own is what I have nothing to do with, and what I honor are the rules of the ancients. Why should I be in awe of them? (Book VII B)

The literary qualities of the Mencius are also demonstrated in its skillful use of figures of speech and fables, which helps to reason through imagery. It keeps the writing from being dry and dull that may result from abstract argument and analysis, and manages to keep a free flow of emotions during the reasoning process. While it is a common practice in the writings of the Warring States period to make frequent use of fables, its use in the Mencius is particularly brilliant, as in the following example: A native of Qi had a wife and a concubine, and he lived with them at his home. Whenever the husband went out, he always returned after having sated himself with meat and wine. His wife asked him whom he dined with, and he would always say it was with the rich and honorable. His wife said to his concubine: “Whenever our husband went out, he would always return after having sated himself with meat and wine. When I asked him whom he dined with, he would always say it was with the rich and honorable. However, no notable has ever come to visit us. I will scout out where our husband goes.” She got up early in the morning, and secretly followed in the wake of her husband. In the entire town, no one stood still to talk with him. At last he arrived at the tombs beyond the east outer wall of the town where people were making sacrificial offerings, and begged for what was left. It was not enough, so he looked around and went to another party. That was the way he satiated himself. His wife returned and told his concubine, saying: “A husband is someone we look up to and depend upon for life, but now— to have someone like that!” Along with the concubine she denounced the husband, and both wept in the hall. The husband, meanwhile, had no knowledge of this and came in gleefully, looking proud in front of his wife and concubine. In a gentleman’s view, among those who seek rank, wealth, profit and power, few of their wives and concubines are not ashamed of them, and few will not weep together for their sake! (Book IV B)

This is an excellent tale of satire. In particular, at its ending, someone whose despicable personality has already been exposed appears dignified


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and self-conceited nonetheless, and a strong comic effect is hereby achieved. It also demonstrates the author’s wit and sharpness. The prose of the Mencius has exerted a lasting influence in later times. A combination of sense and sensibility, it has provided a superb model for writers who would like to incorporate personal feeling in reasoning. Zhuang Zhou and the Zhuangzi Zhuang Zhou, a native of Meng of the Song state (northeast of Shangqiu County, Henan today), lived in approximately the same time as Mencius, though he was perhaps slightly younger in age. He only served as a low-ranking local agent at Qiyuan at one time. According to a record in the book of Zhuangzi, he lived in a humble neighborhood, and had to make a living by shoe-making at hard times, looking lean and haggard. However, when the king of Chu dispatched someone to see him with an invitation to appoint him as the Grand Councilor of the state, he declined, saying that to become an official would harm the original nature of a human being, and it would be better to derive pleasure from living in poverty by himself. It is most likely to be a mere fable, but it more or less reflects Zhuangzi’s living conditions and his outlook on life. According to the Treatise on Arts in History of the Han, the book of Zhuangzi included fifty-two chapters, out of which only thirty-three are extant today. It has been generally agreed upon that the seven “Inner Chapters” were written by Zhuangzi himself, while the fifteen “Outer Chapters” and the eleven “Miscellaneous Chapters” include works by Zhuangzi’s disciples and Taoists of later times. However, complex issues are involved in this respect, as the writings cited in the Historical Records as an introduction of Zhuangzi’s thought are mainly from the outer and the miscellaneous chapters. Therefore in what follows we shall consider the book of Zhuangzi in its entirety. The theories in the Zhuangzi have often been placed side by side with those in the Laozi, and referred to as “the Thought of LaoZhuang.” As a matter of fact, they are quite different from each other. The Laozi focuses on political philosophy, while the Zhuangzi concentrates on finding ways for the individual to achieve self-liberation and self-preservation in a dark, grim society. Zhuangzi has come to the penetrating understanding that the institutions of rite and law, and the moral principles of his society, are primarily tools to safeguard

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ruling, and he believes that the pursuit after worldly success and honor will only harm the individual, and has no significance whatsoever. To him the value of human life lies only in the “perfection of human nature and preservation of trueness”—to reach perfection by experiencing and understanding the “Way (Dao),” namely, the essence of the universe. The Zhuangzi reveals a contradictory philosophy of life. The author believes that, in the reality of social relations and practices for existence, the individual can accomplish nothing whatsoever, and in order to stay away from conflict and danger, one might as well go along with common customs, and compromise for the sake of safety. On the other hand, in the world of idea and imagination, the author longs for the extrication from all spiritual restrictions, and seeks an absolute freedom that transcends the limit of time and space. As regards the prose of the pre-Qin thinkers, the Zhuangzi has the strongest literary merits and has made the highest literary achievement. This is, first of all, due to the combination of the thinking of a philosopher and the temperament of a poet in Zhuangzi and his disciples. What they think about are questions about life’s significance and the possibility of a perfect life, and when people explore into such questions with the experience of life’s reality and with passion, poetry and philosophy have become inseparable from each other. An illustration of that is found in a section of the chapter “The Ultimate Happiness”: On his way to Chu, Zhuangzi saw a skull that was empty, dried up, but retained its shape. Poking it with his horse whip, he hereby asked: “Did you, sir, come to this because of your greed for life and your perversity? Was your state destroyed, and you were executed by axe, so that you came to this? Did you come to this because you did something evil, and was ashamed that you might bring your parents and family to disgrace? Did you suffer from freezing cold and hunger and came to this? Or did your springs and autumns stock up, bringing you to this?”

In Zhuangzi’s volley of questions to the skull, we share a sense of the sentimental: a human being not only has to die eventually, and moreover, one often dies before one has reached the limit of one’s life span, and in the defeats of existence—why is life like this? An important literary aspect of the Zhuangzi is displayed in its use of artistic imagination to delineate the world of an ideal life and to express its author’s philosophy. Unlike other writings of the Warring States period which also make use of fables in their argumentation, Zhuangzi and company have a keen sense of brutal reality and life’s


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helplessness, so they feel the need to soar high spiritually in a grandiose, spectacular, indistinct and fantastic world of fancy and imagination. From a theoretical perspective, the school of Zhuangzi has always maintained that “words cannot fully express intention,” so there is frequently a deliberate shunning of logical analysis. Many chapters in the Zhuangzi, such as “Free Wandering,” “The Human World,” “The Virtue of Nature,” and “Autumn Floods,” are composed by weaving a series of fables, mythological tales, and fictitious stories of human figures into one piece, and the author’s thought is blended into the stories or the dialogues of humans or animals, as in the following example: In the northern sea there was a fish by the name of Kun. The Kun was so big that no one knew how many thousand miles it was in length. It transformed into a bird by the name of Peng. No one knew how many thousand miles the width of Peng’s back was. When it was in a rage and flew up, its wings were like clouds hanging across the sky. With the movement of the sea, the bird was about to move to the southern sea. The southern sea was actually the pool of heaven. Qi Xie was someone who kept record of the supernatural. To cite Xie’s saying, “When the Peng moved to the southern sea, waters splashed up for three thousand miles, and like a torrent they went up to as high as ninety thousand miles. The move was made possible by the wind in the sixth month.” Like wild horses, like dust in the air, living creatures blow against one another, all in the wind! The sky is blue, oh so blue, but is it its true color? It is far, oh so far, but is it so far that one can never see its end? When one looks beneath from up there, it may be exactly the same as this! . . . The cicada and the turtledove laughed at it, saying, “When we are roused to fly up, once we run into an elm or a sandalwood tree we will stop there. Sometimes we are not even able to reach that; then we will simply drop onto the ground. Why should anyone go ninety thousand miles southward?” One who makes a trip to the suburbs will take three meals and on returning, one’s stomach is still full. One who travels to a hundred miles away has to prepare for one’s food the night before. One who travels for a thousand miles has to spend three months storing one’s food. Now as regards these two little creatures, what do they know? (“Free Wandering”)

The main theme of “Free Wandering” is the ultimate pleasure of the human spirit which manages to get free from all worldly restrictions, becomes unified with the great Way, and travels in the boundless space. Accordingly, at the very beginning the great bird, Peng, flies up to the blue sky and soars far away for thousands of miles—a stimulating and inspiring description indeed. Zhuangzi and his company seem to be genius of the fantastic. In their writings, stories of imagination

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and fancy scenes abound in great variety and a spectrum of dazzling colors. The composition in the Zhuangzi is also idiosyncratic in its structure: it does not seem to be particularly tight, often starts abruptly and is full of twists and turns. Forceful and unrestrained in style, it is varied and unpredictable, and yet its train of thought is always clear. Its syntax shows a great variety likewise: normal and inverted word order alternate, long and short sentences succeed one another in turns, making it sound free and easy. Its diction, extremely rich and exquisite, facilitates its detailed description as well as its full expression of contents and feelings. It frequently rhymes in an irregular way; casual and random, it nevertheless matches the rhythm and beat of the writing. All these display a literary sense of beauty and originality. In the Zhuangzi, the ideas that center on the spiritual freedom of the individual and, in association with such ideas, the literary style that is rich in imagination and originality, carve a great niche for this work in the history of Chinese thought and literature. Many great writers of later times were under its influence. The Xunzi and the Hanfeizi Xun Kuang, the last great thinker among pre-Qin Confucians, lived during the last years of the Warring States period. He once studied in Qi. Then he went to Chu, where he was appointed by Lord Chunshen as the Magistrate of Lanling. His writings were compiled into the Xunzi, a book of thirty-two chapters. Xunzi’s attitude towards society and culture is marked by an emphasis on political and ethical practicality, with the demand that everything follows the way of the sage kings as Confucianism has prescribed. The articles in the book of Xunzi put his ideas into practice. The book has an integral system and involves a broad range of subject matters, most of which make lengthy academic essays on exclusive topics that include society, politics, ethics, education, etc. The work sets forth clear-cut arguments, with well-knit reasoning and tight structure, and is in a plain and profound style. It is skilled in citing as illustrations phenomena from both nature and everyday life. Figures of speech are widely and cleverly used. Ideas are meticulously expounded. While its wording is mostly concise and plain, detailed elaboration and sentences of parallelism are often used in an orderly and eloquent way, rendering it easier to be recited. In short, it is a kind of writing that


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makes all efforts to facilitate the acceptance of its ideas on the part of the reader. In the Xunzi there is a group of five pieces known as the “Chapter of the Rhapsodies,” which include “Rite,” “Intelligence,” “Cloud,” “Silkworm,” and “Needle.” They are in the form of catechism in which the first half sets up a riddle and the latter half solves the riddle. Elements of moral preaching are incorporated into the description. The format may have originated from popular folk literature, and they are of some value for the study of the origin of the Han rhapsody. In addition, there is a “Chapter of Playing the Tune,” which advocates the author’s political thought in the form of folk songs: Please play the tune. The disaster of this world lies in the dumb dumbness that destroys fine talents. A ruler of men, without talents around, is like a blind man without someone to help him walk—how forlorn!

The format, using a sprightly rhythm and reading smoothly, makes a valuable study of ancient folk rhyme. It is worthy of notice that Xunzi attached great importance to the practical usage of popular literature. Han Fei (ca. 280–ca. 233 B.C.) was a disciple of Xunzi’s, but ideologically he represented the Legalists. The First Emperor of Qin admired him after having read some of his writings, and invited him to the state of Qin. Later, he was framed by Li Si, a fellow student of his, and he was put in prison where he committed suicide. Han Fei was a smart and deep intellect with a thorough understanding of worldly wisdom. Having no faith in any nice human feelings, he only believed in using profit as an impetus and harm as a restriction for human beings. The fifty-five chapters of the book of Hanfeizi construct a set of extremely totalitarian methods and theories about the strict control of people. Han Fei’s writings have some distinctive features of their own. The author knows how to make use of all and sundry means to elucidate his own thought. In terms of its cogent logic, meticulous argumentation, and succinct organization, it even excels the Xunzi. The author likes to provide a penetrating explication of his points by going through a step-by-step reasoning, so the compositions are mostly of great length. (“The Five Worms,” for instance, is in approximately four thousand Chinese characters.) Due to the keenness of his thinking and his great confidence, he assumes a firm and imperious tone, and is incisive and sharp in style. He is also skilled in making abundant use of metaphors and fables to prove his points, which makes the composition more lively and convincing.

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Both Xun Kuang and Han Fei give priority to practicality. In terms of the maturity of written language and the improvement of expressive power, however, the Xunzi and the Hanfeizi are landmarks of the new elevation in the development of the pre-Qin prose of argumentation, and they are significant in the history of literature as well.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE RHAPSODY OF THE QIN AND HAN

After a lengthy process of cohesion and fusion, China entered the age of Qin and Han, a period of more than four hundred years characterized by a unified nation and a centralized government, which has been called by some historians the “First Empire” in Chinese history. The downfall of the Qin and the subsequent rise of the Western Han, followed by the downfall of the Western Han and the subsequent rise of the Eastern Han, did take place in the period, but the years of upheaval were not so long, and the basic political system remained consistent. It was only after the middle years of the Eastern Han that the centralization of state power began to move gradually towards disintegration. A unified autocratic feudal monarchy needed correlative measures of thought and culture to uphold and strengthen its rule: the First Emperor of Qin tried to keep an ideological control by burning books, but it was not really materialized until Emperor Wu of Han adopted Dong Zhongshu’s proposal, the policy of “banishing the hundred schools and honoring Confucianism alone.” The Confucianism that won the status of being “honored alone” had gone through some reform: it absorbed some useful parts of the thought of Confucius and Mencius, and mixed them up with the thought of the School of Yin and Yang and the Legalists. What took shape as a result was a pragmatic theory that regarded the upholding of the imperial power as the ultimate purpose and one that blended politics, religion, ethics and law into unity. It depended upon the explication of the primary Confucian classics, so it was also known as the “Study of Classics.” In political institution, the rulers placed the reading of classics in close connection with the official career of the educated; accordingly the thought and culture of the two Han dynasties were mostly under the influence of the Study of Classics. The establishment of feudal autocracy and ideological control, naturally, restricted the free development of academic learning and culture to an extremely severe extent. The liberal and lively atmosphere of the “Contention of the Hundred Schools” of the Warring States period quickly receded. Confucianism itself, however, contained the idea of

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fine-tuning social relations and stabilizing social order through cultural means; and due to the continuous economic development, the ruling class also felt a need for the enjoyment of spiritual culture in addition to material comfort. Consequently, during the age of the Qin and Han, while the culture did suffer some setbacks and retreats in its development, it also made considerable achievements in spite of all the restrictions. Under the specific social circumstances, the rhapsody, due to some of its generic features, became the mainstream of literary composition during the age of the Qin and Han (primarily during the Han).

1. The Background of the Flourish of the Rhapsody and Its Characteristics The term “rhapsody (rhyme-prose),” used in a general sense, refers to The Songs of the South, works of the Qin and Han times that modeled after The Songs of the South in style with some of the features of lyric poetry, as well as works somewhat in between poetry and prose in nature, focusing on the delineation of objects, which emerged during the Han dynasty. The flourish of the rhapsody was, in the first place, related to some of the inclinations that had already been found in pre-Qin literature. We know that in the last years of the Warring States period, works by Qu Yuan and others in The Songs of the South already reached a remarkably high standard, and also, as discussed previously, in the royal court of the state of Chu at the time and shortly afterwards, there had already emerged a group of rhyme-prose writers. In addition, from the lines in the “Great Summons”: “Two teams of eight join in a dance, to the chanting of poetry and rhapsodies,” as well as from the title of the “Chapter of the Rhapsodies” in the Xunzi, the term “rhapsody,” as the name for a literary genre with a broad range of meanings, should have been established before the Han dynasty. Another point worthy of note was that, judging from the Intrigues of the Warring States and similar prose works, those who belonged to the so-called “Wandering Elite” of the late Warring States period were mostly well educated in literary composition, and were fond of expressing themselves in elaborate and exquisite language. One may infer that at the time, in order to become a member of the “Elite” one had to go through some kind of philological training. Certainly, neither the works of Qu Yuan and

the rhapsody of the qin and han

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Song Yu, nor the pieces in the Intrigues of the Warring States, were composed with an artistic purpose initially; rather they were written for the purpose of expressing their political views and persuading their audience. However, it cannot be denied that the inclination toward elaboration and exquisiteness in the rhapsody and literary composition was due to a kind of “intoxication with language,” a kind of selfcomfort or spiritual satisfaction that was carried out in a world created by words. In other words, artistic features were gradually rising to the foreground in such works. The Chu state had been more developed than other states in its literature and arts, and it was also the place where the ruling clique of the imperial Han rose to power, accordingly it provided excellent conditions for the flourish of the rhapsody during the Han dynasty. A unified empire created the environment of a booming economy and strong state power, and it also demanded a relevant literature to represent itself and to satisfy the spiritual need of its rulers. That the rhapsody reached its prime during Emperor Wu’s reign was directly related to the condition of the state as well as Emperor Wu’s personal interest. As regards the group of writers, the format of training for the Wandering Elite of the Warring States and the basic cultural structure of this social class would not have changed abruptly, though in a dynasty of centralized state power, their life style had to go through some changes. In the early Western Han, the centralized state power and the feudal system of enfeoffment co-existed, and some of the customs and habits from the Warring States still lingered. Most feudal princes liked to rally members of the Elite in their own court. However, since they no longer enjoyed the individual status like the feudal lords of the Warring States period, the members of the Elite in their court were no longer able to use their diplomatic or military activities to win supremacy for their rulers. The members of the Wandering Elite, trained in political strategies, would accordingly give full play to their literary talent, provide some spiritual enjoyment for their rulers, and do no more than making some political proposals or advices. In due course, they transformed themselves into men of letters in the court. After Emperor Wu ascended the throne, out of his personal interest, he spared no effort in rallying men of letters of such kind to the central court, and consequently the rhapsody gained more influence. During the process, some senior bureaucrats, feudal princes, or even the emperors themselves, became writers of the rhapsody.

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Corresponding to the flourish of the rhapsody, two kinds of phenomena with great significance in literary history appeared. First, there emerged a group of men of letters who were engaged exclusively in literary activities. They won official appointment only, or primarily, because of their literary talent, and they picked up literary composition as their main career. This was unprecedented in the pre-Qin era. Second, there emerged a kind of literary composition the ultimate purpose of which was the sense of beauty of language, namely, the rhapsody per se. People of the Han dynasty often emphasized the moral significance of the rhapsody, but the essence of this literary form lies, as a matter of fact, in its meticulous use of beautiful language, orderly sentence patterns, and the structure with a clear step-by-step arrangement of ideas, so as to delineate all kinds of wonderful things and spectacular sights of nature and society, to stimulate the sensibility and imagination of the reader, and to attain an aesthetic pleasure. The number of rhapsodies of the Han dynasty, compared to that of the pre-Qin era, was simply astonishing. In his “Preface” to the “Rhapsody on the Two Capitals,” Ban Gu said that during Emperor Cheng’s reign, some collating was done to rhapsodies that had been presented by people of all sorts to the court since Emperor Wu’s reign and were still preserved at the time, and the total reached more than a thousand pieces. Zhang Heng of the Eastern Han also used the phrase “writers as hot as a seething cauldron” to describe the popularity of the composition of the rhapsody of his time. This constituted the first stage of the flourish of writing in literary history. The success of the rhapsody and its obvious artistic features led to the rising consciousness of the distinctions between literature and non-literature. The Treatise on Arts in History of the Han classified “poetry and rhapsody” as a specific kind, and Historical Records and History of the Han often used the term “literary composition” in referring to works that valued literary elegance like the rhapsody, indicating that an independent literary consciousness had started to take shape at the time. However, the defects of the rhapsody of the Han dynasty are quite obvious. First of all, due to the establishment of feudal autocracy and the strengthening of ideological control, the critical spirit and individuality of the Han literati were clearly declining, and the kind of great confidence, as well as their individual mind that dared to resist the community to which they themselves belonged, as found in the works of Qu Yuan, were nowhere to be found. In addition, because the rhapsody writers were mostly dependent on the emperors, princes, or


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senior bureaucrats, their writings were chiefly not based on their own life experience. As a consequence, even the kind of profound lyricism as found in Song Yu’s “Nine Arguments” was rarely, if ever, seen. Having much to do with the reasons as discussed in the above, the mainstream of the Han rhapsody switched from the format of The Songs of the South to that of the typical Han rhapsody, one that focused on the description of objects and scenes, and on eulogizing. The typical Han rhapsody spared no effort in seeking aesthetic pleasure by stringing together ornate phrases, and it was simply due to the reason that, except for the necessity in eulogizing, there was not much understanding of the art of language of people of the time. On the other hand, we need to point out that the above refers only to the basics of the Han rhapsody. By the middle and late years of the Eastern Han, when the centralized state power gradually disintegrated, there appeared some new phenomena, which will be discussed in detail later. As for the worth of the rhapsody, the evaluations from the people of the Han were quite contradictory. As mentioned in the above, the Han rhapsody was primarily aesthetic and entertaining in nature, so it was not up to the standard of the Study of the Classics. The authors, therefore, would often add some kind of didactic sayings with moral implications in their writings and, by so doing, create a kind of “ethical camouflage.” Those who approved or disapproved the rhapsody were likewise always holding a debate that centered on whether the form had any practical values in political or moral terms. Sima Qian said in his Historical Records, “The gist of Xiangru’s writing, notwithstanding its flamboyant verbiage, leads to the concept of frugality. How is it in any way different from the satire in (The Book of ) Songs?” Here, Sima Xiangru’s rhapsodies were approved on account of their moral significance, while the parts of their ornate elaboration were belittled as “flamboyant verbiage.” Emperor Xuan of the Han said: “Among the rhapsodies, some great ones are as significant as the ancient Songs, and the lesser ones are also pleasant in their graceful wording. It is like in women’s needlework we have damask and gossamer, and in music there is that of Zheng and Wei. People in the world today use them to please the eye and the ear. Compared to them, the rhapsody still has the features of the satire based on humanity and righteousness, and the broad knowledge about flora and fauna, so it is far better than the performance of singers and jesters or the games played with counters!” (“Biography of Wang Bao,” History of the Han) In his opinion, the “great” features of the values of the rhapsody were still the

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“satire based on humanity and righteousness” that was “as significant as the ancient Songs,” namely, its moral and political functions. On the other hand, he also approved the value of the rhapsody as “pleasant in its graceful wording” and being able “to please the eye and the ear,” which was an important step forward. As for Yang Xiong, he pointed out that the moral admonishment in the rhapsody was false and useless; from that, however, he went on to completely deny the worth of the rhapsody. In short, the individuality of literature and the understanding of the evaluation of literature still awaited further development.

2. The Rhapsody of the Qin and the Western Han The Rhapsody of the Qin and the Early Western Han The Qin and the early Western Han marked a period of transition when the rhyme-prose transformed from the format of The Songs of the South to that of the typical Han rhapsody. Talking about the rhyme-prose of the Qin dynasty, the Treatise on Arts in History of the Han mentioned that there were nine pieces of “miscellaneous rhapsodies of the Qin era,” but they were lost, hence there was no discussion of the rhyme-prose of the Qin in previous histories of literature. However, Mr. You Guo’en has pointed out, in A General Discussion of The Songs of the South, that the “Great Summons,” included in The Songs of the South and attributed to “Qu Yuan, or Jing Cuo according to some,” has used the word qing for the black color, a usage which was not found until the last years of the Qin dynasty. In recent years, Professor Zhang Peiheng, based on some further research on the issue, has argued that the work should have been written in the newly founded Chu state in the last years of the Qin, for the purpose of summoning the spirit of King Huai of Chu. Its format is roughly modeled after the “Summons of the Soul,” which begins by saying how it is not livable in the four directions, and then moves on to say how living in Chu is “pleasant beyond description.” The piece carries much description of the music, dance, beautiful women and palaces of the Chu state, in some parts in even finer details than in the “Summons of the Soul,” which reflects the life attitude of the Chu people, who did not shy away from hedonism. The last part praises the virtuous governing of the Chu state, with words like “restrain the


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cruel oppressor,” and so on, representing the political dreams of that anti-Qin regime. In the Western Han, the first important rhapsody writer was Jia Yi (200–168 B.C.). At the early age of twenty-two he already gained the recognition of Emperor Wen of the Han, and participated in the governing of state affairs. But, because of his incisive character and his fondness of discussing social events, he came to be resented by some senior statesmen in the court, and was exiled to the Chu area where he was appointed as the Grand Mentor of the Prince of Changsha. When he crossed the Xiang River on his way to Changsha, Jia Yi composed his “Rhapsody in Mourning for Qu Yuan” in memory of the poet’s life and also in mourning for his own misfortune. It says, Phoenix hides itself while owls soar high; lightweights are glorified, slanderers and flatterers succeed . . . Those commonplace ditches— how could they accommodate giant fish that swallow boats? Whales and leviathans that swim at will in rivers and lakes— they surely will be subdued by ants.

All this, after Qu Yuan’s style, expresses the author’s indignation at being pushed aside and attacked. One day, while Jia Yi was living in exile at Changsha, an owl flew into his room. According to the customs of the time it was a bad omen which implied that “the master will soon depart.” Accordingly Jia Yi wrote the “Rhapsody on the Owl” for self-consolation. To extricate himself from the predicament, the author resorts to the Taoist philosophy which tells how everything in the world changes and transforms without stop, how the good and the bad fortune rest on each other, and how one should remain indifferent to praise or blame, gain or loss, or even life and death. In between the lines, however, one feels an inextricable suffering. Qu Yuan and Jia Yi have been combined into one biography in the Historical Records. In terms of the ways of the expression of feeling, Jia Yi is in fact quite different from Qu Yuan. He certainly is also full of indignation, though without “showing off his talent and promoting himself ” like Qu Yuan; nor does he have the latter’s fantastic imagination. His two rhapsodies, quite short in length, are not fully developed, which may also have something to do with the constraint in the manners of his expression. As regards the style of the two pieces, the first

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half of the “Rhapsody in Mourning for Qu Yuan” mostly uses fourcharacter lines, whereas the second half uses longer lines after the style of The Songs of the South. The “Rhapsody on the Owl” excludes xi, the word of mood, from its lines, which are primarily in orderly fourcharacter pattern; it indicates a gradual move away from the format of The Songs of the South. In the early Western Han, many men of letters gathered in the court of feudal states like Wu and Liang, and most of them were capable of writing the rhapsody. The most important rhapsody writer among them was Mei Sheng (?–140 B.C.). Emperor Wu, after ascending the throne, heard about Mei Sheng’s reputation and summoned him to the court, but the aged writer died on the way there. Mei Sheng’s representative work is the “Seven Stimuli,” which makes up the story that the Crown Prince of Chu takes to his bed because, living deep inside the palace, he indulges in sensual pleasures. A “Guest from Wu” goes to ask after his health and talks about seven things in order to stimulate him (hence the title). The main body of the work strives to elaborate on the six items of music, delicious food, carriages and horses, banquets and entertainments, hunting, and the sighting of tidal waves. Finally, it uses the appeal of the “pithy sayings and marvelous ideas” of the sages to heal the Crown Prince, but this part is quite brief and simple. In the usual classification of writings practiced in ancient times (such as the classification used in the Selections of Refined Literature), “Seven” makes a genre of its own and is not directly classified under the rhapsody, but this work has been widely recognized as the first composition that marked the official formation of the rhapsody of a new style of the Han dynasty. The “Seven Stimuli” laid the foundation for the Han rhapsody in many ways. First of all, the “Seven Stimuli,” being unfolded in the form of questions and answers and within the framework of a fictitious story, broke away from the restrictions of giving an account of, and reflecting upon, actual events, and thus enabled the author to have a free selection of contents for representation. Secondly, the “Seven Stimuli” moved away from the lyrical characteristics of The Songs of the South into a new, highly prosified style that centered on an elaborate description of objects and things. In The Songs of the South, pieces like the “Summons of the Soul” had contained considerable components of elaboration, but the rhapsody’s characteristics of elaboration was not fully developed until in the “Seven Stimuli.” Compatible to that, the orderly pattern of parallelism was used more frequently in


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the lines and sentences of the “Seven Stimuli” than in The Songs of the South, while function words and words of mood were omitted; as a consequence the writing itself exuded more of a sense of beauty in form. Thirdly, the “Seven Stimuli” already showed a conflict in theme between morality and aesthetics. Considered in its entirety, the emphasis of the “Seven Stimuli” is neither reasoning nor criticism; instead it displays all kinds of life’s desires with great appeal, and transforms such subject matters into a refreshing sense of literary beauty. At the end, however, the author makes it a point to demonstrate that nothing is more important than the spiritual, making it the moral foothold of the work. These characteristics were later carried on with further development and more variety in the long descriptive rhapsody later. In addition, the elaborate descriptions in the “Seven Stimuli” broadened the range of subject matters in literature in many a different way. The description of music, singing and dancing, banquets and entertainments, found previously in the “Summons of the Soul” and the “Great Summons,” was presented in a more concentrated, rich and meticulous manner in the “Seven Stimuli,” whereas the latter’s description of hunting, the sighting of tidal waves, and of horses and carriages was simply unprecedented. Sima Xiangru and the Rhapsody of the Middle Western Han The activities of the rhapsody writers of the early Western Han were mostly in the feudal states. After ascending the throne, Emperor Wu began to recruit the literati to the central court, which was modeled after by most of the later emperors through the ages. It accounted for the nationwide popularization of the rhapsody. Emperor Wu’s reign was the Golden Age of the Han rhapsody; the Treatise on Arts in History of the Han alone listed more than four hundred rhapsodies from the period, and it was also during this period that there emerged Sima Xiangru, the most important representative author of the Han rhapsody. Sima Xiangru once followed Mei Sheng and stayed in the court of Prince Xiao of Liang. After Prince Xiao’s death he returned to Shu. Emperor Wu, on reading his “Rhapsody on Sir Vacuous,” was overwhelmed with admiration and summoned him to the court, where he composed the “Rhapsody on the Shanglin Park” for the emperor. The Treatise on Arts in History of the Han listed twenty-nine of his rhapsodies; out of which, besides the two pieces mentioned above, only four are extant: the “Rhapsody on the Great Men,” the “Rhapsody in

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Lament for the Second Emperor,” the “Rhapsody on the Tall Gate Palace,” and the “Rhapsody on the Fair One” (the authenticity of the last two is still controversial). What we see today of the two rhapsodies on Sir Vacuous and on the Shanglin Park, regarded as Sima Xiangru’s representative works, share a consistent structure and in fact make one complete piece. Probably, while composing the “Rhapsody on the Shanglin Park,” he also made some revisions of the “Rhapsody on Sir Vacuous.” After the experiments of Jia Yi and Mei Sheng, the form and format of the long rhapsody of the Han dynasty were eventually established with them. The contents of the two rhapsodies are also unfolded in the form of questions and answers within a fictitious framework. Sir Vacuous, an envoy from the state of Chu on a diplomatic trip to the state of Qi, brags about the Yunmeng Marsh of the Chu state, and the glory of the King of Chu’s hunting trip to the area, in front of Master Improbable, a minister of the Qi state. The latter remains unconvinced, and boasts about the vastness of the mountains and the sea in the state of Qi in an effort to prevail over him. Lord No-Such, a representative of the Son of Heaven, elaborates on the spectacular beauty of the imperial Shanglin Park and the magnificent undertaking of the hunting trip of the Son of Heaven, so as to demonstrate that the feudal lords cannot be mentioned in the same breath with the Son of Heaven. Then, “at the end of the melody, Correctio is being played,” he preaches on the moral lesson about how frugality should be advocated.1 The dramatis personae of the two rhapsodies, given such names as “Sir Vacuous,” “Master Improbable,” and “Lord No-Such,” are tantamount to a public announcement of the fictitious nature of the pieces, which makes it a step forward from the “Seven Stimuli.” The contents of the pieces are unfolded from the monologues of the three characters. By means of comparison, one after the other is being prevailed over until, eventually, the Son of Heaven’s supreme status and absolute authority are highlighted. In the part of Suasio, Confucian theory, the singular ideology of governing, is set as the moral standpoint, which 1 For translation of the rhapsodies, including the proper names included in them (such as the rendition of the Chinese term ya into Correctio and feng into Suasio), whenever available, I have followed Xiao Tong, Wen xuan, or Selections of Refined Literature. Translated with Annotations and Introduction by David R. Knechtges. Princeton University Press. Vol. 1, 1982; Vol. 2, 1987; Vol. 3, 1996. The pagination of all direct quotations from Knechtges’ translation, whenever available, is given in braces immediately after the cited text.


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also makes it different from the “pithy sayings and marvelous ideas,” based on the theories of various schools of thought of the Warring States, in the “Seven Stimuli.” These all indicate the cultural characteristics of the age of a unified empire. What is most remarkable in the two rhapsodies is the ostentatious elaboration carried to its extreme, which also reflects the Zeitgeist of the age. During Emperor Wu’s reign, material wealth grew by a high degree, the territory of the empire was much expanded, and the ruler’s ambition and desire to occupy and own the world swelled accordingly. Sima Xiangru’s rhapsodies, with an aim to “advise a hundred and persuade the one,” made an ethical camouflage with Confucian thinking on the one hand, and became a literature of expansion that tuned in to the ruler’s swelling desires on the other. The “Seven Stimuli,” using more than two thousand Chinese characters to describe seven things, was already unprecedented in its scale. “Sir Vacuous” and “Shanglin Park,” lengthy pieces in more than four thousand Chinese characters, elaborate on one single thing, hunting, and, focusing on the subject, move on to include such various subjects as mountains, seas, rivers and marshes; palaces and imperial parks; forests, trees, birds and animals; land and resources; music, singing and dancing; clothes, personal adornment, and utensils; horsemanship, archery, and banquets. The author, by using a bombastic style and ornate diction, describes a vast domain that extends boundlessly, and for all the things of great variety in that domain, he enumerates and elaborates on them, one after another, in great detail. Without question, the ruler’s extravagant life is played up in there, but there also emerged a broad and rich vision, a spirit of the magnificent and spectacular, as well as a sense of pride of the people of the age in possession of the world, which had never been found in literature previously. In terms of its language, the rhapsodies of “Sir Vacuous” and “Shanglin Park” also pushed to extreme the emphasis on rhetoric, one of the characteristics of the rhapsody. Sima Xiangru was a philologist. In the two rhapsodies, he enumerated a large number of uncommon words and wove them into the composition, achieving a magnificent effect. In its syntactic form, four-character lines dominate, but are mixed up with three-, six- and seven-character lines, creating a sense of beauty in its orderliness and complexity. In short, the author manifested therein a great passion for the art of rhetoric in literature. Certainly, excessive elaboration and the piling up of uncommon words reflected a naive understanding of the art of language, and inevitably

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accounted for the shortcomings of unrealistic exaggeration, obscurity, and rigidity in style. Nevertheless, such efforts not only strengthened the outstanding features of literary works as artistic creation, but also, eventually, provided a strong promotion of the maturity and development of literary techniques. The rest of Sima Xiangru’s rhapsodies also have some distinctive features of their own. For example, the “Rhapsody on the Tall Gate Palace” uses the persona form to depict, in fine detail, the loneliness and sorrow of a deserted woman in the palace; it became a forerunner of the later literature of the “lament of the palace lady.” This piece and the “Rhapsody in Lament for the Second Emperor,” which describes scenes of nature on a travel, are both works that express emotions. They reveal Sima Xiangru’s varied styles and talents in the composition of the rhapsody. Well-known men of letters in Emperor Wu’s court also included Dongfang Suo and Mei Gao, the son of Mei Sheng. Dongfang Suo’s “Response to a Guest’s Interrogation” is a prose piece with a touch of the rhapsody, which will be discussed later. Mei Gao’s writings are mostly works of “ridiculing and teasing” which serve to entertain the emperor. He wrote quite a large number of those, but none is extant today. During Emperor Wu’s reign, in the court of some of the feudal princes the conventional promotion of rhapsody was preserved, but they no longer had any important functions. Among courts like that, that of Liu An, the Prince of Huainan, was the most prosperous one. According to the listing in the Treatise on Arts of History of the Han, Liu An himself composed eighty-two rhapsodies while his ministers wrote forty-four, making a considerable total number. Among the extant ones, however, only the “Summons for a Recluse,” attributed to Huainan Xiaoshan, is complete and authentic. A well-known piece after the style of The Songs of the South, it adopts the theme of summoning the recluse to return to society. Written in a refreshing and eloquent style, it carries excellent description of scenes in nature, and has exerted a remarkable influence on later literary works about the life of the recluse. After Emperor Wu, Emperor Xuan was also fond of the rhapsody and recruited many courtiers with literary talents. The best known rhapsody writer during his reign was Wang Bao, whose representative work, the “Rhapsody on the Vertical Bamboo Flute,” was the very first rhapsody that exclusively described music and the musical instrument. Its subject matter was obviously inspired by the first part of the “Seven


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Stimuli,” which was on music, but it made a large-scale expansion on the topic. The contents of the piece include the natural environment of bamboo, the manufacturing of the vertical bamboo flute, its embellishment, and the music it plays. The description of nature and music are rich in imagination, especially the latter. As music is received by the sense of hearing and therefore difficult to represent in language, the author has made the experiment therein of a transformation of imagery, namely, to use visual imagery as a substitute for aural imagery, and through such a transformation, to provide a sense of the beauty of the music through the reader’s sensibility and associations. For instance, the strong and vigorous motion of bouncing is used to describe fast and nimble music, while unhurried and relaxed motion is used to describe slow and gentle music. Its method of music description has become a great source of inspiration for later writers. The “Rhapsody on the Vertical Bamboo Flute” became a forerunner of the rhapsody on things and the rhapsody on music in later ages. In terms of its style, it uses lines after the format of The Songs of the South, but often mixes them up with parallel lines, initiating the wide use of parallelism in the rhapsody. In short, more apparently than ever, this rhapsody displays a pursuit after artistic beauty, and is therefore quite original in various aspects. The Rhapsody of the Late Western Han The best known rhapsody writer of the late Western Han was Yang Xiong (53 B.C–A.D. 18). According to the listing of the Treatise on Arts of History of the Han, he was the author of twelve rhapsodies. Those that are extant today include the “Rhapsody on the Capital of Shu,” the “Rhapsody on the Sweet Springs Palace,” the “Rhapsody on the East of the River,” the “Rhapsody on Arrow Hunting,” the “Rhapsody on the Tall Poplars Palace,” “An Objection to ‘On Encountering Trouble,’ ” etc., as well as prose compositions that have some touch of the rhapsody, such as “Dissolving Ridicule,” “Dissolving Reproof,” etc. Yang Xiong was one of the Han writers who have left behind the largest number of literary works, so he was quite influential in the past. Yang Xiong, also a native of the Shu region, had great admiration for his fellow provincial and senior Sima Xiangru, and his representative works, the four rhapsodies of the “Sweet Springs Palace,” “East of the River,” “Tall Poplars Palace,” and the “Plume Hunting,” were modeled after “Sir Vacuous” and “Shanglin Park.” Due to the fact that he was

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equally skillful at using magnificent language to describe scenes of a large scale, “Yang and (Si)Ma” have often been mentioned together. He demonstrated some talents in language, but after all he lacked originality. Unlike Sima Xiangru, Yang Xiong took the “satiric” function of the rhapsody more seriously. The so-called “playing of the Correctio at the end of the music,” used by Sima Xiangru primarily as a moral camouflage, was transformed into the essence of the composition at Yang Xiong’s hand. However, the convention and generic features of the Han rhapsody determined that its inner contradictions were difficult to be resolved, and eventually Yang Xiong chose to resolve such contradictions by giving up the composition of the rhapsody altogether, and he turned to academic writings instead. In addition, now he harshly criticized the convention of the rhapsody as represented by Sima Xiangru, saying that its idea “to advise a hundred and persuade the one” and “to advise but not to stop” did not, in its essence, accord with Confucian creed. Such a change reflected the deepening of the domination of Confucian ideology in the society of the time. Roughly at the same time as Yang Xiong, there was also a female rhapsody writer, Ban the Imperial Consort. A concubine of Emperor Cheng’s, she was slandered and deserted whereupon she composed the “Rhapsody of Self-Mourning.” Previously, Sima Xiangru’s “Rhapsody on the Tall Gate Palace” was the earliest to describe the loneliness and sorrow of a deserted palace lady, but it was from the man’s point of view. The “Rhapsody of Self-Mourning” was the very first rhapsody on the lament of the palace lady written by a woman. It starts with her realistic life experience, and tells the indignation and sadness of women of her kind who were deprived of their happiness but could do nothing about it. In a lucid, elegant and smooth style, it is skillful in expressing emotions through subtle, refined description, and has exerted a lasting influence on literature in the subgenre of “the lament of the palace lady.” Some of its vocabulary and imagery have been used frequently. Let us cite one passage from it as an illustration: Inside the dark palace it is quiet and still. All the gates and doors: closed and locked up. The halls are dusty; steps, covered with moss. In the desolate courtyard, green weeds grow. Big chambers are gloomy—darkened by curtains. Through the open windows, a cold wind blows. Taking out a red satin to make some dress— The room is filled with the rustling of the silk.


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Liu Xin and Ban Biao were also among the important rhapsody writers of late Western Han. Liu Xin’s “Rhapsody on Original Intention” was a recounting of the journey he made when he was dismissed as the Governor of Henei and moved to Wuyuan. It combines a description of the scenes on the journey, an account of the historical anecdotes of all the places he passed en route, with the expression of the uneasiness and grief in his mind about the current political situation. Such an integration of various elements opened a new path for the composition of the rhapsody. Prior to that, some of the works of Qu Yuan and Sima Xiangru were certainly related with travel, but the “rhapsody recounting a journey,” as a singular sub-genre of the rhapsody, was established with this piece, leading to numerous similar works later. Ban Biao’s “Rhapsody on the Journey to the North” was an important work in the wake. It provides an account of the author’s journey fleeing from Chang’an, in seeking refuge during the turmoil at the end of the Western Han, all the way to Tianshui; its contents are also a combination of the scenes and sights en route, related historical events, and the expression of feeling. Under an even harsher political situation, the mood displayed in the work is more tragic. In their description of nature, the “Rhapsody on Original Intention” and the “Rhapsody on the Journey to the North” are both more inclined to realism in their fresh and natural simplicity rather than the pompous enumeration as found in the “Rhapsody on the Shanglin Park;” they became a direct source of inspiration for the description of natural scenery in the short lyrical rhapsody of later ages. On the changes of the rhapsody, Liu Xie has pointed out in the chapter on “Talents” of his Literary Mind: Carving Dragons: “Most writers [of the rhapsody] before Sima Xiangru and Wang Bao had talents but did not focus on learning; those after (Yang) Xiong and (Liu) Xiang often cited books to help with their writing.” This was due to the fact that the social status of major rhapsody writers from the last years of the Western Han to the early Eastern Han, such as Yang Xiong, Liu Xiang, Liu Xin, Ban Biao, Ban Gu and Fu Yi, was no longer that of men of letters who served in the court of the emperor or a prince by their literary talent alone; some of them were primarily scholars, or were bureaucrats and scholars combined. This led to the beginning of the fashion of citing allusions, literary quotations, and set phrases from ancient books, in a display of learning. The use of allusions made the reading more difficult to comprehend, but it also increased the intellectual volume of the composition. The emergence

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of such a phenomenon also had a lasting influence on the development and changes of literature in later times. Other Rhapsodies In addition to what has been discussed in the above, there were a few important rhapsodies the dating of which was not easy to ascertain. We shall give an individual introduction of them here. First there are the “Rhapsody on the Gaotang Shrine” and the “Rhapsody on the Goddess,” attributed to Song Yu and included in the Selections of Refined Literature. These two pieces have in fact been extremely influential in the history of literature, and they also headed the formation of a rhapsody series. Later works like Cao Zhi’s “Rhapsody on the Luo River Goddess” and Tao Yuanming’s “Rhapsody on Stilling the Passions,” both quite well-known, were related to them. However, as most scholars believe that they were not by Song Yu and are unsure about their dating, they have scarcely been mentioned in previous works of literary history in general. According to the preface of the “Rhapsody on Dancing” by Fu Yi of the early Eastern Han, “King Xiang of Chu . . . instructed Song Yu to compose a rhapsody about the event at Gaotang,” which indicated that at the time, it had already been widely known that Song Yu did write the “Rhapsody on the Gaotang Shrine.” Also, the “Rhapsody on the Goddess” and the “Rhapsody on the Gaotang Shrine” are coherent and linked up with each other, actually making one unified text. Therefore, while it awaits further research to determine whether they were indeed by Song Yu, they were without doubt already in existence during the Western Han, so for the time being they have been placed here for our discussion. The “Rhapsody on the Gaotang Shrine” tells that, while King Xiang of Chu and Song Yu are strolling about the terrace of Yunmeng, Song Yu tells the king the event of how King Huai once met the Goddess of Mount Shaman in a dream at the Gaotang Shrine. Then, following King Xiang’s instructions, Song Yu composes a rhapsody on Gaotang, which focuses on the scenery of Mount Shaman viewed from the Gaotang Shrine, and closes with King Xiang’s prospective meeting with the goddess. The “Rhapsody on the Goddess” starts with how King Xiang tells Song Yu about his meeting with the goddess in a dream, and then, by King Xiang’s commission, Song Yu composes a rhapsody about the goddess on the king’s behalf. In general, the


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former focuses on the description of scenery, while the latter, on the physical appearance and mentality of the goddess. Under the restrictions of the moral concepts in society, ancient Chinese literature, for a considerably long period of time, generally shied away from the beauty and attraction of women. In The Book of Songs, pieces with such contents are scanty, and the only few with such contents choose to represent indirectly through the use of figures of speech. There is some direct description in The Songs of the South, but with little detail. The two rhapsodies, the “Gaotang Shrine” and the “Goddess,” by using a fictitious plot of mythology and travel in a dream, manage to create a false distance to absolve themselves from the harsh reproof of orthodox moral concepts and, in so doing, represent such a subject matter, indispensable in literature, more fully. Even so, the way the goddess treats King Xiang of Chu is still described as “about to come near, but then get faraway,” i.e., first, she is moved by emotions, but then she controls herself by the decorum. Such a method of, and attitude toward, describing females turned thereafter into a convention in Chinese literature. The two rhapsodies blend the narration of events, the description of scenery and the expression of feeling superbly. Exquisite in language, they are nonetheless refreshing and facile in style, free from the defects of excessive ornate phrasing and awkward verbiage, which are not infrequently found in the Han rhapsody. The description of some details is vivid and appealing. For example: Toward my curtain she looked with beckoning gaze, Her eyes like the surge of rolling waves. She flounced her long sleeves, straightened her lapels, And stood hesitant, restless and uneasy. Yet her manner was calm and tranquil, pleasant and mild; And her mood was quiet and composed, unperturbed. At times her movements were so easy and subtle, Her intent could not be fathomed. Her manner seemed intimate, yet aloof; She appeared to come near, then turn back. I raised the bed curtains, invited her in, To express my most earnest feelings. But she held to her chaste purity, And refused to consort with me. (III, 347)

In describing the goddess’s hesitation and uncertainty, this passage reveals her state of mind in all its subtle nuances, which was indeed a rarity in the literature of the Han dynasty.

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Another work worthy of our attention is the “Rhapsody on the Divine Birds” which, written on bamboo slips, was excavated from inside a Han dynasty tomb in the Donghai County in Jiangsu in 1993. The person in the tomb was buried in the third year of Emperor Cheng’s Yuanyan reign (10 B.C.), so the rhapsody must have been composed before that. Some parts of the rhapsody are missing, but from the textual research of scholars, we can still figure out its general contents. An animal fable, it tells how a pair of crows try very hard to build up their nest, but some other birds steal their material. The female crow goes to demand its return, but she is fatally injured. In love, the male crow wants to die together with her, but is dissuaded from it by the female. The rhapsody expresses strong emotions, and is characterized by its copious use of dialogue. Judging from its contents and special features of representation, the “Rhapsody on the Divine Birds” was probably the word text of a kind of popular chantefable, because strong emotions and copious dialogue were indispensable for a performance of singing and storytelling. In the past, some Han dynasty pottery figurine of performers, called the “figures of chantefable,” had been excavated. It is intriguing to examine the two items in combination. The significance of the excavation of the “Rhapsody on the Divine Birds” also lies in its revelation that the Han rhapsody, besides the literati composition characterized by its elaboration in exquisite diction, also had another more popular branch that focused on the interesting plot of the story. It also proved that the popular rhapsody of the Tang dynasty, found in the Dunhuang Grottos, had an ancient origin. Indepth research of this kind of rhapsodies may help us to understand the great variety of the rhapsody as a literary genre and its manifold significance in the history of Chinese literature.

3. The Rhapsody of the Eastern Han In general, the rhapsody of the Eastern Han was not as achieved as that of the Western Han, but it fermented a series of changes. The lengthy rhapsody on the description of objects still dominated but, with the decline of the imperial court, lost its vitality by degrees, while the shorter lyrical rhapsody, which focused on the expression of personal feelings, was gradually on the rise.


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The Rhapsody of the Early Eastern Han First among important writers of rhapsody of the early Eastern Han was Ban Gu (32–92). Like his father Ban Biao, he was both a historian and a rhapsody writer. His representative work was his “Rhapsody on the Two Capitals.” The “Two Capitals” here refer to Chang’an, the Western Capital, and Luoyang, the Eastern Capital. The “Rhapsody on the Two Capitals” is the combination of two pieces: the “Western Capital Rhapsody” and the “Eastern Capital Rhapsody.” Luoyang was made the capital in Eastern Han, but at one time there was a debate about which of the two was a better capital. Ban Gu’s rhapsody gave his approval of making Luoyang the capital. In terms of structure and form, Ban Gu modeled after Sima Xiangru and unfolded his rhapsody with a debate between the “Guest from the Western Capital” and the “Host of the Eastern Capital.” The founding of a capital was an important political decision, and it was unpractical to think that the rhapsody of men of letters might play a role in its making. In fact, the main purpose of Ban Gu’s rhapsody is to eulogize the Eastern Han imperial court, on the basis of Confucian political theory. Hence the “Western Capital Rhapsody” primarily praises the prosperity and sumptuousness of Chang’an, including the life of pleasure led by the ruling class. The “Eastern Capital Rhapsody,” on the other hand, is more a celebration of the appropriateness of all kinds of political measures carried out by the Eastern Han ruling clique, the prestige of the imperial court, as well as the honest and unsophisticated customs and habits in Luoyang; accordingly, the ruling of the Eastern Han was shown as more in accord with the Confucian ideal than that of the Western Han. Such a comparison indicates how deeply Confucian thinking had penetrated into the rhapsody. However, the “Rhapsody on the Two Capitals” has some of its own characteristics. Its hyperbole has been based on realism and is therefore not as preposterous as that in Sima Xiangru. Centered on the description of the metropolis, it represents in a much broader scope scenes of people’s life, landscape, flora and fauna, jewelry and treasures, cities, palaces, streets, business, dress and personal adornment, and human figures. Many new contents have been incorporated, and its imagery is also spectacular. It is well-knit in structure, and its rhetoric is meticulously exquisite. The basic format of the rhapsody on capital, a major subgenre of the rhapsody, was established by the “Rhapsody on the Two Capitals.”

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In a different manner, Feng Yan’s “Rhapsody on Revealing My Aspirations” demonstrates some new developments. Feng Yan, once a close follower of Emperor Guangwu, failed to get enfeoffed for his service, and later, much to his disappointment, he was dismissed from office and became a civilian. The “Rhapsody on Revealing My Aspirations” reveals his dissatisfaction with reality and vents the indignation smoldering in his heart. To a certain degree, it harks back to the format of Qu Yuan and Jia Yi, though in terms of its structure it adopts that of the rhapsody recounting a journey, expressing his thought on his mishap and on historical figures and events through the account of a fictitious journey. The piece repeatedly demonstrates an interest in the thought of Laozi and Zhuangzi. For instance, in the part “On Myself ” placed at the beginning, it tells that his life attitude is “to soar high with the Way, and to mutate along with Time—how could one stick to one single point without change!” In the rhapsody, we also hear the praise: “Zhuang Zhou cast his hook, / and declined the minister’s high position.” The strong abhorrence of those who advocate or foment wars and those who exercise draconian laws in the work is also based on the essence of Laozi and Zhuangzi. It was rather unusual, as Confucianism was still extremely influential at the time. The Rhapsody of the Middle Eastern Han First among the traditional long rhapsody of the Middle Eastern Han was Zhang Heng’s (78–139) “Rhapsody on the Two Metropolises.” Composed in the wake of Ban Gu’s “Rhapsody on the Two Capitals,” it glorifies the magnificence of the Western Metropolis through the mouth of Sir Based-on-Nothing, and lauds the moral climate of the Eastern Metropolis through that of Master Live-in-Peace. However, the “Rhapsody on the Two Metropolises” contains much criticism, as in its denouncement of the First Emperor of Qin, who enjoyed a life of extravagance at the cost of his maltreated people, through this reproof of the other party: You, noble sir, now Recklessly delight in exploiting the people to snatch ephemeral pleasure; You have forgotten that popular resentment can turn to enmity. You delight in exhausting resources to sate your pride, And ignore that an uprising from below produces travail. Water serves to support a boat, But it also is used to capsize it. (I, 307)


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All this actually used as background the realities in contemporary society, making it different from Ban Gu’s work, the purpose of which was simply a celebration of the ruler of the time. In the description of various scenes of life, the “Rhapsody on the Two Metropolises,” due to its greater length, manages to provide more detail. In particular, the author devotes much space to the representation of secular life, such as the activities of merchants, chivalrous men, and orators in the city. In the “Western Metropolis Rhapsody,” there is a passage, four hundred Chinese characters in length, that depicts the performance of “the wondrous feats of competitive games” (I, 229), which is nowhere to be found in the “Rhapsody on the Two Capitals.” The refreshing and eloquent description of nature in the “Eastern Metropolis Rhapsody” is also not found in the “Rhapsody on the Two Capitals.” In short, the “Rhapsody on the Two Metropolises” marks the culmination of the long descriptive rhapsody of the Han dynasty with some of its own variations. Zhang Heng’s lyrical rhapsodies are more idiosyncratic. For example, the “Rhapsody on Contemplating the Mystery” not only incorporates the fictitious travel note in Feng Yan’s “Rhapsody on Revealing My Aspirations,” but also models after Qu Yuan in giving such a travel note a touch of mythology, in order to represent a weariness about, and an escape from, the political life in reality, and to seek comfort and relief in an imaginary world of language. The “Rhapsody on Contemplating the Mystery” is still quite long, but the “Rhapsody on Returning to the Fields,” which conveys a similar message and also focuses on reality, is completely free from the means of elaboration of the Han rhapsody, making it a landmark of the short lyrical rhapsody. The gist of the piece is manifested in the two lines: “But the Way of Heaven is obscure and difficult to know, / and thus I join the Fisherman and share my joys with him.” Since there is nothing one can do about the benighted and disorderly society, and there is no way one can put to good use one’s high aspirations, then one can only seek refuge in the gardens and fields. In the history of the rhapsody, it was the first to represent the pleasure of a secluded life in the gardens and fields. The natural, refreshing scenery description in it is simply extraordinary: Then In the first month of mid-spring, When the weather is fair and the air clear, On highland and lowland vegetation luxuriantly grows, And all plants profusely bloom. The osprey thrums his wings,

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chapter four The oriole sadly calls. Neck to neck, they soar and swoop, Crying gwa gwa, yee yee. Among them I freely wander, And thereby cheer my spirits. (III, 141)

The “Rhapsody on Returning to the Fields” is only more than two hundred Chinese characters in length. In terms of its composition, it may be called a counteraction in attitude to the conventional long rhapsody. In Zhang Heng’s case, it might have been a work written on the spur of the moment, but it certainly represented the changing tendency of rhapsodic literature. Among those which thematically belonged to the conventional Han rhapsody there were Ma Rong’s (79–166) “Rhapsody on the Long Flute,” Wang Yanshou’s (ca. 124–ca. 148) “Rhapsody on the Hall of Numinous Brilliance in Lu,” etc. In the “Rhapsody on the Long Flute” a stronger lyricism is found than in previous works of the same kind. The opening section describes the isolated and desolate living environment of the bamboo that is used to make the flute, so as to intensify the sorrow in the sound of the flute; actually the author’s feeling about life is also embodied therein. Like Zhang Heng’s “Rhapsody on Contemplating the Mystery” mentioned in the above, this rhapsody closes with verse in seven-character lines, a new format in the Han rhapsody frequently modeled after by later authors. Thematically the “Rhapsody on the Hall of Numinous Brilliance in Lu” should be regarded as a conventional long descriptive rhapsody, but it is not so long, which is quite remarkable. The delineation of the colorful illustrations on the building in the rhapsody is brilliant. For instance, the illustration on the window lattice is portrayed as: “The Jade Girl, peeping from a window, looks below,” and that on the principal columns of the hall: “Hunnish figures distantly huddle on the upper columns, / Solemn and serious they kneel face to face; / . . . Their visages as if saddened by this perilous place / Are painfully wrinkled, laden with grief.” (II, 273) In addition, the description of the mountain gods, sea spirits and ancient mythological figures on the murals is also vivid and graphic. Such representation reveals a pursuit after novelty. Wang Yanshou also wrote the “Rhapsody on a Dream,” which tells his battles with monsters in a dream, and the “Rhapsody on the Young Aristocrat,” which makes a close study of the monkey. Both are quite remarkable in their singularity. The special features of such works had much to do with the changing tendency of the rhapsody in the Middle Eastern Han.


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The Rhapsody of the Late Eastern Han In the late Eastern Han, the composition of the rhapsody was still popular, as indicated in the establishment of the “School of the Gate of the Great Capital,” which recruited scholars by their talents in calligraphy, painting, and writing of the rhapsody, in the first year of the Guanghe reign (A.D. 178) of Emperor Ling of the Han. During this period, the composition of the conventional rhapsody must have continued, but nothing of note was passed down; only the new-fashioned short lyrical rhapsody flourished in all its peculiarity. The “Rhapsody Criticizing the World and Condemning Evil,” written by Zhao Yi who lived during Emperor Ling’s reign, revealed a critical incisiveness the sharpness of which was unprecedented in the Han rhapsody. The author denounces the rule by benevolence and also the rule by law, calling the Spring and Autumn, the Warring States, the Qin and the Han periods a continuing process of ever-worsening politics. In saying that “from then through now, human feelings have turned dishonest and false all around,” it makes its harshest criticism on contemporary society. An all-encompassing denial like this discloses a total disappointment, which characterized people’s thinking in an age of social disintegration. At the same time, it also implies a complete renunciation of the Han rhapsody’s mainstream of glorification. Two poems in five-character lines are attached to the end of the rhapsody to enhance its expression of feeling, which indicates that the writing technique of combining poetry and rhapsody maintained its continuity. The poignant severity in the “Rhapsody Criticizing the World and Condemning Evil” inevitably results in a kind of crudeness in its expression of feeling. Accordingly, only Cai Yong (139–192) should be ranked as the most accomplished rhapsody writer of the late Eastern Han. Among his rhapsody compositions which have been preserved in their entirety today are the “Rhapsody Recounting a Journey” and the “Rhapsody on the Maidservant.” Cai Yong wrote the “Rhapsody Recounting a Journey” when he was twenty-seven years old, during Emperor Huan’s reign when the eunuchs monopolized power and politics turned extremely chaotic. He, reluctantly, was summoned to the capital to play the lute for the powers that be. Fortunately, he fell sick and managed to turn back halfway. As a rhapsody recounting a journey, it shows nothing special in terms of its format of composition, but as it is quite short, its

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expression of feeling sounds more focused and forceful. The piece not only recounts his thinking in association with what he sees en route, using the past to disparage the present, but also targets his blunt and candid criticism directly at the “imperial house” and the “minions,” as in the following lines: The mighty imperial house lives high up the sky, people from all directions gather beneath like stars. Pampered minions become more overbearing, they all pursue profit without restraint.

The author incorporates the indignation at his personal experience into his dissatisfaction with social reality, so the representation of his feeling becomes more concrete than that of Zhao Yi. The “Rhapsody on the Maidservant” tells his love with a maidservant and his yearning towards her after her departure. While it may contain some fictitious elements, it must have been inspired by something from the author’s own experience. The appearance of a subject matter of this kind, which did not conform to the moral convention, not only displayed the author’s boldness but also reflected people’s gradual inclination toward freedom in expressing their emotions, against the background of a disintegrating society. The style of the rhapsody is animated, lucid and elegant, and its last section is simply splendid: The bright moon, so white it shines in front of my window. Gusts of the northeastern spring wind blow my bed curtains. Freely the moon wanders by the River, while I move and rest by the courtyard steps. Southward I look at willows by the well, or gaze upward at the Big Dipper. Are you not the woman of the Herd-boy blocked away from him by the River?2 I think of you, I miss you, I am sad, and also hungry.

2 According to Chinese mythology, the two lovers, Herd-boy and Weaving Maid (identified with the stars Altair and Vega), are separated by the River of Heaven (the Milky Way), and are permitted to meet only once a year, on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, when magpies form a bridge for them to walk pass over the barrier.


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It tells how, on a moonlit evening, unable to sleep from thinking of his love, the lover walks back and forth in the courtyard. A beautiful poetic world is presented. The eleventh of the “Nineteen Old Poems” (“The bright moon, how white it shines”) and “A Sorrowful Song” from the Ancient Songs in the Music Bureau Collection both contain similar description which provides an evidence of the interrelation between the rhapsody and poetry in the late Eastern Han. Cai Yong was the best known man of letters at the end of the Eastern Han. The characteristics of his writings represent a connection between the literature of the Han dynasty and that of the Wei and Jin period. In addition, among the more celebrated literary authors of the Jian’an period, Wang Can and Ruan Yu were Cai Yong’s disciples and Cai Yan was his daughter, which indicates that he had a direct influence on the literature of the subsequent period.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE PROSE OF THE QIN AND HAN

Compared to that of the pre-Qin period, the prose of the Qin-Han period went through great changes. First of all, the Prose of the Masters, which had flourished in the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States periods, was in decline. Master Lü’s Spring and Autumn Annals of the Qin dynasty and Huainanzi of the Early Western Han were considered to be the swan song of the Prose of the Masters, but they were a far cry from their predecessors in originality of thinking. Some of the other writings and numerous individual articles of argumentation of the Qin-Han period may be regarded as descendants of the Prose of the Masters, but they took on a different aspect. Among these writings, some are refined in style and others manage to be moving in the expression of feelings, and they have had their influence in literary history, so we shall still give a brief selective introduction here. It was notable that, starting from the beginning of the Han dynasty, a considerable number of lyrical prose writings emerged, mostly in the form of the epistle, though they also included some pieces of self-defense and self-ridicule. Works of this kind frequently touch upon the conflicts between the individual and the environment or the powers that be in the society; they are not only moving, but they also inspire the reader to think about life, making them an invaluable asset in literary history. In the convention of the pre-Qin historical prose, the great Historical Records by Sima Qian, a peerless example coupling history with literature, made its appearance during the Han dynasty. The three types of prose in the above, especially the latter two of them, represent the important achievements of the literature of the Qin-Han period. As these prose writings are quite different in nature from one another, we shall discuss them in their different genres in the following. Besides prose of the three above-mentioned types, some prose writings of an entertaining nature also emerged during the Western Han. As there are only a few pieces of them, we shall only give a brief mention here. The best known piece of this type of prose is Wang Bao’s “Slave’s Contract,” a mock contract to intimidate a restive servant boy. Aiming primarily to banter and tease, it is written in simple language

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containing much of the colloquial speech of the time. Probably modeled after folk and popular literature, it has survived as the work of a renowned author. As an illustration of the increasing diversification of ancient literature and the growing impact of literature for entertainment, it has a place of its own in literary history.

1. Prose of Argumentation Most of previous works of literary history have used “political prose” to classify the prose of the Han dynasty. Considering that the concept of “political prose” is not all-encompassing for what we shall discuss here, we shall use instead “prose of argumentation,” a term broader in meaning, as the name of the genre. Prose of Argumentation of the Qin and the Western Han The Qin dynasty did not last long. Only writings like the “memorials to the throne” from Li Si, the Prime Minister, have been preserved, among which the most celebrated one is “A Memorial to Remonstrate against Expelling Visitors.” This memorial was written to the First Emperor for the purpose of pleading against expelling visitors from out of the state of Qin. It builds up its argument through the selection of a series of noteworthy events as illustrations. Using a rich, varied diction and an elaborate style, it displays a bold and flowing force, has a strong flavor of the writings of the political strategists, and may be regarded as a representative piece of the style of the prose of that age. At the beginning of the Western Han, Zou Yang, known for his prose writings, also shows a flavor of the political strategists of the Warring States period. The original purpose of his “A Memorial from Prison to the King of Liang” was to defend himself for having got into trouble due to slander. However, instead of giving an in-depth analysis of the facts directly related to his case, he has chosen to cite a multitude of historical figures and events as examples and, making use of analogy, to discuss the disaster of “calumniation and slander,” through which to demonstrate his loyalty and trustworthiness. To later generations this may sound odd, but the use of analogy and elaboration, the citing of events in the past as illustration, and the pursuit of a momentum in argument, were possibly among the basic training of

the prose of the qin and han

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men of letters of the time. Prose of this type contains some lyrical elements, but has a stronger flavor of the argumentative. With more far-reaching social changes, typical political prose of the Early Western Han developed out of the prose of the political strategists of the Warring States period. Its representative author was Jia Yi. In his youth, Jia Yi served in the court of Emperor Wen as Superior Grand Master of the Palace for about ten years, during which he wrote a series of political articles, presenting his incisive and insightful views on a variety of issues, both on the history of the Qin-Han transition and on various issues of contemporary society. His writings are filled with a sense of anxiety and concern about the prospect of the state; they are passionate and colorful in rhetoric. In terms of style, they not only inherit the unrestrained forcefulness of the prose of the Warring States but also, due to their focus on details of general and specific policies in reality, display a sense of order and preciseness not found in the prose of the previous period. The best known among them are “Finding Fault with Qin” and “On the Policy of Public Order,” which have been called the “grand prose of the Western Han” by Lu Xun in his Essentials of the History of Han Literature. “Finding Fault with Qin” is divided into three parts. As its title indicates, the subject of the article is to discuss what went wrong with the politics of the Qin, a question that was at the center of debate in the political prose of the Early Western Han. The first part strives to tout the great power of the Qin Empire and highlight the swiftness of its breakdown; through such a sharp contrast, it underscores the argument that “not exercising benevolence and righteousness” will surely lead to failure and downfall. The second and the third part make suggestions on what measures the Second Emperor and Prince Ying should have taken to defuse the desperate situation; detailed proposals are actually put forth therein for the consideration of the Western Han imperial court. The article is skilled in elaboration, but it is not the kind typical of the prose of the political strategists which consists of simple enumeration and repetition; instead it displays a dynamic momentum that keeps rushing forward through the article. For instance, at the very beginning of the first part, it goes: “Duke Xiao of Qin held the strong fortifications of Mt. Yaoshan and the Han’gu Pass, and owned the land of the Yongzhou area. Together with his ministers, he held fast to his estate while keeping an eye on the royal house of Zhou. He harbored the desire to roll up like a mat all under heaven, to bag and lift everything within the universe, and to put into his pocket all the

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four seas; he had it in his heart to swallow up everything in the eight directions.” In its description of the prestige and strength of the Qin state on the rise, it displays a stunning power. Certainly all it intends to do is to move the reader through rhetoric, but the forceful lines overflow with the vitality of its young author. Again, in “On the Policy of Public Order,” which deals with all kinds of crises the state confronted at the time, it opens in a startling sentence like: “When considering the current situation, Your Majesty, I humbly think that there is one thing that I could weep bitterly about, two that I could shed tears for, and six that I could heave a deep sigh on.” Then, one by one, the issues are discussed. It is also a combination of persuasion by emotion and by reason. In Emperor Jing’s reign, a little later in time, there emerged another important author of political prose, Chao Cuo. His representative writings include “A Memorial to the Throne on the Importance of Grain” and others. Chao Cuo’s political prose, as compared to that of Jia Yi, is finer and more meticulous in style, geared to reality, but slightly less elegant and emotional. By the Middle Western Han, with the stabilization of the situation in the nation and the strengthening of the autocratic monarchy, political prose, which had existed primarily in the form of the memorial to the throne, rarely, if ever, showed either any passion or the courage to discuss current affairs at will; the style of heroic posture and graceful eloquence, that had originated from the political strategists of the Warring States period, all but vanished. Noticeably, there appeared in some prose writings an inclination to seek polished antithesis. For example, “A Proclamation to Ba and Shu,” which Sima Xiangru wrote by imperial commission to appease the people of the Shu region, resorts to all the rhetoric techniques of the rhapsody in its prose; through the use of antithetical lines, it has achieved an aesthetic effect, and reads rhythmic and sonorous. Afterwards, even Huan Kuan’s “Debate on Salt and Iron,” a kind of edited record of the conference on national fiscal policy, would also use mostly polished antithetical lines, which indicates that by the Middle Western Han, such a style in prose was becoming more and more prevalent. Later, it turned into a common feature of the prose of the Eastern Han, and subsequently developed into the parallel prose of the Six Dynasties.


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Prose of Argumentation of the Eastern Han Starting from the Late Western Han, the Study of Confucian Classics exerted an increasingly strong restraint on social thinking. By the Early Eastern Han, due to the popularization of the study of the pictorial augury which forged mystical prophecies, promoted by the ruling class, the entire intelligentsia were obsessed with preposterous superstition. During this era, the only work of argumentation worth mention was Wang Chong’s (27–ca. 97) Steelyard of Expositions, which took a stand against the common practice as mentioned above. Wang Chong served only briefly as a functionary in the county government. Living far away from the capital and the political upper strata, he managed to preserve his individuality in thinking. Steelyard of Expositions consists of eighty-five chapters. Based on the position of the Classical Study of Confucian Classics that was closer to original Confucianism, it levels its severe criticism against the Contemporary Study of Confucian Classics which, as an official ideology, has turned into a vulgarized cult, and it also denounces the preposterousness of the theory of the interaction between heaven and man, and the absurdity of common superstition. His method of reasoning lies primarily in enumerating a large number of cases of common sense in life, and by adopting a step-by-step logical analysis, it dismantles the fallacious and groundless superstition. The writing is plain and smooth in style, with little literary grace, but the spirit of reason that it advocates was related with the intellectual context of the revival of literature in the Eastern Han. From the Middle to the Late Eastern Han, there appeared Wang Fu’s Discourses of a Hidden Man, Zhongchang Tong’s Sincere Words, Cui Shi’s Political Discourse, Xun Yue’s Cautionary Statements, and so on, all works of a critical nature which followed in Wang Chong’s wake. The target of their criticism turned from superstitious thinking to a broader range of more specific real issues in the society. In style they continued the convention of antithesis and parallelism that had developed in the prose of the Han, and the writing became more delicate and exquisite. Born in a poor and humble family, Wang Fu never served in the government. His biography in History of the Later Han tells that, “with pent up indignation, he lived in seclusion and wrote a book of more than thirty chapters on the gains and losses of the time. Without the intention to make a name for himself, he entitled it the Discourses

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of a Hidden Man. In pointing out and criticizing the failures in current affairs and in discussing the nature of things, it manages to provide a glimpse of the ambience and politics of his age.” The critique in the Discourses of a Hidden Man involves itself on various aspects of the Middle Eastern Han society including politics, military affairs, economy, and culture. For instance, the “Chapter on Extravagance” criticizes the lavish life style of “the aristocrats and nobilities in the capital,” and the “Chapter on Distinction” denounces the hereditary system1 of the time. In addition, in the Discourses of a Hidden Man, Wang Fu also presents some of his new thinking about human nature, as in the “Chapter on the Explication of Difficulty”: “Therefore the talented gentleman not only worries about the people but also works for himself, . . . the reason why the benevolent person concerns himself with others is because it is also for himself.” The elucidation of the mind of “the benevolent person” in its concern not only for others but also for oneself reflects the rise of individualism among men of letters of the Middle Eastern Han. Zhongchang Tong’s (180–220) Sincere Words may be considered the representative work of a critical nature in the Late Eastern Han. His biography in History of the Later Han tells that he “dared to talk straight, did not bother about trifles in behavior, and remained silent or spoke up pending on his changing moods; hence some among his contemporaries called him an arrogant person.” Obviously, he was someone with a strong character. His Sincere Words was written in the years when the Han imperial dynasty had totally collapsed, so it was more liberal in thinking and its remarks were more incisive. Judging from the surviving sections of Sincere Words, Zhongchang Tong condemns the superstition of the pictorial augury and the general mood of the society, criticizes the emperor’s relatives on the side of his mother or wife and the eunuchs, and denounces the hereditary system; the target of his criticism covers almost all aspects of social reality. In style his writings have a strong touch of antithesis and parallelism, and are characterized by their exquisiteness and orderliness. In addition, a short essay telling his own aspirations, included in his biography in History of the Later Han, is also well known. It regards a

1 This refers to the political system, widespread in the Jin dynasty, of making official appointment almost exclusively among those from powerful and influential families of nobilities.


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secluded life in the fields and gardens as life’s pleasure, and also says: “Calm the nerves inside an inner chamber and think about Laozi’s mystic vacuity; breathe in the air of serenity in search of the essence of the Ultimate Man. . . . Wander freely above the entire world of the time, and look askance at everything between heaven and earth, only then may one rise above the firmament and moves out of the universe. Why should anyone envy going in and out of the gate of emperors and princes!” Such a description of an ideal life is a clear embodiment of the intellectual’s alienation from the state, his dwindling awareness of and interest in the state, and the invigoration of his individuality. With the flourish of literary works, the prose of argumentation was no longer important in the history of literature, so from now on, in general, we shall no longer discuss prose of this type.

2. Lyrical Prose Lyrical Prose of the Western Han Some of the prose writings of the Early Western Han, like Zou Yang’s “A Memorial from Prison to the Prince of Liang,” do contain some lyrical qualities, but they are not fully developed in expressing the author’s inner feelings, and instead have a strong flavor of argumentation. Accordingly the earliest lyrical prose of the Western Han had to date from Dongfang Suo’s “Response to a Guest’s Interrogation.” This work unfolds itself in the conventional format of catechism of the rhapsody, with sentences in orderly patterns that are rhymed intermittently, so it has sometimes been classified under the rhapsody in a wide sense of the term. Dongfang Suo (154–93 B.C.) was a man of letters in Emperor Wu’s court. In spite of his intelligence and talent, he could only play a comic role in court. “Response to a Guest’s Interrogation” starts with a fictitious “Guest” questioning why Dongfang Suo is in such a humble position albeit he “is fond of learning and takes pleasure in the Way.” Through the response to the question, it reveals the historical destiny of the intellectuals, the author himself included. The piece tells that although he is as talented as Su Qin and Zhang Yi, he no longer lives in the same age as the Warring States. Emperor Wu had gradually weakened the feudal states and exercised a thorough centralization of authority, which prevented the intellectuals from seeking success

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and obtaining high-ranking appointments in the government based on their talents. Everything was in the emperor’s control and was determined by his personal likes and dislikes, so there was actually not much difference between “the talented and the untalented”: Therefore when they are appeased they live in peace, and when they are shaken up, they suffer. Being honored, they become military generals, and being disgraced, they turn into captives. Promoted, they rise all the way to the blue heaven; once dismissed, they descend to the bottom of a deep pond. Being used, they are tigers; once disused, they turn into rats. Even if they wish to devote their integrity and emotions to a great cause, how are they supposed to know the priorities for their use? Between the vast heaven and earth, among the multitude of people, an innumerable number make all their efforts to get ahead in society. Even when one tries one’s best, sometimes, frustrated by the worry about clothes and food, one fails to see the door to success. If Su Qin and Zhang Yi had lived in the same age as I, your humble servant, do, they might even fail to get appointed as Clerks; how dare they ever hope to get appointed as Attendant Gentlemen!2

“Response to a Guest’s Interrogation,” in a sensitive manner, points out that after the change from the relatively liberal Warring States period to a unified world of the autocracy, the intellectuals face a miserable fate and they have to make new choices in life. The piece, in spite of a touch of sarcasm and the self-consolation on the surface, conceals the feeling of deep bitterness inside. “A Letter in Reply to Ren An” by Sima Qian (whose life story is to be told later) marks the highest achievement of the lyrical prose of the Middle Western Han. In the letter to a friend of his, Sima Qian tells about his extreme agony after suffering the humiliating penalty of castration, his innocence notwithstanding, as well as his true feelings about enduring the mortification in order to finish writing his Historical Records. He says in the letter: Because of what I said I suffered the misfortune. In addition, I was disparaged by the community of my native town, and I brought disgrace to my ancestors. How would I ever have the face to visit the grave of my parents? Even a hundred generations from now, the infamy would only get worse. For this reason, my heart sinks many, many times during the

2

During the Han dynasty, a Clerk was one of twenty low-ranking functionaries on the staff of the Grand Astrologer, while the Attendant Gentleman, with a rank of 400 bushels, was an official in the central government who served as Assistant to the Imperial Secretary, head of one of the Six Sections of the Imperial Secretariat.


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day. When at home, I am always in a trance as if I had lost something. When I go out, I often have no idea where I am going. Whenever I think about the shame, sweat drenches the clothes on my back.

One can recognize in there the great trauma in the heart of a noblehearted intellectual under the persecution of the powerful autocracy, as well as the lack of rationality of the autocratic authority. However, Sima Qian took his stand in resistance by means of what he was able to choose, i.e., his Historical Records that he took great pride in: through the composition of the great work, he expressed the freedom of his will and reaffirmed the value of his own existence. As he also says in the letter: Once I have finished writing the book, and have concealed it in a great mountain, and from there to be passed on by the right person to the civilized world, I shall have been compensated for my shame in the past and, by then, even if I had been executed thousands of times, I would not have any more regret!

Compared to Dongfang Suo’s “Response to a Guest’s Interrogation,” Sima Qian did not resort to any measures like sarcasm to suppress the irritation of his pain. At the time, Ren An was already a prisoner sentenced to death, and a letter to him could not manage to keep any privacy and was accordingly very risky, but in spite of everything the writer still chose to tell the sorrow and indignation in his heart. As a matter of fact, in sentences like “even if I had been executed thousands of times, I would not have any more regret,” an attitude of strong revolt against the supreme ruler is revealed. It is indeed a highly commendable work. In the history of Chinese literature, the formation of the convention of the lyrical prose had its closest relation with the epistle form, and “A Letter in Reply to Ren An” may be regarded as the text that initiated such a convention. Yang Yun (?–55 B.C.), the son of Sima Qian’s daughter who lived during Emperor Xuan’s reign, wrote “A Letter in Reply to Sun Huizong,” which inherited some of his maternal grandfather’s style and also became a widely read piece expressing the feeling of indignation. At one time, Yang Yun had Emperor Xuan’s trust, but later for some reason was stripped of his official position. Back at home, he engaged in trade, managed property, and entertained his guests; it became the talk of the town. Under the autocratic rule, it was a taboo for those dismissed from office to do something like that. His friend Sun Huizong thereupon wrote him a letter advising that he “ought to

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close his door and live in trepidation” to keep himself from getting in trouble. Yang Yun’s letter in reply not only makes a calm and unperturbed defense of his conduct, but also assumes a proud and unruly attitude, with satiric observations on both those who reproached him and even the imperial court. Later, when the letter became known, Yang Yun was executed by being cut in half at the waist. It is a prose piece in the epistle form that fully displays one’s personality. While it does not seek any stylistic grace, it reads natural and carefree, and is quite effective in moving the reader. Lyrical Prose of the Eastern Han The lyrical prose of the Eastern Han was still primarily in the epistle form. Just as in the case of the prose of argumentation, better works were written during the Middle and Late periods. While only a few of these became widely known, it was noteworthy that the people of the Eastern Han actually expended more care on the composition of letters, which were mostly quite refined in language. It indicated that the epistle was not only a practical means of communication, but was also treated as a “literary text.” Judging from the record of the works of the biographees in History of the Later Han, the “Epistle” was already established as a literary genre. Li Gu’s (94–147) “A Letter to Huang Qiong” is one of the more celebrated pieces. In the fierce conflict of the scholar-official clique against the emperor’s relatives on the side of his mother or wife and the eunuchs, Li Gu was an influential figure. Huang Qiong, who enjoyed a great reputation, did not take up any official post. This letter was written to appeal to Huang Qiong, asking him to serve in the government. It goes: “Since the beginning of human history, rarely have there been good governing, but there have been much of chaos and disorder. If one has to wait for a ruler like Yao and Shun, then that time will never arrive for a man of high ideals!” What it implies is that, in hard and dangerous times, a man of ideals has no reason to shirk his responsibilities. Brief and terse in words, it is nevertheless quite impassioned. Later on, it also says that, when reputable scholars are recruited to the court, it frequently turns out to be a case of “a high reputation hard to live up to,” and they may be accused as “a sheer stealing with a false fame” by “worldly opinion,” so he hopes that Huang Qiong will “prove such a saying wrong.” While it smells of the tactics of “prodding the


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opponent into action,” it is certainly a demonstration of Li Gu’s fiery and forthright personality. “A Letter to Liu Bozong to Break Off Our Friendship” by Zhu Mu (100–163), a contemporary of Li Gu’s, was the first “letter to break off friendship” that initiated such a subgenre of prose in the epistle form. In the letter, Zhu Mu reprimands Liu for being deferential to him at first and then supercilious, all determined by the change of their respective social status. In a few words, it brings to life a baseminded, vulgar bureaucrat and, at the same time, also shows the pride of its author’s personal character. The last sentence is lifelike both aurally and visually: “Tut, Liu Bozong! How dumb you are about the Way of Benevolence and Righteousness!” Zhang Huan (104–181), a well known Late Eastern Han military general who was formerly a Confucian scholar, wrote amusing short letters, as in “A Letter to Cui Zizhen”: “Having arrived at my post in the first year of the reign, I currently lead some two hundred soldiers, with horses like black rams, spears like iron awls, and shields like elm leaves.” Also, “A Letter to Yandu,” which tells the desolation and misery of life at the frontier in his late years, is exquisite in rhetoric and very moving. Qin Jia’s “A Letter to My Wife Xu Shu” and “Another Letter in Reply to My Wife,” which describe affections between husband and wife, are quite unusual at the time. The former goes: Since I am unable to have my own will, I have no choice but to serve at the commandery office. Conforming to the trend of the times, I have to leave before long. I know why I suffer, so I am not really strained. It’s only that I keep missing you, and the heartache never stops. I am about to set out on a long journey, through wind and dust, which is indeed not what I wish to do, hence all my misery and sorrow. I am already counting the days when I may return, but that will be a long time from now. I am sure you share the same feeling, and cannot keep it off the mind. I would like to meet briefly with you, as I still have something to tell you. I am dispatching a carriage to you, and I expect you to make the trip on your own.

It tells nothing but daily trifles and the feelings of husband and wife at parting, but it has a distinctive flavor of its own. At the time, communicating by letter was an ordinary thing for educated couples, but what made it extraordinary was that such letters were preserved on purpose and circulated as “literary texts,” which signified a changing attitude about literature, and heralded the rise of lyrical prose on the topic of daily life.

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chapter five 3. Historical Records and History of the Han

Sima Qian’s Comprehension of History Sima Qian’s (145 B.C.–ca. 87 B.C.) father Sima Tan, an erudite scholar, served as Grand Astrologer. When he was nearly ten years old, Sima Qian went to Chang’an with his father, and at one time he was a student of Dong Zhongshu and Kong Anguo, both renowned masters of the Study of the Confucian Classics. In the year when he reached twenty, he began to travel widely. Later, he also traveled to various places in the land either on government missions or in attendance upon Emperor Wu on imperial trips for hunting and sacrificial offerings to heaven and earth. He left his footmarks in almost every corner of the empire, during the course of which he came into contact with the lives of people in every stratum in society, and collected a large amount of data and stories about historical figures. After his father died, Sima Qian succeeded his father’s position as Grand Astrologer, and carried on his unfulfilled wish of writing a history. Subsequently, a great disaster took place. In the second year of the Tianhan reign (99 B.C.), Li Ling, after a fierce battle against the Xiongnu, surrendered after being defeated. Indignant at the shameful behavior of his fellow courtiers, who invariably fawned on the emperor, and out of his understanding of and sympathy for Li Ling, Sima Qian came to the latter’s defense. The cause of Li Ling’s defeat, in fact, was in Emperor Wu’s appointment of Li Guangli, an incompetent relative of the emperor’s consort, as commander-in-chief; thereupon Sima Qian’s defense irritated Emperor Wu, and he was punished by castration. To Sima Qian it was a deep, galling disgrace even more painful than a death sentence, and it was only because he was unwilling to die a worthless death that he “held back and dragged out an ignoble existence,” and considered the composition of his history as the consummation of his life. For an intellectual, it was also the only form of resistance he was able to adopt against the sovereign’s despotic power and the ruthless fate. “A Letter in Reply to Ren An,” written in the third year of the Taishi reign,3 mentioned that the Historical Records was almost completed. Little was known of his life afterwards, but he perhaps died in the last years of Emperor Wu’s reign. The Old

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Etiquette of the Han Officialdom, by Wei Hong of the Eastern Han, says that Sima Qian “made complaints and died after being thrown into prison.” Historical Records, originally entitled Grand Historian-Astrologer’s Book, came to be known by its present name at the end of the Eastern Han. It consists of one hundred and thirty chapters, and was written in more than 520,000 Chinese characters. The very first general history in ancient times, it was also a work of the largest scope up to that time. The work is organized in the five categories of Basic Annals, Historical Tables, Monographs, Hereditary Houses, and Biographies/Accounts. “Basic Annals,” telling the life and political achievements of sovereigns and de facto rulers of various ages, provide an outline of the entire work. “Historical Tables” enumerate the important events of various historical periods in tables for the convenience of checking and consulting. “Monographs” are records of various specific topics that include astrology, calendar systems, irrigation works, economy, etc. “Hereditary Houses” are biographies of the hereditary families of aristocrats as well as people like Confucius and Chen Sheng, who enjoyed continuous sacrificial offerings during the Han dynasty. “Biographies/ Accounts” include biographies of those not included in the Basic Annals and the Hereditary Houses, and a few accounts of the history of various ethnic groups at Chinese frontiers. Through the interactive cooperation among and supplement to one another of these five forms, Historical Records builds up a complete system of history. Such a format of composition was called “history in annals and biographies” for short, and later, with some slight variations, became the general format for the official history of all ages. As regards the narration of events in Historical Records, in time, it starts all the way back to the Yellow Lord, who was regarded by people of the author’s age to have begun history, and all the way down to the years of the Taichu reign4 of Emperor Wu, when Sima Qian was writing the work; in space, it includes the entire domains of the Han Empire and all the regions on its periphery that the author was able to know about. In fact it was a history of humanity, a history of the world, which linked up everything, past and present, in Sima Qian’s consciousness. In “A Letter in Reply to Ren An,” Sima Qian says himself that his purpose was “to investigate the relation between heaven and

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humans, to comprehend all the changing events past and present, and to complete the work of a school of its own.” This not only implies a comprehensive summation of history with an extremely broad field of vision, but also a profound understanding of history through individual thinking. First of all, in an age when the autocratic system had been reinforced to a high degree and when the singing of praises had become a profession for men of letters, the Historical Records refused to eulogize and instead adopted a critical attitude. This was particularly true of the history of the Han dynasty and the politics of the contemporary age, i.e., Emperor Wu’s reign, toward which Sima Qian always held an uncompromising view. Emperor Wu’s many moves, such as his appointment of cruel, ruthless officials, his persecution of people, his choice of making appointments according to his personal likes, his superstitious pursuit of immortality, and his abusive use of labor, were exposed fearlessly by Sima Qian. All kinds of intrigue and infighting, every shameless act of the bureaucrats, were brought out vividly in his penetrative writing. Such exposure and criticism, however, do not show any inclination for vilifying, nor are they simple denouncement; instead they are based on his personal, systematic intellectual stand, and on his investigation of historical facts. Politically Sima Qian was more appreciative of the policy of governance by “peace, quiet and noninterference,” since the beginning of the Han dynasty, based on the thinking of the “School of the Yellow Lord and Laozi” which, he believed, had played a positive role in bringing a peaceful life for, and increasing the wealth among, the people. In his opinion, the strengthening of the emperor’s autocratic rule during the reign of Emperor Jing and Emperor Wu, as well as their over-ambitious and unrealistic measures and their scramble for profit in competing with the people, were the roots that gave rise to a series of social crisis. Precisely what kind of power controls the historical activities of human beings? It was a question that concerned and at the same time also haunted Sima Qian. As a spectator loyal to life and a profound thinker, he clearly recognized that the human pursuit of personal interest was an uncontrollable impulse. In the “Biographies of the Moneymakers,” Sima Qian took great pains to enumerate all kinds of facts to prove that “to get rich is in human nature, and they do not need to learn to desire it,” and that “from the Son of Heaven to the commoner,” everyone, without exception, “loves profit.” Where, then, lies the power of morality and justice? By placing the “Biography


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of Boyi” at the head of the seventy Biographies/Accounts, the author displayed some kind of idealism. From the fact that Bo Yi and Shu Qi “lived a life of benevolence and decency, and yet starved to death,” he followed up with the question: “Is this so-called ‘Way of Heaven’ right or wrong?” In Sima Qian’s historical narratives, those who succeeded and those who held power in hand did not acquire their place in society because, as they claimed, they had noble character, morality and justice. Sometimes the opposite was true: those who had noble character and abided by morality and justice often met with misfortune and defeat. Sima Qian did not provide any clear explanation of such phenomena, but they prompt the reader to engage in some deep reflection upon them. The responsibilities of a historian, according to Sima Qian, are precisely in making it possible for those who “cling to righteousness in an extraordinary manner, refuse to allow themselves to miss the call of the age, and win honor and fame in the world” to be remembered in history. They include many with unrecognized talents and heroes who failed in life. History inevitably involves evaluation, but the Historical Records does not hold official, contemporary or conventional judgments as its criteria; instead the author attempts to find more rational ones of his own. Individual free thinking accounts for Sima Qian’s realization of the complexity of history. Those whose stories are told in Historical Records are of course primarily political figures of the upper stratum, but they also represent a broad social range, including some from the middle and lower strata, and some non-political figures. In addition to emperors, princes, and prime ministers, there are also literary authors, thinkers, assassins, knights-errant, merchants, entertainers, medical doctors, male prostitutes, fortunetellers, and so on, respectively representing the various aspects of human life and, more or less, reflecting the complex constitution of the society. As regards the author’s judgment of his characters, it is never simplistic, and it does not matter even if sometimes it may sound contradictory and inconsistent. For example, while the “Biography of Boyi” commends the loyalty and integrity of the two gentlemen therein for “not eating the grain of the Zhou,” the “Biographies of Guan Zhong and Yan Ying,” on the other hand, commends Guan Zhong, who served successively Prince Jiu and Duke Huan of Qi who were deadly enemies to each other, saying that Guan Zhong “was not abashed about trifles, but was ashamed for not winning honor and fame in the world.” At the same time when he points out how the chivalrous knights-errant

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violated social order, he nevertheless celebrates their righteous manner of keeping true to promises and taking life and death lightly. The “Biographies of Cruel Officials” harshly condemns the cruelty of ruthless officials, but the “Grand Astrologer’s Postface for Himself ” says, instead, that “the common people, mostly cunning and deceitful by nature, play their tricks and dally with law, and the virtuous can hardly reform them,” hence the existence of cruel officials seems to have its justification. All these should not be attributed to the possible confusion in Sima Qian’s views; instead, precisely because of the complexity of the society itself, he need to understand the way of life for all kinds of people in a broad and multifaceted manner. Ban Gu was deeply disappointed with Sima Qian’s “judgment of the right and wrong, which was opposite to that of the Confucian sages;” actually, it was mainly opposite to that of the dominant ideology of the Han dynasty. However, it was precisely because Sima Qian was less restrained by the dominant ideology that he had the courage to disdain the worldly moral dogma and would not understand and describe his characters from any one singular school of thought; only then has Historical Records been able to acquire its rich variety and great breadth, which engenders a peculiar charm of its own, making it different from all the other official histories of later ages. The Literary Achievements of Historical Records Historical Records is a great work of literature as well as a great work of history. Sima Qian’s personal character and his frame of mind in writing Historical Records, above everything, account for the literary nature of this work of history. From “A Letter in Reply to Ren An” and Historical Records, one can perceive his personal character everywhere: his great compassion, his strong emotions, and his impulsiveness. That he ran into a disaster because of Li Ling was in fact a tragedy that resulted from his personality. In short, Sima Qian actually had the temperament of a poet. In “A Letter in Reply to Ren An,” Sima Qian classified The Book of Changes, The Book of Songs and “On Encountering Trouble” all under “in general what the sages wrote to vent their grievances. When a man has something pent up in his mind and cannot find an outlet for it, he would tell what happened in the past and think about later generations.” Such a theory of “venting grievances in writing a book” is not necessarily an apt description of how those ancients had written


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their works, but it fits perfectly the actual situation of the composition of Historical Records. He resorted to the writing of Historical Records as a means to vent the suffering and indignation deep in his heart and to fight against reality, hence the work was permeated with his feelings. It was precisely on this special feature of the work that Lu Xun, in his Essentials of the History of Han Literature, referred to Historical Records as a kind of “‘On Encountering Trouble’ without the use of rhyme.” In relation to that, Sima Qian’s concern with history had at its very center a concern with the ways of existence and the destiny of his characters, and the narration of the stories of historical figures, to some degree, turned into a dialogue of his with these figures. For instance, after his castration Sima Qian “held back and dragged out an ignoble existence;” while he had sufficient reasons to do that, it was nevertheless extremely painful to him. Without doubt, he cherished a desire for death, and Historical Records repeatedly came to describe those who died a glorious death: Xiang Yu, despite an opportunity to flee to safety, drew out his sword and killed himself because he could not bear to see the elders of his native town east of the Yangtze; Li Guang, who did not commit any crime punishable by death, killed himself with his own sword because he did not want to get humiliated by petty officials of justice at the end of a life during which he had survived many a military battle; Qu Yuan, true to his noble ideal, held to a piece of rock and drowned himself in the river . . . All such tragic scenes represented the strong resistance against destiny of noble men, and the writing about them per se had turned into Sima Qian’s vicarious mental experience of death. Because of his concern with issues like how humans exist in history and what powers determine human destiny, Sima Qian initiated the historiographic format wherein the “annals and biographies” dominate and, for the very first time, provided a history that centers on a record of human beings. Certainly, previous works of history also recorded the historical activities of human beings, but the records therein had their focus primarily on time, geographic regions, and events, and the place of human beings as the main subject had not been fully reflected upon and represented. In addition, previous history works usually restricted their narration to the stories of political figures from the upper social stratum, plus a few traveling political strategists. Historical Records, on the other hand, strives to examine a broad range of complex social phenomena, and so the characters in the book are presented in much more colorful and varied outlooks.

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Taken as a whole, the characters, as depicted in Historical Records, display three outstanding special features: they are great in number, varied in types, and distinctive in personality. Numerous biographies of individuals constitute a history on a grand scale. Among them, those that have been more successfully written and are able to leave a deep impression on the reader, such as Xiang Yu, Liu Bang, Zhang Liang, Han Xin, Li Guang, Li Si, Qu Yuan, and Jing Ke, count nearly a hundred. These characters come from various strata of society, are engaged in all kinds of different activities, and meet each of their respective destiny in life. From emperors and princes to commoners, with winners and losers, upright, unyielding heroes and shameless villains among them, together, form into a rich and varied gallery of characters, each having a distinctive character of their own. Those of different social status and with different experience in life certainly differ from one another, but those of similar status and experience are not confused or mixed up with one another either. Zhang Liang and Chen Ping were both men of wisdom and resourcefulness serving under Liu Bang, but one preserved one’s decency while the other did not bother about trifles. Among the cruel officials appointed by Emperor Wu, some were corrupt while some others were incorruptible . . . All these, while giving us knowledge of history, also enrich our experience of life. In the course of depicting a character’s life, Sima Qian often focuses his attention on the great changes in destiny. For example, when Liu Bang was humble and poor, he idled about and was disliked by his father; after he became the emperor, Liu Bang would not forget about it and once poked fun at his father. When he was dismissed from office, Li Guang was humiliated by the commandant of Baling; after he resumed his post, he found a pretext to have that commandant executed. Han Anguo was thrown into prison for an offence, where a lowly jailor rode roughshod over him; after he staged a comeback, he specifically sent for the jailor and brought up the past . . . These stories of the changing destiny, acts of gratitude and settlement of personal scores fully demonstrate the personality of the characters and some of the deep-rooted fundamentals of human nature. As for the characters described in Historical Records, one can have a clear sense of their vivid lifelikeness. As Saitō Seiken, a modern Japanese scholar, has said, “Reading Historical Records is like meeting directly with the people of the time, witnessing with your own eyes what they did, and hearing in person what they said, which makes one


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happy or astonished, become afraid or weep in turns, uncontrollably.” (See his Remarks on Literature from the Clumsy Studio cited in Textual Research of the Collected Annotations of Historical Records.) All this is due to Sima Qian’s use of literary narration in writing the biographies of these characters. Very few of the biographies of historical figures in Historical Records adopt the format, frequently found in later official histories, of enumerating the person’s resume. As a work of history, especially in keeping a record of the achievements of important historical figures, it cannot avoid providing some needed account of such achievements, but the core part of the biographies usually consists of a series of vivid, specific events that are carefully chosen and meticulously depicted, some of which have a very interesting narrative plot. For instance, in the “Basic Annals of Xiang Yu,” from the killing of Song Yi, the rescue of Julu, the banquet at Hongmen, all the way to the besiege of Gaixia and the suicide by the Wu River, the narration is never insipid. The characteristics of literary narration lies in the creation of vivid scenes that give the reader a sense as if he were personally on the scenes, which makes it different from the reality and truth that history seeks. Historical Records is known as “actual record,” which refers to Sima Qian’s serious stand as a historian: rigorous examination of important historical facts, with neither fabrication nor any cover-up. However, those brilliant, lifelike stories from his pen could not be entirely true. In order to reproduce the historical “scene of the moment” and the activities of the personage, one has to use some fiction in details. Take, for example, the opening section of the “Biography of Li Si”: When he (Li Si) was young he served as a lowly clerk at the provincial office. At the toilet of the clerk’s quarters he saw that some rats, feeding on dirty stuff, often got startled when human beings and dogs approached them. When Si entered the granary, he saw that the rats there ate the grains in store, lived in the large compartment, and never had to worry about human beings or dogs. Thereupon Li Si said, sighing, “Some men are talented, some not. It’s just like the rats, all depending on where they have positioned themselves!” He therefore studied the ways to advice the monarch under Xun Qing.

It is a well known tale. Now, from a historiographic point of view, such trifles are not only worthless but, by logical argumentation, are quite dubious in their authenticity. So Li Si went to the toilet but, who witnessed it? However, for a literary biography, the use of such details is an important means to disclose the character’s personality and inner

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world. In Historical Records, many details of this kind have been used to portray characters, by means of which abstract commentary of the characters is avoided. Historical Records uses a rich variety of narrative techniques. For instance, Sima Qian was fond of delineating dramatic scenes, like in the famous tale of the “banquet at Hongmen,” which is simply a breathtaking one-act play with one climax after another. Everything from the entrance and the exit of the characters to and from the stage, to their expressions, movements, dialogues, even in which direction they are seated, is told in a meticulous way. Dramatic tales of this kind have many distinctive features. First, they help to build up vivid, realistic scenes and atmosphere. Second, they avoid lengthy, slow-paced narration and create tension, which leads to a kind of dynamism needed in literature. Third, in sharp conflict and contention, the characters are set in contrast with one another, and their respective personality becomes more conspicuous accordingly. In the description of the banquet at Hongmen, which is not so long, we can see with great clarity how Liu Bang is slick, pliable, and yet tough; Zhang Liang, witty and composed; Xiang Yu, candid, rough and careless; Fan Kuai, loyal and brave; Xiang Bo, naive and pedantic; Fan Zeng, decisive but impatient. The language of Historical Records has always been honored as a model of writing. Sima Qian rarely, if ever, used the technique of parallelism which had become a convention of men of letters of his time. The style of Historical Records is in essence plain and concise, unrestrained and unhurried, facile and variegated. Sima Qian’s own feelings always permeated through his narration, so his writing naturally creates a rhythm that corresponds to his emotions. In the dialogues of the characters, Historical Records frequently resorts to the colloquial expressions in daily life which further invigorates the vitality of its language. Historical Records: Its Influence in the History of Literature Historical Records has enjoyed a high standing and exerted a lasting influence in the history of literature. Only starting from Historical Records did China begin to have authentic narrative prose of a literary nature. Works of history prior to it certainly belonged to narrative prose, and they more or less contained some literary elements, but the works themselves could not be counted as “literary.” The establishment of narrative prose of such a


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literary nature had its direct impact in the field of biographical literature. Starting from History of the Han, most histories of various ages inherited the format of “annals and biographies” of Historical Records, and some superb works of biographical literature were produced therein. Besides historical biographies, biographies of other kinds all had their origin in the convention initiated by Historical Records. Another important impact was seen in the field of fiction. Fiction is certainly of a different nature from historical biographies, but in terms of the close integration of narration and characterization, the two genres share much common ground. Starting from the chuan qi (“tale of the marvelous”) of the Tang, stories written by men of letters were mostly entitled “biography;” they were developed in the form of biography, had the beginning and ending in the style of biography, and used the life of the character(s) as its main story line; the plot was developed in chronological order, and the author’s direct comments were often attached; all these important features had their origin in Historical Records. In addition, although the personages in Historical Records were real historical figures, Sima Qian’s inclination to highlight some of their main idiosyncrasies enables some of such personages to acquire a touch of “types.” This in turn made it possible for Historical Records to become a source of prototypes for fictitious literary creation in later ages. For example, the brave and fierce but rough and careless Xiang Yu, and the gentle and frail-looking but witty and resourceful Zhang Liang had left their shadow in later literature. As for the cases of tales about the personages in Historical Records being used as source material for later fiction and drama, it has been very common. Historical Records also has had an influence on prose of other kinds. After the Eastern Han, prose increasingly used antithesis and parallelism; from the Wei, Jin, the Northern and Southern Dynasties to Early Tang, parallel prose was popular, so the influence of Historical Records was not so visible. Starting from the Mid-Tang period, when Han Yu and others led the Classical Prose Movement, all the way to the authors of classical prose of the Ming and Qing dynasties, most of them celebrated Historical Records as the paragon for the “classical prose” as opposite to the parallel prose, and many modeled their own prose after the work. Its pros and cons, however, are quite complicated and need to be examined case by case.

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Ban Gu and History of the Han The chronicle of events in Historical Records comes to an end with Emperor Wu’s Taihe reign, so its Western Han part is incomplete. Afterwards, quite a few composed works of continuation, among which the best known is the Sequel to Historical Records, in sixty-five sections, by Ban Gu’s father Ban Biao. Based upon the part about the Han period in Historical Records and the Sequel to Historical Records, Ban Gu composed History of the Han which, focusing on the historical events of the Western Han dynasty, was the first dynastic history in ancient times. In general, for the part before Emperor Wu, it mostly adopts the original text of Historical Records, with some revisions and supplements, and for the part afterward, it is mostly based upon the Sequel to Historical Records. In format it continues that of the Historical Records with some slight changes. History of the Han has always been placed on a par with Historical Records with equal distinction. As a matter of fact, though, it cannot be mentioned in the same breath with Historical Records. At first Ban Gu wrote History of the Han in private, and was imprisoned because of that. Later, Emperor Ming read his draft manuscript and liked it very much, so he appointed Ban Gu as a Clerk of the Orchid Pavilion,5 and granted him the permission to continue the composition of History of the Han. Hence History of the Han is in fact an imperially-commissioned official history. In addition, Ban Gu himself was a man with all the orthodox Confucian thinking. Accordingly, in terms of individual consciousness and critical spirit, History of the Han is much inferior to Historical Records. However, Ban Gu was after all a serious and talented historian. Writing a history of the Western Han as an official historian of the Eastern Han, as compared to Sima Qian’s handling of his contemporary historical facts, he had some advantages in convenience. On that account, from a Confucian political stand, he exposed much of the dark sides of the various reigns of the Western Han government. For example, the “Biography of Chao Cuo” tells how at first, Emperor Jing adopted Chao Cuo’s proposal to weaken the power of the feudal princes but, by the time when the seven states led by Wu and Chu dispatched troops in rebellion, the emperor, in order to ease up the tension, fabricated charges against Chao Cuo and had him and his

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entire family executed. The record of the events here is clearer than that in Historical Records. Ban Gu was also one of the best known literary authors of the Eastern Han. As narrative literature, History of the Han, though not as superb as Historical Records, still contains many exceptional parts. Generally speaking, Ban Gu’s writing is not fraught with emotions like that of Sima Qian, but its delineation of specific facts and the character’s speech and conduct often manages to bring out their mental outlook. The biographies of Li Ling and Su Wu, contained in the “Biographies of Li Guang and Su Jian,” are the most celebrated pieces on everyone’s lips, and in their strong emotional appeal they rival any of the famous pieces in Historical Records. One is full of vitality in telling how Su Wu resisted the Xiongnu’s lure of him into surrender, and remained unyielding despite all the persecution. The other tells how Li Ling fought from one place to another against the eighty thousand strong army of the Xiongnu with his five thousand men. After coming to more than a hundred li from the Han frontiers and seeing no sight of relief troops, he was forced to surrender under the hopeless situation. It continues to tell how, after all his family members were executed, he had no place to return. The course of the events, as well as Li Ling’s mixed feelings as a tragic hero, are portrayed in great depth and details, and the author’s sympathy for him is quite obvious. The scene of how Li Ling bade farewell to Su Wu, placed in the biography of Su Wu, is very moving. Thereupon Li Ling held a feast in honor of Su Wu, and said: “Now that you are going back home, you have made a great reputation among the Xiongnu and won merits for the Han court. Even those with their records on bamboo slips and silk books and their portraits on colorful mural paintings cannot exceed you, my friend. I am certainly incompetent and cowardly, but if the Han had granted me a pardon and kept my old mother alive, I would have carried out my wish, hidden in my mind for a long time through all the humiliation, and accomplished an alliance like that of Cao Mo at Keyi. This was what I could never forget, night and day! Now that my entire family had been wiped out in such an extreme disgrace in the world, what is there, then, that I can look back at? All is over! I only want you, my friend, to know what’s in my heart. I am a foreigner now, and once we two part, it’s farewell for ever!” Ling rose, danced and sang: “Passing ten thousand li through the sands, I served as the sovereign’s general in fighting the Xiongnu. When there was nowhere to run, and all the arrows and swords became worn, all my men were gone, and my name was dishonored. Now that my old mother is dead, even if I still wish to pay my debt of gratitude, where could I go?” Tears trickled down Ling’s face, and he parted with Wu.

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Roughly speaking, some of the best parts in History of the Han show the quintessence of Historical Records. In its characterization, it sometimes also makes use of details with interesting narrative plots, though they are of little historical worth, which is in the literary spirit of Historical Records. In general, the historical facts provided in History of the Han are more detailed and extensive from the need of historiography. In the long run, it was unavoidable that history was to be detached from literature. In style History of the Han is meticulous, neat and compact in language, with an inclination toward parallelism; it is also fond of using archaic words, and prefers a kind of refined elegance. All this is quite different from Historical Records. It also reflected the changing tendencies of the prose of the Han dynasty: those who were partial to the style of parallelism and elegance even placed History of the Han above Historical Records in rank in their evaluation.

CHAPTER SIX

POETRY OF THE HAN DYNASTY

No poetry from the Qin dynasty has survived. There is only a single reference, on the list in the Treatise on Arts of History of the Han, to some “Poetry of the Immortal True Man,” which may have been related to the First Emperor’s search for immortality. The poetry of the Han dynasty was quite different from that of pre-Qin times. The Book of Songs was of course widely read and studied by the educated, but composition of tetrasyllabic verse had declined, so what have been passed down in that form are only such hackneyed pieces of imitation like Wei Meng’s “Poem of Remonstration” and “Poem at Zou.” The Songs of the South originally belonged to the genre of poetry in nature but, by the Han dynasty, the rhapsody, which developed from The Songs of the South, had become a special form in between poetry and prose. Accordingly, the poetry of the Han dynasty primarily consisted of some new poetic forms. In particular, pentasyllabic poetry (poetry in five-character lines) gradually developed to maturity during the age, and became a basic poetic form of classical Chinese poetry later.

1. The Rise of Chu Songs As previously mentioned, even during the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States periods, there was already a kind of ballad songs, different in form from those in The Book of Songs, in the state of Chu, which have left some of its traces in ancient books. However, judging from extant documentation, the composition of such ballad songs did not appear to be very popular. In the process of the overthrowing of the imperial regime of Qin, the main force of opposition came from the region that had formerly been the state of Chu. By the Han dynasty, ballad songs that originated from the Chu region were thereupon, at one time, quite popular in the society, especially in the imperial court. They were known as the “Chu songs.” The earliest Chu song of the Han dynasty may be dated from Xiang Yu’s “Song of Gaixia.” It was during the fifth year of the Han reign,

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when Xiang Yu, besieged at Gaixia by Liu Bang’s various troops, was at the end of his resources. In front of his favorite lady, Consort Yu, he sang with a solemn passion: Strong enough to move mountains I have the vital force that tops the world. Time does not work on my side, and my black horse gallops no more. My black horse gallops no more: what is there that I can do? Oh Yu, alas, my Yu: What can I do about you?

In an age when women were subordinate to men, the cruelest mark of failure for someone of power was that his women were to be taken over by the winner and re-assigned to other men. The assumption about Consort Yu’s prospect, in a manner that was emotionally most irritating, implied Xiang Yu’s rapid change of fortune, from arriving at the peak of success within the short time of only a few years to reaching the bottom in his downfall. The more he tried to preserve his pride and confidence in his personal abilities, the more one could feel the insignificance and helplessness of an individual under the great pressure of destiny. Such a tragic sense about the fickleness of fate seemed to have gradually permeated through Chinese poetry ever since the “Song of Gaixia.” As a triumphant hero, Liu Bang left behind his “Song of the Big Wind”: A big wind rises, and the clouds soar high. My prestige shines all around, I am back at my home town. Where can I find brave warriors to guard the four corners of my land?

It was during the tempest of wars at the end of the Qin dynasty that Liu Bang ascended the emperor’s throne from the bottom level of society. The force of destiny that dominated such cataclysm was also something he found difficult to comprehend and felt uneasy about. From the Warring States to the Qin and Han period, Chinese history went through violent upheavals for a long time, which in turn also accounted for the equally violent changes in the lives of historical figures. Although there was a world of difference between success and defeat, the “Song of Gaixia” and the “Song of the Big Wind” both reflected the frustration and sorrow over the human condition in the world, which heralded the prospective increase of depth in terms of the subject matter of literature.

poetry of the han dynasty

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From the Early to the Middle Western Han, many “Chu songs,” composed by those in the upper social stratum, found their way into the record of works of history. Also, notwithstanding the difference in the background and contents of the texts, they are strikingly similar in their lament about how destiny was beyond human control. For example, the song of homesickness by Princess Liu Xijun, who was married to the faraway Prince of Wusun during Emperor Wu’s reign, Li Ling’s songs of valediction to Su Wu, the song sung before his death by Liu Xu, Prince of Guangling, who was executed during Emperor Xuan’s reign because of his coveting of the throne, etc. (In history books these songs appear in words only, with no titles.) The “Song of the Autumn Wind,” attributed to Emperor Wu of Han and recorded in the book of Anecdotes about Emperor Wu of Han, is rather dubious in authenticity, but so far as the mood is concerned, it also reflects the grief over life’s uncertainty: “When joy reaches its climax, feelings of sorrow abound. / How long can one stay young and strong, and what to do about aging?” After the Middle Western Han, the composition of “Chu songs” went into gradual decline. The “Song of Five ‘Alas’” by Liang Hong of the Early Eastern Han, is worth mention here. The poem makes a contrast between the imperial capital, where “lofty palaces stand,” and the life of the common people who “toil day and night,” in a direct condemnation of the court. In a peculiar way, five interjections of “Alas” are used successively in the poem, showing a strong disgust with the situation.

2. The Formation of Pentasyllabic and Heptasyllabic Poetry About Pentasyllabic Poetry The formation of pentasyllabic poetry in the Han dynasty has been a controversial issue. Judging from documentation, a poem by Consort Yu in reply to Xiang Yu, which was cited in the Commentary of the Historical Records by Zhang Shoujie of the Tang as having been included in Lu Jia’s Annals of Chu and Han, is entirely in the format of four pentasyllabic lines. If indeed the Annals of Chu and Han did include this poem originally, then, no matter if it was really composed by Consort Yu, it would be from a very early date (as Lu Jia was actually a contemporary of Consort Yu’s). However, the poem sounds almost like a jueju (“truncated lines”) quatrain, and it was quite awkward to have it placed in the Qin-Han era. That was why even in ancient times,

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someone already raised the doubt that it might have been forged by someone from later ages. However, no evidence has ever been given to support the doubt, so we shall have to leave it out of our discussion here. Besides this poem, the “Pounding Song” by Lady Qi, Emperor Gaozu’s consort, which also dates from very early times, approximates the standard pentasyllabic verse in form: “The son is the king, / the mother is the prisoner./ Pounding rice all day long, / she is often in Death’s company./ Three thousand li from each other, / who could I send to inform you?” During Emperor Wu’s reign, there was also Li Yannian’s “Song of a Beautiful Woman”: In the north there is a beautiful woman who tops the world and stands out alone. She looks back once: the entire city is bewitched; she looks back again: the entire nation is possessed. What you know not: city bewitched, or nation possessed, a beautiful woman like that is hard to come by!

Except for one line, the poem is pentasyllabic in form. The reason why its author did not write it as a complete pentasyllabic poem was not, presumably, due to any technical difficulties; it was perhaps only because he did not deem it necessary. By Emperor Cheng’s reign, the two extant folk songs, “Where Was the Place for You to Die?” and “An Evil Path Destroys Good Fields,” were both completely pentasyllabic, which indicated that at the time the pentasyllabic verse had already become a popular folk form. Ban the Imperial Consort, a concubine of Emperor Cheng’s, also wrote a “Song of Complaint,” which was included in the Selections of Refined Literature. Brief and terse in style, it is a superb poem: Of late I split some fine silk from Qi pure and white like frost and snow. I cut it into a “fan of nuptial happiness” round, round as the bright moon. It goes in and out of your bosom and sleeves; when it moves, a breeze comes forth. I often fear that, when the autumn arrives, the cool wind will wipe out all the heat. Then it will be thrown away into the suitcase and the affection will end midway.

This poem has also been considered a forgery, but without any evidence. Considering all the above, it is not surprising that, as some


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documentation suggested, a few pieces of the “Nineteen Old Poems” were written during the Western Han. However, the condition of the “Old Poems” is quite complicated in details, so we shall discuss them separately later. About Heptasyllabic Poetry The formation of heptasyllabic verse (poetry in seven-character lines) used to be considered as quite late in time, which, however, is equally problematic. The typical heptasyllabic line with a 4-3 (xxxx–xxx) structure1 was quite common as early as even before the Han dynasty. For instance, in the “Chapter of Playing the Tune” in Xunzi, which was written in a mixed, variegated form, heptasyllabic lines of this kind dominate (see the cited example in the above).2 The bamboo slips excavated in the Qin tomb at the Sleeping Tiger Land of Yunmeng also contain several similar verse texts, which indicate that the verse form had been quite popular once. The tetrasyllabic lines of “In Praise of the Orange-Tree” in The Songs of the South are different from those in The Book of Songs; if you read the lines in the former two in a row and leave out the word of mood xi in there, they actually turn into heptasyllabic lines with the 4-3 structure: “Fairest of all God’s trees, the orange came and settled here, / Commanded by him not to move, but only grow in the South Country. . .”3 One may infer that the prerequisites of the formation of heptasyllabic verse had already existed in pre-Qin literature. Beginning from the Western Han, the composition of folk songs, bronze mirror inscriptions, and short notes in heptasyllabic verse was widespread, which indicated that it was a form with a solid foundation in folk literature. Also, heptasyllabic poetry appeared very early as a literary genre. The “Biography of Dongfang Shuo” in History of the Han says that Dongfang Shuo wrote “first and second parts of ‘EightCharacter Lines’ and ‘Seven-Character Lines’.” The commentary to the “Proclamation on the North Mountain” in the Selections of Refined

1 It means that there is a caesura between the first four characters and the next three characters of the line. 2 See Chapter 3. 3 David Hawkes tr. The Songs of the South: An Ancient Chinese Anthology of Poems by Qu Yuan and Other Poets. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1985, p. 178.

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Literature cites that the Works of Dong Zhongshu contains “two lute songs in seven-character lines.” The commentary to the Selections of Refined Literature also mentions at many places Liu Xiang’s “SevenCharacter Lines.” The “seven-character line” mentioned in these sources should be considered as referring to, without question, poetry. Jin Zhuo’s commentary to History of the Han says, in mentioning Dongfang Shuo’s writings, “a poem in eight-character lines and a poem in seven-character lines, each with a first and a second part.” History of the Later Han records that Liu Cang, at the beginning of the Eastern Han, was the author of a Collection of Poetry in Lines of Seven Homonymic Characters, which even more clearly defined the “seven-character line” as used in poetry. Judging from extant works of today, the “Song of Sacrifices in the Suburbs” in nineteen stanzas, composed by Sima Xiangru and other men of letters of the court during Emperor Wu’s reign, contains quite a few heptasyllabic lines in its three stanzas of “Heaven and Earth,” “Celestial Gate,” and “Bright Star.” In particular, while the first half of “Bright Star” is entirely in tetrasyllabic lines, the twelve lines of its second half all consist of seven characters. It merits our attention. “Poem of the Cypress-Beam Terrace,” composed in linked verse by Emperor Wu and his courtiers, is a complete heptasyllabic poem. Its authenticity has been controversial among scholars, but judging from the condition of poetry writing of the times, there was indeed nothing unusual about its existence. Also, the extant fragments of Dongfang Shuo’s “Sevencharacter Lines” still include the word of mood xi. However, the six extant lines of Liu Xiang’s “Seven-character Lines” no longer include the word of mood, and these six lines seem to belong to one poem, and their contents, as in “Since return to farming, I have held myself aloof forever,” “Making use of wild grass as material I built my lodge,” and “Birds in the mountains sing together, making me happy,” all tell the daily life and leisurely mood of seclusion, and are of an obvious lyrical nature. In short, it may be affirmed that heptasyllabic verse already took shape in the Western Han. By the Eastern Han, from History of Later Han alone, the works of Liu Cang, Du Du, Cui Yuan, Cui Shi, Zhang Heng, Ma Rong, and Cui Qi all include the genre of “the heptasyllabic.” Zhang Heng’s “Rhapsody on Contemplating the Mystery” and Ma Rong’s “Rhapsody on the Long Flute” both close with heptasyllabic verse. All this indicated that the heptasyllabic verse was in fact quite popular at the time, though the only complete and independent heptasyllabic poem


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of the Han dynasty that we still have today is Zhang Heng’s “Poem of Four Sorrows.” Some of the lines of this poem still include the word of mood xi, which did not necessarily mean that the heptasyllabic verse of the Han dynasty had not yet been entirely clear of traces of the Chu songs. It was not accidental that none of Liu Xiang’s six fragmentary seven-character lines included any word of mood. “Poem of Four Sorrows” tells the deep admiration for, and the sorrow of failing to have access to, the “Beautiful One.” Some among the ancients believed it to be in fact a text of pretext with political implications, but it was at least represented in the form of a love song. The advantage of the heptasyllabic line, in its gentle and unhurried litheness, is in display here. However, it still awaited the efforts of later generations to bring the strength of this verse form into full play.

3. The “Nineteen Old Poems” and Others People of the Southern Dynasties often referred, in general, to a number of pentasyllabic poems of dubious authorship that had been passed down from the Han and Wei periods as the “Old Poems.” In his Ranking of Poetry, Zhong Rong mentioned that he had seen some fifty-nine such “Old Poems,” the most famous ones of which were the “Nineteen Old Poems” included in the Selections of Refined Literature. There have been various theories about the authorship and dating of the “Old Poems.” Liu Xie, in his Literary Mind: Carving Dragons, was the earliest to mention the issue, though in a prudent and vague manner: “By inference from comparing their styles, they may have been works from the two Han periods!” Later, the Selections of Refined Literature did not name any author for the nineteen poems included therein. On the other hand, shortly afterwards, Xu Ling’s New Songs of the Jade Terrace listed eight of them as the works of Mei Sheng. Most modern scholars, without providing any concrete evidence, have considered the “Nineteen Old Poems” and some similar old poems as works from the Middle and the Late Eastern Han, written by some anonymous men of letters. Some of the “Old Poems” carry obvious signs of the Eastern Han period, but we could not prove that all of them were from the Eastern Han. Therefore the prudent suggestion from Liu Xie, calling them “works from the two Han periods,” is quite commendable.

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That the “Old Poems” are of such dubious authorship and dating is due to some of the characteristics of this kind of poems. The “Nineteen Old Poems” were clearly composed on a number of most common subject matters of poetry, and are not so strong in individual idiosyncrasies. In addition, it is very difficult to make a clear distinction between the so-called “Old Poems” and the “Music Bureau” poems. In the records of related documents, both include the same poems in different titles. For instance, the piece “A Life’s Years Do Not Reach a Hundred” (XV)4 of the “Old Poems,” is also listed as the “Song of the Western Gate” in the Music Bureau. Many expressions and lines of the “Old Poems” repeatedly show up in the Music Bureau poems. One may believe that quite a few of the “Old Poems” were originally sung with musical scores. In other words, poems of this type, like regular Music Bureau texts, were constantly revised in the process of circulation to adapt to social need. Moreover, the heptasyllabic poetry was not a highly valued literary genre for men of letters of the Han dynasty, and therefore the authors perhaps did not have a clear consciousness to leave their names behind in composing such poem and the authorship of which, after being circulated through a long time as well as the revision in the process, became even more blurred. It was not until the Southern Dynasties, when poetry was once again highly valued, that there was a renewed concern about the issue, hence the doleful remark in the Ranking of Poetry: “In generations people passed away in obscurity, but their refreshing sounds have lasted long afterwards. How sad it is!” Certainly, among the “Nineteen Old Poems,” there should be some differences and changes between texts from the earlier and the later Han period. However, due to the lack of textual constancy of the “Old Poems”—as an earlier poem, in the process of circulation, might have become closer in style to later poems—so it is difficult to discuss in details such differences and changes. Generally speaking, the kernel of the contents of the “Nineteen Old Poems” is the expression of life’s sorrows, and the search for the path toward life’s happiness against the background of such sorrows. Such contents may also be seen occasionally in The Book of Songs, but there

4 For the reader’s convenience the order of the texts of the “Nineteen Old Poems,” following the commonly adopted one from the Selections of Refined Literature, is given in braces after the first line reference in the text.


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they are far from being represented in such a concentrated and strong manner as in the “Nineteen Old Poems,” which indicates that the poetry of the Han dynasty displays more passion about, and sensitivity to, the frustrations of human life. The distress over life’s brevity and vicissitudes emerges repeatedly, in all its strong feelings, in the “Old Poems.” “Between heaven and earth a man lives / in a hurry, like a passenger on a faraway journey.” (“Green, Green: the Cypress on the Hills,” III) “The yin and the yang move in the vast; / the years of one’s age are like the morning dew. / Human life is hasty, like living in an inn; / one’s life span is not as durable as gold and rock. / Thousands of years flit by, one after another; / not even the sages can transcend all the times.” (“I Drove My Carriage out Upper East Gate,” XIII) In the eye of the poets, the change of climate and seasons implies the fleeting of time and life, which brings forth a strong response from their heart: “Looking around: how boundless it is! / The east wind shakes all the plants. / Nothing that one encounters on the way is lasting: / how could one stop from aging fast? (“Turn back the Carriage and Set It out on the Road,” XI) “The whirling wind rises abruptly from the ground; / the autumn grass turns from green to yellow. / The four seasons keep changing from one to another. / How swift the year is coming to its end!” (“The Eastern City Wall Is High and Long,” XII) Clusters of graves and the white poplar trees in front of the graves, rustling in the wind, frequently show up in the “Old Poems” as symbols of the dark shadow of death: “I drove my carriage out Upper East Gate,5 / I looked from afar at the graves north of the walls. / How the white poplar trees are rustling! / Pines and cypresses line both sides of the wide road. / Down there lie those who died a long time ago / where it is the long, long night in the dark. / They sleep forever down under the Yellow Springs,6 / never to wake up again even in a thousand years.” (“I Drove My Carriage out Upper East Gate,” XIII) Under the threat of the shadow of death, the poets were eager to find ways of comfort and relief in the brief and painful life, and one of them would be to “make merry while ye may.” “The day is short; the night, alas, so long, / why don’t we have fun in candlelight? / To make merry, one must seize the time; / how could we wait for the coming years?”

5 During the Han dynasty, the city of Luoyang had twelve city gates. Of the three gates on the east side, Upper East Gate was the one furthermost to the north. 6 The nether world.

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(“A Life’s Years Do Not Reach a Hundred,” XV) The contents of “to make merry while ye may” would include materialistic indulgence in things like beautiful clothes and delicious food and drink, as stated in the lines “Let’s take a cup of wine to amuse ourselves, / little as it is, we’ll pretend it were a lot” (“Green, Green: the Cypress on the Hills,” III) and “We had better drink some good wine, / and dress ourselves in the finest of silk” (“I Drove My Carriage out Upper East Gate,” XIII), as well as the timely satisfying of one’s desires for honor and rank: “Why not spur your high-stepping horse / and take the key position before all others? / Do not stay lowly and poor / and wallow long in the mire of misery!” (“Today We Hold a Nice Feast,” IV) As if, by satisfying such desires, one could forget, however slightly, the fear of death. What is deeply impressive about the “Old Poems” is that so many of them tell the lovesickness of people separated from each other— including husband and wife, lovers, and friends—and the homesickness of those who live away from their native land. Such texts almost number more than half of the “Nineteen Old Poems.” The lovesickness expressed in these poems are also connected with the theme of the grief over life’s brevity and vicissitudes, and are presented by considering love, friendship, etc., as something invaluable in the transient and deplorable life. For example, in “The Drooping, Lonely Bamboo” (VIII), it says: “I am sad about the orchid flowers / that shine in all their bloom. / If no one picks them on time, / they’ll wither with the autumn grass.” Here it says, in the voice of a female, that if the lover does not return on time, the nice but limited youth will wither like the orchid flowers. In “Green, Green: Grass on the Riverbank” (II), when the husband does not return from his faraway journey, the wife who used to be a singing-girl is unwilling to allow her youth to waste in vain in hopeless waiting; she even makes the distressful lament that “it is hard to stay in an empty bed alone.” The “Old Poems,” as represented by the “Nineteen Old Poems,” have always been highly evaluated. In Literary Mind: Carving Dragons, Liu Xie has said that the “Old Poems” are “the crown of the pentasyllabic.” Zhong Rong’s Ranking of Poetry claims, not without a sense of hyperbole, that they are “worth a thousand pieces of gold for each word.” Both works celebrate the great artistic achievements of the “Old Poems.” This is primarily because the “Old Poems” were compositions by the literati on the basis of folk songs; in style they are not only natural and plain but also condensed and succinct. In the expression of feelings, they not only have the philosophical implications characteristic of the


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literati compositions, but also the candid sincerity of folk songs. Free from any affectation, and sometimes with great courage, the poets reveal their inner world and their earnest desire to grab the essence of life, giving these texts their forceful appeal. In particular, the “Old Poems” are skilled in making use of scenery description to set off and express their feelings. Some lines are extremely lively and emotional: “Looking around: how boundless it is! / The east wind shakes all the plants.” “The whirling wind rises abruptly from the ground; / the autumn grass turns from green to yellow.” Another illustration of that is “Far, Far: the Herd-Boy Star” (X): Far, far: the Herd-boy Star. Bright, bright: the Girl by the River of Silver. So delicate are her white hands that keep working at the clacking shuttle. A whole day is gone, her weaving yet unfinished, she weeps: her tears trickle like a drizzle. The River of Silver is clear and shallow: how far apart can the two of them be? Yet across the brimming waters they gaze with yearning, but cannot talk.

It makes use of the mythology of the Herd-boy and the Weaving Girl to describe the lovesickness of men and women in the human world. The entire poem consists of nothing but the description of the movements of the characters and the view around them, but it is overflowed with a sense of melancholy. In particular, the two lines at the end, wherein the scene and the feeling blend into one, are mild, tactful, and full of pathos. As a kind of poetry that combines the strengths of folk songs and literati composition, the “Nineteen Old Poems” have exerted a profound influence on later poetry in many aspects, including form, subject matter, style of language, and skills of expression. In the works of important poets of the Wei and Jin periods like Cao Pi, Cao Zhi, Lu Ji and others, we could find traces of their search for new development through the imitation of the “Old Poems.” The above analysis is primarily focused on the “Nineteen Old Poems.” In addition, the Selections of Refined Literature and the New Songs of the Jade Terrace also include several other anonymous “Old Poems,” both the contents and style of which are close to the “Nineteen Old Poems.” The seven pentasyllabic poems attributed to Li Ling and Su Wu in the Selections of Refined Literature, while controversial as to whether they

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were forged texts, are also close to the “Nineteen Old Poems” in contents and style. These poems, in addition to the “Nineteen Old Poems,” make a total of more than thirty extant texts of the form. Besides these, some literati poems with affirmed authorship have passed down from the Eastern Han. For example, there is a “Poem on History” by Ban Gu, which tells the story of how Ti Ying, a young woman during the reign of Emperor Wen of the Western Han, presented a memorial to the throne to rescue her father. Zhone Rong has criticized it as being “plain, stiff and graceless,” but it initiated the theme of “poems on history” which became very popular later. Zhang Heng wrote “A Song in the Same Voice” which describes, in a woman’s voice, the happiness of nuptial life. In the Late Eastern Han, Qin Jia and his wife Xu Shu wrote poems addressed and in reply to each other. Qin Jia’s three “Poems Presented to My Wife” are complete pentasyllabic poems. Xu Shu’s “Poem in Reply to My Husband” inserts a word of mood xi in each of its pentasyllabic lines; it is actually a combination of the style of The Songs of the South and the popular pentasyllabic verse. Poems from the two of them, using plain daily vernacular expressions, tell the love of a married couple in fine details. Among poems of the Han dynasty, they have a distinctive flavor of their own.

4. The Music Bureau Poetry Basics about the “Music Bureau” The term “Music Bureau” had many different definitions in ancient times. In the beginning it referred to the official institution in charge of music. People of the Han dynasty called the poems that were sung with a musical score arranged by the Music Bureau the “song poems.” After the Wei-Jin period, such “song poems” were also referred to as the “Music Bureau.” At the same time, poems that were written, using old Music Bureau titles, by the literati of the Wei, Jin, and the Northern and Southern dynasties, regardless of whether they were arranged in music, were in general called the “Music Bureau” as well. By the Tang dynasty, in addition to the Music Bureau poems written according to the old titles, there also appeared poems that did not use the old Music Bureau titles, but were written only in imitation of some of the characteristics of the Music Bureau poetry, which were called the “New Music Bureau” or the “Affiliate Music Bureau.” After the Song


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and Yuan times, the term “Music Bureau,” in its definition as texts to be sung in musical arrangement, was also used as an alternative name for the song lyric (ci) and the aria or vernacular song (qu). In the study of the history of Chinese literature, one needs to pay attention to the various concepts of the “Music Bureau.” As late as starting from the Zhou times, every dynasty had an official institution in charge of music. However, the Treatise on Arts of History of the Han says that “since Emperor Wu the Music Bureau has been established to collect folk songs, etc.,” which seems to indicate that during Emperor Wu’s reign, a special new music institution was established and its name was the “Music Bureau;” one of its important functions was to collect folk songs. In the Han Music Bureau, songs used for court ceremonies were generally called the “Elegantiae music,” the word texts of which were written by the literati, and the music and word texts collected from across the land were generally called the “folk music.” The former were not of much literary value, so they will not be discussed henceforth; the latter represented the literary achievements of the Han Music Bureau. Basically all extant Han Music Bureau poems were included in the book, A Collection of Music Bureau Poetry, compiled by Guo Maoqian of the Song dynasty. The book classifies the Music Bureau poems from the Han to the Tang into twelve kinds, which include the “Songs of Suburban and Temple Offerings,” the “Drum and Flute Songs,” the “Ensemble Songs,” and the “Miscellaneous Songs” from the Han Music Bureau. The folk music was primarily contained in the last three kinds of these, especially under the “Ensemble Songs” with a large number. “Ensemble” was a kind of instrumental music played by the ensemble of stringed and woodwind instruments; it was also the main form of folk music during the Han dynasty. The “Drum and Flute Songs” belonged to a kind of military music during Emperor Wu’s reign that took shape by incorporating northern folk music. The “Miscellaneous Songs” were works wherein the original classification got lost. One challenge in the study of the Han Music Bureau was the difficulty in the dating of specific texts. It may be roughly affirmed that the eighteen pieces of the “Songs of Drum, Flute and Nao”7 were produced during the Western Han, among which the word text for the “Song of

7 Nao was an ancient percussion instrument resembling an inverted tongueless bell, sounded by a hammer.

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Shangling” mentions that the piece was written in the second year of the Ganlu reign of Emperor Xuan.8 The rest of the works that reflect social life in general do not have any obvious traces of the age, hence we have no choice but to remain somewhat vague on the issue. The Characteristics and Literary Merits of the Han Music Bureau Poetry In the history of Chinese literature, the Han Music Bureau was of great significance in initiating a new convention. Among its outstanding features, the first was that, for the very first time, it reflected the daily life of people of the lower stratum of the society in detail and depth and second, that it laid a solid foundation for classical Chinese narrative poetry. These two features are interconnected: only through the use of narrative poetry as a form was it possible to describe the daily life of the people, including commoners of the lower social stratum, in detail and depth. Among poems of previous times, the songs from the fifteen states in The Book of Songs have a stronger flavor of everyday life of the people, but they do not show any conspicuous feature of representing the life of the lower social stratum. The “Seventh Month” in the Songs of Bin is the only one that tells the labor of the slaves through the four seasons of a year, but it provides no more than generalities. For this reason, many poems from the Han Music Bureau sound fresh and new in comparison, like the “Song of a Sick Wife”: A wife, sick for years, called her husband to come forward to have a word with him. She was about to speak but, before she spoke unknowingly she shed tears, oh, so freely. “I’ll have to leave you the burden of this couple of orphans, don’t let my kids suffer hunger and cold. When they fault, please never hit them. I’m soon to pass away: keep this in mind!” The coda goes: He hugged them, they had no jacket; their underclothes were unlined. He closed the door, blocked up the windows, left the orphans behind, and went to the market. 8

52 B.C.


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On the road he ran into a close friend; he sat down in tears and couldn’t rise. He begged him to buy some food for the orphans; he wept in front of the friend and his tears would not stop. “I wish I would not be so sad, but I can’t help it!” (The friend) fumbled for the money in his bosom and passed it on to him. When he entered the door, he saw the orphans crying and asking to be hugged by their mother. He walked to and fro in the empty room. “Soon it would be all the same again, put it aside and say no more!”

The poem tells how a woman gives some deathbed injunction to her husband, and after her death, how the husband finds himself in a predicament, being unable to feed the children. At the end the father, looking at the children who keep crying and asking to be embraced by their mother, cannot help but moan in sorrow: soon they will all die, and nothing need to be said! Using concrete details in life, the poem depicts the hard living conditions of people at the bottom of society. Such depiction was unprecedented. Artistically there is nothing special about the poem, but it is tear-jerking in its truthfulness. Besides this poem, the “Song of an Orphan” recounts how the son of a rich family, after the death of his parents, turns into a laborer under his elder brother and sister-in-law. He has to go on a faraway business trip and gets weather-beaten. On his return “he had louses on his head and his face was covered in dust;” he could not even have a short rest and had to do everything. Consequently the grief-stricken orphan exclaims: “It is not happy to stay alive, / and I had better leave early, / to follow them under the Yellow Springs.” The “Song of East Gate” is about a poor man in the city. When he returns from a trip elsewhere, he sees that at his home “there was not even a pint of rice in store in the jar, and looking back, no clothes hang on the rack.” Under the hopeless situation, “he drew his sword and went to the East Gate” in an attempt to take a risk in desperation. All these provide truthful and touching scenes. The profound concern about social life therein breathed a new force of life into poetry. We have mentioned previously that since its very beginning, Chinese poetry has been overwhelmingly dominated by the lyric. However, about one-third of the word texts of folk music in the Han Music

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Bureau are narrative pieces. They were still not enough to reverse the domination of the lyric in classical poetry, but they nevertheless managed to announce the formal establishment of narrative poetry. Artistically speaking, some of these poems sound rather immature and clumsy, like the “Song of a Sick Wife” and the “Song of an Orphan” which seem not to have gone through any much needed refinement and consequently sound trivial and disorderly in their lines, but there are a few others which already appear to be quite mature. Some of the shorter pieces often choose to represent life through a selection of some of its appropriate episodes and, by doing so, avoid excessive recounting and elaboration on the one hand, and contain colorful and varied contents on the other. For instance, the “Song of East Gate,” discussed in the above, delineates only the scene of the husband drawing his sword and about to leave and the wife imploring piteously; between the lines, however, much is provided for one to think in association. “When I Was Fifteen I Went on a Military Campaign” provides a prominent illustration of this respect: When I was fifteen I went on a military campaign, and didn’t get to return until I was eighty. On the road back I ran into some folks from home: “Who is still in my family?” I asked. “Behold! Far over there is your home: under pine and cypress, the cluster of graves.” Rabbits entered through holes in the wall for dogs, pheasants flew up from the beams. Wild grain grew in the middle of the court, wild herbs stood above the well. Pounding the grains I made a meal, picking the wild herbs I made a soup. In a while both the meal and the soup were done. but I knew not who to invite to join. I went out of the door and looked eastward. My tears fell, wetting my clothes.

Innumerable things, both at his home land and on the military campaign, must have taken place during the sixty-five years of the old man’s life in the army, but the poem mentions none of them. All it says is how, when he returns a white-haired man, he faces the desolate house and its courtyard, as well as the cluster of graves. Life’s hardship and misery, however, is found everywhere in this. The poem consists of sixteen lines only, but due to its condensed contents, does not give the reader any feeling of being cramped in space.


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Some longer pieces like “Mulberry by the Road” and others contain more description and drama in the tumult of conflicts and contradictions. “Mulberry by the Road,” also entitled “A Love Song about Luo Fu,” is a comic narrative poem. It tells how a beautiful woman by the name of Luo Fu picks mulberry leaves south of the city walls. Everyone who sees her falls in love with her. A “milord” (a senior official of the rank of governor) passes by and asks if Luo Fu is willing to go with him. Luo Fu flatly rebuffs his advance and gives quite a boastful account of her own husband. The poem comes to an end at this point, but one may imagine that the milord leaves in depression. The original subject of “Mulberry by the Road” had a long history. Since The Book of Songs, the mulberry woods had often been depicted as a rendezvous for lovers. The custom continued during the Han dynasty. For example, among the extant stone slab illustrations from the Han, there was a so-called “Picture of Lovemaking in the Mulberry Woods.” Gradually, however, the stories about the rendezvous in the mulberry woods evolved in two different directions: one followed the format of the original romanticism, the other in the opposite direction of morality. A typical illustration of the latter was the famous legend about Qiu Hu’s wife. Shortly after marriage, Qiu Hu of the Lu state went on a faraway journey in pursuit of an official appointment. On his way back several years later, he tries to take liberties with a beautiful woman who is picking mulberry leaves, but is rejected. Only when he gets home does he find out that the woman is actually his own wife, who becomes so angry that she commits suicide by drowning herself. In representing this old original subject, “Mulberry by the Road” makes a special arrangement: it starts by telling that, when Luo Fu goes to pick mulberry leaves, many people ogle her with abandon: “A passer-by saw Luo Fu: / he put down his pole and stroke his beard. / A lad saw Luo Fu: / he took off his cap, exposing his gauze headcloth. / Those who were plowing forgot their plows; / those who were hoeing forgot their hoes. / Once back, they grumbled and raged at one another / for just sitting there gazing at Luo Fu.” It not only highlights Luo Fu’s beauty, but also appeals to the general mentality of one’s fondness for beautiful women and romantic stories. However, to accommodate the orthodox moral concepts of the society, the poem does not go beyond limits in representing this respect. At the same time, the second half of the poem, while praising matrimonial love in denial of haphazard affairs in an ethical sense, avoids dry and dull moral preaching as well as such inordinately serious move as Qiu Hu’s wife has taken. In

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short, it begins with an account of a romantic nature, and closes in a humorous comedy, making it vivacious and interesting, and it has been widely appreciated. Except for the kind of “Songs of Suburban and Temple Offerings,” poems from the Han Music Bureau are usually anonymous. Extant pieces of known authorship include Xin Yannian’s “Gentleman of the Palace Guard”9 and Song Zihou’s “Dong Jiaorao,” though little is known about the two authors except that they were men of letters of the Middle or Late Eastern Han. It may be an indication that the composition of Music Bureau poems began to be taken seriously by the literati. “Gentleman of the Palace Guard” recounts the story of how a beautiful wine-shop waitress, of northern non-Chinese ethnicity, rebuffs the “unilateral love” from a bullying servant of a powerful family, using the love for her husband as the reason. Seeming to have been conceived as a variation of “Mulberry by the Road,” it is more refined in language but not as natural. Under the guise of a dialogue between the peach and plum flowers and a flower-picking girl, “Dong Jiaorao” makes a contrast between the endless recycling of Nature and the brevity of human life, and expresses the anguish over it; it has become a perennial theme in later poetry. In the above, we have mainly discussed the narrative texts of the Han Music Bureau. The lyrical poems in the Han Music Bureau also have some distinctive features of their own. In particular, the expression of emotions in some of the texts in the Western Han “Songs of Drum, Flute and Nao” is unprecedentedly intense and straightforward. “They Fought South of the City Walls” describes war’s horror as follows: They fought and they died north and south of the city walls. They died in the wild and, unburied, may become food for the crows. Please tell the crows for me: “Howl for the alien first! I died in the wild, unlikely to be buried. How could my rotten flesh flee from you?” The water ran, so deep and clear. Dark were the cattails and the reeds. Good steeds fought until they died. Nags idled around and neighed . . .

9 A member of the Palace Guard Cavalry (Cavalry of the “Plumed Woods”) created by Emperor Wu as one of five military units charged with policing and defending the imperial palace and its immediate environs.


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After a fierce battle, dead bodies lie on the battlefield; crows wheel in the air, ready to peck at human flesh. The dead asks the crows to howl for him before they eat his body.10 Such a depiction of war’s horror is nowhere to be found in The Book of Songs, and even the “Hymn to the Fallen” in The Songs of the South is not as powerful. “Oh You Up There” has usually been interpreted as a love oath made by a passionate lover: Oh you up there! I would like to get to know you and have it last long, never to cease or decline. Only if the mountains lose their peaks, waters from the river dry out, thunders roll in winter, it snows in summer, or if heaven and earth become one, will I dare to break off from you!

The speaker in the poem uses five impossible natural phenomena in a row to indicate that s/he would like to “get to know you” until the end of the world; simple as the poem is, it has a startling power. Release of emotions of this kind also enriched the spiritual aspects of classical Chinese poetry. “An Old Poem: Composed for Jiao Zhongqing’s Wife” The earliest inclusion of “An Old Poem: Composed for Jiao Zhongqing’s Wife” was in the New Songs of the Jade Terrace, compiled by Xu Ling of the Southern Dynasties. A short preface of the poem says: “During the Jian’an reign of the Han, Madame Liu, the wife of a junior functionary of the Lujiang Commandery, was dismissed and sent home by Zhongqing’s mother. She swore to herself never to marry again; when forced by her family to do so, she drowned herself to death. When Zhongqing heard about it, he also hanged himself on a tree in the courtyard. A contemporary of them grieved about the event, and wrote a poem as follows.” Guo Maoqian’s A Collection of Music Bureau Poetry includes this poem among the “Miscellaneous Songs,” under the title of “Jiao

10 The poem has been translated following the author’s interpretation. Another widespread interpretation is that the first person singular in line 4 refers to the poet himself, appealing to the crows on behalf of the dead soldiers who fought and died away from their native land (hence “alien” in line 5).

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Zhongqing’s Wife.” Later, it has also been re-entitled as “Peacocks Fly Southeast,” following its first line. Because the poem was included as an “Old Poem” in the New Songs of the Jade Terrace, it is hard to tell whether it was originally a Music Bureau poem, or if the musical arrangement was made later, and therefore it was included by Guo Maoqian into A Collection of Music Bureau Poetry. Notwithstanding all that, the boundary line between the so-called “Old Poems” and the Music Bureau was not set strictly. Without question, as a long narrative poem, it was closely related with the rise of narrative poetry in the Han Music Bureau. So, not without some reservation, we could still discuss it as a section under the Han Music Bureau. “An Old Poem: Composed for Jiao Zhongqing’s Wife” consists of 357 lines in 1,785 characters. It is a lengthy poem, seldom found not only in the Han Music Bureau but also in Chinese poetry in general. In content it is about a common family tragedy in old-time Chinese society. The male protagonist, Jiao Zhongqing, is a junior functionary at the Lujiang Commandery who has great affections for his wife Liu Lanzhi. Jiao’s mother, however, dislikes her daughter-in-law. Finding it difficult to endure the mother-in-law’s harsh treatment, Liu Lanzhi suggests to her husband to ask her mother-in-law to have her sent back to her own home. Jiao Zhongqing goes to his mother in an attempt to persuade her, but gets a scolding from her, who forces him to dismiss his wife and re-marry. Jiao Zhongqing cannot help but to allow Liu Lanzhi to return to her own home temporarily. Afterward, the district magistrate and the governor, one after the other, send matchmakers to the Liu family to ask for Lanzhi’s hand on behalf of their sons. Liu Lanzhi’s elder brother forces her to agree to remarry. Helpless, Liu Lanzhi and Jiao Zhongqing agree to take their own lives respectively at appointed times. After their death, the two families bury them together. This tragedy reflects the misery of women whose destiny is beyond their own control in old-time Chinese society, and also depicts Liu Lanzhi’s fearless resistance to the destiny as imposed on her by others. For the very first time in the history of Chinese literature, the author found a profound lesson of life in tragedy of the kind, and made what may be called a perfect embodiment of the lesson by making use of the form of narrative poetry, which had developed into maturity by the end of the Han dynasty. “Peacock Flies Southeast” has successfully portrayed a few characters, hardly found in previous poetry. Among them, Liu Lanzhi is quite a


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personage. In his book Suspicion of Splendor, Zhang Xuan of the Ming dynasty has said: “(Liu) is not a good wife. Her mother-in-law treats her harshly but does not take the initiative to drive her out. It is the woman herself who asks to be sent home in the first place.” He has clearly recognized that Liu Lanzhi is not a model of wifely virtues for women to follow. Liu’s “asking to be sent back herself ” is in fact a conduct of protest that she initiates to uphold her dignity. Although she surely sees that she will run into trouble once she is sent back to her family, she still chooses resolutely to leave. When she confronts the coercive pressure from her elder brother, she still appears calm and unperturbed. In an age when women do not have the right to live independently, Liu Lanzhi has very little room to make her own choices, but the noble aspect of human nature is clearly manifested in her. In addition, Jiao Zhongqing’s mixed character of cowardice and toughness, the willfulness of Jiao’s mother, and the selfishness of Lanzhi’s elder brother, are all brought out in a reliable and truthful manner. In the poem, the author uses various techniques of narrative poetry with success. First, the poem is very skilled in presenting the dialogues between the characters, as Shen Deqian has observed: “Vivid and eloquent, back and forth, what more than ten characters speak herein is presented in turns, one after another, each in his or her own distinctive voice and style. Isn’t that the writing from the Creator himself?” (The Origins of the Old Poems) Secondly, the poem is good at bringing to light the psychology of the characters through their action and movement. For example, the line “Pounding on her bed, she flew into a rage” tells the imperiousness of Jiao’s mother, the expression “clapped her hands hard” displays the astonishment of Liu’s mother, the line “Raised her hands to tap at the horse saddle” reveals Liu Lanzhi’s heavyheartedness at her last meeting with Jiao Zhongqing, and so on. All these are vivid and lifelike as if taking place right in front of the reader’s eyes. In addition, the poem’s compact and coherent structure and the careful pruning that keeps the poem free from either verbosity or sketchiness are all its outstanding strengths. In general it is realistic in style, but some of the elaborative descriptions and the closure are rather romantic in nature. For instance, at the end of the poem it goes: “The two families asked to have them buried together, / and they are buried in the same grave by Mt. Huashan. / To its east and west pines and cypresses were planted; / to its right and left, the phoenix trees. / Their branches covered each other; / so were the overlapping leaves. / In the shade a pair of birds flew together, / which called themselves mandarin ducks. /

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They raised their heads and cried to each other, / every night until the break of day. / People who passed by stopped to listen, / widows rose to walk back and forth.” The overlapping branches and leaves and the chorus of the mandarin ducks, symbolizing the continuous love between the male and female protagonists, are conceived in a beautiful and enchanting way. The romantic ending, with its lingering sound of music, has exerted a great impact on similar stories of later ages.

CHAPTER SEVEN

LITERATURE OF THE WEI-JIN PERIOD

During the Jian’an reign (196–220) at the end of the Eastern Han, Cao Cao assumed de facto control of the imperial court. The city of Ye, the capital of Wei,1 was not only the actual political center, but also the center of literary activities at the time. For this reason, the literature of the Wei and Jin dynasties has generally been considered as starting from the Jian’an period. Since the Later Eastern Han, the centralized autocracy had gone through a constant process of disintegration. During the cataclysm at the end of the Han dynasty, the three states held a tripartite balance of power in the country, and China began to enter a historical period of about four hundred years during which a multiplicity of states coexisted. The Wei-Jin period was a chaotic but colorful age when the literati gained an experience of life and society that was extremely deep and wide, and under the circumstances, accordingly, literature made unprecedented progress.

1. The Social Trend and Literary Consciousness of the Wei-Jin Period The Rise of Scholar-Official Clans and the Weakening of Autocracy Since the Later Eastern Han, the so-called “distinguished families and great clans” had extended an increasing influence. These families and clans were not only local powers, but they also participated in the operation of the state apparatus. In the social upheavals at the end of the Han dynasty, the independence of these distinguished families and great clans was further strengthened. They ran their own estates, had command of their private armed forces and a large number of farmhands dependent on them, and became a force to be reckoned with for any ruler. By the time when Cao Pi officially founded the

1

Cao Cao was enfeoffed as the Prince of Wei.

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Wei dynasty, he adopted the “Nine Ranks of Rectifiers,” a system of official appointment which offered more advantage to large local clans, in order to win their support in return. It was a sign that as a special social class, the scholar-official clan (also known as “hereditary clan” or “powerful clan”)—the nobilities of China’s middle ancient ages—was formerly established. Through the transition from the Wei to the Jin and the rise and fall of the two Jin dynasties, it gradually developed into the situation wherein “In the upper stratum, no one was from a poor family; / In the lower stratum, no one was from a powerful clan.” Scholar-official clans enjoyed hereditary political privilege, and they were interconnected through marriages. With rare exceptions, no marriage was ever made between scholar-official clans and commoners. Such a system of powerful families of scholar-official clans lasted through the entire Wei-Jin period and the Northern and Southern dynasties, and to a certain extent continued into the Tang dynasty until right before the An-Shi Rebellion.2 The special status and power of scholar-official clans came from their own strength, not that granted by the emperor. Hence the power of scholar-official clans was, to a certain extent, parallel with the imperial authority. For example, during the Eastern Jin, scholar-official clans reached the peak of their power. At the time when the regime was first established, there was already the saying, “all under heaven was shared by Wang and Ma.” (“Biography of Wang Dun” in History of the Jin) At later times, there were even occasions when the emperor became a nominal ruler only, with no real power of his own. Under specific circumstances, of course, the relation between the imperial authority and the power of scholar-official clans was constantly changing. Notwithstanding that, however, the power of scholar-official clans always showed the special features of being supportive of, while simultaneously also resistant to, the imperial authority. Objectively speaking, it played the function of preventing the imperial authority from becoming an absolute power, and restricting the political expansion of autocratic dictatorship. As a consequence it greatly weakened, among the intellectuals, especially those from scholar-official clans, the consciousness of being dependent upon imperial authority. Through the entire Wei-Jin period and the Northern and Southern dynasties, the so-called cardinal

2 A rebellion (755–762) during the Tang dynasty led by two military commanders, An Lushan and Shi Siming.

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principle of righteousness between the sovereign and the subject was not taken very seriously. Those from scholar-official clans considered everything more from the perspective of individual or family interests rather than that of the imperial court. As the saying of the time went, “There was no reason to consider dying for the state, and one should focus on protecting one’s family.” (“Commentary on the ‘Biography of Chu Yuan’” in History of the Southern Qi) In an age of strong autocracy, it would make the worst offence to say anything like that, but since the power of scholar-official clans did not come from the imperial authority, it was quite natural for them to be reluctant about carrying excessive moral responsibilities on behalf of the latter. The rise of scholar-official clans led to the weakening of the rule of the feudal autocracy, which provided a more liberal environment and wider space of free imagination for literary creation. Ideological Pluralism In Chinese history, the Wei-Jin dynasties made another epoch of exuberant intellectual activity after the Warring States period when “a hundred schools of thought contended.” First of all, also starting from the Later Eastern Han, the sacrosanct status of Confucian thought was gradually demolished. On the one hand, the excessive elaboration and superstition in the study of Confucian classics resulted in a mentality of boredom and rejection among the intelligentsia; on the other hand, with the disintegration of centralization and the rise of local powers, the basis of the official ideology, with its fundamental purpose in upholding the absolute authority of the imperial court, lost its ground. When even Kong Rong, a direct descendant of Confucius, was promoting “the denial of filial piety,” one could see what a severe challenge Confucianism faced. At the end of the Han dynasty, when Cao Cao assumed control, he was bold enough, out of actual need, to repeatedly issue executive orders of “appointment by talent only,” by means of which even those who were “neither benevolent men nor worthy sons” were not to be rejected. Of course, Confucianism did not decline completely thenceforth. Due to its characteristics that facilitated the establishment and preservation of the ruling order in society, it was still promoted, on a frequent basis and to various degrees, by rulers. However, not only did Confucianism itself make changes to accommodate the changing times but, all the way to the Tang dynasty, Confucianism never regained its overwhelming

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dominance. During a very long historical period after the Wei-Jin period, Confucianism existed only as one of the various schools of intellectual thought. Since the Middle and Later Eastern Han, the philosophy of Laozi and Zhuangzi had held a growing fascination with the intellectuals, and by the Wei-Jin period the “Dark Learning (Metaphysics),” that focused on its studies, became a popular intellectual trend. The basic features of the Dark Learning lay in that it was a philosophy of abstract thinking that reflected the close attention to human cognition from people of the age. Since the Dark Learning apparently did not involve any issues in real life, it was also known as the “Pure Talk.” As a matter of fact, though, the metaphysical Pure Talk did include some profound content. For instance, an important subject of the Pure Talk was the issue about the similarities and differences between “ethical codes” and “nature,” which involved the question of setting priorities and coordinating between the respect for artificial social rules as well as for original human nature. Those who maintained that one should “transcend ethical codes and yield to nature” desired for more spiritual freedom and the individual right to choose one’s own life style. As recorded in A New Account of Tales of the World, Ruan Ji went to bid farewell to the wife of his elder brother in person, disregarding the restriction of “rites.” When he was ridiculed by others for that, Ruan said: “Rites were not established for people like me!” He, perhaps, did not deny the value of rites in upholding the order of the entire society, but he believed that people like him had the privilege to yield to emotions and disregard rites. Buddhism spread into central China during the transition of the two Han dynasties, but it began to gain ground with great vitality only by the Wei-Jin period, when the translation of Buddhist sutras also entered its golden age, which made a widespread, profound, and lasting influence on the entire Chinese civilization thenceforth. Likewise and at the same time, the Taoist religion, which emerged in China proper, kept expanding its sphere of influence, and many famous big families of scholar-official clans observed the Taoist religion for generations. It is not our task to analyze and evaluate Buddhism and Taoism in this book; all we need to point out here is that, because Confucianism lost its dominance, a variety of intellectual thought began to co-exist simultaneously, and the values of the individual were attached great importance. Accordingly, people became more vigorous in their pursuit of spiritual life. It strongly stimulated the development of all and sundry art forms during the Wei-Jin period, and it was no accident


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that music, dancing, painting, sculpture, calligraphy, and even garden architecture, went through important changes during this period. Under the circumstances, literature managed to find great relief from the political and ethical burden imposed on it previously, and entered a brand new stage. The Flourish and Self-Consciousness of Literature It says in the “Commentary on the ‘Biography of Zang Tao’ ” of History of the Song: “After the family of Wei received the heavenly mandate, the monarch loved the skills of writing, everyone gave up culling phrases and citing passages (from classics), and only original art was valued.” It summarized the situation of the Jian’an period during which the interest of the literati, under the influence of the Cao father and sons, had turned from the study of the classics to literature. Thenceforward, people with power and influence, including emperors and imperial family members, were all fond of literary composition and, due to their special status, formed the center of literature of the age; it turned into a widespread phenomenon from the Wei-Jin period through the Northern and Southern dynasties. Also, it was quite different in situation from the Han dynasty, when the emperors and princes recruited men of letters to serve them in their courts, because now it was actually a kind of activity of the nature of literary cliques. The participants might belong to different social ranks, but so far as the scope of literary activity was concerned, there was a sense of equality among them, and the intellectuals almost no longer had the feeling of “being kept as entertainers.” Another related phenomenon was that literature gradually became a cultural accomplishment admired in the highbrow society. It became a widespread trend among those from scholar-official clans to take pride in their literary talent. The promotion of those in power and the admiration of the society of nobilities, in addition to the expansion of the space for free literary creation, created an environment in which literature enjoyed ever-increasing prosperity. In his essay “Mannerism of the Wei-Jin Period and the Interrelations of Writings, Medicine and Wine,” Lu Xun begins by providing an introduction of Cao Pi’s arguments from his “Discourse on Literature” in Authoritative Discourses, that “poetry and rhapsody aspire to beauty,” and that “literature is where the vital force dominates.” Then he moves on to observe: “Judging from the literary outlook of modern times, the age of Cao Pi may be called ‘an age of literary self-consciousness’.” Even

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today, Lu Xun’s opinion still makes sense, though it should be noted that he made the observation in close connection with the condition of literary composition of the time, and he did not reach that conclusion only from reading some of Cao Pi’s fragmentary lines. Generally speaking, as regards the argument “poetry and rhapsody aspire to beauty,” Lu Xun believes that, in addition to the recognition of beauty as the main generic feature of poetry and rhapsody, it also implies an objection to their inclusion of moral preaching. As for the argument “literature is where the vital force dominates,” he thinks it advocates that writings should be rich in vitality and also be “majestic.” In short, a conscious pursuit of artistic beauty and vitality of life became the hallmark of the “self-consciousness of literature” at the time. In its understanding of literature, Lu Ji’s “Rhapsody on Literature” is remarkably more advanced than the “Discourse on Literature.” He makes the unequivocal observation that “poetry emerges from emotions and is sensuously intricate,” and considers human emotion as the point of departure for poetry composition and the prerequisite for artistic expression that is “sensuously intricate” or, in other words, exquisitely beautiful. It marks an increased level of self-consciousness of literature. Using the rhapsody form, the “Rhapsody on Literature” devotes its entire text to a description of the process of literary composition, especially the psychological phenomena generated in the process, and the gains and losses in composition. Along the way the author provides what may be called an in-depth and delicate exploration and discussion of such subtle and elusive issues like the activity of conceiving, the phenomenon of inspiration, etc. One may see in this work that ancient Chinese theory of literature reached a more advanced stage. As for the restrictions of traditional Confucian concept of literature, they are hardly even detectable in the “Rhapsody on Literature.”

2. Poetry and Prose of the Jian’an Period The literature of the Jian’an period moved along the beaten track of literature of the Later Eastern Han. At the same time, though, such a development was by leaps and bounds in nature, as most conspicuously indicated in: 1) the highlighting of idiosyncratic features, 2) the intensity in the expression of feeling, and 3) the conscious pursuit of the beauty of artistic form.


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Under the influence of the ideological trend that attached importance to individual values, the authors’ courage to break free from outmoded conventions and to establish a style of their own was the main reason for the highlighting of idiosyncratic features in literature. Against the background of continual chaos caused by war, famine, and pestilence, the literary authors of the Jian’an period, who engaged themselves in actual political activity or planned to do so, blended in their writings their sorrow and anxiety about the current state of affairs and their aspiration to do immortal deeds, which accounted for the extremely intense expression of feeling therein. The pursuit of the beauty of artistic form, on the other hand, resulted from the growing tendency of variegation and delicacy in the expression of feeling. Another important change that occurred in the Jian’an literature was that poetry began to assume an overwhelming dominance in all literary compositions. As discussed previously, the rhapsody was the mainstream of the literati literature of the two Han dynasties. In the Jian’an period, the composition of rhapsody was still popular, and it also completed a transition from the longer rhapsody that described various subjects to the shorter lyrical rhapsody, making considerable achievements in that respect. However, the kind of profound and strong sentiments, and the gloomy force and solemn fervor which the literati of the Jian’an period felt obliged to vent in their writings, were not to be properly and fully expressed in the shorter lyrical rhapsody, let alone the longer rhapsody that described various subjects. The rhapsody, after all, created its sense of beauty by elaboration and hyperbolic rhetoric, and was unable to attain the level of forcefulness as required in the expression of solemn fervor and gloomy force. Accordingly, the focus of the writing of the literati changed from the rhapsody to poetry, which led to the first climax of literati poetry in the history of Chinese literature. However, some of the characteristics of the rhapsody, such as its exquisite rhetoric and its use of parallelism, were also brought into the field of poetry by those who were equally skilled in the composition of the rhapsody, such as Wang Can and Cao Zhi, when they felt such a need. As a consequence of that, the poetry of the Jian’an literati not only carried on the conventions of the Music Bureau folk songs, but also moved toward a kind of intellectual refinement and magnificence. It was an important beginning in the history of the development of classical Chinese poetry.

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The phrase “Jian’an wind and bone (an affective directness)”3 has often been used to praise the literature of the Jian’an period, especially its poetry. It refers to the perfect combination of the vitality and emotional appeal inherent in the works on the one hand, and the expression in concise but bold and robust language on the other. Cao Cao Cao Cao was the most influential figure in the literary circles of the Jian’an period as well as the political leader of northern China at the time. Cao Cao’s father, Cao Song, was the adopted son of Cao Teng, a eunuch. It says in the “Basic Annals of Emperor Wu,” in the Book of the Wei of History of the Three States: “No one could figure out the truth about his family origin.” Without question, his family background was quite humble. Although the family became illustrious at one time, it did not hold any convention from the study of the Confucian classics; because of this, and under the influence of the general mood of the time, Cao Cao, throughout his life, rarely abided by Confucian morality in conduct. According to historical records, Cao Cao was sharp-witted, vigilant, and quite unconventional by nature. By “unconventional” it means that he was unrestrained, not stubborn, and pragmatic. His literary writings, to a certain degree, reflect his thinking and personality. Cao Cao’s literary accomplishments lie primarily in his poetry. All his extant poems were in the form of “Ensemble Songs” of the Music Bureau that were arranged in music for entertainment. In the past the words for this type of songs had mostly been collected from among the common people, and men of letters usually did not participate in the composition. Convention, however, meant nothing to Cao Cao. When he wrote a poem, he did not always follow the original meaning of the title, and the poem, more than often, might have nothing whatsoever to do with the title, except for the use of the musical melody. For instance, under the title of the “Song of Qiu Hu” he would write a poem about the wandering immortals. In short, in the composition of the Music Bureau songs, Cao Cao took his liberties with the form; everything

3 For a discussion of the term “wind and bone” in English, see Stephen Owen, Readings in Chinese Literary Thought (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1992), pp. 218–223.


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was adapted to the specific usage of his own. This brought about a big change in the Music Bureau form. Prior to his time, the verbal text of a popular song belonged to a kind of socializing composition; even in the few texts of known authorship, nothing would be found therein with any clue to the author’s personality. Most of Cao Cao’s poems, however, are characterized by distinctive personal feelings as well as a corresponding artistic style. An earthshaking hero in a tumultuous age, he displays in his poems a macrocosmic outlook, broad vision, and majestic forcefulness, with a kind of the so-called “air of a king.” In structure, his poems do not seek careful organization, and in language they are archaic, simple, and often unrefined. Take, for example, the section of “Watching the Deep Blue Sea” from his “Songs of Walking out of the Xia Gate”: Eastward we went up Mt. Tablet to watch the deep blue sea. How the waters ripple among the standing hilly islets! Trees grow in clusters; all plants are so lush. The autumn wind is soughing while big waves arise. The sun and the moon move as if right in its middle. The bright river of stars seems to flow from its depth. How extremely fortunate I am to sing this song of praise!

This is the earliest extant complete landscape poem. One can feel the author’s breadth of mind from its very beginning, when we see his posture of ascending Mt. Tablet to look at the sea, and from the magnificent view of the all-inclusive sea as depicted in the poem. Most of the previous Music Bureau poems represent social realities through narration, but they are generally restricted to the depiction of specific happenings related with the individual. Cao Cao’s poems, like “Dew on Onion Leaves” and “Song of the Nether World,” adopt such titles of dirge in the Music Bureau convention, but instead recount important historical events at the end of the Han dynasty. By mingling fiction with reality, these poems delineate the tragic scenes of a ravaged society and the large number of deaths among the masses. In their bold, grand vision and gloomy power, they have made a crucial breakthrough in the narrative convention of the Music Bureau poetry.

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Some of his other poems, which directly express the author’s feeling about life and his political aspirations, are typical of the temperament of “solemn fervor and gloomy force” of Jian’an poetry in general. Take the “Short Song” as an illustration. Adopted for singing at a banquet, the poem consists of two interrelated themes: a lament over fleeting time and life’s brevity on the one hand, and on the other, an eager desire to seek help from talented men so as to fulfill the ambition to reconstruct the entire nation. Precisely because of its brevity, life becomes invaluable, and the pursuit of immortal deeds is not only a sense of social responsibility, but also serves the even more important purpose of extracting greater worth from one’s limited individual life. The song starts with: “With wine in front, one need to sing: / how long can one’s life last? / It is like the morning dew; / so many are the bygone days!” It closes with: “A mountain does not mind its height, / nor the ocean its depth. / The Duke of Zhou spat out his bites, / and won the heart of all in the world.”4 A deep majestic mood runs through the entire poem, which holds a powerful appeal notwithstanding its somewhat loose structure. By virtue of his special status as a statesman and his unconstrained personality, Cao Cao became the primary impetus behind the historic breakthrough of the Jian’an literature. He reformed the Music Bureau poetry which, prior to his time, had no individual character and was usually of anonymous authorship, turning it into a kind of literati poetry that managed to fully express individual feeling and personal aesthetics, and thereby opened a new path for the development of literature. His experiments also had a deep influence on his two sons, Cao Pi and Cao Zhi, who led the Jian’an literature to a new height of accomplishment. The Seven Masters of the Jian’an Period and Other Writers In discussing contemporary men of letters in the section “Discourse on Literature” from his Authoritative Discourses, Cao Pi singled out Kong

4 Ji Dan, or the Lord of Zhou, was a statesman at the beginning of the Western Zhou dynasty. A younger brother of King Wu’s, he became the Prince Regent after King Wu’s death, when King Wu’s young son, King Cheng, assumed the throne. According to the “Hereditary House of the Lord of Zhou” in Sima Qian’s Historical Records, the Lord of Zhou once said about himself: “I snatch my hair three times during a bath and spit out my bites three times during a meal (meaning that he did everything in a hurry). I rise to wait for the elite, and I still fear I may miss some men of talents in the world.”


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Rong, Chen Lin, Wang Can, Xu Gan, Ruan Yu, Ying Yang, and Liu Zhen as what he called the “Seven Masters of the Jian’an Period.” With the exception of Kong Rong, who was executed because he opposed Cao Cao, all the other six authors attached themselves to Cao Cao. Most of them were much older than the brothers Cao Pi and Cao Zhi and were also in close contact with them, so their literary activities were of a group nature, which exerted an important impact on the formation and development of the Jian’an literature. Wang Can was the most famous author among them. Wang Can (177–217) was often referred to side by side with Cao Zhi as “Cao and Wang.” His literary activities, however, were much earlier than those of Cao Zhi. Some of the new characteristics of his composition were quite significant in the history of literature. Take, as an example, the first one of the two “Seven Sorrows,” which is among his representative poems: When the Western Capital plunged into disorder, Tigers and wolves joined in creating chaos. I deserted the Central State and left for The faraway savage land in the south. My relatives faced me in sorrow; My friends followed, trying to hold me back. Out of the city gate, there was nothing to see Except the white bones that covered the plain. On the road there was a hungry woman Who dropped the son in her arms down in the grass. Hearing the sound of wailing, she looked back, But she brushed away her tears and would not return. “I know not at what place Death will take me; How could I manage to keep us both alive?” I galloped away on my horse, leaving them behind, For I could not bear to hear her words. Southward I ascended the highland of the Baling Tomb,5 And I turned back my head to look at Chang’an. Now I understand the singer of “Falling Spring”6 Who heaved deep sighs with a broken heart.

According to research, the poem was possibly written in the third year of the Chuping reign (192), when Wang Can, only sixteen years old at the time, fled the war from Chang’an to Jingzhou. Well organized, the poem shows some early sign of exceptional features, like its high density

5 6

The Baling Tomb was that of Emperor Wen of the Han (ruled 180–157 B.C.). No. 153 in The Book of Songs.

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of images and swift unfolding of narration, that make it markedly different from the “Old Poems,” which are generally unhurried in tempo and repetitive in style. The poem manages to integrate social upheaval, personal misfortune, and people’s suffering into one piece, rendering it rich in implication and deeply emotional. The second poem of “Seven Sorrows” was composed when the author lived as a visitor in Jingzhou; it focuses on the expression of homesickness and loneliness through the description of scenes of nature. “Mountain ridges reflect lingering sunshine; / Craggy hills get darker in the shade. / Foxes run toward their caves; / Flying birds soar over home woods. / The river runs on in a gurgle; / Apes cry along the banks. / The stiff wind blows the sleeves of our robes; / White dewdrops wet our clothes.” In the above section of the poem, the characteristics of the rhapsody, especially the travel rhapsody, have obviously been incorporated. The lines that describe the scenes are basically in parallels. It heralded some significant changes that were about to occur in classical poetry. Besides poetry, Wang Can was also known for his composition of the rhapsody. His representative work is the “Rhapsody on Ascending the Tower.” Written by Wan Can after he ascended the tower of the city walls of Maicheng at Jingzhou, it expresses his grief of living away from home and frustration over his failure to get recognized for his talent. In contents it is similar to the two “Seven Sorrows” poems. Short in length and refined in diction, it makes generous use of parallel lines, and blends the description of scenery and the expression of feeling into a close unity. An in-depth account about the author’s worry and fear at the loss of life’s values in a time of upheaval, it is a piece representative of the stage of the rhapsody’s transition as a genre during the Wei-Jin period. It is so well known that the phrase “Wang Can ascending the tower” has since become a literary allusion in itself. In the literature of the Jian’an period both Wang Can and Cao Cao were path-finding authors. However, different from Cao Cao, who primarily made some reform on the basis of the convention of the Music Bureau poetry, Wang Can extracted more from the convention of the rhapsody to sustain his own writings. In that respect, he possibly exerted considerable influence on Cao Zhi. Few works from the rest of the authors are extant today. From Kong Rong, we have two letters addressed to Cao Cao. “A Letter to Lord Cao on Sheng Xiaozhang” holds a little more of a lyrical touch. “A Letter to Rebuke Lord Cao’s Memorial to Ban Alcohol,” a piece that satirizes Cao Cao, displays the author’s personal character. From Liu Zhen, well


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known for his poetry at the time, we still have “Three Poems Presented to My Younger Cousin,” “Miscellaneous Poems,” etc. Both Chen Lin and Ruan Yu served as Cao Cao’s secretaries; most official documents on state and military affairs of the time were penned by them. Their writings show the characteristics of an inclination toward the parallel prose. Few of the poems of Xu Gan, known for his composition of the rhapsody at the time, are extant. “Thoughts of a Wife,” included in the New Songs from the Marble Terrace, is quite well known. Ying Yang’s poetry, judging from the few extant pieces of his, does not have any distinctive features of its own. In addition to the “Seven Masters,” there were quite a number of literary authors during the Jian’an period, and the most noteworthy one among them was the female poet Cai Yan, the daughter of Cai Yong. During the tumult of the war at the end of the Han dynasty, she was captured by Dong Zhuo’s troops and later found herself stranded in southern Xiongnu where she stayed for twelve years, giving birth to two sons. During the Jian’an years, Cao Cao paid a ransom for her return, and she was remarried to Dong Si. The several poems attributed to Cai Yan today are quite controversial in their authenticity of authorship. It is generally believed, however, that the “Poem of Grief and Indignation” was really her own work. “Poem of Grief and Indignation” tells her experience from being captured and taken away into alien land all the way to her return through the ransom. It blends narration, expression of feeling, and commentary into a close unity, and provides an account of the disorder of the time, the ruthlessness of the alien troops, the misery of the people, as well as her personal misfortune. Like a long scroll of painting about history drawn in blood and tears, it reflects the social conditions of the age, frightening, horrible, painful, and heartbreaking, with strong emotion and realistic description, making it extremely appealing to the reader. Take, for example, the part that tells how Dong Zhuo’s troops pillage the common people: By the side of the horses hung men’s heads; On the back of the horses women were carried. Riding a long way westward, we entered the pass; The winding road was dangerous and steep. Looking back far into the misty distance, I felt as if my heart were broken. The captives counted in tens of thousands, And we were not allowed to keep together.

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chapter seven Sometimes, family members found each other, Desired to talk, but dared not speak up. The soldiers were irritated at the slightest offence And constantly threatened to kill the captives: “We’ll just draw our swords to strike And we are not going to let you live!”

One may find here highly artistic condensation of events as well as meticulous details of portrayal. It is profound, forceful and horrifying. For another illustration, let us look at the part that recounts how she bids last farewell to her son before her pending return: In life and death, we would be apart forever, I really could not bear to say farewell. My son moved forward to hold my neck, Asking: “Mother, where are you going? People say that you are about to leave, Will you ever come back at all? You have always been such a nice Mom, Why have you stopped loving me now? I have not yet grown up to be an adult, How could you not think about me?” Seeing all this I completely broke down, Fell into a trance, and lost my senses. I wailed, I wept, I caressed him; Before I left I faltered again and again.

On the one hand, it is the homeland that she has left behind for so long; on the other are her own flesh and blood, and it is impossible for her to keep them both. It is indeed an agonizing choice. The volley of reproachful questions from the child intensifies the extremely sorrowstricken emotional atmosphere of the poem. In terms of its artistic features, the poem is well-organized in structure, free from any unwanted verbosity, and highly expressive in diction. It is well qualified to represent the attainments of pentasyllabic poetry at the time. Cao Pi and Cao Zhi Cao Pi (187–226) was Cao Cao’s second son. In his father’s lifetime he was a key figure in the literary circles at the city of Ye. Later, depending on the foundation of power laid down by his father, he became the founding emperor of the Wei dynasty in superseding the Han. Cao Pi’s literary works are dominated by poetry, half of which are verbal texts for Music Bureau songs. His poems mostly make use of


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common set themes from the Music Bureau and the “Old Poems.” They are good at expressing men’s yearning for homeland while on journey or women thinking about their faraway husbands, and are characterized by periphrastic subtlety and meticulous delineation. They are quite simple in style, easy to understand, and facile, though more refined in language than the average folk song. Among those in the pentasyllabic form, the two “Miscellaneous Poems” are close in style to the “Nineteen Old Poems,” but the best known among his poems are the two “Songs of Swallows” in heptasyllabic form. We have included one of them here: The autumn wind soughs; it turns cold. Trees shed their leaves; dew turns into frost. Swallows bid farewell; swans fly south. I think of you on the journey; my heart aches. Everyone yearns for home, and likes to return. Why do you alone stay so long elsewhere? Forlorn, your humble wife stays in an empty room. In sorrow, I think of you, keeping you ever in memory. My tears cannot help but trickle down, dampening my dress. I bring my lute: the strings make their refreshing sound. I chant a short song in murmurs; I can’t manage a long one. The moon shines, so bright, over my bed. The River of Stars flows west; the night is only half gone. Herd Boy and Weaving Girl watch each other from afar: Why are you, so innocent, set apart by the bridge on the river?

The narrative voice of the persona in the poem is from an imaginary woman who misses her husband on a far-off journey. It takes full advantage of the heptasyllabic form: its melodious and unhurried rhythm, its refined and vivid description, its great pathos and appeal, and its lucid and elegant diction—the multiple effects are integrated into great unity. Few of the early heptasyllabic poems are still extant today, hence this poem is greatly valued in the history of poetry. Another type of Cao Pi’s poems include those composed at banquets he held with men of letters as the crown prince, such as “Composed at the Hibiscus Pool” and “Composed at the Black Warrior7 Pond,” etc. They are primarily descriptions of scenery in contents, relaxed in tone and exquisite in diction, revealing a strong temperament of the nobilities. Among Cao Pi’s prose writings, the two “Letter(s) to Wu Zhi” are of a stronger literary nature, as displayed in the following passage, a

7

An epithet for the tortoise.

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reminiscence of erstwhile merriment: “Now that the white sun hid away, it was superseded by the bright moon. We went on the carriage together for a trip in the back garden. The carriage moved slowly on its wheels, and the attendants followed in silence. A fresh wind rose in the evening, sending over the faint music from some sad horns. The pleasure was gone and sorrow loomed. It drove us all into melancholy.” From it we can see that the epistle, a form of practical writing, was becoming more literary in nature and its language was turning increasingly polished. Cao Zhi (192–232) was Cao Pi’s younger brother from the same mother. He was extremely talented, but he got involved in the vortex of succession struggle against Cao Pi and eventually, after he lost the fight subsequent to Cao Cao’s death, he was put under constant strict surveillance by Cao Pi, and enjoyed some kind of freedom only after Emperor Ming assumed the throne. In spite of his great ambitions, he lived in depression until his death. Among the authors of the Jian’an period, he left behind the largest number of writings, exerted the greatest influence on later generations, and received the highest evaluation in general. In his Ranking of Poetry, Zhong Rong has commented on Cao Zhi’s poetry: “It is extraordinarily noble in the vital force of its bones, colorful and rich in diction.” If we interpret the comment more specifically as great vigor, overwhelming emotion, and exquisiteness in artistic expression, then the comment may indeed serve as a sweeping generalization of Cao Zhi’s poetry. By nature Cao Zhi was willful and somewhat romantic in temperament. In his depiction of human life, he often considers as his ideal to live in buoyant, carefree spirit, and to indulge in sensual pleasures to his heart’s content. For instance, in “A Piece on the Famous Capital,” through the portrayal of a young nobleman’s life of luxury and indulgence, he praises the beauty of freedom and leisure in human life with unprecedentedly animated characterization. Certainly, in Cao Zhi’s ideal of life, the pursuit of immortal deeds is also indispensable. In “A Piece on the White Steed,” accordingly, he writes about a chivalrous youth. It shares some of the contents of “A Piece on the Famous Capital,” but also includes valiant lines like: “Since my name is among a list of warriors, / I cannot care about my own interests. / I’ll give my life at a national crisis: / Death to me is naught but home-going.” “A Piece on Shrimps and Eels” tells his mind in a straightforward manner: “Only after you ascend the Five Sacred Mountains / Will you see how small


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most hills are. / From up there you look down on men on the road / Who seek nothing but power and profit.” “I tap my sword: it clangs like distant thunder. / I feel I am full of courage and energy. / Those who idle in life only know how to grumble: / How do they know a warrior’s concern!” A heroic mood runs through the entire poem. Most of the poems cited in the above were possibly written by Cao Zhi in his early years. However, even poems apparently written under extremely difficult living conditions in his late years, like the famous “Presented to Biao, Prince of Baima,” still overflow with strong emotions despite the deep grief therein, and they are never apathetic and dejected in tone. “Great men concern with all the Four Seas; / Even thousands of miles apart, we are like next-door neighbors.” Lines like these certainly imply that Cao Zhi was striving for self-comfort in front of Cao Biao, but they still disclosed his innate disposition. Artistically speaking, Cao Zhi’s poems have incorporated the special features of the Han Music Bureau poetry into the convention of literati literature, so they have not only incorporated the strength of the folk song, but also changed its simple and plain aspects. They are still not as elegant and refined as the literati poetry of later times, though they generally all attach much importance to beauty and refinement of diction. “Poetry and rhapsody aspire to exquisiteness,”—the saying certainly represents the general inclinations of the Jian’an literature, though a considerable number of the poems of Cao Cao and Cao Pi are still rather crude and casual in style. However, this is hardly ever found in Cao Zhi’s poems, which devote much more attention to structure, imagery, and rhetoric. The art of imagery is meticulous in Cao Zhi’s poetry. For example, the “Song of a Siskin in the Wild Fields” opens with the two lines: “Dreary winds often blow through tall trees, / The ocean’s waters rise in waves.” The imagery, with its broad vision and dynamism, reveals the agitation in the author’s mind and his difficult situation wherein dangers lurk on all sides, creating a specific ambience for the entire poem. The opening lines of his “Seven Sorrows” also use a misty, trance-like image to set a mournful tone for the entire poem: “The bright moon shone over the tall tower, / The flowing light was moving slowly around.” Shen Deqian has remarked that Cao Zhi is “extremely skillful at opening a poem,” (Toddler Remarks on Poetry) which is very well spoken. On the other hand, judging from a different perspective, to place such carefully conceived imagery at the beginning of a poem also marks Cao Zhi’s idiosyncratic maneuvering of the poem’s structure. Few of his poems

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unfold in a simple, straightforward way; the twists and turns from the beginning to the middle and then on to the closure are usually meticulously conceived. Take, for example, the poem “Seven Sorrows”: The bright moon shone over the tall tower, The flowing light was moving around slowly. Up there was a woman with sad thoughts Who heaved woeful sighs in her lingering sorrow. May I ask: who was the one who sighed? The reply: the wife of a man who stayed abroad. “You, my lord, have left for over ten years. I, your lonely wife, always stay alone. You, my lord, are like fine dust on the road. I, your wife, am like mud in turbid water. Soaring or sinking, each is at a different place, When shall we ever meet again in union? I wish I could turn into the southwest wind That blows far into your very bosom. But if your bosom remains resistant, Where shall I, your humble wife, go?

The diction of Cao Zhi’s poems is usually quite colorful, and already attentive to symmetry and refinement. What is most noteworthy here is that some of his couplets have already engaged in careful word choice. The verbs in some of his lines are all meticulously chosen to help to create a poetic realm, as in “The freezing frost attached to the marble steps; / A fresh wind drifted by the soaring tower” (“Presented to Ding Yi”), and “The white sun illuminates our green years, / A timely rain settles the flying dust” (“Sitting in Attendance to the Crown Prince”). In the first example, the word “attach” is antithetical to the word “drift”: the former is static while the latter is dynamic. In the second example, the word “illuminate” is antithetical to the word “settle”: the former describes something that beams in all directions, while the latter implies a movement that puts something to rest. The scenes, separate and unrelated with one another otherwise, are hereby transformed into a unified view in prosodic antithesis with refined melody and rhythm, giving full play to the unusual creative power of poetic language. Such rhetoric effects have made an obvious advancement as compared to those used in Wan Can’s poetry. Lines like these do not occupy a large portion in Cao Zhi’s poetry, but they represent an extremely important experiment. In addition, more description of scenes of nature began to appear in the poetry of the Jian’an literati, with Cao Zhi as a major representative


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among them. It was also something that exerted a great influence on later literati poetry. The characteristics of Cao Zhi’s poetry, as discussed in the above, were not found in Cao Zhi alone, though in all cases he stood out above everyone else as a major representative of the age. In other words, the achievement of the Jian’an literati poetry was most comprehensively embodied in Cao Zhi. One may even argue that classical Chinese poetry went through a clear change at the hand of Cao Zhi, by means of which he has held a particularly important place in the course of development of poetry of the Jian’an period, through the entire Wei-Jin period, and the Northern and Southern dynasties. In addition to his poetry, Cao Zhi was also quite accomplished in prose and rhapsody. “A Letter to Yang Xiu” and “A Letter to Wu Zhi” are both excellent lyrical prose pieces in the epistle form. Of Cao Zhi’s rhapsodies, more than thirty have survived (including some fragments), which indicates that he devoted much of his effort to the genre. These texts may be regarded as representative of the characteristics and attainment of the Jian’an rhapsody, of which the “Rhapsody on the Luo River Goddess,” in particular, is a frequently cited masterpiece. The “Rhapsody on the Luo River Goddess” makes up the story of how the author meets the goddess by the Luo River. We know that prior to Cao Zhi, writers like Chen Lin, Wang Can, and Yang Xiu had all composed “Rhapsody on the Goddess” in imitation of the “Rhapsody on the Goddess” and “Rhapsody on the Gaotang Shrine” traditionally attributed to Song Yu, which indicates that it was a popular subject matter at the time. One cannot know for sure if Cao Zhi’s tale contains any hidden meanings that are beyond us today. Judging from the text itself, its appeal lies in two aspects: one, an unprecedentedly detailed and subtle description of female beauty, and the other, through the lament over the fact that man and divinity may see but cannot get close to each other, the revelation that all perfect things in life are always within one’s sight but ever beyond one’s reach. The rhapsody uses extremely elegant diction to delineate the appearance and mood of the goddess. Take a passage at the beginning as an illustration: In appearance, she lightly flutters like a startled swan, Curvets like a roaming dragon. Her luster is more brilliant than autumn chrysanthemum, Her resplendence is more luxuriant than spring pine.

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chapter seven She is dimly descried like the moon obscured by light clouds She drifts airily like whirling snow in streaming wind. Gaze at her from afar, And she glistens like the sun rising over morning mists, Examine her close up, And she is dazzling as lotus emerging from limpid ripples.8

At the ending, it tells how the goddess has already gone far away, but the protagonist is still looking for her trace and expects her to appear again. In the long night he finds it hard to go to sleep; he is about to leave, but hesitates. It is filled with the bitter feeling of the loss and the agony of the search. Perhaps it signifies a kind of unrelieved helplessness in life: one has to pursue something, but is doomed never to find it.

3. Poetry and Prose of the Zhengshi Period Zhengshi was the name given to the reign (240–249) of Cao Fang, the dethroned emperor of the Wei. However, what is conventionally called the “Zhengshi literature” also includes that of the period after the Zhengshi reign, up to the founding of the Western Jin dynasty (265). During the Zhengshi period, the Dark Learning began to become popular. The Dark Learning embraced a spirit to explore and investigate the rationality of things, and it broke free from the restrictive and superstitious thinking. The Dark Learning also respected nature and thereby stressed the importance of yielding to human feeling and human nature. However, once individual freedom was regarded as an important or even fundamental value of existence, it became clear that forces that tried to restrict it were to be found everywhere. This led to deep and hard thinking about social events and human conditions. During the Zhengshi period, Sima Yi and Cao Shuang each led his own clique in a fierce power struggle against each other. Eventually Sima Yi staged a sudden coup d’état to defeat Cao Shuang and assume the control of the state. During more than a decade afterwards, Sima Yi and his sons, one after the other, was in power. A cataclysm of dynastic alternation was brewing. They slaughtered a large number of dissidents, and those who either had supported the Cao clan as rulers

8 David R. Knechtges tr. with Annotations. Wen Xuan or Selections of Refined Literature. Volume Three. (Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 359.


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or were unwilling to attach themselves to the Sima clan were confronted with political terror. Because of the extremely dangerous circumstances, and also due to the popularity of philosophical thinking, few among men of letters of the Zhengshi period expressed their opinion on current political situation directly; instead they extended their experience of life in reality into a consideration of the social life and history of the entire mankind. This accounts for the strong philosophical touch of the Zhengshi literature. Among the literati of the Zhengshi period were the famous “Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove”: Ruan Ji, Ji Kang, Shan Tao, Wang Rong, Ruan Xian, Xiang Xiu, and Liu Ling. Among them, Ruan Ji and Ji Kang were most accomplished in literature. Ruan Ji Ruan Ji (210–263), Ruan Yu’s son, was known in history as extremely well-read, and was particularly fond of the books of Laozi and Zhuangzi. A free and unruly soul, he gave free rein to his emotions, went his own way in life, and disdained etiquette and protocol. He was recruited successively to serve in the regime of Cao Shuang, Sima Yi, and then the Sima sons, Shi and Zhao. In youth, Ruan Ji “had the ambition to do good to the society” (see his biography in History of the Jin), and thought highly of himself. When the Sima clan’s intrigue to usurp power became apparent, he had no choice, under increasingly dangerous political situation, but to resort to the frequent means of getting drunk and feigning madness so as to avoid confrontation. A life like that, however, must have been hard to endure for Ruan Ji, a sharp-witted and proud man who was constantly on the alert in his mind. Ruan Ji’s representative “Poems from My Heart,” a series of eightytwo pentasyllabic poems, made an important path-finding work of great originality in the history of Chinese poetry. These poems often use symbolism to disclose the poet’s profound thoughts on questions about life and his complicated inmost feelings. The style is circumlocutory; the meaning, ambiguous and evasive. Zhong Rong’s Ranking of Poetry calls his poetry “profound in gist, but hard to fathom.” Nevertheless, there is still great appeal in the emotions, universal to all human beings, revealed through its elegant diction and colorful imagery. The grief over life’s brevity has been a perennial poetic theme since the “Nineteen Old Poems.” Now, in Poems of My Heart, it is expressed

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in such a poignant way: “In the morning, he’s a handsome youth, / By dusk, he has become an ugly old man!” “In the morning, he was born by the roadside; / By evening, his dead body lay in a street corner.” It is far more startling and soul-stirring as compared to lines in the “Old Poems” such as: “The four seasons keep changing from one to the other. / How swift the year is getting to its end!” One by one, everything that may be regarded as a relief or as a destination for life’s pursuit is denied by Ruan Ji. “Like grease in fire, burning by itself, / Wealth is trouble and disaster.” “High repute leads to confusion of will, / Huge profit gives rise to heart’s worries.” Fame and wealth make man lose his self-identity and his true nature, so they are illusionary and worthless. “Suddenly, from dawn it shifts to dusk, / And what pleases you is nowhere to be seen.” A beloved one of the opposite sex loses the attractive appearance and shape in such a short while like between morning and evening. As for relatives and friends, they are not worth feeling attached to, or rather, there is no way one could feel attached to them: “One can hardly protect one’s sole self, / Let alone one’s wife and children.” “How come that a friendship firm as gold or rock / Breaks in a single day, causing all the grief!” Also: “Even beloved ones hold ill feelings for each other; / One’s own flesh and blood may even become enemies.” There is actually no reliable connection among human beings. Even if one can manage to become immortal, it is all in vain in such a world: “People all say they love to prolong their life, / But, to prolong their life, for what purpose?” Consequently, Ruan Ji fails to suggest anything worth seeking after in his poetry. Occasionally, he praises some warriors as in lines like “Facing the crisis, he cared not for his own life, / His body died, but his soul soared high above.” However, being manipulated by the contingency of destiny and caught in the enormous net of reality, “with their wings in fold, failing to flap,” there is no way for a human being to find any meaningful purpose to go after. Once the value of everything external is denied, one cannot help but to feel an utter loneliness and solitude. Poem No. 46 says: I sat alone in the empty hall: Who’s here to have some fun with? Going out, I faced a long road Where no carriage or horse was seen. I ascended a height to look at the Nine Divisions9

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China in remote antiquity.


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That stretch far and wide across the vast plains. A lonely bird flew northwest; Beasts ran away, down southeast. By sunset I missed my family and friends, To meet and talk with them—but I could only write by myself!

From up in the hall to the “Nine Divisions,” i.e., the entire world, no one is seen. Even when one cannot bear the loneliness and therefore expects to “meet and talk with” family and friends, the only option is a kind of self release (xie, to write, is also to discharge or to release) without any real mental communication. Such a sense of loneliness, based on the essence of human life itself, is unprecedented in previous poetry. What we should point out, however, is that the feeling of loneliness is in fact a kind of self-realization: by denying and rejecting the outside world, the self’s existence in the world is actually underscored. When Ruan Ji describes the world as a wasteland, it not only reveals his distress, but also represents the pride deep in his heart. At the same time, the kind of loneliness that keeps him isolated from the world also creates a spiritual space of freedom that belongs to no one but him, which is the living condition as fictionalized in the lines from Poem No. 40: “I am at a height that tops the entire world,” and “I wander freely to the land of wilderness.” In short, “Poems from My Heart,” in some important respects, represent a new development of poetry. By revealing the shattering of ideals, they in fact manifest the illusionary nature of the Jian’an poets’ pursuit of personal values that focuses on political accomplishments. Through that, they begin to explore the question: once someone’s life is completely free from the involvement in social values, where, then, does the value of such a life lie? Even if the poet may not find an answer to the question, it still displays his perseverance in such self-consciousness by depicting his loneliness and pride. Accordingly, notwithstanding that life, in Ruan Ji’s description, is apparently so lonely, somber, gloomy and cold, it still contains, in its very essence, aspirations for a free, perfect human life. In relation to the above characteristics, “Poems from My Heart” have also made a significant innovation in the expression of lyricism. In their poetic realm, philosophical thinking is incorporated rather naturally, creating more profound connotations in texts and giving them an artistic appeal in their periphrastic and intriguing style. For this reason, Literary Mind: Carving Dragons says that “Ruan (Ji’s poetry) holds profound implications,” and Ranking of Poetry remarks that it “may

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mold a person’s temperament and stimulate deep thoughts.” The form of using a sequence of poems to express the complicated inmost feeling was followed in later ages, one after another, by such superb works like Tao Qian’s “Drinking Wine,” Chen Zi’ang’s “Reflections on Experience,” and Li Bo’s “Old Airs,” by means of which the lyrical sequence poetry has become an important subgenre in classical Chinese poetry. Of Ruan Ji’s prose, the best known piece is his “Biography of a Great Man.” It makes up a fictitious character, a “Great Man” who transcends worldliness and stands above all others, and wanders freely between heaven and earth, wherewith the absolute spiritual freedom is eulogized and the hypocritical nature of old-time etiquette is revealed. The article also makes a biting sarcasm of the so-called gentlemen of the times who observe the rules of decorum: “They study nothing but rules, and acquire nothing but rites. They hold marble tablets in their hands, and they keep their feet on the beaten track. For their conduct, they check it for the moment; for their speech, they aim at eternity.” They are prudent and solemn, and they win a good name, but as a matter of fact, all they want is nothing but a high position and a handsome salary. Later, it moves on to remark that, by behaving like that, they believe they may find a refuge of safety and affluence. Actually, they are just like lice making their way into the seams of a pair of pants: once a big fire burns down the city and the houses, and spread to the pants, where can the lice escape? In incisive language, it gives vent to the author’s indignation against hypocrites. In addition to this piece, “On Understanding Zhuangzi” is similar in content and implication. However, the incisive and sharp remarks in these articles are placed in the mouth of some fictitious characters who transcend time and space, and the targets of the criticism are generalized and unspecific, all for the purpose of avoiding direct, head-on confrontation in reality. After all, he was helpless against the society of his time that he so abhorred. Ji Kang Ji Kang’s (223–262) wife was Cao Cao’s great-grand-daughter; hence he was rather closely related to the Cao family of the Wei court. Ji Kang was a close friend of Ruan Ji’s, and ideologically the two of them shared much in common, but Ji was more fiery and forthright in character. Eventually he was framed and executed by the Sima clique. Ji Kang’s prose of argumentation is quite famous. Articles like “On the Absence of Joy or Sorrow in Music,” “On Guan and Cai,” and “A Rebuke of


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the Saying ‘Fondness of Learning Is in Human Nature’” stand out in original thinking and in meticulous, thorough reasoning. However, in terms of literary merits, “A Letter to Shan Tao to Break off Our Friendship” is more important. Shan Tao was a bosom friend of Ji Kang’s, but he had close political connection with the Sima family. He served as a Director of the Personnel Ministry, and later he recommended Ji Kang as a replacement for himself. Ji Kang wrote him the letter in flat refusal, and also declared the end of their friendship. However, afterwards, when Ji Kang faced the catastrophe, he expressed great confidence in Shan Tao’s ability to take care of his orphan children, which indicated that their relationship was by no means an ordinary one. The author’s personality and his extraordinary relation with Shan Tao account for a special style of this “letter to break off a friendship” that is clear-cut, succinct, and eloquent. The letter says that he is by nature “narrow-minded” which means that he cannot stand abominable people and things, and it also says that “you comprehend by analogy, so you accept most things and are surprised at few of them.” Such comparison implies some irony, but also breathes a sense of helplessness about having to part company with an old friend. He enumerates the reasons why he cannot accept the appointment: his admiration of Laozi and Zhuangzi, his spontaneous and undisciplined character, as well as his impatience with the bondage of ethical decorum and the entanglement in worldly affairs. In the letter he describes scenes among the official circles as: “Sometimes guests fill the room, and the noise of their chatter irritates the ear. At places where dust hovers and stench stays, they put on all and sundry acts,” which reveals his deep abhorrence and his intractable character. He demands that the other party honor his inclinations, and suggests that: “For a man to know another, it is worthy to recognize the other’s inborn nature, and try to help sustaining it in accordance.” He also makes an analogy: “It is like the case of the wild deer: if it is domesticated young, it may yield itself to instruction and control; if it is captured when grown-up, then it may stare wildly, break its bonds, and rush into boiling water or fire in escape. Even if it is decorated with golden snaffle and fed with delicacies, it may miss deep woods and lush grassland all the more.” The spirit of a pursuit of individual freedom bespeaks the most valuable characteristic of the literature of the Wei-Jin period. As for the self-declaration of his “renunciation of Tang and (King) Wu, and disdain of (the Lord of ) Zhou and Confucius,” it is related to the larger background wherein

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those in the Sima clan were trying to make up a rationale based on Confucian ethics for their usurping of power. It has been said that Ji Kang’s eventual execution was directly related to Sima Zhao who, after reading these lines in the letter, became angry and irritated. In short, the letter expresses the author’s feeling in a straightforward style without using any obscurity or hyperbole, and one can feel therein a strong charm of his personality. In addition, much of Ji Kang’s poetry displays his noble aspirations and interests, as well as his honest and candid character. Compared to Ruan Ji’s somber mood, it shows a bright grace of its own. Among his representative poems are the series For My Elder Brother Gongmu, the Cultivated Talent, on His Joining the Army (including one pentasyllabic poem and eighteen tetrasyllabic poems), and the tetrasyllabic “Poem of Secret Indignation.” In the lines of No. 9 of For My Elder Brother Gongmu, the Cultivated Talent, on His Joining the Army, “You whiz like wind, you flash like lightning; / You fly in pursuit of the setting sun; / You rush forward in the Central Plains; / You look forward and back in great grace,” and in the lines of No. 14: “Your eyes follow the swans on their flight home; / Your hands wave the five strings of the instrument; / You look up and down to your heart’s content; / You let your mind soar in the Grand Darkness,” he demonstrates his personal zest for life by giving an imaginary description of the life of his elder brother, Ji Xi, in the army. They are vivid embodiment of the so-called “manner and carriage of the Wei and Jin.”

4. Poetry and Prose of the Western Jin In the year of 265, Sima Yan, the son of Sima Zhao, overthrew the Wei court and founded the Jin dynasty, known as the Western Jin in history. Shortly afterwards, he attacked and wiped out the Eastern Wu, and thereby re-unified China. After Sima Yan’s death, however, a power struggle inside the court evolved into a big tangled warfare among the imperial clans (known in history as the “Turmoil of the Eight Princes”). Taking advantage of the situation, the leaders of the minority ethnic tribes in the north, which had moved inland in large numbers since the Han and Wei times, established their own states one after another, and the Jin regime’s control of the north was hereby destroyed. The Western Jin, from its founding to its downfall, lasted only about fifty years.


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The Western Jin was a short and unstable dynasty, but literary composition flourished during the period. Both the number of authors and that of works far exceeded the previous dynasty. In particular, the significance of poetry in the life of the literati was further affirmed. Almost every man of letters in the upper stratum wrote some poetry. Western Jin literature, especially its poetry, is a key link in the history of literature. Not only were some of the new characteristics, that had taken shape in the literature of the Jian’an and Zhengshi periods, further strengthened and developed, but the authors of this period also engaged themselves in unprecedented experiments as well. From the ornateness and elegance of diction, the use of parallelism, the close integration of scenery description and expression of feeling, the incorporation of philosophical ideas, to the attention to prosody—all were highlighted in the period. At the same time, consideration of life’s significance, based on the awakening of individual consciousness, also found more in-depth representation in some respects. Lu Ji, Pan Yue, and Others Zhang Hua (232–300) was the best known figure among the more senior writers of the western Jin. His poetry is represented by the five “Poems of Emotion” and the three “Miscellaneous Poems,” which are good at the representation of romantic love. Ranking of Poetry observes that they display “more emotions of romantic love, less about big events of the age.” The integration of scenery description and the expression of feeling is a noteworthy feature of his poetry, as in lines like: “Wind rises by itself from the windows, / no trace of footsteps is found in the courtyard” (“Miscellaneous Poems”), “Dense clouds cover up the morning sun, / a drizzle sprinkles at the tiny dust” (“A Piece on the Bathing Day”).10 In terms of their ingenious refinement, these lines were literally unknown before. Literary Mind: Carving Dragons contains an observation saying that Lu Ji is “able at ingenious conception” and Zhang Xie “conceives expressions of analogy in an ingenious way,” which indicates that clever, ingenious phrasing was a trend in Western Jin poetry, and

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The Bathing Day was a day of festival in ancient China. Originally set on the day of Si during the first ten days of the third lunar month, it began to be set mostly on the third day of the month from the Wei-Jin period onward. By custom, people would bathe in east-flowing rivers or streams on the day so as to clear themselves of all illness.

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Zhang Hua, who held a high position and won a reputation early in his life, actually played the role of a path-finder in this respect. For writers later than Zhang Hua, there used to be a list of “Three Zhang’s (the brothers Zhang Zai, Zhang Xie, and Zhang Kang), the Two Lu’s (the brothers Lu Ji and Lu Yun), the Two Pan’s (Pan Yue and Pan Ni, uncle and nephew), and the One and Only Zuo (Zuo Si).” Among them, Lu Ji and Pan Yue have been referred to side by side as “Pan and Lu”; they won the highest acclaim at the time, and stood for the mainstream of Western Jin literature. Zuo Si and Liu Kun, on the other hand, represented a different style. Lu Ji (261–303) was from an aristocratic family of the Eastern Wu. After the downfall of the Wu, he closed his doors and devoted himself to learning. During the last years of the Taikang reign of Emperor Wu of the Jin, he went to Luoyang with his younger brother Lu Yun, and became very famous in the capital by virtue of Zhang Hua’s promotion. During Emperor Hui’s reign, there was a power struggle among the imperial clans. Lu Ji led an army on behalf of Sima Ying, Prince of Chengdu, on a military campaign against Sima Yi, Prince of Changsha. After his defeat, he was executed by Sima Ying. Lu Ji was the most talented man of the age. He was highly accomplished in poetry, prose, and rhapsody. In particular, his poetry, following in Cao Zhi’s wake, has created an elegant and resplendent style wherein scenery description and the expression of feeling are closely integrated, which has had a lasting influence afterwards. Let us first take his “Summon the Recluse” as an example: At the break of day, my heart is ill at ease. I shake my clothes, and pace back and forth. Pacing back and forth: where am I to go? The quiet man living in a deep valley. In the morning, he picks algae by a southern stream; In the evening, he rests at the foot of the western hill. Light twigs crisscross above him like clouds, Thick foliage forms into an emerald green tent. Turbulent wind stays long in the orchid grove; Lingering fragrance hovers above graceful trees. What makes the gurgling sound at the mountain stream? It’s the cliff-side spring that rings like jade pieces. A melancholy sound comes through its magic ripples; The sound of its falling passes on to the winding ravine. There is nothing false about the Ultimate Happiness, Why does anyone need to cultivate simplicity? If it is truly tough to attain rank and wealth, Rest, then, and follow your own inclinations.


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The main theme of the poem is the yearning for a recluse’s life. After arriving at Luoyang, Lu Ji felt tired about the hidden danger and lack of freedom in an official career, and in his imagination, reclusion might be a way to maintain his individual freedom and to relieve his depression. Artistically speaking, there are quite a few noteworthy features about this poem. First, it is elegant and majestic in language; not only does it incorporate words and expressions from classical texts but it also, in its scenery description, displays a tendency to depict things in meticulous imagery and an effort to achieve originality in wording and phrasing. Secondly, it uses quite a number of parallel lines—an idiosyncratic feature of Lu Ji’s poetry. In Jian’an poetry, the use of parallelism is usually of a very small proportion, but half of this poem adopt parallel lines. Some of his other poems, like “Song of Suffering from the Cold,” almost use parallel lines through the entire poem. For this reason, the Qing critic Shen Deqian has observed that Lu Ji “started the school of parallelism” (The Origins of Old Poems), thus denying Cao Zhi’s initiative role in the trend of attaching more importance to the use of parallelism. Thirdly, in original this poem uses predominantly characters of the “entering tone” at its end rhyme, while the unrhymed lines mostly end with characters of the “level tone,” resulting in the conspicuous tonal variation between every two lines.11 The Rhapsody on Literature makes a clear and definite proposition: “As regards the alternation of sounds, it should be like the five colors, setting off one another.” According to the statistics from some research, the deliberate avoidance of tonal repetitions at the lines’ end was already quite widespread in Lu Ji’s poetry. Although the theory on the four tones did not yet come into being at the time, tonal differences among Chinese characters had always existed. Lu Ji was the first to have a clear perception on how to take advantage of this factor to create a sense of beauty in sound and rhythm. In this way, his poetry may be considered as the beginning towards more complex maneuvering in metrics and prosody in classical Chinese poetry. In “Song of the Sun Rising from the Southeast Corner” Lu Ji delineates the beauty of females in refined details. Judging from its title, the poem is apparently an imitation of “Mulberry by the Road” from the Han Music Bureau collection; in fact, though, there is much difference between 11 The “entering tone” is the fourth of the four tones in classical Chinese pronunciation, still retained in certain dialects today; the “level tone” is the first of the four tones in classical Chinese pronunciation which has evolved into the “high and level tone” and the “rising tone” in modern standard pronunciation.

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the two texts. Lu’s poem tells how women of Luoyang are having an outing by the Luo River on the Bathing Day. Without adopting any story line or moral implication, it simply describes women’s beauty in appearance and posture, using such direct and precise strokes as in lines like: “How smooth is their fresh skin, / In its fair color it seems a feast to the eye; / In both looks and heart they show so much grace: / Their laugh, their talk, all in charming comeliness.” Obviously, the author did not see any evil in the love of female beauty. Such an aesthetic attitude preceded the Palace-Style Poetry of the Southern Dynasties. The Western Jin was an age during which traditional values further crumbled, and the literati felt disconcerted and helpless in their spiritual life. People of the time still had a clear self-consciousness, but they also recognized, just as clearly, their own insignificance and helplessness. Accordingly, to elevate the beauty of nature and women, as well as the beauty of the language that represents such beauty, is obviously quite meaningful in making life more beautiful and providing some relief for the spirit. Lu Ji’s poetry represents exactly such an inclination. There was much criticism in the past on the shortcomings of Lu Ji’s poetry, like its preference to imitate previous poets and show off his talent and learning, and its verbiage and flabbiness as a consequence of its ornateness and excessive concern for rhetoric. All such criticism holds some ground, but it should also be noted here that poetry does not evolve along a straight line. In order to elevate the plain and simple language of folk songs to an exquisite and highly expressive level, it may inevitably involve a process like what Lu Ji went through (including his malpractice). Lu Ji’s prose has also been highly evaluated. From the point of view of the evolution of prose genres, his prose has its importance in its being a representative force in the formation of parallel prose. Some of his prose pieces, like “An Article in Mourning for Emperor Wu of Wei” and “A Defense of Taking Refuge,” use a large number of parallel sentences. Some, like the “Preface to the ‘Rhapsody on the Gallant Man,’” even resorts to parallelism through the entire piece, sometimes employing a kind of antithesis in every other line, in an alternation of long and short lines, and also makes ingenious usage of function words. These pieces are already in fully developed parallel prose. However, because they focus on argumentation, they cannot be regarded as texts of pure literature. Pan Yue (247–300) was known for his talent when he was very young. Hankering after an official career, he curried favor with those in power,


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and for that reason was denounced for his personal character. He was actually unsuccessful in his official career, and was often frustrated with his setbacks. He held some aspiration to become a recluse and seek refuge away from the society, but was unable to carry it out in reality. Eventually, he was executed by Sima Lun, Prince of Zhao. In style Pan Yue shares with Lu Ji the pursuit of beautiful diction and the preference for elaboration. In discussing the difference between Pan and Lu, most in the Southern Dynasties believed Pan to be gentle and facile, and Lu profound though verbose. This is because Pan Yue’s writings use plain and simple language, unlike Lu Ji, who is rather recondite in style; also, sentences are more closely connected in Pan’s writings. On the other hand, he has rarely produced the kind of subtle and exquisite sentences that are meticulously worked out as Lu Ji has. In terms of stylistic attainment, he appears to be rather mediocre. Both his poetry and prose are known for their skillfulness in the expression of sad feeling. His poetry is best represented by the three “Poems in Mourning for the Deceased,” composed in mournful recollection of his dead wife. They are somewhat repetitive in content, but they provide a truthful and vivid expression of his emotions through descriptive details. He is able to add a vivid touch in a gentle and roundabout manner, as in the lines from the first piece: “Looking at the house, I think about her, / Inside the room, I recall the bygone days. / No sign is seen in curtain and screens, / But trace is left behind from ink and brush,” or in lines from the second piece: “The empty bed lies under light dust; / In the vacant room, a sad wind rises.” Judging from extant materials, before Pan Yue, there had never been any poem in mourning for a dead wife with such deep emotions. It indicated that, because of the increasing importance of the lyrical elements in literature, poetry was constantly expanding its thematic range and moving into the realm of daily life. Wang Yin’s History of the Jin has remarked that Pan Yue was “excellent in dirge and funeral eulogy, with no match from either ancients or contemporaries, and esteemed by all in his own time.” Of this type of writing, “An Article Lamenting the Eternally Departed” and “A Funeral Eulogy for Ma, Supervisor of Qian” are both well known works. He was also an important rhapsody writer, with such representative pieces as “Rhapsody on a Westward Journey,” “Rhapsody on Autumn Inspirations,” “Rhapsody on Recalling Old Friends and Kin,” etc. Either in the pieces of mourning, or in those which express feeling in general, they reveal a sense of despondence and melancholy. This characteristic,

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however, was not restricted to Pan Yu alone; it belonged to the entire age. Sorrow was not only described as psychological reality, but authors also sought inspiration with aesthetic effects in such description. Zhang Xie (?–307) was the most accomplished author of the “Three Zhang’s.” His extant writings consist mainly of the ten “Miscellaneous Poems” included in the Selections of Refined Literature. Using refined diction, these poems express the diverse emotions inspired by nature; the lines of scenery description therein are in particular strenuously composed and very ingenious in their representational power, as well illustrated in lines like: “A light wind cracks the stiff grass, / Hard frost braces up lofty trees; / Leaves, once so thick, get sparser day and night, / As if bunched up, groves of trees stand somberly;” “Clouds tower up like a simmering fog; / A fine drizzle falls like scattered silk threads,” “The floating sun shines on the emerald woods; / A whirling wind fans the green bamboos.” In this respect he was close to Lu Ji, except that he adopted a simpler vocabulary, and his poems are relatively free from verbosity through the entire text. Zuo Si and Liu Kun Zuo Si (ca. 250–ca. 305) was born in a humble and poor family, and he once served as an Assistant at the Palace Library. His “Rhapsodies on the Three Capitals” may be regarded as the swan song of the traditional long rhapsody, and have been said to have caused “the high price of paper in Luoyang.”12 Under the hereditary system of the scholar-official clans, however, he was often held in contempt, and eventually he disengaged himself from the official circles and devoted to writing. Zuo Si’s representative works, the eight “Poems on History,” showed a distinctive style of their own at the time. Since Ban Gu initiated the practice of using history as subject matter in poetry, most poems of this kind focused on the narration of historical events with occasional expression of personal feeling. Zuo Si’s poems, instead, made use of historical material to demonstrate personal aspirations and, by doing so, opened a new path for the composition of poems on history. These poems not only exposed and criticized the irrationality of the hereditary 12

The “high price of paper in Luoyang” has become a set phrase in Chinese that refers to the wide circulation of a popular work. It was said that Zuo Si’s “Three Capital Rhapsodies” were copied by so many people as to cause a paper shortage in the city of Luoyang.


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system in monopolizing official appointment, but they became all the more appealing as the author, when he came to realize that he could never receive a reasonable treatment from the society, displayed a defiant attitude against the oppression of the society through a kind of spiritual self-elevation. As a way of individual resistance, he invested the poems with a strong self-esteem as well as a gallant and unconstrained feeling. In style, he was also inclined to seek a kind of majestic, peculiar beauty. Take No. 5 as an example: Across the bright sky sails the white sun, Its magic light shines over the divine land. Rows of houses stand in the Purple Palace, Their soaring roofs seem to float in clouds. Behind the towering lofty gates Live crowds of lords and princes. I am not one to hold to the dragons, Why do I, all of a sudden, come to this place? Wearing my coarse clothes I exit the city gate, And go in pursuit of Xu You in big strides.13 I shake dust off my clothes at crags a thousand feet high, I bathe my feet in a river that runs ten thousand miles.

The poem unfolds itself against the background with a wide open view. The first half, which describes where the princes and lords live, is arranged from an overlooking angle of vision, implying an attitude of someone who occupies a commanding height. The second half gives an account of his action in breaking off from those of rank and wealth; it also creates a marvelous and majestic realm. The gallant mood is rooted in a strong sense of pride and self-dignity. For instance, at the end of the sixth poem, which sings the praise of Jing Ke: “The noble treat themselves as noble, / But I look at them as dust; / The humble treat themselves as humble, / But I regard them as a thousand pounds heavy.” It means that if an individual chooses to live in dignity, even if he is reduced down to the status of a gambler or a dog butcher, such as someone like Jing Ke, he can still live in pride in the face of the world. Such a life attitude has had a strong appeal to later poets.

13 Xu You was a legendary figure in ancient China. It was said that Yao, the Sage King, would like to have Xu You succeed him in the throne, but the latter declined and went away to live on farming in seclusion.

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The poems of Pan Yue and Lu Ji also show a lyrical inclination, but due to the helpless dilemma in their respective life, it is difficult for them to express a high-sounding passion, and their poetic language, likewise, evolves in the direction of aesthetic polish and elaboration. “Poems on History,” on the other hand, are outstanding in their strong expression of feeling; their language is relatively terse but powerful, with little, if any, verbose elaboration. That is the reason why Ranking of Poetry acclaims it as “Zuo Si’s force of wind.” Zuo Si’s “Poem on My Lovely Daughters” portrays the loveliness and naivety of his two daughters. It displays much humor with a distinctive style of its own. It has a special significance in the history of literature, which lies in its being the very first poem that exclusively describes children in daily life. Liu Kun (271–318) served in the government during the tumultuous years that led to the downfall of the Western Jin. He moved around in the north fighting against enemy troops, was defeated several times, but never relented. Eventually, he was killed by Duan Pidi, Regional Inspector of Youzhou, who had formed an alliance with him earlier. Facing the situation when the state of the Central Plains was collapsing, Liu Kun risked his life out of his ardor and passion. He was aware that there was no way he could save the state single-handedly, so in his three poems, “Song of Fufeng,” “In Reply to Lu Chen,” and “Another Poem Presented to Lu Chen,” he recounts the misery of the state and the people, and the sorrow of a hero in dire straits. They are gallant, impassioned, and overflowing with deep grief. In style, they have little concern with either structure or diction. Unfolding in casual ease and at random, they are nevertheless extremely appealing in their forlorn and melancholy mood.

5. Poetry and Prose of the Eastern Jin After the downfall of the Western Jin, Sima Rui, Prince of Langya, made himself the emperor at Jianye (modern Nanjing, Jiangsu) in the year of 317. The Jin dynasty henceforth has been known as the Eastern Jin in history. It was an imperial court depending completely on the support of large scholar-official clans; hence the hereditary families became even more influential than ever. Under the situation, the literati persevered in their pursuit of political and economic interests on the one hand, and desired for even greater spiritual relief on the other. To be graceful


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and relaxed, to be gallant and broad-minded—it was the kind of life attitude that they admired above everything else. In correspondence to that, the most remarkable manifestation of the culture of the Eastern Jin gentry lied in their fascination with the Pure Talk of the Dark Learning and with the mountains and waters in nature. It had a great impact on the characteristics of the Eastern Jin literature. Guo Pu An erudite person, Guo Pu (276–324) was also fond of fortunetelling and the study of the yin and yang theory; hence there were many supernatural anecdotes about him. At the end of the Western Jin, he went down south to seek refuge from the tumult. During the reign of Emperor Yuan of the Eastern Jin, he served as an Editorial Director. Later, he was killed when he tried to dissuade Wang Dun from plotting a rebellion. A group of “Poems on the Wandering Immortals,” composed by him after he moved south across the Yangtze River, represent his best work. His “Rhapsody on the River” is also well known. On the “Poems of Wandering Immortals,” Ranking of Poetry remarks that they are “expression of one’s frustrations in life, not about the pleasure of becoming an immortal.” In order to set in relief the insignificance and unreliability of the values in real life, these poems take a make-believe world of the immortals as the symbol of eternity and transcendence and, at the same time, also incorporate the content of admiration for a recluse’s life, which had become increasingly popular since the Western Jin, so as to evoke the illusion of breaking away from the bondage of human world and entering into a realm of freedom. They represent a blend of the various set themes of the past, including the wandering immortals, telling one’s heart, and summon of the recluse. In such an illusionary world that transcends time and space, one may “yell in pride and leave behind the worldly net, / And to go alone wherever one likes.” And, looking down upon the human world from up there, everything becomes small and insignificant, and the life without freedom down there appears extremely miserable: “The Eastern Sea is like a pool of water in the trace of cattle’s hooves; / The Kunlun Mountains are simply anthills./ Far and wide in the dark vast, / To look down really makes one sad.” “Poems of the Wandering Immortals” are rich and colorful in diction. In a sharp contrast between the “immortal” and the “human,” they represent the weariness with the chaotic reality and the yearning for a

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world of freedom. Not only were they widely appreciated during the Eastern Jin and the Southern Dynasties, but they also exerted an obvious influence on the poems of Li Bo, Li He and other Tang poets. The Style of the Poetry of Mystic Talk Since the Zhengshi period, poetry incorporated a large amount of the philosophy of Laozi and Zhuangzi. While it certainly endowed poetry with more profound implications, it also led to the weakening of imagery and lyricism in poetry due to excessive abstract discussion. Poets like Ruan Ji, Ji Kang, and Guo Pu all shared such weakness. After the Jin imperial court moved south across the Yangtze River, Pure Talk on Dark Learning was extremely popular, and it became a widespread practice in poetry to discuss philosophy in abstract terms, making it jejune and tasteless. Poetry of this kind was called the “Poetry of Mystic Talk,” though only a few of such poems are extant today. As regards the style of the Poetry of Mystic Talk, a brief general description is provided in the “Commentary on the ‘Biography of Xie Lingyun’ ” in History of the Song: With the restoration of the Jin, metaphysics was alone on the rise. In the pursuit of learning and in understanding things in the world, one was restricted to the study of the Archivist and the Seven Chapters.14 To gallop in the field of literature, one could never stray in sense beyond these two sources. From the Jianwu to the Yixi reign,15 for nearly a hundred years, all writings in cadenced rhythm and parallel lines, like waves, like clouds, without exception, engaged in the discussion of the Supreme Virtue, and contained the implication about the Magic Pearl.16 Dynamic and beautiful writings, however, became unknown.

There is another side to the issue, though. As mentioned in the above, the fascination with Pure Talk on Dark Learning and natural sceneries made the widespread twofold hobby of the literati of the Eastern Jin,

14 The Archivist refers to Laozi, who was said to have served at that position in the Zhou court. The Seven Chapters refer to the seven “Inner Chapters” of the book of Zhuangzi. 15 The Jianwu reign (317) was that of Emperor Yuan of the Eastern Jin. The Yixi reign (405–418) was that of Emperor An of the Eastern Jin. 16 The “Supreme Virtue” is referred to in Chapter 38 of Laozi’s Daodejing: “The Supreme Virtue is not a virtue, therefore it has all the virtues.” The “Magic Pearl” is referred to in the chapter of “Heaven and Earth” in Zhuangzi.


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and the two were closely connected with each other. To a scholar of the Dark Learning, the fundamental significance of life lies not in worldly honor or disgrace, praise or blame, gain or loss, success or defeat, rather it lies in the transcendental sublimation of one’s spirit, in the complete grasp of life and the world. The noumenon of the universe is the mystic “Way;” the circulation of the four seasons and the rise and decline of everything on the earth are the outer appearance of the “Way.” Hence, to savor and comprehend nature is to savor and comprehend the “Way,” and man’s blend into nature is to break free from the worldly life that is commonplace, enslaved, and constrained in the bonds of realistic social relations, and thereupon to acquire a sublime experience of existence. For this reason, Poems of Mystic Talk frequently open with the observation and perception of nature, and they have a close connection with the rise of “Poetry of Landscape (“mountains and rivers”)” and the “Poetry of Fields and Gardens.” For a good illustration of that we now have the group of Orchid Pavilion Poems, left behind by Wang Xizhi and a company of more than forty, including Xie An and Sun Chuo, who met at the Orchid Pavilion in Shanyin to celebrate the Bathing Day in the ninth year (353) of Emperor Mu’s Yonghe reign. Wang Xizhi’s poem goes: “Vast and clear is the view of the boundless, / To gaze at it, its truth may unfold by itself.” What it says is that, through the observation and perception of nature, one can comprehend the truth of the Creator. The famous prose piece that he wrote on the same occasion, “Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Poems,” expresses the same idea. By the Later Eastern Jin, there appeared some poems wherein the mystic flavor was not so strong and they showed skills in describing nature. Of these, Zhan Fangsheng’s “The Sailboat Enters the Southern Lake” may be called a masterpiece. In the poem, there are lines that provide a clear-cut description of scenery: “White sands: a clean road by the stream; / Green pines: a lush crag at the top;” and there are also lines that show emotions over the relation of man and nature through some abstract discussion: “Man and destiny move and change each other; / This vessel, alone, lasts for a long time.” He, however, has had only limited influence. Shen Yue, in his “Commentary on the ‘Biography of Xie Lingyun’ in History of the Song,” observed that Yin Zhongwen and Xie Hun had exerted considerable influence on the change of the style of the Poetry of Mystic Talk. It had something to do with the distinction of their social status, and also with their poetry, which continued the exquisite style of the poetry of the Western Jin.

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Tao Yuanming In general, literature did not flourish during the Eastern Jin, but Tao Yuanming, who lived during the transition from the Jin to the Song but conventionally classified under the Eastern Jin, has been honored later as the best literary author of the entire period of the Wei, Jin, and the Northern and Southern dynasties. Tao Yuanming’s (365–427) great-grandfather, Tao Kan, was a famous military general of the early Eastern Jin who enjoyed great fame and prestige in his age. By the time of Tao Yuanming, however, due to his father’s early death, the family circumstances had become increasingly straitened. At the age of twenty-nine, he began to serve in the government at a couple of junior positions, and lived on turns as a government official or as a recluse. At the age of forty-one, he once again served as the District Magistrate of Pengze, but in only more than eighty days, he gave up his office and left to live thenceforward on farming in seclusion until his death. Tao Yuanming’s thinking was profoundly associated with the Dark Learning, but it was also closely attached to daily life, with great variety and vitality. His poem sequence, “Shape, Shadow and Spirit,” holds a discussion of life’s values and significance, and reaches the conclusion in the following lines: “Ride the big waves in the Great Transformation / With neither joy nor fear; / When it comes to the end, it just ends; / There’s no more need to worry so much.” It means that, one should consider life as a part of nature, and get comfort in a return to nature; there is no need to be anxious and worried about things beyond life, or to strive to find any relief. In addition, Tao made selective choices in the thoughts of Laozi and Zhuangzi as well as in classical Confucianism, and combined the two in shaping his own social outlook. To him, an ideal society was one in which all people were to get fed by taking part in labor, and they should treat one another honestly, without any competition or fraud, even without the need for monarch and subjects. It was also a philosophy of “Nature.” Tao Yuanming was a versatile literary writer, but his poetry, above all, had the greatest influence in later ages. “Poems of Fields and Gardens” represent the very best in Tao Yuanming’s poetry. To find an outlet for his ideal of life, Tao made use of his creative poetic skills to purify and beautify, to a high extent, his life in seclusion and the environment of the open country. These poems hold great artistic charm. Take, for example, the famous No. 5 of his “Drinking Wine”:


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I built my hut in the world of man, Yet it’s free from the noise of carriages and horses. You ask: “How do you manage to live like that?” “When the heart travels far, the place is secluded by itself.” I pick chrysanthemums by the eastern hedge; Deeply relaxed I see the southern mountains. The air in the mountains is fine at the end of the day; A flight of birds are on their way home. Inside all this there is a true meaning, But when I try to figure it out, I forget my words.

After a description of his delight when he inadvertently catches sight of the southern mountains (i.e., Mt. Lushan) in a carefree mood, the author moves the poem to a remote mystic world with the line, “But when I try to figure it out, I forget my words.” A clue of the so-called “true meaning” is actually already provided beforehand: in a state of intoxicating leisure, one’s spirit blends with nature, and in nature’s beauty, freedom and eternity, it grasps the meaning of one’s own life. To a certain extent, the poem may still be considered a Poem of Mystic Talk, but what makes the difference is that here, the author has replaced abstract reasoning with a world of imagination overflowing with emotion and rich in implication. In terms of restoring poetry’s own characteristics, this poem, without question, has made a great advancement. No. 1 of the poem sequence “Returning to My Abode with Garden and Fields” provides a detailed, fine description of the environment of the countryside: Even when a boy, I had no worldly interests; By nature, I am fond of rolling hills. By mistake I fell into the dusty net Where I’ve stayed for thirty years ever since. Birds in capture yearn for their old woods; Fish in a pond miss the deep waters of yore. I’ve opened up wasteland at the southern plain, I “abide by clumsiness” back in my garden and fields. I have some ten acres of land around my house, A thatched cottage, with eight or nine rooms. Elms and willows provide shade on the eaves in the back, Peach and plum trees stand around in front of the hall. Dim in view are the faraway village where others live; Gently arising is the smoke from their chimneys. Dogs bark inside the deep alley, Roosters crow atop mulberry trees. Behind the gate, the courtyard is free from dust,

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chapter seven Inside the empty room I have more leisure than ever. So long were I kept in a cage, Now I’ve managed to return to nature.

This poem was probably written in the subsequent year after he gave up his position as the District Magistrate of Pengze and returned to farming. It devotes much of its space to a description of commonplace daily scenes of the countryside, and their serenity, simplicity and peace. These, set in strong relief by their opposite, the dirty and clamorous official circle, appear extremely beautiful and nice, making one feel the utmost pleasure of the return to a twofold nature: both the nature in reality and the original nature of one’s body and soul. Philosophical implications still exist in the poem, but they are integrated into its strong touch of life. The most outstanding feature of Tao Yuanming’s poetry is its peaceful understatement, though the author did not seem to have used it to cover up the anxiety, indignation and all kinds of distressed feelings deep in his mind. Words and images about death and aging appear in very high frequency, which indicates that, after all, he was not completely resigned to life’s brevity and his unrealized aspirations. Hence, the sequence “Reading the Book of Mountains and Seas” contains poems in a solemn, tragic and fervent mood, that sing about Jing Wei trying to fill up the sea or Xing Tian dancing around with hatchet and shield in hands.17 No. 2 of the “Twelve Miscellaneous Poems,” which he wrote in his late years, starts from sensitivity to the fleeting time, moves on to loneliness as described in the line “I want to talk, but have no one to talk to,” to despair as in “I have my ideals, but fail to achieve them,” and closes with such a vehement line as “Even by daybreak I can’t settle down in peace.” One can feel an endless sorrow in there. In poems of this kind, one can see Tao Yuanming’s passion and also the variety of his artistic style. Tao Yuanming’s important contribution to the history of poetry’s development lies in his path-finding effort in seeking new aesthetic 17 Jing Wei is the name of a bird in ancient Chinese myth. It used to be the legendary leader Yan Di’s young daughter, who drowned in the Eastern Sea. After death it transforms into a bird which keeps bringing wood pieces and pebbles in its beak from the western hills to the Eastern Sea, trying to fill it up in revenge. Xing Tian is a legendary figure who fights against the legendary leader Huang Di. After being decapitated and buried by the latter, he turns his nipples into eyes and his navel as mouth, and dances around holding a hatchet and a shield in his hands. Both tales are told in the Book of Mountains and Seas.


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realms and a new world of artistic creation. In Tao Yuanming’s writings, sceneries of garden and fields and the life of labor, for the very first time, are handled as aesthetic objects, thus opening a new horizon, with a distinctive flavor of its own, for later generations. From the time since the rise of the literati poetry in the Jian’an period, the language of poetry has had a general tendency toward a kind of exquisite beauty; one may say that in people’s consciousness, the beauty of poetry cannot be detached from its peculiar rhetoric. Tao’s poetry, instead, resorts to a relatively plain type of diction. That, however, is not the kind of plainness as found in folk songs, rather it is a highly polished language that has cleared itself of all verbosity and obscurity and displays a bright and pure simplicity. Using such a language, the poet constructs an integrated world of imagination that contains, in its essence, profound thinking and philosophical reasoning, often with meanings between the lines or beyond the text. That is why his poetry is plain and easy on the surface, but contains rich implications, reaching an extremely high level, just as Su Shi has observed, “It seems plain, but is actually exquisite; it sounds dry and dull, but is actually rich and sumptuous.” (“A Letter to Su Che”) Tao Yuanming has left behind only more than ten pieces of prose and rhapsody, but almost every single one of them is superb in quality. “A Note on the Peach Blossom Spring” is his best known prose piece. This article actually approximates fiction, so it has also been included in the collection of supernatural tales, More Records of the Search for the Supernatural, which is said to have been compiled by Tao Yuanming. The fictitious “Land of Peach Blossom Spring” in the piece has the simplicity of the primeval world in the Confucian imagination, as well as signs of the social pattern of “a small state with a sparse population” as advocated by Laozi. Scenes in the countryside depicted in the piece are similar in their ambience to those that appear in his poems of garden and fields. One may say that the article is the author’s beautiful imagination based on his social ideals, and it also represents the yearning for a halcyon society of the broad masses of the common people in that tumultuous age. The language of the piece is plain but beautiful. Take, for example, the passage that tells how the fisherman from Wuling first enters the land of the Peach Blossom Spring: “All of a sudden he came to a grove of peach trees in bloom which stood on both banks of the stream for several hundred steps, without any tree of other kinds among them. Fragrant grass beneath them was fresh and pretty, and fallen petals scattered all around.” It moves on to describe

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the scenes inside the land: “There was a broad stretch of level land. Houses stood solemnly among the likes of rich fields, pleasant ponds, mulberries and bamboos. Paths crisscrossed all over the land, and the sound of dogs barking and cocks crowing could be heard around.” Such a style accounts for the great unity of language, imagination and subject matter in the piece. “Song of the Homeward Journey” is his best known rhapsody. It describes the scenes on his way home for a secluded life after giving up the office as the Magistrate of Pengze, and the life after his return. Compared to the exquisite diction usually found in the rhapsody, this piece appears fresh and clear-cut in language. It is rich in lyricism, very poetic, and at the same time also contains philosophical implications. “The boat rocks gently in the current, gusts of wind blow my robe.” It tells how he feels unrestrained, carefree and light-hearted on his way home. Everything sounds so relaxed and joyful. “Clouds, moving without destination, loom from behind mountain peaks; birds, wearied with flying, know it is time to return.” “Trees grow lush in their leafy foliage; fountain springs have just started flowing in gurgles.” All such descriptions of scenes embody, in a vivid manner, the rhythm and spirit of all things in nature that grow and wither by themselves in complete freedom. In addition, pieces like “A Biography of the Gentleman of Five Willows,” “An Elegiac Address to My Younger Sister, Mrs. Cheng,” “Rhapsody on Scholars with Unrecognized Talents” all have their own distinctive features. In particular, the “Rhapsody on Stilling the Passions” is a peculiar piece in Tao’s oeuvre. It claims that the meaning of its title, “Stilling the Passions,” is to control and restrain passions, and yet in its actual content it plays up the love between man and woman passionately, and in style it is unrestrained and very colorful. In the long section starting from the line “I would like to be the collar of your garment,” it uses various analogies to express the desire of staying close to the beautiful one, with lifelike description of her appearance, sparing no effort in enumeration and elaboration. It displays a different aspect of Tao Yuanming’s thinking and interests as well as the versatility of his literary talents. In the Southern dynasties, with the widespread admiration for the exquisite and ornate style, Tao Yuanming’s literary writings were not highly appraised. Starting with the Tang dynasty, Tao Yuanming’s influence gradually increased, but it was not until the Song dynasty when he began to be widely and unanimously held in esteem. The


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comprehension of Tao Yuanming, in itself, made a significant phenomenon in literary history.

6. Fiction of the Wei-Jin Period The Chinese word “fiction,” in original, refers to trifling, silly gossip, or anecdotes from hearsay. So “fiction,” in the usage of the ancients, includes a great variety of miscellaneous writings, of which what is related to fiction in the modern sense of the word are primarily all kinds of supernatural tales of a folklore nature. During the Wei-Jin period, this kind of records became popular, turning into a kind of prototype in the history of fiction, and was known as “tale of the supernatural (zhi guai).” As regards the reason for the rise of the supernatural fiction in the Wei-Jin period, Lu Xun, in A Concise History of Chinese Fiction, has argued that it lied in the great popularity of shamanism at the end of the Han, and the inspiration from the entrance of Buddhism. However, one should note in addition that it also had something to do with the fact that in the Wei-Jin period, social thinking was relatively lively and liberal, so people had greater interest in less formal and orthodox readings. A Short History of Wei, written by Yu Huan of the Wei dynasty, contains a record which tells that Cao Zhi, on his first meeting with Handan Chun, “cited several thousand words of fiction from entertainers” to show off his attainments. Here, the “fiction from entertainers” is not necessarily supernatural fiction, but it also indicates that the literati’s fondness of engaging in talks for amusement was a trend of the day. Accordingly, supernatural fiction after the Wei-Jin period, especially that written by men of letters, reflects, without question, a kind of interest in life more lively and extensive than before. Of the extant supernatural tales attributed to Han authors, there are mainly “The Stories of Emperor Wu of the Han” and “The Secret Biography of Emperor Wu of the Han,” both attributed to Ban Gu, and “The Story of the Land in a Cavern” attributed to Guo Xian. Most scholars regard them as forgeries from authors of the Wei-Jin period. (Recently, though, some controversial opinions have come up.) All three consist of supernatural tales about Emperor Wu. Of supernatural works with clear dating, the earliest one is the Book of Marvel Tales attributed to Cao Pi. The book is no longer extant, but has been cited in several books under the category of encyclopedias and concordances. The story “Mr. Tan” tells how a scholar marries a female ghost, and because he

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breaks his promise not to look at her in firelight for three years, they are finally separated, and she leaves behind a son. To be penalized due to the failure to control one’s curiosity is a common theme in the folklore of various nations. It shows a universal state of human mind. Records of Search of the Supernatural Of the supernatural fiction of the Wei-Jin period, Records of the Search for the Supernatural is a collection that has preserved the largest number of representative texts. Its author Gan Bao (?-336) was a famous historian during the transition of the two Jin dynasties. In his preface to Records of the Search for the Supernatural, he claims that he wrote the book in order to “disclose the authenticity of the way of divinity,” and at the same time, also to provide something for the reader to “let free one’s heart and eyes,” which means to have some entertainment. Records of the Search for the Supernatural is wide-ranging in content, of which the most noteworthy is some of its love stories. For instance, “Han Ping and his Wife” tells how King Kang of Song, seeing how beautiful Han Ping’s wife is, seizes her to be his own. Han Ping and his wife refuse to yield, so both commit suicide. After their death, big trees grow out of their graves, with their roots and branches interconnected, and a pair of mandarin ducks stay atop the trees and keep crying sadly. The story shares much similarity with “An Old Poem: Written for Jiao Zhongqing’s Wife.” “The Youngest Daughter of the King of Wu” tells how Purple Jade, the youngest daughter of Fu Chai, the King of Wu, falls in love with Han Chong. Because of her father’s opposition, she dies in depression. When Han Chong comes to her grave in mourning, her ghost invites Han Chong to enter the grave and live with her for three days to fulfill her cherished desire. In a sad and dreary mood, the story expresses a strong revolt against the social institution wherein men and women cannot choose the partner of their own choice in marriage. The courage and perseverance of Purple Jade is especially moving. “Gan Jiang and Mo Ye” extols people’s strong desire for revenge against the cruel ruler. It tells how Gan Jiang and Mo Ye cast a sword for the King of Chu. After three years, the sword is made, but they are killed. When their son Chi grows up, he avenges his father. The story originates from the Book of Marvel Tales, but the detail about the revenge added by Records of the Search for the Supernatural is extremely gallant:


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(The son) went into the mountains, singing on the way. A man ran into him, and asked: “You are young. Why do you cry so sadly?” He replied, “I am the son of Gan Jiang and Mo Ye. The King of Chu killed my father; I want to avenge him!” The man said, “I heard the King would buy your head for a thousand pieces of gold. If you give me your head and your sword, I’ll take revenge on your behalf.” The son said, “How very lucky I am!” So he killed himself, held his head and the sword in his hands, and passed them over. His body turned stiff standing there. The man said, “I’ll not let you down.” Thereupon the corpse fell to ground. The man went to see the King of Chu with the head in his hands. The king was very happy. The man said, “This is the head of a brave man. It should be boiled in water in a cauldron. The king did as he asked. The head was boiled for three days and three nights, but it remained intact. The head even hopped out of the boiling water, staring in a fury. The man said, “This boy’s head would not wear out. I hope Your Majesty would go over and look down upon it, and then it will surely disintegrate.” So the king went over to look at it. The man swished his sword at the king, and the king’s head fell into the boiling water. The man cut off his own head which also fell into the boiling water. All three heads dissolved and became indistinguishable from one another. The flesh and the water were divided into portions to be buried, and they were called by the general name of the “Grave of the Three Kings.”

The story tells how the son of Gan Jiang and Mo Ye holds his own head and his sword in hands and presents them to the man, and how his head hops out of the cauldron, still “staring in a fury.” It is not only amazing in its imagination, but also holds a powerful appeal to the reader. The beauty of its majestic sorrow attracted Lu Xun’s attention, who rewrote the story in a new version as “A Foot between Eyebrows” (later the title was changed to “Casting Sword”). More Records of the Search of the Supernatural Starting from the Treatise on Classics and Books in History of the Sui, More Records of the Search for the Supernatural has been attributed to Tao Qian, but most scholars have regarded it as fabrication. However, the Biographies of Venerable Buddhist Monks by Hui Jiao of the Liang dynasty already referred to “Tao Yuanming’s Records of the Search for the Supernatural,” which indicated that the attributed authorship had a long history. Even if it was not written by Tao Qian, the date of its production should have been very early. Many entries in More Records of the Search for the Supernatural tell the story of unusual females, and they are all quite interesting whether

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or not they are related with a love affair. For example, “The Daughter of Xu Xuanfang” tells how the daughter of the Xu family, who has already become a ghost, appears in a dream of Ma Zi and says that she will return to life to become his wife. Ma Zi agrees: On the appointed date, in front of his bed, he saw some hair lying on the ground. He told someone to sweep it away, but it became even more visible. He realized that the hair was of the one who had appeared in his dream, so he told everyone to leave the room. Gradually the forehead emerged; next it was the face and the head. And then, the neck, the shoulder, and the body all surfaced. Ma Zi told her to sit in front of him on the couch, and they started talking. It was simply marvelous.

The description here is extraordinary indeed. Also, the entry of “Yuan Xiang and Gen Suo” tells the story of how Yuan Xiang and Gen Suo, both natives of Shanxian, meet with two young women deep in the mountains and marry them. Everything is left in ambiguity, and one is unsure whether it is a story about the immortals. The later story about how Liu and Ruan visit Mt. Tiantai and meet with immortals, included in the Records of Light and Shade, must have evolved from this tale. “The Fair Lady of the White River” tells how Xie Rui picks up a big spiral shell. Afterward, every day, when he goes out to work, a “Fair Lady of the White River in the Heaven” will leap out of the spiral shell and does housework for him. All these stories reveal fantastic imagination and also contain a real touch of human life. Overall, the best of the fiction of the Wei-Jin period was not simply related with a curiosity about the supernatural; its emotional tendencies were in accordance with the development of the literature of the Wei-Jin period in general. Correspondingly, the description of its plot also began to get more lively and refined. While the topic of the supernatural had a long history, it was not until the Wei-Jin period that it was presented in texts of a clearer literary nature, and the reason for that was to be found in the society of the time.

CHAPTER EIGHT

LITERATURE OF THE NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN DYNASTIES AND THE SUI DYNASTY

In the year of 420, Liu Yu founded the Song dynasty, which superseded the Eastern Jin. Shortly afterwards, Toba Tao, Emperor Xiaowu of the Northern Wei, also unified northern China. After a period of warfare during which neither side made any gains, the Northern and Southern Dynasties entered a relatively stable era of confrontation. In the south, the four dynasties of the Song, Qi, Liang and Chen succeeded one after the other in a period of approximately one hundred and seventy years. Because the succession took place mostly in the upper social level, it did not slow down the social and economic development in the south, and the relatively liberal and open cultural environment brought about the further prosperity of literature. In the north, in the late years of the Northern Wei, the split of the Eastern Wei and the Western Wei took place; and subsequently, the Northern Qi superseded the Eastern Wei, and the Northern Zhou superseded the Western Wei. Eventually, the Sui dynasty, which was founded on the basis of the Northern Zhou regime, reunified the entire nation. Ever since the Jin court moved south across the Yangtze River, the northern regions had been under the rule of minority nationalities; because a large number of the literati moved south, and also due to the restrictions of economic and cultural factors, the growth of literature was far behind that in the south at one time. However, after a long period of cultivation, and with the cultural exchanges between the north and the south, the literature of northern China gradually made considerable accomplishments, and also formed some characteristics different from the literature of southern China. Following the steps of political unification, the literature of the north and the south eventually evolved towards a blend.

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chapter eight 1. Trends of Literary Thought during the Northern & Southern Dynasties and the Sui Dynasty

The Tendency towards Aestheticism and the Demand for “New Change” in the Literature of the Southern Dynasties After rising above the excessive encroachment of the thinking of the Dark Learning, literature of the Southern Dynasties once again connected with the convention of the literati literature since the Jian’an period, which focused on the beauty of language, and pushed it further towards aestheticism. There was a growing awareness of the distinction between literature and non-literature, literature was further detached from politics and enlightenment by education, and beauty was widely acknowledged as the essence of literature. The great importance attached to the essence of beauty in literature was embodied, in the first place, in the attention to a strong lyricism. Zhong Rong says in his “Preface to Ranking of Poetry”: The wind and the birds in spring, the moon and the cicadas in autumn, the clouds and the rain in summer, and the moon and the bitter cold in winter—these are what are embodied in poetry of the four seasons. In fine company, we use poetry to socialize; in isolation, we use poetry to vent our resentment. As for: a minister of Chu leaves his homeland, an imperial concubine of Han bids farewell to the palace; someone leaves his bones lying across the northern plain, while his soul flies in pursuit of the fleabane in the air; someone carries his dagger-axe in defense at the outlands, where the aura of death makes the border a land for man only; a thinly-clad stranger at the frontier post; a widow inside her boudoir with no more tears to shed; or, a serviceman takes down his pendants and leaves the court, and once gone, never to return; a woman raises her moth eyebrows1 to win someone’s good graces, causing the fall of a state by the look of her beauty. All these move and touch our heart. How can we represent all such tales, if not with the composition of a poem? How can we express all the emotions, if not with the singing of a long song?

A similar observation may also be found in Xiao Gang’s “A Letter in Reply to Zhang Zan’s Note of Thanks for Being Shown My Collection.” All such observations stress that the main object of representation in

1 The Chinese phrase e mei, which suggests the dainty sweep of a moth’s antennae, refers to the fine and delicate eyebrows of a woman.

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 195 literature is the natural or social phenomenon with the potential to “move and touch our heart.” The literati of the Southern Dynasties tried to use the terms wen (“writing with a pattern”) and bi (“simple writing”) to differentiate literary and non-literary kinds of writing. Liu Xie, in Literary Mind: Carving Dragons, remarked that it was a “common saying,” i.e., the general opinion, of the time to believe that “a piece of writing without the use of rhyme is bi, and that with the use of rhyme is wen.” Xiao Yi, in the section of “Achieve Glory by Writing” in his book, Master of the Golden Tower, suggests a more definite standard: To chant and to sing about emotions: it is called wen. . . . As for what is called wen, it has to be rich in colors like embroidery, with musical rhythm, refined diction, and stirring emotions.

Here Xiao Yi set up three requirements of wen: beauty of diction, melodiousness in prosody and rhythm, and a strong lyricism that can stir up emotions. Such a concept showed a more direct grasp of the essence of literature than before. The issue may be discussed in the light of the drive, widespread during the Southern Dynasties, in pursuit of “new change.” The writing of Xu Ling, a famous poet during the Liang and Chen dynasties, was characterized by its “making change of old forms and being rich in new ideas” (see his biography in History of the Chen). However, he still claimed, in a letter to his relative Xu Zhangru, that he lacked new change, and felt ashamed about it. It is not difficult to see that “new change” was already regarded as the objective that literature had to reach, and the criterion in the evaluation of a literary work. One may find exclusive discussions of that in critical writings of the age, such as Liu Xie’s Literary Mind: Carving Dragons and Xiao Zixian’s “Commentary on the Treatise on Literature in History of the Southern Qi.” To seek “new change” was to refuse to follow the beaten track of old forms, old themes and old styles; instead, one needed to strive to create a beauty with refreshing characteristics and individual features. At the time, everything, as long as it agreed with the aesthetic values of the age, was used in literary works as subject matter. In particular, themes related with landscape and nature, or themes on females and romantic love, were represented with great zest, and frontier poetry also began to emerge. In the literature of the period, there was a great fascination with artistic form, which was best represented by the attention

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to prosodic regulations in poetry and the rise of parallel prose. With the former, it was led by Shen Yue’s theory of “Four Tones and Eight Defects” during the years of the Yongming reign of the Qi dynasty, and represented by Xie Tiao and others in practice of composition, when the so-called “New Form of Yongming” evolved on its way towards more strict prosodic regulations. It was further developed during the Liang dynasty, and by the time of the literary circle that centered around Xiao Gang (including Yu Jianwu and his son Yu Xin, Xu Chi and his son Xu Ling), the five-character regulated verse was roughly in established form. According to Literary Mind: Carving Dragons, the formation of parallel prose might have started in the Wei and Jin period. Indeed, during the Western Jin, there already emerged a very neatly organized piece of parallel prose like Lu Ji’s “Preface to the Rhapsody on the Gallant Man,” though it is after all not a purely literary composition. By the Liu-Song dynasty,2 there appeared exquisite epistles in the form of parallel prose and short rhapsodies rich in lyricism, such as Bao Zhao’s “A Letter to My Younger Sister after Reaching the Bank of the Big Thunder” and “Rhapsody on the Ruined City,” Xie Huilian’s “Rhapsody on Snow” and Xie Zhuang’s “Rhapsody on the Moon.” By then the parallel prose of a purely literary nature entered a stage of maturity. In distinct art forms of their own and by striking melody and rhythm, regulated verse and parallel prose constitute a kind of belles-lettres literature markedly different from spoken language and ordinary writings, and greatly strengthen its lyrical effects. The achievements of these two genres in the literature of the Southern Dynasties made experimental exploration and provided important ground for the subsequent further development of literature. Meanwhile, the multiplicity of poetic forms and the corresponding differentiation of the expressive functions of art were also quite noteworthy. At the same time when five-character verse held its dominant place, seven-character verse also rose gradually and eventually obtained an equally important place as the former. In the range of five-character verse, at the same time when the regulated verse assumed its set form, the artistic characteristics of the regulated and unregulated verse began 2

The Song dynasty founded by Liu Yu during the Age of Division has often been referred to as the “Liu-Song” to mark it different from the later Song dynasty founded by Zhao Kuangyin, which has sometimes been referred to as the “Zhao-Song” in history.

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 197 to show their differences. In the range of seven-character verse, the expression of different feelings often called for the different use of the poetic form wherein the seven-character line dominates but also mixes up with lines of other patterns, or the orderly form wherein all lines are in seven-character form. The five-character and seven-character poetic forms that consist of four lines, which became the prototype of the “truncated lines” or quatrain of later ages, also held respective artistic features of each of their own. We are not supposed to analyze the different characteristics of each of the various poetic forms here. However, we should note that the various forms of classical Chinese poetry are not different in formal patterns only; rather, in terms of the functions of artistic representation which centers on the expression of feelings, each of them plays a specific role of its own. That the poetic forms moved toward multiplicity during the Southern Dynasties was in fact brought about by the lyrical and aesthetic demands of the time, which became more colorful, complex, and subtle. Certainly, since the court and the aristocrats dominated the literature of the Southern Dynasties, their aesthetic taste, obviously, could not avoid being quite biased and narrow-minded. In terms of the subject matter of literature, neither life of the community outside the society of the nobility, nor the fierce conflict within the society of the nobility, gained much, if any, attention. As regards literary style, while the pursuit after exquisite beauty was not altogether unjustifiable, the excessive and exclusive inclination towards ornateness would surely result in many defects. These shortcomings were constantly being criticized and corrected in the process of the blending of the literature of the south with that of the north, and also in the further evolvement of literature of the Tang dynasty. Notwithstanding all this, however, the period of the Southern Dynasties was one of a stronger self-consciousness of literature, and literature of the Southern Dynasties not only held a dominant place in the literature of the Northern and Southern Dynasties and the Sui dynasty, but it was also an important link in the entire history of Chinese literature. Literary Mind: Carving Dragons and Ranking of Poetry The Southern Dynasties period was also an extremely important stage in the history of literary criticism. Here we shall give a brief introduction to Literary Mind: Carving Dragons and Ranking of Poetry, the best known works of theory and criticism of this period.

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Literary Mind: Carving Dragons consists of fifty chapters. The first large-scale work of literary criticism in China, it was finished during the Qi dynasty. Its author, Liu Xie (ca. 465–ca. 532) led a poor life in his childhood, and lived under the patronage of Buddhist monks for more than a decade. In the early years of the Liang dynasty, he served in the government as an Interpreter-Secretary under Xiao Tong, the crown prince, much to the appreciation of the latter. Later, he became a monk, adopting the religious name of Huidi. Literary Mind: Carving Dragons discusses writings in a wide sense, which not only include literary genres like poetry and rhapsody, but also non-literary kinds of writings such as the prose of the masters, discourse of argumentation, imperial edict, and memorial to the throne. Liu Xie believes that “all writings since the ancient times are elaborate and ornate in style.” In other words, all writings strive for a beautiful polish, so they may be discussed by the same rules. The shortcoming of such a perception is that the demarcation line between literature and non-literature may get blurred. However, in the reality of the age, no effort was spared to make even practical writings, let alone literary writings, beautiful in style, so it was only natural for Liu Xie to hold such a concept. The part in the book that is attached special importance, also its most valuable part, remains that on how to achieve beauty in literature. The three chapters at the beginning, “Its Source in the Way,” “Giving Evidence from the Sages,” and “Revering the Classics,” try to establish the basic principles for the “written word” in the wide sense of the expression.3 The thinking represented therein contains many eclectic and compromising elements. For example, “Its Source in the Way” proposes that the source of writings lies in the “Way,” which refers to the “Heavenly Way” of Nature, not the Confucian Way of moral principles. “The sun and moon are successive disks of marble, showing to those below images that cleave to Heaven. Rivers and mountains are glittering finery, unrolling forms that give order to Earth. These are the patterns of the Way.” (Owen, 187) The Way has its beautiful images, writings originate from the Way, and the pursuit after beauty is in line with “the principles of Heaven and Earth.” It is obviously a representation

3 Whenever possible, I have used English translations of the work from Vincent Y. C. Shih tr. The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959) or in Stephen Owen, Readings in Chinese Literary Thought (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1992), pp. 183–298. Pagination of citations from these two versions are given parenthetically in the text.

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 199 of the fashion and manner of the belles-lettres literature of the Six Dynasties. However, Liu Xie moves on to mix up the Way of Nature with the Way of Confucian principles, and maintains that the classics of the Confucian sages can best take “for their source the mind of the Way,” and he also argues “that the Way sent down its pattern through the Sages, and that the Sages made the Way manifest in their patterns (writings).” Ordinary people are unable to have a deep comprehension of the divine profundity of the Way, therefore there is the need for “Giving Evidence from the Sages,”—to learn from the Sages, and for “Revering the Classics,”—to model after the classics. It actually applies to literature the theory of the unity of Nature and Confucian ethical codes in the Dark Learning. If one strictly regulates literature by the principles of “Giving Evidence from the Sages” and “Revering the Classics,” it would have been easy to return to the position of the Confucian scholars of the Han dynasty. Fortunately Liu Xie did not follow that course. For instance, in discussing The Songs of the South, he points out a number of characteristics of the work, such as “succinct and beautiful in its expression of sorrow,” “elaborate and resplendent in its display of grief,” “ornate, eccentric, and with great ingenuity,” “manifesting the grace of unrestrained speech,” etc. All these, in fact, do not necessarily accord with the above-cited principles, and yet the author is full of praises for these, and he also assumes a similar attitude in evaluating other writers. It indicates that he believed in the importance of writing beautifully but did not care too much about principles. In its discussion of specific literary composition, Literary Mind: Carving Dragons contains many brilliant and original observations, such as the proposal of the concept of “wind and bone.” Here the socalled “wind” refers to the work’s appeal to the reader, and the so-called “bone” refers to the work’s forcefulness in diction and structure. Both originate from the author’s vitality of life. An excellent work must have both wind and bone, but wind and bone have to combine with pattern and coloration. To have wind and bone but no pattern and coloration is like a ferocious but ugly bird of prey. To have pattern and coloration but no wind and bone is like a colorful pheasant that is unable to fly. Even from the brief summary in the above, we can tell that Liu Xie reached a much deeper understanding of the essence and sense of beauty of literature than his predecessors. In addition, the chapter of “Latent and Outstanding” discusses the combination of reserve and brilliance in artistic expression, the chapter

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of “Spirit Thought” discusses the power of imagination in composition, the chapter of “Nature and Form” discusses the relation between the author’s personality and the style of his works, the chapter of “Emotions and Coloration” discusses the relation between emotions versus pattern and coloration, and the chapter of “The Sensuous Colors of Physical Things” discusses the relation between literature and scenes in nature. They involve a wide range of important issues of literary composition. Chapters of “Sound and Rhythm,” “Parallel Phrasing,” “Hyperbole,” and “Factual Allusion and Textual Reference” make a series of more specific explorations of issues on the rhetoric and techniques of composition. In short, Literary Mind: Carving Dragons made remarkable advancement on the basis of summarizing the achievements of predecessors, and became an unprecedented conclusion of classical Chinese literary theory. It was not only a display of Liu Xie’s superb talent, but also an outstanding representation of the advancement of literature during the Southern Dynasties. Zhong Rong (ca. 468–518) was a government official during the Qi dynasty. In the Liang dynasty, he served under Xiao Gang when the latter was Prince of Jin’an. Ranking of Poetry was written after the twelfth year (513) of the Tianjian reign of Emperor Wu of Liang, during the author’s later years. Ranking of Poetry discusses the five-character poetry exclusively. The work actually is in two parts. The “Preface” provides a general discussion of the origin and development of the five-character verse, and also gives some of the author’s opinions on the writing of poetry and the style of contemporary poetry. The main body of the work divides the one hundred and twenty poets from the Han-Wei to the Qi-Liang period into three ranks: the upper, the middle, and the lower rank (with one volume devoted to each rank). It makes evaluations of the poets, discusses their respective origin and development, and points out the strengths and weaknesses of each. Ranking of Poetry has a simple and well-defined object of discussion, and theoretically it does not consider everything in a detailed and comprehensive way like Literary Mind: Carving Dragons. On the other hand, it has its own strength in clarity. In particular, it is almost entirely free from the restriction of Confucian thinking. At the very beginning of its preface, Ranking of Poetry observes: “The vital force moves things in Nature, and things in Nature affect human beings. Hence, when one’s emotions are affected and aroused, they take shape in dance and singing.” What follows it is the passage cited at the beginning of this chapter. According to Zhong

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 201 Rong, poetry is entirely the product of emotions that are aroused from individual life experiences. As a work specifically on poetry, Ranking of Poetry ignores the theory of Confucian scholars of the Han as stated in “Mao’s Preface to The Book of Songs,” “to manage the relations between husbands and wives, to perfect the respect due to parents and superiors, to beautify the enlightenment by education, and to change customs and habits.” Later, when it defines exposition, comparison, and associated image, it also differs from the conventional Confucian theory on the elucidation of classics in treating them simply as modes of lyrical expression. In evaluating poetry, Zhong Rong pays much attention to great emotions, beautiful diction, and a refined and lucid style. He reserves his greatest admiration for Cao Zhi. In summarizing the characteristics of Cao’s poetry, he remarks that it is “extraordinarily superb in the vital force of its bones, rich and magnificent in diction, with its feelings covering both correction and lament, and solid in both form and content;” he praises it highly as: “It may be compared to the Lord of Zhou and Confucius in the realm of morality, or to dragon and phoenix in fauna.” This roughly coincides with Liu Xie’s emphasis on the combination of wind and bone with pattern and coloration. However, Zhong Rong disagrees with Liu Xie and deviates from the entire literary arena of the time in one aspect, i.e., his opposition to the use of allusions and strict prosody. Due to its excessive respect for the resplendent and refined style, the evaluation of poets in Ranking of Poetry has its bias. Among the most outstanding poets since the Wei and Jin, Cao Cao has been placed in the lower rank, and Tao Yuanming and Bao Zhao have been placed in the middle rank, which has been much ridiculed in later ages. Judging from specific comments, Cao Cao’s “archaic candidness” and Tao Yuanming’s “simple forthrightness” account for their relatively low appraisal. Bao Zhao’s poetry is in fact resplendent in style, but it is criticized as “rather detrimental to the refreshing and elegant tone.” Such a perspective certainly has its problems, though elements of the fashion of the age are involved therein. Positive or negative notwithstanding, the summing up of the style of the poets in Ranking of Poetry is in general concise and precise, which is not an easy task. It also pays much attention to the origin and development of poets. For example, it points out that Cao Pi “has its origin in Li Ling, and shares much in common with Zhongxuan (Wang Can) in form.” Its discussion may, on occasions, draw a forced analogy or

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make a farfetched comparison, but it adopts a historical perspective, which was also quite commendable in the age. A Renewed Call for the Confucian Views of Literature Since the Jian’an period, literature had deviated from the track of Confucian thinking in its development. However, the latter did not lose its influence on literature completely. We have already mentioned in the above the conservative and compromising tendencies in Literary Mind: Carving Dragons. During the Northern and Southern Dynasties and the Sui period, there were those who advocated the Confucian views on literature even more definitely. For instance, in “On Carving Insects,” Pei Ziye of the Liang period criticized the belles-lettres literature of the Southern dynasties, saying that in “rejecting the Six Principles and singing about feeling and nature,” it “takes pride in the attainments to make ornate composition in violation of the classics,” and he called for a return to the Confucian view of literature that was based on enlightenment by education. A similar situation existed in the Northern dynasties. During the Western Wei, by imperial commission, Su Chuo wrote “The Great Mandate” in imitation of the Documents of High Antiquity, as an experiment to remedy the deficiency of “ornateness” of the literature of the Southern dynasties. According to “Biographies of the Literary Arena” of History of the Northern Dynasties, Su Chuo’s literary view contained the implication of “treating the (literature of ) the Wei and Jin as worthless.” At the beginning of the Sui dynasty, Emperor Wen made every effort to advocate the pragmatic in his cultural policy, and demanded that literature and arts help with politics and education, which led to a radical attitude of complete rejection of the belles-lettres literature. In “A Memorial to Emperor Gaozu of the Sui on the Elimination of Literary Ornateness,” Li E denounced authors since the Wei-Jin period who “competed with one another in literary ornateness which turned into the fashion,” and regarded poetry and prose which focused on the ingenuity of sound and diction and the description of things in nature to be not only worthless, but even detrimental to people’s mind; he suggested to have such writings censored. In correspondence, Wang Tong, alias Wenzhongzi, who attracted a group of disciples in his preaching as a civilian towards the end of the Sui, also spared no effort in promoting the Confucian theory of poetry as a means of education. He believed that poetry should “on a higher level, clarify the Three Cardinal Guides, and on a lower level, divulge

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 203 the Five Constant Virtues,” (“Chapter on Heaven and Earth” in On Centrism), and thereby wrote off almost all the famous writers through the Northern and Southern dynasties like Xie Lingyun, Bao Zhao, Yu Xin, and Xu Ling. While such opinions did not exert much impact on the development of literature from the Northern and Southern dynasties to the Sui-Tang period, the ideological inclinations found in them are quite noteworthy.

2. Poetry and Prose of the Liu-Song Dynasty Shen Yue’s “Commentary on the Biography of Xie Lingyin” in History of the Song provides a concise description of the evolvement of literature from the two Jin dynasties through the Liu-Song era. In general, the refined and resplendent style of the Western Jin, as represented by Pan (Yue) and Lu (Ji), yielded its place to the dry and dull style of the Eastern Jin caused by the vogue of the Dark Learning. By the Liu-Song period, the literary style of the Western Jin was picked up again and continued, as represented by Xie Lingyun and Yan Yanzhi in their effort “to follow our talented predecessors and to set a model for descendants.” Thematically, what stood out in the literature of the Liu-Song period was to continue the tendency of the literature of the later years of the Eastern Jin, and to give rise to a new wave for landscape poetry. “Exegesis of Poetry” in Literary Mind: Carving Dragons contains the observation: “At the beginning of the Song some development in the literary trend was evident. Zhuang(zi) and Lao(zi) had receded into the background, and the theme of the mountains and streams then began to flourish. Writers vied in weaving couplets which might extend to hundreds of words, or in attempting to achieve the wondrous by a single line. In expressing feelings, they always made them in complete harmony with the things they described; in literary phraseology, they tried their best to achieve freshness.” (Shih, 71)4 In this respect, Xie Lingyun was the representative. Roughly speaking, according to the general evaluation during the Southern dynasties, Yan and Xie were considered the representatives

4 Transliteration of Chinese names in the Wade-Giles system in Shih’s translation has been changed to the pinyin.

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of the literature of the Liu-Song period. In fact, however, Bao Zhao, who was born in a commoner’s family, was also a highly creative writer, and his achievements are enough to put him on the same par with Xie, and way above that of Yan. Xie Lingyun and the Flourish of Landscape Poetry Xie Lingyun (385–433) was a native of Yangxia, Chenjun (Taikang, Henan today). As the grandson of Xie Xuan, a renowned military general of the Eastern Jin, he was from a most distinguished aristocratic family. Gifted and talented, he was proud by nature. However, he never gained the trust of the supreme rulers; instead, because he often failed to abide by rules, he suffered many setbacks and only served on official posts either in the court or in the provinces, far away from the political center. Eventually he was executed on the charge of conspiracy against the state. Yongjia and Linchuan, where Xie Lingyun served, and Shining, his hometown where he once lived in seclusion, were all scenic places. He found in nature a relief from his depression and solitude, and often went on trips of exploration for scenic spots in the company of his boy servants, retainers, and disciples. A record of his excursions was kept in his poems. “In the metropolis, people of all ranks competed with one another in copying his works,” and “his reputation spread all over the capital city.” (See his biography in History of the Song) It led to the rise of landscape poetry. In the history of literature, the formation of landscape poetry actually took a rather lengthy course. Since the Jian’an period, the proportion of scenic description in poetry had continuously increased. During the two Jin dynasties, there also appeared some poems which described travels and excursions, which could already fall under the category of landscape poetry. In terms of the changing tendencies during the Jin-Song transition, Tao Yuanming’s composition took place in about the same years as that of Xie Lingyun, and they made similar efforts in getting free from the dry and dull philosophizing of the poetry of the Dark Learning, and in artistically representing the harmonizing of human mind with nature. However, before Xie Lingyun, works that described nature appeared only sporadically as odd pieces, and the poets did not give much emotional input into their description of things in nature, so they were insufficient to hold any great appeal. When Tao Yuanming described nature, he did not focus on the mountains and waters, and the value of his poetry of field and garden remained unrecognized by his

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 205 contemporaries. Accordingly, it was only when Xie Lingyun appeared on the scene, with his extraordinary poetic talent, and his artistic style that accorded with the universal aesthetic taste of the time, that the fervor for landscape poetry was aroused. Generally speaking, landscape poetry, as an important subgenre of classical Chinese poetry, was not firmly established until Xie Lingyun. Xie Lingyun’s landscape poems usually record the complete course of an excursion, which becomes apparent from the title, such as “On a Trip to Red Rocks I Sailed Out on the Sea” or “From the Bamboo-Grove Ravine I Crossed the Mountain Ridge and Followed the Brook,” etc. In this kind of poems, things in nature vary with the shifting of the poet’s vision and the flow of time, showing some characteristics similar to those of travel accounts. Take, for example, the following poem, “Written on the Lake after Returning from the Stone Cliff Shrine”: From dawn to dusk the climate kept changing Mountains and waters sparkled with a refreshing light The refreshing light could bring such joy That the wanderer, relaxed, forgot to return. The sun was rising when I left the valley; As I boarded my boat, daylight was already dim. Forest and canyon were wrapped in somber hues, The glowing clouds darkened in the twilight haze. Water caltrop and lotus crisscrossed in the reflection. Cattails and rushes leaned on one another. I hurried south on the overgrown path. In delight I closed my eastern gate. Once one stops worrying, nothing seems so vital, As the heart is set at ease, all follow Nature’s way. Here are my words for those who refine their lives: Try to search your way by using such a reasoning.

Previously, the scenic description in poetry was mostly frames of images placed side by side, with no variation in time and space. Xie Lingyun resorts to detailed observation so he is able to bring out the different characteristics of various scenic places, and the scenes in his poems are also very colorful. The deficiency is that the philosophical reasoning in these poems, “there is a truth inside all this,” has failed to be transformed into a visual representation of imagery. Many of them conclude with abstract discussion at the end, which cannot help but impair the imaginary realm of poetry. The most outstanding strength of Xie’s poetry lies in his passion for and sensitivity to Nature which, combined with his creativity in

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language, often produce well-polished great lines with vivid images. For example, in the lines: White clouds embrace serene rocks Green bamboos enchant clear ripples. (“A Visit to the Shining Estate”)

Here the use of verbs carries a strong sense of subjectivity, infusing the scene with human feelings. Under frost at dawn: the maple leaves are crimson In the dusk haze: the mountains look somber in hue.

They are strong and bright in coloring. In the dense woods, the refreshing air lingers, Distant peaks hide half the disc of the sun. (“A Trip to the Southern Pavilion”)

The sense of gradation and the lines in the picture frame is extremely graceful. The clouds and the sun shine on one another, The sky and the waters share the fresh light” (“Ascending to the Singular Islet in the River”)

They provide a broad and bright view. Such beautiful lines were indeed unprecedented in the literature of the time, and it was only natural that they caused quite a sensation then. In addition, in the following: Pools and ponds grow with springtime plants, Willows in gardens change amid singings birds. (“Climbing the Tower above the Pond”) The bright moon shines on accumulated snow, The north wind is so strong and sorrowful. (“Towards the Year’s End”)

These are famous lines with their strength in spontaneity and plainness. The importance attached to outstanding lines in classical Chinese poetry has much to do with Xie Lingyun. On the other hand, Xie’s poetry has its shortcoming, mainly in its excessive elaboration which, as Ranking of Poetry has remarked, is “rather encumbered by its flowery verbiage.” Some of his lines are not only abstruse in meaning, but also jerky and choppy in language. Accordingly, by the Liang dynasty, his poetry was sharply criticized. However, we should note here that Xie Lingyun made great contribution

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 207 to the formation of a special language of poetry that marked it different from prose. Just as Tao Yuanming’s scenes of the gardens and fields contain the author’s personality and spirit, Xie Lingyun’s landscape is also personified. If one believes that the simple and quiet elegance of Tao’s poetry often represents a world wherein human beings and Nature agree in harmony, then the world of Xie’s poetry is not infrequently characterized by a sense of serenity and aloofness. One cannot help but feel that, notwithstanding that the poet strives to forget the oppression of reality through the appreciation of landscape, his proud, biased, and restless personality, the feeling of solitude and dejection of a talented person being unrecognized in the society, still come out into the open in a persistent way. Today, in general, Tao Yuanming has received a higher evaluation than Xie Lingyun. However, we should notice two aspects. First, Xie’s poetry shows a greater interest in the external world, as well as a stronger zest for life. Second, in terms of artistic techniques, Xie’s poetry provides an experience that may be studied and modeled after in later ages. Accordingly, as a matter of fact, Xie Lingyun exerted a much greater influence on poetry from the Northern and Southern Dynasties to the Tang dynasty. Among those from the Xie family clan, besides Xie Lingyun, Xie Huilian and Xie Zhuang were also important figures of the literary arena of the time. They were both known for their poetry, but were particularly renowned for two short rhapsodies skilled in description of scenes and objects. Xie Huilian’s “Rhapsody on Snow” uses a dialogue between Sima Xiangru and Prince Xiao of Liang to describe scenes of snow. Xie Zhuang’s “Rhapsody on the Moon” fabricates a dialogue between Wang Can and Cao Zhi to describe scenes in the moonlight. Both are exquisitely composed pieces in parallel prose with well-structured lines, harmonious sound, meticulously chosen diction, and detailed description. In short, they have surpassed previous works in the degree of aesthetic maneuvering. The following is a short passage from “Rhapsody on the Moon”: When it clears up after a rain across the earth’s surface, when the clouds retreat to the sky’s end; When the waves in the Great Lake begin to rise, and the trees start to shed their leaves; Chrysanthemums spread their fragrance at hilltops, swans voice their sorrow at the shoals by the river; Unhurriedly it rises in its refreshing essence, and shines peacefully in all its bright beams,

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chapter eight Shadowing all the stars in their radiance and the Long River5 in its luster. The gentle earth seems frozen in snow, the rounded vault looks like a watery mirror. Rows of towers wear frosty white, all the steps around are clean like ice.

The world in the moonlight is depicted as crystal clear, delicate, bright, and refreshing. It has spared no effort in making its language neat and beautiful. Such a kind of rhapsody has achieved an aesthetic effect in correspondence to the rise of landscape poetry. The beauty of things in Nature represented in such works is, after all, the beauty of the ideal personality of the noble and elegant aristocrat. Yan Yanzhi’s (384–456) reputation equaled that of Xie Lingyun at the time. Most of his extant poetry are either socializing poems written in reply to others, or poems modeled after the classical Music Bureau poetry. Conventionally such poems show off one’s learning and talent, and Yan Yanzhi’s poems reflect in particular such a convention. They are abstruse and hard to understand in language, inclined to enumeration and embellishment, and are fond of using allusions and parallel couplets; consequently they are dense, elaborate, refined and ornate in style. If one thinks that this kind of poetry has also made its contribution to the continuation and inheritance of the ornate poetic style of Western Jin, then one has to acknowledge that it has also pushed to the extreme the importance attached to rhetoric in the poetry since Lu Ji and Pan Yue. However, some of the descriptive lines in Yan’s poetry are indeed very well written, as in: The courtyard gets dark, the rustic shade stands out; The mountains are bright, reflected by the snow on pines. (“Presented to Minister Wang of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices”)

The lines are characterized by a kind of solid and dense dignity as in an oil painting. At the end of Eastern Jin, when Yan Yanzhi went to the north on a mission, he wrote en route two poems, “On a Mission to Luo in the North” and “Composed after Having Arrived at Liangcheng on My Return.” While the diction therein is still profound and refined, it is nevertheless free from the excessive usage of ornate phrases. In describing the sight of ruins in the north and expressing the sorrow in his heart, they are sincere and touching. “The gloomy 5

The “River of Silver,” i.e., the Milky Way.

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 209 wind stirs the cold plain; / the flying clouds darken the firmament;” “More trees grow in my home land, / cold clouds freeze over the empty city.” Both the emotions and scenes in these lines, as great as any, are deep and profound. Bao Zhao Bao Zhao (ca. 414–466) was born in a poor and humble family. While serving as a military aide to Liu Zixu, Prince of Linghai, he died during the disturbance when Liu mobilized his troops in rebellion. In terms of his life trajectory, Bao Zhao was opposed to the hereditary system of the powerful families, and remained unhappy due to lack of recognition of his talent and tragic. A man of strong character with great desire in life, he never tried to cover up his pursuit after rank and wealth and his goal to establish meritorious deeds, and believed that due to his own talents, he deserved to achieve all of these. All the passive, escapist and compromising elements in the philosophy of Laozi and Zhuangzi were incompatible with his personality. Whenever his efforts ran into the suppression of reality, his mind would turn stormy and there rose in him a profound melancholy in detest of the world and its ways. The idiosyncrasies of his works were formed on such a basis. Bao Zhao’s poetry clearly consists of two major genres, the pentasyllabic old-style poems and poems after the Music Bureau style. His pentasyllabic old-style poems are in general close in style to the mainstream as represented by Xie Lingyun; they are refined and elegant in diction and quite ornate in style. Among them are a great number of poems that keep record of his travel with a large proportion in scenic descriptions. They may be considered in fact as a branch of landscape poetry. However, there is very little philosophizing in Bao Zhao’s compositions. As regards the depiction of things and objects, he strikes one as less exquisite and precise than Xie Lingyun, though he displays a more virile forcefulness. This is primarily because Bao Zhao is more inclined to describing scenes of a more dynamic nature and he prefers the use of hyperbole, so the imagery in his poetry has a much stronger sense of subjectivity, as in lines like: Flying foams splash from the rapid torrent, A whirling wind rises from the river’s bank. (“En Route Back to the Capital”)

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chapter eight Soaring sands form into a yellow mist, Rolling waves send the white gulls a-flying. (“Written on My Way Back to the Capital from Xunyang”)

Even in the case of static scenes, he often infuses a dynamic sense in his description, as in: The tall trees stand straight and firm, Sharp-edged rocks lie crisscross. (“En Route from Jingkou to Zhuli”) Across the broad banks, the evening shade resides, Over the hanging rocks, perches the returning moon. (“Yangqi and Shoufeng”)

One can feel in such lines the agitation and imbalance in the poet’s mind. Description of scenes of a subjective nature as in such lines has exerted a considerable influence on later generations. Bao Zhao has made more obvious achievements in his poems after the style of the Music Bureau poetry. Poems of this kind use striking diction and phrases, appear very colorful, hold a bold and flowing rhythm, and reveal a kind of impulsive, agitated and tense feelings. They contain few loose and relaxed lines, so they have in general created an unprecedented sensation. In his “Commentary on the Treatise on Literature in History of Southern Qi,” Xiao Zixian of the Liang period has commented on the characteristics of Bao Zhao’s poems: “They are astonishing and striking in the beginning of the singing, shaky and rapid in holding their tone, excessively gorgeous in embellishment, and stirring to the reader’s heart and soul.” It mainly refers to Bao Zhao’s poems after the Music Bureau style. This comment implies a negative tone, but it is nevertheless quite precise in its generalization. In Bao Zhao’s poems after the Music Bureau style, one may find undisguised celebration of a sensual life, such as in “A Rephrased Song of Up the Hall”: Horses and carriages chase one another, Relatives and friends are all good-looking. In the splendid spring months, Morning sunshine spreads over rosy clouds. In light steps we follow the fragrant wind, Talking and laughing we pick red flowers. So bright are all the youthful faces, Plenty are the Weaver Girl’s shuttles. Beautiful women fill up the hall, Wherever our eyes go, there stands the river goddess.

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 211 These lines reveal an admiration for scenes of the life of rank and wealth, of luxury and comfort. The main message therein is that in the great springtime, and when people are in their green years, when men and women come together, they should enjoy life to their heart’s content. More often, though, Bao Zhao airs his grievances in poetry. In his poems after the style of the Music Bureau, one may see meticulous description of the life of poverty, rarely found ever since the rise of literati poetry in the Jian’an period. For instance, “A Rephrased Song of Poverty, Humbleness and Misery” not only depicts the materialistic straits of a poor person, but also, in particular, reflects the spiritual trauma that the author has personally experienced. Ranking of Poetry has mentioned that Bao’s poetry is “rather detrimental to the refreshing and elegant tone.” “To stay poor like this through one’s life span, / one had better go to his grave,” i.e., one had better die rather than live one’s life in such poverty! Certainly, an exclamation like that is not to be heard from any man of letters of an aristocratic family, however hopeless his situation is. Bao Zhao has also created a new poetic form wherein the sevencharacter lines dominate but mix up with other types of lines, represented by the eighteen poems under the title of “Simulation of the ‘Hard Road’.” The sixth one goes: I couldn’t eat at the table. I drew my sword and hit a pillar, heaving a long sigh. How much time does a man live in this world? How can anyone limp around with folded wings? So I gave up my post, left my office, And came back home to have a rest by myself! In the morning, I go out after saying farewell to my parents; By dusk I return and spend my time around my family. I play with my son in front of the bed, I watch my wife working at her loom. Since the ancient times, all the sages are poor and humble, Let alone people like me, so solitary and upright!

Prior to that, there had only been regular orderly heptasyllabic poems, and there were few good ones among them. The heptasyllabic songs in mixed form created by Bao Zhao have great variations in sound and rhythm; generally they are rhymed in every other line. Bold and unrestrained, they are very good in expressing agitated feelings. For this reason, during the Tang dynasty, poets of strong character, such as Li Bo, were fond of using this form in their composition.

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Bao Zhao was also the earliest poet during the Southern dynasties period to write poems on the subject of the frontier deliberately. In terms of the consciousness of composition, such poems seek tense and forceful emotions in poetry by resorting to the specific subject of scenes on the frontier and life in the military. His frontier poems already involved a broad range of aspects. For example, “A Rephrased Song of Going Out of the Northern Gate of Ji” focuses on the heroic feelings of soldiers who sacrifice themselves for the state: A strong wind rush up at the frontier, Grits and gravels fly all around. Horses recoil like hedgehogs, Archers cannot bend their bows.

In these four lines, a tragic tone is heightened in the powerful description of scenes at the battlefield. “A Rephrased Song of Suffering from the Heat” concentrates on the hardship of war: Hot springs emerge from the cloudy pool Smoke from burning rise above the rocky banks. Red snakes: more than a hundred feet long Black bees: ten arm spans around thick.

Scenes and things in the south are depicted in exotic exaggeration in these lines to a stirring effect. In addition, the thirteenth and fourteenth poem of “Simulation of the ‘Hard Road’” tell how soldiers far away from their home land miss their hometown and wives, and “A Rephrased Song of Dongwu” recounts the injustice in the army; they are all vivid and moving. In general, thematically, the frontier poems of later ages have stayed within the basic scope of those mentioned in the above. Bao Zhao was not only an outstanding poet but also a prominent author of rhapsody and parallel prose. His “Rhapsody on the Ruined City” and “A Letter to My Younger Sister after Reaching the Bank of the Big Thunder” are both widely known masterpieces. Using hyperbole, “Rhapsody on the Ruined City” provides a sharp contrast between the city of Guangling in all its glory in the bygone days and the city in its current desolation after having twice gone through the war during the Song dynasty. It mourns war’s severe destruction and the vicissitudes of worldly affairs, reveals a deep sorrow of the age, and also implies some sarcasm about the illusion of prosperity of those in power. In particular, in a passage that describes the scenes in the chaos after the war, the author infuses the subjectivity of his mind into the

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 213 objectivity of the view. Assuming a sad tone and using gloomy, sinister imagery, it displays a vigorous and striking power in its depiction of the desolate, even horrible scenes in this city. In addition to the adoption of a clear and definite theme, this piece reveals a conscious effort to achieve a special sense of beauty, through the delineation of gruesome images, by means of a forceful use of language construct. “A Letter to My Younger Sister after Reaching the Bank of the Big Thunder” is a family letter in parallel prose which contains a large amount of description of the scenes of Nature the author beheld on his trip. It is a colorful piece in virile and vigorous diction, and the vividness of its scenic description, in particular, makes it a rare specimen: To the south, mountains pile up in a myriad shapes. Sustained by their respective vital forces, they compete with one another in height, holding the rosy glow in mouth and drinking up the sunbeams. Peaks high and low contend to excel in virile force; they hover above long ridges that connect with each other, back and forth, forming into a belt around the heaven that stretches far across the infinite earth. To the east, level plains and vast swamps stand far and wide, without end. Cold fleabanes fold and droop in the evening; old trees stand at the same height as clouds. Whirlwinds rise all around, sending flights of birds back to their nests. One listens carefully, but nothing is heard; one looks hard into the distance, but nothing is seen. . . .Looking southwest, Mt. Lushan makes an astonishing and spectacular sight: its base weighs down upon the tidal waves of the river and its peaks join the starry sky; the ornate brocade of rose-tinted clouds often gather high up there. Ruo flowers shine at dusk and keep a free flow of air between cliffs and marshes, exuding their light and glow as bright as the crimson sky.6 Cerulean clouds soar left and right, partially covering the Purple Cumulus.7 From the ridges up it shines all in a golden light, from the mid-hill down everything is in a dark green hue. This is indeed a place where one can live like divinity in the outskirts of the Celestial Emperor, in control of the Xiang and Han rivers.

It provides a wide tableau of landscape, majestic in all its variety; mountains and streams are presented in great dynamism; scenes after scenes rush onto one’s vision in their sparkling colors. Generally speaking, Bao Zhao’s poetry and prose have made many points of departure in originality. To a certain degree, they have broken free from the narrow bondage, from its focus on a refined elegance, of

6 The Chinese mythical tree, Ruomu, stands at where the sun goes down in the west, with its flowers giving off a red light visible after sunset. 7 Purple Cumulus Peak is one of Mt. Lushan’s major scenic peaks.

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the literature of the nobilities, and opened a new path for poetry from the Southern Dynasties all the way to the Tang dynasty. Accordingly, although he “got neglected in his own lifetime,” as observed in Ranking of Poetry, he has nevertheless won an ever-increasing attention in later ages.

3. Poetry and Prose of the Qi and Liang Dynasties The Qi dynasty lasted for more than twenty years only; many men of letters lived through the two dynasties of Qi and Liang, and the literary fashion and way of composition of the two dynasties came down in one continuous line, hence the combined terms of “the Qi-Liang literature” or “the Qi-Liang style.” The Qi-Liang period was an age of extremely remarkable literary changes. Not only did all such important phenomena like the attention to prosodic regulations in poetry, as mentioned previously, take place exclusively in this period, but also there arose changes in poetic language and style which were of far-reaching significance. Since the Jian’an period, the style of the literati poetry had gradually inclined towards refined elegance and ornateness and during the same time, the elaborateness and verbosity of language had gradually become a conspicuous issue. It was the case with some of the renowned authors of the Jin and Song dynasties. Some changes in that respect had already occurred in Bao Zhao’s poetry; by the Qi-Liang period, the abovementioned problem received further attention and concern. Xie Tiao proposed the requirement that “a good poem is to be round, pretty, and facile, like a pellet.” (Cited in the “Biography of Wang Yun” in History of the Southern Dynasties.) Xiao Yi and Xiao Zixian suggested, more definitely, that there should be a combination of the cultivated and the popular in poetry. In his “Commentary on the Treatise on Literature in History of Southern Qi,” Xiao Zixian has defined what he considered to be the ideal style: “In language, easy comprehensibility is valued; in style, excessive elaboration is detested. Like spitting pebbles and holding gold in mouth, it should feel dewy and run smooth. Mixed with folk tones, it sounds like coming from gentle lips and an eloquent mouth. Neither too cultivated nor too unrefined, it is pertinent in expressing one’s mind.” Such a point of view represented the prevalent understanding of men of letters of the Liang dynasty. On the one hand, such a change was related to the influence of the rise of folk songs in the south; on

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 215 the other, it also resulted from the search for the effect of “moving and shaking one’s emotions and soul,” which men of letters of the Liang dynasty placed much importance on. The language of classical Chinese poetry went through a process, first from the popular to the refined, and subsequently further on to the demand for a combination of the refined and the popular. It laid an important foundation for the allround prosperity of Tang poetry. Shen Yue, Xie Tiao, and the Yongming Prosody During the Yongming reign (483–493) of Emperor Wu of the Qi dynasty, there formed an enormous literary clique around Xiao Ziliang, Emperor Wu’s second son and the Prince of Jingling. The best known among its members, known as the “Eight Friends of Jingling,” were Xiao Yan, Shen Yue, Xie Tiao, Wang Rong, Xiao Chen, Fan Yun, Ren Fang, and Lu Chui. At the time, with the rise of Buddhism, some scholars, inspired by the tonal features of Sanskrit, made important achievements in the study and differentiation of the four tones in the Chinese language. Shen Yue put it to use in his poetry composition, which set off a crucial transition in the evolution of poetry from the archaic forms towards regulated verse, and Xie Tiao was the poet with the most prominent accomplishments in the course of the transition. Shen Yue (441–513) was born in a southern hereditary family and served as an official through the three dynasties of Song, Qi, and Liang. He had a hand in Xiao Yan’s strategic decision in founding the Liang regime, and stepped up to serve as the Director of the Imperial Secretariat. A man of great learning and cultivation, Shen Yue also enjoyed senior political status, so he became a leader in the literary world of the Qi-Liang period. The Manuel of the Four Tones, by which She Yue established the regulated poetic forms, has been lost. A rough outline of his theory on prosodic regulations may be found in his “Commentary on the ‘Biography of Xie Lingyun’ in History of the Song”: It is desirable to vary the musical notes, from the highest to the lowest, and keep a balance of contrast between them.8 If there is a word of the light ‘floating’ sound in front, one needs to follow it up with one of the ‘solid’ resonant sounds. Within each line, one should strive to vary words

8

This refers to the ancient Chinese pentatonic musical scale.

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chapter eight for tonal and rhythmic effects; between any two lines, one has to mix up the unstressed and the stressed syllables.

Also, in his “A Discussion in Reply to Lord Zhen,” he sets up the prerequisites, side by side, of “being good at making use of the four tones” and “being able to understand the right forms.” The “eight forms” have generally been referred to as the “eight defects” in later writings. Shen Yue’s theory on prosodic regulations has accordingly been called for short as the theory of “four tones and eight defects.” Generally speaking, according to the prosodic rules of the new poetic forms of the Yongming period, each two lines of a pentasyllabic poem are regarded as a basic unit; within each line words of the four tones have to be mixed up in variation; in between two lines, words of the “floating” and the “solid” sound (tantamount to the level and deflected sounds in later ages) have to be used in contrast. In addition, one has to avoid the eight prosodic defects of “juxtaposed heads,”9 “joining tails,”10 “bee’s waist,”11 “crane’s knee,”12 and so on. By the Liang dynasty, in compositions represented by the Palace-Style Poetry, the prosodic rules further demanded that words of the level and deflected tones be used in crisscross mixture and contrast, developing into the basic format of regulated verse. Besides the attention to the four tones and the eight defects, poems of the Yongming format also had some other conventions in composition. In terms of the length of the poem, for instance, while there was no definite rule about it, it was usually under ten lines; from this it developed into the format of the eight lines of the regulated verse. In addition, with the exception of the first and the last couplet, all the couplets in the middle used lines of antithesis, which later also became a standard format of the regulated verse. A direct cause of the proposal and practice of the prosodic theory was that the literati poetry was largely detached from singing and therefore needed to seek the beauty of musicality in the language itself. As observed in Literary Mind: Carving Dragons, even in the case of

9 The first two characters of any five-charactered line are the same as the first two characters of the subsequent line in their respective use of level and deflected tones. 10 The last character of any five-chractered line is the same as the last character of the subsequent line in its use of either the level or the deflected tone. 11 Within a five-charactered line, the first and the last two characters use those of the deflected tone and the character in the middle uses that of the level tone. 12 Within a five-charactered line, the first and the last two characters use those of the level tone and the character in the middle uses that of the deflected tone.

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 217 their poems in the Music Bureau format, Cao Zhi and Lu Ji “summoned no musicians and declined the use of musical instruments,” i.e., their poems were no longer sung with instrumental accompaniment. Accordingly, beginning from Lu Ji, the attention to the sense of beauty in sounds and tones was already seen. With the new Yongming forms, there further established systematic, clearly defined rules that could be widely adopted. The significance of the Yongming prosody does not end with the prosodic regulations per se. Because of the focus on musicality, there emerged the aesthetic demand for what Xie Tiao called “the round, pretty, and facile”; this began to rectify the shortcomings of excessive linguistic intricacy of the literati poetry. The limit in length of the poem held back the willful elaboration in composition, out of an ostentatious display of learning and talent, which had been frequently found in earlier poetry. It required poets to make new efforts in the art of poetry and, gradually, there appeared more and more poems lucid in style and compact in meaning. It was a change of far-reaching significance. In addition, Shen Yue played a path-finding role in some other respects as well. In terms of poetic form, he was one of those who wrote more in heptasyllabic verse; in theme, his composition of erotic poetry that focused on female beauty (such as “Six Tablets of Memory” and “Song of Night after Night”) had a direct influence on the rise of the Palace-Style poetry. Some of his rhapsodies made liberal use of poetic lines, initiating the fashion of mixing up rhapsody and poetry that thrived from the Liang and Chen to the Early Tang period. While his achievements in writing did not receive much critical respect in later ages, some of his best works are nevertheless quite outstanding. For example, “A Lament for Xie Tiao” and “Saying Farewell to Fan Ancheng” are both poems overflowing with genuine emotions; “Leaving for Dingshan Early in the Morning” and “Listening to the Crying of Apes at the Stone Pond Rapids,” both focusing on description of nature, are lucid and refreshing in diction, sweet-sounding and rhythmical, with a serene sense of beauty. Like his senior clansman Xie Lingyun, Xie Tiao (464–499) was good at landscape poetry, so they have later been known as “Xie the Senior and Xie the Junior.” Xie Tiao began to serve in the government during the early years of the Yongming reign. Not infrequently, members of the distinguished hereditary family of the Xie’s died a violent death because of undue involvement in the power struggle at the top. For this reason Xie Tiao was always timid and cautious, playing safe for self-protection.

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Nevertheless, when Xiao Yaoguang, the Prince of Shi’an, conspired to abolish Marquis Donghun and usurp the throne, Xie Tiao, due to his indecisiveness, was framed, thrown into prison and executed, when he was only thirty-six years old. Most of his poems reveal a sense of perplexity and melancholy, and rarely do they show any strong emotions of agitation and restlessness, which may have something to do with his personality. What were handed down of his works are all poems which are good at description of nature. He also wrote a few longer poems which provide a complete record of travel, like those from Xie Lingyun, but most of his poems are not like those. Take his “A Trip to the Eastern Fields” as an illustration: Laden with sorrow and misery, cheerless, we held our hands, looking for pleasure. We climbed up to lofty lodges hidden in clouds, and watched the mushroom-like pavilions. Lush trees looked hazy in the distance— a vast spread of mist and fog. Fish played around: fresh lotus moved, birds dispersed: petals of flower dropped. I looked away from the wine of scented spring to gaze at the city-walls by the green hills.

The poem begins with a trip, but the four scene-depicting lines do not enumerate what is seen on the trip. Instead they choose to present two corresponding views: a distant view of great expanse and a close shot of bright colors and animation. No more explanation is needed with these two views, which constitute an integral picture of late spring in all its light and shade. Such a way of description is remarkably different from that of Xie Lingyun. The four lines that start with “Lush trees” also demonstrate another outstanding descriptive strength of Xie Tiao’s poetry, namely, the capability to discover a refreshing and moving sense of beauty in ordinary things. Through the composition of delicate, scenic images, it stirs a sense of intimacy in its reader. Among his other poems, excellent examples are found in lines like “Sunshine moves across the rivers, / a great view floats over the grass” (“A Poem in Reply to Xu of the Capital Ministry on an Outing to the Xingting Islet”) and “The lingering evening glow diffuses as damask, / the limpid river lies still like white silk” (“Ascending the Three Hills by Evening and Looking Back at the Capital City”). Li Bo greatly admired this special feature of the poetry of Xie the Junior, as he once said, “Now I understand what is meant by ‘the limpid river lies still like white silk,’ /

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 219 which reminds us so often of Xie Xuanhui.” (“Chanted in Moonlight atop the Gate Tower of Jinling”) Xie Tiao’s poetry also made further developments from his predecessors in the combination of the description of scenery and the expression of emotions. Sometimes he generates a kind of emotions directly from the scene, which results in making the scene a symbol of emotions, as in the lines “The great river keeps flowing, day and night, / the sadness in the traveler’s heart goes on and on” (“On a Short Trip to the Lower Capital, I Set Out at Night from Xinlin, and on Arriving in the Capital City I Present This Poem to my Colleagues at the Western Office”). At other times, he gives expression to his emotions entirely in the description of the scene, as in the opening of “On a Trip to the Xiancheng Commandery, I Embarked for Banqiao at the River Mouth of Xinlin”: “Southwest bound, long is my route by the river, / while the current rolls back northeast. / At the skyline I detect returning boats, / and perceive some riverside trees in the clouds.” Apparently it seems to be nothing but objective description of the scene. In fact, however both the length of the westbound route by the river and the swiftness of the eastbound current involve the author’s nostalgia for life in the capital, while the detection of “returning boats” and the perception of “riverside trees” present a view from the back of someone who keeps looking far into the distance emotionally. The little poem in four pentasyllabic lines had been a most popular form of the folk songs of Southern Dynasties. Xie Tiao transformed the form by investing it with the grace and polish of the literati, freeing it from its original unrefined and vulgar style; accordingly the form, in his hand, began to display a kind of elegance in spite of its simple diction and tactful implications notwithstanding its plainness of expression. In this way, a new poetic form of literati poetry emerged from the ditties of folk songs, which was what was later called the pentasyllabic quatrain, as in “A Lament from the Jade Steps”: By evening, in the hall, the curtain of pearls has fallen. Fireflies take turns flitting around or staying still. Through the long night, I keep sewing the silk robe, And think of you, milord, without end!

In his Canglang’s Remarks on Poetry, Yan Yu has observed, “Some of Xie Tiao’s poems are like those of the Tang authors in their entirety.” In addition to the factor of prosodic rules, it was also due to the growing maturity of the poetic language by Xie Tiao’s time through age-old

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exploration and refinement. Defective and verbose lines are easy to find in the poems of Xie Lingyun and Yan Yanzhi, but rarely seen in Xie Tiao’s poems. Jiang Yan and Kong Zhigui Both Jiang Yan and Kong Zhigui were authors of the same generation as Shen Yue, but they did not belong to the Jingling literary clique. Kong died in the Qi dynasty. Jiang lived until the Liang dynasty, but according to the observation in the Ranking of Poetry, he was already “depleted of his talents” during the Yongming reign, and all his extant works were written during the Song and Qi dynasties. Jiang Yan’s (444–505) early official career in the Song was not very successful, but he became more and more illustrious from Qi to Liang. However, he also became less talented with the success, hence the Chinese idiom “Master Jiang depleted of his talents.” His poetry is known for its skills of imitation: by mimicking the styles of the various famous poets since the Han and Wei, it aims at assimilating a great variety of sources. With great power of imitation, he was able to achieve close resemblance to his predecessors. One of his imitations of Tao Yuanming was mingled in the collection of Tao’s works, undetected, for a long time. Those that he wrote about his own life, focusing on a variety of listless, indefinite malaise, are inclined to use diction and vocabulary from The Songs of the South and the Old Poems, with their strength in a kind of lucid elegance and implicit bitterness. His representative poems include “Red Pavilion Islet” and others. Jiang Yan’s literary fame, however, was primarily established with his two famous rhapsodies in parallel prose, “Rhapsody on Resentment” and “Rhapsody on Parting.” These two pieces represent the frustration at personal failure and the sorrow of separation as universal human feelings, and describe them through itemized enumeration and classification of examples. The author is good at using exquisite diction and a touching style to portray the atmosphere and ambience of specific occasions and to set in relief the feeling of frustration and the grief about separation, giving the pieces a strong artistic appeal. Of the two pieces, the “Rhapsody on Parting” is even more outstanding. It begins by a general account of the sorrow of separation from the opposite perspectives of those who depart and those who stay behind, and follows up by that of the parting of all kinds of people under a variety of circumstances to display its universality in human life. By

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 221 doing so, it intensifies the subject matter in varied elaboration. In telling how a chivalrous man, who has decided to pay a debt of gratitude with his own life, bids farewell to his family, it goes in a heroic, solemn and tragic manner: “Shedding tears they bid each other farewell; wiping their bloodshot eyes they gaze at one another. Then he gallops away on horseback, never looking back; only dust arises from time to time on the long road.” In telling a wife’s yearning for her husband on government service away from home through the four seasons of a year, it breathes a languishing distress: “Green moss overruns the house in spring; bed-curtains are enveloped in the autumn moonshine; bamboo mats are cool in summer, day stays on forever; in the dim lamplight of winter, the night is ever so long!” In relating the parting of lovers, it reveals a sense of beauty and lyricism in its pathos: And then we also have the poem about peony and the song of the lovely lady, the girl from Wei at Mulberry Center and the maid from Chen at the Upper Palace. Grass in spring is emerald in color; rivers in spring roll in green waves. To see the beloved off to the south by riverside— how sad it indeed is! In autumn, the dewdrops are like pearls, and the moon looks like a marble tablet; bright moon and white dew—light and darkness come and go. When one is away from the dear departed, one’s heart is haunted by the thought.

Literary works of the Southern Dynasties share a kind of sentimentality, an aesthetic pursuit as well as an understanding of life. If we believe that the sense of beauty lies primarily in the power to move, then to the literati of the Southern Dynasties, there is nothing more moving than the feeling of sorrow. Jiang Yan’s two rhapsodies may be regarded as the most typical representation of such an aesthetic taste. In terms of their respective style, Bao Zhao’s works of parallel prose and rhapsody are forceful in their compactness of meaning and closely packed images, while Jiang Yan’s compositions often make use of function words, auxiliary words, and repetitive sentence structure to create a delicate and gentle tone. They form into a contrast in style, each with its own specific strength. “Proclamation on North Mountain,” in parallel prose, is Kong Zhigui’s (447–501) most famous work. The term “proclamation” originally applied to a kind of government document. Using personification, the piece assumes the voice of the spirit of the North Mountain (Mt. Zhongshan), and depicts a ludicrous person, “Master Zhou,” a wouldbe recluse who recants and becomes an official. In this way it satirizes the hypocrisy, widespread during the Southern Dynasties, of those who

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claim to be aloof from politics and material pursuits but actually yearn for wealth and rank. Considered in the development of the parallel prose, “Proclamation on North Mountain” contains, from beginning to end, careful and well-knit parallelism, and yet its syntactic patterns are rich in variation. It adopts primarily short lines of three or four characters to create a concise, forceful tempo, but mixes them up with longer lines of six or seven characters to keep the overall tone from being too hurried. At the beginning of each section it frequently uses auxiliary words to open a sentence or auxiliary words of mood to keep the free, smooth flow of the prose; sometimes, at the end of a section, it uses an odd, unparalleled sentence to provide a kind of “buffer” against the fast tempo. In this way, it reads rhythmic and forceful, but also preserves a gentle lyricism in tone. In short, in the hands of Kong Zhigui, the parallel prose became more exquisite in form. In its refined form, “Proclamation on North Mountain” also provides much dynamism and vivacity in its contents and structure. Vivid in description, it is full of wit and humor. The first half tries its best to describe how Master Zhou, in front of other people, appears indifferent towards material pursuits and maintains his personal integrity. Then it suddenly makes a switch into a description of his anxiety and impatience in worldly pursuit when, as soon he is summoned for service in the government, “His body leapt and his souls scattered / His resolve faltered and his spirit wavered.”13 The abrupt change of circumstances and the sharp contrast generate a strong comic sense. Another special feature of the piece lies in its delineation of scenes in nature through the use of personification. For instance, in describing the desolation of the mountains and woods after Master Zhou’s departure for officialdom, it goes: He has left our High haze to reflect the light unwatched Bright moon to rise in solitude Dark pines to waste their shade White clouds with no companion. The gate by the brook is broken, no one comes back The stone pathway is overgrown, vain to wait for him.

13 “Proclamation on North Mountain,” translated by J. R. Hightower, in Cyril Birth ed. Anthology of Chinese Literature: from Early Times to the Fourteenth Century (New York: Grove Press, 1965), pp. 169–173. This quotation is on p. 170.

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 223 And now The ambient breeze invades his bed-curtains The seeping mist exhales from the rafters. The orchid curtains are empty, at night his crane is grieved The mountain hermit is gone, mornings the apes are startled.14

Here everything in Nature is depicted as something with a spirit and soul of its own, hence the imagery becomes more distinctive and the writing is filled with more emotions. In writing about how the mountain and the forest treat human beings, it actually reflects a kind of human yearnings for the mountain and the forest. He Xun, Wu Jun, and Others Throughout his life He Xun (?–518) served as a staff member in the offices of various princes primarily because of his literary talent. In the development of poetry during the Southern Dynasties, he ranked as another representative poet. A phenomenon worthy of notice in He Xun’s poetry is the proportion of shorter pentasyllabic poems, about ten lines in length, to the total number of his pentasyllabic poems, which has increased remarkably than his predecessors, and there are also among them a large number of poems in eight lines. In terms of artistic representation, a poem of this kind is also written in a more concise manner. It often makes a new start in meaning to expand its dimensions when it moves from one couplet to another, which is different from a longer poem that adopts a consistent and linear statement. In fact, the special features of regulated verse are not represented in prosody alone, and what is seen in He Xun’s shorter poems is also significant in terms of its move towards more mature regulated verse. Certainly most of these poems are strict in prosody. Some among them, such as “The Rock of Benevolent Grandma” and “Leaving the River Mouth at Fuyang by Sunset: A Poem in Reply to Lord Lang,” are not much different in form from the full-fledged pentasyllabic regulated poems of later generations. In short, He Xun clearly followed the new poetic form of the Yongming period and carried it to a new stage. Even during the Liang dynasty, He Xun’s poetry was ranked side by side with that of the famous poet Xie Tiao who preceded him. He

14

Ibid., p. 171.

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did incorporate some of Xie Tiao’s strong points in his poetry, but he also had some characteristics of his own. While he was good at the description of scenes, it was no longer the focus of his poems. Instead life away from home and homesickness came to the very center of his poems, whereas the description of scenes was mostly used to set off in relief, and add some shading to, the exploration of the poet’s mind. In terms of poetic language, Xie’s poetry often excels in its naturalness while He’s poetry displays meticulous polishing. (For the two great Tang poets, Li Bo favored Xie Tiao while Du Fu had a partiality for He Xun. In an indirect way, it also reflected the difference between He Xun and Xie Tiao.) In the following we may cite as an illustration of that He Xun’s famous poem, “Saying Farewell to My Old Friends at Night, on the Eve of My Journey”: Over a year, we’ve been in one another’s company. Then, one day, I have to leave all of you behind. It is like the east-flowing river That is never to turn back west. The evening rain keeps dripping on the empty steps; At dawn, the lamp shines dimly in the room of farewell. We stop drinking due to our sorrow: When are we ever to sit together again?

The third couplet, describing the scene, is written in great polish. It uses the continuous evening drizzle and the dim lamplight at dawn to imply the duration of the fleeting time and the sad emotions on the night of departure, and also plays the function of transition in the textual coherence of the entire poem. It therefore is not simply a description of the scenery but contains great tension as well. Lines like these, which are skilled in combining scenery description and representation of emotions, may be found throughout his collection, such as: “Riverbanks in the wild join the level sands, / Linked mountain peaks float in distant fog” (“The Rock of Benevolent Grandma”), “Birds in the cold make noises in trees, / Descending stars float above the rivers” (“Descending the Square Mountain”), and so on. There are also several masterpieces among He Xun’s pentasyllabic quatrains, of which “Saying Farewell” is the best known: A hundred worries haunt the mind of the traveler who Sets out on another lonely journey for a thousand miles. The river looks dark from the coming rain; White waves roll under a newly rising wind.

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 225 The last two lines make an objective scenic description. However, immediately following the reference to “the mind of the traveler” on a “lonely journey,” they carry a kind of momentum that forms into a sensual representation of a rush of emotion, and the scenery and the emotion are hereby closely merged into one. Wu Jun (469–520) was born in a poor and humble family and served as a minor official all his life. In the Liang dynasty, he was ranked with He Xun in fame, but the two are quite different in poetic style. “The Biography of Wu Jun” in History of the Southern Dynasties says, “Jun’s literary style is lucid and refreshing, with a touch of the archaic. Some of those who had nothing better to do imitated him and called it the ‘Wu Jun style’.” What is called “lucid and refreshing, with a touch of the archaic” here primarily refers to the language of Wu Jun’s pentasyllabic poems, which is relatively plain and simple. His antithetical lines do not focus on exquisite matching but rather seek a kind of virile dynamism, though they frequently sound crude and rough. Some of his frontier poems, like “No Humans in the Tartar Region,” are better written. Wu Jun also wrote a series of five heptasyllabic poems under the title of “Hard Is the Journey,” which basically fall under the category of the Qi vernacular style in various rimes; bearing some resemblance to the heptasyllabic poems of Xiao Gang, Xiao Yi and the others, they belong to a new poetic style of the Liang dynasty. Wu Jun, however, lived before the Xiao brothers, and these poems were probably written in an earlier period, so they merit our special attention in terms of their place in the history of the development of the heptasyllabic verse. Wu Jun’s “A Letter to Song Yuansi” is one of the best “vignettes” (short prose pieces) of scenic description in the Southern Dynasties. Picturesque and poetic in its description, it is quite charming: It clears up when the fog and wind are both gone. Now the sky and the mountains are all of one color. We drift with the current. The boat goes, east or west, at its own free will. On the way from Fuyang to Tonglu, more than a hundred miles long, the spectacular landscape is simply unique in the entire world. The water is of an emerald green in color; even if it’s a thousand yard deep, one can see the very bottom, and all the fish and small rocks in there are clearly visible. Torrents run more swiftly than an arrow in flight, and waves surge ferociously. Evergreen trees grow on hundreds of lofty mountain peaks on both banks, which seem to be shooting upward in a fierce race with one another. Waterfalls strike on rocks, making a gurgling sound. Nice birds sing in sweet melody, cicadas drone tirelessly, and apes cry without an end. Looking at the mountain peaks, those who cherish burning ambitions cool down. Peeking at the

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This piece is superb in its descriptive power. The four sentences at the opening create a serene and remote world in the reader’s imagination, whereas the free and easy human mind in that world is reflected therein naturally. After that, it depicts, in a fine and precise manner, the crystal-clear and swift-running river, the lofty and spectacular mountains, and the beautiful, secluded surroundings. In particular, by portraying the still mountains in a dynamic way, it manages to endow the external world with feeling and mentality, leaving a deep impression on its reader’s mind. It cannot match Bao Zhao’s “A Letter to My Younger Sister after Reaching the Bank of the Big Thunder” in terms of the latter’s vigorous magnificence, but excels in a kind of refreshing and delicate grace. Among writers of the early period of the Liang dynasty, Qiu Chi (464–508) was known for prose. He was the author of “A Letter to Chen Bozhi,” written in parallel prose for the purpose of exhorting Chen Bozhi, a Liang military general who had surrendered to the Wei. The formal restrictions of the parallel prose notwithstanding, it moves with great ease in a mild and tactful tone, and is well controlled in tempo and structure. A passage in the piece rings with lyricism: In late spring, during the third month of the year, grass turns tall in the Southland. Miscellaneous flowers bloom in the woods. Orioles, in groups, fly all around. When one sees the banners and drums of one’s homeland and looks back on one’s life through all the bygone days, when one strokes the strings and climbs up the city wall, how can one keep from the thought of melancholy! Hence, it was only natural human emotion when Lord Lian (Lian Po) yearned to become a Zhao general and Master Wu (Wu Qi) wept over the West River region. So, my general, are you alone free from any emotion?

In graceful language, it describes the beloved landscape of the Southland so as to evoke from the addressée a nostalgia for his homeland. It is simply a stroke of genius. The Xiao Brothers In the middle and later period of the Liang dynasty, Xiao Tong, Xiao Gang and Xiao Yi, all sons of Emperor Wu, respectively formed their

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 227 own literary circle. Their activities took place at the center of the literary stage of the time. Here it is necessary to mention, in the first place, their father Xiao Yan (464–549), Emperor Wu of the Liang. During the Qi dynasty, he was one of the “Eight Friends of Jingling.” After he ascended the throne he preserved his passion for literature. He was conversant with music and loved folk songs. According to a record in “The Biography of Xu Mian” in History of the Southern Dynasties, Xiao Yan kept an orchestra, playing the “Sound of Wu” and the “Melody of the West” exclusively, in his palace. Half of the more than ninety of his extant poems are Music Bureau poems, and most of them are either imitations of the folk songs of the Music Bureau or are under their influence. He also composed a number of new songs following the format of the “Melody of the West.” Among them, the seven songs in the series “Jiangnan Tunes,” written in a fixed form, consist of a combination of heptasyllabic and tersyllabic lines. For this reason, some traced the origin of the form of the “song lyric” (ci) to these texts. In terms of poetic language, they are simple and easy to understand, and read smooth and pretty. There was an inclination towards pop culture in the literature of the Liang dynasty, and the literary language of the time tended to be florid and smooth, which had something to do with the influence of the folk songs of the age. Xiao Yan played no small role in the formation of such a fashion. Xiao Tong (501–531) was Emperor Wu’s eldest son. Set up as the crown prince, he died early and was given the posthumous title of the “Resplendent Brilliance” (Zhaoming), hence conventionally known as the “Crown Prince of Resplendent Brilliance.” At one time, in his Eastern Palace, assigned to him as the heir apparent, there formed a thriving literary clique, of which Liu Xie, the author of Literary Mind: Carving Dragons, was also a member. Judging from a few extant poems of Xiao Tong, his own literary achievement was mediocre, but the Selections of Refined Literature (Wenxuan), which he took charge in compiling and editing, is nevertheless an important classic in literary history. Selections of Refined Literature, also known as Selections of Refined Literature of the Resplendent Brilliance, is the earliest extant general anthology of poetry and prose in China. What it includes start from the pre-Qing age all the way to the Liang dynasty, with works from the Wei, Jin and afterwards in greater proportion, arranged under the categories of literary forms and themes. What is called “Refined Literature” (wen) refers to poems, rhapsodies and prose pieces that stand

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individually on their own. The criterion for inclusion, according to the “Preface” of the Selections of Refined Literature, primarily requires that the text shows some literary grace in the expression of emotion, recount of thought and narration of events and is therefore worthy of appreciation. The editor also makes it clear that nothing from the classics, the masters and history is to be selected; while such exclusion is not made on account of any value judgment, it does notice the nature of the latter genres in terms of their emphasis on practical use. In short, it indicates a conscious differentiation of literature and non-literature, though it is not clearly defined and nor does it accord with modern concept of literature. Judging from the selection of specific texts, the editor’s taste displays an obvious partiality for the refined and exquisite of the literati writings, hence the book has become a summary of traditional literati literature. Selections of Refined Literature collects a large number of great literary texts in history. Not only does it manage to preserve and popularize these texts, but it also provides a model to be studied by men of letters of later generations. As early as during the Tang dynasty, the work was highly valued and the term “Wenxuanology” was coined up during the age. Xiao Gang (503–551) was Emperor Wu’s third son. After Xiao Tong’s death he was set up as the next crown prince. By the time of Hou Jing’s rebellion and Emperor Wu’s death, he took the throne and ruled for about two years. Eventually he died in captivity and was given the posthumous title of Jianwen (“Simple and Refined”). Xiao Gang’s notions about literature merit our attention. In “A Letter to Exhort Daxin, Lord of Dangyang,” he says, “The way one conducts oneself in society is different from the way one writes literature. To conduct oneself in society, one has to be cautious and prudent. To write literature, one has to let oneself go.” Here, what is meant in the phrase “to let oneself go” (fangdang) is to break free from restrictions. “A Letter to the Prince of Xiangdong,” on the other hand, makes an open plea against the reverence for classics and the doctrine of “back to the ancients.” Arguing that classics have uses of their own, he deems it unnecessary and, as a matter of fact, also impractical to simulate Confucian classics in literature which aims at “chanting and singing about feeling and emotion” and “expressing what is in one’s mind.” In this letter, with an intention to reject the excessive elegance and density in literary style, he also criticizes those who try to simulate Xie Lingyun’s poetry: “Failing to acquire its essence, they only obtain its lengthiness in form.” In “An Advice for Medicine” he makes an even more specified

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 229 plea: “Some are elegant, some are unrefined, but we should browse all.” Views like these were quite original at the time, and they were closely related to the changing situation of literary composition. When Xiao Gang was heir apparent to the throne, a literary clique of widespread influence formed around him, with its chief members all from among his subordinates at the Eastern Palace. Their poems, with obvious special features of their own, were contemptuously considered to fall under the “Palace Style” by some of their contemporaries. In books of history, phases like “new changes,” “frivolous and glamorous,” and “frivolous and gentle” have often been used in discussing the characteristics of the Palace Style poetry. It is not very specific and clear what such phrases actually refer to. Based on various sources, we may conclude that in general, a considerable part of the poems of Xiao Gang and others focus on love between the two sexes, and on the appearances of, and things used by, women. To various degrees, these poems play up or imply lust and sex, which may be the main reason behind the name of “Palace Style.” Certainly, some of their poems are on the subject matter of Nature or human affairs only, but in general these poems also pay little attention to moral contents. In addition, in terms of the method of composition and poetic style, the Palace Style poems also demonstrate some remarkable characteristics: they are mainly delicate and refined in depiction, rich and exquisite in diction, and very musical in sound, especially the heptasyllabic poems, which are gentle and free-flowing in melody and tempo. What follows is Xiao Gang’s “To Sing About My Wife Sleeping in Daytime,” a typical poem in the Palace Style: By the northern window, she rests on her pillow While the sun still shines high at the southern eaves. She unhooks the silk curtains and let them drop, She hangs up the pipa15 on its peg in the wall. In dream, a smile beams up her delicate cheeks; Asleep, the bun of her hair presses on fallen petals. Her marble wrist lies across the patterned mat; Her sweet-smelling sweat dampens her red silk dress. Her husband is constantly in her company: Do not mistake this for a house of ill fame!

15

Pipa is a plucked string instrument with a fretted fingerboard.

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Compared to conventional texts that represent the beauty of women, this poem obviously does not have an ethical theme. In addition, it is written in a vivid and refined manner; in the eyes of one who defends traditional moral principles, it is easy to elicit sexual association. Perhaps, if the poem ends by the “smile in dream,” it may still be acceptable in the orthodox concept of the old times. By the two lines about the “patterned mat,” it is simply not to be tolerated. As a matter of fact, this poem only portrays the beauty of a young woman in sleep, and it does not make any sense to call it “pornographic.” The reason why the Palace Style poetry has always suffered harsh criticism is not a literary one. In the literature of the Qi and Liang dynasties, even before the appearance of the Palace Style, there had already been an ever-growing tendency towards the fashion of the representation of “erotic love,” and He Xun also wrote similar poems, to the startle and surprise of none. The problem lies in the social status of Xiao Gang, who carried certain special obligations to defend and preserve traditional virtues. From someone like him, to provide such delicate and detailed portrayal of his interest in the fair sex was a violation of the rules of feudal politics, while whatever he did out of such an interest in his life was of no consequence at all. From the perspective of literature, however, simple representation of the physical beauty of women, detached from any moral theme and even including the implication of lust and sex, should be recognized as a normal phenomenon, and the Palace Style poetry actually expanded the aesthetic horizon of Chinese poetry. Its real shortcoming is that what it represents is the appreciation of women from men of nobility, wherein the real passion evoked by feminine beauty is absent. Besides poems about women, Xiao Gang also wrote many poems on objects and on landscapes. He strikes us as someone possessed of delicate and subtle sensory nerves. He is fond of and very good at writing about things in minute details. For example, the lines “In the slanting sunlight, / It may look like gossamer” (“On the Topic of the Drizzle that Falls on the Steps”) focus on the fine threads of drizzle visible only in slanting sunlight; the lines “Floating in the sky, it overspreads a variety of shades, / Fraught with dew, it thickens flowers and vines” (“On a Mist”) depicts the dreamlike scene of a light mist hanging in the sky and above the cluster of flowers; the meticulous sensitivity of these lines is simply amazing. Such a method is frequently seen in the works of other poets around Xiao Gang. It certainly plays a role in the development of vivid descriptive skills.

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 231 “The Biography of Yu Jianwu” in History of the Liang remarks that the composition of the Palace Style poets “exceeds their predecessors in the enforcement of sound and rime and the fascination with exquisite diction,” which means, quite remarkably, that they made further advancement in the regularization of poetic language. Measured by the fixed rules of the Tang dynasty, the works of poets like Shen Yue, Xie Tiao and other poets of the Yongming Form are not highly qualified as regulated verse. It is probably due to the differences between the regulations of sound and rime of the Yongming period and later ages, which is beyond our scrutiny today. On the other hand, many of the poems, especially those written in exchanges in the same rime scheme, of Xiao Gang, Yu Xin, Xu Ling and others, strictly observe the practice of alternating of level and deflected tones within a line and between corresponding positions in the two lines of a couplet, making them very close in form to regulated verse. Accordingly, some Japanese scholars, through statistical research, believe that the rules of sound and rime scheme of regulated verses were already established at this time. Yu Xin and Xu Ling were important members of the literary clique of the Palace Style. However, due to the fact that they both engaged in many other literary activities later, we shall discuss them separately later in the chapter. Xiao Yi (508–554), Emperor Wu’s seventh son, became Emperor Yuan of Liang. At first he was enfeoffed as Prince of Xiangdong and put in charge of the garrison at Jiangling. After the suppression of Hou Jing’s rebellion he ascended the throne, and was later killed after the troops of the Western Wei captured Jiangling. Xiao Yi provides a systematic account of his ideas on literature in the section of Achieve Glory by Writing in his book Master of the Golden Tower. He begins by dividing the “study of the ancients” into two categories, “Confucianism” and “refined writing,” thus making a distinction between Confucianism and literature. Later, he divides the “study of contemporaries” into four kinds, “Confucianism,” “scholarship,” “refined writing,” and “brushwork.”16 In differentiating “refined writing” and “brushwork,” he emphasizes the different nature of practical writing and belles-lettres writing. It is not only a critical discernment of the different nature of academic subject matters, but also leads to a

16 The term “brushwork” here refers to a plain, usually unrhymed prose that serves a practical use rather than an aesthetic one.

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denial of the concept of subordinating literature to the study of classics. As regards the concept of defining “refined writing” on the basis of strong lyrical characteristics and the beauty of sound and diction, it represents an advanced level of recognition of the nature of literature from people of the Southern Dynasties, and the related discussion has already been cited at the beginning of this chapter, and we shall not repeat it. Xiao Yi’s style of composition is somewhat close to that of Xiao Gang, but stands out even more in terms of its easiness of style, glamorous diction, and melodic sound. His heptasyllabic Music Bureau poem “A Song of the North” is quite representative among poems of the same kind in the Liang: In the region of Yan and Zhao, there are many beauties indeed, A young woman from Liaodong tried to sing a song in spring. North of the Yellow Dragon Garrison: flowers like embroidery. In front of the Black Rabbit City: the moth-like moon. How come I have to part with my man now who Rode to the Cross River on gold stirrups and behind army banners!17 Later, I heard that he even entered Han, leaving behind the Yan camps. In the sad heart of this lamenting girl, all kinds of grief arise. Long, all too long, the daylight seems never to break. Night after night, I listen to the night watches in the cold. Since we, two of one heart, parted from each other, How I hate that we are far apart at the same time! Thousands of lines of tears have trickled down my face; My dark eyebrows are wrinkled up in a thousand knots. The sea and the sky seem to have locked into each other. How can I ever bear to go up the terrace on a spring day! Suddenly I saw a faraway boat and took it for a falling leaf, I looked again, and the remote ship was like a floating cup. On the sand islet, a crane cries at the female bird at night. I feel no joy in my heart, only grief about our departure. I lament that no messenger from Han brings any news Which makes this humble wife, south of Yan, droop her head.

The poem is divided into five short sections. With the exception of the opening section of six lines, all the other sections change the rhyme scheme at the end of four lines, showing some variation in their otherwise organized structure. After the pentasyllabic poems of the Qi 17 The phrase “behind army banners” in this line is a free rendition of the original, cui mao, a kind of adornment made from the feathers of the kingfisher bird, placed at the top of the army banners.

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 233 and Liang moved towards regularization, they began to be known by their shorter length and concise language. The heptasyllabic poems, especially the longer heptasyllabic songs, on the other hand, developed in the direction of the use of elaboration, easy, vernacular language, and smoothness in sound and tempo. The two kinds of poetry complement each other in nature. Such a type of poetry was at one time very popular in the Early and the High Tang period. Xiao Yi’s “Rhapsody on the Autumn Thoughts of a Lustful Woman” describes the yearning of a woman for her husband on a faraway journey. It uses easy language, colorful diction, and fluent sounding to express delicate, subtle feelings. His “Rhapsody on Lotus-Picking,” which portrays the movements and singing of lotus-picking girls on a boat in the lake, also glows with a brilliant and airy beauty. They are both masterpieces of the belles-lettres literature of the Southern Dynasties.

4. Poetry and Prose of Northern Dynasties, the Chen, and the Sui After the Jin court crossed the Yangtze and moved east, literature was quite desolate during the more than a hundred years of the period of the Sixteen States in the north. By the time when the Northern Wei unified the north, the society gradually stabilized. Later, Emperor Xiaowu moved the capital to Luoyang and pursued the policy of sinicization. It advanced the merge of cultures of different nationalities, and literature began to see a favorable turn. However, what was valued above everything else at the time was the study of Confucian classics, and literature’s place was far less important than that in the south. It was not until the Later Northern Wei period that there appeared a few better known men of letters; their writings were more clearly under the influence of literature in the south, though they also demonstrated some difference from the latter. After the Western Wei eliminated the Liang, some renowned men of letters in the south went to the north. At the same time, the writings of local authors in the north also reached a higher level. The center of gravity of literature, in fact, showed some tendency of moving north once again. In general, we may regard the period of the confrontation between the north and the south, from the downfall of the Liang all the way to the unification of the country under the Sui, as a stage when the literature of the north and that of the south began to move towards an all-round integration.

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Local Authors of the Northern Dynasties In the Later Northern Wei period, literature began to thrive. Among the better known local authors, Wen Zisheng (495–547), Xing Shao (496–?) and Wei Shou (505–572) were known in history as the “Three Talents of the Northern Land.” Family Instructions of the Yan’s noted, in a sarcastic tone, that Xing Shao and Wei Shou admired, respectively, Shen Yue and Ren Fang, and each held his ground in a heated debate. Obviously, at that time, the literati of the north never thought about contending with those in the south. On the other hand, they were not completely devoid of their own characteristics. One may find the original model of Wen Zisheng’s heptasyllabic poem, “A Song on Washing Clothes,” in terms of its subject matter, sound and rhyme scheme, use of diction, as well as its form of using the pentasyllabic in between its lines, among the songs from the Liang. However, his short Music Bureau poem, “White Nosed Yellow Steed,”18 has some special features of its own: Like most young men, he was busy with many things. Holding the bridle, he rode to the western capital. He ran into someone else on a narrow byroad road; He stopped his horse to see the wine-serving maid.19

The poem writes about a common scene in the north. Using concise language, it describes the frivolous and spirited way of life of a young nobleman, a topic rarely seen in southern literature in the same age. Among Xing Shao’s poems, some, like “Thinking about the Young Master,” sounds like the form of quatrain which the literati of the Qi and Liang transformed from the southern folk songs, but a poem like “A Poem of Lament in Winter” carries on more of the convention of the poetry of Wei and Jin: In the past, a man who indulged in pleasures, Living with abandon, he let himself go at will. In the morning he rode, holding his agate bridle; In the evening, he sipped from his “bear’s-ear” cup. Walking by the Qi river, he snapped a flower twig;

18

In original the term gua refers to a kind of yellow horse with black mouth. The last line of the poem uses the story of the legendary beauty of the Han dynasty, Zhuo Wenjun. After her elopement with Sima Xiangru, they made a living by running a wine-shop where Zhuo would sit in front of the stove and warm up the wine for customers. 19

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 235 Stroking a zither, he looked at the Joined Terraces. In no time, the thriving condition changed, All at once, he turned sick and feeble. It became worse in the three winter months When somber clouds rallied and scattered in turns. High up in the sky, even the sunshine looked dim; Inside the sparse woods, birds cried sadly. A gusty wind rushed against the house eaves, Remaining snow piled up on bare branches. Going around the great city of the bygone days, He walked back and forth among the weeds. All the affairs of the time were to pass away; Clutching his chest, he felt a pang of sorrow.20

In its subject matter this poem is close in nature to Ruan Ji’s Poems from My Heart. It certainly conforms to the convention of the Qi and Liang in diction. Generally speaking, though, by resorting to an artless, plain language to express a heartfelt grief about life, it more or less shows the strength of literature in the north which “places emphasis on temperament.” Most of Wei Shou’s poems also simulate the southern style, of which “The Song of Holding a Zither” is a fine illustration: Gently, a spring breeze winds its way into the secluded rooms, Carrying with it the fragrance of various flowers from the small garden. Riding on the golden saddle of his white horse, he was gone, and returned not; In her red dress she let the marble streams of tears flow down her cheeks.

A poem of imitation notwithstanding, it would hold its own place, in its brisk tempo and colorful words, if placed among the poems of the Qi and Liang. What are truly representative of the achievements of the local authors of the Northern Dynasties, however, are two works of geography, The Guide to Waterways with Commentary and Notes on the Buddhist

20 Line 3 uses a record from Liu Xiang’s Miscellaneous Notes on the Western Capital, which tells that during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han, a special kind of harness, made of white jade, with the bridle in agate, was presented as a tribune to the throne. In line 4, the “bear’s ear” refers to the shape of the handles on the wine-cup. Line 5 uses the closing line of the stanzas from No. 48, a poem about rendezvous of love, in The Book of Songs, “Send me up the river of Qi.” There were two “Joined Terraces” in history, but the one in line 6 probably refers to the one built by King Xiang of Chu where he indulged in sensual pleasures.

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Temples of Luoyang. Many sections from these two books are in fact literary prose pieces; in addition, they display, even more clearly, traces of the merge of the characteristics of the literature of the north and that of the south. The author of The Guide to Waterways with Commentary was Li Daoyuan (?–527). An official of the Northern Wei regime, he was killed by insurgent troops while serving as Commissioner of the Western Frontier. The Guide to Waterways, on which he wrote the Commentary, was originally an ancient work that provided a simple account of the major waterways in the nation. In his Commentary, Li Daoyuan not only made revisions and supplements to the work based upon his own experience and numerous sources of materials, but also discussed the stories in history, places of historical interest and scenic beauty, natural conditions, social customs and landscape along the banks of these rivers. Those in the latter category, especially the description of landscape, are of higher literary value. The pieces in The Guide to Waterways with Commentary generally follow the format of beginning with a prose account of related facts, wherein the writing may be quite vivid when it involves stories of historical figures. Descriptions of sceneries mostly consist of both straight and parallel prose, and they stand out in refinement of language. The section of “Mount Mengmen” in the Commentary on Rivers, for example, begins by telling the geographic position of Longmen. Next, using three ancient texts, it recounts the causes of the formation of Longmen and related hearsays. Then, it spares no effort in describing the great momentum of the Yellow River when it flows through Longmen: “Inside there, currents rush against one another, sending a white steam up that floats in the air like clouds. Those who pass by and watch the sight, even in the distance, often feel bedewed by the mist, and it is awe-inspiring to look down into the deep. The water forms crashing billows which roll for a myriad feet and waterfalls that hang as tall as a thousand yard. The turgid flood rushes on furiously, making a drumlike sound that seems to shake the mountains. Layers of frantic waves rush forward all the way down to the outlet.” In its vigor of depiction, it is second to none from the famous southern writers of parallel prose, and the special scenery of the Yellow River further enhances the power of its writing. As for the oft-quoted and well-beloved section of “The Three Gorges” in the Commentary on Rivers, it certainly has a special charm of its own:

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 237 For the seven hundred li21 along the Three Gorges, mountains are connected along both banks without any break in between. Rocky peaks rise, one upon another, covering the sky and blocking out the sun. Except for noontime and midnight, respectively, one can not see the sun and the moon. In summer, when water swells and rises up the hills, navigation becomes impossible both up and down the stream. Sometimes, on the occasion when one need to travel on an urgent imperial mission, one leaves the White Lord22 in the morning and by dusk arrives at Jiangling, between the two of which is a trip of twelve hundred li.23 Even if one rides a fine horse or flies on the wind, it is not any faster than that! During the spring or the winter season, white ripples roll and everything reflect on the surface of the green pools along the river. Cypresses in strange shape grow on many of the jagged rocks, and spectacular waterfalls tumble down in between them—truly a great sight to see the fresh exuberance of one against the rough lushness of the other. Often, when it clears up after a rain or at a frosty dawn, in the cold woods and desolate ravines, gibbons would cry, loud and long, one after another. Echoes of their cry resound in the empty valleys, and the sad sound quiets down only after a long time. Accordingly the fishermen there sing: “Of the three Gorges in the East Ba, the Shaman Gorge is the longest; / Hearing three cries of the gibbons, one’s clothes are drenched with tears.”

It depicts the hills, the waters, and the variety of scenes in the four seasons with a beautiful and succinct touch. However, Li Daoyuan never traveled to the Jiangnan region in his entire life, so this piece, in fact, incorporated some related accounts from Sheng Hongzhi’s Notes on Jingzhou and Yuan Shansong’s Notes on Yidu. It reflects the northern literati’s attention to southern literature, and also demonstrates the author’s adeptness in assuming the southern literary style. While the descriptive passages of natural scenes in The Guide to Waterways with Commentary are not really individual travel literature, they already show some of its important characteristics, and they have exerted a considerable impact on the development of the literary genre in later ages. The author of Notes on the Buddhist Temples of Luoyang, Yang Xuanzhi, was a native of the Northern Wei who served as an Audience Attendant and Commander of the Pacification Army Office. The term qie lan in the original title is the Chinese transliteration of the

21

The traditional Chinese unit of length, li, equals 500 meters or about 1,640 feet; 700 li equal about 217.5 miles. 22 The name of a mountain city by the Yangtze in today’s Fengjie county in Sichuan. 23 About 373 miles.

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Sanskrit word24 for a Buddhist temple. Buddhism prospered during the Northern Wei, and many temples were built in its capital Luoyang. These beautiful and solemn buildings came to symbolize the golden age of the Northern Wei. Later, the Northern Wei fell apart due to internal disorder, and the flourishing city of Luoyang was reduced to ruins. This book was written by Yang Xuanzhi in the fifth year of the Dingwu reign of the Eastern Wei (547), while he revisited Luoyang on an official mission. It overflows with nostalgia and sad emotion. While the book is organized in the order of the various temples, it involves a wide range of topics which include the political affairs, the communications between China and foreign nations, the biographies of historical figures, and scenes in the cities, folk customs, talks of the town and anecdotes, throughout the four decades when Luoyang served as the capital of the Northern Wei. The focus of the book is on the political rise and decline of the Northern Wei through an account of the vicissitudes of its temples. Accordingly, the opening entry of the book is about the Temple of Everlasting Peace, which was built by the commission of Empress Dowager Hu, the de facto ruler, and ranked as the largest in scale of all the temples. Here one may find the indignation at the ruler’s extravagant waste of labor out of religious frenzy, as well as the grief about the destruction of the Temple of Everlasting Peace and the fall of the nation. The passage devotes much of its space and spares no efforts to describe, in great details, how the entire body of the pagoda at the Temple of Everlasting Peace was decorated with gold, and arrives at the inference in such expressions as “inconceivable” and “appalling.” At the end, it recounts, with profoundly sad implications, how the Temple of Everlasting Peace was burned down in a fire that lasted for more than three months: “The sound of sorrow resounded in the entire capital region.” The city of Luoyang, in the good old days, was the admiration of the author, so his description of its temples often tugs at one’s heartstrings, like the account about the Temple of Everlasting Peace, which recreates the solemn atmosphere there: “During the long night, when a high wind was blowing, the Gem Bells rang in a chime which was heard more than ten li away.” It is a different scene at the Temple of Great Forest: “West of the temple there was a garden where uncommon fruit abounded. From spring to autumn, the singing

24

Samghârāma.

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 239 of birds was followed by the droning of the cicadas. The Buddhist living quarters inside included a cloister which, though small in scale, was incomparably elaborate in its structure. Furthermore, the empty and quiet towers and pavilions and the secluded chambers deep inside there, where graceful trees stood at the doors and windows and fragrant flowers bloom by the steps, reminded one of rocky valleys even though they were located close to the court and the market.” The quiet seclusion of the temple and its garden is well delineated. The stories about historical figures and the talks of the town included in the book are often brilliant in contents as well. Some even have a touch of fiction. Take, for example, the reference to Zhaoyun (“Morning Cloud”), a singing girl of Yuan Chen, Prince of Hejian, in the entry of the Temple of Divine Clouds: Zhaoyun, a servant maid, was good at playing the chi25 and could play “Song of the Round Fan” and “Sound from the Upper Long” with it. When Chen served as the Regional Chief of Qinzhou, the Qiang tribes there revolted, and in spite of several punitive expeditions against them, they refused to surrender. By Chen’s order, Zhaoyun disguised herself as a poor old woman, playing the chi while begging. When the Qiang people heard her playing, they all wept and told one another: “Why should we desert our ancestral graves and our village wells to be some bandits in the mountain valleys?” So one by one they surrendered. There was a folk saying among the people of Qin(zhou): “Strong men on fine horses cannot match an old woman playing the chi.”

The sound of chi from a singing girl turned out to disintegrate the rebel forces: what an incredible story! A similarly attractive illustration is found in the story of Liu Boduo of Hedong, who brewed a kind of wine that would send its drinkers into a long intoxicated sleep of more than a month. Once, some bandits robbed some travelers and seized their wine, but they were captured after they got drunk. The exaggeration of the power of music and wine portrays people’s love for a happy life as well as their fondness of music and wine. The book also contains some folklore which borders on the supernatural fiction. For instance, the entry of the Temple of Great Unity includes a story of Fan Yuanbao, who delivers a letter from the son of the God of the Lo River to the latter’s palace. It may be somehow related to the formation of the Tang dynasty supernatural story, “The Biography of Liu Yi.”

25

An ancient Chinese bamboo flute.

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Notes on the Temples of Luoyang, extremely rich in its contents, is characterized by what Wei Zheng has singled out, in his “Commentary on the Literary Biographies in History of Sui,” as a special feature of the northern writing, “convenient for practical use;” on the other hand, as observed in the Catalogue of the Four Treasuries, it is also “resplendent and graceful” and does not lack literary elegance. This may have something to do with the fusion of the northern and the southern literature. Yu Xin and Wang Bao In the process of the fusion of the northern and the southern literature, some renowned southern men of letters who went to the north played a significant role. Yu Xin and Wang Bao26 were the most outstanding ones among them. Together with Xu Ling, Yu Xin (513–581) served under Xiao Gang as a courtier. As representative authors of the Palace Style literature, they were known for their exquisite, ornate “Style of Xu and Yu.” Later, when he was sent on an official mission to the Western Wei, the Liang regime was eliminated by the Western Wei, so he was detained in the north. He served the Western Wei and then the Northern Zhou in succession, and was promoted to high-ranking positions. Yu Xin’s literary works belong to two periods divided by the year when, at the age of forty-two, he was sent on mission to the Western Wei. In the former period when he was still in the Liang, most of his poems, composed in exchanges with others in the court, have a touch of the Palace Style and stand out in detailed description of scenes and objects by use of exquisite diction. Take, for example, the lines in his “Respectfully Composed in Reply to ‘A Mountain Pool’”: “A wind over the lotus startles the bathing birds,/ In the shadow of the bridge gather the swimming fish;/ Amid a mist from the hills the sun sets,/ Brimming with remaining rain, the clouds return.” The first two lines provide a detailed and beautiful vision, and the next two lines spare no efforts in producing the richest possible effects within the limited space of only a few words. Most of Yu Xin’s rhapsodies in the early period are also exquisite compositions with a touch of the Palace Style; “Rhapsody on

26 A namesake (even with the same style) of the writer of the Western Han discussed in Chapter 4.

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 241 Spring” is the most representative one among them. Delineating the beauty of spring and the scenes of ladies at an outing for the season, it is rich in color and musicality. At the end, using a poetry-like format mixing pentasyllabic and heptasyllabic lines, it vividly expresses a nostalgic yearning for the joyful time in human life. The method of incorporating poetry into rhapsody, initiated by Shen Yue, has seen some remarkable advance in skills at the hands of Yu Xin. Yu Xin’s poems in his later period display new literary aspects unfound in his early years; the most representative masterpieces among them are the twenty-seven “Simulation of ‘From My Heart’.” This series of poems, in terms of its contents, express the grief at the fall of the nation, the sorrow about being unable to return to the homeland, the moral self-reproof at his own official service of the northern regime, etc. In the final analysis, they may be considered as a retrospection of the loss of his self identity: the change of the political situation is what an individual cannot escape from, the role to assume in political life is not something an individual has the right to choose, the will of those in power is not what an individual can resist, and if one is unwilling to choose death, then even the moral obligations that an individual believes in are impossible to carry out. When one’s existence turns into a complete failure, how can one find the kind of things which one may engage oneself in, in a spiritual sense, so as to settle down and get on with the work of one’s life? What is left is nothing but a sense of helplessness. I’ve been thinking about those high-ranking nobles When, suddenly, at midnight, I feel very sad. The sound of lute lingers everywhere in my room, Books spread all over the head of my bed. Yes, one talks about the butterfly dream, But as for myself, for sure, I am no Zhuang Zhou. The waning moon looks just like the waxing moon, And this new autumn, pretty much like the last autumn. Dews weep—dropping like a string of pearls, Fireflies float—wandering like scattered sparks of fire. One’s content with destiny only when yielding to Heaven’s will So when could I ever stop being worried at all? (No. 18 of “Simulation of ‘From My Heart’ ”)

The dream of life’s accomplishment has been dashed. Even the sound of lute and the reading of books fail to dispel the speaker’s depression. Yes, he has heard that life is nothing but a dream, but it is not easy for him to be as broad-minded as Zhuangzi has suggested. In the

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meaningless repetition of time, when could he ever stop being worried? The two lines about the “waning moon” and the “new autumn” reflects his boredom and despair, day after day; they sound plain and simple, but are actually extremely pithy and terse. The couplet about the “weeping dews,” which both depicts the view and expresses the emotion, displays the exquisite elegance of the Palace Style. Forlorn: the forts and outposts in the distance. Desolate: the cloud of dust in the wind. The gate of the fortress confronts the White Di,27 The shadow of the city is cast on the Yellow River. One says farewell to Su Wu in the autumn wind.28 Others send off Jing Ke by the cold river. Who says that his “might tops the world”?29 By daybreak, he would sing inside his tent. (No. 26 of “Simulation of ‘From My Heart’”)

One by one, tragic heroes like Li Ling, Jing Ke and Xiang Yu rise in front of the poet’s eyes, in the cloud of dust in the wind, in their respective scenes of life, as if to prove the inevitability of adversity and misfortune. In general, since the Western Jin, at the same time when poetry of the literati expanded thematically into a wider range of topics in life, it also had a tendency to stay away from things in life related with politics. However, as the men of letters of the time mostly belonged to the upper strata in society, their life’s experience was closely associated with politics, so to stay away from things in life related with politics was to stay away from the sharp contradictions and frustrations in life, and consequently their poetry lost, to a considerable degree, a kind of solid substance. The inquiry into the loss of self identity found in Yu Xin’s “Simulation of ‘From My Heart’” reveals the uneasiness about, and the lack of freedom in, political life of the men of letters from aristocratic families, who otherwise enjoyed superior social prestige. It may exert much impact on the reader’s mind. Notwithstanding the word ‘simulation” in the title, “Simulation of ‘From My Heart’” is in fact quite different from Ruan Ji’s “From My

27 The White Di was a branch of the Di, an alien tribe during the Spring and Autumn period. Here the term is used to refer to the alien northern tribes. 28 It refers to Li Ling, mentioned in Chapter Six. 29 This is from the song presumably composed and sung by Xiang Yu (232–202 B.C.), who was defeated by his rival Liu Bang or Emperor Gaozu of the Han, before his suicide.

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 243 Heart.” Technical methods cultivated and developed in southern poetry, such as prosodic regulations, use of allusions, parallelism, are very skillfully used therein, which proves that ornate diction and even the meticulous delicacy of the Palace Style may also adapt to the requirements of the expression of solemn feelings in an appropriate way. The pentasyllabic quatrains among Yu Xin’s later poems are also quite remarkable. Take, for example, his “Sent to Wang Lin by Mail”: The road to the Jade Pass is ever so long; The messenger from Jinling comes only once in a while. Myriad lines of tears trickle down my face, my lord, When I open your letter from thousands of miles away.

The quatrain, transformed from the folk song by southern writers, is a very light poetic genre. By means of intense concentration, Yu Xin has managed to provide a broad outlook and some depth within its short space, making his contribution to the development of the pentasyllabic quatrain. Yu Xin’s rhapsodies in his later period have also changed greatly in theme and style. “Rhapsody on the Sorrow for Jiangnan,” written in his later years, is the best known piece among them. The rhapsody has a foreword which stands as an individual piece of writing in parallel prose; it gives an account of the background of the composition of the rhapsody and provides a summary of its content. The rhapsody itself, using as its central thread the author’s life experience, recounts the process from rise to decline of the Liang regime and expresses his distress of feeling constantly frustrated with his situation and restless from a bad conscience. Grand in scale, complicated in structure, and deeply emotional, the rhapsody combines the narration and discussion of events and the expression of feeling into one and borders on the epic in its generic nature, which is unique among rhapsodies of the old times. “The day was waning and the road was long. What age was it in the human world? The noble general left: leaves came whirling down the big tree.30 The valiant warrior was not to return: the cold winds

30 This line uses the story of Feng Yi, a military commander during the Eastern Han period who, when his fellow commanders scrambled for credit of meritorious service, would always remain silent while leaning against a big tree. He was hence known as the “General of the Big Tree.”

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wailed.31” In such mournful lines, the rhapsody’s foreword begins with a description of the author’s personal feelings. The rhapsody relates the story of the fall of the Liang regime, and makes a sharp criticism of its political corruption and turmoil. It tells how, after the capture of the city of Jiangling, a large multitude of southern literati and commoners were forced to move north. The tragic scene, especially the degrading of the nobles, reflects the miserable and pathetic circumstances human beings have to live under during a historical cataclysm: Along the Qin rivers, the water was toxic;32 At the Vale of Zhao, tall mountains rose.33 Every five or ten miles, at short and long intervals, There stood those roadside pavilions. When hungry, they tracked down the hibernating swallows.34 In the dark, they followed the flitting fireflies.35 In the middle of Qin, the River was Black; Up at the Fortress, the Clay was Dark.36 At the time: tiles crumbled, ice broke, Wind drifted, lightning flashed. A vast mass for a thousand miles: The Zi and Mian Rivers mixed up in total chaos.37 The snow was dark like sands; The ice lay in front, stretching far and wide. One ran into Lu Ji on his way to Luoyang

31

This refers to the story of Jing Ke in Sima Qian’s “Biography of the Assassins” in his Historical Records. Before he left for the mission of assassinating the King of Qin, Jing Ke’s friends held a farewell party for him on the bank of the Yi River, and he sang, “Winds howl, and the waters in the Yi are cold.” Jing Ke died in the failed mission. 32 At a war between the Qin and the Jin during the Spring and Autumn period, the Qin troops put poison into the water at the upper reach of the Jing River to stop the movement of the Jin army. 33 It refers to the Well Vale, a strategically located place difficult of access which belonged to the Zhao during the Warring States period. 34 It was said that swallows would hibernate in deep caverns or withered trees. During a famine in the Jin dynasty, Xi Jian, Regional Inspector of Gunzhou, told the people to feed themselves on rats and hibernating swallows. 35 At the end of the Eastern Han, Liu Bian (the young Emperor Shao) and Liu Xie (later Emperor Xian) were hijacked by the eunuchs and taken away from the palace. They ran away from the hijackers and had to find their way in the dark by following the dim light provided the fireflies. 36 The Black River and the Dark Clay Fortress were both in the northwestern Guangzhong region. 37 The Zi River and the Mian River were both in the Qi. Here the phrase is used to imply that in the upheaval, people all suffered regardless of their social status.

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 245 Or saw Wang Can who left his home behind.38 Everyone, when hearing about the Long River, started weeping Or heaved a long sigh towards the layers of mountains.39 In addition, you, my lord, stay at the Cross River, I, your humble wife, live at the Green Wave.40 The Rock gazes at her husband, who moves farther and farther; Mountains which look at their sons keep growing in number. . .41

“Rhapsody on the Sorrow for Jiangnan,” both in its foreword and in its main text, uses a large number of allusions. Adeptness in using allusions is a widely acknowledged merit of Yu Xin. Inevitably it makes his writings hard to understand; on the other hand, the rich associations provided in the allusions help to intensify the sense of substance in the text. In Yu Xin’s writings, one may also find sophisticated use of parallelism. The foreword of the “Rhapsody on the Sorrow for Jiangnan” is in the “four-six format”42 of the parallel prose, but it does not sound rigid and stiff at all. For example: “Sun Ce aimed at one third of all under heaven, with a unit of five hundred only. Xiang Ji used fellow natives of Jiangdong—a company of eight thousand men. Thenceforth they divided mountains and rivers, and they exploited and dominated the world. What really happened, when troops of a million were defeated all in a day, cut down and destroyed like grasses and trees?”43 The first

38 Lu Ji (261–303), a native of Wu, went to Luoyang, the capital of the Jin, after the fall of Wu. Wang Can (177–217) wrote his “Rhapsody on Climbing the Tower” while living in Jingzhou. (See Chapter Seven) 39 These two lines borrow the lines from the ancient folk song, “Song of the Upper Long”: “The running river at the Upper Long, / Wail in its bubbling;/ Looking afar at the Qinchuan area,/ One’s heart is broken.” 40 The Cross River is the name of an ancient city in the northwest, situated somewhere in the Tulufan region in Xinjiang. The Green Wave is the name of a place in today’s Xincai, Henan. These two lines refer to the fact the family members were breaking up in the move. 41 The Husband-Watching Rock is in Wuchang. According to a legend, a woman kept looking at her husband who was sent away on a military campaign, and when she died, she was turned into a piece of rock. Emperor Wu of the Han had a Son-Watching Terrace constructed, and in Zhongshan there is a Son-Watching Hill. 42 The parallel prose uses a mixture of six-charactered and four-charactered lines, one followed by another. Hence the form is also known as the “four-six format.” 43 Sun Ce (175–200) was founder of the Wu regime during the Three Kingdoms period. Xiang Ji was the other name of Xiang Yu, a native of Chu, which was also known as Jiangdong (East of the Yangtze). Both historical figures were from the south, mentioned here to show that Jiangnan should have been a land of heroes. However, at Hou Jing’s rebellion, Emperor Wu of the Liang sent a force of presumably a million soldiers north of the Yangtze to suppress it, but it was defeated by Hou Jing’s forces at one battle, which resulted in a horrible slaughter.

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six lines here, parallel lines in various formats, have a strong sense of cadence and rhythm, whereas the next four lines, having been switched into prose style free from parallelism, flow freely and smoothly at a stretch.44 The refined phrasing helps to bring out the author’s feelings in full force. Yu Xin’s most significant accomplishment in the history of literature is his composition of poetry and prose, substantial in content and forceful in style, by using the skills of southern belles-lettres literature. It is of great importance to literary development in the Tang dynasty. In his postscript to Yu Zishan’s Works in the Collected Works of 103 Writers from Han, Wei and the Six Dynasties, the Ming editor Zhang Pu of the anthology has made an extremely shrewd observation: “The writings of the Tang authors are closest in style to Xu (Ling) and Yu (Xin).” Wang Bao (ca. 513–576) was from a prominent family. As an old acquaintance, he was charged with important tasks when Emperor Yuan of the Liang ascended the throne. After the fall of the Liang he moved to the north, and was held in esteem on account of his family background and literary talent. He served as a senior official in the Western Wei and the Northern Zhou. Among the writings that Wang Bao wrote when he was in the Liang, the heptasyllabic “Song of the North” is quite well known. It is in the same format as the poem of the same title that Xiao Yi wrote in exchange cited in the above. Generally it depicts in its content the spring view in the south, the desolate scene at the northern frontier, the yearning for her faraway husband of a woman in her bedroom, and the homesickness of the man on a military campaign, displaying the characteristics of the poetry of the Liang dynasty in the integration of ornate diction and melancholy tone. After he moved to the north, his writings often have a touch of depth and substance due to the changes in life’s circumstances and in natural background. Take, for example, the quatrain describing nature, “At the Summit by the Cloud Abode Temple,” which presents a spectacular view: “Halfway up the mountain peak, the clouds already enveloped us;/ At the summit, it turned out to be sunny again./ Houses in the county seemed close in the view;/ Wind and mist rose in front of our eyes.” “Crossing the River Northward” is the best known among Wang Bao’s poems:

44 Note that “the first six lines” in the original text are rendered as three sentences, and “the next four lines” are now just one long sentence, in the English translation.

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 247 The autumn wind blew: trees shed their leaves. It was like the waves at the Dongting Lake. Mount Everlasting overlooked the Dai Commandery, Bastions and forts stood around the Yellow River. I felt sad hearing the music of the alien land. My heart broke at the “Song of the Upper Long.” By early dusk, on the back of my horse, I lost my way in the northern hills.

The poem shows the nostalgia for his homeland, the sorrow of life’s loss and the feeling of helplessness. Desolate and grief-ridden in tone, it bears much resemblance with Yu Xin’s poems. However, few of Wang Bao’s poems touch upon the contradictions and frustrations deep in mind as Yu Xin’s works. Accordingly he has not been held in as much esteem as Yu Xin in later ages. Xu Ling, Yin Keng, and Other Writers of the Chen Dynasty In his youth Xu Ling (507–583) frequented the household of Xiao Gang along with his father, Xu Chi, and became one of the key figures of the Palace Style literary group. New Songs of the Jade Terrace, an exclusive selection of poems related with women, has generally been regarded as compiled by him during that period. In the subsequent Chen dynasty, he served at a succession of important positions. He was sent on official mission to the north for many times, and was detained for two years on a mission to Qi. The background of his writings, accordingly, had something in common with that of Yu Xin and Wang Bao. Xu Ling’s poetry falls into two categories. The first belongs to the Palace Style poetry popular in the south, like the heptasyllabic poem, “Miscellaneous Melody,” written during the Chen dynasty. It praises the beauty of Zhang Lihua, the concubine of the Late Monarch of Chen, and is rather hollow in content, but it is quite remarkable in form. The poem is twenty lines in length; it changes its rhyme pattern every four lines, alternating with the rime of the level and the deflected tones. It is more melodious than the songs of the Liang dynasty, and lays the foundation for the basic format of the poetry of the Early Tang. Poems in the other category adopt as its subject life on the frontier; they are more masculine and vigorous in style, such as “Song of Going Out of the Northern Gate of Ji,” “Water of the Upper Long,” “Moon at the Mountain Pass,” etc. Poems of this category have the merit of being tightly organized and concise in language, and are also quite forceful

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in the expression of feelings. Take, for example, the second poem in the series “Moon at the Mountain Pass”: The moon rose east of the Willow City, Light clouds covered it, but then cleared. The white halo hovered in the vast, A high wind swept through the bleak air. Savage army set fire in the Upper Commandery; Turkish cavalry hunted in the Mid-Cloud area. The general rose, holding his staff of office, While his soldiers drew their bows at night.45

The first six lines describe the scenes, highlight the atmosphere, and provide a background of the war, while the focus of the poem is moved to the last two lines. In other words, the entire poem, instead of giving an equidistant and separate account, focuses, step by step, onto a central point. In addition, the lines “The general rose, holding his staff of office,/ While his soldiers drew their bows at night,” provide a series of images that are dynamic and hold some lingering flavor, which generates a sense of vigor. Such a kind of structure became very popular subsequently in the poetry of Tang. One may possibly attribute the composition of this kind of poetry to Xu Ling’s life experience in the north. Xu Ling was also known for his prose at the same time. “A Letter to Supervisor Yang,” written when he was detained in Northern Qi, makes a request to Yang Zunyan, Grand Councilor of Northern Qi, to return to the south. The letter, more than three thousand characters in length, mixes parallel and straight prose and uses many allusions. Ornate in diction notwithstanding, it is eloquent and passionate, really a piece of talent. Yin Keng first served in the Liang government. During the subsequent Chen dynasty, he was recommended by Xu Ling for his poetic talent, and admired by Emperor Wen. His poems are outstanding; it is a pity that few have survived. The following is his “Failing to See Off Liu of the Imperial Entertainments Office at the Ferry Crossing”: Reluctant to see him off, I arrived at the riverbank; I looked into the distance at the ferry crossing. The sound of the drums gradually came to an end; The distant sail was next to the clouds in the horizon.

45

Willow City, Upper Commandery, and Mid-Cloud were ancient names of places in China’s north and northwest.

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 249 Where the boat moored, only birds remained; At the leave-taking pavilion, people had dispersed. In the cold woods, trees shed their leaves; It got dark: the fisherman was to withdraw his line. Farther and farther we grew apart; One on the river—another in the city.

The poem begins by going right to the point of telling how he misses seeing off his friend, and can only look afar in disappointment. It is a brisk and neat opening. Afterwards, it depicts the sail going into the distance, the desolate autumn scene by the river, and the lonely person who has come to see someone off; together, they constitute an integrated and lyrical picture. Yin Keng’s poetry stands out in its depiction of natural scenery. He has often been discussed on the same level as Xu Ling; actually the two are not exactly the same. The language of Yin’s poetry sounds light and easy, but it is lucid and elegant. He is often able to depict scenes in a colorful and lively way. While there is nothing extraordinary about it, it is nevertheless refreshing and delightful, as in lines like: “The river at night looks broad in a mist;/ The new moon is bright in the far distance,” (“Setting Out at Night from the Five-Islets”)46 or “Flowers chase the wind that blows down the hill.” (“Kaishan Temple”)47 He is also fond of using different colors for contrast in paralleled lines, as in lines like “Pear trees wither: the crimson leaves are gone;/ Reeds freeze: the white catkins are light.”48 (“In Reply to Master Fu’s ‘Returning to Xiangzhou at Year’s End’”) In terms of the high degree of concentration between the lines, he is actually more advanced than Xu Ling. In the Late Chen period, a literary group was formed in the palace, with Chen Shubao (553–604), the Late Monarch, at its center. In style they are quite close to that of the Palace Style literature of the Liang dynasty. The Late Monarch was an incompetent emperor, but was quite accomplished artistically. Among his lines describing natural scenes, some have a touch of Buddhism in a sense of the remote void: “High in the sky, the floating clouds are thin;/ In the empty mountains, the bright moon shines deep.” (“A Trip to the Qixia Temple at Mt. Sheshan in the

46 The Five-Islets are five islets connected with one another in the Yangtze, located in today’s Xishui County, Hubei. 47 The Kaishan Temple, at Mt. Zhongshan in Nanjing, was reconstructed in 514 during the Liang Dynasty. 48 The plant rendered as “pear” in the English translation is tang or tangli (Pyrus betulaefolia), known in English as birch leaf pear.

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Company of Councilor Jiang”) Some are delightfully clear and bright: “A snow in the wild lights up the winding path in rocks;/ Flowers in the mountain shine upon the distant woods.” (“A Boating Trip in the Xuanpu Garden on a Beautiful Day with a Soft Breeze at the Beginning of the New Spring”) Some are graceful and lyrical, creating a world of imagination that has often been copied in rephrasing in the poems of later generations: “Sands grow: the water level drops; / Singing travels far: the river mouth seems deep.” (ibid.) Among the men of letters at the Late Monarch’s court, the most famous one was Jiang Zong (519–594). He first served in the Liang and then in the subsequent Chen dynasty where he was patronized by the Late Monarch and served as a senior official. He died in the Sui dynasty. He did not make any political accomplishment in court, and spent much of his time touring and feasting in the Late Monarch’s company. As a man of letters, however, he was quite talented. Even by the Tang Dynasty, Han Yu made the observation: “I have long admired Jiang Zong’s wonderful literary talent.” (“A Poem of Farewell Composed in Shaozhou and Left for Governor Zhang”) Jiang Zong’s biography in History of the Chen says that he is particularly “good at the pentasyllabic and the heptasyllabic.” It is notable that Jiang Zong was the very first to be mentioned in terms of his talent in the heptasyllabic poetry. Nearly twenty of his heptasyllabic poems are extant, which count as the largest number among all poets of the entire period of the Northern and Southern Dynasties. Among them, “Song of the Sweet Singing” reaches thirty-eight lines in total length, making it the longest heptasyllabic poem of the Southern Dynasties and showing how he was fond of the form. (The poem has also been attributed to Xu Ling.) Most of these heptasyllabic poems fall into the category of love poems and are rather superficial in implications, but they often strike the reader as colorful and pleasant. Take, for example, the “Song of Bedroom Resentment”: A solitary blue mansion stood by the main road; Snow kept falling in front of the lattice windows. In the pond, mandarin ducks were always in pairs; Behind bed-curtains, incense burned, but it was still empty. Screens had in mind to hide the bright moon; Lamplight, without feeling, shone on the lonely one. West of the frontier, waters froze, not much spring was seen; From north of border, swan geese came, covering thousands of miles. I wish you, my lord, would come early across mountain passes; Think: your wife, like peach and plum, had only a brief glory.

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 251 This poem uses parallelism through the entire text, and is meticulous on its alternative use of level and deflected tones. Some scholars of later ages have regarded it as a forerunner of the extended regulated verse of the Tang poets. It sometimes skips in its thread of thought from one couplet to another but the overall meaning of the poem is still very clear; hence it reads facile and lively. The last couplet makes a passionate appeal to make the best use of the prime of life. Besides this poem, there is also “Plum Flowers Drop” which depicts, in a lucid and lively, though slightly melancholy tone, how young people sing and dance under the blooming flower trees. It also implies that one should make the best use of one’s youth. Poems like these constitute the transition of the song lyric from the Southern Dynasties to the Early and High Tang. There are also a few masterpieces among Jiang Zong’s pentasyllabic poems. For example, “On a Homebound Trip from Chang’an to Yangzhou: Passing by a Pavilion at the Vetch Hill on the Double-Ninth Day” writes about homesickness: “My heart chases the clouds disappearing in the south;/ My body follows the swans flying from the north./ At my homeland, the chrysanthemums beneath the hedge: / How many of you are in full bloom today?” Brief as it is, it is full of deep emotions. The last couplet of “Meeting with a Messenger from Chang’an I Sent This Poem to Minister Pei,” “Sighs: moon above mountain passes; / In wind and dust: a traveler’s clothes,” are entirely made up of nouns or noun phrases in parallel and ignore the grammatical relation of the other parts of speech in the lines. By doing so, it highlights the function of images, implying therein a significant change in poetic language. Poets of the Sui Dynasty From the last years of the Northern and Southern Dynasties to the Sui, regimes rose, fell and changed swiftly. Both Lu Sidao (535–586) and Xue Daoheng (540–609) were actually already established in fame before the founding of the Sui, though they were generally ranked as important poets of the Sui dynasty. In the case of Lu, he lived only a few years into the Sui. The “Biography of Xue Daoheng” in History of the Sui notes that “each time Daoheng composed a new poem, it would be chanted by everyone in the south.” Apparently, by their generation, men of letters in the south no longer enjoyed dominance as they used to in the past.

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Generally speaking, the poems of Lu Sidao and Xue Daoheng are close in style to those of Qi and Liang, and they are conversant with the use of such a style. For example, there are the pretty lines in Lu Sidao’s “Lotus-Picking Melody,” “Holding a lotus leaf in hand, she loves the round drops of water;/ Breaking a lotus root, she plays with its lengthy fibers.” There are also Xue Daoheng’s extremely exquisite and well known lines in his “Salt, Night after Night,” “Above the dark window hangs a spider’s web;/ From the empty beam drops some clay from the swallow’s nest.” At the same time, however, they also have some characteristics of their own as poets from the north. Some of Xue Daoheng’s “Poems from My Heart,” written when he was journeying on a military campaign, are quite forceful and heroic in tone. Even more celebrated is Lu Sidao’s “Song of Joining the Army”: In the north, beacon fires lit up the Sweet Fountain; “Flying Generals” from the capital swept out of the northwest mountains.49 Shields of rhino’s skin—fancy swords—men from good families; White horses—golden reins—chivalrous young men. At dawn, the “Half Moon” held the land to the right; By dusk, the “Fish Trap” chased the alien prince.50 In the valley: the rock tiger once took in an arrow. Up the mountain: the “golden statues” were used in celestial offerings.51 Once they set on the way to the horizon, time turned endless Far and winding, a thousands miles’ road from the Northern Gate.52

49

In the original text, “the north” is Shuofang, an ancient commandery in northern China located in today’s Inner Mongolia. “Sweet Fountain” is the name of an ancient palace for short stays of the emperor during the Qin and Han dynasties, located in today’s Chunhua, Shaanxi; it was said to have been frequented by Emperor Wu of the Han. “Flying General” was a nickname given by the Xiongnu to the famous military commander Li Guang (?–119 B.C.) of the Han dynasty; here the term is for general usage for Chinese generals. The “capital” is Chang’an, and the “northwest mountains” are Mt. Qilian, in the original text. 50 Both the “Half Moon” and the “Fish Trap” are names of military formation in ancient China; the latter probably derived its name from No. 170 of The Book of Songs. The “land to the right” refers to the northwestern frontier. “Turkish prince” is “Talent at Left” in the original, a title commonly granted chiefs of northern alien tribes that were subordinate to the Xiongnu Khan, and sometimes a title bestowed on the heir apparent of the Khan. 51 The “rock tiger”: Li Guang once thought he saw a tiger at night and shot an arrow at it, and found it to be actually a rock by daybreak. The Xiongnu held offerings to“golden statues” atop the Gaolan Mountains, which were taken as war trophies by Huo Qubing (140–117 B.C.), a military general of the Han dynasty. 52 The “Northern Gate” is the “Gate of Ji ” in the original, Ji being the name of an ancient place located near today’s Beijing.

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 253 In the morning: they saw the yellow sands wrap up the Horse Ridge. In the evening: they watched clouds rise from the Dragon City. One could already pluck flowers from the rare tree in the yard; But the soldier on the frontier was not yet to return. White snow began to fall beyond the Sky Mountain. Floating clouds rose straight above the Five Plains. Thousands of miles over the mountain passes, it was hard to cross; Who could sit there, looking at the beautiful moonshine? Running rivers had always been heartbreaking; Thick ice: damaging to the bones of horses. On the border, the weather was so different from China: Graupel in winter and frost in autumn were still around by spring. A strong wind came roaring across the river, Homebound wild geese in skeins, one after another, disappeared into the sky. A Song of Joining the Army: The army traveled thousand of miles out of the Dragon Court. The alien Khan already bowed down at the Imperial Bridge: Oh my general, where would you go to make your reputation?

Using the form of heptasyllabic song, it describes the scenes on the border, the life in the military, and also incorporates into it the lament of the wife left alone at home. While it is a popular theme in the poetry of Liang and Chen, Lu Sidao somehow manages to provide in this poem a broad, open world, strong dynamism, and constant change of time and space, showing a more remarkable search for more momentum and vigor in poetry. Yang Su, another northern poet, presents a somewhat different case from the two in the above. Yang Su (544–606) served at a distinguished senior position during the reign of Emperor Wen and Yang of the Sui. His poems occasionally make use of a detailed and refined style, but rarely, if ever, the ornate vocabulary popular in southern poetry; in addition, they often have a touch of a tragic feeling about life, creating an atmosphere of the open and desolate wilderness. However, the structure of the entire text of his poems is a little loose and rough. In the later Sui period, a group of men of letters gathered in the court of Yang Guang (569–618), Emperor Yang, but the only one who was able to leave behind some good works was Yang Guang himself. He was brought up in the military, but was fond of southern culture. The best of his poems are good at creating a refreshing, open and remote world. Take, for example, the description of nature in his “By the Riverbank on a Summer Day”: “The sun sets, the blue river lies still;/ Clouds

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disperse, the distant hills look empty./ White are the egrets flying outside the woods;/ Red are the lotus flowers blooming in the water.” Here the faraway mountains and rivers are set in a vivid and lyrical harmony with the nearby flowers and birds.

5. The Folk Song of the Music Bureau of the Northern & Southern Dynasties As regards the content of this section, it need to be explained in the first place that in general terms, “Southern Dynasties” refer to Song, Qi, Liang and Chen, and “Northern Dynasties” refer to the Northern Wei as well as the Eastern Wei, the Western Wei, the Northern Qi and the Northern Zhou. In a wider sense, however, sometimes in the past the previous Eastern Jin would be placed under the Southern Dynasties, and the Sixteen States period, under the Northern Dynasties. It is not easy to find out the exact date of production of the folk song of the Music Bureau. [For example, such “Midnight Songs” and “Midnight Songs of the Four Seasons,” very important works among the southern folk songs, have been dated as “works of Jin (actually the Eastern Jin), Song and Qi” in the Collection of Music Bureau Poetry of Guo Maoqian of the Song dynasty, which shows that even then it was impossible to find out the precise date of these texts.] Accordingly the so-called “Folk Songs of the Music Bureau of the Northern & Southern Dynasties,” discussed in this section, include the songs of the Eastern Jin and the Sixteen States as well. Secondly, by now we have got accustomed to calling the large number of anonymous songs from the Music Bureau of the Northern and Southern Dynasties as “folk song.” It should be noted, however, that among them, especially among those from the south, many display superb philological skills and are possibly literati compositions based on the convention of the folk songs. Folk Songs of the Music Bureau of the Southern Dynasties The folk songs of the Music Bureau of the Southern Dynasties are basically divided into two categories: the “Songs of the Music of Wu” (or “Songs of Wu” for short) and the “Melodies of the West.” The former was produced in the land of Wu, with Jianye (today’s Nanjing), the capital during the Six Dynasties, as its center. The latter was produced

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 255 primarily in the cities of Jing (today’s Jiangling, Hubei), Ying (near today’s Jiangling), Fan (today’s Xiangfan, Hubei), and Deng (today’s Dengzhou, Henan), all places of strategic importance in the western part of the Southern dynasties. It has been said that among them, there are some songs from the time of the Wu regime of the Sun family. However, they were primarily produced after the Eastern Jin, as observed in the “Monograph on Music” from History of the Jin, “From the crossing of the Yangtze during the Yongjia reign all the way down to Liang and Chen, the capital was always set in Jianye, so the Songs of the Music of Wu originated from this time.” Among the “Songs of the Music of Wu,” more than three hundred and forty have survived; the main melodies among them are “Midnight Songs,” “Midnight Songs of the Four Seasons,” “Songs of Humming the Melodies,” “Songs of Regret,” “In the Hills Country of Mount Hua,” etc. More than one hundred and thirty poems from the “Melodies from the West” are extant, and the main melodies among them are “Joy in the Stone City,” “Crow Caws at Night,” “Melody of the Crow in Nest,” “Joy of No-Sorrow,” “Joy of the Merchant,” “Joy of Jiangling,” “Joy of Shouyang,” etc. These songs were obviously generated in an urban environment. Some directly recount the life of the businessmen. They are all short in form, with two third of them in the format of four pentasyllabic lines. In content, more than ninety percent are about the love between men and women. The mass appearance of love songs in such a way was enough to bring great change in aspect to Chinese literature. Day and night, she did not comb her hair which Like silk threads, hanged over her shoulders. She stretched her hair over her man’s knees: Which place in it was not lovely? (“Midnight Songs”) A soft breeze blew, and the bright moon just rose; In the green woods, flowers spread like embroidery. The loving couple had fun in the spring moonshine; So graceful: she pulled up her silk robe. (“Midnight Songs of the Four Seasons: Song of Spring”) The autumn wind entered the window Sending the silk curtains up a-flying. She raised her head to watch the bright moon Venting her feelings in the light over a thousand miles. (“Midnight Songs of the Four Seasons: Song of Autumn”)

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chapter eight Hit and kill the rooster which crows so loudly, Use a catapult to rid of the black crow! I wish it were dark all the time, with no break of day So that the entire year had just one dawn. (“Songs of Humming the Melodies”) At daybreak, we set out from the City of Xiangyang; By dusk, we arrived to sleep at the Great Embankment. The young women at the Great Embankment Were like flowers that startled the eyes of men. (“Joy of Xiangyang”) He asked for half a day’s leave To stand by his Mom’s store. He felt filled up by the feast of his eyes But hungry from his empty stomach. (“A Crow in the West Flies at Night”) The wind and the river never stop running; The boat hid itself on its way through the mountains. I wish I could turn into a flounder To travel a thousand miles after my pleasure. (“Song of the Three Islets”) At night he came through frost and snow; He left in the morning in wind and waves. Although we could have some fun together, I really feel for what you had to suffer! (“The Maid Who Spent the Night”)

Love, as represented in southern folk songs, is almost entirely romantic in nature. The relationship between the male and the female protagonists, judged by strict moral standard, is almost completely “against the decorum.” It is either private admiration for each other among young men and women, clandestine love affairs that violate common ethics, or sexual unions of strangers who have met by chance. The word “pleasure” is used in these poems as a synonym for one’s lover. In ancient China, where marriage was beyond the control of the party concerned and furthermore, there was little consideration for their feelings and desires, these poems praise, in a bold, passionate and completely undisguised manner, the pursuit of love. In the eyes of the poet, people in love are incomparably beautiful; the young woman who let their silky hair down to cover her lover’s knees, or the one who pulls up her silk robe in flowers under the moonshine, cannot but make an extremely moving sight. Such love affairs, “against the decorum,” are often full of hardship, and most close with a tragic ending, but those

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 257 in love never flinch from it and they consider their love as something of the highest value in their life. Folk songs, certainly, are not always representation of life’s behavior in reality, but they still clearly demonstrate emotional inclinations. One may see the open-minded attitude in the social culture of the Southern Dynasties from the popularity of this kind of poetry. The form of four pentasyllabic lines, most popular in the folk song of the Music Bureau of the Southern Dynasties, turned into a new poetic type with distinct artistic characteristics. Using generally clear and lively language, it recounts the actions and psychological activities of a character within a short duration of time, so its representation of feeling is highly focused. Some of the best poems among them hold profound significance by making rich implication of life beyond words. Take, for example, the song of autumn from the “Midnight Songs of the Four Seasons” cited in the above: it describes only the moment when the protagonist, prompted by the wind blowing at the silk curtains, looks at the autumn moon in the distance, but the line “Venting her feelings in the light over a thousand miles” helps to expand the meaning of the poem, leading it towards a remote world of imagination. In the above, we have mentioned how the various poetic types in the Southern Dynasties had a tendency to differentiate. This short form is obviously different from the regulated verse, with its multi-layered structure, or the heptasyllabic song, with its continuous and unhurried description. The pentasyllabic quatrain which developed from this form, and the heptasyllabic quatrain which came into being under its influence, still keep some of the basic features of the folk song of the Southern Dynasties. It has become a much beloved genre in classical poetry. Besides this form, the “Melody from the Western Islet,” included under the “Song Texts of Miscellaneous Melodies” and entitled as “ancient songs” in the Collection of Music Bureau Poetry, is probably also a folk song of the Southern Dynasties that went through some polish by the literati (some have attributed these to Jiang Yan). In thirty-two pentasyllabic lines, it generally changes its rhyme pattern every four lines, so it reads also like eight short poems connected into one piece. It depicts a young woman’s yearning for her lover with deep feeling, beautiful diction, and sweet melodiousness, reaching a pretty high level in its art. The folk song of the Southern Dynasties has exerted its impact in many different ways. The rise of the Palace Style poetry was under its direct influence. The literati poetry of Qi and Liang, which moved from

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obscurity due to excessive polishing to a combination of the refined and the popular, also benefited from its inspiration. [The previously cited comments on literature of Xiao Yi and Xiao Zixian clearly state that poetry is at its best to “chant and to sing about emotions” or when it is “mixed with folk tones”.] By the Tang dynasty, the folk song of the Music Bureau of the Southern Dynasties remained a source of inspiration for the literati. Li Bo, for example, was fond of the folk song from the Southern Dynasties. His famous poem “Thought on a Quiet Night” obviously has been transformed from the above-cited “Song of Autumn” of the “Midnight Songs of the Four Seasons.” The Folk Song from the Music Bureau of the Northern Dynasties In the Collection of Music Bureau Poetry, the category of “Melodies of Drum, Horn and Flute from the Liang” includes more than sixty song texts from the Music Bureau, the music of which mostly originated in the north whereas the content of the text is also largely related with life in the north. Accordingly these works, along with a few pieces from the “Song Texts of Miscellaneous Melodies” and the “Texts from Miscellaneous Folk Songs,” have in general been called folk songs from the Music Bureau of the Northern dynasties. However, it is impossible to figure out whether these song texts, collected and preserved by the institution of the Music Bureau of the Liang dynasty, were originally written in Chinese or were translated into or even rewritten in Chinese. Nevertheless it is very easy to see how they are conspicuously different from the “Songs of Wu” and “Melodies from the West.” Unlike the folk songs of the Southern dynasties, which were produced in the city and centered on love between men and women, folk songs of the Northern Dynasties were generated in life with much variety. Only a small number of them are extant today, but they are much broader thematically than the southern folk songs. In style they are plain, simple, bold and unconstrained, not as graceful and refined as the southern folk songs. Notwithstanding that, some of the pieces are naturally heroic and vigorous in tone, which is exactly what is absent in the literature of the south. Among the folk songs of the north there are some that represent the martial spirit inherent with the nomadic tribes: If a man wants to become a warrior, He has no need for many companions.

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 259 When the sparrow hawk soars in the sky, Birds, in flight, split in two directions like waves. (“Text of a Song of Analogy”) I bought a new sword, five feet long, and hanged it up at the column under the central beam. I caressed it three times every day with more passion than with a girl of fifteen. (“Text of the Song of the Prince of Langya”)

The first poem, using the image of a robust sparrow hawk soaring in the sky and fearful birds escaping to the two sides like waves, praises the heroic spirit of a real man who dares to fight against enemies all by himself. It is very exciting. The second poem describes someone who loves his sword more than a young woman. It is completely different in tone from southern folk songs. The famous “Song of Chi Le” depicts the landscape of the wide prairie in the north and the nomadic life: By the Chi Le River, under the Dark Mountain, The sky’s like a canopy that covers the plains in all directions. The sky is vast; the wilderness, boundless. The wind blows, the grasses bend down, cattle and sheep emerge.

According to a record, the folk song was originally in the Xianbei language and the extant text is a work of translation. The boundless and eternal infinity of the scene also reflects the broad mind and heroic spirit of the singer. Some poems present certain kinds of social phenomenon: A fast-running horse often grows thin; A laborer often suffers in poverty. Lush grass uplifts a skinny horse, One acts like a man only after getting rich. (“Text of the Song of a Horseman from Youzhou”)

Without money, one cannot behave like a human being! The poem just reveals the ruthless reality in life in such a straightforward way. The folk songs of the north surely also sing about love and marriage. The following is a good one among them: I felt sad and unhappy in my heart; I wish, my man, I were a horsewhip of yours: In and out, it would hang on to your arm And lean against your knees when you sit. (“Text of the Song of Breaking the Willow”)

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The poem bears some similarity with a southern love song in form and tone, but it still sounds a little more brisk and neat in comparison. The female wishes to become her lover’s horsewhip so as to keep his company all the time. It is entirely in the convention of a tribe of riders. Last, we need to discuss “Poem of Mulan.” In the anthology Flowers from the Literary Garden, compiled in the early Song dynasty, the poem is attributed to Wei Yuanfu of the Tang dynasty, but it is included under “Melodies of Drum, Horn and Flute from the Liang” in the Collection of Music Bureau Poetry. Currently, most scholars consider it to be a folk song of the Northern dynasties. The poem tells the well-known story of Mulan, who disguises herself as a man to join the army as a substitute for her father. Its special features lie primarily in its integration of a comic touch into a legend. The poem gives a very brief account of Mulan’s life in the military, but elaborates on her preparation for enlistment in the army and her homecoming after winning honors, endowing the story of a legendary hero with the rich ambience of life in reality. Here is the closing part of the poem: Hearing that their daughter was about to come, Dad and Mom supported each other by arms and came out of the gate; Being told the coming of her sibling, The elder sister dressed herself up in front of the window; Hearing about the coming of his big sister, The younger brother sharpened his knife for pig and sheep. Now I’d open the door of my eastern chamber, And sit on the bed of my western room; I’d take off the robe I wore in war, And put on my clothes of the old times. In front of the window, I’d put my cloudlike hair in order; Facing the mirror, I’d deck myself up. I went out of the door to look at my comrade-at-arms, My comrade-at-arms were all startled by surprise. They had been in my company for twelve years Not knowing that Mulan was, in fact, a lady. Male or female, rabbits hop on their feet; Female or male, rabbits have misty eyes. When a pair of rabbits run on the ground, side by side, Who could tell if I’m male or female?

It is very interesting to see how the homecoming of the soldier has turned into a happy day of festival, and how the hero has turned back into a young woman who likes to look smart. The simple, easy and fast-paced narration, as well as the conversation inserted throughout the poem, help to make it extremely lively in atmosphere.

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 261 6. Fiction of the Northern & Southern Dynasties Records of Light and Shade and Others After Records of the Search for the Supernatural and More Records of the Search for the Supernatural, Records of Light and Shade, attributed to Liu Yiqing (403–444), may be ranked as a masterpiece among works of supernatural fiction from the Southern dynasties. Liu, a member of the imperial house of the Song dynasty, became the Prince of Lingchuan by the heritage. He was fond of literature and liked to gather men of letters around him. In addition to this work, he was also the author of the more famous A New Account of Tales of the World. However, it is generally presumed that some men of letters who were retainers of his household took part in the composition of these works. Records of Light and Shade includes mostly new stories that appeared in the age of the Jin and Song dynasties which are largely fanciful stories about commoners. Although they are supernatural in nature, they have a very strong touch of the age and real life. Compared to Records of the Search for the Supernatural, it shows greater ease in style and is enhanced by a more beautiful vocabulary. For example, the story of “Liu and Ruan Enter Mt. Tiantai” has originated from the entry of “Yuan Xiang and Gen Shuo” in More Records of the Search for the Supernatural, but it has more than doubled the length and is more graceful in language. It recounts the union of human beings and divinity, but it does not highlight much of the supernatural and instead has a strong human touch of reality. The two fairy ladies in the story are beautiful, affectionate, gentle and lovable. Take, for example, the opening passage about how Liu Chen and Ruan Zhao run into the fairies: They went out along a big stream. On the bank of the stream there were two young women of ravishing beauty and grace. When they saw the two of them coming out holding cups in their hand, they smiled and said, “The two young men, Liu and Ruan, caught hold of the flowing cups we lost and came.” Chen and Zhao did not know the two ladies. Now that they heard them addressing them by their family names as if they had been acquainted before, they looked at each other in delight. The women asked: “Why did you come so late?” And then they invited them to go to their home.

In terms of the touch of life’s reality, “The Young Woman Who Sells Exotic Cosmetics” is even more of a masterpiece. It tells the story of a

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young man from a rich family falling in love with a young woman who sells imported face powder. In order to see her, he purchases one pack of Turkish powder from her every day. Later, at a secret dating of the two, the young man “bounced in joy and died,” and the young woman, flustered at the moment, runs away from the scene. The parents of the young man track her down from the accumulated packs of Turkish powder in the young man’s suitcase and report to the government. The young woman says, “I am in no way afraid of death, but allow me a chance to vent my sorrow by the side of his body.” When she caresses the corpse and speaks in grief, the young man comes back to life and wakes up, so eventually the two become husband and wife. In this story, except for the part of the resurrection, there is nothing supernatural about it at all. Instead of censuring the adultery of the male and female protagonists, the author celebrates it and by doing so upholds people’s right to seek happiness and pleasure. Works like this already showed an inclination of moving the focus away from the supernatural to human life. Even some of the uncanny stories in Records of Light and Shade often have a very strong touch of human feelings. Take the entry of “Pang E” for example. It recounts how a young woman from the Shi family falls in love with Pang E, a handsome young man. Since she cannot keep company with him physically, her soul often comes to Pang’s house at night. Eventually they become a married couple. This is one of the earliest stories of “the soul moving out of the body.” Subsequently, the union of souls of man and woman, as a substitute of their failure to be united in real life, became a standard theme of love stories. In general, compared to previous supernatural fiction, Records of Light and Shade focuses more of its attention on human touch and also holds a higher literary value. In addition to it, some of the better supernatural works include Records of Recovered Omissions, originally authored by Wang Jia of the period of the Sixteen States and revised by Xiao Qi of the Liang, and A Sequel to the Records from Qi Xie by Wu Jun of the Liang. Wu Jun’s prose writing is succinct and graceful, and his fiction also has some characteristics of its own. For example, the entry of “A Scholar of Yangxian,” developed from a story in a Buddhist sutra, shows creative imagination, and the entry of “Zhao Wenshao,” which tells the story of how the protagonist is led by the sound of singing to meet with the Goddess of the Blue Creek, is extremely poetic.

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 263 A New Account of Tales of the World Contrary to supernatural fiction, there had been since the Wei and Jin another kind of books which recorded exclusively the words and deeds of real people. In content such books are somewhat trivial and more inclined to the sensational, and are, as observed in Lu Xun’s A Brief History of Chinese Fiction, “remote from practical use and close to entertainment.” Accordingly they fell under the category of fiction, and are called today “fictional biographies” or “anecdotal fiction.” Forest of Words by Pei Qi of the Middle Eastern Jin period and Master Guo by Guo Chengzhi of the period of the Jin-Song transition are among the earlier ones of these, but both are scattered and lost. The only book that has been preserved in its entirety and marks the culmination of similar works is A New Account of Tales of the World, also attributed to Liu Yiqing. Remaining fragments from the two books by Pei and Guo are often found in A New Account of Tales of the World, which reveals that the latter is a work of compilation in nature. Liu Jun of the Liang annotated the book. His annotations have been known for erudition, and are invaluable historical materials. A New Account of Tales of the World is divided generically into thirty-six chapters, including “Moral Conduct,” “Words,” etc. In content it records primarily the words and deeds of celebrated men of letters from the Eastern Han through the Eastern Jin, especially those from the Jin. What is placed on record therein primarily focuses on the personality mental outlook of the characters, and is mostly insignificant as historical facts. The work occasionally has an implication to commend or criticize the words and deeds in the record, but without any narrow or strict criteria of judgment. Many are just placed therein for amusement. The magnanimous approval of people’s conduct in the work manages to reflect the varied mental outlook and attitude toward life of the aristocracy and literati of the age. Following their ideal expectation, the literati of the time hoped to stay away from the worldly consideration of gain and loss, to give a free rein to their individuality, and to elevate their spirit. Such a cultural trait finds its concentrated expression in A New Account of Tales of the World. Seven chi and eight cun tall, Ji Kang had distinctive appearance.53 Those who saw him said in admiration: “Upright, dynamic, trim and refreshing.”

53

According to the length of Ji Kang’s age, his height is about 1.88m of today.

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chapter eight Some observed: “Dynamic like wind through the tall pine trees: high and moving unhurriedly.” Master Shan remarked: “Physically, Ji Shuye is solid, like a solitary pine tree standing all by itself. When he gets intoxicated he folds up, like a snowy mountain about to collapse.” (“Appearance”)

The attention to the appearance and bearing of celebrated individuals owes its origin to the fact that underlying these are admirable personality and accomplishments. Similar samples are numerous in the book. The chapter on “Appearance,” for example, also includes observation on Wang Xizhi from his contemporaries: “Graceful like drifting cloud and dynamic like a startled dragon.” Wang Ziyou54 lived in Shanyin. One night, it snowed heavily. He woke up from a sleep, opened the door to his room, and asked for wine. It was a shining white all around. He rose to walk back and forth, and chanted Zuo Si’s “Poem to Call the Recluse to Service.” He suddenly thought about Dai Andao who was living in Shan at the time, and just took a small boat and traveled to see him that night. He didn’t arrive until the next morning. When he was about to reach the gate, he stopped moving forward and then turned back. When people asked him the reason, Wang said, “I took the trip on an impulse. Once the impulse was gone, I just returned. Why must I see Dai?” (“Willful Absurdities”)

To act on impulse, to feel unrestrained by the decorum of behavior, and to be free and carefree—it was the way admired by people of the time. The words and deeds of people as recorded in A New Account of Tales of the World often show a great concern for a touch of feelings. For example, this is the way Zhang Han condoles his dead friend: Gu Yanxian loved the lute all his life. After he died, people of his family placed a lute on his bier. Zhang Jiying went over to pay a condolence call. Stricken with grief, he went atop the bier to play the lute. After he played several melodies, he caressed the lute and said, “Could Gu Yanxian still enjoy listening to this or not?” Then, overwhelmed with grief again, he walked out without even shaking hands with the son in mourning. (“Lamenting for the Deceased”)

The style of A New Account of Tales of the World has been widely known as laconic and subtle, full of hidden implications. It is free from elaboration or excess, and rarely, if ever, resorts to exaggeration. 54

Style of Wang Huizhi (?–388), son of Wang Xizhi (321–379), the great calligrapher.

literature of the northern and southern dynasties 265 However, as the author is able to grasp the most significant words and actions of his characters, their spirit and manner can often be vividly brought out in only a few strokes. For example, in the above-cited entry about Wang Ziyou paying a visit to Dai Andao on a snowy night, the human touch is reflected in a subtle way entirely in what the protagonist does. Another example is found in an entry from the chapter on “Generosity.” It describes how, during the Battle of Feishui, Xie An is playing a game of go with a guest; when the news of victory arrives from the front, Xie “read the report and remained silent after he finished reading; after a while he turned back to the game-board,” which highlights his cool composure. A New Account of Tales of the World was always beloved by men of letters in the old times. In recording the words and deeds of characters, all literary sketches of later times try to simulate its style. However, it was originally a product of the culture of the scholarly aristocracy of the Middle Ancient Ages with conspicuous characteristics of its own time, and it is truly difficult for later writers to imitate the work.

CHAPTER NINE

POETRY AND PROSE OF THE EARLY AND THE HIGH TANG

The Tang dynasty, founded in 618, developed in the subsequent years into a powerful empire in Chinese history. The political structure of the Tang society was somewhat different from either that of the previous age of the Wei, Jin, and the Northern and Southern dynasties, or that of the Song dynasty afterwards. The unification of the entire country and the prosperity of the nation somehow strengthened the imperial power, and the aristocratic families were in one way or another restricted in their forces. The civil service examinations did not play as strict and significant a role as in times after the Song dynasty, but to some degree they still helped to open up political opportunities for the middle and lower social strata, and thus made it possible for talented people from among them to show more enthusiasm for participating in the political and cultural activities in the society. On the other hand, the imperial power did not become an absolute autocratic force either. Shortly after he was in power, Emperor Taizong issued a decree to write and compile the Records of Clans, the actual import of which was to make adjustments to the relationship of various interest groups. Aristocratic families, both new and old, and local forces still wielded their influence in politics. Nor was a singular and powerful ideological control ever established throughout the Tang dynasty. In the Early and High Tang dynasty, in particular, Confucianism was not attached more importance than Taoism and Buddhism by either men of letters or with the rulers at the top. In general, the Tang society was quite free in thought. Due to the relative liberalness of the social condition, as well as the merging of the cultures of the many different ethnic groups in the country and the frequent exchanges of Chinese and foreign civilizations, the culture of this age gradually displayed its iridescent and lively aspects. Poetry had been the core genre of the literature of the literati since the Wei and Jin. It had developed and changed over a long time, learned valuable lessons through rich experience, and opened up a great variety of possibilities. From the Early Tang to

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the High Tang, under favorable conditions in many different aspects, poetry reached its artistic heights. In his anthology, A Critical Collection of Tang Poetry, Gao Bing of the Ming dynasty divided the history of the development and evolution of Tang poetry into four stages: the Early Tang, the High Tang, the Mid-Tang and the Late Tang. Later it has become the conventional format of periodization of Tang poetry, and expanded to the other genres of Tang literature. However, it has often been controversial as regards how these four stages should be divided by specific dates. Considering the age-old convention, we shall continue to use this method of periodization, but we should put more emphasis on the differentiation between the Early/High Tang and the Mid-/Late Tang, with the “An-Shi Rebellion” that broke out in the last years of the Tianbao reign as the line of demarcation. Generally speaking, the literature of the Early/High Tang developed in the same direction as the literature of the Wei, Jin, the Northern and Southern dynasties, with its core spirit in the pursuit after beauty. By the Mid-Tang, there appeared a series of complicated changes in literature. On the one hand, there was an obviously increase of the consciousness of regarding literature as an attachment to, or a tool of, politics and morality. On the other hand, the representation of emotions in human life in literature continued its process of expansion and deepening. Such changes continued all the way throughout the Song dynasty.

1. Poetry of the Early Tang Palace Literati of the Early Tang In the Early Tang, the rulers assumed a liberal attitude toward literature and arts. Li Shimin (Emperor Taizong) personally wrote the “Commentary” on the “Biography of Lu Ji” in History of the Jin in which he praised the “beautiful and varied diction” of Lu Ji’s works, showing his appreciation of the belles-lettres literature. Afterwards, rulers such as Gaozong, Empress Wu and Zhongzong were also fond of arts and literature. In order to make a show of the atmosphere of the time of peace and prosperity of the great Tang Empire, they recruited numerous men of letters in the country, commissioned the compilation of encyclopedias and concordances, and composed poems in exchanges with their subjects. Accordingly the imperial court of the Early Tang,

poetry and prose of the early and the high tang

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just like that during the Southern dynasties and the Sui, became the center of literary activities of the time. The most representative members from the palace literati of the Early Tang were Yu Shi’nan (ca. 558–ca. 638) of the Taizong reign, Shangguan Yi (ca. 608–664) of the Gaozong reign, Du Shenyan (ca. 645–708), Song Zhiwen (ca. 656–ca. 713), and Shen Quanqi (ca. 656– 713) of the reign of Empress Wu and Zhongzong, etc. Most of their works deal with eulogizing of the court and feasts at imperial palaces and gardens in contents, wherein it was difficult to express feelings in a profound way. However, in terms of the construction of the poetic forms, they still made significant contributions. Also, some of their compositions, which had nothing to do with imperial feasts and gatherings, could be quite moving. Beginning from the Yongming Form of the Qi dynasty, the prosodic regularization of poetry had been an ongoing process. With poets of the late period of the Northern and Southern dynasties and the Sui, some of their pentasyllabic poems completely fit the set prosody of the Tang; theoretically, though, they never supplied any new summary, and some problems (such as the rules of “adhesion”) remained unsolved. The regularization of the heptasyllabic poems was even more in a preliminary stage. In the early years of the Tang, Shangguan Yi was the first to formulate the theory of “six antitheses” and “eight antitheses,” which pushed the theory of antithesis of the Southern dynasties towards further precision; its analysis of the techniques of making antithesis was also expanded from phrasing to couplet. From the reign of Empress Wu to the Shenlong and Jinglong reign of Zhongzong, there was a flurry of literary activities in the imperial palace. In a poem, Du Fu remarks that in Wu Zetian’s reign, “Men of letters gathered like clouds” in the court. (“Presented to Lüqiu, my Senior Fellow Apprentice and Buddhist Monk from Shu”) At this time, with the poetry of Du Shenyan, Song Zhiwen and Shen Quanqi, there were already numerous poems which accord with the rules of “adhesion” throughout the entire text and wherein words of the level and deflated tones harmonize with one another. It marked the complete maturity of pentasyllabic and heptasyllabic regulated verse. Due to the special influence of palace literature, the norms and standards established therein were also widely accepted. In his “Epitaph to the Late Mr. Du, Vice Director of the Ministry of Works of the Tang, with a Preface,” Yuan Zhen observes, “Those like Shen and Song studied and practiced in precise detail, following the natural momentum of the sound

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of words in their work, and called it the regulated verse.” It was the earliest documentation of the name of “regulated verse.” Hu Yinglin’s Confluence of Poetry, which recounts the history of the regularization of poetry, also observes that “from the Shenlong [reign] onward, it became a distinctive fixed form.” In short, classical Chinese poetry completed its course of regularization at this time. As discussed previously, the regularization of poetry was not only related to prosodic rules, it also helped to push poets towards further effort in artistic representation, which may be found in the better compositions of the above-mentioned poets. Du Shenyan’s extant poems are primarily in pentasyllabic regulated verse. “A Companion Piece to a Poem on a Sightseeing Trip in Early Spring by Vice Magistrate Lu of Jinling,” which was composed when he served at Jiangyin, was praised as “the first in rank among Early Tang pentasyllabic regulated poems” in Hu Yinglin’s Confluence of Poetry: Only one who serves as an official away from home Would be surprised by changes of the new season. Colorful clouds emerge from the sea at dawn, Plum and willow bring spring across the river. Breathing the fresh warm air, orioles cheer up; Basked in the sunshine, duckweeds turn green. Hearing, all of a sudden, the ancient melody, I return in thought, about to shed tears.

The poem uses the splendor of spring returning to the earth to set off by contrast the homesickness of one who pursues an official career. The couplet with words like “singular” and “alone,” through the use of antithesis, strengthens the poet’s sharp awareness of the changing season. The couplet of “colorful clouds” versus “plum and willow” is not only lucid and lively in tone, but also contains a compact assembly of images with rich implications. A line like “Plum and willow passed the spring over the river” is completely free from the syntax of prose, and leads to multi-leveled ambiguities. Both Shen Quanqi and Song Zhiwen spared no effort in composing regulated poems and, through their practice, established the formal standards of pentasyllabic and heptasyllabic “recent style” poems. Song was known by his pentasyllabic poems. His compositions describing the scenery and expressing his feeling often include great lines. Take, for example, the two couplets from his “Watching the Evening Scene from the Riverside Pavilion,”: “Birds returned: leaving trace on the sands;/ Sailboats passed: nothing was shown on the waves./ Watching


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the water, I got to know its soft nature; / Looking at the mountains, I felt heartbroken.” In the neat and refined form of the antithesis, they bring out the change and contrast of the scenery, and through them, create a unique atmosphere of emotions. Shen Quanqi was known in history as “especially accomplished in heptasyllabic compositions.” (See his biography in the Old History of the Tang). His heptasyllabic regulated poems, in great numbers, may be ranked above all palace poets in meeting the standards of the form; they played an obvious role of promotion in the course of the regularization of the form of heptasyllabic songs. Here follows is his “Missing Him in Loneliness”: A young lady of the Lu’s was in the hall with aromatic walls, Where a pair of petrels perched at the beam decorated with turtle shells. In the ninth month, the sound of washing mallets speeded the shedding of leaves, For ten years, he was away on the military campaign, far at the northern border. From north of the White Wolf River, letters had stopped coming; South of the Red Phoenix City, nights seemed so long in autumn. Who said something about “Missing Him in Loneliness,” And even told the moon to shine on my taupe silk curtains!

A poem like this still has the characteristics of the old song form, and it is not compact enough as a heptasyllabic regulated poem. However, the author was already able to write in this neat and strict form with great ease and skills, and the couplet of “ninth month” versus “ten years” could also be ranked as lines of the “riding crop.” However, it was difficult to avoid the weakness of lifeless and mediocre expression of feeling in literary activities which centered on the imperial palace. So far as the formation of certain special features of Tang poetry was concerned, some other poets who had no associations with the palace made more significant contributions. “Four Talents” As early as in the circles of Early Tang poetry, there already appeared some whose poems were different from the Palace Style. One of the examples of that was Wang Ji (589–644), who lived in Taizong’s Zhenguan reign. He experienced the upheavals during the transition from the Sui to the Tang, but chose to become a recluse in the countryside and enjoyed a carefree life of pleasure and drinking. A representative poem of his is “View in the Wilds”:

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chapter nine Looking out from the eastern bank at early dusk I moved around, and then stood still: who could I depend upon? Every single tree around was in the colors of autumn; One mountain after another reflected only the setting sun. The herdsman was on his way home: driving the cattle; A hunter returned, carrying game on his horse. We looked at one another: we were mere strangers. Singing loudly, how I missed those who picked the vetches!

The description of the rural life from a static observation implies a sense of the inner heart feeling alienated from the external world. It is a pentasyllabic regulated poem strictly observing prosodic rules, but it is plain and simple in language, without any embellishment, making it markedly different in style from the fashion of palace literature. On the other hand, Wang Ji’s poems are in general inclined to be superficial and there are not many good ones among them; nor did his poetic style have much influence at the time. Poets who truly displayed some new aspects in Early Tang poetry and brought about obvious changes in Tang poetry were the so-called “Four Talents” who were active during the reigns of Gaozong and Empress Wu, Lu Zhaolin (ca. 634– ca. 686), Luo Binwang (ca. 638–?), Wang Bo (650–676), and Yang Jiong (650–after 693). As early as in Song Zhiwen’s “Funeral Oration for Academician Du Shenyan,” there was a reference to “up-coming youngsters Wang, Yang, Lu and Luo,” placing the four in one group for the first time. It also touched upon their common features: “Due to destiny, they could not help themselves in terms of blessings and longevity. Probably because of the jealousy of divinity, they could not enjoy both talent and substances in life.” It means that although they were talented, they suffered many setbacks in life. Compared to previous ages, there were certainly more opportunities for an individual to win success by talent during the Tang dynasty. In his “Preface to the Collected Works of the Lord of Nanyang,” Lu Zhaolin mentions how in the early Tang, many renowned officials either “presented themselves with literary compositions” or “made their reputation by their talent,” all “starting as cotton-clad commoners and rising to senior ministers,” which made people like him very excited. However, for those who lacked distinguished family background and yet were too strong in character, there were still hardships and dangers in the road of life. Among the Four Talents, Lu Zhaolin, who once served as a District Defender, committed suicide because he could not stand the pain from a killer


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disease, Luo Binwang participated in Xu Jingye’s rebellion and disappeared without a trace, Wang Bo became a convict and later died from drowning when he crossed the sea to visit his parents; Yang Jiong, who served as a District Magistrate, was the only one who had a peaceful life. Their life’s experience, as those with high talents but low in social status or those with great expectations for themselves but faced bad fortunes, had a deep influence on their personality and their literary compositions. Of the four men, Lu and Luo were older in age than Wang and Yang by one generation. As regards their poetry, they were all best known for their long song forms, such as Lu Zhaolin’s heptasyllabic “An Ancient Topic from Chang’an,” or Luo Binwang’s “A Piece on the Imperial Capital” and “A Piece on the Past,” both in mixed pentasyllabic and heptasyllabic lines. Poems like these have incorporated the special features of song forms since the Qi and Liang as well as the scale and grandeur of the rhapsodies on capitals. They are grand in scale, splendid in scenery, with vivid description of things and views of the capital, as well as the prosperous and luxurious life there. These poems hold many levels of implications. For instance, “An Ancient Topic from Chang’an,” in its lucid and ornate style, not only praises the pursuit of a happy life, but also laments the brevity of rank and wealth; towards the end, it sets the loneliness of humble and poor commoners in strong contrast against the arrogance and indulgence of the nobilities that have been highlighted previously, revealing the injustice in human society. In short, these poems represent a rich and complex experience of life, and refuse to view life with prejudice, so they are extremely lively and lifelike. In addition to their long song forms, Lu and Luo also have quite a few outstanding short pentasyllabic poems. For example, Luo Binwang’s “Singing about Cicadas while in Prison” is a well known one among them. It assimilates profound feelings about life in the form of poetry on things which used to be focused on entertainment, representing an important change in the poetry on things of the Tang dynasty. In particular, “A Quatrain on Seeing Someone Off at the Yi River” manages to bring out the author’s heroic spirit: Here at this place, saying farewell to the Yan Prince, Bristling with emotions, the warrior’s hair stood up against his cap. The people of the bygone days have since disappeared, But the water of today is still as chilly as usual.

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Among the “Four Talents,” Wang Bo had the shortest life but the highest reputation. He was at his best in his pentasyllabic regulated poems and quatrains, which are neat and trim in prosody, plain but refined in style, and full of vigor in implication. Take, for example, “Seeing District Defender Du Off to Shuchuan”: The city walls, the palaces: encircled by the three Qin regions; The wind, the mist: drifting over the five rivers. My heart is heavy about parting from you, my friend, Though I know we are both away from home for a career. With friends who understand each other in this world, Even if wide apart, they are like next-door neighbors. There is no need to go to the crossroads And shed our tears like young children.

From the very beginning it opens to a grand view of the vast world. Later, the couplet “in this world” reveals a philosophic understanding of life. It is completely different from the conventional valedictory poems which are low-spirited and doleful in tone. Elsewhere, like in his pentasyllabic quatrain, “In the Mountains,” complex and deep emotions are expressed in a kind of poetic language that borders on plain speaking, which helps to promote the style of expressing profound meaning in simple terms: By the great river I feel sad about having been held up here so long. Across ten thousands miles I muse about the day when I’ll return. What makes it worse: the high wind that rises by evening Sending the yellow leaves a-flying in all the mountains.

Wang Bo was a man of letters with great talent. Besides his pentasyllabic regulated poems and quatrains, his “Lotus-Picking Song,” in the mixed-lines song form, and his heptasyllabic poem “Pavilion of the Prince of Teng” may both be ranked as first-class compositions. The extant poems of Yang Jiong are almost exclusively in pentasyllabic regulated verse (including the extended regulated poems). Less gifted among the “Four Talents,” he was better known in poems like “A Song of Joining the Army”: Watchtower fires shone on the western capital; In his heart, beyond control, he felt a rising anger. Following the ivory tally, they departed the Phoenix Palace. Riding on armor-clad horses, they besieged the Dragon City. Snow was heavy: painted banners looked so dim; In gusty winds, the sound of drums was heard. One’d rather be the commander of a hundred men Than to be a man of letters, reading books only!


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A heroic spirit is imbued in the poem by the representation of the ideal and passion of life, i.e., to establish oneself by winning honors. Generally speaking, the composition of the Four Talents of the Early Tang was closely related to the literature of the Six Dynasties. It inherited much from the latter, from form and subject matter to diction and vocabulary. At the same time, it also transformed the latter in a strong manner. The world in their poetry became grander and vaster, their poetic language turned more lucid and refined, and in particular, their poems were filled with more vigor. All this demonstrated that the Tang poetry was taking a course of its own. As regards its relation with contemporary literature, it also rectified, in a powerful fashion, the weakness in the style of the palace poetry, the lack of passion and vigor due to an excessive emphasis on rhetoric and ornamentation. Chen Zi’ang, Zhang Ruoxu, and Others Literature of the Tang dynasty carried on the tradition of the Six Dynasties, and yet at the same time also, naturally, sought new ideas and development of a reformist nature. The need for the latter led to theoretical criticism of previous literature. However, due to the influence of outmoded notions, the literary thought of the Early Tang literati often sounded conservative and hollow. For instance, Wang Bo, in his “Letter to Vice Director Pei of the Personnel Ministry,” regarded Qu Yuan and Song Yu as “the source of degeneration,” and Yang Jiong, in his “Preface to Wang Bo’s Works,” also observed that, “When Cao and Wang rose, more of the [Book of ] Songs and the [Encountering] Sorrow got lost;” both were no more than meaningless cliché. Compared to his predecessors, Chen Zi’ang’s theoretical views sounded clearer and more effective. In “Foreword Presented to Left Scribe Dongfang Qiu’s ‘A Piece on Tall Bamboos’,” he remarked that “the Way of literature has declined for five hundred years,” and maintains that “poems of the Qi and Liang period competed with one another in ornate words but lacked implication altogether,” which was actually not without some prejudice. What he strongly advocated, however, was the “wind and bone of the Han and Wei,” which, specifically, may be understood as a mark of esteem for literature of the Jian’an and Zhengshi reigns. It was significant in rectifying the erroneous tendency of the literature of the nobilities of the Southern dynasties wherein the ornate and superficial became the mainstream while the profound and powerful spiritual forces were absent. If we exclude the elements of exaggeration in Chen Zi’ang’s article and consider it in combination with the fact that

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he modeled after Ruan Ji’s “Poems of My Heart” in his representative poems in the series of “Reflections on Experience,” we may argue that his literary view was in direct line of descent of the changes in the later period of Yu Xin’s literary composition. Chen Zi’ang (661–702) was from a wealthy family in Sichuan. Chivalrous and willful as a young man, he began to serve in the government during Wu Zetian’s reign. He was ambitious at one time but, after several cold receptions, eventually resigned and went back home. Later he was framed by a local district magistrate and died. The content of his poetry, as in the thirty-eight poems in the series “Reflections on Experience” and the seven poems of “Retrospect on the Ancient Times at Jiqiu: Presented to Lu Cangyong, the Layman Buddhist,” involves social and political issues in reality, and also the somewhat metaphysical thinking about life and destiny, which adopts the philosophy of Laozi and Zhuangzi as its point of departure. They all share the common features of a strong self-consciousness and an enterprising spirit. Like Ruan Ji, Chen Zi’ang is fond of contemplating one’s individual existence against the broad background of time and space, and accordingly his poems often sound profound in meaning. For example, the thirteenth poem of “Reflections on Experience” goes, “At leisure I observe the changes in the world,/ Far and wide, I think about the Absence of Life. / The Green Spring has just started / While the Red Fire already fills up the space. / From now on everything starts falling, / I sigh and lament: when will ever harmony arrive?” From the genesis and change of everything in Nature, the speaker looks back at the Essential Beginning of all lives in the world (“the Absence of Life”). Spring has hardly started, but summer is already on the rise, and everything in Nature will decline henceforth. Though a kind of disturbance that starts with no reason, it is still quite moving. Chen Zi’ang was used to philosophical thinking, so those poems of his inspired by realistic problems are often grand in imagination and filled with tragic emotions. Take, for example, the third poem of “Reflections on Experience”: How desolate-looking is the aliens’ castle, Now and past, far on the road in the wilds! The fortresses stand in such shocking ruins, Human bones scatter around in pieces, exposed. The yellow sands rise, boundless, in the south, The white sun hides itself in the western corner. Three hundred thousand armored men of China


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Once were used against the savage nomads. They were seen dying on the sandy battlefield, But who would pity the orphans on the borders!

This frontier poem possibly implies some criticism of the government of the time which ignored the defense of the borders, but the entire text of the poem uses the arid and vast desert as its background to describe how, from the Han through the Tang dynasty, war has always caused the people terrible suffering, showing great compassion and sympathy. The reflection of life’s loneliness is also an important subject matter of Chen Zi’ang’s poetry. This may have something to do with his experience as someone whose talent remains unrecognized in society, but more likely it results from his strong self-awareness. Accordingly the sense of loneliness in his poems rarely, if ever, assumes a dejected and disheartened tone; rather it is proud and unrelenting. Take, for example, the widely known “Song of Ascending the Youzhou Terrace”: Looking in the past, I see not the ancients; Looking in future, no newcomers are in vision. Thinking about Heaven and Earth which last forever, I, alone and solitary, feel sad and shed tears.

Against the background of the infinite time and the boundless space, there rises a great, solitary and proud self that conveys a sense of sublime beauty. The poet depicts loneliness as pure emotion, and deliberately adopts an unusual poetic form, giving the reader a powerful spiritual thrill. Chen Zi’ang’s theory places “wind and bone” right opposite to “ornate words,” and his own poems are also primarily in the pentasyllabic old form from the Han and Wei, avoiding the new forms that began to flourish during the Southern dynasties, which clearly reveals some bias on his part. On the other hand, it was needed to promote the fervent and solemn poetic style which had been neglected then. It was precisely the gathering of various different styles that led to the unprecedented prosperity of Tang poetry. At the same time when Chen Zi’ang was striving to rejuvenate the “wind and bone of the Han and Wei,” Liu Xiyi, Zhang Ruoxu and others, just like the “Four Talents,” were opening up new paths along the charted course of the poetry of the Northern and Southern dynasties. Many of Liu Xiyi’s poems take up the topic of the enjoyment of the spring season, or the lament of its passing, from a woman’s perspective, which continued and developed on the palace poetry. The

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most famous one among them is “Rephrased Poem of Lament for the White-Haired Old Man.” The first half of the poem tells how “a young woman of Luoyang” sighs over fallen flowers, and deplores that “year after year, flowers look the same; year after year, people become different;” the second half describes how a handsome young man in the bygone days has already turned into a white-haired old man now, looking pathetic in decrepitude. Poems like this, which grieves over the brevity of youth in front of a fine moment and a beautiful scene, were frequently found during the Southern dynasties, with Jiang Zong’s “Plum Flowers Drop” as a representative. However, with Liu’s poem, on the one hand, the style has become more lucid and the rhythm more sprightly, and on the other, emotionally it contains broader philosophical thinking, hence it is more beautiful and touching than the poems of earlier writers. Zhang Ruoxu’s “A Moonlit Night among Flowers by the Spring River,” is also a poem about one’s attachment for the spring season: In spring the river’s tides rise to the same level as the sea; Above the sea, the moon rises along with the tides. So bright, its shine follows the waves for thousands of miles, All along the spring river, the moonshine is seen everywhere! The river winds its way around the fragrant meadowland, The moon shines on the blossoming woods, which look like snow. The frost spreads in the air, but it seems not to be flying; Over the islets, the white sands become invisible. The river and the sky, of one color, are free from the tiniest dust; So clear and bright is the solitary round moon in the air. By the side of the river, who was the first to ever see the moon? The moon over the river—when did it first shine on men, One generation after another, human life goes on with no end; The moon over the river, year after year, looks just the same. No one knows who the moon over the river waits for; The only thing visible: the water that flows down the long river. A white cloud drifts away to the far, far distance; Green maples at the river mouth look so heart-breaking. Tonight, whose family does the man in the lonely boat belong to? Who is missing the beloved one at the tower in the moonshine? Over the tower, the lovely moon moves slowly around; It must be shining over the dressing table of the lonely maid. She rolls up the marble curtains, the moonshine still stays; She wipes it off the washing mallet, but it refuses to go. At this time, we both look at it, though we’re far apart; I wish I could follow the moonlight to shine upon my lord. Wild geese fly far, but they can never go beyond the moonshine;


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Fish and dragon swim and leap, making ripples in water. Last night, by the still pool, one dreamed of fallen petals, How sad, when spring’s half over, one’s not yet home. Spring, moving with the flow of the river, is almost gone; The moon, descending deep into the river, goes west again. The somber slanting moon is hidden in the mist over the sea; From far north to the southern end, the road is endlessly long. Who knows how many people are coming home in the moon? The descending moon vents its feelings in trees all along the river.

This poem has long since been well known, and it is indeed extraordinary. Elaborate and yet natural in structure, it moves from one idea to another in a smooth and spontaneous way. The style of the poem is lucid and lively, with a gentle and easy rhythm. It creates a remote but vivid imaginary world with rich and harmonious images. Philosophical thinking and feelings about life are merged into one in a highly artistic manner. Reading a Tang poem like this, one cannot help but marvel in awe. “A Moonlit Night among Flowers by the Spring River” contains some elements of the literature of the Southern dynasties, but it displays more of the poet’s extraordinary creative power. The superb level of its art implies the approaching of the climax of Tang poetry.

2. Poetry of the High Tang The “High Tang” discussed in this section refers to the period from Emperor Xuanzong’s Kaiyuan and Tianbao reigns until the An-Shi Rebellion broke out, a period during which Tang poetry, after brewing and fermenting over a long time, reached its pinnacle of art. Zhang Yue and Zhang Jiuling Zhang Yue (667–731) and Zhang Jiuling (678–740) successively served, during the early Xuanzong reign, as minister at the helm of the state. Both were fond of literature and enlisted the service of younger talents. For instance, when Zhang Yue was in charge, Zhang Jiuling, Wang Han and many famous men of letters were frequent visitors to his house; Zhang Jiuling appointed Meng Haoran as a staff member at the Jingzhou prefecture, promoted Wang Wei to the position of Reminder on the Right, and also encouraged or cared for Wang Changling and

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many poets. Such conduct on their part, as well as their personal fondness of poetry, played an obvious role in bringing prosperity to poetry in the High Tang period. Zhang Yue served through four imperial reigns beginning from Empress Wu, and he was also a leading statesman who assisted Emperor Xuanzong in establishing the great Kaiyuan reign. His poems are somewhat simple, maybe even a little crude, in language, but are heroic and forceful in manner in expressing his personal ambitions. Zhang Yue also liked to write about all kinds of great figures so as to reflect his own aspirations. “An Introductory Song of the Capital of Ye” is representative of poems of this kind. At its beginning the poem goes, “Don’t you see how Cao Cao started from nothing to compete for heaven’s boon,/ All those heroes stared at one another, and fought among themselves./ In daytime, they took their warriors to break enemy’s solid formations;/ At night, they welcomed poets to compose in fancy houses;” while the lines are condensed in style, they present vivid images of the characters. It closes with the lines of: “Try to ascend the Bronze Terrace where they sang and danced, / Where nothing, except the autumn wind, broke one’s heart.” Notwithstanding the conclusion that all the accomplishments of the heroes have passed into oblivion in time and tide, it remains high-spirited in tone. Such a heroic spirit gradually became an important mental outlook of the High Tang poetry. Zhang Jiuling was known for his noble personal integrity in politics. After he was dismissed from the position of prime minister when he clashed with Li Linfu and was pushed aside, he was especially concerned about his reputation in that respect. Many of his poems, accordingly, reflect his lofty and self-fulfilling attitude toward life. Artistically speaking, they often reveal his mind through discussion of things or express his feeling by describing scenes, and they sound tactful and refined. For example, his twelve poems in the series of “Reflections on Experience” all use the analogies of fragrant plants and beautiful being for the expression of his thought. Pieces like “Travel by Night on the Western River” and “Missing Someone Far Away while Looking at the Moon” reflect his own mind in the bright moonshine; these are masterpieces rich in implication. The first of the two is as follows, Long was the night, where did everyone go? Only I traveled in the bright and clear moonshine. Far and wide, there lied the firmament above,


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Dear and tender, my love for the home land. All external things stayed calm and still, At mid-stream, the water was fresh and clear. I thought about home-going watching leaves shedding in the woods. I sat alone in sorrow while the shining dew arose. There was only that crane at the islet Which cried at mid-night all of a sudden.

The bright, beautiful night scene depicted in the poem is filled with profound hidden feelings. The style of poems of this kind would have its impact on the less ostentatious poetic style of immediate successors like Meng Haoran and Wang Wei. Wang Changling, Li Qi, and Others There was a group of High Tang poets who, notwithstanding their lack of accomplishment in their official career, displayed their talent and poetic passion in numerous masterpieces, well known through the millennium, in an age full of idealism and creative power. It is difficult to classify them under any particular school, as each of them have their specific strength in poetic type and subject matter, though they all share a heroic and open-hearted spirit. Wang Changling and Li Qi, as well as Wang Han, Wang Zhihuan, and Cui Hao, were the most outstanding poets among them. Wang Han wrote “A Song of Liangzhou”: Fine grape wine, in cups that shine at night, We are to drink, while music in pipa is played on horseback; Drunk, we’ll lie on the sandy battlefield. Laugh not, my friend: How many have returned alive from war, since the ancient times?

Since death may come at any time, every single moment of life is worthy of being treasured. Indulgence in pleasure, even with some luxury, is a soldier’s way to mock death, and it also hints at an aura of sadness. Wang Zhihuan (688–742) wrote a famous poem also entitled “A Song of Liangzhou”: The yellow sands rise all the way up to the white clouds; A solitary city stands against mountains thousands of feet tall. Why should you, who plays the exotic flute, grieve about breaking willows? The spring wind never blows beyond the Jade Gate Pass.

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In its more popular version the opening line is different (“The Yellow River moves far up into the white clouds”), which was possibly revised by someone during its subsequent circulation. Framed in an extremely broad view, it depicts the desolation of the border city, and then stirs its reader with the reference to the sad tune of the exotic flute, though the poem remains vigorous in style from its majestic and vast scenery. Wang Changling (ca. 690–ca. 757) was the best known among this group of poets. Having passed the exam for Presented Scholar, he served only at junior positions in his life. After the An-Shi Rebellion broke out, he was killed on his way fleeing from the war by Lüqiu Xiao, Prefect of Bozhou. Wang Changling was at his best in heptasyllabic quatrains, wherein he most frequently dealt with the subject matter of life on the frontier. He and Li Bo have generally been considered as the two great masters of heptasyllabic quatrains among the Tang poets. His “Going out of the Fortress” has even been regarded as the very best quatrain from the poets of Tang (see Wang Shizhen’s Random Talk from the Garden of Art): Bright moon over castles: both go back to the ancient Qin and Han, Thousands of miles away at war, they have yet to return. As long as the Flying General from the Dragon City lives, He’d never allow the nomadic horsemen to get across the Yin mountains.

From the very beginning the poem traces the war on the frontier all the way back to its remote and continuous history, and reminds the reader that ever since the ancient times, people living in this region have found it hard to stay away from the destiny of going through the conflict of blood and fire. Later, it uses the hypothetical terms like “as long as” and “(h)e’d never allow” to express the wish for peace. However, precisely because the line about the “Flying General from the Dragon City” (which refers to a famous general like Li Guang of the Han dynasty) is merely a hypothetical condition, it implies instead the impossibility of peace. The poem is by no means profound, and yet it contains historical thinking and complex feelings within a very brief space of the text. Majestic, simple, and vigorous in style, it displays to its reader the power of poetic language. Some of his poems praise with enthusiasm the heroic spirit of soldiers on the front who sacrifice their own lives for the country, like the fourth of his “Song of Joining the Army: Seven Poems”:


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Over the Blue Sea, lengthy clouds darken the snowy mountains; The solitary castle stands far away, opposite the Jade Gate Pass. A hundred battles in the yellow sands wear even the golden armor; It’s not the time to return—not until we conquer the aliens.

What it reflects is a bold, straightforward and quite heroic spirit. Wang Changling also often adopts the form of the heptasyllabic quatrain for boudoir repining or palace laments, as in the first of “Songs of the Blue Mansion: Two Poems”: Riding on a white horse with golden saddle, he follows the Martial Emperor, Under a hundred thousand banners, they stay at the Imperial Hunting Park. A young woman sits upstairs at the mansion, playing her zither; From afar she watches the dust flying all the way into the palace.

The last line only tells how the young woman watches her husband galloping into the imperial palace, but her feeling of pride is already revealed between the lines. The poet blends human feeling and external scene into one piece, lively and vivid in just a few words. It is truly admirable talent. All three above-mentioned poets are known for their heptasyllabic quatrains, from which we may see the popularity and maturity of this poem form during the High Tang period. In simple language and easy rhythm, it was an apt form for condensed, succinct representation from careful refinement of the subject matter. Good poems in the form of heptasyllabic quatrain were also widely used as words for songs, so it was especially easy to memorize them and to popularize them extensively by singing. It played a significant role in promoting the popularity of poetry in the Tang society. Li Qi (690–ca. 751) passed the exam of the Presented Scholar and served during the Tianbao years. Later, he resigned from office and became a recluse, making trips to Luoyang and Chang’an. Several of his frontier poems in the old song form like “Ancient Song of Joining the Army” and “Ancient Topic” won him reputation with their solemn fervor and bold, unrestrained style, but some of his other poems, which strive to depict the personality of his characters with a touch of the biographical note, hold special features as in the vivid opening of “Saying Farewell to Liang Huang,” “Master Liang, a heroic man with high aspirations,/ Even in hardship, his courage tops anyone in the capital./ When he turns around to look, he’s like an eagle/ That has

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the will to fly and cry which no one knows.” In “Seeing Chen Zhangfu Off,” it’s the heroic lines of “Lord Chen, an honest, straight man is he,/ With his curly beard, broad brows, and a large forehead./ In his head he has stored ten thousand books;/ Never would he be resigned to a life in the wilds.” In “Presented to Zhang Xu,” the “Sage of the Running Script” is given a vivid description in the lines: “With his head uncapped, he crouched at his folding stool,/ And he howled loudly for a couple of times./ At an impulse, he’d splash ink onto the white wall,/ Brandishing his brush which moved like a shooting star.” When he wrote about these people, Li Qi was fond of representing their dauntless, unyielding and proud personality, and his description is quite fantastic and unusual, venting his own indignation at the same time. From these poems, we may also see the increasingly open admiration for individual freedom and dignity. Some of Li Qi’s poems on music are also quite famous. The poet is skilled in using ingenious analogies and associations to describe, through a combination of the aural and the visual, the variation of the musical melodies as well as the feelings represented therein. For example, in “Listening to Big Dong Playing a Hun Reed Flute, Also Presented in a Playful Mood to Executive Assistant Fang,” it goes, “In empty mountains, birds dispersed and then gathered again,/ Over thousands of miles, it’s sunny or shady from the floating clouds;/ At night, the young wild goose cried sadly after it lost its company;/ A Tartar boy wept about the mother he missed,” and “The somber sound suddenly changes into something free and easy,/ Like a high wind over the woods or rain falling on tiles,/ A bubbling spring splashing at treetops,/ Wild deer running, crying, down in the court.” The moving description therein, which simulates the sound of the music and explore its implications, is simply superb. Cui Hao (?-754) was the author of some poems on boudoir repining and the frontier. The best known poem of his is “Yellow Crane Tower” which was considered to be “the very best of heptasyllabic regulated poems from the Tang poets” by Yan Yu (Canglang’s Remarks on Poetry): Men of past were already gone, riding on yellow cranes; Here at this place, nothing is left but the Yellow Crane Tower. Yellow cranes, once gone, are never to return; Over a millennium, only white clouds hover in the vast. Every tree at the city stands clear in vision, by the river in sunshine; At the Parrot Islet, sweet-scenting grasses grow, ever so lush. In the twilight, I look for my homeland, but where is it? A mist hangs over the waves of the river—a sad sight indeed!


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The Yellow Crane Tower, the site of the legend about immortals flying into the sky riding on yellow cranes, becomes a station of Cui Hao’s wandering in life. Turning nothing into something, by referring to the yellow cranes which are never to return, he tells the impossibility of the dream about freedom and immortality in real life. In the twilight, when a heavy mist hangs over the water, looking in the distance at one’s homeland, which lies beyond one’s vision, not only reveals homesickness but also a sense of the ultimate absence of destination of a human being between heaven and earth. This poem still has a touch of the old song form, and may be considered improper in form by the strict standard of regulated verse. However, that is probably not because of the lack of sophistication in the grasp of the poetic form, but rather due to the need for the free expression of emotions. Meng Haoran and Wang Wei Meng Haoran and Wang Wei are generally considered to be representative of landscape poetry and poetry about life in the countryside among Tang poets. Meng Haoran (689–740) was a poet who, notwithstanding his great reputation, remained a cotton-clad commoner all his life. For a long time he was a recluse living at his home town of Xiangyang. He also made several trips to famous scenic places. Most of his poems are related to the natural scenery of his homeland and on his excursions. He was the first among Tang poets to spend much of his effort in writing poems on landscape. Landscape poetry had already developed for a long time before the Tang, but Meng Haoran still made his singular contributions in the tradition. This is displayed not only in the close interweaving of scene and feeling, so frequently found in his poems, but also in the imaginary world in these poems, which is so simple, lucid and refreshing. This, again, has something to do with the special features of Meng Haoran’s poetic language, which is usually plain and spontaneous, even somewhat bland at times; and yet, being meticulously polished, it manages to represent a profound and vast imaginary world. Take, for example, “Song of Returning to Deer Gate Mountain at Night”: At the mountain temple, the bells are ringing, the twilight is approaching; I hear noise from those who race to get on the ferry by the Fishing Bridge. People go to the riverside village along the sandy shore; I also ride in a boat, on my way back to the Deer Gate.

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chapter nine At the Deer Gate, the moon shines through the misty woods; before I know it, I’ve come to where the ancient recluse lived. Doors in rock, path in pines, have long been quiet and forlorn; Only a recluse moves around here, back and forth, late at night.

Along the route from the ferry at Fishing Bridge to the Deer Gate Mountain, time and scenes keep changing on the way, and the poetic world also becomes increasingly quiet and secluded. When all the people, who have made the noise, have returned to their respective home, the poet makes his appearance, gracefully, away from the madding crowd. Here, man’s itinerary in real life overlaps with his spiritual journey. Apparently, the poem does not use any unusual rhetoric; all it does is to give a chronological account of the itinerary of the return in the evening in a natural spontaneous style “like floating clouds and flowing water.” In addition, we have another good example in “Visiting an Old Friend’s Village”: My old friend provided chicken and rice And invited me to his farmhouse. Green trees circled the village, Blue hills stretched beyond the town. Through open windows, we faced field and garden; Holding a cup of wine, we talked about farming details. “By the time of the Doubled Ninth Day, Come again to see the chrysanthemums.”

It recounts an old friend’s invitation—some daily dishes are offered, and they talk about trifling matter in the farm and village. It seems to be a mere record of insignificant daily life, and yet the prosaic description is filled with simple and kind human feelings. Furthermore, the seemingly carefree idleness stands in sharp contrast to the affectation, anxiety, and nervousness, unavoidable in the world of officialdom in the city, thus providing something to loosen up the reader’s mind. The language and imaginary world of Meng Haoran’s poetry are sometimes close to those of Tao Yuanming’s poetry. However, the deep implication of Tao’s poetry has something to do with the profundity of its abstract thinking. Meng’s poetry, on the other hand, does not contain such philosophical content; its deep implication is generated from the savoring and experiencing of life itself. As a consequence of that, Meng’s poetry sounds more intimate to us. This kind of poetry creates an imaginary world with complex and intense emotions, without the use of any special diction or dazzling rhetoric, which shows that poets had developed an increasingly acute and minute sense of poetic flavor at the time.


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After receiving his degree of Presented Scholar Wang Wei (ca. 701– 761) served in the capital over a long time, and was promoted to senior positions in government. A versatile writer, he was a master of music and an even greater painter, honored later as the forerunner of the Southern Sect of Painting. He was also a poet of great attainments in an allround way, having written masterpieces in various poetic forms and on all kinds of subjects. In short, in the world of High Tang poetry, Wang Wei stood out as a poet with great artistic accomplishments. Some of Wang Wei’s early poems are high-spirited and vigorous in tone. Take, for example, the first one of the “Songs of Youth”: Fine wine from Xinfeng is ten thousand coins for a gallon, Roving warriors in Xianyang are mostly young men. “We meet as strangers, but now I’ll drink to your health, my friend; Just allow me to tie up my horse at the drooping willow by the tower.”

This is a vivid description of the carefree and unrestrained manner of the chivalrous young man. In addition, Wang Wei’s frontier poems, written in his early and middle years, are also fervent and uninhibited in style. In “On a Mission to the Borders,” the lines of “In the vast desert, a solitary smoke rises up straight;/ Beyond the long river sets the round sun” offer an extraordinary and powerful view of the frontier, grandiose and spectacular, with simple and straightforward contours. However, among Wang Wei’s poems, the most characteristic ones, and also what best represent his creative power, are still those on landscape and on his life in the countryside. In general, after he reached his middle age, because of his weariness about official career and the influence of Buddhist thinking, Wang Wei assumed a low-key attitude in politics. He set up a retreat at Mt. Zhongnan and later also built up his Wangchuan Mountain Lodge, living a life half as an official and half as a recluse. Beauty in nature turned into the inexhaustible subject matter of his poetry. In discussing Wang Wei’s poems on landscape and on countryside life, two special features have frequently been noted. First, as Su Shi says, his “poetry incorporates paintings” (“Written on Mojie’s (Wang Wei’s) Image of Mist and Rain at Lantian”); second, his poetry often has a touch of Zen Buddhism. Being a painter and also a devout Buddhist, it was only natural for him to hold such special features in his work. However, it need to be pointed out that in terms of the former, Wang Wei’s poems often involve psychological elements in their description of the subtle changes of natural scenes, which is difficult to represent in painting. In terms of the latter, Wang Wei’s poems are

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always rich in a sense of vigorous beauty, even when they represent the quiet and profundity of scenes in nature. What they convey is a love for life, not the Buddhist idea of getting out of the human world. In short, Wang Wei, after all, was a poet of great feeling and sensitivity. Compared to those of Meng Haoran, Wang Wei’s poems on landscape and on countryside life present an imaginary world that is chaste and beyond daily life. Take, for example, “Autumn Evening at the Mountain Lodge”: In empty mountains, after a new rain, By evening, it feels truly like autumn. The bright moon shines through pines, The limpid spring flows over rocks. Bamboos make a noise: girls return from washing clothes; Lotus flowers stir: a fishing boat comes down the stream. So let the spring fragrance pass, it matters not, You, my friends, can just as well stay.

It is a serene and refreshing world in a beautiful, dreamlike light. “You, my friends, can just as well stay.” The line may be understood as an appeal to the philistine human nature for a poetic life. An extraordinary strength of Wang Wei’s scene description is that he is able to use the precisely proper language, through his acute and meticulous sensitivity, to depict the constantly varying light, color and sound of things. For instance, in the poem “In the Mountains,” the first two lines already provide a colorful, painting-like image: “At the brook, the white rocks stand out;/ It turns cold, the red leaves turn sparse.” The next two lines go, “Along the mountain path, it actually is not raining, / Still the greenish void dampens our clothes.” In the moist mountains, the green color is described as if it could be spreading. What fanciful imagination! Also, in “Deer Enclosure”: In empty mountains, no humans are seen; But human voices are still heard. Reflected light enters the deep woods, And shines on the green moss.

In the empty mountains, no human beings are in sight, hence the human voices become somewhat elusive; dim sunlight gleams in the air, but is quietly failing. All this demonstrate the indefinite nature of “something” versus “nothing.” Lines three and four of the poem have their origin in a couplet of “Composed by Order while Attending an Imperial Banquet at the Talent-Gathering Hall” by Liu Xiaochuo of the


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Liang: “Reflected light enters the woods by the pool,/ Lingering beams shine on spring and rocks.” The excessive redundancy in Liu’s poem offsets the strength of the two lines. Wang Wei, however, transforms the lines and rearranges the images, creating an imaginary world that is both simple and profound. One may see herein the relation between Tang poetry and the poetry of the Southern dynasties. As a poet with comprehensive artistic accomplishments, Wang Wei displays a varied style in his poetry even within the range of the subject matters of landscape and countryside life. For example, a broad and wide imaginary world is presented in the lines of his “Mt. Zhongnan,”: “White clouds, as I look back, converge;/ Blue mist, upon my entering, disappears;/ The plains around the middle peak vary in sight,/ Shade or shine, the vales also look different;” or in the lines of his “Watching in Distance above the Han River,” “The river flows beyond heaven and earth,/ The mountains stay in and out of sight;/ The city hovers above the river mouth in front,/ The waves move even the distant horizon.” In “Farm House at Weichuan,” the serenity and harmony of life in the farm are brought out in a light and spontaneous style approximating that of Tao Yuanming. In addition, Wang Wei is good at representing, in a simple but meaningful way, some universal human feelings by using the plain language of the folk song and natural sounds. Take, for example, “Seeing off Yuan Er (“Yuan the Second”) on His Mission to Anxi”: A morning rain at the city clears up the light dust, At the guesthouse, the new willows stand, lush and green. How about take another cup of wine, my lord? Once out of the Yangguan Pass, no old friend will be seen.

This poem was set to music and used as a valedictory song during the Tang period, also known as “Yangguan Pass in Three Refrains,” which showed how moving it was. Wang Wei was one of the great Tang poets with the most lasting and profound influence on later generations. Poetry on landscape and countryside life went through a summing up and remarkable enhancement at his hands, and moreover, all poets who sought after the world of “subtle enlightenment” and “spiritual charm” honored him as their forerunner. Contemporaries whose style approximated that of Wang and Meng included Chu Guangxi, Chang Jian, etc. Chu Guangxi wrote many poems on countryside life. A well beloved one is a little poem of scene

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description, “Fishing Bay,” wherein the lines have fine details: “The pool is so limpid: one suspects that it’s not so deep;/ Lotus stirs: one knows that fish have dispersed.” Chang Jian is skilled in depicting scenes of landscape; his “Written on the Wall of a Buddhist Lodge behind the Broken Hill Temple” is very well known: In early morning, I entered the ancient temple; The rising sun was shining on the tall woods. A path through bamboos led to the quiet place, At the Buddhist lodge, lush were flowers and trees. Scenes in the hills cheered up the birds, Reflections in the pool cleared up human mind. All around there, the world was so quiet, Only the ringing of the bells lingered.

Compared to Wang Wei, it is somewhat a little too obvious in its use of Buddhist associations; nevertheless it still succeeds in creating an imaginary world of quiet seclusion, and the two couplets in the middle are extremely refined in phrasing. Gao Shi and Cen Shen Both Gao Shi and Cen Shen served as assistants to military generals, they were both masters of frontier poems in the old style, especially in the heptasyllabic old style, and their poems are filled with a heroic fervor, hence they have been known side by side as “Gao and Cen” since the Tang and Song dynasty. Gao Shi (ca. 704–765) had little social success in his early years; he started serving as a staff member of a regional official only when he was about fifty years old. After the An-Shi Rebellion broke out, he began to be put in important positions. The Old History of the Tang remarked, “Since the beginning of the Tang, Shi was the only poet with an illustrious official career.” However, most of his extant poems were written before his social success. Gao Shi cherished great ambitions and was by nature unrestrained, but he did not have much social success over a long period. His poems, accordingly, are often indignant and passionate in tone. In “Presented to District Defender Yan on the Double Ninth Day,” it goes: The white sun shines atop the eaves: one should have valued its light, The yellow flowers beneath the fence: for whom do they bloom? The traveler faces the frost, but does not yet have warm clothes, The master only buys some wine when he finds the money.


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Su Qin, languid and forlorn, was shunned by most people; Cai Ze, unsuccessful in life, was looked down upon by others. Even if I climb atop a hill, I’d feel heartbroken I had better sit alone and scratch my head in vain.

In original it is a heptasyllabic regulated poem with antithetical couplets throughout the entire text. It is a lament of his bad fortune in content, but it is dynamic and forceful in tone. The strength of the poem has its origin in the pride of the poet’s inner mind. The lack of clothes and money only makes people like Su Qin and Cai Ze “languid and forlorn,” and “unsuccessful in life.” Since his talent remains unrecognized, he can only sit alone and scratch his head, while the white sun keeps moving and the yellow flowers bloom, all in vain. As a matter of fact, before he went to serve on the regional staff, he was once appointed for a local position at Fengqiu, though he resigned shortly. The poem “Fengqiu District” speaks his mind honestly: “I used to be a fisherman, a woodcutter, in the wilds by the ancient marsh,/ All my life, I am by nature someone who stays aloof./ I should have been able to sing madly in the marsh and grassland,/ Would I rather serve as a lowly clerk, and go through wind and dust?/ At first, I thought that there isn’t much to do at a small district,/ Now, at the office, every single matter has a deadline./ My heart is broken whenever I have to bow to superiors,/ And I feel so sad when I have to get commoners flogged . . .” On the one hand, it is one’s human dignity at stake, on the other, the degradation and lack of freedom at the lowly official position; a serious conflict occurs between two, making life unbearable for him. Yin Fan observes in The Collection of the Great Souls of the Yellow River and Sacred Mountains, “Shi’s poetry abounds in words from the bottom of his heart, and it breathes of his integrity, therefore his works were admired both in the court and by civilians.” The straight and forceful expression of feeling is indeed a remarkable special feature of Gao Shi’s poetry. This, as well as his consistently selfconfident and heroic personality, account for the robust and vigorous style of his poetry. Among Gao Shi’s poems, those in the heptasyllabic old style are the best known. Besides the above-cited “Fengqiu District,” another representative poem is “Song of the North” on the topic of the frontier: The warfare of Han took place in the northeast, The Han general left home to defeat the remaining foes. A man by nature liked to run wild in heroic acts;

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chapter nine The Son of Heaven, unusually, granted him an interview. Beating drums and gongs, the army marched to Elm Pass, Under banners it winded its way through the Brown Rocks. The commandant sent an express mail from the Big Desert: The Khan’s battle fire had lit up the Wolf Mountain! At the far frontiers, the land looked desolate, Tartar horsemen invaded amid wind and rain. In the vast desert, in late autumn, grasses withered; The sun set at the solitary castle, few were still fighting. Having received the imperial favor, he ignored the enemies; Exhausted at the foothills, he failed to break the siege. In steel armors, far on the campaign for so long, they toiled hard; Their wives must have shed tears after their departure. While the young women were heartbroken south at hometown; The soldier, north at the border, looked back all in vain. In this savage land, boundless and bare, what was there to see? The sky above the battlefield, over the long hours, turned cloudy. Through the cold night, only sound of the time watches was heard. They looked at one another: blood stained their shining swords. To die for the state, they hardly had any concern for merits. Don’t you see, my friend, it was so hard fighting on the battlefield, Even today, everyone had General Li in their mind!

Since the Liang, numerous similar poems in the heptasyllabic song form, which used the hardship of warfare and the yearning for each other between the men on the military campaign and their wives left at home, perennially appeared, but his poem still stands out in excellence. In terms of its form, it generally changes its rhyme pattern every four lines; within each section, the first two lines are loose in form, while the next two lines use antithesis, and the variation of relaxation alternated with tension helps to provide a robust tempo. In terms of its content, it avoids the slow-paced elaboration and keeps changing scenes rapidly, incorporating conflicting emotions by placing the bravery of soldiers, the unfairness in the army, the yearning for each other between the men on the campaign and their women at home side by side in combination. It not only broadens the implications of the poem, but also gives it more momentum, making it more dynamic and forceful. The special features of its art, of displaying dynamism and momentum within a neat and orderly format, are quite inspiring to later poets. Compared with the ordinary authors of frontier poetry of the Tang dynasty, Cen Shen (715–769) had far more first-hand experience in life. After he was recommended for and passed the civil service


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examinations at the age of thirty, Cen Shen was twice sent to the frontier, and for many years served as a staff member in the region which is in Xinjiang today. His frontier poems mostly depict, in details, events from his personal experience or scenes that he saw with his own eyes, and rarely would he write only in generality. Curious by nature, Cen Shen presents in his poems customs, things and landscapes of an exotic nature, opening up an extremely spectacular world of imagination for frontier poetry. A banquet unique in style is found in the lines: “Accompanied by music from pipa and bamboo flutes,/ The young men from the alien tribes sang in chorus;/ Farm cattle, barbecued in total, and boiled wild camels,/ Nice wine from the Cross River in golden cups.” (“Composed after Getting Drunk at the Banquet of the Governor of Jiuquan”) An exotic dance: “Young women with pretty faces, dainty and glamorous,/ In light silk robes, sewn with golden thread, decorated with bright flowers;/ Swaying their skirts, turning their sleeves, like snow a-flying,/ Whirling to the right and left, they make a whirlwind.” (“A Song about Governor Tian’s Consorts Who Danced like Lotus Flowers Whirling to the North”) A view beyond the eyes of the ordinary: “The northern wind rolled over the ground, the white grass broke,/ In the borderland, snow swirled in the eighth month,/ Suddenly, as if the spring wind had arrived at night,/ Flowers were in bloom on thousands of pear trees.” (“A Song of the White Snow: Presented to Administrative Assistant Wu before He Returned to the Capital”) In the harsh but stunningly beautiful natural environment, a life in the military was as heroic as it was strenuous. In “A Song of the Galloping Horses Plain: Presented for the Troops’ Launching of the Campaign to the West” it goes: Don’t you see, my lord, the Galloping Horses Plain, stretching along the Sea of Snow, where the yellow sands, level and vast, stretch all the way to horizon? At the Wheel Terrace, in the ninth month, wind howls at night, all along the plain, jagged rocks spread, as big as dippers; driven by the wind, rocks roll along all over the place. The grass are turning yellow, the Turkish horses are sleek, west of the Golden Mountain, the smoke of dust arises, a great Chinese general is moving his army west. The general does not take off his golden armor at night, his army marches at night, their spears touch one another, Over the hair of the horses the snow, steamed in sweat, turn into strings of coins that become ice; inside the tent, one tries to write an order, but the ink is frozen.

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chapter nine Hearing about this, the savage horsemen must have been daunted and lost their heart to engage in a close combat; At the west gate of the Cheshi city, the triumphant army stands in pride.

Not infrequently in his poems, Cen Shen expresses personal feelings that are different from those from the outsider’s supposition, as in his “An Evening Party with Administrative Assistants in the Liangzhou Guesthouse”: The crescent moon comes out to hang over the city; over the city, the moon arises to shine on Liangzhou. In Liangzhou, seven li in length, a hundred thousand families live, half of the local tribes know how to play the pipa. On the pipa, a song is being played, which breaks one’s heart in the howling wind, through the long, long night. On the staff of the border camp, I find many old friends, old friends who I haven’t seen for three or five years. In front of the Flower-Gate Tower, autumn grasses stand, how could we see one another grow old in humble poverty? how many times, in our life, can we have a hearty laugh? now that we meet to drink, let us go on a spree!

It is a gathering of the mid-level officials who have come to the borderland because they are unwilling to live a humble and poor life. Realizing that there is far more sorrow than joy in life, they can only seek some fun in wine, so they will not stop until they get intoxicated. Cen Shen’s poetry is known for its fantastic vision and majestic beauty. It is not only because of its unordinary contents, but also due to its form which deliberately seeks the extraordinary as in the two poems cited in the above. The first poem changes its rhyme pattern every three lines and uses rhyme in every line, creating a singularly urgent tempo. The second one changes its rhyme pattern every two lines, except for the last four lines, which use the same rhyme; five rhymes are used in turn in the twelve lines. Also, in this poem, the last words of a line are often used at the beginning of the next line, which help to create a revolving, spinning effect. The singular tempo and style of the poem work very well with its thread of thinking, which leaps from one thing to another. Li Bo the Man Li Bo (701–761) was born in Suiye, one of four western border towns of the Tang empire, with the seat of its government located in today’s


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Kyrgyzstan. Some early documents, such as Li Yangbing’s “Preface to the Collection of the Thatch Cottage,” call Li Bo a native of Chengji, Longxi, but according to the research of Mr. Chen Yinke, he was actually from a family of sinicized minority groups of the western region. In his boyhood, he moved with his family to Changlong, Mianzhou (in modern Sichuan). In the thirteenth year of the Kaiyuan reign, when Li Bo was twenty-five years old, he left Shu and traveled through Hubei, Hunan and arrived in the regions of Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Later, he lived at Yuncheng (in modern Hubei), and married the granddaughter of Xu Yushi, a former prime minister. He continued his travel afterwards, leaving his footmarks everywhere in the Central Plains and in Shandong, and once also reached Chang’an. During his travel Li Bo befriended a large number of men of letters, renowned officials, and distinguished aristocrats, and his fame as a poet spread far and wide. In the first year of the Tianbao reign (742), Li Bo was summoned to the capital by Emperor Xuanzong and served at the Hanlin Academy. When he arrived at the capital, he was accorded a grand reception by Xuanzong. Proud of his success, he set his sights high for his career. However, shortly afterwards, he was slandered by jealous ranking courtiers and began to consider his departure. In the spring of the third year of the Tianbao reign, he was granted permission to return to his home. After he left Chang’an, he got acquainted with Du Fu in Luoyang, and the two became good friends. He continued traveling subsequently, leading a wandering life in Henan, Shandong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang. In the fourteenth year of the Tianbao reign (755), the An-Shi Rebellion broke out. Li Bo was living as a recluse in Mt. Lushan at the time. Li Lin, the Prince of Yong, who led his troops eastward down the river from Jiangling, invited Li Bo to join his military staff. Emperor Suzong, afraid that Li Lin might set up a separatist regime, sent troops on a punitive expedition. Li Lin was killed in defeat, and Li Bo was also imprisoned for the offence. Soon he was exiled to Yelang (in modern Guizhou). When he reached Mt. Wushan, he was granted permission to return under an amnesty. In the first year of the Baoying reign, Li Bo died of a disease at the home of Li Yangbing, an elder clansman, in Dangtu. Among ancient Chinese men of letters, Li Bo was quite unique in life story, personality and thinking. It is controversial whether he was a descendant of minority people, but it was rather strange that his family, albeit not that of an official, was nevertheless extremely wealthy,

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which led to the supposition that Li Ke, his father, was a prominent merchant. The education that Li Bo received in his boyhood was also extraordinary, as in his own lines, “At five I learned about the ‘Six Jia’1/ At ten I browsed the Hundred Schools,” (“A Letter Presented to Administrator Pei of Anzhou”) “At fifteen I browsed unusual books,” (“Presented to Councilor Zhang Gao”), which imply nothing whatsoever that underscored the importance of Confucian culture. On the contrary, in his other works, one could often find a ridicule of Confucian scholars, even Confucius himself. Li Bo was a man with an extremely broad range of life’s interest that could not be fully satisfied in reality. He thirsted for active actions and went in pursuit of all possible success and pleasure: “At fifteen I looked for the immortals,/ and have continued the search ever since.” (“Inspiration”) When Sima Chengzhen, a famous Taoist priest, met Li Bo for the first time at Jiangling, he immediately praised the latter as one who “possessed the style and essence of the immortal, who one could keep company in the spiritual expedition outside this world.” (Li Bo’s “Preface to ‘The Rhapsody of the Great Roc’ ”) A life in search of the Taoist immortality embodies a yearning for transcendence of the ordinary and vulgar, as well as a dream of eternal life. Li Bo led a life of wandering for years, traveling to almost all the famous mountains and rivers in the state. It was not only related to his search for immortality, but also because the beauty of nature gave him comfort and pleasure in life. He indulged himself in heavy drinking, declaring that “A hundred years consist of thirty-six thousand days,/ and each day one should pour down three hundred cups,” (“Song of Xiangyang”) because one’s spirit became extremely lofty in the world of intoxication. Li Bo also had a strong touch of the chivalrous. Wei Hao observed that he “had sparkling eyes and opened his mouth like a hungry tiger . . . Chivalrous in youth, he killed several people with a knife with his own hands.” (“Preface to the Collected Writings of Academician Li”) He himself recalled that he “traveled east to Weiyang [Yangzhou], and spent more than three hundred thousand in less than a year, and would extend relief to anyone from a good family who was in dire straits.” (“A Letter Presented to Administrator Pei of Anzhou”) It was easy to perceive

1 It refers to the ancient Taoist study of the 10 Heavenly Stems and 12 Earthly Branches, two sets of signs with one being taken from each set to form 60 pairs, designating years, months and days. Jia is the first of the Heavenly Stems.


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from this how generous, charitable, and uninhibited he was by nature. As a matter of fact, Li Bo also thought highly of himself politically: “I am willing to be of assistance to you in bringing peace and harmony within the entire region;” (“A Letter in Reply to the Proclamation of District Defender Meng, Composed on Behalf of Shoushan”) it was the desired platform for him to lead a glorious life. In addition, Wei Hao’s “Preface to the Collected Writings of Academician Li” also mentions how Li Bo traveled in the company of “fine horses and beautiful concubines,” also a romantic life style of the bygone times. In short, Li Bo was an extraordinary genius full of dreams, and his dynamic and unrestrained character was inimitable among ancient Chinese poets. As a consequence, Li Bo was not only admired, quite naturally, by his contemporaries, but also adored forever by posterity. The Art of Li Bo’s Poetry Advocacy of freedom and personal dignity, love for life and Nature, and true feelings towards relatives and friends, and even the masses— these are the most outstanding and valuable implications of Li Bo’s poetry. The spirit of honoring individual values since the Wei-Jin times and the heroic temperament of the High Tang culture are integrated in his poems; in addition, they also have a touch of the consciousness of the commoners. In a new historical environment, he inherited and developed the fine tradition of classical poetry, made full use of his artistic genius which was based on his great vigor in life, and became a brilliant superstar in the realm of Chinese poetry. What Li Bo desired was a glorious life which had to be materialized through extraordinary accomplishments; what he expected, on the other hand, was a life of freedom, which meant that he could not yield to those with power and influence. In his time, these two could not be unified, but Li Bo, as far as his attitude of life was concerned, never gave up the ideal of such a combination. In his poetry, Li Bo likes to praise heroic figures in times of upheavals, because on such a kind of historical stages, the actions of these heroes are able to take more initiative and are freer, and their images more powerful and striking. He always portrays these heroes as he wishes, making them substitutes or foils for himself. Take, for example, No. 10 of his “Old Airs” which writes about Lu Zhonglian of the Warring States period: “The bright moon arises from the bottom of the sea,/ and once it emerges, its light is shining on all;/ Repulsing

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the Qin troops, his fame spread,/ and its prestige lingers over posterity;/ Despising the gift of a thousand gold, / he looks back on the plain and smiles.” Here, Lu Zhonglian makes the Qin troops retreat with such grace and ease. Perhaps that is the way Li Bo himself would help others to solve their problems in his imagination. There is also Li Yiji in his “Chant of Liangfu”: “Don’t you see, my friend, how the drinker of Gaoyang arose from the greenwood,/ and made a deep bow to the Lord with a Tall Nose from Shandong;/ On entering the door he bowed not but spoke in eloquence,/ and two women stopped washing and came to his side;/ Eastward he took seventy-two cities of Qi,/ and commanded Chu and Han like playing with fleabane;/ A crazy person, down and out, could be still like that,/ Let alone a warrior in front of all the heroes!” Li Yiji was by no means a key figure in the contention between Chu and Han, but Li Bo chooses to describe him as such. In further imagination, he deduces that a “warrior” like himself should be even better than a “crazy guy” like Li Yiji. Li Bo could not stand lowering his head to climb up the ladder of power with hard effort. In his imagination, the way of his political career was to reach directly the senior rank of the grand councilor from a cotton-clad commoner, to make great accomplishments in bringing peace to the state and in coming to the rescue of the people, and afterward: “Dusting his clothes, he left after his success,/ and led a free and carefree life at the waterside.” (“Suffering from the Rain at the Guesthouse of Princess Yuzhen”) After he came to the official circles of Chang’an, he surely would not go down on his knees to observe the set rules of the hierarchy. “I sing praise to the Master of the Ten Thousand Carriages up the Nine Layers,/ but poke fun at the talents at the crimson steps and the green doors.” He might as well eulogize the emperor; as for the courtiers, all he could do was to join them in making fun of one another. When he found out that he was not tolerated by the bureaucrats, he would even give up the imperial favor. Astonished, he angrily denounced the absurdity of such a world: “Roosters gather in flocks to fight for food,/ while the phoenix flies alone, with no company;/ Lizards mock the dragon,/ fish eyes are passed off as pearls;/ Mo Mu wore brocade robes,/ Xi Shi carried firewood on back.”2 (“Song of Minggao: Seeing off Cen, Gentleman

2 “Lizards” in the third line are in original the yanting (Lygosoma indicum). Mo Mu was the ugly wife of the legendary Huang Di while Xi Shi was a legendary beauty.


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Summoned to Office”) In “A Dream Trip to Mt. Tianmu: Chanted at Departure” he raises a loud cry: “How can I knit my brows and bend my back to serve the power elites,/ which keeps me from feeling and looking cheerful?” To him, “feeling and looking cheerful” was so important because he could not feel constrained or oppressed. However, it was equally impossible to have Li Bo live high up in the cloudy mountains as a recluse. After joining the staff of Li Lin, the Prince of Yong, he excitedly dreamed about the chance of turning the perilous tide as soon as he took the initiative, like Xie An in the Eastern Jin: “As long as you use Xie Anshi from the Eastern Hills,/ he’ll bring peace on the border while he talks and laughs.” (“Song of the Eastern Tour of the Prince of Yong”) Actually, it was quite dubious whether Li Bo was capable of engaging himself in political activities within the complex power structure. As a poet, however, he provided a picture of life that was extraordinarily spectacular for his contemporaries. To Li Bo, life’s pleasures were more than political success only; full satisfaction in various other aspects was also desirable, such as in drinking: Don’t you see, my friend, the waters of the Yellow River come from the sky and run all the way to the sea, never to return? Don’t you see: up the high hall, by a bright mirror, one’s sad for the white hair: it’s like black silk threads in the morning, but by night, white as snow? In life, when we succeed, we should enjoy ourselves to the full, we should not allow our golden goblets lie empty in the moonshine. It’s Heaven’s will that we were born to be of some use; we might spend a thousand gold pieces, but more are to come. Let’s boil some sheep and butcher some cattle for our meals, and we should drink three hundred cups when we gather for a party. Master Cen, Man of Crimson Hill, Bring in the wine, and don’t let our cups stay idle! I’m going to sing you a song, please, my friends, may I have your ears? Bells and drums, fancy food, these are nothing so valuable. I only wish I could stay drunk, never to wake up! Sages and talents since the ancient times all lived in solitude; fame survived for those drinkers only. In the past, the Prince of Chen had a banquet at his Palace of Peace and Joy; with wine, ten thousand a gallon, they had so much joy and fun. Oh our host, why would you say you’re short of money?

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chapter nine Just go buy more so that I may drink with my friends. A fine piebald horse, A fur coat, a thousand gold in worth. I call on my boy to take them out in exchange for some fine wine, So that we, you and I, could remove our sorrow for ten thousand years! (“Bring in the Wine”)

No one had ever talked about the matter of drinking with such a force of justice and in such a passionate manner. In general, in defense of a life of pleasure, one would try to look for some noble justification, on more sublime ground. Li Bo, on the other hand, felt that to indulge in pleasure was one’s right in life, and it was nothing that one needed to gloss over. In addition, drinking could liberate the original human nature from the bondage of etiquette and decorum, and retrieve its inherent sincerity. Li Bo’s drinking poems are always full of the flavor of childlike innocence, as shown in the above-cited line “Oh our host, why would you say that you’re short of money?” One may find another example in “Drinking in the Company of a Recluse in the Hills”: “The two of us toast each other: flowers bloom in the hills;/ one cup, another cup, and still another cup;/ I’m drunk, I want to sleep, you’d better leave for now/ Tomorrow, if you so desire, come with a lute in your arms.” These poems are so much loved because one could perceive therein Li Bo’s frank and honest personality and his passionate love for life. Nature, to Li Bo, was an intimate friend as he often blended his feelings into scenes in nature, and then found another self from nature in return. Take, for example, “Getting across the Jingmen Ferry: Composed for Those Who Saw Me Off,” which he wrote when he first came out of Shu: The ferry was far outside the Jingmen, I’ve come from the land of Chu in my travel; The mountains come to an end, the plains extend, The river keeps flowing into the vast wild; The moon descends: a mirror hovering in the sky, Clouds grow: towers rising in the sea. I still love the waters from my homeland which Run, thousands of miles, with the boat on its way.

Li Bo left the Western Shu where he was born and brought up. Feeling satisfied with himself, he was like a bird ready to flap its wings. At this time, he came to the foothill of Mt. Jingmen; all he could see there was the vast sky and earth, the boundless plains, and the Yangtze, which


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heretofore flew within the narrow channel among lofty mountains, running towards the broad stretch of land in front. Didn’t all this symbolize a wide world that was about to be in his possession? Li Bo’s heroic and unconstrained personality, with a passionate love for freedom, accounted for his preference to describe the magnificent mountains and rivers and their dynamism. By his description, the Yellow River and the Yangtze run with an unobstructed force: “Running thousands of miles, the Yellow River shakes the mountains;/ its whirlpools revolve around the western lands sounding like thunders/. . . A giant demon roars and splits the mountains apart,/ its huge waves shoot their way to the eastern sea;” (“Song of the Cloud Terrace at the Western Sacred Mountain: Seeing Off the Master of the Crimson Hill”) or: “Climbing high up, I face a great view between heaven and earth,/ the great river runs away, boundless, never to return;/ Yellow clouds stretch for thousands of miles, wind blows;/ nine streams flow down the snowy mountains in their white waves.” (“Song of Mt. Lushan: Sent to Lu Xuzhou, the Attendant Censor”) By his description, the mountain peaks are jaggy, lofty, and majestic. The famous “Hardship of the Way to Shu” uses an exclamation at its opening: “Y-eee! Sh-ooo! Sh-eee! How perilous! So high! The way to Shu is hard, harder than going up the sky!” Afterwards, it devotes much space to the description and highlighting, from many a different angle, of how rugged, steep and towering the Shu mountains are, with a startling effect. Li Bo was surely also good at composing landscape poems with a graceful imagination; however, as decided by his personality, the former is more characteristic of his style. Li Bo certainly kept more of his emotions for people around him. He loved himself, and from this also loved others. Let us have a look at his poem, “Long Separation”: I have not been home for several spring seasons; Out the jade window, the cherries have flowered five times. Now there came the letter with the gem-like words; I opened the envelope; it made me heave a sigh. At this time, I’m so heartbroken that she wanted to part. She stopped combing and tying up her greenish cloudy hair. My grief is like a whirling wind that scatters the white snow. Last year, I sent her a letter talking about the Sun Terrace, This year, I sent another, again hurrying her to come. East wind, oh, east wind, Blow the Cloud Messenger westward for me! I’ve waited for her, but she’s not coming, Flower petals fall in silence, and lie with the green moss.

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According to Wei Hao’s “Preface to the Collected Writings of Academician Li,” Li Bo first married a woman from the Xu family, then he “paired off with Liu,” but “Liu departed,” and he had two more marriages afterwards. The poem above was composed by Li Bo in Henan after he received a letter of farewell from Ms. Liu in the Wu area.3 It is obvious from the poem that Li Bo twice wrote her letters, asking, and eagerly awaiting, her to join his company, but for some reason Ms. Liu was unable to come and even decided to part from him. Li Bo, “heartbroken” notwithstanding, does not reprove her at all in the poem; instead he thinks more of her agony, as if he could imagine how grief-stricken she is. It is an extremely moving poem. In particular, in ancient China wherein the social status of women was quite low, it was quite unusual and hence deserving praise for Li Bo to treat a woman who took the initiative to leave him like he did. He was proud to the strong and powerful, but sympathetic to the humble and weak. Even more of Li Bo’s poems about friendship have enjoyed great popularity. For instance, “Yellow Crane Pavilion: Seeing Meng Haoran Off to Guangling” and “Sent to Wang Changling from Afar on Hearing that He Was Demoted to Longbiao” were composed for two famous poets, but “Presented to Wang Lun” was written for an ordinary commoner: Li Bo, riding in a boat, was about to leave on a trip, Suddenly he heard someone stamping and singing a-shore. The Peach Flower Pool is a thousand feet deep, But not as deep as the love of Wang Lun, who came to see me off.

Li Bo’s poems of valediction of this kind are always full of deep feelings, and written in a sprightly tone. Sentimentality was simply not in his nature. Li Bo’s free and vivacious character and his indifference to social hierarchy accounted for his great interest in the life of all kinds of people; he could find the beauty of human nature everywhere. For example, his “Putting Up for the Night at the Home of Xun, an Old Woman” expresses his gratitude for a farmwife who played host to him. “Song of the Riverside in Autumn” describes the bustling scene of miners laboring at night, by a burning fire and amid loud singing.

3 (Original Note) The explanation of this poem was based on Mr. Zhang Peiheng’s scholarship. See his article, “Li Bo’s Marriages, Social Status and Clanship” in Presentations of Suspicions.


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“Song of the Maids of Wu” records his inspiration at the moment of seeing some barefooted young women in the Jiangnan region: “Behold, the maids from the southland,/ their brows and eyes are gorgeous as the moon and the stars;/ In sandals, their feet are white as frost,/ not wearing the Y-shaped socks.” Life was full of attractions for him, and his poetic sensibility always remained fresh and keen. The openness of the society and culture of the High Tang period was surely not often seen in Chinese history, and Li Bo’s poetry certainly could not have been possible without such a great context. However, it was still impossible to find any poet whose style approximates that of Li Bo at the time. Even through the entire history of Chinese poetry, Li Bo was almost unique. As a poet Li Bo really had something inimitable about him. He had an extremely strong self-consciousness, and a kind of childlike innocence that was difficult for the ordinary people to preserve in the worldly life. In addition to tremendous vigor and extraordinary talent, he was well accomplished in literature. It was really not easy to have all these combined in one person. In terms of poetic form, Li Bo was good at all forms with the only exception of the heptasyllabic regulated poems, which he did not write as many. Among his works, the old style poems in the format of the Music Bureau poetry, especially those that are conventionally classified as “heptasyllabic old poems” but are actually songs in lines of various length, have won the highest praise and are the most idiosyncratic of his poems. This form, initiated by Bao Zhao, became unprecedentedly free and unconstrained with Li Bo, with its unpredictable beginnings and closings of the poetic lines and its spontaneous variations, representing the changing dynamism of the author’s emotions. The heptasyllabic quatrain is another form that Li Bo was superb at; either with a facile liveliness or in a flowing grace, his heptasyllabic quatrains are generally considered to represent the highest achievement of the form in the Tang dynasty. In the forms of pentasyllabic old style poetry, regulated verse and quatrain, he also contributed some of the best works as well. Li Bo’s poetry is extremely rich in imagination. When ordinary images fail to accommodate his intense and powerful emotions, the poet gives full reins to creative fancy and creates spectacular images and worlds of imagination. Take, for example, “Composed after Intoxication On a Trip to the Dongting Lake in the Company of My Uncle the Vice Minister,” “It’s nice to level down Mt. Junshan,/ so that the Xiang River may flow in ease;/ The wine of Baling, serving without

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an end/ sends the autumn of Dongting to death in drunkenness.” The lush autumn view at the Dongting is connected with intoxication in mental association, and then in a wild imagination Mt. Junshan comes to be leveled down so that the Xiang River, free from obstruction, may flow freely; the autumn view at the Dongting Lake thus becomes even more thoroughly “intoxicating” in its appeal to the reader. Another example is “Chant at Liangfu” which uses extraordinarily frantic and grotesque scenes of the celestial world in imagination to imply his conflict with the asinine ruling clique: “I’d like to ride on the dragon to see the Smart Ruler,/ The god of thunder banged the celestial drums,/ Around the Lord, marble-white ladies were playing games,/ In three hours, amid loud laughing, lightning struck,/ In a moment, it got dark while wind and rain started,/ The Nine Gates leading to the Paradise were all blocking the way,/ I knocked the gate with my forehead, and gate-keeper was furious . . .” An account of daily life notwithstanding, “Drinking Alone in Moonshine” shines with a beauty beyond the dream of the ordinary: Among flowers, a flask of wine I drank alone—with none dear to me around. I raised my cup and invited the moon, Along with my shadow, we made a company of three. The moon didn’t know how to drink, The shadow only followed me around; For the moment, the moon and shadow were company, To have fun, one had to do it in the spring. With my singing, to and fro the moon moved, With my dancing, the shadow scattered in disorder. While awake, we had fun together, After getting drunk, we dispersed. I’d have these lifeless things as lifelong friends, And expect to be with them in the remote heaven.

As regards style, Li Bo’s poetry is likewise broad in range; while passion, dynamism and spectacular imagery are among its main characteristics, he is equally adept at describing quiet, secluded or simple worlds of imagination. A little poem like his “Thought on a Quiet Night” also has its great appeal: “In front of my bed was the bright moonshine,/ Which I took to be frost on ground;/ I raised my head to look at the bright moon,/ Lowering my head, I thought about my homeland.” “A lotus flower appear above the clear water,/ it’s so natural, free from any fancy decor.” These two lines from Li Bo have often been used to describe the special features of his own poetry. He was fond of


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the Music Bureau poems of the Southern Dynasties and the diction of many of his poems are directly transformed from them. (For instance, “Thought on a Quiet Night” has been rephrased from the poem that starts with the line “The autumn wind entered the window” among the “Midnight Songs of the Autumn.”) Many of his other poems, though not direct reworking of earlier poems, have a touch of the sincere, spontaneous, easy and vivacious style of the folk songs. His “spontaneity”, on the other hand, is not simply being free from embellishment and easy to understand. Rather, based on his learning from the special features of the folk songs, and his extensive integration of fresh and vivid language used in real life, it also widely absorbs the essence of earlier literati poetry, and forms a style that is at the same time popular and polished, limpid and implicit, refreshing and colorful. While his poetic language is not difficult, it is able to express deep feelings, making his poetry so prominent and sublime. In literary history, the poetry of the Early and the High Tang period continued exploring the many and various possibilities contained in the poetry of the Six Dynasties, and achieved great improvements. All the ideas such as the pursuit of vigor in literature, the liberal expression of emotions, the emphasis on “wind and bone”, the advocacy for “naturalness”, and the requirement for a combination of the refined and the popular language, were suggested in different times in the Six Dynasties. However, due to the restriction of historical conditions like the society and the culture, as well as the accumulation of artistic experience, it was not until the poetry of the High Tang that the aesthetic ideals of the predecessors came to be fully materialized, and Li Bo was precisely an excellent representative in this respect.

3. The Variations of the Prose of the Early and the High Tang What is referred to as “prose” here is a term used in its wide sense, which includes both the parallel and the regular prose. The Early and the High Tang period was an age of poetry wherein prose made far less significant achievements. However, some ongoing changes in prose writings of this period are worthy of our attention. In the Early Tang, continuing the convention of the Southern Dynasties, the parallel prose was still quite popular. Among the “Four Talents,” Luo Binwang and Wang Bo were especially known for their parallel prose.

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Luo Binwang left behind him a considerable number of prose writings. The official letters and notes that he presented to his superiors are quite ornate in style, but those that he wrote to his relatives and friends are obviously different. Take, for example, the beginning of “A Letter to Family” which expresses his deep grief in looking back on life and in thinking about his relatives and friends while struggling in his official career: “The custom of the land, like its soil, is quite different. Thousands of miles lie across all the mountains and rivers between us. Some never meet their life’s expectations. Some are departed from their beloved ones for years. Some stay alive, some are already dead. They are kept from knowing one another’s good or ill fortune. Since we could not come together to find an outlet, our sorrow has no way but to keep growing.” It is quite moving in its relatively concise and plain style. In general, writings like this were already less restrained than the parallel prose of the Northern and Southern Dynasties. “War Proclamation for the Expedition against Wu Zhao,” which he drafted on behalf of Xu Jingye, is a famous piece among parallel prose writings of the Tang dynasty. It is full of passion and extremely agitating in its appeal to the reader. “One scoop of soil has not yet dried up yet, but the little orphan boy, where is he?” It makes its argument from the cardinal principles of the sovereign and his subjects, but it manages to make its reader switch from grief to indignation. Wang Bo composed many prefaces in parallel prose and “Preface to the Pavilion of the Prince of Teng” is the best known piece among them. The section that describes the autumn scene presents a broad and majestic view with bright and vivid images: The clouds have dispersed, the rain stopped; The sun shines so bright in the open sky. A solitary wild duck flies in clouds, rosy in the evening glow; The autumn waters merge into the vast sky, all in one color. Singing arises from a fishing boat at night, With its echo ringing at the shore of the Boyang Lake; The geese fly in formation, crying in the cold, Resounding over the riverside of Hengyang.

This short section consists of three pairs of different couplets which are exquisitely antithetical. While parallel prose may be beautiful and emotional, it is not easy to write due to its numerous formal restrictions. As a matter of fact, writings like “Preface to the Pavilion of the Prince of Teng” were already rarely found in the Early Tang period.


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To men of letters of the High Tang who were free and unconstrained in personality, the excessively strict form of prose was something they were unwilling to accept. Li Bo was typical among them. His prose epistles, all written in a mixture of regular and parallel prose, run naturally and smoothly. Even in “Holding a Banquet for My Cousin at the Garden of Peach and Plum on a Spring Evening: A Preface,” a piece that was, generically, composed in parallel prose in the convention, he chose to be rather loose in form: “The universe is the inn for all in the world. The fleeting time is a passenger going through hundreds of generations. In addition, the floating life is but a dream, so how much joy can we have at all? The ancients had good reason to hold candles and entertain themselves at night. Moreover, the spring season summons us with its misty landscape, and the great earth lends us with its finely wrought patterns . . .” It tells us the rationale for carpe diem, and the language is simple and easy without using any refined antithesis, so it is easy to convey a buoyant mood. Wang Wei’s “A Letter to Pei Di, the Cultivated Talent, from the Mountains” is even more representative of such writings: Northward I crossed the dark Ba River while the bright moon shone above the town. At night I climbed atop the Huazi Hill. The reflection of the moonshine was rolling with the ripples in the Wang Stream. Distant fires up the cold hills sparkled beyond the woods, lighting up for a moment, disappearing the next. Deep in the alleys, dogs barked like leopards in the cold. The sound of someone husking rice with mortar and pestle in the night at the village alternated with the scattered ringing of the bells. I was sitting alone while my servant boys remained silent. Much of my thought was about the bygone days when we held each other’s hands and composed poems together, when we walked along narrow footpaths or sat beside the clear streams. I expect that, by the middle of the spring season, grasses and plants will turn lush, the spring hills will become lovely to behold, small fish will leap out of the waters, the white gulls will flap their wings, the green hills will turn moist with the dew, and turtledoves will cry in the wheat fields. It is not too long from now, and I wonder if I could have your company then. If you were not the kind of naturally gifted person that you are, how could I invite you to join me for such a task of no urgency whatsoever? Yet, inside all this there is a profound interest. Don’t neglect it.

Describing nature and expressing emotion in refreshing and graceful language, it contains interesting implications and is highly poetic. Obviously, this piece continues the convention of the short descriptive epistles of the Six Dynasties. However, while it uses many four-charactered

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lines and occasionally adopts antithesis, it deliberately avoids excessive orderliness in its syntax and as a result reads more brisk and easygoing. From the simple citations in the above, one may see that even before the Mid-Tang period, the prose of the Tang dynasty already showed a changing inclination to switch from parallel to regular prose. It is worthy of notice that, simply within the range of literature, while a certain style or form may become very popular due to fashion, the writer’s composition, based on personal pursuit of beauty and grace, is eventually free from its restriction. If a certain style or form makes one uneasy, some changes may naturally occur, and there is really no need for anyone to make any criticism or appeal in a serious tone and with a solemn look. The reason why the “Classical Prose Movement” appeared to be solemn and stern was precisely because it was a movement in ideology and thought. In other words, so far as only literature was concerned, the Classical Prose Movement was really not as significant as it was previously considered to be.

CHAPTER TEN

POETRY AND PROSE OF THE MID-TANG AND LATE TANG

In the later years of Emperor Xuanzong’s Tianbao reign, prosperity was preserved on the surface, but crisis already lurked in the Tang society. In the fourteenth year of the Tianbao reign (755) the An-Shi Rebellion broke out, which pushed this powerful dynasty into a rapid decline. The influence of the An-Shi Rebellion on the Tang society, and even on the entire Chinese history, was far-reaching. On the one hand, the separatist forces of local warlord expanded continuously, and the central government’s control of the entire nation was severely weakened. On the other, the social stratum of aristocracy (including the traditional scholar clan and the rising new aristocrats), which had been gradually subdued since the Sui dynasty, collapsed after suffering the setback caused by the wipeout of the manor economy in the war. Educated people from the families of ordinary bureaucrats or landlords became increasingly active in politics. Generally speaking, the structure of Chinese society began to enter a stage of transformation. Political upheavals accounted for the desire of some of the educated people for a strong imperial power. They severely criticized the inclination towards the pursuit of sensual pleasures, which had been formed in the development of urban economy from the Northern and Southern dynasties to the High Tang, and they moved further to consider the active use of ideology in the preservation of the order of oldtime morality. Accordingly there was an effort to revive Confucianism, including the reform of Confucian studies which moved in the direction of the “Study of Principles” (lixue) of the Song dynasty. In the field of literature, this was reflected, first of all, in the strengthening connection of literature and contemporary political affairs. As the next step, the concept of regarding literature as a tool of politics and education, long in the Confucian tradition, received a systematic explication and found its representation in the actual composition of some of the writers. What has generally been called the “Classical Prose Movement” and the “New Music Bureau Poetry Movement” happened to be the common products within such a context.

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However, the literature of the Mid-Tang and Late Tang did not shrink or retreat in an all-round way because of such restrictions; it simply became more complicated. Although the society went through constant turmoil, urban economy still remained prosperous. Popular literature, which rose in adaptation to urban life, as well as the closely connected “tale of the marvelous” (chuan qi), flourished. We shall discuss it in a separate chapter. Even poetry and prose, which fell under the category of refined literature, were in a state of differentiation, i.e., some of them changed in the direction of serving the purpose of politics and education, while some others continued developing in the direction of the expression of feelings in individual life and the emphasis on aesthetics. In addition, the attitude towards literature and the literary style of the same author was not always consistent. In the field of prose, for instance, Han Yu was a leader who advocated that “literature serves to convey the Way,” but his poetry was rarely related to such an idea. Bo Juyi’s poetry, on the other hand, was remarkable in both directions. It is also worthwhile to notice that literary taste, from the Wei-Jin to the High Tang period, was inclined towards refined elegance, which was related to the influence of aristocratic culture. From the MidTang onward, many prohibitions which had been formed due to that influence were lifted, especially in the field of poetry, where there was a much richer and more complex representation of psychology and aesthetic taste. As a consequence, the diversification of artistic styles and the differences among the various styles in Mid- and Late Tang poetry were even more impressive than those of the Early and High Tang poetry.

1. Mid-Tang Poetry Du Fu’s Life and the Course of His Composition In A Critical Collection of Tang Poetry, Du Fu was listed as a High Tang poet, which had long since been regarded as inappropriate by some modern scholars. It was because Du Fu’s dominant style began to take shape on the eve of the An-Shi Rebellion and developed under the turbulent changing situation during the subsequent decades. Some of the important features of High Tang poetry, such as the fondness of majestic beauty and others, were surely still embodied in Du Fu’s

poetry and prose of the mid-tang and late tang

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poetry. However, many new aspects, like the concern for politics and for people’s suffering, the emphasis on representation of reality, the restraint of innermost passion due to consideration of the interest of the imperial court, and so on, had already appeared and also brought a series of related changes in the forms of verbal expression. The changing inclination of Du Fu’s poetry not only marked an important change in the content and style of Tang poetry, but also made a farreaching impact on the development of poetry from the Mid-Tang all the way to the Song dynasty. Du Fu (712–770)’s ancestor Du Yu was a renowned general and scholar of Western Jin, and his grandfather Du Shenyan was a famous poet during Empress Wu’s reign. The family had produced many officials through various dynasties, but by the generation of Du Fu’s father already showed signs of decline. Accordingly, Du Fu proudly praised his family as “having observed Confucianism and stayed in officialdom, and never degenerated in the scholarly convention,” on the one hand, while lamented about its “having come downhill in recent years, and worn out the prestige of nobilities,” (“A Memorial about the Presentation of the Rhapsody on the Vulture”), on the other. People during the Tang dynasty attached importance to family status and poetic fame, and pursued accomplishments in official career and in poetry, which also became the two ultimate goals in life for Du Fu. Du Fu was a precocious child. He claimed that he was able to write poetry when he was only seven years old, and at the age of fourteen or fifteen he already “journeyed in the field of brush and ink” (“Journeys in the Prime of Life”). For more than a decade after he reached twenty years of age, Du Fu lived a life of wandering. He first went to the region of Wu and Yue. At the age of twenty-four he went to attend but failed in the examinations at Luoyang. Then he “lived carefree in Qi and Zhao,” living in the fashion of “wearing furs and riding on horseback with free ease” (“Journeys in the Prime of Life”). When he was thirty-three, he made acquaintance with Li Bo, who already won a great fame nationwide, in Luoyang, and subsequently led a chivalrous life in the region of Liang and Song. Those years constituted the most carefree stage of Du Fu’s life. At the age of about thirty-five, Du Fu arrived in Chang’an in pursuit of an official career, and stayed there for more than ten years. Due to the lack of powerful assistance, he ran into snags and was foiled everywhere, and life became more and more strained for him. He had no choice but to seek patronage from those in power, which made him

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feel deeply humiliated. In the fourteenth year of the Tianbao reign, on account of his presentation of a rhapsody to Xuanzong, Du Fu was appointed for a humble position in charge of the keys and locks of the armory and gate-keeping. It was already on the eve of the An-Shi Rebellion. After the rebellion broke out, Du Fu was at one time stranded in Chang’an, under the occupation of the rebel troops. Later he escaped alone and went to seek shelter in Fengxiang, where Emperor Suzong was stationed, and was appointed as Left Reminder. Shortly afterwards during the early years of the Qianyuan reign, however, he irritated Suzong by presenting a memorial to the throne against the dismissal of Fang Guan as prime minister, and was demoted to an inferior local position. Because of the warfare and a famine, Du Fu was unable to feed his family, so he gave up his official position in the second year of the Qianyuan reign (759) and, after a hard and long travel, entered the middle Sichuan region, which was relatively peaceful and affluent at the time, and lodged in Chengdu. Du Fu lived a life of relative ease at Chengdu for more than two years. Later, because of a rebellion led by some warlords, Du Fu fled with his family. He returned to Chengdu in the second year of the Guangde reign (764). At the time, Yan Wu, an old acquaintance of his, served as Military Commissioner of Jiannan; he asked Du Fu to serve as a Counselor on his staff, and also managed to acquire for him an honorary title from the Ministry of Works. However, he resigned the post in the next year; then he left Chengdu and began to live at Yun’an, Kuizhou, and other places on a temporary basis. In the year when he turned fifty-three, he eventually went out of the Three Gorges by boat, but still led a life of wandering by the river in the area of Hubei and Hunan. Finally, in the fifth year of the Dali reign, when he was fifty-nine years old, he passed away, during a boat trip, near Leiyang. The latter part of his life was almost entirely spent in hardship and wandering, in the company of his entire family. There was a flippant and insolent side in Du Fu’s character when he was young. In his “Journeys in the Prime of Life,” which recalls his youth, he claims that he was “by nature chivalrous and loved drinking, loathed evil with an upright passion,” that he “looked around in all directions in intoxication, and all the vulgar things went out of vision.” The self-description bears some resemblance with that of Li Bo’s. However, he had been nurtured in the orthodox culture of Confucianism since childhood. Later, having experienced all kind


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of hardship, he placed all his hope on the “restoration” of the Tang dynasty. Accordingly Confucian thinking played a significant role in his attitude toward life. In his poetry, he also claims that he was “a pedantic Confucian scholar in the world” (“The Yangtze and the Han River”). Still he did not change into an entirely different person. His biography in The Old History of the Tang remarks that he was “narrow-minded and impatient by nature,” “unrestrained,” “arrogant and absurd,” which should not have been entirely groundless. Such an easily irritable and proud disposition deep in one’s personality is, on the other hand, indispensable for a poet. Du Fu’s poetical works may be divided into three periods. His early compositions share the same popular style and temperament of High Tang poetry. For example, “Painted Eagle” depicts an eagle in an extremely confident tone and heroic inclinations: “When is it to strike at an ordinary bird/ the feathers and blood of which are to spread across the plain?” “Song of Tonight” recounts a chivalrous gambler, “Without any grain left at his house, he lost a million,” and “Song of Eight Drunken Immortals” portrays the appearance of Li Bo, Zhang Xu and others who indulged in drinking; both poems are filled with the romantic sentiment of the High Tang period. However, only a small number of Du Fu’s early compositions have survived, and they have not yet shown the outstanding characteristics of his poetry. On the eve of the An-Shi Rebellion, Du Fu’s personal life was in straits, social crises were mounting, and remarkable changes occurred in his poetic compositions. “Song of War Chariots,” written in the eleventh year of the Tianbao reign (752), provides a record of the tragic images of how people were sent to their death on the battlefield. It was a landmark signaling the switching in the direction of serious realism and subjects of a stronger critical nature. The long poem, “Singing about My Thoughts on the Trip from the Capital to Fengxian,” pushed this kind of consciousness in his writings to a more profound and acute level. It was written after Du Fu left Chang’an and went to his home at Fengxian for a visit in the fourteenth year of the Tianbao reign. The poem recounts that when he reached home, he found out that his youngest son had just died of hunger. It was extremely painful for him, and precisely because of his personal misfortune, he was able to have a deep understanding of people’s suffering: “Entering the gate, I heard wailing,/ My little boy had died of hunger./ I could not help but feel heartbroken,/ When the entire alley was sobbing. /. . . I have often been exempt from taxes;/ My name is not subject to conscription./

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Considering how bitter and hard it has been for me,/ I realize what the commoners have to live through./ I meditated on those who lost their livelihood,/ And then on soldiers faraway on campaign./ Causes for my grief grow as high as the Zhongnan Mountain,/ And hard to grasp, like the boundless, vast waters.” Exactly because of this reason, at the same time when Du Fu told how his loyalty to the imperial house and the sovereign was as unwavering as “the sunflower that faces the sun,” he also wrote powerful lines as follows: Silk distributed in the royal court Came originally from poor women’s hands. Men of their families are being flogged So taxes may be collected to present to the palace. . . . Crimson gates reek of alcohol and meat, Bones of those who froze to death lie on the road.

From the outburst of the An-Shi Rebellion to a few years before he entered Sichuan, Du Fu’s poetry further developed in the direction as discussed above, and the content became even richer than before. The ruthlessness of the rebel troops, the disintegration of the society, the suffering of the people, and the personal misfortune all turned into the subject matters of his poems. Masterpieces that engaged in the social and political reality, based on his strong passion and serious outlook on life’s hardship, came pouring out from the grief-stricken poet’s pen. It was these compositions that established Du Fu’s singular place in the history of literature. Some of these poems start from his personal situation to focus on the distress caused by the war. “Spring View,” for instance, tells his anxiety while being stranded in Chang’an. “A Moonlit Night” bespeaks his longing for his wife and children who were set apart from him. The deep emotions in these poems are clearly expressed and they have great appeal. Another type of poems depicts how the warfare brought calamities for the masses and contains more complicated feelings. We may clearly understand this aspect in the famous poem series, “Three Officials” and “Three Departures,” which have long been acclaimed as works “with great concern about the country and the people.” These poems were composed in the second year of the Qianyuan reign, when Du Fu left Huazhou for Luoyang. Shortly before that, the Tang troops were heavily defeated in a siege to the An-Shi rebel troops at Yecheng, and a crisis ensued. Accordingly, desperate pressgang conscription was carried out among the people; even minors and the aged were not


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exempted. Adopting the form of narrative poetry, Du Fu delineates the tragic scenes that he saw with his own eyes. First, let us have a look at the first half of his “The Official of Xin’an”: The passenger was traveling on the road at Xin’an And heard the clamor of the conscription. Politely he asked an official of Xin’an: “So the county was too small to get any more able-bodied men?” “An order from the prefecture arrived last night. For this run, teenage boys are drafted.” “Teenage boys1 are short and small; How could they defend the imperial cities?” Fat boys got mothers to see them off; Thin boys had to leave on their own. White waters run eastward at dusk; Green hills resound with the sound of wailing. “Do not let your eyes get dried up, No more free flowing of your tears; Even if your eyes are all dried up, exposing the bones inside; The heaven and the earth will show no feelings at all!”

By now we can surely feel the poet’s deep commiseration for the people in suffering. “Even if your eyes are all dried up, exposing the bones inside;/ The heaven and the earth will show no feelings at all!” Indignant lines like these call attention to the horrid fact that people were under a desperate situation. However, if one keeps asking along this train of thought, a serious problem would arise. In the final analysis, the outburst of the An-Shi Rebellion and the defeat of the siege at Yecheng were caused by the corrupted and incompetent ruling clique. Were the people, who already made the ultimate sacrifices, under any more obligations to give up, on behalf of the Tang imperial house, their own hope for survival? The poet stopped abruptly at such a critical moment, and switched in a different direction: Our troops took over Xiangzhou.2 Day and night we hoped for their victory. Who’d have guessed that the enemies, so unpredictable Would send our troops into retreat and dispersion? For provisions, stay by the old fortresses; For training, hold posts near the old capital.

1 2

In original it refers to men between 16 and 18 years of age. Yecheng.

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chapter ten For trenches, no need to dig deep underground; Herding the horses is not such a heavy task. Besides, the imperial army is in great order, With fair and just compensation. To see you off, don’t cry any more; The Director3 is like your father and elder brother.

If Du Fu really believed that in the imperial army, labor was not so hard, officers were nice to soldiers, and there was not any real danger, then there was no reason to sound so indignant in the first half. It could only be a kind of pretension which, inevitably, accounts for the contradiction between its first and second half. Likewise, “Departure of the Newly Wed” is about a bride who has to see her husband off to join the army only one day after the wedding, “Departure of the Old Man” is about an old man who, after his “sons and grandsons all died on the battlefield,” is himself drafted into the army. After giving a description of their extreme agony and deep grief in great sympathy, the poet always make these characters say something heroic, that they are “deeply conscious of the righteousness of the cause,” and yield themselves to the welfare of the state. However, since even Du Fu himself, shortly after writing these poems, resigned his post and went into Sichuan to flee from the chaos, how could the commoners bear no complaints whatsoever against the callous rulers? Obviously, some concealment and disguise were involved here. The main reason for that was that Du Fu still placed his hope in the “state” of the imperial court of the Li family, and he had no choice but to try to uphold it. He therefore intentionally underplayed the conflict between the people and the state, which watered down the force of the exposure and criticism in the poems. In short, Du Fu “had concern for the state;” however, he was unable to yield his clear conscience and avoid the reality that he witnessed because of such a concern. He “had concern for the people,” but he would not, on its account, give up the fundamental interests of the Tang imperial house. He had to seek some kind of compromise in the glaring contradictions, and it accounted for the great distress manifested in these poems. If we are not supposed to excoriate Du Fu, then we have to acknowledge that, we still find his great passion in repre-

3 It refers to Guo Ziyi, the military general who once served in the rank of Left Vice Director of the Imperial Secretariat.


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senting the great misfortune of the helpless individuals who lived at the bottom strata of the society and were driven around by the power of the state, as found in the appalling descriptions of lines like “Now that you are going to where death dominates,/ My heart is broken with deep grief,” (“Departure of the Newly Wed”) or “By luck I still have some teeth left,/ Sadly the marrow of my bones is drying up” (“Departure of the Old Man”), and in the indignant appeal in the lines of “Even if your eyes are all dried up, exposing the bones inside;/ The heaven and the earth will show no feelings at all!” Such poems are, after all, hard to come by and invaluable. After Du Fu’s entry into Sichuan, his poetry moved into its late period. More than a thousand poems, more than two third of the total of his extant poems, have been left down from the period, and the content of these poems are also broader in range than in the previous period. In Du Fu’s late years, the explosive crisis of the imperial court of the Tang had transformed into a continuous turmoil, and he had an increasingly bleak prospect of his own future. His poems, accordingly, are somewhat different from those in the middle period. There are very few poems that describe social reality with anxiety and eagerness, such as “Song of the War Chariot,” “Three Officials,” and “Three Departures.” However, he became harsher and more pungent about the corrupt and ruthless warlords and bureaucrats. Take, for example, “Three Quatrains” which recounts the cruelty of the imperial army: In front of the hall, horsemen look like true heroes; When they turn wild, they are no different from the savages. I heard about a slaughter by the Han River when Women were mostly kept in the imperial troops.

Du Fu’s poems expressing his personal feelings from his late period are presented in two different kinds of style. One kind mostly depicts ordinary daily life and peaceful scenes in nature, and is in a leisurely tone. In “Diversions at the Waterside Balustrade,” he depicts the beautiful natural view: “Water from the clear river rises onto the shore,/ By evening, the quiet trees abound with flowers;/ Fish appear in a fine drizzle,/ Swallows fly at a slant in the light breeze.” In “Riverside Village,” he portrays scenes of life: “My old wife drew a chessboard on paper,/ My little boy hammered a needle into a fishing hook.” These were, in general, produced when life was relatively peaceful and when his mind was at ease. The other kind incorporates sad emotions into

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grand, majestic natural scenes, reflecting his unwillingness to resign himself to destiny on the one hand, and a sense of helplessness on the other, as in “Ascending the Height,” where the lines “All round in the boundless vast, leaves drop rustling from trees,/ The great river keeps running, on and on forever” are combined with “Grieving for the autumn, I’ve been a traveler over thousands of miles;/ Sick so often in my life span, I now climb up to the terrace alone.” In addition, in his late years, Du Fu also wrote many poems in recollection of his life, and poems about events in history and historical figures. Often, he seemed to have engaged himself in profound meditation of the past. The art of poetry became an important undertaking in Du Fu’s late years. He claimed that he “became growingly exquisite in the art of poetry in late years,” (“Playfully Presented to Section Chief Lu the Nineteenth to Divert from Boredom”). He explored deeply into the art of the use of diction, imagery, prosody and rhythm, and acquired invaluable experience for the development of the artistic forms of classical Chinese poetry. The Artistic Achievements of Du Fu’s Poetry Du Fu was a poet of genuine and deep emotions. He was in Li Bo’s company for a short time only, but when Li Bo was in danger, he could not get it off his mind, and wrote extremely touching poems like “Dreaming of Li Bo” and “Thinking About Li Bo at the Ends of the Earth.” While in Kuizhou, when he departed from a temporary residence of his, he could not forget the next-door old woman who often came over to his courtyard to pick dates. He wrote the poem “Another Poem Presented to the Young Master Wu,” for the specific purpose of asking the new tenant to have more sympathy and understanding of her. His accounts of life’s hardship from his personal experience are characterized by the sincerity of emotions. Take, for example, the first of “Qiang Village: Three Poems”: Towering red clouds gathered in the west, The sun set its feet down on the level ground. Birds twittered at the thatched door, A traveler was home from a thousand miles away. My wife and kids were surprised that I was still around, Now that they felt relieved, they had to wipe their tears. In the world’s turmoil, we all drift around. It was only by chance that I got to return alive.


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Neighbors all stood by the side of the fence; They sighed, and shed tears as well. Late at night, we held candles and Faced one another, as in a dream.

The poem was written when Du Fu visited his family at Fuzhou after he fled from Chang’an to Fengxiang. In the great upheaval of the war which suddenly broke out, it was rather commonplace to see one’s family ruined or dead, while family reunion turned out to be extremely unusual instead. Using precise and vivid language, Du Fu represents, in a succinct style, the complex, dreamlike feelings, mixing surprise, joy and sorrow, of the entire family of his at the reunion. It has struck a sympathetic chord in the bottom of the heart of ever so many people for more than a millennium. Those of his poems which recount the suffering of the masses, though not entirely free from some pretentiousness, contain genuine and deep feelings by placing himself in the place of others. In later ages, many poets represented hardships of the people in Du Fu’s footsteps, but they usually wrote such poems only from the sense of responsibilities as government officials, or sometimes only wrote them as self-expression, hence few of them could match Du Fu’s achievements in this respect. In Du Fu’s poems, on occasions emotions pour out from his heart, but in most cases, they are presented in a circumlocutory but forceful manner, under the control of his senses. This has a direct impact on the characteristics of the art of his poetry. Generally speaking, Du Fu’s poetic style, notwithstanding its diversity, seldom shows its strength in the spontaneity and flowing grace as found in Li Bo’s poetry; more often it takes great pains to find the most pertinent and proper expression. In particular he focuses on originality in artistic skills, having observed once that, “Only when people are startled by my wording would I be satisfied.” (“The River Swelled and Looked Like the Sea, So I Wrote This Short Account”) Accordingly his poetry always discloses extraordinarily remarkable craftsmanship. In the use of poetic language, Du Fu was a great innovator. In general, he worked very hard towards the two opposite poles of exquisiteness and ingeniousness on the one hand, roughness and vulgarity on the other, so as to encompass a wide range of verbal usage in between. Conventionally the diction of literati poetry was inclined toward refined elegance, but Du Fu broke himself free from the bondage of the narrow and limited concept, and frequently made use of seemingly coarse and vulgar vernacular expressions or simple and crude

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prosaism, as in lines like: “Up the stairs I had a drink, and down the stairs I lay,” (“Song of Ravings”) “The second month broke off, and the third month is around.” (“Random Quatrains”) The four lines at the opening of his “Song of Cuckoo” read so unlike poetry they were even misunderstood as footnotes given to the title of the poem. Such a violation of the set rules of poetic diction opened up new possibilities, and exerted a deep influence on the composition of poetry from midTang all the way to the Song dynasty. In the exquisite and ingenious respect, Du Fu was greater than all his predecessors in polishing key words in poetic lines, the so-called “eye of poetry.” In addition, he was especially masterful in taking full advantage of the Chinese language which may switch among its various parts of speech, wherein the grammatical relations among the different elements of a sentence are not clearly marked out; thus he deliberately created the ambiguity and multiplicity of meanings in his poetic lines, expanded their implications, and highlighted the effects of his imagery. In the lines, “Chrysanthemums in clusters have opened twice, bringing tears of other days, / The lonely boat is tied up, as is my heart that yearns for the homeland” (“Autumn Meditations”), both the verbs “open” and “tie” are related to two things, one before and one behind, respectively, within the line. In the line, “The kylin stays still, smoke from the incense burner ascends,” (“Speaking My Mind on Winter Solstice: to be Sent to Former Supervising Secretaries of the Northern Department and Old Friends of the Two Courts”) the phrase “stays still” is related to the kylin-shaped incense burner, but it also refers to the smoke itself. Furthermore, Du Fu often mixed up languages at various levels. Take, for example, his “Quatrain,” where the first two lines are simple and easy as in ordinary speech, “Two orioles chirp in the green willows,/ A line of egrets fly up the blue sky,” but then the next two lines are refined and forceful, “Within the window lies the snow of a thousand years up the western hills,/ Outside the gate, moors the boat that comes thousands of miles away from the Eastern Wu.” In the contrast a special effect is produced. The imagery of Du Fu’s poetry also extends towards two opposite poles, the majestic and vast versus the minute and dainty, so as to embrace a broad range of variations in between. In the first category, we have lines like “Wu and Chu are cleft to its south and east,/ The universe floats therein, day and night,” (“Ascending the Yueyang Tower”) or “Between the river banks, waves rise up to the sky, / Clouds in the wind on the frontier connect with the shadows on the ground.”


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(“Autumn Meditations”) In the latter category, there are lines like “The puttering rain was over: it turned into a light drizzle,/ That hovered in the sky like silk threads a-flutter.” (“A Continuous Rain”) Minuteness leads to rich variation; hence Du Fu’s poetry does not refrain from daintiness of description. Images with different characteristics are often used in combination, such as the first two couplets in “Night Thoughts on a Voyage,” “Fine grass, light breeze, on the shore;/ Tall mast, a forlorn boat, at night;/ Stars hang over the vast of the level wild,/ Moonshine gushes into the flow of the great river.” In Du Fu’s poetry, the description of scenes in nature and the combination of scenic description and expression of feelings have also developed some new features of their own. The scenes of nature in his poetry have always been internalized to some extent. In the poetry of his predecessors, the presentation of these scenes usually accords with the poets’ emotions and moods. Of course, such a condition is often found in Du Fu as well, and sometimes he would even make up scenes that are based entirely on his own feelings. However, there is another aspect in Du Fu’s poetry. Take, for example, the first two lines in his “Spring View”: “A nation was split apart: mountains and rivers are still here;/ The city is now in spring: grass and trees grow so lush,” have been interpreted, since Sima Guang (see his More Remarks on Poetry from Wengong), as an implicit expression of the poet’s love and loyalty. Actually, they are about the incongruity between nature and human feelings, just like the first two lines of “Grief in Spring,” “Though the world is ravaged by war,/ The spring view is still lovely by itself.” Nature aside, often there is no understanding whatsoever between human minds, “First hearing about the war, someone cried in the wild;/ The faint sound of a woodcutter’s singing traveled outside the village.” (“Chanting about My Thoughts after Cutting the Paddy”) Du Fu places the turmoil in the world and the distress in the heart of human beings in contrast with the scene of “Joyfully things stay by themselves” (“Riverside Pavilion”) in nature, providing the implication of complex feelings. In short, in Du Fu’s poetry, the expression of scenic description in combination with expression of feelings shows much richer and more subtle variation than in his predecessors. Du Fu’s poetry also devotes assiduous and careful attention to prosody and meters. Since the regularization of the old style poetry, regulated verse, as well as old style poetry (which is not subject to strict prosodic requirements) under the influence of the process of regularization, usually seek the harmony of sound and tone through the

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alternation and juxtaposition of words of level and deflected tones. Du Fu’s use of prosodic and tonal patterning, however, is far more complicated. Of his old style poetry, there are many examples of the consecutive use of level or deflected tones. For instance, the lines of “The gorge includes halls and moats in its shapes,/ The cliffs stand, looking like lump of iron,” (“Gorge of the Iron Hall”) in original, contains four level tone syllables in the first line and five deflected tone syllables in the second, providing a strong aural effect of modulation. In regulated verse with its set metrical patterns, on the one hand, Du Fu shows an even more meticulous differentiation of metrical and tonal patterns, and when needed, he frequently violates the set pattern and composes the so-called “discordant lines,” even entire poems of the “discordant style.” As for the word arrangement of 2–3 and 4–3, commonly adopted, respectively, for the pentasyllabic and heptasyllabic lines, Du Fu also frequently defies it by using special syntax of his own, so as to avoid smooth facileness for the entire poem and to create some forceful variation in rhythm. For example, in the lines of “Green: I know it’s the grass beyond the lake,/ Red: I see it’s the clouds east in the sea,” (“Sunny Weather”) color words are placed at the very beginning of the lines, so as to create a pause afterwards and to strengthen the characteristics of the internalization of images in the poem. His “Highest Tower of the White Lord City” is a representative poem of the discordant style wherein the singularity of its prosody and syntax stands out prominently: At the top of the city, the pathway is narrow, and the banners look dreary, Alone I stand at the tower that hovers, dimly discernible, in the air. The gorge splits up, clouds gather, dragon and tigers lie still, The river is clear, in the sun’s embrace, turtles and alligators swim. The western branch of the Fusang confronts cracked rocks, The shadow east of Feeble Water follows its lengthy flow. The one who walks with a stick and sighs about the world: who’s he? With tears overflowing like blood, in vain he turns his hoary head to look.

In the metrics of its original text, the level- and deflected-toned characters in every line of this poem ignore the set positions of regulated verse. In addition, at the end of the third and fourth line, and at the end of the fifth and sixth line, all in antithesis, three deflectedtoned characters and three level-toned characters are used in contrast, giving a strong sense of undulating rhythm. In syntax, the second line


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and seventh line of the poem are complete sentences which do not try to avoid the use of any function words and pronouns, fitting the prose-like syntax of old style poetry. In particular, the seventh line uses a 5–2 word arrangement, providing a forceful pause after the fifth character in the line, before leading to the grief-ridden but powerful closing line. In this way, the author breaks free from the inherent balance and harmony of regulated verse, and acquires a unique flavor through the use of discordance so as to convey the turbulence in his mind. Subsequently, such a measure of expressing unusual emotions through the use of discordant metrics and syntax was widely used by the Song poet Huang Tingjian. Du Fu is good at using all kinds of poetic forms. His pentasyllabic and heptasyllabic regulated verse, as well as his pentasyllabic and heptasyllabic old style poetry, are all among the best in the Tang dynasty, and a few types among them are especially original in nature. One of them is autobiographical poetry in the form of pentasyllabic old style, of which “Singing About My Thoughts on the Trip from the Capital to Fengxian in Five Hundred Characters” and “Northern Expedition” are the best-known representatives. These poems are mostly of greater length, and they often integrate into one piece scenic description, narration of events, expression of feelings and discussion of affairs, this being able to hold rather complicated content. Another type are represented by “Song of the War Chariots,” “Song of the Beautiful Ladies,” the “Three Officials,” and the “Three Departures,” which are narrative poems in both heptasyllabic and pentasyllabic old style. This kind of poems are actually variation of ancient Music Bureau folk songs, but Du Fu, ignoring the convention, discontinues the adoption of conventional subjects; instead he chooses to “entitle the poem according to the subject,” which makes these poems closer to reality and give them a richer flavor of real life. Such a creation directly inspired the “New Music Bureau” poetry of Bo Juyi and others. Still another type is the heptasyllabic regulated verse (which happens to be the poetic form least used by Li Bo), wherein Du Fu’s accomplishments have made great contributions to the art of Chinese poetry in general. Prior to Du Fu, the heptasyllabic regulated verse had not yet been freed from the manner and style of the folk songs. It was used mostly in imperially commissioned compositions in exchanges for occasions in the court; there were very few good ones, and their language tended to be mild and gentle. With Du Fu, not only was its sound and prosody perfected but, more importantly, its potential for artistic

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expression was fully developed. Being able to accommodate considerably large volume of content, it turned into a meticulously structured poetic form with great dynamism. Let us have a look at the first of his famous work, “Autumn Meditation: Eight Poems”: Jade-white dew has done its harm to the forest of maple trees; On Wizard Mountains, in Wizard Gorges, it is dreary and desolate. Between the river banks, waves rise, as if swelling, up to the sky, Above the passes, clouds in the wind touch their shadows on the earth. Chrysanthemums in clusters have opened twice, bringing tears of other days, The lonely boat is tied up, as is my heart that yearns for the homeland; All around, making of clothes for the cold season hurries up scissors and ruler. Under the high walls of White Lord, the pounding at washing blocks sound fast.

The poem describes the sound and view in autumn in the Wizard Gorge. Beautiful but desolate, majestic yet somber, they set in relief the image of the lonely poet. The entire poem contains many levels of implications; it is powerful and also exquisite in its expression. Then, there is also “Hearing that the Imperial Army Has Restored Henan and Hebei”: From beyond the Sword Gate I suddenly heard that the northern land was restored, Upon being told, I wept at first, and my clothes were stained with my tears. I turned around to look at my wife and children: where is the feeling of sorrow? Casually I packed up my poems and books: an ecstasy has filled my heart. I want to sing loudly in the sunshine: I need to ply myself with wine. In the fine days of spring, together, we shall return to our homeland. All we need to do is to leave the Ba Gorge and go through the Wizard Gorge And then we’ll get off at Xiangyang and go all the way to Luoyang!

This poem resorts to the unusual usage of many verbs and adjectives with a sense of dynamism. In addition, the actions depicted therein follow a line of continuity. The poem conveys the sense of a rapid series of continuous movements, and the author’s feeling of ecstasy has found its full expression. If the pentasyllabic regulated verse form has been adopted for this poem, it would be difficult to achieve such a kind of vivacity and forcefulness. Moreover, from the three


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poems cited in this section, we can also see the stylistic diversity of Du Fu’s heptasyllabic regulated verse, which corresponds to his varying emotions. In conclusion, as a poet Du Fu was skilled in learning from his predecessors and also showed great originality. He broke many outmoded conventions and regulations, opened up new territories of expression for poetry, and explored the possibilities of poetic language and artistic form in a meticulous and profound way, leaving a vast space of further development for later poets. However, Du Fu frequently used poetry as a substitute for prose—he would adopt the form of poetry as a medium for such writings like criticism and description of people, letters, political observation, and commentary on poetry and prose, so it is inevitable that one could find, in some of his works, a tendency to be excessively rational, and the defect of “using prose for poetry.” Also, while Du Fu’s efforts to stay close to social reality and to represent people’s suffering are certainly laudable, at the same time, there appeared a restraint, on the poet’s part, of his personal consciousness, and also an increasing dependence on the imperial regime. These characteristics have also left a lasting and profound influence on later poets. Among Du Fu’s contemporary poets, Yuan Jie (719–772) was one whose works also focused on the representation of social reality. While serving as Prefect of Daozhou, he composed two poems, “Song of Chongling” and “Showing to Officials and Functionaries after the Bandits Retreated.” The former depicts the scenes of decline and decay at Daozhou after the chaos of war and expresses the poet’s reluctance to extort more money and grains from the people there, already in a sorry plight. The latter urges the local officials of Daozhou not to levy exorbitant taxes against the people there, “The town is too small for the bandits to massacre its inhabitants,/ But the people are so poor they deserve our pity.” These two poems convey the conflicting feelings between the author’s sympathy for the poor people and the sense of obligations as a government official. At the end he says, “Who could put an end to the life of people/ So as to make a name for oneself at the time?” In other words, he would rather resign from office than to drive the people on the road to destruction. His sympathy for the common people was heartily admired by Du Fu, who specially wrote the poem, “A Response to Prefect Yuan’s ‘Song of Chongling’.” The two poems are certainly quite moving, but the author primarily speaks therein from the stand of his conscience as a government

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official. He does not share Du Fu’s in-depth experience of the common people’s suffering, and artistically speaking the poems are rather crude. The shortcomings have something to do with Yuan Jie’s idea on poetry’s function. He believes that poetry should play the role of “moving those above and transforming those beneath,” (“Attached Note to Music Bureau Poems”), and “be attached to the principles of feng and ya.” (“Foreword to the Poem on Attendant Censor Liu’s Banquet on a Moonlit Evening”) In other words, poetry should primarily serve a political purpose. Under such a consideration, in addition to the fact that his sympathy with the common people was, after all, based upon a feeling of superiority, he could not have any real passion and so his achievements in poetry was only limited. In terms of the changing poetry of the mid-Tang period, Yuan Jie was somewhat representative. His advocacy of the Confucian concept of poetry as a medium of education may be regarded as a precursor of the “New Music Bureau Movement” led by Bo Juyi and others. Liu Zhangqing and the “Ten Talents of the Dali Reign” Du Fu died in the fifth year of Emperor Daizong’s Dali reign; prior to that, one after another, Wang Wei, Li Bo, Gao Shi and Cen Shen all passed away. By this time, major poets who had been active in the world of poetry since the Tianbao and Kaiyuan period were all gone. Subsequently, no major poet emerged during Daizong’s Dali reign and Dezhong’s Zhenyuan reign, which became a relatively quiet period in the history of Tang poetry. Notwithstanding that, the poets of this period still performed some interesting experiment, maintained the continuity of the development and change of Tang poetry, and left behind quite a number of fine poems widely known in later times. Among those who were active in the poetic circles of the time, we may start by discussing Liu Zhangqing and the “Ten Talents of the Dali Reign.” Most of them spent their youth during the High Tang era; they also witnessed the An-Shi Rebellion, and the decline and desolation after the chaos caused by the war. One may find in their poems some of the high spirit of High Tang poetry and the realism initiated by Du Fu, but these did not make the keynote in their poetry. Instead they expressed therein more of their disillusionment with the state and the society, their dejection and melancholy about life, and the sense of quiet and remoteness which they, in order to free themselves from such grief, tried to seek in nature and in Buddhism.


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Hu Yinglin has observed that Tang poetry, with Qian Qi and Liu Zhangqing, “declined abruptly in its force and spirit.” (Confluence of Poetry) In general, he was referring to the lack of passion and vigor in the works of these poets. Liu Zhangqing (ca. 727–ca. 790) was the more senior one among this generation of poets. Forthright and proud by nature, he was twice falsely accused and demoted in his official career which began after he passed the examination of the Presented Scholar, and he was appointed as the Prefect of Suizhou only in his late years. Because of the upheavals of the time and the vicissitudes of his personal life, his poetry is characterized by a feeling of dejection and gloom. For instance, in “Thoughts,” he says, “In my grief, trying to foretell my fortune, I check The Book of Changes,/ In my dream, seeking to summon the soul, I read The Songs of the South.” In his “Song of a Little Bird: Presented to Governor Pei,” he compares himself to a little bird which, humble and helpless, is extremely scared of “being snatched by eagles and hawks,” and laments, “I feel pity for myself for missing the way through the blue clouds up in the sky,/ I walk to and fro alone, sharing the grief with my shadow in the dusk.” This forms an opposite contrast with Li Bo who compares himself to the great roc that flies straight up the sky for ninety thousand miles. However, such a despondent feeling of the former was related with a distrust of the Tang regime, so it also implies a more sober-minded understanding of reality. For this reason, few of Liu Zhangqing’s frontier poems sing about the passion of the soldiers to sacrifice for the nation; instead they mostly express the despair and sorrow of those who joined the army, as in lines such as “Drifting across thousands of miles, there is only this body of mine,/ In a decade of fighting, I’ve aged in the alien dust” (“Song of the Exhausted Soldiers”), “The sword to repay my debt to the state is already broken,/ Yet by luck I am physically intact to return to my homeland” (“Joining the Army”). Liu Zhangqing’s poems, especially those in pentasyllabic regulated verse, are meticulously composed and characterized, in particular, by a deliberate effort to create a world of imagination. He was skilled at describing nature, not necessarily in detailed delineation of scenes in nature in an objective way, but rather in a re-structuring of the elements of the scenes from his observation into imaginary worlds that could best convey subjective feelings. For example, in the lines, “Verdant hills hide themselves in the snow at dusk,/ White birds disappear in the cold river” (“Inscribed on Wei Wancheng’s Riverside Pavilion”),

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at the moment when hills and birds fade out of the picture, the world appears in a massive void which is nevertheless full of implications. Then, again, in the lines, “A lonely wild goose stays at the cold islet,/ While thousands of mountains stand in the setting sun” (“Composed at a Riverside Pavilion at the End of Autumn”), the “lonely wild goose” and the “thousands of mountains” could not possibly stand in a visual contrast in reality, but are rather the products of the poet’s strengthening and re-structuring of the elements of scenes in nature. If we may accept that such a subjective structuring of scenes in nature was a new development of the experience of his predecessors, then Liu Zhangqing’s description of the activities of real people in life, in the style of a recreation of imaginary world, was of more originality on his part. Take, for example, “Seeing off the Reverend Ling Che”: From the temple in the lush green bamboo woods There comes the remote sound of bells in the evening; With his straw hat carrying the shine of the setting sun He returns, alone, to the faraway green hills.

Ling Che, a Buddhist monk, was a friend of Liu Zhangqing’s. As a valediction poem, it does not contain any statement about their relationship, and the process of their meeting and farewell saying. Everything like that has been left out, leaving nothing but a quietly elegant picture that is full of emotional appeal. “Running into a Snow and Putting Up at the Master of the Hibiscus Hills” is an even more beloved and better known piece: At sunset, the green hills look remote, It is cold at this humble white hut; By the wicker gate, the barking of dog is heard, In the wind and snow, someone returns at night.

When we read this poem, we shall even have no concern whatsoever about the identity of the one who returns or the “Master of the Hibiscus Hills.” Every single element of the poem serves one singular purpose for an imaginary world in life: someone who has journeyed through cold and hardship expects, from the distance, a little warm waiting. It is truly a scene of great appeal. In his Anthology from the Peaceful Restoration Period, Gao Zhongwu of the Tang dynasty has criticized Liu Zhangqing in this way: “In general, beyond the number of ten poems, they read more or less the same in contents.” The criticism states the fact, indeed. In Liu’s poems the colors, mostly “green/blue” or “white,” cannot help but look somewhat dull.


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The so-called “Ten Talents of the Dali Reign” refer to a group of poets who were at one time active during the Dali and Zhenyuan reigns, but whose achievements were not very high. It has been controversial on who exactly the ten people were, which indicates that the so-called “Ten Talents” were put together randomly by someone in later times. According to the suggestion in “The Biography of Lu Lun” in The New History of the Tang, the ten poets were Qian Qi, Lu Lun, Ji Zhongfu, Han Hong, Sikong Shu, Miao Fa, Cui Tong, Geng Wei, Xiahou Shen, and Li Duan. It is certainly difficult to summarize the common poetic style of these ten poets, but generally speaking, first, they wrote more compositions in exchanges and second, they mostly resort to the description of scenes in nature to express their personal emotions. Artistically speaking they show a tendency to hark back to the poetic style of the Six Dynasties, in particular that of the two Xie’s, and they try to seek a kind of succinct beauty and exquisite structure in their descriptive lines; their worlds of imagination are mostly inclined to the gloomy and serene. Qian Qi, who was placed among the ten and Lang Shiyuan, who was not, enjoyed some reputation in their lifetime. In his Anthology from the Peaceful Restoration Period, Gao Zhongwu has observed that at the time, when senior officials from the capital left for important regional appointments, they would be “regarded with contempt” if they did not receive poems of valediction from Qian and Lang. In fact, however, their poetry does not have any individuality. Lu Lun’s frontier poems, on the other hand, show more personality and some of them display a majestic force that approximates that in similar pieces from the High Tang as, for instance, in “Song of the Northern Frontier: In Reply to Vice Director Zhang.” “Running into a Sick Soldier” has a great appeal of its own: Mostly sick while toiling along the road, we run out of food when we stop; On the way home from ten thousands of miles away, home is ever so far away. With hair disheveled, we moan beneath the ancient city walls, We can’t afford to allow the autumn cold further damage our wounded bodies.

It is about a soldier whose life-force has been completely wrung out by the powers that be in the name of the nation. Now he is wailing on the road in the wilderness. Cold, hunger and the wounds in his body, inflicted during the war, stand as obstacles on his way to home. It is a forceful accusation of the ruthless society.

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Incidentally, we may also discuss briefly Zhang Ji, who lived during the same period as the poets mentioned above. He did not leave behind many poems, but his “Mooring at the Maple Bridge” is a widely known masterpiece of Tang poetry: The moon sets—crows caw—frost covers up all the sky, By the river, under maple trees, in fishermen’s firelights, someone sleeps in grief.4 From outside the city of Suzhou, at the Temple of Cold Mountain, The sound of bells arrives, by midnight, at the traveler’s boat.

The poem assembles a series of colorful images into a beautiful world of imaginary full of implications. We may notice that the first and the second line each enumerate three sets of images that stand side by side with one another. In the original text, all words that would indicate grammatical relations in between the words and phrases have been omitted so as to create the effect of images closely clustered together. However, because of their proper, smooth arrangement, the lines still read facile and natural. Wei Yingwu In the poetic circles of the Dali and the Zhenyuan reign, Wei Yingwu (ca. 737–ca. 791) was an important poet. A native of Chang’an from an aristocratic family, he served as a court attendant of Emperor Xuanzong’s in youth, and was appointed later as the Prefect of several regional jurisdictions. In general he had a plain sailing throughout his official career. His poems involve a wide range of subjects. Some of them recall his chivalrous life in youth and the “golden age” before the An-Shi Rebellion, with a strong touch of the sentimental. Some reflect the social upheavals and the suffering of common people at the lower strata, which display his sense of social responsibilities. At the same time, under the influence of Buddhist and Taoist thinking, he takes a fancy for a simple life free from worldly desires and far from the madding crowd, and frequently expresses his yearning for the pleasure of reclusion in garden and field, or in scenic places in nature. Poems of this latter category have won the greatest admiration in later ages.

4 According to a different interpretation this line may also be rendered as “In fisherman’s firelights at the River and Maple Bridges, someone sleeps in grief.”


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Bo Juyi has observed that Wei’s pentasyllabic poems are “refined, elegant, with a feeling of leisure and serenity” (“A Letter to Yuan Zhen”), and Sikong Tu has remarked that Wei’s poetry is “succinct, cool, and exquisitely composed” (“A Letter on Poetry to Mr. Li”). Both refer to this kind of Wei’s poetry. Take, for example, “Sent to the Taoist Monk in the Quanjiao Mountains”: This morning, it is cold in the prefect’s office, Suddenly I miss my friend in the mountains. Tying up a bunch of firewood at the bottom of the valley He returns, to boil his potion of “White Quartz.” I’d like to go, holding a gourd ladle of wine, To comfort him, over there, on this evening of wind and rain. The fallen leaves have covered the empty hills. Where can I trace his whereabouts?

This poem was composed out of his thinking about an absent friend, but the Taoist monk in the poem, who leads a solitary, harsh and carefree life away from the turmoil of the world, is actually a spiritual reflection of the author himself. Wei once claimed that although he had piles of government documents and files on his desk, he was nevertheless able to be like a Buddhist monk in the mountains, “To be a recluse or not, it seems to be different; / Noise or quiet, both can allow my meditation” (“Presented to Monk Cong”). Accordingly the yearning for someone absent herein turns into the yearning for the other self. “Western Ravine at Chuzhou” is also a famous poem of his: Lovely is the lush grass that grows by the ravine, Up there, an oriole trills deep in the trees; Spring torrents run rapidly by dusk in the rain, No one is around at the ferry—only a boat floats by itself.

The desolate, secluded scenes in nature, as described here, make a world of imagination, a kind of loneliness that has been liberated from the bondage of the chains of the world. It conveys a sense of aloofness about and a serene outlook of human life. As a poet Wei Yingwu was quite early in making a clear claim to admire and imitate the life and poetic style of Tao Yuanming. Among his works, more than a dozen are entitled as composed after Tao. At the same time, he was meticulous in working on his diction, and he incorporates into his poetry the refined beauty and succinctness of the landscape poetry of both the senior and the junior Xie. His best poems are, generally speaking, superb in their creation of quiet and vivid imaginary worlds and in their spontaneous gracefulness.

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Gu Kuang and Li Yi Gu Kuang (?-after 806) was a poet with some characteristics of his own during the Dali years. An upright and proud person, he “would always poke fun at high-ranking aristocrats who befriended him” (see his biography in The Old History of the Tang). He had quite a few setbacks in his official career. His poems, however, at the same time while expressing his inner grief, would display more of his unbending character than those of Liu Zhangqing’s. Gu Kuang’s heroic and unrestrained personality was also reflected in his poetic style. In his “Foreword to the Poetry of Gu Kuang,” Huangfu Shi has remarked that Gu’s poems are “more inclined to be long lines in carefree song form, with a high spirit; frequently they have a tendency as if they were shooting all the way up into the sky and entering the moon, saying things that are surprising and unexpected, and entirely beyond the ordinary mind.” More specifically, Gu Kuang’s poems in the form of classical style songs are marked by the following special features. Their syntax and rhythm are varied and unpredictable, as in “Song on the Landscape Painting of Fan, the Recluse in the Mountains,” which contains lines of three, seven, six and four characters. Frequently these lines, in a deliberate way, do not read very smooth; rather, they are jerky and dynamic. Vernacular expressions that border on the slang are often used in the lines, making them sound familiar and strange at the same time. Some of such special features were initiated by his predecessors, but when they are used in combination, the poems acquire a strong sense of subjectivity and became quite eccentric and unusual at the time. A considerable number of poems of this kind describe the experience of appreciating painting or music through imagination. Take, for instance, the lines in “Song on Court Attendant Li’s Playing of the Konghou”5 which provide vivid analogy: “The major strings are like wild geese in autumn,/ Flying above the frontier passes in formation,/ The minor strings are like swallows in spring, / Twittering as if chatting with people.” This was probably where the comparison of the major and minor strings in Bo Juyi’s “Song of Pipa” was remolded from. However, this is still not an illustration of his eccentricity. In

5

Konghou is an ancient Chinese stringed instrument played by plucking.


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“Song of a Lady from Zheng Playing the Zither6,” when he says that because of beautiful music, “Red carp fish show their fin, / White apes hold their chin in arms,” that becomes somewhat incomprehensible. Again, in “A Song about the Landscape Painting of Fan, the Recluse in the Mountains,” he describes how, while watching the painting, he becomes entranced, “Suddenly it seemed that there were something in the sky, and it were making a noise,/ Then, it was as if there were someone who missed his home from faraway,/ In his dreams he traveled in the mountains and rivers there, but his body never moved.” It highlights and underscores the great appeal of the painting to the spectator. In addition, when the poet depicts scenes in nature, his imagery is often quite peculiar. For instance, in “Song of the Waterfalls at Mt. Lushan: Presented to Li Gu,” the waterfalls “(s)hould have descended from next to the Weaving Girl’s shuttle,” and they are like: “A fiery thunder split the mountains, spurting pearls at the sun.” As regards his shortcomings, Gu Kuang’s poems of this kind sometimes sound rather too jerky, and his imagination often stays on the surface only, and can provide nothing more than a strange impression, leaving room for improvement in terms of in-depth representation of complex mental activities and emotions. But he was certainly trying his best to explore new possibilities, which was surely a source of inspiration for the composition of Han Yu, Li He and others after him. Li Yi (748–829) was also a poet with characteristics of his own during the Dali and Zhenyuan years. He was known for his talent when he was very young, but in his early years he was stranded in lowly positions, and for five times he served on the military staff on the frontier, acquiring a rich experience of life in the army. After he reached the fifties in age his official career turned for the better, and eventually he was granted the title of Minister of Rites in service. His achievements in poetry, however, were made in his early years. Li Yi was the most important frontier poet of the Mid-Tang period. In terms of temperament, although a few of his frontier poems are in a heroic and majestic style, most of them, however, describe the cruelty of war and the grief of the soldiers; generally speaking they are markedly different from those of the High Tang period. For example, in “One Night While in the Army, We Put Up North of Liuhu, and Let

6 In the original it is zheng, a 21- or 25-stringed instrument played by plucking; it is somewhat similar to zither.

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Our Horses Drink at the Rock of Sword Sharpening, I Composed This Song to Honor the Dead Soldiers,” which is quite lengthy, the lament to those who died in the war is told in dynamic rhythm and tempo. In “Getting up the Wall of the City of Surrender Acceptance and Hearing Someone Playing the Flute,” the war-weariness and homesickness of the soldiers is expressed in the compact form of the quatrain: In front of the beacon fire, sands shine like snow; Beneath the City of Surrender Acceptance, moonshine is like frost. Someone is paying the reed-pipe, I know not where; Through the night, all the soldiers miss their home.

In poems of this kind, one may see that in the course of the decline of the Tang imperial regime, the poet’s understanding of reality turned more sober-minded. In Li Yi’s poem, “Passing by Mawei,” one may also find his sensible comment, with a strong sense of justice, on the death of Consort Yang: So many military generals in the court: none spoke up straight. When the bandits came, they put all the blame on the fair sex. I pray you, my lord: don’t wash the blood off the lotus flower, So that one may recall stains of my tears for a thousand years.

In Du Fu’s poems, the execution of Consort Yang was still considered to be a meritorious act to save the state. In Li Yi’s poem, it became an ignoble move of everlasting shame. The sympathy from people in later times about Consort Yang’s undeserved death may have started from this poem. Meng Jiao and Han Yu From the later years of Emperor Dezong’s Zhenyuan reign onwards, especially during the years of Emperor Xianzong’s Yuanhe reign, Tang poetry reached a new high-water mark, and the difference between the special features of the poetry of this period and the Early and High Tang poetry became even more conspicuous. Accordingly, there was the suggestion of “the poetry style of Yuanhe” in the history of poetry. However, during this period, there were in fact two major schools of poetry which took opposite directions; one, that of Meng Jiao, Han Yu, etc., with a tendency for the startling and unusual, while the other, that of Bo Juyi, Yuan Zhen, etc., with a tendency for the easy and plain. In his early years, Meng Jiao (751–814) took the civil service examinations for quite a few times, but always failed. It was not until he was


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forty-six years old that he finally passed the exam for Presented Scholar, and he had to wait another four years before he was appointed for a low-ranking local position. He served on a few other lowly posts in subsequent years, but died of a sudden illness in the ninth year of the Yuanhe reign. One may say that he was poverty-stricken and unfortunate all life. Meng Jiao was seventeen years older than Han Yu, so he was in fact the pioneer of the so-called “Han-Meng” poetic school. However, there are differences between the two of them. Meng Jiao’s compositions are mostly in the short-lined form of the pentasyllabic old style; his diction, while highly polished, does not go for the flowery. Han Yu has observed on his poetry: “Across the sky his iron-hard words stand/ Fully at ease in all their forcefulness.” (“Recommending a Scholar”) On the other hand, Han Yu’s poems in heptasyllabic old style are the most characteristic works of his: they are magnificent and unrestrained, with a strikingly unusual beauty. Both poets have great vigor, but Han Yu’s is a bold and flowing force while Meng Jiao’s is controlled and subdued. Of Meng Jiao’s poems, the most widely known one is the short piece “Song of a Wanderer,” which shows deep emotions in plain words. It does not represent his dominant style, though. First of all, his poetry is clearly marked by the expression, with a keen sensitivity and in an incisive manner, of a poor scholar’s indignation at his own plight and at social injustice. Some of his poems focus the attention on social phenomena with a broad perspective. For instance, in “Song of the Common People in the Cold Region,” there is a strong contrast showing the inequality between the rich and the poor: “Up in the lofty halls, bells are played at drinking parties,/ The sound of boiling and cooking lasts until the daybreak,” “The frosty wind blows through the walls,/ They suffer from the pain, but have no escape.” Then, in the lines, “The cold people would like to turn into moth/ And get burned to death in their blazing light,” a profound mental work is involved, which is not something one may find in those who just want to keep a casual record of people’s suffering. In recounting his personal grief and loneliness, he demonstrates even more clearly the conflict between the individual and the society, as in the second of his “Autumn Thoughts”: The autumn moon looks so icy, An old traveler feels so lonely. Cold dew drips, breaking off my dream, A brisk wind, so cold, combs my bones. The mat is imprinted with the shape of the sick,

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chapter ten In my heart, sorrow surges all the time. Suspicion and doubt have no grounds; What a waste to listen to false news. The phoenix tree stands tall, though withered, Still makes sound like sad plucking of strings.

On the surface, the poem only describes scenes in nature on an autumn day. However, all such things like the wind, the moon, and the dew are icy cold and disagreeable, and they even turn into a force that imperils human life. All around, everything presses on human beings threateningly. Without question, it is the poet’s impression of his living space, and the reason why he would have such an impression is inseparable from a strong self-consciousness on his part, and his sensitive character based on the consciousness. Du Fu also described his life of hardship, but there were always some other factors (such as his concern for the destiny of the imperial regime, the expectation of his own political ability) that might help to bring about some reconciliation, and such factors no more existed for Meng Jiao. Because of his depression and low spirit, as well as his sedulous strife for perfection, Meng Jiao has resorted to many artistic means rarely seen before. He is fond of using rarely used words and obscure imagery, with an inclination for somber, subdued colors and a sense of the dreary and lonely; even ordinary things are depicted in a startlingly unusual manner. The above-cited poem displays such characteristics. In addition, lines of the following category are frequently found: “An old insect chirps a metallic clanking,” (the twelfth of “Autumn Thoughts”), “Black grass: iron hair being washed,/ White moss: ice coins afloat,” (the fourth of “Stream in Rocks”), “Thick ice shows no cracks,/ A short-lasting sun shines with cold beams.” (“Chant of Suffering from Coldness”) Traditional aesthetics that regard the bright and fresh as beauty is almost nowhere to be found in Meng Jiao’s poetry. In a conspicuous way, it indicates the creative approach of building up a poetic world through subjective feeling. When the Song dynasty author Xu Yi remarked, in his Yanzhou’s Poetic Remarks, that Meng Jiao “was able to get a grip on or ignore reality to make it fit his own mind, which was extremely difficult to do,” he was referring exactly to this aspect of his poetry. After receiving the degree of Presented Scholar in the eighth year of the Zhenyuan reign, Han Yu (768–824) went through some ups and downs in his official career, twice demoted or sent on exile because he submitted memorials to the throne on specific matters. During the


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reign of Emperor Muzong, he held important posts in the court. In the Mid-Tang period, Han Yu was an important figure in many respects. In the field of prose, he led the “Classical Prose Movement” which emphasized the importance of bringing into full play the political and moral functions of prose writings, and he tried to reestablish the dominance of Confucian thinking in society and public feeling. In the field of poetry, using his great genius and talent, he pushed the startlingly unusual style initiated by Meng Jiao towards a far more unrestrained new world of imagination wherein the extremely strong will power of the individual was in display which, accordingly, brought remarkable changes to classical poetry. While there are differences between the two of them, both have exerted great influences on literature of their own times and of subsequent ages. The phenomenon of the different orientations of poetry and prose, quite typically, reflected the growing complexity of literature after the Mid-Tang period. The conflicts found in Han Yu were related to his personality. He had a high opinion of himself, but before he had a smoother official career in his late years, he went through many hardships and setbacks in life, and according to his own account, he was also in bad health. On the one hand, he set up the expectation for himself to follow Mencius’s example and continue the Confucian tradition; on the other, he toiled in the official circles for personal advancement. (In his poem, “Left for Dongye after Intoxication,” he mocked himself for having acquired his official appointment through his “cunning”.) It accounted for the great pressure pent up in his heart, which needed an outlet. Han Yu once claimed that “For all my emotions, I keep the winecup as company, / When I have some spare time, I turn into a poet.” (“In Response to Others at a Dinner Party, in Eighty-Two Couplets”) It does not mean that he despised poetry; rather he kept it as something in a private space away from his official career and moral engagement. Precisely because of this, his poems were written in an extremely unrestrained manner, and his rich imagination, vivacious disposition, and the intense contradictions in his heart, are all displayed in his poetry. If we acknowledge that the norm of literati poetry, established since the Six Dynasties, began to be challenged by Du Fu and became even more so with Gu Kuang, Meng Jiao and others, then, with Han Yu’s compositions, it was simply broken. There is nothing he cannot write about in his poems. Beautiful and majestic scenes are certainly proper in poetry, but things that are horrible, gloomy and ugly can also serve

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as the material for poetry (for instance, he wrote on the subject of having loose bowels). He is fond of composing in the free form of the old style wherein the syntax and rhythm change at will. In addition, unlike Du Fu, he does not always try to seek some kind of balance; in using the syntax of prose or the parallelism of the rhapsody, he may deliberately push it to the extreme. (For example, in his “Poem on the South Mountains” he uses the words “some” (huo) and “like” (ruo) in more than fifty consecutive lines.) He has no scruples whatsoever in his choice of diction: jerky, awkward-sounding, unusual and weird words emerge in an endless stream. In short, Han Yu’s poems often strike the reader as surprising and strange, even grotesque and preposterous. Such characteristics, as embodied in specific poems, are not always successful, but in general they represent a daring path-finding effort in the art of classical poetry. The greatest success in Han Yu’s poetry is the creation of a general mood with a sense of enormous strength and emotional dynamism through spectacular imagination and great momentum. Sikong Tu has remarked that Han Yu’s poetry “commands and exerts a tremendous force of thunder and lightning, and hovers briskly between heaven and earth.” (“Inscription at the End of Liu Zongyuan’s Works”) Such an artistic taste that lusts after a fight by force, tit for tat, demonstrates, precisely, the author’s headstrong and somewhat recalcitrant personality. For instance, in “Director Lu Yunfu Sent by Mail His Two Poems Presented to the Master of the Valley of Bends and I Composed My Songs in Reply,” he describes the waterfall like this: “At this time, it’s just clearing up: the Celestial Well overflows;/ Who stands by Mt. Taihang holding that long sword in hand?/ A gusty wind blows through it, sending, flying into the sky,/ A rain that falls in the sunshine all over Luoyang.” In describing a mountain fire, “Fire at Mount Luhun: In Reply to Huangfu Shi Observing His Rhyming” goes: “Heaven and earth leaps and bounds, turning the universe upside down,/ The flame lights up all the rocks around,/ It burns in a circle, closing on the lofty peak in the center,/ With no exit to flee through, all gods and ghosts get charred.” In writing about the river, “Chaste Woman Gorge” goes: “Winding river runs through the bondage of gorges, unleashing the spring torrents;/ Thunder and wind fight: fish and dragons flee;/ Booming cataracts shoot down to the bottom of the waters,/ Sending huge waves that rush on for a hundred miles.” “The Arrow Hits the Pheasant,” which describes only the round-up hunting of a pheasant, turns out to be extremely intense:


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At the end of the plain a fire is ablaze in utter stillness. A wild pheasant, scared of falcons, appears and disappears. The general, who wants to excel with his cunning, Reins in his horse, draws his bow, but does not shoot. The terrain gets harsher, the audience grows more packed; The pheasant is startled: the bow fully drawn, the strong arrow fixed; Bolting towards people, it suddenly darts up for more than a hundred feet; Red feathers and white arrowhead swerve at a slant. The general looks up and laughs to the applause of his men and staff; And the colorful, disheveled bird drops right in front of his horse.

In the round-up hunting, the two opponent forces—the general and the soldiers at his command, and a single pheasant—are hardly in match at all. However, the author still wants to bring out the confrontation in full force, and his art lies in building up all the tension until the eruption at the last moment. Accordingly, the killing of a pheasant turns into a powerful, decisive slaughter with the force of a thunderbolt. It is a poem with great emotional appeal; its course of “buildup of the force” is also a progress towards the crescendo of emotional tension which, being defused at the last moment, turns into a pleasant sensation. Some of Han Yu’s poems in other styles are also very well written. For example, “Early Spring: Presented to Vice Director Zhang Ji of the Bureau of Waterways and Irrigation” is facile, spontaneous, plain, and succinct: “A drizzle from the celestial roadways lubricates like butter,/ From afar one sees the color of grasses, but when one gets near, it disappears;/ This is the best time of the spring, and of the year as well,/ It’s even better than the mist-like willows all round the imperial city.” The famous “Mountain Rocks” adopts the chronological order of sequence of the average travel note in prose. It starts from the arrival at the mountain temple and moves on to the watching of the murals in the evening, to what one hears and sees while lying in bed at night, to the departure from temple in early morning, all the way to the descent from the mountain. Narrating in great details, it makes the reader feel as if he were personally on the scene. The poem has characteristics of its own in containing unusual turns in its generally facile course and some meticulous but unostentatious maneuvering. In composing his poems, Han Yu has an inclination to seek novelty and show off his erudition; he is fond of using uncommon words and argumentation, and some of his choices of subject matter are disagreeable. All these have given rise to criticism. However, he was a major

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poet with great originality in spite of all such shortcomings. When some Song dynasty poets, who did not have as much talent, tried to model themselves upon some of Han Yu’s idiosyncratic features, they could not help but become like the ugly woman East Shi (“Shi of the East”), knitting her brows in imitation of her neighbor West Shi (“Shi of the West”), the legendary beauty, in the famous fable. At that time, a number of poets in Han Yu’s company, such as Lu Tong, Liu Cha, Jia Dao, Li He and others, shared some similarities with, or bore some resemblances to, Han Yu and Meng Jiao in terms of poetic language, form, and style. Keeping in contact with one another, they were quite influential in the age. Li He, Jia Dao, and Others Of the poets in Han Yu’s company, the one who made the highest achievements was Li He (790–816), a distant member of the imperial family. Except for providing a sense of pride in one’s pedigree, such a family background had no advantage whatsoever. Because his father’s name was Jinsu, he was prevented from participating in the exam for the Presented Scholar ( jinshi) due to the taboo of homophonic names, and was only appointed for an inferior post. With his family in straitened circumstances, he had rather poor health and unprepossessing appearance, but he was actually a sensitive and precocious genius, emotionally most susceptible to life’s miseries. Eventually, he died in distress at the age of only twenty-seven years. Li He once cherished some heroic ambitions. He says in his poem, “Southern Garden”: “My man: why not carry a scimitar along/ And seize the fifty prefectures across ranges of mountains?/ Please go up the Merit Pavilion to have a look:/ Which of those high nobles was a mere man of letters?”7 Facing the ruthless reality, however, such heroic ambitions became nothing more than an occasional flash of thinking. The scenes in the world that he conceived in his mind were cold, detached and terrifying; it was a world of chaos and darkness: “The sky is dim and dark,/ The earth, thick and dense;/ Bears and serpents eat 7 In the original “Merit Pavilion” is “Misty Pavilion,” constructed in Chang’an by Emperor Taizong’s order in the year of 643. It housed the portraits of twenty-four founders of the Tang Empire painted by the famous painter Yan Liben, with words of praises written by Taizong himself. In the original the term “High nobles” is “Marquis with a fief of 10,000 households.”


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souls of men,/ Snow and frost make human bones snap./ Mastiffs snarl noisily and sniff around,/ Licking their paws, they want to bite those with orchid garlands.” To the author, the reason why the nice and virtuous people (“those with orchid garlands”) suffer from misfortune is because “Heaven is scared that they may get bitten:/ That is what brought about all this.” It means that the evil forces not only prevail over human beings, but even over Heaven. It is a feeling of despair. However, the unfortunate people are not crushed altogether, as their indignation and sorrow have transformed into a permanent existence, as sung in “Autumn Arrives”: Wind howls through the phoenix tree, startling the heart of a warrior who suffers, In failing lamplight grasshoppers chirp like someone weaving cloth in the cold; Who will read a book written on bamboo slips, still green, So that it won’t be left to moth to be eaten and turned into ashes? Haunted by the thought which turns into a lasting pain in heart, In the cold rain, the book’s author is condoled by a sweet spirit. In autumn, by gravesite, ghosts sing these poems after Bao Zhao; His angry blood, over a millennium, congeals into emerald in the soil.

In short, the keynote of Li He’s poetry is to take personal destiny as a point of departure, and to feel, to experience, and to resist the suppression of men from nature and society. Suffering from premature senility, Li He seemed to have had a premonition of death, and he was also known as a “demon talent’ because he often wrote about demons and ghosts in the netherworld. On the other hand, Li He was also a poet with an extremely strong lust for life; therefore he was always looking for brilliant colors in the bleak and the desolate, and to represent life’s activities in deadly stillness. Accordingly, deep gloom and bright colors, decay and astonishment, bitter cold and glorious splendor, present side by side, constitute the idiosyncratic sense of beauty in the imagery of Li He’s poetry. For instance, this is how he writes about a tragically heroic battle of life and death: “The sound of the horns echoes all around against the autumn sky,/ At the frontier, the red glow turns into the purple of the night;/ A red flag, half rolled up, flaunts over the cold river,/ In the heavy frost, the sound from frigid drums is muted.” (“Song of the Prefect of Yanmen”) In writing about the site of the goddess of Mt. Wushan, he says: “The Jade Consort has already gone for a thousand years,/ From behind lilacs and bamboos old apes cry;/ The ancient

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shrine is close to the cold moon with the toad and laurel therein,/ Red petals of the prickly ash fall and get wet within clouds.” (“High Are the Wizard Mountains”) The fields in his eyes sometimes are like “Cold red, dropping tears of dew, a lovely girl weeps,” and sometimes are like: “Lamps of ghost, bright as paint, light up the pines.” (“Song of the Fields at Southern Mountains”) The poem “Autumn Arrives,” cited in the above, also displays such special features. The beautiful fair sex is an object of affection for Li He, and the intangible and incorporeal world of divinity, in Li He’s fantasy, becomes a place detached from time and accordingly also free from the threat of death. In poems that explore these two themes, one can detect more of a sense of beauty, either in bright colors or in a mysterious blur. Among those in the former category, there is the image of a beautiful woman in “True Pearl, Maid from Luoyang,” “True Pearl, a young maiden, descends from the blue serene;/ In the garden of Luoyang, a light sweet-scented wind blows./ A hairpin slants by her cool hair on temples, bright as jade swallows,/ She sings to the moon by a lofty tower, with her pendants ringing;/ Wind wafts orchid, dew smells of cassia, all over the quiet verdure,/ Plucking of red strings ascends to the clouds with her deep thoughts;/ The one in a colorful robe and on a white horse has not yet returned,/ Her dark eyebrows are knit like overlapping willow leaves, her sweet lips pursed in intoxication.” In the latter category, there is “Dream of the Sky”: The old rabbit and the cold toad weep high up in the sky, The tower of clouds is half-open: its walls white in slanting shine. Marble wheel rolls on dew: a wet sphere of light; Phoenix-shaped pendants ring on pathway that smells of cassia. Amid yellow dust, in clear waters, beneath the three Fairy Mountains, Changes have occurred over a thousand years as fast as running horses. From afar, one looks at the nine columns of smoke in the Middle Land: The single pool of water from the sea is pouring into a cup.

However, there is still an overcast of gloom in these poems. The love between men and women, in his poems, seems to be always obstructed and ruined by some unknown forces. When he writes about the eternal world of divinity, it is actually because he cannot forget that everything in the real world is brittle and fragile. He knows perfectly well that what he pursues after is only a beautiful illusion. Li He’s poetry, like Han Yu’s, is just as rich in imagination and deviates as far from the norm. Han Yu’s imagination, however, carries clear traces of an elaborate effort in composition. Li He’s imagination,


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on the other hand, approximates the wild fantasy of a morbid genius and is something unfathomable for ordinary people. All kinds of illusionary sensitivity and mental confusion may be transformed into concrete and distinct sensations in his poems. Let us just take the representation of sound as an illustration of that. In his poems, when one taps the sun, it may sound like glass (“King of Qin Drinks Wine”); when one taps the bones of a skinny horse, they may sound like copper due to their hardness (“Poems on Horse”); when the clouds in the Milky Way drift, they will sound like water flowing (“Up in the Sky”), etc. Illusionary imagination of the kind emerges in an endless stream, and it is always contrary to expectation; it is really beyond ordinary thinking. In addition, the train of thought in Li He’s poems also runs by leaps and bounds, drifts from place to place, and does not observe any logical rules; one can hardly figure out its sequences of ideas, and the reader is constantly taken by surprise. Furthermore, the subjects of his poems are mostly removed from the experience of daily life, and his word choice is also exotic, therefore Du Mu has observed: “Whales breathe and huge turtles roll, monsters and demons of all descriptions—none of them match the fantastic and preposterous in him.” (“A Note on Li He’s Songs and Poems”) In conclusion, compared to that of his predecessors, Li He devotes more attention in his poetry to the representation of inner emotions and feelings, and ignores the inherent objective characteristics and logical relationship of things, breaking free from the conventionally acceptable mode of thinking. The move toward subjectivity in representation of Tang poetry reached a more advanced level with Li He, wherewith he opened up a new world for Chinese poetry. Jia Dao (779–843) was a Buddhist monk in his early years. Later he resumed secular life and participated in the examinations for the Presented Scholar, but he never passed, and served only at lowly posts. Living under straitened circumstances, he often spoke about hardship and poverty in his poems; however, it was quite prevalent in MidTang poetry, and it also might have something to do with the change of poetry itself. Although Jia Dao had a close relation with Han Yu, he was quite different from Han Yu in poetic style. In terms of poetic forms, he is fond of and skilled at pentasyllabic regulated verse, the general characteristics of which being balanced, even, smooth and exquisite. The subjects of his poems are mostly within the range of the experience of daily life, and rarely do they indulge in fantasy. His poetic language is

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also not so strange and exotic. Jia Dao loved to compose poems and he once claimed that “If I do not compose poems even for a day,/ The source in my heart feels like a disused well.” (“Presented to Friends in Fun”) What, then, are some of the characteristics of his own? Han Yu once observed on Jia’s poetry: “Once he got to explore all the strange variations,/ Now he often works on the mild and smooth.” (“Seeing Monk Wuben on His Trip back to Fanyang”) Compared to the grotesque and strange poetic style of Han Yu’s school, one may say that Jia Dao’s poetry is indeed like that, but it is by no means similar to the style of Meng Haoran, which is mild and smooth in a spontaneous way. Jia Dao’s chief idiosyncrasy in poetry composition is that he is fond of painstaking maneuvering; he is skilled at finding material for poetry in daily life, even in trifles and, after meticulous elaboration, composing refreshing but not so fantastic lines. In a poem, the two parallel couplets in the middle are where he devotes the greatest attention to. For instance, one may find that the couplet, “A solitary crane shrugs its cold bones,/ The tall fir trees chime in a light cool breeze,” (“On an Autumn Evening Thinking with Admiration about the Musical Gathering of the Two Gentlemen, Qian and Meng”) tries too hard to sound new, while the other couplet, “Snow falls: pines become even greener,/ Frost sets in: moonshine turns brighter,” (“In Gratitude to Grand Councilor Linghu for Giving Me Nine Sets of Clothes”) sounds more natural. Both of them, however, are not composed casually. The couplet that Jia Dao takes the greatest pride in is in “Presented to His Reverend Wu Ke”: “Walking alone: the reflection at the bottom of the pool;/ Taking several rests: this body by the side of trees.” He specifically provides a note to it, saying: “Two lines acquired in three years—/ Once I chant them, a pair of tear streams flow;/ If those who understand sound do not appreciate them,/ I’ll return to my native mountains, and lie down in autumn.” It shows how meticulous in composition he was, and how he valued his own work. The first line writes about a lonely person standing alone by the side of a pool, looking at his own reflection in water; the second line is about that person, feeling wearied, have a rest by the side of trees, and besides the solitude, there is in addition a sense of helplessness. The two lines are indeed quite skilled in parallelism, but are not necessarily so extraordinary. In the Tang dynasty, the composition of poetry became an indispensable attainment for men of letters, but the lack of talent, imagination and life’s experience might make it extremely difficult for many


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of them. Jia Dao’s efforts in searching for subjects of poetry in the most commonplace and trivial, and his creation of world of poetic imagination through meticulous maneuvering, in fact, demonstrated that poetry may be composed under any condition. For this reason, Jia Dao’s influence in later times was no less than that of some of the major Tang poets. He, in fact, was the model for minor poets. At the time, there was also Yao He, whose style was close to that of Jia Dao, and they were known together as “Yao and Jia.” Yuan Zhen, Bo Juyi, and New Music Bureau Poems Around the fourth year (809) of Emperor Xianzong’s Yuanhe reign, Yuan Zhen, Bo Juyi and others intentionally adopted the form of New Music Bureau poetry to reflect social issues and to satirize political evils, so as to bring about visible social effects. In relation to their composition, they also put forward a series of practical theoretical suggestions. In the past, this new wave in poetry was called the “New Music Bureau Movement,” and a number of poets, such as Zhang Ji, Wang Jian, Li Shen and others, whose preferences in poetry composition were close to them, were included. The peak of this new wave in poetry did not last for a long time, but these poets also wrote many poems of other types. In their various poems—especially in the poems of Yuan and Bo—diversification is quite obvious. Zhang Ji (ca. 766–ca. 830) had a large circle of friends and was closely related to the two groups of poets respectively led by Han Yu and Bo Juyi. He claimed he “learned to write poetry in multiple styles.” (“In Memoriam of Han Yu”) Bo Juyi praised him for “being especially skilled in Music Bureau poetry, and no one could match his accomplishments in the entire generation.” (“Reading Zhang Ji’s Old Music Bureau Poetry”) In “A Letter Presented to Han Yu,” Zhang Ji displays an active attitude towards the defense of Confucianism as a way to improve the general mood of politics and society. That he composed a large number of Music Bureau poems on problems in reality may have something to do with such an attitude. These poems hold a broad range of subjects, but the most remarkable type among them contains those critical of the government for imposing excessively heavy tax, which accounts for people’s hard life. “Song of Hurry,” “Song of an Old Rustic Man” and “A Deer Stands at the Mountains” all fall under this type, and here is the last one of them:

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chapter ten A deer stands at the mountains with its sickles of horns and its short tail. The poor kid does not have enough to pay the high tax. Her husband is dead, yet unburied, and her son is in the prison. The blazing morning sun shines above the wild ridges; The land crops nothing: no grains are offered to set the son free. The district government worries only about insufficient army provisions: Who would ever concern with your suffering or death?

Poems of this kind may be politically significant, but as poems per se they show little of the author’s feelings and they are certainly not so appealing to the reader. Some of Zhang Ji’s easy but tactful lyric poems, however, read more graceful. Take, for example, the “Autumn Thought”: Autumn wind arose in the city of Luoyang. Having much to tell, I set about writing a letter home. But then again, fearing that I didn’t say everything in a haste, I opened the envelope right before the messenger’s departure.

Wang Jian was about the same age as his friend Zhang Ji. He served at a couple of inferior posts before he was appointed as a Vice Prefect. His poetic style is close to that of Zhang Ji, hence the term “the Music Bureau Poetry of Zhang and Wang” in literary history. However, Wang Jian’s Music Bureau poetry seems to be broader in its range of subject matter. His poetry, while being adopted as a means of social criticism, carries more detailed description of the living condition of people of the lower strata of society. For instance, the “Song of the Boat Trackers” recounts the tragic condition of those who were drafted by the government to serve as boat trackers: “Against the wind, up the current, it’s as heavy as ten thousand bushels;/ The stop ahead is so far away, the one behind, remote;/ At midnight, along the embankment, it rains and snows;/ But being driven, we have to go through it;/ It’s cold at night, our clothes are wet under the short rain cape;/ Our breast bruised, our feet cracked, but we have to endure the pain!” Here one can feel the poet’s personal feelings rather than only a just position. In addition, Wang Jian is also famous for his “One Hundred Palace Poems.” They constitute a large-scale sequence of poems. Each one of them shows only some fragment of scenes, but together they involve the various aspects of life in the imperial palace. Some of them reflect the living condition of the maids of honor, as in the following:


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She has yet to receive the sovereign favor: her family’s worry; Newly in the palace, she recalls her life outside. Just learning the wind and strings, she still fumbles in playing And sings the frontier song in off-key scales.

The poem is mild in tone, but one may feel the boredom in the heart of the maid of honor and life’s desolation. Starting from the time when Du Fu composed “Song of the War Chariots” and “Song of the Beautiful Ladies,” poems that adopted the Music Bureau style but abandoned traditional titles to make more direct social criticism, the composition of Music Bureau songs with new titles gradually became popular. By the appearance of the twenty pieces of Li Shen’s “Music Bureau Songs with New Titles,” the concept of the “New Music Bureau” was officially formulated. Li’s poems are no longer extant, but judging from those whose titles have survived, one can easily tell their contents and characteristics. His composition was warmly responded by Yuan Zhen and Bo Juyi, and the composition of the New Music Bureau Poetry was pushed to its climax through their effort. One may say that prior to this time, when poets composed Music Bureau poems with new titles, they had a political purpose as well, but that was, after all, prompted by what inspired them from the event at the spur of the moment; as for what functions and through what channels such poems might serve, they never came up with any clear scheme. In the case of Yuan and Bo, however, it was a different story. In the early years of the Yuanhe reign, they began to serve at middlelevel official positions which carried the responsibilities of making advice and providing supervision and, as newly appointed officials, they had greater political zeal and felt the desire of taking the initiative. To them, the composition of the New Music Bureau poetry had already become an integral part of their actual political activities, so poems of this kind were consciously adopted by them as a political tool. Yuan Zhen (779–831) won high honor in civil service examinations and received appointments in the central government, but was demoted from that position because he offended the eunuchs for daring to speak bluntly. From his middle age onward he became more successful in his official career and served at one time as the Prime Minister.

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In the fourth year of the Yuanhe reign, Yuan Zhen read Li Shen’s twenty pieces of “Music Bureau Songs with New Titles” and was deeply moved. Adopting some of the poetic titles therein he composed “In Response to Editor Li’s Music Bureau Songs with New Titles: Twelve Pieces.” In his preface to the poems, he made it clear that the purpose of his own composition was that “living in an age of order with a great sage sovereign, I therefore wrote these straightforward lines to show descendents,” which was to say that compositions of this kind were written primarily for political purposes. Among the poems, “WhiteHaired Woman in the Shangyang Palace” describes how an ordinary woman has seen her youth slip by in vain, being imprisoned deep in the imperial palace. “Inverted Bells of Huayuan” makes a contrast of two different musical instruments and asks the sovereign to differentiate the virtuous and the evil sounds. “Playing on the Five Strings” uses the five strings as metaphor for five talented people, and hopes that the sovereign will recruit people of talent and cultivate the Five Constant Virtues. “Song for Buddhist Rituals” recounts the changing culture before and after the An-Shi Rebellion and laments the disappearance of the virtuous customs and conventions. In Yuan Zhen’s opinion, what these poems involved were all important political and social issues. However, Yuan Zhen was not really a person with the Confucian political zeal, and these poems of his contain more empty rhetoric than artistic imagery, and they also read like pompous verbiage. Subsequently he wrote more Music Bureau poems; some adopted conventional titles and some used new titles, but they all still followed the principle “to satirize or to praise according to the nature of the affair” (“Preface to Music Bureau Poems under Ancient Titles”). While these contained more concrete details in content than previous ones, the shortcomings that resulted from their being based on abstract concepts remained unchanged. For instance, “Words from the Farmer” tells how the farmers suffered from heavy tax and corvée labor, but says at the end: “I wish that the imperial troops win the war early against the enemies;/ When the farmer dies, his son lives on, just like the bull with its calf;/ We shall not allow the imperial troops not to have enough provisions.” It is consideration for the government far in advance, indeed. In general, Yuan Zhen’s New Music Bureau compositions made a record of failure. However, even in his youth he was known among those in the imperial court as “Yuan the Talented Young Man” because


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his poems were circulated and sung in the palace. (See his biography in The Old History of the Tang.) Among the poems expressing his personal feelings and representing his own life experience, which he really cherished and carefully composed, many were very well written. Take, for example, “Dawn in Spring”: The sky is about to light up, but it is not daybreak yet. Drunk, I smell the scent of flowers; asleep, I hear the warblers singing. Dogs bark, waking me up, and bells start ringing, I recall my emotions twenty years ago in a Buddhist temple at dawn.

The poem may have something to do with Yuan Zhen’s love affair as told in “The Story of Yingying.” It is very moving in its delineation of the poet’s hazy and perplexed feeling in a dreamlike memory. The most acclaimed of Yuan Zhen’s poems are those mourning his wife, which hold deep emotions and are very appealing in its sad mood. Take, for example, the first of the three pieces under the title of “Expressing My Sorrow”: The youngest daughter of Master Xie, most beloved by him: Everything went wrong after she married the poor Qian Lou. Seeing that I had no good clothing, she searched through her boxes. With my nagging, she pulled her gold hairpin for me to buy wine. With wild herbs as dishes at meals, she took it just fine. Falling leaves from the old scholar tree, she used for fuel. Today, with my salary of over a hundred thousand in worth, I can only make offerings and hold services on your behalf.

Bo Juyi (772–846) served as a courtier from the third through the fifth year of the Yuanhe reign, which made the period of climax for his composition of New Music Bureau poetry. In the tenth year of the Yuanhe reign, he was found guilty of speaking ultra vires and demoted to a regional post where he wrote “A Letter to Yuan Zhen” in which he systematically summed up his theory of poetry. At the same time, though, he also put an end to the composition of political poems that he used to advocate, and his outlook on life gradually inclined toward Buddhism. Subsequently he also served at various regional posts and then back in the imperial court. He came under increasing Buddhist influence as he moved into his old age. At last, he led a civilian’s life in Luoyang and formed an association with Buddhist monks at the Temple of the Fragrant Hills. He donated monies for temple construction, and gave himself the sobriquet Xiangshan Jushi (“Layman Buddhist of Fragrant Hills”). He died in Luoyang at the age of seventy-five.

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In both theory and practice Bo Juyi was the most influential poet of the movement of the New Music Bureau Poetry. Even during the early years of the Yuanhe reign, in his Collection of Policy Advices, which he wrote while “discussing the events of the time” with Yuan Zhen, Bo Juyi discussed, in one of the essays entitled “The Collecting of Poems as a Complement to the Observation of Current Affairs,” the functions and uses of poetry in a systematic way. He emphasized that one was able to understand social issues from poetry, and to observe “the rise and decline of the nation” as well as “the gain and loss of the imperial governing.” Therefore the sovereign should model after the ancient rulers and set up an official institute to collect poems and songs. In “Preface to New Music Bureau Poems,” which he composed in the fourth year of the Yuanhe reign, Bo Juyi made the explicit statement that poetry “should be written for the sake of the sovereign and his subjects, the things and affairs, not for the sake of writing itself.” Here “for the sake of the sovereign” was definitely placed above everything, while “writing” was absolutely put in a subordinate place. In “Reading Zhang Ji’s Old Music Bureau Poems,” he advanced his own ideas by praising Zhang Ji, making the observation that poetry containing “feng (airs), ya (elegance), bi (comparison) and xing (association)” would be able to move and change for the better “dissolute rulers,” “greedy and cruel officials,” and even fierce and brutal women—the “shrews.” In “A Letter to Yuan Zhen,” Bo Juyi even sharply criticized the two major poets who held the highest respect among people of his time, Li Bo and Du Fu, saying of Li’s poems that “if one tries to find the feng, ya, bi and xing, then one could hardly find one in every ten.” On the other hand, among the more than a thousand well-known poems of Du, while better than those of Li, there were “no more than thirty or forty pieces” that met the criteria of “feng, ya, bi and xing,” such as “The Official of Xin’an” and “The Official of Shihao.” Bo Juyi displayed therein much of his pride, not because he was a more talented poet but rather because his poems were politically more significant. Bo Juyi’s theory of poetry is largely a further elaboration of that of the Confucian scholars of the Han dynasty. He considered the functions of poetry primarily from its uses in politics and education. In fact he took poetry as a tool of politics and morality, and his ultimate purpose was to use it to help the sovereign to create good political order and foster nice social culture. This theory, just like that of the “classical prose movement” which was advocated by Han Yu during


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the same age in the field of prose, was a rejuvenation of the concept of literature based on the ethical standard, after a long period of being ignored, under new historical circumstances. If it were to be carried out in reality, it would impose serious restrictions on the development of poetry. Within its context, however, one certainly cannot say that Bo Juyi’s theory of poetry was entirely insignificant in the age, due to the fact that it contained therein an emphasis on the representation of reality in society, and when the poet treated the reality in society in a serious manner, his feelings might transcend the political and moral stand which he believed in and observed. Bo Juyi put together his poems that included political and social criticism as “Allegorical Poems,” which consist of primarily the ten poems of “Songs from the Qin” and the fifty poems of “New Music Bureau,” which he composed from the beginning to the fourth year of the Yuanhe reign. The artistic accomplishments of these poems are obviously higher than similar poems by Yuan Zhen, and it is more complicated to discuss them. Some of these poems are also strongly didactic in nature and read quite banal and flat; these belong to the first type. However, even among such didactic poems, the author would sometimes display some kind of contradiction. Take, for example, “Pulling up a Silver Vase from the Bottom of the Well.” In its short preface, the author declares that the purpose of the poem is “to stop elopement.” The poem recounts in details the love story of a pair of young lovers and contains many beautiful and moving details, providing for its reader an appeal opposite to the its author’s announced purpose. (Based on the poem, Bo Pu of the Yuan dynasty wrote his play, Atop the Wall and on Horseback, a eulogy of free-willed love.) While there are only a few of such poems, they may be counted as belonging to another type. There are quite a number of poems which expose, in broad perspectives, the injustice in society and the hardship of people’s life, in a bold and trenchant manner. For instance, “Light and Plump” elaborates on the extravagance of the banquet of bureaucrats, “All kinds of wine overflow in cups and flagons;/ Laid in dishes, various delicacies from land and waters,” and places it in a sharp contrast with the abyss of misery of the common people: “This year, there was a drought in Jiangnan,/ In Quzhou, humans turned into cannibals!” “The Old Man of Duling” tells how, even during a year of natural disasters, a local official still “collected heavy tax in great haste, family by family” and drove people to the wall; at the end of the poem the poet blasts such officials angrily: “You deprived us of the clothing

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over our body,/ You seized the food away from our mouth./ Wolves are those who do harm to people and things,/ Not necessarily creatures with sharp claws and saw teeth that eat human beings!” Poems of this kind clearly imply a genuine sympathy with the victims and a sense of social justice. Unfortunately, though, the author’s utilitarian political purpose was so strong therein which turned such grief and indignation into crude, unrefined screams. These may be categorized as the third type. There are also a few pieces which, their utilitarian political purpose notwithstanding, are artistically very appealing due to their emotional and in-depth description of reality; they belong to the fourth type. For instance, the famous “The Old Man with a Broken Arm of Xinfeng” recounts how an old man recalls that, when the imperial Tang court launched a war against Nanzhao during the Tianbao reign, he “stealthily punched and broke his arm with a large stone” and by means of which evaded military service and managed to survive. In the poem the old man says, It has been sixty years since this arm broke. Though I lost a limb, I keep my body intact. Even now, on cold nights, in wind and rain, Pain keeps me from falling asleep until dawn. Pain keeps me from falling asleep, But I never regret what I did, And I’m happy to be still around, old and alone. Otherwise, back then, on the bank of the Lu River, I’d have died: bones unburied, soul wandering alone. I’d have turned into a homesick ghost in Yunnan Weeping loudly above the graves of ten thousand.

The old man suffers the misfortune of becoming handicapped but, in a joyful tone, he rejoices his lucky survival, which makes it sound even more tragic to the reader. In the short preface to the poem, Bo Juyi claims that its purpose is “to caution against border warfare.” The poem, however, in fact reminds the reader more of the unhappy destiny of an individual being driven by the powers that be. Bo Juyi’s composition of New Music Bureau poems did not last very long. As one of the most important poets of the Tang dynasty, he had many other compositions both before and after this period. The most representative of the artistic achievements of his poetry are his long narrative poems, “Song of the Everlasting Sorrow” and “Song of Pipa,” which have been placed by the author himself under the category of “Lamentation.”


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“Song of Everlasting Sorrow” was written in the first year of the Yuanhe reign. According to Chen Hong’s “The Story of ‘Song of the Everlasting Sorrow,’ ” Bo Juyi’s original purpose of writing the poem was “to caution against women of great beauty, strike at the root of trouble, and provide a lesson for the future,” which may be said to make it also sound somewhat allegorical. Accordingly, from Consort Yang’s entrance into the palace to the An-Shi Rebellion, the poem stays satiric of the sovereign’s indulgence in sensual pursuits that endangers the realm, and the Consort’s monopolization of monarchial favor. However, such a purpose is shown to be neither very strong nor consistent throughout the poem. In portraying the love tragedy of Li and Yang itself, Bo Juyi is deeply sympathetic, which results in the entanglement of a double theme therein. In particular, the repeated highlighting of the affections between Xuanzong and the Consort, of the spiritual coupling of their two souls and their love that transcends life and death, and the use of many moving details including fictionalization that borders on fairy tale, help to create a tragedy full of pathos drastically weakening the earlier theme. For instance, the poem tells how after Consort Yang’s death, the sight of everything around strikes a chord in Xuanzong’s heart: “In Shu the waters of the river was emerald, the mountains, green;/ The Sage Ruler felt heavy in heart, day and night./ At the exile’s palace, the moonshine cast a gloom on him;/ In the evening rain, the sound of bells sank his soul.” Later, it keeps accentuating Xuanzong’s loneliness after his return to Chang’an: “Fireflies soared at the court at twilight, he was quietly lost in thought;/ The wick of the solitary lamp burned low while sleep kept escaping him.” He longs after a meeting with her in dream, but “Years went by after the living and dead parted;/ But her soul never even once showed up in his dream.” The dramatization of the living’s persistent love for the dead reaches its climax. Finally, a Taoist priest carries out Xuanzong’s mission to find Consort Yang, who has become immortal after death, and provides a channel for the exchange of their love which has been set apart by her death. Consort Yang asks the priest to take to Xuanzong the love souvenir from the bygone days, and to renew their former pledge. At the end, the poem gives emphasis to its overall theme: . . . As long as your heart is as firm as the golden hairpin, In heaven or in the human world, we shall surely meet.” At the time of parting she conveyed another message in passion.

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chapter ten In the message was an oath, known only to the two of them: “On the seventh day of the seventh month, at the Palace of Long Life, At midnight, with none around, we spoke in whisper: ‘In heaven, we’d fly as the two birds with the wings of one, On earth, we’d grow as two branches of the same tree.’ Heaven and earth endure, but one day they may be gone, But this sorrow of ours will last forever, with no end in sight.”

As a matter of fact, eventually what “Song of the Everlasting Sorrow” leaves in the mind of the reader is not the moral lesson “to caution against women of great beauty,” but rather the grief and sentimentality that result from the flimsiness and vulnerability of happiness in the human world, as well as the beautiful fancy that an everlasting love may transcend and triumph over all obstructions. The Mid-Tang period was one of great development of fictitious narrative literature. The literati chuan qi (“tales of the marvelous”), the folktales of bianwen (“transformation texts”), and the huaben (“prompt books”) fiction opened a new path in the history of Chinese literature, all of which shared a common feature—the popularization of literary taste. Bo Juyi’s “Song of the Everlasting Sorrow” was related to such a larger context, and it also shared the inclination toward popularization in taste. To the common people, the life of sovereigns and their consorts carried a mysterious temptation in itself, while what was being portrayed in the poem was a love based on universal human nature, so it met the need of the popular mentality on both ends. Accordingly the poem was not only widely popular in its own age, but it also provided an important prototype for later literary compositions. “Song of Pipa,” written by Bo Juyi in the eleventh year of the Yuanhe reign while he was demoted to serve at Jiangzhou, unfolds itself around a small event that the author lived through. It adopts the frame of a narrative poem, but a lyrical atmosphere prevails therein. At the opening, it recounts how, on an autumn evening, the poet sees a friend off by the Xunyang River at Jiangzhou, where he runs into a female pipa player and asks her for a performance. Then, it writes about how the woman tells her own life story, from happiness to misery, which strikes a chord of sympathy in the author’s heart: “Vagabonds at the end of the world are we both/ Now that we meet, what does it matter that we did not before?” Finally, the woman plays another tune; both her and the poet are deeply immersed in the melancholy music. Simple as the event narrated in “Song of Pipa” is, the poem has an elaborate narrative structure. From his sympathy with the woman,


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the author moves on to bring in himself in the account, and in their common destiny he seems to have gradually forgot the difference in their social status, and thus brings about a general sense of life’s disappointment wherein, to cite Chen Yinke’s observation, “both the subject and the object are transformed.” (See his Manuscript of My Research on the Poetry of Yuan Zhen and Bo Juyi.) The section in the poem that contains a detailed description of music is extremely well done. By the use of original and marvelous metaphors, it provides a very vivid representation of the changing rhythm of the music as well as that of the tumult in the performer’s mind. “She turned the pegs, plucked the strings twice or thrice,/ The melody was yet to start, but her emotions could already be felt.” At first it is casual and loose, as if she had something to say but would not say it; then, “She lowered her eyebrows, and let her hands free to play continuously,” and the easy rhythm discloses that she is getting more dynamic in her feeling. Later, the music turns from slow to fast, “Big strings clanked like a lashing rain,/ Small strings clinked like intimate whisper,/ Clank and clink, they mixed up in the playing,/ Pearls, small and big, dropped onto a jade plate.” The metaphor implies the mingling of all kinds of mixed feelings. At last, after a soft circular movement of flowing rhythm, it moves into the climax: “The silver bottle suddenly broke, wine gushed forth;/ Iron-clad horsemen charged; swords and spears clanged.” After such an earth-shaking outburst, it suddenly comes to a stop: “At the tune’s end she plucked, right across the middle of the board,/ The four strings, which made a sound like a piece of silk torn apart./ Boats east and boats west, they all remained quiet./ In the middle of the river nothing was seen, except the white autumn moon.” It returns to complete silence. Such a kind of description works in concert with the subsequent content of the pipa player’s account of her own life, playing its poetic function by means of implication. What Bo Juyi has classified as “Poems of Leisure” and “Miscellaneous Poems in Regulated Verse” include more works about daily life. They do not excel in illuminating and terse diction; nor do they show anything that is queer or startling. Some of the best among them are skilled at representing, in easy and facile language, life’s little charm in a slightly philosophical tone and extremely lively and natural manner. Take, for instance, “A Spring Trip to the Qiantang Lake”: North of the Temple of Solitary Hill, west of the Jia Pavilion, Clouds hung low, almost touching the surface of the waters.

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chapter ten At several places, early-rising warblers raced to reach warmer trees, At whose houses, newly-back swallows pecked the clay in spring. Gradually, all kinds of flowers began to daze our eyes; The grass was not yet tall, covering only the horse’s hoofs. I loved the east of the lake most—never tired of going there: In the shade of green willows—the white sandy dyke.

The dynamic and changing landscape by the West Lake in early spring is unfolded with the poet’s movement and changing perspectives. The dynamic scene and the mobile observer blend into one unity, making the poem so vivid and beautiful. Such a kind of description is quite unusual among heptasyllabic regulated poems. An apparent feature of Bo Juyi’s poetry is that it is easy and simple. It is not only found in his New Music Bureau poetry, which was deliberately written “in a straight and precise manner” so as to disseminate more readily to carry out its propagandist purpose, but also in most of his other poems, which also tend to be plain and easy to understand, with consistent and smooth-running thread of ideas, and generally free from jerkiness and incoherence. Such characteristics in language in his poetry work well with the mundane and popular taste that is frequently found therein. It helped to win an extremely wide readership for Bo Juyi’s poetry. However, there is a difference between the good poems and the bad ones; some of the latter are rather crude and loquacious. Liu Yuxi and Liu Zongyuan Artistically speaking, there was a pluralistic tendency in Mid-Tang poetry. Some of the poets, such as Liu Yuxi and Liu Zongyuan, while not so influential in the poetic arena, nevertheless still made singular contribution of their own respectively. At the end of the Zhenyuan reign, when Liu Yuxi (772–842) served as a courtier, he took a part, along with Liu Zongyuan and others, in the political reform led by Wang Shuwen, which quickly failed, and he was demoted to a regional post. Afterward, he served for a long time in the provinces. It was not until the second year of the Dahe reign (828) that he returned to serve in Chang’an again. Liu Yuxi came under Buddhist influence from his early years, and he lived through many frustrations in life, which made him consider the changes of things from a broader perspective of space and time and with a philosophical outlook. Since everything was, inevitably,


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changing all the time, and everything had its own process of rise and fall, one did not have to take too seriously the gain and loss in one’s life experience. On the other hand, Liu Yuxi was by nature a proud and aloof man who would not easily yield to any repressive power from outside; hence he did not become, as a consequence of that outlook, apathetic, dejected, or self-abandoned. Liu Yuxi’s poetry is characterized by a broad vision, a deep understanding of, and a sensible attitude toward, life and world, and at the same time it does not lack in passion. Liu Yuxi’s poems on history have been highly acclaimed, and the characteristics cited in the above are clearly embodied in them. In his poems on history, Liu Yuxi would, occasionally, make the kind of conventional observations of his contemporaries of the Tang dynasty, which sound sharp but are actually insignificant, as in “Terrace City”: “Thousand and thousand of buildings have turned into weeds/ All because of one song, ‘Flower in the Backyard’.” On the other hand, some of the poems wherein no ready conclusion is provided better represent his meditation through experiencing many vicissitudes in life. Take, for example, “Recalling the Ancient Times at West Fortress Mountain”: Wang Jun’s towered ships sailed down from Yizhou, And brought an end to Jinling as an imperial city. A thousand feet of iron chains sank to the river’s bottom; A flag of surrender waved from up the Stone Wall. In the human world, cycle of events went into the past; The mountain soars, as of yore, above the cold stream. Today all four seas belong to one state which I call home; The old fort stands forlorn among the autumn reeds.

When fate struck, all the efforts of the Wu people came to nothing in a tragic way. However, when things changed with the lapse of time, nothing was left of the bold valor of the Jin natives, all the same. Now, there only stand the forlorn reeds; only the silent Mother Nature seems unchanged forever. The poem implies a sense of insecurity of human existence and exudes a sense of desolation. Take, for another example, “Black Robe Lane”: By the Crimson Bird Bridge, wild flowers and weeds grow; At the Black Robe Lane, the setting sun shines. Swallows, which used to stay by the hall of Wang’s and Xie’s, Now, they fly into the homes of the common folks.

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All the sites of the powerful clans of the Eastern Jin, the Wang’s and the Xie’s, have since disappeared, one cannot but sigh over how all prosperity and nobleness are to be washed away by time and tide. However, history continues in changes, and the swallows, used as a symbol of the permanence of Nature, may still return to the same place, year after year. Liu Yuxi was demoted to serve in the south for quite a few times, and he was extremely interested in the popular folk songs there. Some of his compositions modeled upon folk songs, such as “Song of Bamboo Twigs,” “Song of Willow Branches,” and “Song Accompanied by Stamping of Feet,” are quite singular in feature, and the following two pieces are especially vivid and lively: From both north and south of the river, they look at the misty waves; On evenings, passengers sing songs to one another in response: “Peach Leaves,” to express love and “Bamboo Twigs,” to complain, The river keeps flowing on, while the bright moon shines over all. (Second of the Three Pieces of “Walking on the Dyke”) Green, green is the willow, and the river overflows; There arises the sound of the young man singing on the shore. In the east the sun shines, in the west, it rains; You say there’s no shine? I say it’s shine right here.8 (First of the Two Pieces of “Song of Bamboo Twigs”)

The poems are plain and easy-going in language, and exude the strong flavor of life of the folk songs, though the use of imagery in the first example and that of the pun in the second are, notwithstanding, quite ingenious. Like Liu Yuxi, Liu Zongyuan (773–819) was demoted to serve at remote regional posts because of his participation in the reform of the Yongzhen reign. He died while serving at Liuzhou at the age of forty-seven. Of Liu Zongyuan’s poems, only more than one hundred and forty have survived, and most of them were composed by him after his demotion. Liu claimed that he was “fond of Buddhism since childhood (“Preface to the Poem Presented to The Reverend Xun to Say Farewell Before His Visit to the Vice Censor-in-Chief, My Uncle, at the Latter’s Summon”). During his stay at Yongzhou and Liuzhou, he made

8 In the original the word qing (“shine”) in the last line is a homonym for (“love”), hence the pun as discussed subsequently.


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friends with Zen Buddhists and Buddhist monks. As his lines go: “All sounds arise for a reason,/ Serene is the silence among noises;/ Our mind is all the same as thus:/ Birds fly away, leaving no trace behind,” (“Five Chants at Master Xun’s Shrine: Meditation Hall”) “Nonchalantly I stay away from all the talk,/ Illuminated and joyous, I feel satisfied at heart.” (“Visiting Master Chao’s Shrine in the Morning to Read Zen Sutras”) It shows that he wanted to find relief from Buddhist principles. However, it was not so easy to wipe out all the indignation and resentment that resulted from political failure and long-time exile to the borderland, so his poems would sometimes display intense agony and desperation not to be found so frequently in Tang poems, as in lines like: “Pointed mountain peaks at the seaside are like tips of swords,/ In autumn, everywhere, they pierce into one’s broken heart,” (“Looking at Mountains in the Company of the Reverend Haochu and Sent by Mail to Friends and Relatives in the Capital”) “Forlorn, this wandering soul feels even gloomier,/ By the Yue River, we both wept when saying farewell,/ This body is away from the state by thousands of miles,/ Going through thousands of death, I’ve been in the wild for twelve years.” (“Saying Farewell to My Younger Brother Zongyi”) As Cai Qi of the Song dynasty has remarked, “The sad and disheartened lament, represented in poetry, turns out to be especially heartrending.” (Poetic Remarks from Cai Kuanfu) However, what is more prevalent in Liu’s poetry is rather a sense of empty and desolate loneliness; it is melancholy in essence, but the emotions are not exhibited in such an undisguised way as in the above kind of poems. Take, for example, “Getting Up at Midnight and Looking at the West Garden while the Moon Happen to Be on the Rise”: Waking up I heard the numerous dewdrops falling, I opened the door to look at the West Garden. The moon rose up the eastern hills in the cold, The sparse bamboo roots looked so dreary. Fountains in the rocks afar made a loud sound, Birds in the mountains cried once in a while. Leaning at the door frame, I stayed until dawn, Solitary and alone, I had nothing to say.

It is a cold, dreary and quiet night. The persona, unable to calm down in his heart as he fails to blend into Nature, feels an even more acute pang of loneliness. Even the sound of the remote fountains and the occasional crying of the birds startle him. Take, for another illustration, the famous “Snow on the River”:

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chapter ten From hundreds of mountains all birds have flown away, On thousands of roads not a single man is seen. A lonely old man, in bamboo hat and rush rain cape Is fishing alone while it snows on the cold river.

In its essence this poem shares something in common with Chen Zi’ang’s “Song of Ascending the Youzhou Terrace.” Both provide an image of the world as an empty vast space, using it to set the self, or an image symbolizing the self, in strong relief, so as to represent an aloof and proud mind. In comparison, however, Chen Zi’ang’s poem still sounds somewhat heroic in the bleak scene, whereas Liu’s poem highlights the sense of utter loneliness. On occasions, Liu’s poems may present an empty and nonchalant poetic world, as in “The Old Fisherman”: The old fisherman spent the night by the western cliff, At daybreak he drew the clear river water and burned bamboos for a fire. The fog lifted, the sun came out, but no one was seen there, Only the sound of the scull was heard over the green hills and waters. Looking back at the sky’s end, he went down the middle of the stream, Above the cliff, casually, idly, the clouds chased one another.

Everything in the world will disappear; even a human being may lead a seemingly illusionary life that is hard to be traced down. In fact, there is also a sense of loneliness in this poem, but due to the Buddhist philosophy between the lines, it is almost undetectable. However, by no means does it represent the main feature of Liu Zongyuan’s poetry. In the past the “aloof and apathetic” aspect of Liu’s poetry was somewhat exaggerated, and Liu was placed on the same par as Tao Yuanming and Wei Yingwu, which is inappropriate. As a matter of fact, Liu Zongyuan was always a sensitive poet who was nevertheless unable to detach himself from the world.

2. Late Tang Poetry Here, by “Late Tang” we refer to the period of about eighty years (828– 907) after the Dahe reign of Emperor Wenzong, the first thirty years of which constituted the early stage of the period, with Du Mu and Li Shangyin ranked as its major poets. During this stage, the imperial Tang court further declined, and the age cast a dark shadow of dejection and disappointment over the mind of the literati so their works were even more removed in spirit from the so-called “High Tang”


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milieu which had been characterized by majesty, boldness, and confidence. However, it was also a period when poets freed themselves once again from the restraint of the Confucian utilitarian concept of literature. They became more expressive of their innermost feeling and experience, and also made new accomplishments in artistic forms; hence the period was great enough to represent a new stage of development of Tang poetry. The subsequent roughly fifty years constituted the later stage of the Late Tang, when the imperial Tang court collapsed comprehensively, during which none of the poets was able to acquire the highest rank in the history of Tang poetry as a major poet, and the conditions of the poetic composition turned out to be more mixed and disorderly. There were many poems that represented social issues, and also many which sought to reach a peaceful mind through description of nature. At the same time, in association with the rise of the song lyric (ci), the composition of erotic poetry (yanqing shi) was quite remarkable. All such developments would have a direct relation on the changing literature of later ages. Du Mu, Xu Hun and Others After receiving the degree of Presented Scholar in 828, Du Mu (803– 853) served on the staff of senior regional officials. In his middle age he served at several regional posts and also, for a short time, in the capital. He was born in a prestigious family of officials. His grandfather Du You, who served as Prime Minister under three emperors, was a famous scholar and the author of the 200-volume Encyclopedia of Decrees, Institutions and Regulations. Always very proud of such a family background, Du Mu was eager to make significant political accomplishments, and he even wrote quite a few political and military works, such as Sinful Words and Annotations of Sunzi’s Art of War. His official career, as compared to his expectations for himself, was not so satisfactory. On the other hand, it was really difficult to find any solution for the decline of the Tang court. Accordingly he often alternated in mind, consistently, between a hard effort to brace up and self-abandonment in dejection. Early in his career when he served at the headquarters of regional officials, Du Mu often indulged himself in spending his time at taverns and brothels, assuming the status of a nobleman in dire straits or a romantic man of letters. Some of his poems describe such a life experience, which were liked by some and abhorred by others in the past,

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but they have nevertheless been quite well known. Take, for example, “Expressing my Thoughts”: Down and out, along rivers and lakes, I’ve traveled with wine in company And ladies with waists so slim as if they could dance in my palm. Now I wake up from a dream in Yangzhou that lasted ten years, What I’ve gained: the name of a fickle man among the Blue Mansions.

The speaker in the poem somewhat mocks at himself, but at the same time also seems to be rather proud of his romantic reputation. It is a sign that within the context of the decline of the imperial court, the pressure of morality in the society was somewhat relieved, so the literati, in expressing their own mind, felt more at ease. The best known of Du Mu’s poems belong to the category of those recalling historical events and those on history. As an enterprising man who thought highly of himself, he could not help but experience deep emotions when he felt that he did not have the opportunity to display his talent in actual political affairs. Take, for example, “Recalling the Ancient Times at the Red Cliff”: The iron part of the broken halberd, buried in sands, was yet not worn out, Holding it in hand, I polished it and identified it to be from bygone dynasties. If the east wind had not rendered it easy for Zhou Yu, the young commander, Late in spring, the two Qiao ladies would’ve been locked in the Bronze Bird Tower.

The “east wind” is a symbol of destiny and opportunity in history. What Du Mu implies here is that he is not necessarily less talented as Zhou Yu, who made great accomplishments at a young age; fortune and misfortune all depend on something that is beyond the individual’s grasp, the “east wind.” Certainly, Du Mu also realizes that it is not simply a matter of his personal destiny, as the entire age is in a helpless decline. Accordingly he will remark, as in “A Quatrain Composed When I Went Up to the Le You Tombs before I Set Out for Wuxing”: “I’d like to hold my banner and go across river and sea,/ But I stayed to look at the Great One among the Le You Tombs.” What he says here is that he is about to lead a carefree and free life across river and sea, but he is looking back at, and quite reluctant to part with, the tomb of Emperor Taizong—who represents a kind of glory and splendor that is simply beyond reach!


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When one examines issues of life and society in reality within the context of history, one can surely dilute the dark clouds over such issues through the expansion of time and space. On the other hand, one may feel even more strongly the vicissitudes of time and hence a different kind of melancholy, as shown in “Inscribed at the Waterside Pavilion of the Kaiyuan Temple of Xuanzhou”: Relics from the Six Dynasties lie under a grassland that adjoins the horizon, The sky is high, the clouds soaring at ease: past and present, it’s all the same. Birds come, birds go: against the landscape of the mountains; People sing, people weep: amid the sound of the running waters. Late in autumn, outside the curtains of thousands of homes, it rains; In the setting sun, by the tower, a flute is being played against the wind. I feel sad about being unable to meet with Fan Li Under the misty trees, tall and short, east of the Five Lakes.

Dynasties rise and fall. Past is superseded by present. All the prosperity of the bygone days, all the joy and sorrow, have since disappeared without a trace, and so will be everything in the present. The sense of time in the second couplet is rather unusual and startling: the changes in nature and the human world seem to have been condensed into a rapid and monotonous series of repeated images. When the pressure in one’s mind turns unbearable, Du Mu often tries to find relief with a kind of transcendental sophistication. In “Summoning Li Ying, the Presented Scholar, on the New Year’s Day in Hunan” he observes: “Great men take drinking as something they are busy doing,/ In this fleeting life, all are in vain, except poetry.” In “Ascending the Height on the Ninth Day at Mount Qi” he again remarks: “In the dusty world, rarely do we open our mouth to laugh,/ We must go home with chrysanthemum flowers decorating our head./ All we need is to get drunk to honor this nice festival,/ There is no need to climb high and deplore the setting sun.” Such poems demonstrate, on the one hand, a sense of aloofness from worldly affairs, a yearning for the free and unrestrained life, as if one has seen through all the vanity of the mortal world, and on the other, they also disclose that the poet’s mind is actually full of anguish, with no relief in sight. Du Mu was certainly of a rather heroic and optimistic disposition, and he also had a broad mind. From the poems cited in the above, one may see that the feeling of abandonment therein does not strike one

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as gloomy and uneasy; on the contrary, it even exudes an air of high spirit and refined elegance. As for some of his poems which simply describe nature and express emotions, they often impress the reader with a bright and dynamic lyricism, as in “A Trip into the Mountains”: A winding stone path leads far up the cold mountains; Deep in the white clouds is some people’s lodge. I stop my carriage as I love the evening at the maple woods; The red leaves in frost are brighter than flowers in mid-spring.

In terms of poetic forms, Du Mu was at his best in heptasyllabic regulated poems and quatrains, and those in the latter form have, in particular, been highly acclaimed. He was an extremely talented poet; the condensed form and rapid tempo of the heptasyllabic quatrain was the best means for him to display his agile mind and sharp wit. The language of Du Mu’s poetry is facile and smooth, but unlike that of Yuan Zhen and Bo Juyi, which tends to become easy and vulgar, it is both elaborately wrought and also full of dynamism; one does not feel anything crude and jerky in it. It is a display of his extraordinary talent. Xu Hun, a friend of Du Mu’s, was good at the regulated verse, and was also known for his poems recalling historical events. Take, for example, “Recalling the Ancient Times at Jinling”: The “Song of the Jade Tree” faded, the imperial court came to an end; At the Jingyang Palace, the troops gathered, the watch-towers deserted. Pines stand, near and far, by the tombs of thousands of ministers; Rice and millet grow, high and low, over the palaces of six dynasties. Stone swallows fly through clouds, rain or shine; Dolphins in the river spout in waves amid night wind. All the heroes are gone, so are all the glory and luxury, Only the green hills still stand just like around Luoyang.

The poem also makes a contrast between the permanence of nature and the transience of human affairs; in particular the second couplet reveals, in a conspicuous manner, a sense of life’s desolation, a sense that all glory and prosperity come to bleak termination. Such a way of composition is often seen in Xu Hun’s other poems, as in lines like: “At deserted terrace, deer race for new pasture;/ In empty courtyard, wild ducks take over the short grass,” (“Recalling the Ancient Times at Gusu”) “The temporary royal palace still has its foundation left, covered by wild herbs;/ The garden of the graveyard is without its owner, wild pears are in bloom.” (“Heaven-Reaching Terrace”) Technically


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speaking, Xu Hun’s poetry may be said to be consummate; compared with Du Mu, however, one may find that it lacks a passionate impulse driven by a special understanding of life through individual experience, and strikes its reader as somewhat superficial. In the past, Xu Hun was criticized for his frequent repetition in terms of his choice of diction and his imagination. He was known to be in particular fond of describing waters, hence the saying of “Xu Hun’s thousands of wet poems” (see Poetic Remarks from the Paulownia River as cited in the Poetic Remarks from the Fisherman-Recluse at the Trumpet-Creeper Creek). It was perhaps because that, while he would love to compose poems that are beautiful, he was nevertheless unable to present anything truly exciting and impressive. Another poet, Zhang Hu, was also a friend of Du Mu’s. His “Inscribed at the Jinling Ferry” is quite appealing: At the little mountain-side tower by the Jinling Ferry The passenger may pine away all night long; The tide is out in the river at night, the moon slants, Two or three sparks of light: the town of Guazhou.

An ordinary scene may acquire special significance under special circumstances, and poetry often finds such a special significance and seeks to disclose it through appropriate artistic means. Li Shangyin, Wen Tingyun, and Others In spite of his early accomplishment (having received his degree of Presented Scholar in 837), Li Shangyin (813–858) was unsuccessful in his official career in the long run. With the exception of several lowranking appointments in the capital, he served, for most of his life, as a staff member of local governments. At the time, the so-called “Partisan Struggle of the Niu’s and Li’s” was fierce, and Li Shangyin was drawn into its vortex, which accounted for the lack of success in his official career. He also suffered some setbacks in his personal life. According to some scholarly research, he had a few unconventional love affairs which did not work out. After his marriage, though, he was in love with his wife, but she passed away when he was only thirty-nine years old. He lived in an age of decline, an age without hope. This, in addition to his frustration in official career and trauma in his personal life, resulted in a strong sense of loss in his mentality.

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Some of Li Shangyin’s poems are directly related to contemporary politics. For instance, after the “Sweet Dew Incident” took place in the ninth year of the Dahe reign, he wrote “Thoughts: Two Poems” and “More Thoughts,” expressing his emotions at the tactlessness of the courtiers who attempted to kill the eunuchs, and the ruthlessness of the clique of the eunuchs in their revenge. When Liu Fen, who advocated for eliminating the power of the eunuchs, died after his demotion and exile, Li wrote successively several poems of “Mourning for Liu Fen” in grief. “A Composition of One Hundred Couplets while Stopping at the Western Suburbs on the Trip” enumerates the important reasons that account for the move from prosperity to decline of the imperial Tang court, and expresses his sorrow over the dire poverty of the common people as well as his feeling of helplessness about the situation. At the same time, he also wrote many poems on historical topics and remembrances of the ancient past. Some express his feelings through past events, and some use the past to disparage the present, but they all contain his experience of or feelings about reality. Poems under this category often sound gentle and mild in tone but contain sharp criticism between the lines. Take, for example, the lines in “Master Jia”: “What a pity that His Majesty gave him the foremost seat at midnight / Not to ask about the commoners but rather about spirits and gods,” or the lines in “Dragon Pool”: “At midnight, back from the banquet, the sound from the palace clepsydrae went on as if forever,/ Prince Xue was completely drunk; Prince Shou, wide awake,” etc. In terms of its imaginary world, “Wu Palace” is exquisitely beautiful: It was quiet and serene at the dragon-decorated thresholds and waterside halls; The gates of the Forbidden City were all closed, no human voice is heard. After the King of Wu’s banquet was over, everyone in the palace was drunk; By sunset, flowers drifted out of the city along the water of the streams.

It creates an imaginary scene after the banquet in the palace of Fu Chai, the King of Wu. Leading a life in intoxication and dreams seems to have become an eternity, but time is still fleeting, as evidenced by the flowers that drift out of the palace along the streams. In the fleeting of time, crisis is growing, decline and fall are approaching. Li Shangyin’s poems in the category of expressing personal feelings are, however, most characteristic of his style. He had a mental tendency against convention: he did not have much admiration for the


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“Way” of Lord Zhou and Confucius. In “A Letter to His Excellency the Metropolitan Governor and Minister of State,” he observes on the subject of poetry: “Human beings, being endowed with the best of the five elements and the dynamism of all the seven emotions, have to chant and sing to keep open the channels of expression of their personality. Accordingly, whether it’s in the mode of the gloomy yin or the bright yang, it finds expressions in various ways; peace and pleasure on the one hand, sorrow and grief on the other, each coming out from thousands of internal sources.” Here what is being emphasized is that the main function of poetry is to find expression of one’s personality and feelings. Continuing the inherent tendency of Tang poetry, Li Shangyin displays even more depth and detail in the expression of personal feelings. He is especially skilled in creating obscure and profound imaginary worlds through the use of exquisite and beautiful diction as well as implicit and indirect ways of expression, so as to present life’s experience and emotions, deep from the innermost heart, which are generally not so easy to be fully conveyed in words. Such indepth exploration of one’s mind and the corresponding artistic means of composition helped to make Li Shangyin the last major Tang poet, and also helped to give Late Tang poetry its strongly distinctive features which marked it different from previous poetry and constituted a new stage of development of the Tang poetry. The special features mentioned in the above are even more conspicuous in Li Shangyin’s “Untitled Poems” (including those titled by the beginning words of the poems but are actually untitled). As regards the themes of these untitled poems, it has always been a controversial issue. However, some of these poems are, without question, about romantic love. The reason why these poems have, in particular, attracted critical attention is largely because there were not so many genuine love poems in the previous tradition of literati poetry; rarely had anyone described love as a kind of deep-rooted emotional experience that involves life and death, directly from the perspective of the person concerned. More often, what we had were the so-called “Erotic Poems” which displayed an appreciation of females. In those that dealt with marital relations, the expression of feelings tended to be more restrained and solemn, with a touch of ethics and morality. When one reads Li Shangyin’s poems, however, one feels that the deep love has already been regarded as the most invaluable thing in life. It also has something to do with his means of artistic expression. These poems are often composed in the form of heptasyllabic regulated verse, the

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structure of which is frequently unfolded in a leapfrog pace; in general, every couplet creates a layer of meanings on its own, and the poem develops from one layer to another. Li Shangyin’s compositions, however, often sing in a consistent emotion throughout the entire piece, and emphasize the theme from various perspectives, so they appear to contain more depth and minuteness, and they are extremely appealing in emotions. Take, for example, the following “Untitled”: It’s tough to meet; it’s tough, too, to part. The east wind is impotent; all flowers wither. In spring silkworms continue spinning cocoons until they die; Candlewicks keep dripping tears until they turn all into ash. The only care looking at the glass at dawn: change of her cloudy hair; Chanting at night, will he feel the coldness of the moonshine? The Fairy Mountains won’t be too far from where we are now. O bluebird: please hurry up and find me the route up there.

It recounts the feeling of persistence and pain of a pair of lovers who are kept apart. It starts by referring to the misery of separation, moves on to their entanglement into the love affair, next to their griefstricken situation of missing each other while being separated, and finally, through the use of the image of the illusionary Fairy Mountains, it implies that while the two lovers are within a close distance of each other, they are nevertheless apart as if by thousands of miles. The only possible correspondence is through the help of the bluebird as a messenger, though they are still unable to see each other. The misery is accordingly even aggravated. The poem revolves around the impossibility of their love affair: they cannot bear to part from each other; nor can they find any satisfaction in the separation. The couplet of “silkworms in spring” and “candlewicks” conveys an strong sense of the tragic, and is extremely appealing to the reader. Another example is found in the poem of “Clepsydra”: I hear the clepsydra’s motion; I hear all the ringing of remote bells; Pieces of silk overlap one another in jumble, hard to place in order. Mirror-box with dancing phoenix decor still contains leftover eyebrow paint; Incense-burner in the shape of sleeping duck has changed its smoke by dusk. When she returns, I’m sure, she’ll still go toward the moon; When the dream arrives, where is one to find the clouds again? It’s getting warmer at the south pond; one can tie a knot with a cattail leaf now. In pairs and pairs, mandarin ducks preserve the ripples on the water.


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The first half describes a woman’s place of abode which appears remote and secluded, full of exquisite but desolate color and odor, and with a strong touch of illusion and mystery. Then, it discloses that after a lovers’ tryst, the one who returns is still sleepless and walking to and fro in the moonshine. In the myriad coming days, one can never know when such a dream of cloud and rain will ever turn into reality again. At the end, the image turns brighter, one sees the cattails, with leaves long enough to tie a knot with, at the south pond; one sees the mandarin ducks swimming together in the ripples—the sight makes it appear even more tragic to the beholder. Layer by layer, the poem highlights the hidden feeling of solitude and loneliness. In fact, there is no way we can know for sure whether Li Shangyin’s love poems were composed from his personal experience or based on sheer fancy. It is even more impossible to know who those addressed to in these poems are. All we can infer is that they might have something to do with his own experience of personal affections. In addition to his poems related with love affairs, quite a few of his poems on other subjects also present an obscure and illusionary imaginary world, which becomes a conspicuous special feature of his poetry in general. These obscure poems are more than often difficult to “understand,” and yet they always reflect strong emotions and have immense charm for the reader. Here, let us take his poem on “Patterned Zither” as an illustration of the “ambiguity” (hui) and “illumination” (ming) of these obscure poems: The patterned zither, for no reason whatsoever, has fifty strings. One by one, the strings and frets remind one of the years of glory. Master Zhuang is confused by the butterfly in his morning dream; Wangdi leaves his spring passion behind, in a cuckoo’s body. Over the vast sea, the moon is bright, pearls drip tears; At the Indigo Field, in warm sunshine, jade exudes a mist. On can expect this affection to turn into a memory one day; At the time, though, it already made one despair!

It has long been extremely controversial as to what this poem is really about. What we can acknowledge for sure is that perhaps some of its background can never be validated, and the reader’s only option is to interpret it according to his own life’s experience and emotional inclinations. On the other hand, it does not mean that it has left no clues whatsoever for the reader’s interpretation. In the opening couplet, at least, it suggests that the poem is inspired by the remembrance of “the years of glory”. The phrase “for no reason whatsoever” is startling in

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effect. The two couplets in the middle use four allusions successively. Line 3 uses the story of Master Zhuang’s butterfly dream in the chapter “Equality of Things” in Zhuangzi, and gives a sense of trancelike feelings about life. Line 4 adopts the story from Records of the Huayang State, which tells how Wang Di, King of Shu, transforms into a cuckoo which keeps crying sadly until it sheds blood in spring; it contains a sense of sorrow from a kind of relentless pursuit that does not yield any result. Line 5 uses the story from Records of Flora and Fauna, about mermaids whose weeping eyes may exude pearls, which carries a strong sense of melancholy in the context here. While we are unsure what the allusion in line 6 is, Dai Shulun of the mid-Tang period once described the kind of poetic world that is visible but beyond reach with the lines: “At the Indigo Field the sunshine is warm,/ Fine jade exudes a mist.” (See Sikong Tu’s “A Letter to Jipu”) Here, it perhaps also refers to a sense of hazy illusion. In the last couplet, it further points out that “this affection” has not “made one despair” in remembrance only; instead it did that in the bygone days already. In short, while the poem is certainly ambiguous and obscure, it displays a strong sense of illusion, perplexity and sorrow which it highlights back and forth, and all the related images are extremely clear, so the reader will not feel that the poet is deliberately mystifying for nothing. The ambiguity, to various degrees, in the poems cited above may have something to do with the author who, for some unknown reason, deliberately tried to avoid clarifying. However, one should note that poetry is, after all, an activity of artistic creation, and all artistic characteristics are inseparable from the poet’s purposeful pursuit. At least, Li Shangyin did not consider the obvious, detailed recording of people and events as a prerequisite of poetic composition, and he also chose not to express his feelings of joy, anger, sorrow and pleasure in a simple, direct and manifest manner. Instead he focused on impressionistic representation, by means of symbolism, of the complex and ever-changing emotions deep in his mind. He provided evidence that poetry does not have to represent apparent facts but may use ambiguity to reflect complex and unstable innermost feelings. Poems of this kind inspire the reader’s creative participation in the reading process, and it made a great contribution to the enrichment of classical Chinese poetry. Li Shangyin surely also wrote many poems about his feeling in ordinary daily life, as in his famous short poem, “Le You Tombs”:


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Towards evening, not feeling too well in heart I drive my carriage and go up to the ancient tombs. The sun, at its setting, is extremely brilliant But it is getting near the gloomy dusk.

This poem has often been cited as a symbol of the decline of the imperial Tang court. It is difficult to know for sure whether it was the poet’s original intention, but Li Shangyin’s frequent use of images of degradation and decline, such as the setting sun, withered flowers, or dried up lotus, has long been noticed. His personal destiny and the spirit of the age definitely made it easy for him to feel a sense of helpless desolation. Li Shangyin’s poetry widely incorporates therein the artistic achievements of his predecessors, such as the beautiful and ornate diction of the poetry of Southern Dynasties, the elaborate use of allusions in parallel prose, the strict observation to metrics and refined language in Du Fu’s regulated verse, and the use of a colorful and grotesque vocabulary in Li He’s poetry; all of these are apparent in his poems. As a major poet, however, he was engaged in a pursuit of his own originality, and the characteristics of his predecessors were already transformed and restructured into his idiosyncratic style. He accordingly has also provided an important model for later poets. In terms of poetic forms, he was particularly skilled in recent forms, especially the heptasyllabic regulated poetry, in the form of which he and Du Fu may be considered as the two great masters of the Tang dynasty. Wen Tingyun (?–866) was renowned for talent, but suffered setbacks all his life due to his arrogant and unrestrained personality and his loose conduct. He was the most important song lyric poet of the Tang dynasty, and we shall discuss it later. His poetry shares something in common with the song lyric, especially his Music Bureau poems, which stand out in their description of female beauty and representation of romantic love. In general his poetry is colorful and ornate with a strong touch of the erotic poetry of the Southern Dynasties. He enjoyed equal fame with Li Shangyin as “Wen and Li,” but in terms of artistic originality he actually seemed to be far from being Li’s match, except in a few of his best poems, such as “Lament from the JadeDecorated Zither”: Lying on the icy mattress of the silver bed, she fails to have a dream; The blue sky is watery; light clouds drift at night. The sound of wild geese’s cry echoes far beyond the Xiao-Xiang rivers, The moon shines so bright well inside the Twelve Fairy Towers.

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The poem recounts the loneliness and melancholy of a woman, but no reason for that is given. The scene on a moonlit evening is used as background for a beautiful but obscure imaginary world. The phrase “Twelve Fairy Towers,” originally an allusion to the residence of fairies, is used here to refer implicitly to the female protagonist of the poem. In addition, in those poems where Wen Tingyun describes his own life’s experience, there are also some fine compositions that excel in their description of nature and expression of feeling, like the wellknown “An Early Trip in the Shang Mountains”: I got up early amid all the hubbub of journeying; Passengers en route repined for leaving their hometown. Roosters crowed in moonshine over the thatched lodges, Men left their footsteps in frost over the planked bridge. Elm leaves dropped all over the mountain paths, Orange flowers lightened up the post station walls. I recalled my dream of Duling, my homeland: Wild ducks and geese flocked by the curved ponds.

The second couplet, famous lines in Tang poetry, consists of the parallel enumeration of several images. Such a structure, first adopted in the later period of the Southern Dynasties, was frequently found in Tang poetry. However, these two lines, due to their use of original imagery and natural-sounding collocation, are widely acclaimed. Among the poets of the early period of Late Tang, Li Qunyu and Zhao Gu are worth mention here. Their poems are not highly accomplished, but some of their best poems are well-known, and the diction is quite refreshing and facile. Take, for example, Li Qunyu’s “Temple of the Royal Consorts”: In front of the Temple of Royal Consorts, spring is in the nut grass; A maiden living by the Temple wears her new red skirt. On a little boat, rowing with a short oar, she leave while she sings. The river runs far, the mountains extend long: it makes one so sad!

The poem shares the special features of folk songs: it is quite colorful, and it moves in a fast tempo. Zhao Gu composed “An Autumn Scene in Chang’an”: Desolate looking clouds drift along in a flow at dawn, Imperial palaces stand amid all the motion of autumn. Against dots of remaining stars, wild geese fly across the frontier. The sound of a flute leads to someone who stands atop the tower.


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Purple chrysanthemum flowers are half in bloom on the quiet hedge; Lotuses by the islet, looking sad, have dropped their red blossoms. The delicious perch is right in the season, but I am not returning, In vain do I wear a southerner’s cap and feel like a prisoner here!

Of the second couplet, it has been said that Du Mu “chanted it again and again, and thereby regarded (Zhao) Gu as ‘Zhao, the one who stands atop the tower.’ ” (Chronicles of Tang Poetry) The poem quite successfully recounts the disappointment and melancholy of life as a passenger away from home. Poetry from the End of Late Tang Poets at the end of Late Tang followed in the footsteps of Li Shangyin and Wen Tingyun; among them Han Wo (842–923) was known for his dainty songs about romantic love. Han Wo was acclaimed for his Collection from the Fragrant Toilet Case the contents and style of which, just like its title, have the special features of the erotic poetry. Some of the poems therein are rather explicit and sensual, as found in the kind of the line in “Half Asleep,” “All four limbs attached to her man’s body, so lovely, she’s about to weep,” or the lines in “A Passing Thought,” “Powder on her face, uneven, is thick as the Shu wine;/ Lipstick on her mouth, easy to imprint, is thin as Wu silk.” Some others are more implicit, as in “Listening to the Rain”: Scent of incense pervades her midiskirt, at night it’s a little cold; Listening to the rain and grieving in spring, she’s unable to have a dream. Silk curtains hang down around her bed, a red candle shines in the back, Her jade hairpin makes a jingling sound against the pillowcase.

It describes a woman’s loneliness on a spring evening, with detailed description of her sensations. The erotic poetry of Late Tang had a close relation with the rising form of the song lyric, and it was particular clear in Collection from the Fragrant Toilet Case. Take, for example, “Running into Her”: “Getting tired from playing on the swing, she untied her silk skirt; / Pointing at the wine, she asked for a cup. / Seeing the guest enter, she left in a smile; / Rubbing a plum in her hand, she beamed by the central door.” The poem is simple and straight in content; it does not seek to provide any hidden meaning beyond the text. All it focuses upon is to give a vivid description of some details in daily life. Later, Li Qingzhao’s song lyric “Crimson Lips” (“After

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playing on the swing”) was developed from this poem. In his own foreword to Collection from the Fragrant Toilet Case, Han Wo also remarked that those dainty poems of his were often “put into songs by musicians.” However, subsequently, poets would simply use the form of song lyric for such erotic subjects rather than conventional poetic forms. In an opposite direction, some poets made another effort, under the situation of the comprehensive decline of the Tang empire, to use poetry as a political tool. Those who were representative of that effort included Pi Rixiu, Nie Yizhong, Du Xunhe, etc. Pi Rixiu, a devoted admirer of Bo Juyi, wrote ten pieces of “Upright Music Bureau” modeled upon Bo’s New Music Bureau poems, in the expectation that they would be of some help to monarchs in their governing. Du Xunhe also observed of his own compositions: “Everything I say involves current affairs; / Pieces after pieces, one can see therein the ancient songs.” In fact, though, their accomplishments could hardly even match that of Bo Juyi. For instance, Pi Rixiu’s “A Lament for the Acorn Woman” writes about the hardship and misery of a farmwoman who picks acorn for food so as to reflect the heavy burden of taxation; however, as he based the poem upon the advocating of his political proposal to reduce tax, so his description of the farmwoman is rather dry and dull. Another example may be found in Du Xunhe’s “Running into an Old Man in the Village after the Upheaval,” which also tells how a feeble old man in his eighties is turned destitute by war and tax; likewise because the poet is eager to express his political views, the poem is quite crude artistically. Take, for another example, Nie Yizhong’s “Singing about the Farmers”: In the second month they sold newly woven silk, In the fifth month, the new crop of grains. They could try to heal the wounds of now, But they had to cut off a part of their heart. I wish that the hearts of monarchs Turn into bright candlelight Which shines not on banquets of luxury But only on the shanties of those who flee.

As in the previous two examples, you cannot say that the poet does not have genuine sympathy with the life of poor farmers, but once political comment comes to the center of the poem, the description of the life of the farmers turns into a mere summary, and there is a lack of passion. Poems like this, with the aim to express political beliefs and


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to reflect the hardship of the people, became more popular during the Song dynasty. However, poems of this type did not make the singular interest of those poets. In number, they wrote more on landscape, season, social engagements, farewells, and also in expression of their own melancholy and grief, which are in general more refined artistically. Among them, Du Xunhe was deeply influenced by the style of Yao He and Jia Dao. He once claimed: “Toiling in composition, I don’t have any spare time,” (“Presented to Grand Master Li”), and his famous couplet is a clear proof of his “toiling in composition”: “The breeze is warm: the birds chirp in quick short breaks; / The sun rises high: the shadow of the flowers turn heavy.” (“Lament in the Spring Palace”) At the end of Late Tang, Wei Zhuang (836–910) was a more important poet, and the special features and background of his compositions are also somewhat different from those of the poets discussed in the above. He served during the last years of the Tang dynasty, and when the state of the Earlier Shu was founded, he served all the way up to Prime Minister. Many of his poems expressed his grief about the decline and downfall of the imperial court at the end of the Tang dynasty and the social upheavals of the time, as in, for instance, the lines from “Recalling the Past”: “The disorder and separation of today are all a dream; / In the setting sun, we only see the river flow east,” or in “Meeting with Master of Eastern Wu”: “Aging I don’t know that flowers have their posture; / In chaos, I only feel that wine has much emotion,” etc. His long narrative poem, “Song of the Woman of Qin” is in particular worthy of attention. “Song of the Woman of Qin” was very popular at one time, but was lost later. It was not until more recently that it was found again in the Dunhuang archives. The poem writes about an upper-class woman’s hard experience after Huang Chao’s troops captured Chang’an and, through her voice, describes the widespread devastation of the society in this historical cataclysm. The poem not only recounts how the residents suffered after Huang Chao’s troops entered Chang’an, but also how the government troops, who were on the opposite side, plundered the people. To the social class of the scholar-officials, the ruthless crash of the imperial order was even more of a shock: Up on the Vitality Relishing Hall, now foxes and hares run; Before the Calyx Tower, it’s overgrown with brambles. All the glory and luxury of the past are buried, It is desolate when one looks up, seeing nothing from before.

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chapter ten The brocades in the imperial storehouse were burnt into ashes; Along the celestial streets, bones of lords and ministers lie.

Undoubtedly, “Song of the Woman of Qin” expresses the hostility towards Huang Chao’s troops from the author, a member of the social class of the scholar-officials. However, the details of its description are really not groundless. As the longest narrative poem (in a total of 1,369 Chinese characters in original ) of the Tang dynasty, “Song of the Woman of Qin” describes a historical event on a grand scale and in great details, which was rather unusual in the history of poetry. In terms of its narrative skills, the female protagonist of the poem is simultaneously also the narrator, and her personal fate is completely integrated into the entire process of the historical event, creating a sense of first-hand experience. It also marked an obvious improvement in narrative art.

3. Prose of the Mid-Tang and the Late Tang The “Classical Prose” Movement The so-called “classical prose” in this context was a concept that was initiated in opposition to “contemporary prose,” i.e., parallel prose that had been formed since the Wei-Jin period and was still popular during the Early Tang; it referred to the style of the prose of the pre-Qin and the two Han dynasties which adopted single and loose sentences with no fixed form. However, when Han Yu and the others advocated classical prose, although the reform in style was included in their demand, their primary aim did not lie with style itself. Both the move toward parallelization in prose and that toward prosodic regularization in poetry were the product and main characteristic of the literature of the Six Dynasties. The flourish of parallel prose, in particular, had important significance for the differentiation of wen and bi, i.e., literary and non-literary writing. On the other hand, the flourish of parallel prose also brought with it a series of problems of a different nature. First, the composition of parallel prose made an excessive expansion when it was pushed into the spheres of various kinds of practical writing, which resulted in the weakening of the latter’s practical functions. Secondly, in terms of literary prose, because the parallel prose had an increasingly rigid demand on its form, all


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such things like parallelism, embellishment, the use of allusions, and prosodic regulation became part of its essential elements, and in due course it proved to be too difficult for the majority of authors to express their feeling and thought freely. Starting from the High Tang, the situation had obviously changed. Practical writing at the hand of some authors, such as the memorial to the throne, formal discourse, and the epistle, became gradually more flexible in form; literary prose, which also inclined to become lighter in tone and freer in form, had also made some achievements. To put it simple, if we consider the problem from the perspective of practical or aesthetic functions, the move back to non-parallel prose, after the dramatic flourish of parallel prose, as well as an integration of the two forms, should be regarded as a natural process, and no sharp opposition between the two forms had ever taken place. However, there was another layer of meaning behind the phenomenon of the flourish of parallel prose, which was that its emphasis on form and aesthetic tendency prevented the Confucian outlook on literature, that regarded political and ethical functions as its prime purpose, from dominating literature, and at the same time, such a phenomenon also reflected Confucianism’s loss of its exclusive dominance since the Wei-Jin period, which was the main reason why those who advocated classical prose denounced parallel prose so severely. The opposition to parallel prose and the style of the Six Dynasties literature was of a long standing in history. In the chapter on “Literature of the Northern and Southern Dynasties and the Sui Dynasty” we have already provided a brief introduction. Such an effort had continued well into the Tang dynasty. For example, in the context of historical vicissitudes, the “Preface to the Literary Biographies” of History of the Sui has criticized the style of the Six Dynasties literature as “superficial and elaborate in meaning, and obscure and garish in language.” However, the effects of such criticism were quite limited, as no significant change had yet occurred in the psychology of social culture and in aesthetic habit. After the An-Shi Rebellion broke out, some scholar-officials regarded the reconstruction of social decorum in the Confucian tradition as an option to arrest social decline. In order to give full play to the role of literary composition in establishing and upholding the authority of Confucianism, there was an even louder cry for reform in the form and style of prose, with Xiao Yingshi, Dugu Ji, Liang Su, and Liu Mian among the leading exponents. For instance, Liang Su observed: “As regards the composition of prose, it is, first

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and paramount, to preserve and strengthen morality and to set one’s life in good order, and secondly, to help to formulate the ethical code so as to enhance harmonious human relations, and next to that, to highlight the righteous and establish the golden mean for all under heaven.” (“Preface to the Collected Works of Mr. Li Qian, Rectifier of Omissions”) Liu Mian, moving further to define the function of prose in moral education, asserted that if “prose is not based on moral education,” then it should be a disgrace and shame for a “gentleman.” (“A Letter in Grateful Reply to Grand Councilor Du’s Letter on Fang and Du, the Two Grand Councilors”) In sum, these people believed that prose composition would be worthwhile only if one placed the significance of moral ethics in the first place. Using this argument as a gauge, the more literary in nature prose is, the more it should be denounced. Liu Mian, for instance, observed: “In an obsession with sensual pleasures, morals and manners have lost since the Wei-Jin period, and poetic inspiration and grace have disappeared from the Song-Qi period onward.” (“A Letter on Writing to Grand Master Lu in Huazhou”) Accordingly, the path to reform in the form and style of prose lay, first of all, in a return to the ancients. The revival of “classical prose,” however, still had to wait until Han Yu showed up on the scene. That was because on the one hand, by the time of Han Yu’s activities, there was an even more obvious tendency for prose to move from parallel to non-parallel form, and on the other hand, Han Yu was more capable than his predecessors in the writing of non-parallel prose, and there also gathered around him quite a few people who shared his ideas, so he commanded much greater power of appeal. Liu Zongyuan did not belong to Han Yu’s group of writers, and for a long time he lived in the south on exile, far from the contemporary literary center, so he did not exert as much actual influence as Han Yu at the time. However, he held identical views with Han Yu in his theory on classical prose. The two of them, therefore, echoed and worked in concert with each other. The key concept of the theory on classical prose of Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan, to summarize with a line from the latter’s “A Letter in Reply to Wei Zhongli on the Principles of a Teacher,” is: “Writing is the means to illuminate the Way.” (By the Song dynasty the concept developed into the saying “Writing is the means to carry the Way,” which further highlighted the nature of prose as a tool.) Han Yu, for example, remarked in his “Postscript to an Obituary of Master Ouyang,” “Those who study the Way of the ancients would also


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like to know their writing. It is due to the aspiration for the Way of the ancients that one wants to get conversant with their writings.” In “Another Letter in Reply to Zhang Ji” he also declared that the “Way” he himself observed was “the Way that Confucius, Meng Ke and Yang Xiong propagated.” In “A Letter to the Grand Councilor” he stressed that the “prose” he composed was the prose “in praise of the Way of Yao and Shun,” and that its contents were “all bound by the gist of the Six Classics.” Since the writings of the Six Dynasties deviated from the “Way”, Han Yu claimed that he himself “would not dare to read anything except books from the Three Dynasties9 and the two Han dynasties.” (“A Letter in Reply to Li Yi”) Likewise, Liu Zongyuan believed that “prose” was subordinate to the “Way”. In “A Reply to the Letter on the Composition of Prose from Cui An, the Cultivated Talent,” he pointed out: “The sayings of the sages were aimed at illuminating the Way, and those who study them must focus on finding the Way while becoming oblivious of the writing. Writing that may be handed down in the world has to be placed in a book. The Way is illuminated through writing, and writing is handed down in the form of a book, and what is important is none other than to have access to the Way.” In sum, the purpose of prose composition was to “illuminate the Way,” and that of reading prose was to “have access to the Way,” and writing is nothing more than the means and tool to hand down the “Way”. Based on such an understanding, Liu Zongyuan also held in esteem the prose of the pre-Qin ages and the two Han dynasties, and maintained that in the composition of prose “one had to base upon the Documents to find its essence, base upon the Songs to seek its constancy, base upon the Rites to seek its propriety, base upon the Spring and Autumn to seek its judgment, base upon the Changes to seek its dynamism.” (“A Letter in Reply to Wei Zhongli on the Principles of a Teacher”) He also felt that “no prose is comparable to that from the Western Capital of the Han dynasty in terms of its closeness to the ancients and in particular, its majestic beauty.” (“Preface to Liu Zongzhi’s Prose Categories of the Western Han”) He was also severely critical of parallel prose. Accordingly, “classical prose,” in its strict sense, had specific requirements in content of its own, and non-parallel prose was not necessarily “classical prose.” All this was emphasized by the classical prose authors of the Tongcheng School of the Qing dynasty.

9

The three ancient pre-Qin dynasties of Xia, Shang, and Zhou.

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As a matter of fact, the theory of the Classical Prose Movement was harmful to the development of literature. In its stress on the dominance of the way over writing, it revoked the independent place of literature, and thereby also effaced the differentiation between practical writing and artistic texts that had been formed since the Wei-Jin period and the Northern and Southern dynasties. Because the core idea of the Classical Prose Movement was to advocate the use of literature at the service of the preservation of imperial political order, it would surely lead to the restriction of the author’s individuality, and henceforth to the imposition of severe restriction on the free creation of literature. The more the imperial autocracy was strengthened, the more severe such restriction would turn out to be, and at the same time, the more didactic and prescriptive the “classical prose” would become. On the other hand, we should also take notice at the same time that if we put aside the principle of “prose as the means to illuminate the Way,” then the Classical Prose Movement was a part of the process of the development of prose from the parallel to non-parallel form. In particular, the prose writings of Han and Liu were, as a matter of fact, not all works “to illuminate the Way,” and many of them were also composed as expression of personal feeling. In addition, in discussing poetry and prose in a broader sense, Han Yu’s outlook on literature would also include the idea that attached importance to the expression of personal frustration and indignation, as found in the saying: “In general, when things are out of balance, they will make some sound.” (“Valediction to Meng Jiao”) He asserted, “The sound of peace is faint and soft, while the sound of sorrow is distant and haunting. It is difficult to polish a text about joy and merriment, but easy to make a text about agony and grief appealing. For this reason, fine writings are usually composed while one lives in a strange land or in the wilderness.” (“Foreword to a Collection of Exchanged Poems Composed at Jingtan”) This idea was somewhat contradictory to the principle of “prose as the means to illuminate the Way” and, precisely due to such a contradiction, breathed some life into their own prose composition. Prose of Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan In the past, Han Yu’s essays of argumentation, such as “On the Way,” “On Human Nature,” “Memorial to the Throne on the Bone of Buddha,” “On Being a Teacher,” were generally admired by classical prose writers,


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but they are in fact not literary texts. Some other short prose pieces which center on argumentation, such as “Valediction to Meng Jiao,” “Valediction to Dong Shaonan,” “Valediction to Li Yuan Who Returned to Pangu,” etc., are more expressive of personal feeling and appealing to the reader, because these texts contain the author’s sympathy and solicitude for his friends and give vent to his indignation over the unjust and unreasonable in the society. In addition, there are also a few pieces of random thoughts, close to fables in nature, which use vivid imagery to express the author’s disappointment and frustration of his unrecognized talent, predicament and loneliness. Here the emotions are more incisively felt, as in the famous piece, “On Horses”: Only when there is someone like Bo Le in this world when there begins to have horses able to cover a thousand miles a day. Such “thousandmile horses” are in fact not so uncommon, but men like Bo Le are indeed rare to find. So, even when there are fine horses, they only get humbled at the hand of slaves, die while being kept in pairs in between the water troughs at the stable, and never get known as being able to run a thousand miles a day. A horse that is able to do that may consume a hectoliter of grains at one meal, but the breeder, ignorant of its thousand-mile potential, does not feed it accordingly. As a result such a horse, in spite of its thousand-mile capability, does not have enough to eat to sustain its full strength, and has no way to make its beauty and talent known; even if it wants to be placed on equal footing with regular horses, it fails to do that. How could we ever expect it to run a thousand miles a day? We do not handle such a horse in the proper way, do not feed it according to its capacity, and when it neighs we fail to understand what it is telling. Holding a whip in hand and standing by such a horse, we claim: “There is no good horse in the world.” Alas! Is it really true that there are no good horses? What is true is that no one really knows horses!

Among Han Yu’s prose pieces, “Funeral Oration for My Nephew” is in particular highly lyrical in nature. Prior to that, most such elegiac addresses were written in parallel prose or in tetrasyllabic rhymeprose so as to evoke a sense of solemn dignity. This piece, however, uses neither a set pattern nor any set phrases, and does not pay as much attention to structure as Han Yu’s other prose compositions. The entire piece assumes the voice of direct address to the deceased person. The speaker deplores the decline of the family, bewails his premature senility, and grieves the early death of his nephew. In expressing his doubt of divine justice, of human destiny, and even of the continuation of his posterity, it provides an exhaustive portrayal of the bitterness and misery in his heart. The section in the middle describes his complex

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feelings of half believing and half doubting when he first heard about the death, how he is reluctant to believe, but eventually has no way but to believe. It is realistic and quite appealing. The last section is especially sorrow-stricken in its lament for the parting by death: Alas! When you were sick, I didn’t know at the time; when you passed away, I didn’t know the date. When you were alive, we failed to support and live together with each other; when you passed away, I failed to caress you body and give full vent to my grief. I failed to stand by your casket at your encoffinment; I failed to look into the pit at your burial. I am the one whose conduct in life is against divinity. I am neither a filial son nor a benevolent father. I failed to support and live together with you, and I failed to watch at your side when you passed away. The two of us were separated at different corners of the earth far from each other. When you were alive, your shadow did not stay by the side of my body; now that you are dead, your soul does not emerge in my dream. I am the one responsible for all this, who am I to put the blame upon? Oh the blue heaven above us, when shall all this come to an end?

In this section of the piece, there is in fact a considerable amount of parallelism, but it coincides closely with the mental agony of the speaker and sounds quite natural and smooth, quite different from the elaboration and density that parallel prose generally seeks to achieve. As regards the piece as a whole, the speaker’s voice goes back and forth in some repetition but remains coherent through the end, demonstrating that non-parallel prose has some of its advantage over parallel prose under specific circumstances. If we read the different types of Han Yu’s prose pieces as discussed in the above in comparison, then we may see that generally speaking, the more literary values the pieces possess, the more they deviate from the principle of “illuminating the Way.” From the reverse side, it also brings to light the restrictions that the core theory of the Classical Prose Movement imposed on literature. Han Yu also composed some prose pieces that are humorous or with a touch of wordplay. Pei Du, a contemporary of his, remarked: “Relying upon his tremendous vitality (like that of a thousand-mile horse), he often runs unrestrained and wild. In stead of using prose as a means to establish the decorum, he uses it for fun, as in a game. (“A Letter to Li Ao”) It reveals the other side of Han Yu as a person: his vivacious disposition and rich imagination. Prose pieces of this type include “Biography of Mao Ying,” “Proclamation to the Crocodile,” “Foreword to the Linked Poems on the Stone Cauldron,” and “Farewell


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to Poverty,” the different value of which depends on the various degrees of depth the author has integrated therein, respectively, his emotions and his experience of life. “Foreword to the Linked Poems on the Stone Cauldron,” for instance, adopts a plot close to that of fiction to tell the dramatic story of how Xuanyuan Miming, the Taoist monk, engaged in the composition of linked verse with Liu Shifu and Hou Xi, providing a vivid description of the priggish manners of the two men of letters, of their mental change from arrogance to humility, as well as the image of the carefree and smart Taoist monk who did not bother about trifles. It obviously also implies Han Yu’s pride in his own poetic talent. “Farewell to Poverty” chooses to tell a fictitious tale. The “master” has a cart plaited from willows and a boat woven from grasses, hoping to bid his farewell to the “Demon of Poverty;” instead he is taught a lesson by the Demon of Poverty and his companions. It pokes fun at the dilemma he finds himself in, of being helplessly caught in the poverty trap, and seeks a relief from the mental pressure by a sense of humor. The piece starts with the master making a solemn farewell speech to the Demon of Poverty, and closes with the five demons, in their turn, delivering a harangue, funny in tone but grand in style, that nevertheless addresses some great truth in the world. A sense of helplessness is divulged in all the absurdity and preposterousness. Let us provide the short closure here: Before he even finished the five demons, with one accord, opened their eyes wide, stuck out their tongues, jumped up and down, and dropped to the ground either on their belly or on their back; then they hit the inside of each other’s hands, stamped their feet, roared with laughter while looking at one another. After a while they said to the master: “You know our names and all that we do. Now when you try to drive us and make us leave, you show yourself to be smart in trifles and stupid in big issues. A life’s span: how long does it last? We have made you a name that will not wear out in a hundred ages. The petty man and the great man do not share the same heart. Only when one is out of luck in the world will one reach a communion with heaven. You hold gemstone in your hand, but you want to exchange it for a sheepskin. You are glutted with the fat and the sweet, but you yearn for the gruel made from chaff. Of all under this heaven, who knows you better than us? Even when you rebuke and repulse us, we cannot bear to stay away from you. If you think we are not trustworthy, please check it up in the classics of Songs and Documents.” Thereupon the master, crestfallen and dejected, saluted with cupped hands and expressed his gratitude. He burnt up the cart and the boat, and led them to the seats of honor.

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There are very few humorous prose writings in old-time China. Lively and interesting compositions like this piece should surely hold a niche in the history of literature. In terms of the techniques of prose composition, Han Yu has spared no effort. The structural layout of his prose pieces varies from one to the other according to their respective thematic need. Sometimes he would make a surprisingly grand opening as if coming from nowhere. Sometimes he would digress far from the subject and move forward in a roundabout way. At other times, he would advance by unfolding, step by step, one layer after another of the gist of his topic. He also attaches great importance to syntactic patterns, being skilled at alternating duplicated, parallel, and antithetical lines to enhance the variegation and increase the momentum of his text, and to create an easy and constantly changing rhythm which is different from that of parallel prose. What is most noteworthy in Han Yu’s prose is its originality in diction and vocabulary. Refining some words from contemporary spoken language or transforming others from previous writings, he has created a large amount of new vocabulary, and his texts often sparkle with well-turned phrases or pithy lines that add to their dynamism and vitality. In “Farewell to Poverty,” cited in the above, he describes how the demons “opened their eyes wide, stuck out their tongues, jumped up and down, and dropped to the ground either on their belly or on their back; then they hit the inside of each other’s hands, stamped their feet, roared with laughter while looking at one another.” It is so lively and vivid. Many sayings that he has initiated in his prose pieces, such as “disgusting in appearance and tasteless in speech,” “to lower one’s head and lose one’s vital force (crestfallen and dejected),” “to get blamed for whatever one does,” “full of difficult, unpronounceable words,” “to make sound when out of balance,” “to lower one’s head and be all ears (be docile and obedient),” “to wag one’s tail and beg for pity (fawn obsequiously),” etc., have since turned into set phrases in the Chinese language. Han Yu was an extremely talented writer. However, because he stressed the importance of “prose as means to illuminate the Way,” he did not compose a large number of prose pieces of a literary nature. In spite of that, he was still denounced in the Song dynasty, when ideological restrictions became even worse, for being too fond of literature. Zhang Lei, for example, remarked that Han was “more than enough as a man of letters, but less than enough as someone who understands the Way.” (“On Han Yu”) Zhu Xi, the great Confucian scholar, reproved Han for “breaking the Way and writing into two


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things.” (“On Reading the Monographs in History of the Tang”) On the other hand, Han Yu and his company did assert that “writing” was only a tool subordinate to the “Way,” and if one was to adhere loyally to such a principle, it was only logical that he would receive such criticism as cited above. Liu Zongyuan’s prose writing shares something in common with Han Yu: works of literary nature do not occupy a big portion of the entirety, and generally speaking, most of the texts with more literary value do not carry out much of the function “to illuminate the Way.” Prose pieces of this nature may be divided into two categories: fables and landscape-describing travel accounts. Among the fables, the famous “Biography of a Bug” uses the little insect to satirize those greedy people who “think about how to get promoted in position and expand their income every day,” but fail to realize that death is approaching for them. “Donkey of Guizhou” from “Three Cautionary Notes” uses the donkey as a metaphor for those outwardly incompetent bigwigs who are strong in appearance but weak in reality. It is rich in imagination and trenchant in style, with profound implications notwithstanding its brevity. However, the best of Liu Zongyuan’s prose writings are his landscape-describing travel accounts. Since the Six Dynasties, it had been popular to contain landscape description in prose. Some letters by renowned writers may almost be considered as vignettes on landscape, and Li Daoyuan’s The Guide to Waterways with Commentary, in particular, contains many excellent sections of this kind. However, it was at the hand of Liu Zongyuan that the landscape-describing travel account first became an independent prose genre. Liu’s prose pieces of this kind were mostly written when he lived in the southwestern borderland on exile. In his loneliness he found some spiritual sustenance in visiting scenic spots. Accordingly his was not a simple delineation of scenery; instead he invested his emotions in nature and through his description of landscape disclosed his inner feeling. For instance, in “An Account of the Small Hill West of the Flatiron Pond” it says that at the place, “the refreshing but forlorn scene went along with our eyes; the sound of the purling waters went along with our ears; everything that stayed there in the massive void went along with our spirit; and everything that was still and profound as a deep pool went along with our heart.” It is indeed a world where the surroundings and the speaker blend into one unity. Landscape in his writing, accordingly, always has a touch of an individualized mood, aloof and pure, refreshing and graceful, desolate and

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melancholy. Take, for example, “An Account of the Small Rock Pond West of the Small Hill”: Walking west of the Small Hill for a hundred and twenty steps, we heard the sound of waters, like the jingling of jade pendants, behind a grove of bamboo, which delighted us. We made a path by cutting through the bamboo, and down there we found a small pond the water of which was especially clear. The bottom of the pond was all rock, which swirled up near the bank. The rock that jutted out of the water’s surface made a variety of shapes: some were small, and some big; some were smooth, and some rugged. Around and over it, the entangled and intertwined verdant trees and emerald green vines dangled and swung in breeze in their varied forms. Inside the pond, about a hundred fish seemed all to be swimming in midair, without anything to stay upon. Sunlight penetrated the waters, and spreading all over the rocky bottom were the shadows of the fish, virtually static. All of a sudden some darted afar. They moved back and forth swiftly, as if they were teasing tourists like us. Southwest of the pond, we saw the stream meandering and winding its way, in twists and turns like the Dipper or a snake, into the distance; it sparkled, in light and darkness, all along the way. The bank of the stream was jagged in shape like a dog’s teeth, making it impossible for us to explore the origin of the stream. Sitting by the pond, we were enclosed by bamboos and trees. It was quiet and isolated, without any trace of human activity. Desolate in spirit and chilly in the bones amid the forlorn solitude, we felt that the place was too secluded for anyone to stay for long, so we made an inscription and left. In my company were Wu Wuling, Gong Gu, and my younger brother Zongxuan, and also the two young boys of the Cui’s, Shuji and Fengyi, as our attendants.

The part of scenic description of Liu Zongyuan’s travel accounts is inclined to use short sentences. For instance, in the description of the wind in “An Account of Yuan’s Eddy”: “It swayed tall trees, and whipped up the grasses, dispersing the red (flowers) and startling the green (plants). The exquisite fragrance was sent flying, rushing against the waves, and swirling with the torrents. On its retreat it was deposited, over the streams and inside the valleys. It rocked and tumbled through the lush flora around, moving and changing all the time.” In original the section resorts to eight successive tetrasyllabic lines, an obvious indication of the retention of the specifics of rhapsody and parallel prose. Liu Zongyuan also composed a type of prose compositions wherein narration and exposition is combined, such as “On the Snake Hunter,” “Biography of Camelback Guo the Gardener,” and “Biography of the Building Worker,” which have exerted much influence on the “classical


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prose” of later ages. (Some modern prose compositions have also followed this convention.) In fact, compositions of this type make use of some literary elements to help with its exposition “to illuminate the Way”, though there are also some differences among them. If the narrative part is more realistic and is invested with the author’s strong emotions, then it may hold a literary appeal for the reader; “On the Snake Hunter” is close to this kind. If the part of abstract reasoning is too strong, and narration is entirely subordinate to exposition, then there is little that is literary therein; “Biography of Camelback Guo the Gardener” and “Biography of the Building Worker” are close to the latter kind. Generally speaking, the latter kind is more widely found in the convention of the “classical prose” and similar modern prose. Prose of the Late Tang The Classical Prose Movement led by Han Yu built some momentum at the time, but it failed to replace parallel prose as the main prose style with non-parallel prose. In the early Late Tang period, parallel prose was still quite popular. In his “Preface to the First Fannan Collection,” Li Shangyin remarked how he modeled upon Han Yu’s classical prose at first and later, after he began to serve in the Private Secretariat of Linghu Chu and others, he switched to the composition of the “contemporary style” of the Four-Six parallel prose. It indicated that at his time, the classical prose was already somewhat appealing to the intelligentsia, but parallel prose was generally still honored in both official and private writings. Li Shangyin’s parallel prose, skilled at the use of embellishment and allusion, received high evaluation from some in later ages, but most of his works of the genre belong to practical writings that he composed as a ghostwriter, and are of little significance as literature. Du Mu, who enjoyed equal fame with Li Shangyin in poetry, was also good at prose, and his “Rhapsody on the E Pang Palace” has been widely read. This rhapsody is quite unusual in form. In its first half it uses elaborate and exquisite parallel prose to make imaginative description, and in its second half it switches to non-parallel prose for exposition, with a flavor of classical prose. It has thereby exerted its influence on the rhapsody in (non-parallel ) prose form of the Song dynasty. It also indicated that the early Late Tang period was one during which there was a mixture of prose forms, with changes under way.

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In the latter part of the Late Tang period, along with the revival of the theory of poetry as moral education, propositions similar to “prose as means to illuminate the Way” were put forward again. For example, Pi Rixiu wrote “Proposal to Have Han Yu Honored in Secondary Status at the National University,” making the proposal to honor Han Yu in a secondary place at the temple of Confucius. In the “Preface to Master Pi’s Prose Collection,” he also claimed that the various kinds of his prose compositions were “all meant to denounce the evil in the past and redress the wrongs of recent times,” and were “never empty talk.” Obviously, he took as his own task to carry on Han Yu’s cause. However, in the turbulent days of the Late Tang, such a proposal sounded quite feeble, and those who held such ideas were unable to write prose compositions “to illuminate the Way” like Han and Liu which were somewhat forceful due to the authors’ confidence. On the other hand, some of the short satiric pieces that they wrote in despair and indignation had some special flavor of their own. Authors of such writings counted, in addition to Pi Rixiu, Luo Yin, Lu Guimeng, and others. Such short satiric prose pieces are very brief in length, usually only two or three hundred words, with some only in several tens of words. In terms of the form, they were quite original at the time, and they were forerunners of the short prose pieces of the Song and Yuan and afterwards. The compositions of Pi Rixiu and Lu Guimeng, however, are too blunt and explicit in expression, and they devote too much of the space to reasoning; they have not really unlocked the potential of short prose pieces. Luo Yin’s compositions are more powerful than the other two authors, as he has rarely resorted to the short prose piece for grand topics based on Confucian orthodoxy that are improper for the form. For instance, “Song for the Insect of Autumn” that has been categorized as a rhapsody in his collection, is only in several tens of words in length, including its foreword: The insect of autumn is the spider. It puts its own body inside a web, and it also fills its stomach inside the web. I feel that there is some truth about gain and loss in its case, and therefore I have composed a rhapsody about it, which goes: Creatures that are small get killed when they run into the web. Big creatures swallow the web and go away. The web is able to trap the small ones only, but not the big ones. I know not which way it goes: your imperiled body or your empty stomach. Alas!


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The strong catches and feeds on the weak, but in turn the strong gets caught and eaten by the stronger: that is what goes on in society in the author’s depiction. For another example, “Words from a Woman of Yue” tells the fictitious tale of how Zhu Maichen still lives together with his wife after he wins rank and wealth. Zhu’s wife recalls how he has often said before that, once he becomes rich and powerful, he will “help the state and assist the sovereign,” “bring peace and prosperity to the people.” Now, however, he has done nothing but to use his rank, wealth and prestige to “show up in front of a woman,” so she “stopped breathing and died.” This also shows the author’s incisive mind and his crisp and terse style.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

TALES OF THE MARVELOUS AND POPULAR LITERATURE OF THE TANG DYNASTY

The prosperity of fictional narrative literature made a significant landmark in the development of literature of the Tang dynasty, and it was particularly evident after the Mid-Tang period. This would include narrative poetry, as represented by Bo Juyi’s “Song of Everlasting Sorrow” which has already been discussed previously, and also the “tale that passes on the strange” or “tale of the marvelous” (chuan qi) composed by the literati and works of popular literature found inside the Dunhuang grottos in recent times, such as the vernacular story (“prompt books,” huaben), the popular rhapsody (sufu), and the transformation text (bianwen). These works were composed, respectively, by authors from different social classes, and they also varied in the range of their spread and popularity, but they were nevertheless closely associated with one another. They all shared the common background, when urban economy and urban cultural life flourished during the Tang dynasty, and in terms of literary taste they shared a common inclination, to various degrees, towards secularization. In addition, all these works, of different types notwithstanding, exerted influences on one another in their respective special features of composition. Meng Qi’s Original Stories behind Poems has kept a record of what Zhang Hu said to Bo Juyi: “ ‘He searched, up to the Blue Serene and down to the Yellow Spring; / At both places, boundless and vast, he failed to find her.’ If this is not from ‘Mulian Transformation,’ what is?” This indicates that even during the Tang, someone already noticed the popular literature’s influence on literati writing. The prosperity of fictional narrative literature during the Tang dynasty was significant in the history of Chinese literature. In freer form and greater length, it represented people’s living conditions, mentality and imagination, expanded the aesthetic implication and emotional space of literature, and also provided new formats and subject matters for the development of literature in later ages.

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chapter eleven 1. Tales of the Marvelous of the Tang Dynasty

At first, the term chuan qi was adopted by Tang authors as the title either for a single tale or for a single collection of tales. For example, Yuan Zhen’s “The Story of Yingying” was originally entitled chuan qi, and it received its current title when it was included into the Extensive Records of the Taiping Reign during the Song dynasty. For another example, the collection of tales composed by Pei Xing was also entitled Passing on the Strange or Tales of the Marvelous (Chuan qi). In later times, short stories in classical prose with strong narrative elements of the Tang dynasty have come to be called the chuan qi tales in general. Incidentally, we need to point out here that the term chuan qi has been widely used in range. In later times, not only was there the category of chuan qi in oral and performing arts, but the southern drama in the Ming dynasty and afterwards was also called the chuan qi. Before the Tang dynasty, the main type of fiction was the supernatural tale (zhi guai). Previously, we have mentioned that, towards the end of its development, some of the best supernatural tales of the Six Dynasties adopted a somewhat more complex plot, and had more touch of real life. In general, however, the supernatural tale was not so clearly meant to be a work of art, which made Hu Yinglin, the Ming author, to observe: “It was not until the Tang authors that there was a deliberate fondness for the strange events, which found its expression in the form of fiction.” (Writings from the Shaoshi Mountain Lodge) In A History of Chinese Fiction, Lu Xun developed the argument and, in even more precise terms, pointed out that compared to the supernatural tale, “what was most noteworthy” about the tale of the marvelous was that “it was not until this time that their authors began to have the intention to write fiction.” Exactly because of that, the tale of the marvelous of the Tang dynasty made remarkable improvements in various aspects of the art of fiction, like plot, structure, narrative forms and styles, and characterization. Thenceforth the appearance of the tale of the marvelous during the Tang dynasty marked that classical Chinese fiction began to move into a stage of maturity. From its course of development, we can see that the tale of the marvelous of the Tang dynasty was originated from the supernatural tale of the Six Dynasties, though it was also under the influence of other elements. We have mentioned previously that, while ancient Chinese historical writings were not fictional per se, they nevertheless often adopted literary means to seek the effect of liveliness and

tales of the marvelous and popular literature

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vivacity. Biographies of historical figures, as represented by Historical Records, made outstanding achievements in narration and characterization, providing a fine example for later writers. Quite a few among the leading authors of the tale of the marvelous of the Tang dynasty were historians, and they readily made free use of that tradition in their fiction composition. Almost all the Tang tales of the marvelous that focus on the portrayal of characters were entitled “The Biography of Such-and-Such” in original, a clear indication of their origin in historical biographies.1 In addition, many forms of popular literature appeared in the urban life during the Tang dynasty, and they attracted the attention of the literati and scholar officials. For instance, according to the record of various historical materials, during the Tang dynasty, performers were employed specifically to “tell stories” both at the palace or at the residence of scholar officials. The rise of popular literature certainly also proved to be a stimulus to, and it provided new material for, composition of the literati. Tales of the Marvelous of the Early and High Tang Period If we may borrow the concept of periodization from Tang poetry, then the Early and High Tang period of poetry made only the early period in the case of the tale of the marvelous. During this period, some of the fiction still remained within the range of the supernatural tale, while some showed new features. The Tang tales that have generally been regarded as belonging to the category of the chuan qi tale are “An Account of the Ancient Mirror” and “A Supplementary Biography of Jiang Zong’s White Ape.” Since the “Preface to Dai’s Extensive Records of the Strange” by Gu Kuang of the Mid-Tang period, “An Account of the Ancient Mirror” has been attributed to Wang Du (the younger brother of Wang Tong, alias Master Wenzhong), and indeed the tale also assumes Wang Du’s voice in an account about himself. Some scholars, however, have had their doubt about this, so the authorship remains controversial, but it was likely to have been composed at an early date. The tale gives the supernatural account of how Wang Du gets hold of an ancient mirror, and uses it to subdue monsters in a series of brief

1 For the titles of most of such tales, the word “Biography” in the original has been rendered as “Story” in translation here in this chapter.

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episodes. It uses real historical figures as characters to make it sound like as if those supernatural events were also real. In that respect, it obviously shares some of the special features of the supernatural tale of the Six Dynasties. However, it far exceeds the average supernatural tale in length; its language is elegant and ornate, its description detailed and vivid. For instance, the tale recounts that an old fox has transformed itself into a woman, Parrot. Getting reflected in the ancient mirror, she knows that she will surely die, so she begs for a drink, and after she gets drunk she struggles to get up to dance and sing: “Precious mirror! Precious mirror! Sorrow is my destiny! Since I changed my shape, how many names have I assumed? Life is surely pleasant, but there’s no need to grieve about death. Why should anyone grudge and try to stay always at one place?” It actually represents human attachment to life and grief about death, and there is something quite appealing therein; in that respect, it is quite obvious that the author consciously resorted to the art of fictional imagination. In terms of its structure, the tale uses Wang Du’s narration as its main plot, but also weaves it in between the narration of his house slave and his younger brother Wang Ji. Compared to the supernatural tale of the Six Dynasties, it is inclined to be somewhat more complex and complete. It is impossible to establish the authorship of “A Supplementary Biography of Jiang Zong’s White Ape.” This tale tells how Ouyang He, a military commander of the Liang, keeps his wife in company on a campaign to the south. On the way, his wife suddenly disappears from a secret chamber under tight security. After quite an adventure and with the help of other kidnapped women, Ouyang He manages to catch the monster, a big white ape. Before it is killed, the monster ape tells Ouyang He: “Your wife is already pregnant. Don’t kill her son. Once he runs into a sage ruler, he will surely glorify the family.” Later, his wife really turns out to give birth to a son (which is Ouyang Xun), who looks like an ape but is extremely smart. After Ouyang He’s death, the son is brought up by Jiang Zong, and he is “skilled in literature and calligraphy, and famous in the age.” In the past, some believed that this tale was written by some Tang writers to slander Ouyang Xun. (See Chao Gongwu’s Notes from Reading at the Commandery Study.) This tale is simpler and terser in language than “An Account of the Ancient Mirror,” but its narration has some stylish twists, it is well-knit in structure, and it devotes more attention to artistic techniques. The


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white ape in the tale is a monster, but it is supernatural and graceful in its own way. Take, for example, the description of its first appearance: “When the sun set, something that looked like an unrolled bolt of white silk descended from another mountain, shot through the air like flying, and went directly into the cave. After a short while, a man with a beautiful beard, more than six feet tall, wearing white clothes and holding a walking stick in hand, came out in the company of the women.” The description here is quite vivid, which demonstrates the author’s literary attainments. Another tale written in earlier years was “A Visit to an Immortals’ Grotto.” It had long been lost in China, but was preserved in Japan, and found its way back to China only in recent times. According to scholarship on the story, it was circulated to Japan roughly during the Kaiyuan years. Due to an inscription at the beginning of the script, it has generally been attributed to Zhang Zhuo, a celebrated man of letters in Emperor Gaozong’s reign. “A Visit to an Immortals’ Grotto” has some special features of its own in both content and form. It tells, in first person, the story of how the speaker, on his way to Heyuan on an official mission, puts up for the night at an “Immortals’ Grotto” where he encounters and has an affair with a fairy woman, Shi Niang (“Tenth Lady”). With the exception of its beginning, where the plot seems to have received a little influence from the supernatural tale of the Six Dynasties, such as the like of the story of how Liu Chen and Ruan Zhao run into fairies, its basic content is all about a man and a woman in the secular world, teasing and poking fun at each other, and there is even an inclination toward the erotic. The text is primarily in parallel prose, while a large amount of the dialogues between the host and the guest is in verse; its language has some ornate elements, but also includes many folk adage and vernacular expressions. Obviously, it is different from the average chuan qi tale of the Tang dynasty which originated from the supernatural tale of the Six Dynasties, more under the influence of the popular rhapsody, a genre which has not caught much of critical attention before. Judging from what we have today, from the “Rhapsody on the Divine Birds” of the Han dynasty to “Rhapsody of the Young Master Pang” of the Six Dynasties, as well as the “Rhapsody of Han Peng,” which has survived among the Dunhuang manuscripts and may have been produced before the Sui, and the “Rhapsody on the Swallow” which was composed during the Kaiyuan reign of the Tang, such

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a form of popular literature was in fact continuous for a very long period of time. The content of description and the flowery parallel prose of “A Visit to an Immortals’ Grotto,” as well as its use of verse form for dialogues, are an indication of its relation of succession with the popular rhapsody. Tales of the Marvelous of the Mid-Tang Period The Mid-Tang marked the golden age of the tale in its development. During this period, many famous men of letters participated in fiction writing, and thereupon markedly improved its artistry. The combination of long poems and tales of the marvelous became quite a fashion at the time (e.g., Bo Juyi’s “Song of Everlasting Sorrow,” Chen Hong’s “The Story of the ‘Song of Everlasting Sorrow’,” Bo Xingjian’s “The Story of Miss Li,” and Yuan Zhen’s “Song of Miss Li”), and it also stimulated the prosperity of the tale of the marvelous. In terms of subject matter, fiction with social messages or about romantic love won the greatest success among the works of this period, in particular the latter kind, which may be counted as representative of the highest achievements of the Tang chuan qi tale. Chen Xuanyou’s “An Account of the Departing Soul” was a love story that was produced in the early years of the period. According to the self-account of the author at the end of the tale, it was written shortly after the Dali reign. The tale tells how Qian Niang (“Beautiful Lady”) falls in love with Wang Zhou, a cousin of hers, but her father agrees to marry her to someone else. Qian Niang’s soul thereupon departs, going far away in Wang Zhou’s company, whereas her body lies sick in her room. Later, when Qian Niang’s soul returns to see her parents, it reunites with her body. This tale had its source in “A Daughter of the Shi Family” from the collection Records of Light and Shade of the Southern Dynasties, but it highlights the female protagonist’s appeal for freedom in marriage, and it is finer in description. As a work of transition, it heralds the rise of a large number of superb love stories. An important author who was among the first to emerge in the golden age of the tale of the marvelous was Shen Jiji (ca. 750–797). He once served as a court historian, and The Old History of the Tang noted that he was “refined in history composition.” “An Account of the World inside A Pillow” and “The Story of Lady Ren,” both authored by him, are famous works among the Tang tales of the marvelous.


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“The Story of Lady Ren” goes as follows. Zheng Liu, due to poverty, takes shelter under Wei Yin, a relative of his wife’s. He then runs into Lady Ren, a woman who has transformed from a fox spirit, and he takes her as a mistress. Wei Yin, an unrestrained man of rank and wealth, is attracted by Lady Ren’s extraordinary beauty, and wants to take forcible possession of her, but Lady Ren never yields to him. Wei Yin is moved by her conduct, and the two of them become good friends who do not stand on ceremony with each other. Later, Zheng Liu takes Lady Ren with him on a trip to serve as a military officer at another county, and Lady Ren is killed by hounds on the way. “The Story of Lady Ren” marked the maturity of the art of the Tang tale of the marvelous. Previously, in creating the image of divinity and spirits, the authors stressed their supernatural aspects. In this tale, however, with the exception of its beginning and end, the speeches, behaviors and emotions of Lady Ren are all fully humanized. Adopting the biography form, the tale places Lay Ren, the protagonist, constantly at the center. In the unfolding of its details, however, it is richer than the average historical biography, which accounts for the extremely lively and lovable image of Lady Ren. Take, for example, the part about how Lady Ren strives to resist Wei Yin’s advance: . . . Yin, madly in love with her, held her in his arms and threw his body on her, but she did not yield to him. Yin tried to subdue her by force. In imminent danger, she said, “I’ll yield. Please give me a brief respite.” When he did as she told, she defended herself as before. It went like that for a couple of times. Yin used all his strength to hold her tight. Lady Ren, exhausted, was dripping with sweat. Thinking that she could no longer be exempted, she stretched her body and stopped resisting, but a dismal look appeared on her face. Yin asked: “Why do you look so unhappy?” Lady Ren heaved a deep sigh and said: “It’s so sad for Zheng Liu.”

Later, it tells how Lady Ren deplores the fact that Zheng Liu has no choice but to take shelter with Wei Yin due to poverty, so that “even with his six-foot tall body, he is unable to protect a woman.” Actually, by so saying, she is also denouncing Wei Yin, who dares to be so overbearing simply because he thinks Zheng Liu owes him a favor. Wei Yin, who does not want to be seen by her in such a way, apologizes and gives up the idea to take advantage of her. Lady Ren, aware that Wei Yin is deeply in love with her, keeps an intimate relation with him thenceforward provided that it “will not go out of bounds.” Such a detailed, indepth description of the psychology of the characters has never been found in previous fiction.

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Li Chaowei’s “The Story of Liu Yi” was perhaps written during the Yuanhe reign. It not only has a strong touch of mythology, but also contains vivid characterization. The story goes as follows. The Dragon Princess of Lake Dongting, married to the Dragon Prince of the Jing River, is deserted and maltreated. Liu Yi, a Recommendee on his way home after having failed in the civil service examinations, forwards a letter from her to the palace of the Dragon Lord of Lake Dongting. Lord of the Qiantang River, the uncle of the Dragon Princess, flies to the Jing River, swallows and eats the Dragon Prince, rescues and brings back the Dragon Princess, and proposes to marry her to Liu Yi. Liu Yi, though, firmly declines because he feels that Lord Qiantang is too high-handed in attitude. However, Liu Yi and the Dragon Princess actually do have a fancy for each other. The Dragon Princess thereupon rejects her parents’ arrangement for her remarriage, but eventually finds a way to become Liu Yi’s wife. It is a mythological love story with an extremely strong romantic flavor, and it is invested with the burning human desire for a free and beautiful life. Also, the three main characters in the story each have their respective striking personality. “The Story of Yingying,” written by the famous poet Yuan Zhen during the last years of the Zhenyuan reign, was the first work that did not involve anything supernatural and was exclusively about a love affair in the human world. In brief, the story tells how Master Zhang takes up his lodging at the Pujiu (“Savior of All”) Temple in Puzhou, when Lady Zheng, a distant aunt of his, comes to the temple, with Cui Yingying, her daughter, in her company. When a riot of the local troops erupts, Zhang finds a way to protect the mother and her daughter. At the banquet that Lady Zheng holds to thank him, Zhang gets to know Yingying and falls in love with her. He uses poetry to make his advance to her through Hong Niang (“Red Maid”), her servant maid. At first Yingying firmly rejects him, but eventually she fails to restrain herself and yields herself to his desire. The two of them date in secret for months. Later, Zhang leaves for the capital to take the examinations, and puts an end to the relation. According to scholarship, this tale was related to Yuan Zhen’s own experience in real life. The tale mentions how Zhang has all the chance to officially marry Yingying, but makes all kinds of excuses not to do so, and at the end even offers the explanation that Yingying is an “extraordinary creature,” even a “demon,” with overwhelming temptation, that his own “virtues” are not enough to prevail over it, and he “therefore reined in the passion.” What really happened was that the prototype of Yingying was from a


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family of relatively low social status. During the Tang dynasty, men of learning laid great store on family status in marriage, so Yuan Zhen never had the intention to marry her. Under the circumstances “The Story of Yingying” is in fact a story about a man of learning who, attracted by the beauty of a woman from a poor and humble family, seduces and then deserts her. The tale’s defense of Zhang’s conduct brims with hypocrisy. On the other hand, Yuan Zhen obviously looked back on his own experience, similar to that in the story, with nostalgia, which accounts for the appealing depiction of Cui Yingying as a personage therein. She is dignified, gentle, beautiful, and passionate. After some hesitation she ventures to have an affair with the man of her love, and eventually becomes the victim of the influence of the old-time society and that of a selfish man; her yearning and silent distress conceal the great pain in her inner emotions. The story contains the subject of how young men and women, who seek freedom in love, move from mutual admiration to lovemaking all on their own. For this reason, it was later adapted to Medley of the Western Chamber and Story of the Western Chamber, the play. It should be noted here, however, that in the latter works, fundamental changes have been made in plot and characterization. A tale the human relation of which is similar to that of “The Story of Yingying” is Jiang Fang’s “The Story of Huo Xiaoyu.” It tells how Huo Xiaoyu, who suffers the misfortune of landing in a brothel, falls in love with Li Yi, a man of letters. Knowing that it is impossible for her to be his companion forever, she only asks Li Yi to spend eight years in love with her, and then choose someone from an honored family for marriage afterwards. On his part Li Yi declares never to forsake his love for her, but shortly afterwards he follows his mother’s instruction for a marital engagement, and simply disappears. Xiaoyu, who begs but fails to make an appointment to see him for just once, falls ill and takes to her bed. Later, a chivalrous man in a yellow robe kidnaps Li Yi and forces him to come to her bed. Xiaoyu angrily denounces him for his heartless unfaithfulness, and dies in her indignation. Of all the Tang chuan qi tales, the love stories are best in their emotional appeal, and “The Story of Huo Xiaoyu,” in particular, is intensely moving. Huo Xiaoyu’s proposal to make an oath with Li Yi to stay together for eight years is a hard effort on her part to get hold of her own life in misfortune. Yet the last little hope is devastated by her lover, which sends her into the abyss of darkness. It makes one feel how unjust and relentless that society is. The tragic ending of the story, as well as Xiaoyu’s personality with her extremely passionate

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love and hate, pull strongly at the reader’s heartstrings. In its depth of representation of life’s reality and its strength in expression of feeling, it surpasses other works of similar subject matters. What follows is the part about the last meeting of Huo Xiaoyu and Li Yi: Yu2 was sick in bed for a long time and needed help even for turning around in bed. When she suddenly heard of the man’s arrival, she immediately got up by herself, changed her clothes and came out as if possessed by a spirit. So she met with the man, stared at him in anger and remained in silence. Languid and frail, she looked as if she could hardly hold herself straight. Sometimes she would cover her face in her sleeves, but then she would turn back to look at Li. Moved by the sight, all in presence sobbed or sighed. . . . Yu turned around and looked askance at the man for a long time. Then she held up a cup of wine in hand and poured it over the ground, saying: “I, as a woman, have such a bad luck! You, as a man, are so unfaithful in love. Still young in age and look, I will die with a grievance in heart. My loving mother is still alive, but I won’t be able to support and wait upon her any more. All beautiful clothes and music from strings and pipes will come to an end to me forever, and I am on my way to the Yellow Springs. You are the cause of all this. Mr. Li! Mr. Li! I’m about to depart from life. After my death, I’ll surely turn into a violent ghost to scare your wife and concubines all day long!” She put out her left hand to hold the man’s arm, threw the cup to the ground, and let out a few agonized cries before she expired.

“The Story of Miss Li” is another well-known tale about the love between a prostitute and a man of learning. It was written by Bo Xingjian (776–826), Bo Juyi’s younger brother. In brief, the tale recounts how, during the Tianbao reign, a certain man of learning from Yingyang goes to the capital for the examinations of Presented Scholar, where he falls in love with Miss Li, a prostitute. After he spends all his money, Miss Li’s godmother, the madam, contrives to leave him in the lurch, and he falls low to become a hired singer of funeral songs. His father finds out about it, denounces him for having brought disgrace to the family, flogs him until he loses his consciousness, and leaves him behind. With festers all over his body, he is reduced to beggary. One day, when he wails in the snow, Miss Li hears it. Grief-stricken and reproaching herself for it, she pays a ransom for herself to live together with the man, and encourages him to read and prepare for the examinations. Eventually the man embarks on an official career, and reconciles with

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Shortened form for Xiaoyu.


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his father. Later, he gradually becomes distinguished, and Miss Li is also granted the honorary title of the Lady of Qianguo. This tale had its source in professional storytelling of folktales,3 and was carefully polished by a famous man of letters, which accounts for its considerable achievements in the art of fiction. First of all, it is rich in imagination in making up the story, and the plot of the story is more complicated than all previous fiction with all its twists and turns, full of dramatic changes. Its ending of “grand reunion” is completely absurd, but it represents people’s good will and psychological need in a mundane urban society. In unfolding the complicated story, the tale is remarkably coherent in structure and succinct in narration, which accounts for its great appeal. Secondly, although the tale is strongly fictional, it nevertheless contains in the course of the narration many truthful, moving and delicate details. For instance, its description of the singing contest between the east and west market brings to life a picture of urban life in the Tang dynasty. It reflects the author’s intention and capabilities to create scenes with a sense of reality. Next, Miss Li, the protagonist, also shows quite a colorful personality. At first, she participates in the contrivance against the young man from Yingyang, which is predicated by the nature of her profession. Later, she comes to his rescue when he is stranded in misery, and it displays her inherent good nature. Such description is certainly based on rationality. Most of the Tang tales about romantic love recount the relation between men of learning and prostitutes. On the one hand, it was related to the social phenomenon of the Tang dynasty, when urban economy flourished and men of learning often spent their time in brothels. On the other hand, it was also due to the fact that “normal” marital relations were mostly not established out of mutual love. Most of the love affairs as portrayed in literature, more liberal in nature, were accordingly extra-marital. It was similar to the folk song of the Southern dynasties in circumstances, but fiction is much more powerful in its expression. 3 [Original Note] Under the line, “Time passed by while we listened to stories” of Yuan Zhen’s “In Reply to Hanlin Academician Bo’s Poetic Epistle in a Hundred Couplets,” the author himself provided a note saying that he once listened to the story of “A Spray of Flowers” in Bo Juyi’s company. In his Notes from Mt. Tianzhong Chen Yaowen of the Ming dynasty cited Collection of Strange Tidings by the Tang author Chen Han which goes that: “Miss (Li), his wife, who used to be called ‘A Spray of Flowers,’ was later granted the honorary title of Lady of Qianguo.” “The Story of Miss Li,” then, should have had its source from the story “A Spray of Flowers.”

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Among the Mid-Tang tales of the marvelous, Shen Jiji’s “An Account of the World inside a Pillow” and Li Gongzuo’s “The Story of the Governor of the Southern Branch” are the best known tales with social messages. “An Account of the World inside a Pillow” tells the story of “Beautiful Dream of Yellow Millet”: Master Lu, who hanks after scholarly honor, borrows a blue porcelain pillow from Old Lü, a Taoist priest, and goes to sleep at a Handan inn. In his dream, he goes through the vicissitudes of an official career, and also achieves his ideal in life “to perform meritorious deeds and win fame, serve as commander-in-chief or prime minister, have food served in a row of cauldrons, choose a variety of singers to listen to their music, glorify his clan and enrich his family.” When he is startled awake from the dream, the pot of yellow millet at his side is not yet fully cooked. He attains great enlightenment because of this, saying that he is ready to follow the old priest’s instruction on “how to stifle desire” which the latter has given him through the dream. “The Story of the Governor of the Southern Branch” is more or less similar in theme to “An Account of the World inside A Pillow.” The story goes as follows. After getting intoxicated Chunyu Fen, a chivalrous wanderer, is invited to enter the “Kingdom of Huai’an (Peace in Scholar-tree),”4 where he is married to the princess and serves as the Governor of Nanke (Southern Branch). He serves at that commandery for two decades and brings great peace and order to the region. However, unexpectedly the good fortune is superseded by the bad. First he loses a battle against a neighboring state, and then the princess falls sick and dies. Next he is suspected and feared by the king, who sends him back to where he comes from. At this moment, he suddenly awakes from the dream, and comes to the realization that everything that has happened is only an illusion in his intoxication, and the so-called “Kingdom of Huai’an” is only a large ant nest inside a hole in a large scholar-tree. He thereupon “felt the transience of the Southern Branch, and realized the brevity of life; so he devoted himself to Taoism and gave up wine and women.” The two tales discussed in the above center around considering the significance of the reality of life, and their strange and supernatural plot mainly serves to highlight the theme. On the one hand, it reflects the Buddhist and Taoist outlook on life which advocates that the worldly honor and humiliation are nothing but illusion; on the other, it also represents the yearning of some from the social class of the scholar

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Huai is the Chinese scholar-tree (Sophora japonica).


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officials for living a life far from community and its value judgment. Such an approach to life was further developed in drama and fiction of later ages. In artistic terms, “An Account of the World inside a Pillow” is more inclined to a concise style of the historian; while the theme is quite clear, the plot is rather too simple. “The Story of the Governor of the Southern Branch” is more fictional in nature. The author tries his best to make everything that takes place in a dream as realistic, singular and intriguing as possible, with nice digressional insertions on details which, based on life itself, account for its great appeal and inspiration to the reader. In addition to the two major categories discussed in the above, the chuan qi tales of the Mid-Tang period also include works with other kinds of content. For example, Chen Hong’s “The Story of the ‘Song of Everlasting Sorrow’ ” is a historical story that combines politics and romantic love, Li Gongzuo’s “The Story of Xie Xiao’e” tells how Xie Xiao’e revenges her father and husband who are murdered on their business travel. It portrays a brave and smart female, which is unique in fiction of the age. Tales of the Marvelous of the Late Tang Period In the Late Tang period, the number of individual tales of the marvelous came down, but the composition of tale collections flourished. Among the more important ones were Niu Sengru’s Records of the Dark and Supernatural, Li Fuyan’s Further Records of the Dark and Supernatural, Yuan Jiao’s Hearsays from Ganze, and Huangfu Mei’s Short Notes from Sanshui, but Pei Xing’s Passing on the Strange stood above all. Theme-wise, the rise of the chivalrous fiction was most noteworthy. Of the chivalrous tales, “The Story of the Curly-Bearded Man” has enjoyed the greatest fame. In the past, an inscription attributed it to Du Guangting; in recent years, however, most scholars believed that it was originally included in Pei Xing’s Passing on the Strange. The story goes as follows. In the disorder at the end of the Sui dynasty, Red Whisk, a favorite servant-maid of Yang Su’s, elopes with Li Jing, and at an inn she encounters the “Curly-Bearded Man” who intends to become a king, and she pledges to become a sister to him. Later, when the Curly-Bearded Man gets to see “Master Li,” i.e. Li Shimin,5

5

Name of Emperor Taizong of the Tang dynasty.

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he realizes that the latter is “really the Son of Heaven,” and so he gives all his wealth and property to Li Jing and his wife, and leaves far away from the land. Eventually he becomes the king of an island in the sea. This tale is very artistic. First, the characters in the story are extremely heroic. Take Red Whisk as an example: she is only a servant-maid, but she regards Yang Su, the most powerful man in the state at the time, as “the corpse in which some breath lingers,” and seeing that Li Jing is someone she can marry, just calmly goes to him. The Curly-Bearded Man, notwithstanding that he knows he is no match against Li Shimin, refuses to submit and acknowledge his allegiance to the latter. Such literary personages, as the opposite to the commonplace, the humble and the inferior in real life, represent the yearning for a free, heroic and chivalrous world, and take on a unique flavor of their own. At the same time, the so-called “Three Chivalrous People in Chaotic Times” all have their respective personality and gracefulness, and they appear vivacious in their interrelations, which also make a kind of excellent picturesque design. Along with the chivalrous and the heroic flavor, there is also the alternate glamour of romantic love, which accounts for the great charm of the tale. In Pei Xing’s collection, the tale “The Servant from Kunlun” tells how an old servant with extraordinary martial arts skills, on behalf of his young master who falls in love with a concubine of a rich and powerful family, manages to bring back in secret the woman of his love. Another tale, “Nie Yinniang” recounts how Nie Yinniang, after being taken away in her childhood by a Taoist nun, learns to master superhuman martial arts skills. They were actually the source of the martial arts (wuxia) fiction of later ages. The characters in such stories are not only outstanding in their martial arts skills, but also unconventional in their conduct which is hard to predict by reason. They reveal a wonderful life in an imaginary world, and provide great pleasure for the reader. Besides these, the tales “Red String” and “Lazy Can” in Hearsays from Ganze afford the same delight. Tales about romantic love declined in the Late Tang, and the only notable one is “Bu Feiyan” in Short Notes from Sanshui. The story goes like this. Bu Feiyan, a concubine of Wu Gongye’s, detests her husband for his roughness and brutality. She comes to have an adulterous affair with Zhao Xiang, a young man who lives next door. When it is found out, she is beaten to death. Both the plot and the description are unremarkable; what makes it appealing is the way it recounts how


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Bu Feiyan, in order to protect her lover, firmly refuses to reveal his identity. All she says is: “When alive we get to love each other, and I die without any regret.” Physically delicate and fragile, she shows great strength in character. As for Zhao Xiang, the young man, he simply “slipped away to the Jiangsu and Zhejiang region.”

2. Popular Literature of the Tang Dynasty The manuscripts found at the Dunhuang Grotto at the end of the nineteenth century include a large amount of long lost materials of popular literature. According to their original titles, they may come under the major genres of transformation text, vernacular story (“prompt book”), sutra lecture text, song text, and popular rhapsody. Some, however, do not have clearly defined titles, and scholars cannot agree on their categorization. Of these genres, vernacular story generally does not use verse, and it perhaps was meant for oral use. As for the rest, some alternate prose and verse, and some use exclusively verse; it was very likely that they were either presented in a combination of speech and singing, or primarily in singing and chanting. The discovery of these manuscripts of popular literature enriched our understanding of Tang literature. In addition, the origin of popular fiction and performing arts, which have become increasingly important in the history of literature, has thenceforth become better defined. Popular Rhapsody and Texts of Lyric Songs The excavation of “Rhapsody on the Divine Birds,” a popular rhapsody of the Western Han, informed us of the existence of a popular literary form that had been in existence for a long, long time; popular rhapsodies among the Dunhuang manuscripts provided further evidence of its long duration. For instance, “Rhapsody on the Swallow” is an animal fable. After its nest is snatched by a siskin, a swallow lodges its complaint with the phoenix, the king of birds, which thereupon has the siskin brought to justice, flogged and thrown into prison. If we examine this rhapsody in the company of “Rhapsody on the Divine Birds” and Cao Zhi’s “Rhapsody on Hawk and Sparrow,” which may have had its origin in the popular rhapsody, we may see the relation of continuation and variation among these three texts.

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“Rhapsody on Han Peng” is a superb work among the popular rhapsodies from Dunhuang. The story had its source in Gan Bao’s Records of the Search of the Supernatural of the Jin dynasty. While the original story was very brief, the rhapsody added many concrete details, and made an important change at the ending. In brief the story goes as follows. Han Peng and his wife make a loving couple, but the King of Song contrives to steal Han’s wife, and the couple die for love. The original story says that the couple turn into intertwined trees and mandarin ducks. The rhapsody adds a detail: when the mandarin ducks fly away, a feather drops from them; the King of Song picks it up, and “as soon as it touched his neck, his head fell off.” It not only praises their faith and loyalty in love, but also expresses a strong spirit of vengeance. The rhapsody mostly uses archaic rhymes, so some scholars believed that it may have been handed down from some time before the Sui dynasty. “Song text” was very likely a kind of folk performing arts. Primarily composed in verse, it probably evolved and split up from the popular rhapsody. The most significant piece of the genre is “Song Text of Ji Bu Shouting Abuses in front of Formations,” the story of which goes as follows. Ji Bu shouts abuses at Liu Bang in front of formations of troops; after the downfall of Chu he goes through all kinds of hardship, but eventually uses his wit and eloquence to get pardoned and even serves as the Governor of Qiaozhou. The story brings to light, in great disdain, the original colors of a “nobleman” as a poor scoundrel, and it is imbued with folk wisdom and folk culture. Later, there were similar works among the Yuan “individual arias” (sanqu). A heptasyllabic poem adopting one rhyme throughout the entire piece, it contains more than 4,400 Chinese characters in original. Elaborate in description and meticulous in structure, it is a highly artistic work among the Dunhuang literary texts of performing arts. The story of another work, “Song of the Teasing of the Bridegroom,” is as follows. On a moonlit evening, a man who arrives to seek lodging for the night and the hostess engage in a dialogue of flirting interrogation, but join together at the end. The entire piece consists of the dialogue between the two of them, and their poems; its plot and sayings are somewhat similar to “A Visit to the Immortals’ Grotto,” which indicates that such works about the flirtation between men and women were quite popular and well received in the Tang dynasty.


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Sutra Lecture Texts and Transformation Texts Sutra lecture texts referred to the master copies used for the “popular lectures” (lectures to explicate sutras) held at Buddhist temples. The extant ones are “Lecture Text of the Buddhacarita Amitābah Sutra,” “Lecture Text of the Lotus Sutra,” “Lecture Text of the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa sutra,” “Lecture Text of the Scripture on the Great Debt of Gratitude to Parents,” etc. In the text, a cited passage from the sutra is followed by a passage of explication which consists of both speech and singing. The literary contents inherent in Buddhist sutras, after some elaboration on the part of the lecturer, gave such religious propaganda some artistic charm. In addition, this lecture form must have also stimulated the production of transformation texts. Transformation texts were master copies used for the “transformation” (zhuan bian) in folk arts of oral performance. They mostly mixed up prose and verse in language, which indicates that in the performance they would usually alternate singing and speaking. Another special feature of the “transformation” was to use related pictures along with the performance. In the process of the storytelling, the performer would unfold a scroll of pictures and change from one picture to another. A poem by the Late Tang poet Ji Shilao, “Watching a Shu Woman Performing the ‘Transformation of Zhaojun,’” describes the scene of a female artist performing “Transformation Text of Wang Zhaojun”: “Red lips explained and disclosed the events of a thousand years; / Refreshing words made a marvelous text in the autumn months; / Emerald-green brows knitted: the moon on the Chu border; / Picture scroll unfolded: clouds beyond the frontiers; / It told us everything about the bygone regret of the woman; / Zhaojun passed on her mind to Wenjun.” In terms of content, it may be divided into two main categories: stories from the Buddhist Sutras and secular stories. But where did such a form of performing arts as the “transformation” come from? And how should we define the word “transformation”? There have been a variety of opinions and surmises. One rather popular suggestion is that the Chinese character bian (“transformation”) was a transliteration of the Sanskrit word citra (picture), and that “transformation” originated from “popular lectures,” which explains why there are quite a number of stories from Buddhist sutras among transformation texts. Another suggestion to the contrary, however, is that the character bian holds its original meaning in Chinese, which is “to change or transform,” and transformation texts with the content

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of secular stories may have emerged earlier than those on stories from Buddhist sutras. What is involved here is the interrelation among a variety of forms of performing arts in the Tang dynasty, and more in-depth studies on this lie ahead. Notwithstanding all this, the performance of “transformation” in the Tang dynasty appeared to have been secularized for a long time; all the performing artists mentioned on occasions in Tang poetry are females, which may be an evidence of this. The better known transformation texts that deal with the performance of stories from Buddhist sutras include “Transformation Text on Mahāmaudgalyāyana’s Rescue of His Mother from the Underworld” (briefly called “Mulian Transformation”), “Transformation Text on the Subduing of Demons,” etc. Transformation texts of this kind are not so rigidly bound by the text of Buddhist sutras like lecture texts; instead they focus on the appeal and vivaciousness of the story, and display therein vivid and creative imagination. For example, “Mulian Transformation” tells how Mulian (Mahāmaudgalyāyana), a Buddhist disciple, goes into the underworld to rescue his mother, providing a large amount of horrifying description of the inferno. “Transformation Text on the Subduing of Demons” tells how another Buddhist disciple, Sariputra, fights the heretic Sixth Master during which they exercise magic powers against each other in presenting supernatural transformations of various objects; it abounds with unbelievable descriptions and has had an obvious influence on the supernatural fiction of later ages. Most of the transformation texts on secular stories borrow their subject matter from historical stories and folklore, counting as main works “Transformation Text of Wang Zhaojun,” “Transformation of Wang Ling, Military Commander of the Han,” “Transformation Text on Wu Zixu,” “Transformation Text on the Meng Jiang Lady,” etc.6 All these texts have elaborated extensively on otherwise quite simple and brief historical material and provide the basic format for later compositions on similar themes. For instance, “Transformation Text of Wang Zhaojun” uses many details for the expression of Wang Zhaojun’s homesickness for her native country, and “Transformation Text 6

[Original Note] Originally the last two of these have no titles, nor is there anything apparent in the texts to indicate that they fall under transformation texts. Here we have placed them under the genre of transformation texts following the common practice of categorization.


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on Wu Zixu,” on the basis of the related material from Spring and Autumn Annals of Wu and Yue, also adds a large amount of content that is in the nature of folklore. In both texts the plot and characterization are greatly enriched. Long since lost notwithstanding, all the popular rhapsodies, song texts, lecture texts, and transformation texts have left indelible traces in literature and arts of later ages. In particular, through the oral and performing literature of chantefable, medley, precious scroll, strummed lyric, drum lyric, and others, the format of the combination of prose and verse and the alternation of speaking and singing has continued on and remains the common form used in many folk art forms in China today. Vernacular Stories Many manuscripts in the Tang dynasty refer to the popularity of the “storytelling” as a folk performing art form, but none of the vernacular story texts used for such performance has survived. Fortunately, “The Story of Master Yuangong at Mt. Lushan,” “The Story of Han Qinhu,” “The Story of Ye Jingneng,”7 “An Account of Emperor Taizong of the Tang entering the Underworld” and some others were rediscovered at the Dunhuang Grotto. These stories mix up the literary and the vernacular, but also contain a large portion of spoken language. Judging from extant materials, they may represent the earliest form of popular folk fiction in China. “The Story of Ye Jingneng,” which tells the supernatural events about Ye Jingneng, a Taoist priest under the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang, consists of more than ten little episodes in succession. They are ingenious and interesting in plot, plain and smooth in language. It describes how Ye Jingneng punishes the mountain god who seizes the wives of others and the fox demon who haunts someone’s daughter, but also about how he uses his magic to steal Emperor Xuanzong’s favorite imperial concubine, which shows that folk literature is not so keen on morality. “The Story of Master Yuangong at Mt. Lushan” tells the life of Hui Yuan, the revered Buddhist monk of the Eastern Jin dynasty. It is more skilful in language than “The Story of Ye Jingneng,”

7 [Original Note] The original title of this text is “Poem of Ye Jingneng,” but scholars have mostly agreed that the word “poem” was a typo for “story”.

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but it is more serious in religious preaching and less interesting in story, which more or less shows some difference between Taoist and Buddhist believers. “The Story of Han Qinhu” is a noteworthy vernacular story. It recounts the deeds of Han Qinhu, a military commander of the Sui, in eliminating the Chen. Although it is based on something real in the larger background, the descriptive details of the story are entirely in fiction and imagination, and the plot, though crude, is quite lively, demonstrating the idiosyncratic folk way of thinking regarding history and historical figures. The historical novels of yan yi (“elaboration of official historiography”) of the later times have continued such a convention. Only a limited number of vernacular stories from the Tang dynasty are extant, and they are somewhat crude in skills, though they still display vivid imagination. In addition, they hold important value in the study of the history of fiction.

CHAPTER TWELVE

SONG LYRICS OF THE TANG, THE FIVE DYNASTIES, AND THE NORTHERN SONG

At the same time when poetry flourished in the Tang dynasty, the song lyric (ci) was also gradually taking shape as a subgenre of poetry in the wide sense of the word. In the course of its birth and development, the song lyric displayed distinctively different nature from traditional poetry, and the juxtaposition of poetry (shi) and the song lyric as different genres lodged itself into public consciousness. In later times, the poetry of the Tang, the song lyric of the Song, and the plays/arias of the Yuan came to be regarded as respectively representative of the highest literary achievement of each of these dynasties. From the Late Tang to the Five Dynasties and then to the Northern Song, the development and change of literature followed different paths with the song lyric on the one hand, and with poetry and prose on the other. In the case of the song lyric, it followed a more obvious trajectory in its train of succession. As regards poetry and prose, they made their own orbit on the basis of making accommodations to the emergence of the song lyric. In other words, poetry and prose of the orthern Song appeared to have differentiated themselves from the song lyric. Taking that into consideration, it may be more appropriate to discuss the song lyric of the Tang and the Five Dynasties in the company of that of the Northern Song.

1. Song Lyrics of the Tang Dynasty At first, the song lyric was only a kind of word text for a song. In that respect, it was by no means different from the poems sung with musical accompaniment in The Book of Songs and the Music Bureau collections of the Han-Wei period and the Six Dynasties. However, what served in its accompaniment in this case was a new type of music: the music of Yan, which emerged out of an integration of the “Music of Hu” (especially the music of Qiuzi) into the various types of folk music originally of the Han nationality which were primarily music in the

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Qingshang mode.1 Titles in the “Music of Yan” already existed during the Sui, and it flourished by the Tang dynasty. In discussing the music of Yan during the Tang in the section on “Songs of Recent Times” of A Collection of Music Bureau Poetry, Guo Maoqian of the Song remarked that “it flourished during the Kaiyuan and Tianbao reigns, and what were placed on record counted two hundred and twenty-two songs in fourteen modes.” The word text for this type of music, called “lyric for the song” at the time, was the prototype of the song lyric. In its format of usage, there was no strict requirements for the songs accompanied by the music of Yan of the Tang, many poems (especially heptasyllabic quatrains) written by the literati were directly used by singers in their performance. For possible examples of such a condition, the seventh section of the “Water Tune,” recorded in A Collection of Music Bureau Poetry, is actually Du Fu’s “Presented to Commander Hua,” and the “Water Tune” included in the Miscellaneous Records from the Xuanzong Reign is the last four lines of Li Jiao’s heptasyllabic poem in old style, “Song of Fenyin.” However, when a poem is put into a song, there may be incongruence, and in order to adapt it to the musical tune, some alterations have to be made, such as the breaking up of the lines or the use of repetition in chorus. According to the speculation of Shen Gua, Zhu Xi, and others from the Song dynasty, in singing such poems, one also needed to insert sounds of “harmony” and “overtone” so that it will synchronize with the uneven musical meters. Later the song text was composed in closer coordination with the music, wherein one had to divide the text into sections in compliance with the structure of the music score, to have lines based on musical phrases, and to adopt words in harmony with the pitch of the musical sounds. Gradually the song text developed into something where the lines, though of various lengths, still need to observe a set pattern. Such a condition was not known in the previous texts for the Music Bureau songs, and the basic format of the “song lyric” was thereupon established.

1 Hu was the name used for various ethnic groups living in the north and west borderland in ancient China, especially during the Han dynasty. Qiuzi was the name of a city-state in the northwestern borderland in ancient China, which is located in Kuqa, Xinjiang today. Qingshang was a brief general term for ancient folk music of the Han nationality, shang being the name of a note of the ancient Chinese five-tone scale corresponding to 2 in numbered musical notation.

the five dynasties and the northern song

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However, the difference between poetry and the song lyric is not only embodied in the changes in music and prosodic pattern. From the literary perspective, the special features of the song lyric in its expression of feeling are perhaps more important. Generally speaking, the song lyric is used to express emotions and feelings that are more personal and more closely related to daily life, such as romantic love, lovesickness in separation, and sentimentality about the changing seasons. The song lyric is less inclined to write about the kind of more solemn, heavy or agitated feelings that are expressed in traditional poetry, and the composition of the song lyric is not used as a means of socializing as often as poetry. In its style of expression the song lyric is generally easier to understand, milder and more circuitous in tone, and with a more coherent vein of thought; it rarely, if ever, resorts to compression and ellipsis that are frequently found in poetry. In short, in terms of its “mainstream” the song lyric may be considered as a kind of “light” literature; judged in its entirety it is simply more disposed towards lyricism and entertainment than traditional poetry, and it has a stronger touch of “art for art’s sake.” For this reason Wang Guowei has remarked that the song lyric is characterized by its “felicity and propriety.” As for the formation of the uneven length of lines of the song lyric, it should not be considered only in relation to music, as the similarly graceful unevenness of its rhythm resulting from it, in fact, meets the need of the disposition towards lyricism as mentioned in the above. The “bold and unconstrained” (haofang) style of the Song dynasty, as represented by Su Shi and Xin Qiji, brought great changes to the song lyric, but in the course of the formation of the song lyric as a genre, at least, the above-mentioned characteristics are quite obvious. However, even if we may give a brief introduction to the genre as above, the origination of the song lyric has remained a controversial issue. It is simply because the characteristics of the song lyric and the basic rules of its composition were not established all at once. If we venture to borrow Charles Darwin’s principle of natural selection here, then we may say that some of the characteristics of the song lyric, at their early appearance, are tantamount to the variations of the species which demonstrate the more complicated differentiation of traditional poetry. Because such variations address the need of social environment and literary development, they are gradually improved, perfected and finalized, and eventually the new poetic form known as the “song lyric” takes shape. During the Mid-Tang period, there was an

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increasing number of men of letters who consciously composed song lyrics based on music score, and in artistic expression they began to show more distinct differences from poetry. By this time, at least, the song lyric may be said to have been formally established as an independent genre. The formation of the song lyric as a genre has also been generally considered to be closely associated with the folksong and folk ballad of the Tang dynasty. Lyrics composed to be set into music probably had long since been uneven in length of lines. In recent times, some handwritten copies of “lyrics for the song” (quzi ci) were discovered at Dunhuang, and among them the Collection of Cloud Ballads and Miscellaneous Songs, a handwritten manuscript from the Tang dynasty, includes more than thirty pieces. In addition to this, there are also quite a number of other lyrics of the kind. However, it remains controversial as to which of these should be categorized as the “song lyric,” and accordingly they are generally referred to as the “lyrics for the song.” The extant lyrics for the song from the Tang dynasty were composed in different times. Some of them were productions of the Xuanzong reign; they are somewhat loose in form, with no strict requirements for the number of words, tonal pattern, rhyme, and other aspects. Their authors could have included musicians, singing girls, commoners and obscure men of learning. The contents of these pieces are extremely varied; some are about daily life, others are about important political events. Even “Buddhist eulogies and medical formulas in rhyme” have been included (see Wang Chongmin’s Notes on the Dunhuang Collection of Lyrics for the Song). That is quite different from the song lyrics of the literati, which are concentrated on daily life. As an entertaining art form, however, the best among the lyrics for the song are still those on romantic love and lovesickness in separation, and they also take the largest portion of all, so in terms of its basic thematic inclination it is similar to the song lyric. The extant lyrics for the song from Dunhuang are mostly folk composition. They are unaffected and sincere in emotion, natural and unlabored in style; there lies their remarkable strength. For instance, “Magpie Steps on the Branch” uses a dialogue between a lovesick woman and the magpie to express a wife’s yearning of her husband’s return from war. There is an undertone of bitterness in the light and humorous tune. One of the songs of “Looking across Jiangnan” obviously reflects the resentment in the heart of a prostitute:


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Do not pull me down and break off my twig, It’s not fair for you to do that. I am a willow tree on the bank of the Winding River. One person breaks off a twig, another repeats All for the love of a moment only.

It has a heart-stirring appeal in its terse and blunt lines. The lyrics for the song from Dunhuang also include a small number of pieces written in more ornate style. For example, Wang Guowei has noted that “Fairy from Heaven” in Collection of Cloud Ballads “should have been composed by a man of letters.” However, in lines like what follows, the implications are still quite simple and plain: “There was a fairy lady on the Plain of Five Imperial Tombs / Holding a singing fan2 in hand. / The sweet fragrance / Made a colorful cloud up there stay still.” It was possibly composed by an obscure man of learning on behalf of a singing girl. Literati Song Lyrics of the Mid-Tang Li Bo was said to have written two pieces, “Bodhisattva Barbarian” (“A mist hovers like fabric above the forest on the plain, boundless and vast”) and “Recalling the Lady from Qin” (“The sound of the bamboo flute chokes”). Those are two works supreme in art. However, Li Bo’s authorship of the two lyrics has long been suspicious, and most modern scholars have agreed that song lyrics like them were not very likely to have appeared in the High Tang period. One may say with certainty that the literati composition of song lyrics began to become a common practice in the Mid-Tang, and important authors included Zhang Zhihe, Wei Yingwu, Wang Jian, Dai Shulun, Bo Juyi, Liu Yuxi, etc. Zhang Zhihe (years of birth and death unknown) was once assigned to “await orders” at the Hanlin Academy. Later he became a recluse in the countryside, and gave himself the cognomen of “Fisherman in Misty Waves.” He composed five pieces of “Fisherman,” the first of which is the best known one: In front of Mt. West Fort, white egrets fly, Peaches are in bloom, rivers running, and mandarin fish turn fat. Verdant bamboo hat, Green palm-bark cape, A drizzle falls sidewise in the wind? No need to go home yet.

2

A fan used in singing performance.

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The bright colors of white, red and green, as well as the images characteristic of Jiangnan like egrets, mandarin fish, peach flowers by the river, a drizzle that falls sidewise in the wind, constitute a wonderful picture. In terms of its form, if the third and fourth lines, both very short, are put together into a heptasyllabic line, the song lyric would turn into a simple and plain heptasyllabic quatrain.3 Precisely because of the split, however, an easier, faster and more pulsating rhythm than that of a heptasyllabic quatrain is created. For another example, let us have a look at one of the two “Fun of the Game” by Wei Yingwu: A Turkish horse, A Turkish horse, Is put out far to pasture, beneath the northern mountains. Running in the sands, running in the snow, it neighs alone; Looking east, looking west, it has lost its way. Getting lost, Getting lost, It faces the boundless grassland on the frontier in dusk.

The image of an agitated steed evokes a perplexed and desolate feeling. Its artistic effects are closely related to the author’s skills in using a fast, frenzied rhythm and duplicated lines. Bo Juyi and Liu Yuxi also composed a number of short song lyrics; among them the “Memories of Jiangnan” which they wrote in response to each other are quite noteworthy. Liu Yuxi added a note under the two pieces of “Memories of Jiangnan” which says: “In reply to Juyi’s song lyrics on the spring season, I composed these with their lines observing the musical tune of ‘Memories of Jiangnan ’.” These are the earliest works extant that may be confirmed as compositions based on musical tunes. One of Bo’s two pieces is as follows: Jiangnan is great; Its landscape I used to know so well. When the sun rises, the ripples in the river are red like fire; When spring arrives, the green color of the river turns indigo blue. Who could ever stop recalling Jiangnan?

The two lines in the middle bring out the bright colors of the riverside landscape in springtime. The lyric is coherent like one long sentence, which makes it remarkably different from a shi poem.

3 In original lines 1, 2, and 5 of this lyric are in seven Chinese characters, and lines 3 and 4 are both in three characters.


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In general the literati song lyrics of the Mid-Tang remained somewhat limited in its use of music tunes. Only a limited number of about a dozen tunes were regularly used. They are short in length, simple in structure, and do not have much depth in expression of feeling. The song lyric already began to show the special features that marked it different from shi poetry, but it still awaited great efforts from later poets to bring it to the same artistic level. Wen Tingyun and the Song Lyric of the Late Tang Many late Tang poets, such as Du Mu, Huangfu Song, and Han Wu composed song lyrics, but Weng Tingyun was the only one to have devoted much of his effort to the artistic creation of the form and thereupon exerted significant influence on the language, theme and style of the literati song lyric of later ages. It has generally been agreed upon, and rightly so, that Wen’s song lyrics represent a landmark of the maturity of the literati song lyric. Of Wen Tingyun’s song lyrics, some sixty to seventy of them, in some nineteen different tunes, are extant today. Some among them, like “Telling my Heart,” “Lotus-Leave Cup,” and “For Delivery on the River,” are highly varied in format of sentence pattern, with fastchanging rhythm, and they are remarkably different from shi poetry in prosody. One can tell how meticulously the author must have studied the special prosodic patterns of the song lyric. Wen’s song lyrics frequently resort to the delicate imagery and diction widely used in Tang poetry, as in lines like “Along the river are the mist-like willows, / Wild geese fly across the sky where the crescent moon stands,” (“Bodhisattva Barbarian,” No. 2), “Flowers drop, cuckoos cry, / By the green window, she’s lost in her lingering dream,” (Ibid., No. 6), etc. This certainly played a big role in helping the song lyric to get rid of its original vernacular style, but more importantly, he was also striving, simultaneously, to seek a language that was entirely different from shi poetry. Take, for instance, the second half of “Clepsydra”: Phoenix trees stand. It rains at late evening Despite the forlornness in separation. One leaf after another, One drop after another: It keeps dropping on the empty steps until dawn.

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It elaborates on every single detail to give full exposure to emotions, which is rarely seen in the convention of shi poetry. That was also a major reason why the song lyric was able to get established as an independent genre. In subject matter, Wen Tingyun’s song lyric collection focused on the description of beautiful women and their emotions in life, which was a continuation of the poetic style of the Late Tang. It also became an important special feature of the song lyric later. Some of Wen’s song lyrics are exclusively descriptive of female beauty, as in the following “Bodhisattva Barbarian”: Little golden mountains, range upon range, sparkle in light and shade; The cloud on her temples is to soar over the sweet snow of her cheeks. Lazily she gets up, to paint her arched eyebrows, She takes a long, long time to wash and dress up herself. In mirrors front and behind a flower is reflected; The flower and her face shine upon each other. There, embroidered into her new silk coat Are pairs and pairs of golden partridges.

In an implicit and roundabout way, the “pairs and pairs of golden partridges” in the last line sets off the woman’s loneliness by contrast. However, it is not so prominent in the entire text. The main special feature of the lyric is to give a delicate and colorful description of the scene of a lovely and indolent woman getting up in the morning and dressing up herself, which reveals an attitude of taking female beauty as an object of visual enjoyment. Some other song lyrics try to provide an in-depth representation of women’s inner world, and have achieved marked effects. The above-cited “Clepsydra” is an example of that, and another “Bodhisattva Barbarian” is also a good one: At night, the bright moon just comes to hang right overhead, Behind layers of curtains, it’s still; no one talks. Deep in there hangs a long curl of smoke from musk incense, When she goes to sleep, she still keeps a light make-up on. Back in the bygone years, she still took good care of herself, But one should stop recalling what happened in the past. Flowers fall in the bright lingering moonshine. Beneath the embroidered quilt, she feels the cold at dawn.

The details in this lyric are delicate and suggestive. (For instance, the word “long” in the phrase “a long curl of smoke from musk incense” has deep implications.) The woman is sleepless; she seems to be waiting for someone, and at the same time she recalls her own past with


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nostalgia. Her anguish elicits the reader’s sympathy. Works in similar mood may be found in the poems of Li Shangyin and Wen Tingyun himself, but the song lyric is obviously characterized by more delicacy and subtlety.

2. Song Lyrics of the Five Dynasties After Wen Tingyun, more and more men of letters composed the song lyric. By the age of the Five Dynasties and the Ten Kingdoms, the “filling in” of song lyrics based on musical tunes became a fashion. The two states of the Western Shu and the Southern Tang, though without a strong military force, were economically and culturally the most developed regions in the entire nation; hence they became the gathering place of song lyric poets. Song Lyricists of the Western Shu and the Collection among Flowers In the third year (940) of the Guangzheng reign, Zhao Chengzuo completed his compilation of the Collection among Flowers which contained nearly five hundred song lyrics by Wen Tingyun and Huangfu Song of the Tang dynasty and sixteen lyricists from the Tang to the Five Dynasties, including Wei Zhuang, Xue Zhaoyun, Niu Jiao, Zhang Mi, Mao Wenxi, Niu Xiji, Ouyang Jiong, etc. Among the latter group of sixteen lyricists, fourteen served in the Shu government, so the Collection among Flowers may be considered as a collection of the song lyrics of the Western Shu. Collection among Flowers places Wen Tingyun at the very beginning, and in his foreword, Ouyang Jiong also expresses his great admiration for Wen. The composition of the Western Shu lyricists, as a whole, may be considered as an extension in the same direction of Wen’s song lyrics. Thematically most of them center on women or romantic love, and they all strive to find an elegant and ornate style. However, in their portrayal of romantic love, the Western Shu lyricists are far more daring and explicit in degree than Wen Tingyun. Accordingly they often run into severe criticism from those with orthodox ideas in later ages. Such a special feature was related to the nature of the song lyric which primarily served as a performing art sung by singing girls at that time, and it also reflected how much the literati had departed from the orthodox consciousness since the Late Tang.

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Among those lyrics that depict women or romantic love in a more straightforward manner, as mentioned above, some only stay on the surface by focusing on sensual thrill, and some, notwithstanding their violation of the aesthetic habit in the Chinese tradition, hold strong and truthful feeling inside. Take, for example, Niu Jiao’s “Bodhisattva Barbarian”: “Up in the marble tower, on icy-cold mat embroidered with mandarin ducks / Cosmetics got wiped out in sweet sweat that ran down mountain-shaped pillows. / The sound of the well-pulley outside the curtains / Startled her, who lifted her eyebrows with a smile on her face. / Misty willows spread their vast shade; / When she lowered her forehead, her cicada-shaped hairpin dropped. / ‘I have to make a lifetime effort / To bring you, my lord, all the joy of today.’ ” This lyric also suffers from the weakness of stringing together ornate words and phrases, but in representing a woman’s passion for lovemaking, it is full of vitality as a literary text. Some song lyrics in the Collection among Flowers are more subdued in their representation of contents; they show a deep understanding of women’s feeling and mentality, and assume a mild, soft and sincere tone, such as Niu Xiji’s “Hawthorne Fruit”: In the spring mountains, the mist is about to clear up; Across the light-colored sky a few small stars twinkle. The setting moon shines by her face—grief-stricken She watches the refreshing dawn through her tears. She has already said too much, But her love finds no bounds. She turns back to repeat: Keep in your mind the green of my silk skirt so Everywhere you go, have compassion for the sweet grass.

It recounts how a woman finds it extremely hard to say farewell to her lover. The anguish of the departure is vividly portrayed. In particular, the last two lines leave the reader with much aftertaste. Among the Western Shu lyricists of the Collection among Flowers, Wei Zhuang excelled in achievement and had a special style of his own. Most of the literati song lyrics since Wen Tingyun tended to be dense and ornate. Although some of Wen Zhuang’s lyrics also belong to this type, he was nevertheless best at providing an in-depth expression of human emotions through succinct language and coherent vein of thought. In his A Study of Lyricists through the Ages Kuang Zhouyi has remarked that Wei Zhuang “was especially capable of integrating density into sparseness, and combining the light shade with the dark


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shade of color,” which refers precisely to this special feature of his works. Take his “Lotus-Leave Cup” as an illustration of that: I recall that year, under the flowers, Late at night, When I first got to know Maid Xie. West of the waterside hall where painted curtains hung, Holding our hands, we promised in secret to be together. At dawn, orioles sang in the setting moon: how melancholy! Since we parted, We have not heard from each other. And now, living in different lands, There is no way we can meet again.

Judging from the use of the term “Maid Xie,” the woman in the author’s mind should have been a singing girl.4 They had a fancy for each other and made a pledge of love, but later they were separated in different lands due to social disorder at the time. When he recalled the past, he was seized with an unspeakable melancholy. Wei Zhuang’s song lyrics often deal with his feeling and experience in real life. Mild and profound in style, they show a sense of reality. It brought a remarkable change to the literati song lyric of the time, which mostly used a flowery vocabulary to describe romantic love based on assumptions and generalizations. This was perhaps because Wei Zhuang was a man of great passion who took romantic love very seriously, so even when he wrote his song lyrics as fictional compositions he devoted as much effort to the mentality of his characters, using a plain and simple language to reveal their inner emotions. Take “Thinking about the Monarch’s Land” as an example: During a springtime outing Apricot flowers dropped all over my head in the wind. Who was that young man by the road Looking so gallant and handsome? I would like to marry myself to him And live with him all life. Even if I’m deserted ruthlessly I won’t consider that as a disgrace.

4 Maid Xie (Xie Niang) is short for Xie the Autumn Maid (Xie Qiuniang), a famous singing girl of the Tang Dynasty.

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Here it tells a fancy of love entirely from a female perspective. It displays great passion in its straightforward expression and fast, pounding rhythm. Generally speaking, in creating a new verbal style, Wei Zhuang played a similar role as that of Li Yu. Southern Tang Lyricists and Li Yu The Southern Tang was a little imperial court established in the fertile land of the middle and lower reach of the Yangtze River. Since the Late Tang it had enjoyed a relatively stable social environment, which created a level of prosperity unseen in other places at the time, providing the necessary condition for a life of literary pursuits for the literati. Chen Shixiu of the Northern Song has observed in his foreword for Feng Yansi’s Collection of Spring: “In the era of prosperity for Jinling, when it was peaceful both domestically and abroad, friends, colleagues, and relatives often gathered at banquets and parties, my Lord often used his literary talent to compose new song lyrics, to be sung by singers with the accompaniment of strings and woodwinds.” This may give us a glimpse of the fashion of the time and the song lyric’s function of entertaining the upper social strata. Probably because no anthology or individual collection of the genre has survived, the number of known Southern Tang lyricists and song lyrics was simply no match for those from the Western Shu. However, judging from the best of the Southern Tang lyricists, Feng Yansi, Li Jing and Li Yu, their cultural attainments, as well as the quality of their song lyrics, tower far above most of the Western Shu lyricists. Incidentally, Li Yu’s representative song lyrics were actually composed after the conquest of his nation, and he has been considered as a Southern Tang author by convention only. In the reign of the second sovereign of the Southern Tang, Feng Yansi (903–960) served as Prime Minister. In his Remarks on the Song Lyric from the Human World, Wang Guowei has noted that Feng “continued the style of the Five Dynasties, but he had an extremely broad range and thereby became a pathfinder for the Northern Song.” Major lyricists of the Nothern Song like Yan Shu, Zhang Xian and Ouyang Xiu were all under his influence, and some of his song lyrics have often been mixed up with those from the Northern Song lyricists; all these are indications of some of the important changes he introduced.


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Prior to that, the song lyrics of the school of Wen Tingyun were ornate in diction and simple in meaning, and those of Wei Zhuang’s were good at the expression of feeling but easy and plain in language; Feng Yansi was different from both as he wrote in a more delicate and elegant style. Feng’s lyrics are refreshing in vocabulary: rarely would they strike the reader as being obsessed with ornate verbiage, and yet they are meticulously phrased, staying far from the spoken language. In structure Feng’s song lyrics make careful, detailed arrangement of ideas, with delicate twists and internal coherence. Taken as a whole, Feng’s song lyrics devote much attention to the creation of the proper mood and world of imagination, and they are skilled in revealing the changing human emotions of the characters through natural imagery. Take his “Paying Homage to the Golden Gate” as an example: A wind rose all of a sudden Bringing wrinkles to a pool of spring waters. Along a path sweet with flowers, idly she played with mandarin ducks, And twisted a red apricot blossom with her hand. Leaning by the balustrade alone, she watched the ducks fight, Her green jade hairpin drooped sidewise. All day long she expected her lord to come, but he arrived not, And when she raised her head, she heard the magpie’s cry of joy.

Description of idle lovely females was frequently found in the song lyrics of predecessors, but this one seems to be more delicate and refined. It sounds like a digressional touch to mention how the wind brings “wrinkles” to the spring waters, but actually it is a metaphor through description of nature which avoids becoming too explicit. Later, when it depicts how the woman plays with the mandarin ducks, it sounds like entirely detached from her emotions. It is not until the end when the theme of her expectation for the arrival of her man is disclosed, but it still uses the word “joy” to set off her grief. Here we see an extremely delicate description of the character’s psychology. Most of literati song lyrics had always talked about females and romantic love, but Feng’s works went beyond that range. For instance, “Return to the Faraway Homeland” is about leave-taking: Emerald green mountains stand in the cold, Along the river: who is playing a marble flute? A small boat carries the man faraway, back to the south. Over a thousand miles reed catkins shine in frosty moonshine: What a sad color at this time of parting! By tomorrow we’ll be set apart by range and range of mountains.

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It is a picture of Leave-Taking by the River. Emerald green mountains; clear waters of the river; reed catkins covered with frost; bright moonshine; mellifluous music from the flute. Together they constitute a beautiful world of imagination, and the emotions in the song lyric seem to reach beyond the leave-taking itself. Most noteworthy in Feng’s song lyrics is the representation of a kind of feelings that he himself chose to call “feeling in idleness” and “melancholy in idleness.” It is a feeling of loneliness and melancholy with no apparent reason and hard to talk about. It is a nameless ennui about life in the mind of sensitive and artistic scholar officials. Feng was extremely skilled in representing it in the sphere of the song lyric. Take his “Magpie Steps on the Branch” as an illustration: Who says I’ve long got rid of that feeling in idleness? Every time when spring’s here, I’m as dismal as ever. Day after day, in front of flowers, I’m often sick from drinking, Not caring that I look so haggard in the mirror. Lush are the green grass at riverside and the willows on the bank, One asks: why, for what reason, New melancholy arises year after year? I stand alone on the small bridge, with my sleeves puffed up in the wind, Watching the new moon atop the woods when no one is around.

Since it is called a “feeling in idleness” it should not be anything serious, and yet it lingers in one’s mind and is hard to get rid of because it is a kind of inherent sentimentality. With the penultimate line, “I stand alone on the small bridge, with my sleeves puffed up in the wind,” the image is extremely appealing in its representation of a pose of desolation and solitude. In general, with Feng Yansi’s works one may see that the song lyric made significant expansion in content and implication, and its language became more delicate and refined. Li Jing (916–961) was the second sovereign of the Southern Tang. An incompetent and weak ruler of the state, he was extremely accomplished in art and literature. Few of his song lyrics are extant, but the two pieces of “Silk-Washing Stream” are classic texts in the history of the genre. What follows is one of them: The fragrance of lotus flowers is gone, its green leaves withering; A west wind dolefully arises over the green ripples. Waning and wearing out along with the fleeting time,


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It is hard for one to watch. Amid a fine drizzle, one goes to the faraway Fort Roosters in a dream, Up the little tower, one stops playing the marble pipe in the cold. How many drops of tears, how much is the anguish From one who leans by the balustrade?

From its use of the term “Fort Roosters” (there was a Fort Rooster and Deer in the Han dynasty and here it is used to refer to the frontier), the lyric apparently is about a wife missing her faraway husband. However, through the representation of a kind of anguish for “the belatedness of the Fair One,”5 one feels more of a treasury of life and from that, a sense of helplessness about life’s brevity. Visual images are closely juxtaposed in the text, and they switch from one to another quite fast. However, the images are carefully grouped, and the course of emotional variation is represented in a natural and smooth way. As a result, it does not give the reader any sense of obscurity or fragmentation. The other lyric to the same tune also holds similar characteristics, and the line in it, “Lilac flowers are only clusters of grief in the rain,” just like the line “Up the little tower, one stops playing the marble pipe in the cold” in the above-cited one, are both widely known and often-quoted lines. Li Jing’s son Li Yu (937–978), also known as Li Houzhu (“Li the Last Monarch”), was the last ruler of the Southern Tang. He assumed the throne at the age of twenty-five. When he was thirty-nine years old the Southern Tang was eliminated by the Song, and Li Yu was taken as a prisoner to Bianjing. More than two years later, he was poisoned to death by the order of Emperor Taizong of the Song. He was an artist with multiple attainments and talent, though an incompetent ruler. The military power of the Southern Tang was no match against that of the Song, so its downfall was simply unavoidable. However, the traumatic experience of his degeneration from a sovereign to a prisoner provided Li Yu with a deep understanding of “the agony and regret of life” and precisely due to that, his status as a first-rate major poet in the history of the song lyric was established. Li Yu lived in extreme luxury and pomp before the conquest of the nation. Some of the song lyrics of his early years are either about life in the palace or singing, dancing and banquets; some, continuing the thematic convention, are about romantic love. There is nothing unusual

5

From line 20 of Qu Yuan’s “On Encountering Trouble.”

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about them. In the art of language, though, they already display some of his outstanding talent, and some of their characteristics are similar to those of his later works. Take his “Music of Peace and Serenity” as an example: Since the parting, half of spring is gone, Everything I see around breaks my heart. Beneath the stair steps, plum petals fall like a flurry of snow, I try to brush them off, but they still cover all my body. The wild geese are here, but one cannot trust their message. It is too far for one to return, even in a dream; The agony of separation is just like the grass in spring That keeps growing on the road, no matter how far one goes.

It uses plain language and coherent structure in its expression of feeling. There are only a few images, all things seen in daily life. The key to its art is the relation between its figures and symbols which reveals original and ingenious imagination, something common to all poets of the genius type. In the first half, it uses the falling plum petals, which hover in the air like snow and are hard to wipe off, as a metaphor for the lingering lovesickness that haunts the speaker’s mind. In the latter half, it uses the boundless stretch of spring grass that grows everywhere as a metaphor for the endless anguish of separation which extends over every inch of the long road in between the two parties. The two images, lively and original, echo each other and make very pleasant reading. Li Yu’s song lyrics of his late years represent his highest achievements. Some of the feelings expressed in these lyrics are related to his specific status only and are irrelevant to the common reader, such as the grief depicted in his “Breaking the Formation”: “In particular, the day when I bid farewell to the ancestral temple in a hurry, / The Imperial Music Bureau was still playing the song of departure, / And I faced the Maids of Honor in tears.” However, more of these works recount a kind of universal “life’s sorrow” of which he reached a comprehension through his specific personal experience. Wang Guowei, in comparing Li Yu’s song lyrics and the lyric “Pavilion at Mt. Yanshan” by Emperor Huizong of the Song, has observed that although both were composed after their authors lived through the downfall of a nation, the latter is “nothing more than the agony of a self-account,” while the former, instead, provides “a sense of Siddhartha and Jesus Christ carrying on themselves the burden of all human evil,” by which he meant that Li


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Yu’s song lyrics have the implication of a kind of deep grief about human existence in general. It is difficult to say whether Li Yu himself really had such profound thoughts, but the “life’s sorrow” in his lyrics is indeed comprehensible and appealing to the common reader. What is most frequently found therein are the regret that beautiful things are easy to fade and the grief caused by recalling such things once they get lost. Take his “Joy of Meeting” as an example: The flowers in the woods have shed their red color in the spring In such great hurry! Helpless are they in the cold rain by morning and the wind at night. Tears from the powdered face Keep one intoxicated; When shall this be repeated? After all, regret lasts in life, like the river running east, forever.

And also his “Beauty Yu”: Flowers in spring, the moon in autumn: when shall they all end? How many things took place in the past? Last night, at the little tower, another spring wind arose. One cannot bear to look at the old homeland in the bright moonshine. Carved balustrades, marble steps: they should still stand there; Only those beautiful faces have changed. One asks: how much grief do you feel? The answer: like the waters in an east-running river.

The first one does not involve anything regarding his former status as a sovereign; the latter does mention “(c)arved balustrades” and “marble steps” which are not to be found in an ordinary home, but they are used there primarily as a contrast for the easily changing “beautiful faces.” The red flowers in the spring woods cannot endure the imposition of the rain by morning and the wind at night. Likewise, beautiful scenes and things are delicate and fragile, and may turn into illusion unnoticeably. From a different perspective, flowers in spring and the moon in autumn may return on an endless cycle, but things in the past will not happen again beneath the spring flowers and in the autumn moonshine. Life is always full of regret, hence the statement that human grief is like the running waters in a spring river. Among the characteristics of Li Yu’s song lyric, first and foremost is the passion in its expression of feeling. The song lyric, as a form to be sung by singing girls, is originally somewhat detached from the author’s own emotions, with its expression of feeling achieved in assumption

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and supposition. There have been changes in the song lyric of Wei Zhuang and Feng Yansi, but they are still more or less reserved in the expression of their own emotions and their lyric sound somewhat calm and composed. Li Yu’s song lyrics, instead, choose to tell the author’s mind directly, giving a full display to life’s sorrow and regret in words, so that the reader may reach the recesses of his mind. The constantly changing emotions are veined through the entire text as its main current. In accordance with that, the language is refreshingly natural and smooth, without any excessive ornaments or elaboration to distract the reader’s attention. At the same time, relying on his long-accumulated artistic accomplishment and innate talent, the author seems to be able to choose the most appropriate imagery without much effort, and thereupon transform the abstract feeling into visible and tangible images, and create a transparent, harmonious and intact world of imagination. Li Yu’s song lyrics hold a special niche in the history of the genre. Even if they are written in a simple language, the works of few other lyricists are close to them in style. Perhaps the only one who may be counted as a distant successor was Nalan Xingde of the Qing dynasty.

3. Song Lyrics of the Northern Song Dynasty After its establishment, the Song Empire was not so strong in terms of its relations with foreign states, but it remained stable in its domestic ruling characterized by a high level of centralization of authority. During the Song dynasty, in addition to the remarkable development in the production of agriculture and handicraft industry, the advancement of urban and commercial economy also far exceeded previous ages, which may be seen if only in two examples, the use of paper money (also the earliest in world history) and the description in the handscroll Going up the River on the Qingming Festival. At the same time, as the printing industry began to serve its crucial function, the dissemination of culture became more extensive in range. It was also an age when people became more fastidious and tasteful about life’s enjoyment. With the upper social class, scholar officials were well treated by the imperial court; banquets with singing performances became an indispensable part of their life, wherein they were treated by entertainers trained exclusively for such occasions. With the lower social strata, a


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variety of entertainments, especially singing and dancing provided by prostitutes, were equally popular with the townspeople communities. All these made enormous demand for the song lyric. At the same time with the strengthening of centralization, scholar officials, more dependent on state power, also developed a higher consciousness of preserving, on their own initiative, current social structure and common value system. This generated a corresponding demand on literature. Shi poetry and prose, the “proper and right” (zheng zong) or canonical literary forms to scholar officials, clearly evolved in the direction of the graceful and upright, with a predilection for rationalization, shortly after the establishment of the state of the Northern Song. (This will be discussed in detail in the subsequent chapter.) However, aside from dignity and sobriety, scholar officials also had their individual and secular feelings, which also needed an outlet for representation. The song lyric, in terms of its general nature, was the word text to be sung by singing girls, and it was a “small way” (xiao dao) that had never had much to do with moral education, the running of the state and the harmony of the world, so these people did not have to treat it seriously. Precisely because of that, though, when the shi poetry began to turn more reserved, the song lyric made up for its insufficiencies. That was the reason behind the prosperity of the song lyric in the Northern Song. The differentiation of shi poetry and the song lyric which first emerged in the Northern Song caused the differences between the two genres. To most men of letters, shi poetry was a more important literary form to which they devoted more of their effort and wrote more in number, and indeed, shi poetry of the Song dynasty also had its considerable achievements. Notwithstanding all this, though, the song lyric was more indicative of the creative power of Northern Song literature. In terms of liberal expression of feeling, it accorded with the characteristics of “poetry” in the wider sense of the word. The conventional saying, “the shi poetry of the Tang and the song lyric of the Song,” is not without its reason. Yan Shu, Liu Yong, and Zhang Xian In the above, it has been noted that Li Yu’s most representative song lyrics are actually those he wrote after he was taken as a prisoner to Bianjing, but these seemed to have been his compositions in his solitude

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that had nothing to do with the entire arena of the song lyric. In the first several decades of the early Northern Song, roughly all the way to right before Emperor Renzong’s reign, maybe because the state was only newly established, the composition of the song lyric was quite scarce, and only several tens of short tunes have been handed down. Wang Yucheng, Kou Zhun, Pan Lang and Lin Bu were among those mentioned as lyricists of this period. Some of their compositions are not bad, but due to the small total number it is hard to figure out their special features, if any. By the time of Emperor Renzong’s reign the song lyric began to become popular, and there emerged three famous lyricists, Yan Shu, Zhang Xian and Liu Yong. Interesting to note, the three of them were about the same age. Yan Shu’s song lyrics mainly accord with the refined taste of senior scholar officials. Liu Yong’s works are characterized by their representation of the taste of the townspeople communities. Zhang Xian is in between the two of them. In his early youth Yan Shu (991–1055) was recommended to the court as a “prodigy” and he served at a series of distinguished positions until he became the Prime Minister. He was fond of inviting guests and holding banquets wherein singing and music were always played as entertainment. Main guests frequently composed song lyrics to be sung by the singing girls. In fact his place became a literary salon related with lyric compositions. Yan Shu’s life experience may be counted as quite successful among scholars of the imperial ages, so his song lyrics are often permeated with a sense of satisfaction and a dignified, graceful and leisurely disposition. However, life in the official circles must have had its unspeakable tension, which would generate spiritual pressure, so Yan Shu’s lyrics breathe a kind of pathos as well. In his Poetic Remarks from the Central Mountains, Liu Ban has remarked that Yan Shu “liked in particular the song lyrics of Feng Yansi of Jiangnan, and his own compositions were as good as those of Yansi’s.” He shared similarities with Feng Yansi in accomplishments and status in the first place, hence it was easy for him to share the same artistic tastes as well. Like Feng’s works, Yan’s song lyrics also like to use refreshingly natural language and delicate imagery to represent the subtle “feeling in idleness” and “melancholy in idleness,” to find an outlet for the pent-up feeling of solitude and desolation in one’s innermost being, such as the kind of emotions as portrayed in lines like: “Rain and shine alternate abruptly, flowers keep falling by themselves; / Melancholy and


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boredom in idleness make the daytime seem so long.” These lines are from his “Silk-Washing Stream.” Another piece to the same tune is more widely known: One song with new words, one cup of wine: Climate just like last year; pavilion and terrace, as before. The sun sets in the west. When shall it return? Helpless: flowers fade and drop; Returning swallows look like old acquaintances. Along a fragrant path in the small garden, I walk to and fro, alone.

Nothing whatsoever has happened. Life is normal, and there is a sense of peace and quiet. The climate is just like that of last year’s; the pavilion and the terrace are just like before. Flowers keep falling; swallows fly back again. However, actually everything is different. Every day, the time gone with the setting sun is not to return, and human life gradually flows away in such a peaceful but insipid existence. Take “Stepping on Nut Grass” as another illustration: The red flowers along the footpath have turned sparse But a verdant green is all over the sweet-scented outskirts. High terraces emerge in the shade—the shade of trees. The spring wind knows not how to wipe out willow catkins Which, hovering like a mist, pounce on the face of wayfarers. Orioles hide themselves behind emerald green leaves, Swallows are kept outside crimson curtains; Smoke from incense pot curls quietly around soaring gossamer. When one sobers up, waking from an awful dream, Deep into the courtyard slant rays of the setting sun.

This piece also portrays a spring landscape at dusk and the speaker’s feeling. Most of the lyric is devoted to a description of static scenes; with the line about the “smoke from the incense pot” it arrives at an extremely quiet and still world. All movements and changes in the world are so slow that they seem to have stopped altogether. In the still, however, time still passes by before anyone knows. The last two lines provide a scene confronted by the speaker, who has just awaken from a sad dream, of the rays of the setting sun shining over the courtyard. It reveals the protagonist’s startling sense of helplessness about the fleeting time at the moment, and breathes of a deep melancholy. Compared to Feng Yansi’s works, Yan Shu’s song lyrics are simpler in structure, and the unfolding of their veins of thinking therein is also more natural. He also takes a fancy for flowery diction, but often

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integrates it into a refreshingly natural language for the entire text, and sometimes primarily uses a plain and straightforward style. As a result, his song lyrics, as a whole, have a simple and natural beauty. His strength lies, in particular, in his ability to use his minute and subtle personal experience to reveal, through some commonplace and ordinary images, the profound meanings of human life. Some of his song lyrics contain philosophical elements. For instance the couplet, “Helpless: flowers drop and are gone; / Swallows return: I seem to know them,” is exquisitely composed in spite of its simple and plain language; richly suggestive and subtle in nature, its artistic attainments is quite unusual. Yan Shu’s works served as a linkage between the song lyric of the Five Dynasties, especially the Southern Tang, and that of the Northern Song; they further established the place in the song lyric of the Song dynasty of the simple, natural, meticulous, and gentle style they represented. The years of Liu Yong’s birth and death remain unknown, though he was perhaps a contemporary of Yan Shu and Zhang Xian, and was active primarily during the reigns of Emperor Zhenzong and Renzong. In his early years, he sat for the civil service examinations several times with no success, and became a Presented Scholar only in his late years, after which he only served at a number of lowly positions. In his youth Liu Yong lived in the marketplace for a long time where he got to know many singing girls and prostitutes, for whom he composed song lyrics and sometimes used them as his objects. It was said that Liu Yong once called on Yan Shu, who asked him: “Doesn’t our talented young man write some melodies?” He replied, “I’m just like Your Excellency who also writes melodies.” Yan Shu said contemptuously, “I do write melodies, but I’ve never said, ‘Idly holding colored thread in hand, I’d just sit by his side.” (See Zhang Shunmin’s Records of Colored WallCovering. Also, in more popular editions the phrase “colored thread” in this line goes for “needle and thread.”) Notwithstanding the authenticity of the story, it reflects the opposition of the refined taste versus the popular taste between the two lyricists. It is common to write about women and romantic love in the song lyrics of the literati, but Liu Yong’s works have a flavor of their own. On the one hand, he is quite explicit and bold. For example, in his “New Chrysanthemum Blossoms” he would make such a daring, unbridled description of a scene in real life: “In a moment, put aside the remaining thread and needle; / Take off her silk skirt, / And


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indulge in boundless love. / Let’s keep the lamplight in front of the bed curtain, / As I have to, from time to time, / Look at her lovely face.” On the other hand, he treated the singing girls and prostitutes with a commoner’s sense of equality rather than with the condescending attitude as a scholar official, so his description of their emotions is often realistic and passionate. In Liu Yong’s song lyrics, singing girls and prostitutes are not simply the beautiful, romantic embellishments in the elegant and idle life of the scholar officials; instead they have their own worries and dreams, as well as their yearning for a normal life in society and real love. For instance, his “Song of the Lost Fairy” tells how a singing girl wishes to free herself from a life of pretending cheerfulness in front of customers: “Now that I have received your patronage, / Please be nice enough to make decisions for me. / Across the rosy heaven of ten thousand miles, / Why not hold my hand and take me back with you, / So that I can forever leave behind / My companions in the house of joy, / So that people won’t see me / As a fickle and inconstant woman.” For another example, here is his “Quelling the Disturbance” that was scorned by Yan Shu: Since spring arrived All the green and red colors have looked so woeful to me, And in my heart, I seem to care for nothing whatsoever. The sun is shining atop flowers, Orioles are flying through weeping willows, But I’m still in bed, lying in the perfumed quilt. My tender warm flesh has shrunk, The cloud of my thick hair hangs low, All day long, I stay idle, too tired to make up myself. Nothing to say! It’s all due to the coldhearted man who left; I’ve not heard anything from him ever since. If only I had known this then! How I regret that I Didn’t lock up the saddle of his horse; I should have made him face only the windows of his study And given him nothing but ivory writing brush and fine paper So that he could keep teaching his lessons on chanting. We would have been together and Never to miss each other. Idly holding needle and thread in hand, I’d just sit by his side With me as his only company, So that the time of our youth Won’t slip by all in vain.

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The lyric recounts a woman’s complaint about her lover. Her status is unidentified, but she seems to belong to the category of singing girls or prostitutes. All she desires is a kind of ordinary happiness, which is nevertheless beyond her reach. Liu Yong’s song lyrics on romantic love are mostly very lively. In order to achieve such effects, he deliberately avoids using refined bookish language and instead resorts to a kind of colloquial speech of the common folks that is “plain and vulgar” (see Wang Zhuo’s Random Notes from the Emerald Rooster Lane) . In addition, he often combines a description of events or scenes in real life with his representation of his character’s feeling and emotions, making it easily appealing to the reader. For this reason, his song lyrics were quite popular with the commoners. There was the saying; “At every place where there was a drinking well, there was someone who was able to sing Liu’s songs.” (Remarks Recorded while Staying Away from the Heat) Liu Yong also composed many lyrics that described scenes of the flourishing metropolis, which reflected the social consciousness he developed as an urban inhabitant. What emerged most frequently in the song lyrics of scholar officials were the countryside and the wilderness, with all the mountains, streams, forests, and fountains, which made up for what they had missed living their life as government officials in the city. They found sustenance in such scenes which to them represented the refined and carefree life they yearned for. Hence the landscape in nature almost became a conventional landmark of the literature of scholar officials. Liu Yong, on the other hand, showed an excitement and fervor for city life. All major cities such as Bianjing, Hangzhou, Suzhou and Chengdu appear in his song lyrics which, without exception, praise the prosperity, highlight the jubilation, exalt the gallantry, and even flaunt extravagant consumption, with a strong flavor of secularity. The best known piece among such lyrics is his “Watching the Sea Tide,” which describes scenes in the city of Hangzhou and the landscape of the West Lake: Superb scenic place in southeast, Capital city of the three Wu provinces, This city by the Qiantang River has flourished since ancient times. Look at the misty willows, painted bridges, Wind shades, emerald green canopies, And rows upon rows of a hundred thousand homes. Cloud-capped trees stand around the sandy embankments; Roaring waves rise like swirling frost and snow;


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The natural moat runs on without end. Pearls and jewels are on display in markets, Silk clothes fill up the stores, All competing in luxury and pomp. Twin lakes and ranges of hills look so refreshing, With all the cassia blossoms in the autumn months, And lotus flowers that spread for ten miles. On sunny days, one hears the playing of flutes, On evenings, the singing of lotus-picking songs. Both old fishermen and young boat girls rejoice. A thousand horsemen surround the tall banner of the commander Who listens to pipes and drums in intoxication And chants while watching the mists and clouds. Some day, he’d have the great view drawn in a painting And bring it to the imperial court to boast of the experience.

In lyrics like the above, which deviate far away from the conventional literary standard of scholar officials, there lies a latent understanding of human life and aesthetic judgment which are full of vitality. Certainly some of Liu Yong’s lyrics also represent the elegant taste of scholar officials, such as those that deplore life’s frustrations or represent passenger’s homesickness, which have always been highly acclaimed. Even in such lyrics, though, Liu Yong still displays some special features of his own. Take his “Bells in Continuous Rain” as an illustration: Cicadas droned sadly in the cold; In front, night fell at the traveler’s pavilion, While a shower had just stopped. No heart to drink beneath the tent at the city gate, We found it hard to part But was hurried up by the magnolia boat that was about to leave. Holding hands, we looked at each other with teary eyes, And we choked in utter silence. We thought about the journey Over a thousand miles, riding the waves In the dark evening mist, across the open southern sky. Since ancient times parting has been a misery for lovers; Let alone to part In the dreary autumn season! Tonight, when I sober up, where shall I be? Under riverside willows, In a wind at dawn, and the lingering moonshine. This parting will last an entire year; In vain shall we have all the good hours and beautiful sights.

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chapter twelve Even if I have All the gallant and romantic feelings, Whom am I to share them with?

It is about the parting of lovers. The first stanza depicts the leavetaking against a landscape in autumn; the second stanza portrays, in imagination, the desolate view after sobering up and the inner grief. It is composed in an elegant style, with the often-cited, extremely refined line: “Under riverside willows, / In a wind at dawn, and the lingering moonshine.” The ambience of the lyric is highlighted in a range of delicate shades, and no effort is spared in its intensive exploration of the pathos under the circumstances. Such a way of composition was quite unusual in the convention of the literati song lyric before his time. Liu Yong’s song lyrics, characterized by their vivacious, explicit, and thorough expression of feeling, have also made two innovations in form that are related to those characteristics: the adoption of quite a number of new melodies and the frequent use of long tunes. In the middle years of the Northern Song dynasty, singing was popular and new songs abounded, but the literati song lyrics of the time were still accustomed to the usage of old tunes that had come down from the Late Tang and the Five Dynasties. Liu Yong, however, was different; his compositions had a close relation with the popular music in the society. According to the statistics of some researcher, in the more than two hundred and ten extant song lyrics of his, he made use of some one hundred and twenty-seven tunes, and most of them were new ones. Some of them were even his own compositions, such as “Song of the Fragrance of the Autumn Blossoms,” “Song of the Riverside Fairy,” etc. Among all his lyrics, more than half are long tunes which consist of a relative large number of words. Liu Yong thus broke free from the long-standing convention of the literati song lyrics which had used primarily traditional short tunes. An important contribution Liu Yong’s works made was their adroit use of the long tunes which are characterized by their propriety for elaboration, subtle nuances of meaning, and great variation in form; they integrate the expression of feeling, narration of events and scenic description into one unity, and unfold all these in a somewhat delicate and refined way. The pieces cited in the above, “Quelling the Disturbance,” “Watching the Sea Tide,” and “Bells in Continuous Rain” all hold such characteristics. At the same time, it also opened a new path for later lyricists.


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In the history of literature, Liu Yong was a man of letters who, earlier than most, had a close relation with the society of the townspeople and displayed in his works more flavor of the secular life in the city, but precisely because of that, he has also often been denounced. In late times, many have called his song lyrics “inferior in taste,” an evaluation made from the standpoint of the tradition of scholar officials. Born in the family of a newly appointed junior bureaucrat, Zhang Xian (990–1078) passed the examinations for Presented Scholar in his middle age, and served at a series of local positions at various prefectures. His official career was smooth, though not that distinguished, and he ended up serving as a courtier. He was a carefree man, amorous even in old age, so his song lyrics are neither as elegant and reserved like Yan Shu, nor breathing of the townspeople society like Liu Yong, but instead hold a flavor of their own. Zhang Xian also had associations with many singing girls and composed lyrics for their vocal rendition. These pieces, which primarily deal with female beauty and love affairs, often show a romantic imagination and are quite appealing. For instance, his “Clepsydra” describes a young singing girl’s appearance and spirit: “Her dark green eyebrows are slender; / Her red mouth is small. / She whispers by the ear of the man: / ‘In a winding lane, in the shade of willows, / There stands my home / In front of which are red apricot flowers.’ ” His “Telling my Heart” portrays the deep affection of lovers: “At this time, I’d like to be / A thousand willow branches / That block and provoke the spring wind.” His “Celebration of a Millennium” depicts a woman’s obsession with love: “Heaven doesn’t get old; / It’s hard for love to end. / My heart is like a pair of silk-thread nets / Which contain therein thousands of knots.” These are, however, written from the imagination of a spectator, and the author’s own emotions are not so strong in there, so they sometimes strike the reader as deft but light. To regard the song lyric as an art-for-art’s-sake form and to strive for a tender charm— this is more clearly represented in this type of Zhang Xian’s lyrics. Another type of Zhang Xian’s compositions represents the feeling of idleness of scholar officials. Take his famous piece, “Fairy from Heaven,” as an example: Holding wine in hand, I listen to the singing of some “Water Tunes”; Sobering up in the afternoon, I have not yet left my sorrow behind. I bid farewell to spring. Spring’s gone, but when shall it return? Facing the mirror in the evening,

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chapter twelve I grieve for the fleeting time. Passing events, future appointments, all are recalled in vain. Birds stand on the sands in pairs: they’ll go to sleep by the pond. The moon looms in dispersed clouds; flowers play with their shadows. Layers of heavy curtains cover the lamplight. The wind keeps blowing while People have just quieted down. By tomorrow, fallen red petals are sure to cover up all footpaths.

This was written when the author was in his fifties. The perplexity about “(p)assing events” and “future appointments” implies a sense of helplessness in human life. It shares a similar mood with Yan Shu’s lyrics of spring lament that deplore the brevity of youth. Zhang Xian’s works, however, are more explicit in meaning, and his style sounds more clever and crafty. They also have an inclination of art-for-art’s-sake. Zhang Xian may not be considered as a highly original lyricist, but he was extremely talented, and his lyrics often include ingenious and original lines, which became well known in his own lifetime and established his fame. Based on three famous lines of his that describe “shadows,” he was celebrated by his contemporaries as “Zhang the Three Shadows.” In fact, more than three examples may be worthy of citation. In addition to the line cited in the above, “The moon looms in dispersed clouds; flowers play with their shadows,” others are equally well considered and meticulously composed, such as the lines in his “Song of the Blue Gate”: “How could one bear to see the bright moon / Send the shadow of the swing across the wall”; those in his “Magnolia Flowers”: “In the middle of the courtyard, the moon shines bright and clear, / Countless willow catkins soar by without any shadows”; and those in his “Cutting down Peony Flowers”: “No one is seen along the footpath where willows stand, / Dropping their catkins in the wind without any shadows.” In terms of form, Zhang Xian primarily wrote short tunes, but at the same time he was also another lyricist, besides Liu Yong, who composed the largest number of long tunes and slow-paced songs. Song lyrics in long tunes are good at elaboration, more appropriate for indepth and multi-layered description; they helped to make the genre break free from the high compactness honored in the convention of the shi poetry, and develop aspects different from the latter.


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Ouyang Xiu and Yan Jidao Yan Shu and Liu Yong, respectively, founded the two schools of Northern Song song lyric: the refined taste and the popular taste. Among the literati, however, the school of the refined taste was after all more influential. Hence it was not without reason that Yan Shu was honored as the “first ancestor” of the song lyric of Northern Song. (See Feng Xu’s “Introduction” to Selections from Sixty-One Lyricists.) Among the next generation of lyricists, both Yan Shu’s disciple Ouyang Xiu and his son Yan Jidao continued Yan Shu’s tradition in their lyric compositions, though each with his own variations. Ouyang Xiu, in particular, composed not only lyrics that appeal to the “refined taste,” but also lyrics that meet extremely popular taste but are nevertheless different from those of Liu Yong’s. Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072) was born in the family of a junior official. His father died when he was still young, so he suffered from poverty in his childhood. After he received the degree of Presented Scholar in 1030, he had many ups and downs in his official career, but later he was promoted to serve in important positions in the central government. A leader in the literary circles of the middle period of Northern Song, he played a key role in the formation of literary taste and literary style, in the fields of both poetry and prose, with cultural characteristics of the Song dynasty (called the “Mode of Song” by some scholars), which will be discussed in the subsequent chapter. On the other hand, his lyric composition had little to do with the reform he led in the fields of poetry and prose, and that was because to him, the song lyric was insignificant and was only meant for diversion and entertainment, or in his own words, “merely as an aid to some refreshing amusement.” (“Picking Mulberry Fruit: Words Uttered on the West Lake”) However, precisely because of that, his lyrics were written in a relaxed manner, and some of his compositions differed so much from the refined and orthodox style of his poetry and prose that it was difficult for the reader to believe they were all from the same author, from which one could also tell how literature had become more complicated in appearance since the Mid-Tang. Actually Ouyang Xiu’s lyrics clearly fall into two categories. The main category, which consists of the majority of his compositions, adheres to Yan Shu’s convention; these lyrics use exquisite and refined language and an implicit style to describe natural landscape, to voice his concern for the society of the time, and also to describe the subtle

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mentality of romantic love. They conform to the general tendency of the song lyric of his contemporaries. Among these lyrics, “Butterfly’s Fancy for Flowers” is a very well known piece: The courtyard is deep, but how deep is it? Willows cluster in a fog like countless curtains and screens. Jade bridles and engraved saddles abound at houses of joy; Up at the tall tower, one sees not the street of merrymaking. Rain lashes, wind roars, at dusk by the third moon. She closes the door on the thickening twilight, But has no way to make the spring stay. With teary eyes she asks the flowers; flowers remain silent. Red petals, in a flurry, fly across the swing, and are gone.

It fantasizes a woman’s grief. Deep courtyard, misty willows, curtains and screens, one after another, enclose a solitary young woman. The man she misses, up at a tall tower and way beyond her reach, is seeking romantic merriment elsewhere. The second stanza opens with a scene of the wind and rain at dusk in late spring, highlighting her lovesickness in the season, and also implying that the woman’s prime time of youth has been devastated by misfortune. The image of falling red petals in the last two lines is not only a thought-provoking scene in itself, but also the symbol of a weak person who is unable to be in control of her own destiny. The lyric provides an in-depth portrayal of the female protagonist’s emotional distress. In addition, such an implication is explored by the use of multiple shades of highlighting and step-by-step suggestion, which is typical of a song lyric of the literati. For another example, his “Stepping on Nut Grass,” which depicts lovesickness in separation, has the same mood and style. The ending of the first stanza speaks from the wayfarer’s angle: “The further we are apart, the more unbearable the sorrow of parting; / Endless, continuous, it runs like spring waters.” The closure of the second stanza switches to the perspective of the one who stays home, “At the end of the grassy plain are the green hills, / Even beyond the green hills is my wayfarer.” The two endings, which provide a contrast in exquisite imagery and far-reaching implications, display the author’s extraordinary talent. Such a tender passion is relatively uncommon in Ouyang’s shi poetry. The other type of his lyrics is quite unusual. First, let us take his “Intoxication at Penglai” as an illustration:


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I see her: looking shy, knitting her dark brows, Her tender face evenly rouged, And her slim white waist. Beside the fence where red peonies bloom, She’s annoyed, being refused to let her pass. Half overcoming her coyness And in a low trembling voice She asks: “Does anyone know?” She strives to smooth down her silk skirt And steals a fleeting glance at me; She makes as if to walk away, and then to sit down. Then she asks: “If— After we do it, My cloudy hair gets untidy, Then Mom will see it through. Let me go home first, And you, drop it for now, eh? Also, Mom has given me Some needlework to do, And she’ll berate me if it’s left undone. Let’s just wait until late tonight, In the shade of the flowers in the courtyard, We’ll come here again, all right?”

In its description of a passionate date of young people, it reveals the complex feeling of the young woman, who is both shy about and itching for love, with a wonderfully vivid touch. In addition, his “Southern Song” tells the family life of a newly-wed couple, with a lifelike and lovely description of the woman: “Leaning on her man for a long time, playing with the writing brush, / She begins to try her hand at the drawing of some flowers. / In her idleness she has put aside her work of embroidery. / She asks in smiles, ‘How does one write the characters ‘A Pair of Mandarin Ducks?’ ” These lyrics are distinctively characterized by their simple plot, their liberal use of conversation in representation, as well as their lively and plain language. In representing the so-called “erotic love,” they are more alluring than those song lyrics which are elegant and implicit. In terms of the explicitness in description of love and the use of simple, plain language, this type of Ouyang Xiu’s lyrics, obviously, shares something in common with Liu Yong’s works, though they have their differences as well. Liu Yong’s lyrics involve the author’s own emotions and life’s experience, but one cannot find similar connotations in Ouyang Xiu’s lyrics. In general, Ouyang was only trying to

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simulate the style of the townsfolk songs; perhaps to him they were only compositions for amusement, meant for fun and pleasure only, and unrelated with his own personality. In fact, though, they still disclose a part of his personal taste and the inner world of his emotions. Some men of letters in later times doubted Ouyang Xiu’s authorship of these lyrics, and they even suspected that these were forged by his personal enemies to frame him. Such suspicion and conjecture, however, were actually groundless. It indicated that in the mind of those men of letters, the lyrics cited in the above did not agree with Ouyang Xiu’s standing as “Literary Leader of the Age.” As a matter of fact, it revealed the split personality of quite a number of men of letters since the time of the Mid-Tang. Yan Jidao (ca. 1030–ca. 1106) was Yan Shu’s son. Born in the family of a Prime Minister notwithstanding, he was only a young man when his father passed away, and he did not have a smooth official career, serving at junior positions only. A proud man by nature, he was unwilling to make use of the blessings of his late father to seek connections with those in power. In his late years, living in straitened circumstances, he led a carefree and unrestrained life. In the history of the song lyric, Yan Jidao was known side by side with his father as the “Two Yan’s.” His lyrics are mostly short tunes composed in elegant, refined language; these special features are approximate to those of Yan Shu. However, due to the difference in social status and experience in life, the dignified, graceful and leisurely disposition of his Prime Minister father is not to be found in his lyrics; instead they breathe more of an open-hearted, upright, and unrestrained flavor. In the “Author’s Preface” to his Song Lyrics of Xiaoshan, he noted that, because he was “sick of the song texts of the age, which were insufficient to relieve one from the ailment after intoxication and to alleviate one’s distress,” he set out composing song lyrics of his own, “so as to amuse myself.” The real meaning of this roundabout remark was to criticize contemporary lyrics for the absence of powerful emotional appeal therein. His lyrics mostly recount his love affairs with singing girls and dancers, but they are unlike those by most men of learning, who regarded such affairs only as a romantic subject matter of literature. To him, such affairs provided a consolation in his life, and he was deeply involved in them emotionally. For this reason, his compositions are not only beautiful but also penetrating. There is a strong appeal in their desolate and sad tone. Take, for example, the two “Partridges in the Sky” as follows:


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(A) Holding my wine, I watched Jade Flute singing a short tune; Under the silvery light, the melody sounded so lovely. Who would regret getting drunk during the song? After the singing, I returned, but was still under the influence. Spring slipped by stealthily; The night was really long, Faraway was the Chu palace, like the cloudy blue sky. In dream, my soul got used to going wild and unrestrained, Again, stepping on willow catkins, I crossed Maid Xie’s Bridge. (B) Eagerly attended by you who held the jade cup up your colorful sleeves, Back then, willingly, I got red-faced with intoxication. While you danced, the moon moved lower by the willow-covered tower; Your singing died away in the wind from your peach-blossom fans. Since we parted, I’ve always remembered our meeting; For many a time, in a dream, I’m in your company. Tonight, I’d keep on the light from the silver lamp shining, As I’m afraid that we are meeting in a dream only.

The first lyric tells how the protagonist falls in love with a singing girl, being unable to control his passion, and then it describes his unforgettable lovesickness for her after his return. The second lyric recounts the protagonist’s recollection, after his parting from the woman he loves, of the past events, and then, it portrays how, on the night of their reunion, he can still hardly believe all this is true. Displaying a fiery and intense passion, they really convey the spirit of a carefree and unruly man of letters. In the last two lines of the first lyric, the unrestrained soul in dream serves as a foil to the barrier in reality, bringing to light the desire in the heart of the speaker. In the second lyric, lines three and four are quite appealing in their revelation of the intensifying love between the two parties in the course of dancing and singing. Yan Jidao’s lyrics are exquisite in language. They often use wellconsidered and original lines, and they always read dynamic and smooth; hardly will they ever strike the reader as flat or sluggish. There lies his great talent.

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Su Shi Su Shi (1037–1101), also known by his literary name Dongpo (“Eastern Slope”), was born in the family of a relatively poor and humble man of letters at Meishan (within Sichuan today). His father Su Xun and his younger brother Su Che were both famous literary authors of Northern Song. Together they were known as the “Three Su’s.” Su Shi made the highest accomplishments in Northern Song literature, and his poetry and prose will be discussed in the next chapter. In the field of the song lyric, he brought the most distinctive changes and opened the path for a completely new style, carving out a special niche for himself throughout the history of the Chinese genre. In his youth Su Shi gained the favorable recognition of Ouyang Xiu, and he won the title of Presented Scholar at the civil service examinations. When he entered his official career, crisis began to arise in Northern Song politics and society. Scholar officials, according to their different political views and partisanship, formed various political factions, and Su Shi was drawn into the vortex of power struggle. Proposing to reform maladministration in a gentle and gradual way, he joined Ouyang Xiu and other officials in opposing the radical New Policies led by Wang Anshi. When Wang Anshi was at the helm of the state, Su Shi offered to get himself appointed at a regional position away from the capital, so he first served in Hangzhou, and later also served as the Prefect of several places. Notwithstanding that he was arrested and thrown into prison on the charge of attacking the New Policies in his poetry and prose in 1079. Subsequently he was demoted to serve at a junior post in Huangzhou (Huanggang, Hubei today), which placed him under de facto surveillance. After Emperor Shenzong’s death, when Empress Dowager Gao assumed command, the conservative Old Guards returned to power, and one by one the New Policies were repealed. Su Shi, who was summoned to return to the capital to serve, disagreed with the complete reversal of policies exercised by Sima Guang and his followers. In conflict with the powers that be, he had no choice but to offer to serve away from the capital. He was first appointed as the Prefect of Hangzhou, and subsequently at a number of regional posts. When Empress Dowager died, Emperor Zhezong took over command upon coming of age, and there was another abrupt turn in the political situation. Su Shi was still penalized as a member of the “Old Guards” and got successive demotions


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until he ended up in the region south of Five Ridges6 and the Hainan Island. He did not get to return northward until 1100, when Emperor Huizong assumed the throne and granted an amnesty for those in the earlier conservative camp. The next year, he arrived in Changzhou and died of sickness there. In the struggle between the so-called “New Guards” and “Old Guards,” Su Shi always found it hard to please either party. He spoke of himself as “headstrong and opinionated by nature, thinking too much in black-and-white terms, and hard to socialize with people.” (See “Memorial on How Military Commanders on the Frontiers Covered up Their Defeat and Loss and How the Authorities Concerned Failed to Establish the Truth”) But it reveals that he was an upright person who refused to mix up disagreement in political views and partisan struggle. On the other hand, though, Su Shi was also an open-minded man. While he claimed to be a Confucian himself, he had great interest in the thinking of Laozi and Zhuangzi, and in Buddhism. He was also fond of all kinds of “miscellaneous studies,” engaging himself in them with a broad mind. Such a personality had a close relationship with the characteristics of his literary compositions. As discussed in the above, the song lyric had been a kind of “light” literature from the Late Tang and the Five Dynasties all the way to the middle years of the Northern Song, primarily sung by singing girls to go along with drinking. Its central themes are restricted to romantic love, joy of reunion and sorrow of parting, and sentimentality about the changing seasons. While it established its own values as a genre in its special features, the concentration on emotions and art-for-art’ssake, it still suffered from its disadvantage in its narrow range. Prior to Su Shi, there were a few lyric compositions with a bleak and vigorous grandeur. In particular, Fan Zhongyan’s “Pride of the Fisherman,” which describes the majestic landscape of the frontiers and the deep grief of the soldiers, is a very powerful work, but it remained an isolated case. Real change did not take place until Su Shi made his appearance in the arena of the song lyric. In the past, the evaluation of Su Shi’s song lyrics concentrated on his “composing the song lyric as shi poetry.” Chen Shidao, whose lifetime

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The area covering Guangdong and Guangxi provinces today.

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was close to that of Su Shi’s, said something to that effect in his Poetic Remarks of Houshan; so did Li Qingzhao in her “Discussion of the Song Lyric.” What this actually means is that Su Shi’s song lyrics crossed the traditional boundary between the shi poetry and the song lyric. As a matter of fact, Su Shi also wrote quite a number of song lyrics befitting the style of traditional literati song lyric, but he was not restricted by its limitations. In his song lyrics, scenes of fields and gardens, natural landscapes, aspiration and interest in life, thoughts on past and present, description of things, and chronicles of events, “No idea is kept from being presented, nothing is prohibited from being talked about.” (Liu Xizai’s Generalizations on Arts) At the same time when he expanded the thematic range and emotional content of the song lyric, he also accordingly enriched the language, world of imagination, and style of the genre. Among famous lyricists of the Northern Song, Su Shi has left behind the largest number of compositions, which defy simple generalizations. All we are able to do here is to provide a brief introduction to a few of his most characteristic and famous song lyrics. For instance, his “Riverside Town” was composed in memory of his wife who died when she was twenty-seven years old: For ten years the living and the dead are set wide, wide apart, I’ve tried not to think about you, But I simply cannot forget. Your solitary grave is a thousand miles away: I have no place to go to talk about my misery. Even if we could meet, you’d fail to recognize me With dust all over my face And hair at my temples like frost. Last night, in a dream, I was suddenly back at homeland By the window of your little chamber You were making yourself up. We looked at each other, saying nothing, But we were in floods of tears. I know that year after year, with a broken heart, I’ll haunt, On a moonlit night, That hillock with low pines.

Previously, many song lyrics involved love between men and women, but few touched upon the mourning of one’s wife, because the topic was considered to be too heavy-hearted while those lyrics on love used to be in a gentle and mild tone. This lyric by Su Shi, however, was simply a great masterpiece. It makes full use of the form that consists of


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lines in different length. An intense fluctuation is created in between its graceful long lines and terse short lines, reflecting the desolate and profound emotions of the speaker. One can hardly recognize it as something composed according to the given format of the song lyric. Two of Su Shi’s best known song lyrics were composed under adverse circumstances. Face to face with nature, musing on past and present, the speaker comes to a philosophical understanding of life that blends pathos with broad-mindedness: How long has the bright moon been up there? Holding wine in hand, I ask the blue sky. I know not, up in the celestial palaces, What year is it tonight? I’d like to ride the wind and go back, Yet fear, in the marble towers and jade mansions, It’d be too cold for me to stay. I arise to dance with my shadow: Nothing is like this human world of ours. Turning around crimson attics, Slanting low through engraved windows, It shines on the sleepless one inside. It should not hold any resentment; Then why does it always get full when dear ones are apart? Human beings have their joy and sorrow, parting and reunion; The moon takes its turns shining or hiding, getting full or waning; Nothing is perfect: it has been like that since antiquity. I only wish that we would live long and well To share the lovely sight, even a thousand miles apart. (“Heading of Water Tune: Mid-Autumn Festival, 1076”) The great river runs east, Its waves have washed away Heroes of a thousand ages. West of the old fortress, I’ve been told, Lies the Red Cliff where Master Zhou of Three Kingdoms stood. Jagged rocks pierce the sky; Waves, slapping the banks as if agitated, Roll like thousands of snowdrifts. The river and the mountains: what a picture! At the time back then, so many great men were around. I recall, way back in that year, Master Zhou, When he first married the younger Maid Qiao, How handsome and gallant he looked! Holding a feather fan, wearing his silk cap,

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chapter twelve He talked and laughed while Turning his strong enemies into ash and dust. My soul wanders to the antique land; One may jeer me for being so fanciful When my hair has turned gray at this early age. Human life is just like a dream; Let me pour my wine as an offering to the moon and the river. (“Lovely Nian Nu: Recalling the Antiquity at Red Cliff”)

The first one here was written when Su Shi went to serve as Prefect of Mizhou because of his opposition to the Reform during the Xining reign, during a time when he suffered a political setback in life. The second one was composed when he was demoted to serve as Vice Military Training Commissioner of Huangzhou after he lived through the “Case of Poetry at the Blackbird Pavilion,”7 during which he endured great humiliation and confronted threat of his life. In order to ward off all the blows from forces in real life, the author tried to seek transcendence in the magnitude of spatial and temporal consciousness. At the beginning of “Heading of Water Tune,” by asking the sky, the speaker places his personal life in the light of the eternal time. Set in contrast with the permanent existence of time, the moon takes its turns shining or hiding, getting full or waning, and human beings have their joy and sorrow, parting and reunion, all inevitably. Once one realizes that life is bound to have imperfections, then one had better give up futile ambitions and self remorse, and treasure some of the things worthy to be cherished that one can always find in life. Likewise “Lovely Nian Nu,” from its very beginning, unfolds on the grand scale of centuries of years in time and thousands of miles in space. It not only expresses the speaker’s admiration for gallant heroes, but also relieves the inner depression by seeing through life’s illusion in the boundless spatial and temporal sphere. Such a philosophy of life may lack the power of spirited resistance, but it still reflects Su Shi’s proud and unyielding personality. The lyrics provide an extraordinarily wide world of imagination and show an astonishing range of emotions, making them something unprecedented in the entire history of the genre. 7 “Blackbird Pavilion” was the unofficial name for the Censorate, an agency in the top echelon of the central government the various functions of which included impeaching officials who in their private or public lives violated law or otherwise conducted themselves improperly. Su Shi was thrown into prison in 1079 on the charge that he attacked the New Policies in some of his poems.


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In addition to the lyrics discussed in the above, his “Fortuneteller” (“A crescent moon hangs atop a leafless paulownia”) uses the image of the “dimly discernible shadow of a lonely swan” to represent the state of mind of a noble and unsullied person who stays in a quiet, secluded place but nevertheless feels agitated. It provides the symbolism and imaginary world characteristic of poetry. His “Chanting of Dragon in Water” (“It’s like flower, and yet it’s no flower”), which falls under the style of conventional song lyric, uses the flying willow catkins as a foil for the image of the lovesick woman in springtime. In an extremely delicate and gentle tone, it highlights a feeling of agony and melancholy in rich shades. Some of Su Shi’s short lyrics which deal with his thoughts on daily trifles, life in the countryside, or local customs and habits show a sense of humor characteristic of the author. In conclusion, Su Shi’s most important contribution to the song lyric lies in that he initiated a majestic, bold, unconstrained, broad-minded and candid artistic style that shares something in common with the shi poetry, while simultaneously he also composed lyrics in a variety of other styles. Because of the diversity in theme and style, as well as Su Shi’s unbridled personality, his song lyrics also brought great changes to the language of the form. Words and expressions used in the shi poetry, in prose, or in spoken language may all be incorporated into the form of the song lyric, which also played a critical role for the genre to move toward more formal freedom. Su Shi’s creative refinement of the song lyric was significant in many ways. First of all, his practice of “composing the song lyric as shi poetry” may be also regarded as “using the song lyric as a substitute for the shi poetry.” When the shi poetry of the Song dynasty showed a general inclination to philosophize and rationalize, and to honor the “bland and plain” (ping dan) artistic style, Su Shi shifted into the genre of the song lyric the dynamic and strong emotions that he needed to express, and transformed the genre into a proper form for such emotions. In other words, Su Shi’s contribution to the song lyric was also his contribution to poetry in the wide sense. By doing so, he unlocked the potential of the song lyric as a genre in its expression of feeling, so that it no longer existed only as an “amorous kind,” and thereby opened a new path for lyricists. In addition, with the appearance of Su Shi’s song lyrics, the song lyric was no longer completely dependent on music; instead it was able to turn into another literary form written to be read. Here, we should point out that it has always

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been controversial whether Su Shi’s song lyrics may be rendered in singing, with the discussion focusing primarily on whether his works “observe the metrics.” That, however, was not the key issue. In Su Shi’s age, the song lyric was vocally rendered by singing girls, so the music was certainly “light” in nature. Accordingly, the impassioned, bold and unconstrained works among Su Shi’s song lyrics were not suitable for singing even if they observed the metrics. There was a widely known story. Su Shi asked one of his retainers how his song lyrics compared with those of Liu Yong’s, and the retainer said that Liu’s lyrics, such as “Under riverside willows, / In a wind at dawn, and the lingering moonshine,” were only suitable to be sung by a girl of seventeen or eighteen holding red ivory clappers in her hand, whereas Su’s lyrics, such as “A great river runs east,” had to be sung by a burly northwestern man with a copper pipa and steel clappers in hand. The fine comparison defines the difference between Su’s song lyrics and the conventional lyrics of the literati. However, most of the entertainers who served the scholar officials of the time were “girls of seventeen or eighteen,” and it would be really difficult to find a “burly northwestern man” among them. For that reason, lyrics like “A great river runs east” were unlikely to be fit for vocal rendition, and were not composed to serve that purpose in the first place. Qin Guan, Huang Tingjian, and He Zhu Qin Guan, Huang Tingjian and He Zhu were all lyricists of late Northern Song with their respective distinctions. Among them, Qin and Huang were ranked among the “Four Scholar-Retainers of Su Shi.” In terms of the style of the song lyric, however, He Zhu was the one who shared more in common with Su Shi. Qin Guan (1049–1100) became a Presented Scholar in 1085, and served as a junior courtier. Later, because of his relationship with Su Shi, he was demoted successively and sent on exile. Later, he died on his way back after being pardoned. A meek and mild person with deep sensitivity, Qin Guan was not interested in political struggle. Notwithstanding that he still got involved and lived through dreadful conditions. Accordingly he was often grief-stricken and was unable to relieve himself from the distress. In his Remarks on the Song Lyric from the Human World, Wang Guowei has remarked that Qin’s lyrics are “extremely plaintive.” The following “Stepping on Nut Grass” of his makes a good example:


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Towers and terraces vanish from sight in a fog, The moon loses its way above the ferry crossing; As far as the eye could see, Peach Spring is nowhere to be found. It’s hard to endure—to be confined, in the spring cold, at a lonely inn, To face the dusk in the setting sunshine, amid the cuckoo’s crying. Plum flowers forwarded from a courier station, A letter written on a silk piece passed on in a fish: Piece by piece, countless, they build up this sorrow of mine. The Chen River, that should have run around the Chen Mountains only; For what reason, is it now running all the way further south?

It is a famous lyric that expresses feeling through scenic description. External sound and sight, set in foil by the internal grief of the author, are enshrouded in a misty, mournful atmosphere. Then, in return, they get intertwined and tangled with the speaker’s inner emotions, and constitute, in refined language, a heart-stirring world of imagination. The grief of a man of letters under adverse circumstances, feeling helpless about destiny, is expressed in fine and intimate detail. Qin Guan had some romantic experience with singing girls, so romantic love is a theme most frequently explored in his song lyrics. Some of them take on an “erotic” flavor. For instance, such lines appear in his “For Delivery on the River”: “Smiling, she sticks out her sweet tongue, absolutely lovely, / And in a fine soft voice / She says, I’m not used to this.” However, what are most representative of his attainments are still those lyrics that are full of sincere pathos, such as his famous lyric, “Fairies at the Bridge of Magpies”: Light clouds weave intricate patterns, Shooting stars are stricken with grief; They cross the broad, broad River of Silver in secret. And once they meet, in the dew and wind of autumn, They are happier than anyone in the human world can ever imagine. Tender love is like running waters, Sweet dating is like in a dream; It is hard to look at the Bridge of Magpies that’ll take one back. But if the love between the two is supposed to last forever, Then why’d they care about missing each other for a day or two?

It borrows from the old legend of the dating between the two stars, Herd-boy (Altair) and Weaving-girl (Vega), to describe a deep, persistent love in the human world. The last two lines, resorting to a rhetorical question, have turned into epigrams on love frequently cited in later times.

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The beginning of the above text, “Light clouds weave intricate patterns,” may be used to characterize the artistic features of Qin Guan’s song lyric. Most of his lyrics are delicate and gentle in tone, and are composed in exquisite, ingenious wording and phrasing, very skilled at transforming sad emotions into a quiet and beautiful world of imagination. Many of his widely quoted famous lines hold such characteristics, such as: “Light as a dream, flower petals soar on their own; / Intimate like sorrow, a thread-thin drizzle falls all around,” (“Silk-Washing Stream”) “The mountains are smeared with some light clouds, / Dry, withering grass adheres to the sky.” (“Fragrance Fills the Courtyard”) It seems that he simply disliked composing lyrics that are too heavy and forceful. The gentle and graceful style of the Song lyric finds the most remarkable representation in his works. Huang Tingjian (1045–1105) was close to Su Shi, and his official career was also entangled with the power struggle between the Old and the New Guards, going through many ups and downs but mostly in days of demotion and exile. In his late years, he was under surveillance at Yizhou, within the Guangxi province today, and eventually he died away from his homeland. In the field of the shi poetry, he was the founder of the “Jiangxi School of Poetry,” most influential school of the Song dynasty. It will be discussed later in the book. Huang Tingjian also composed some erotic lyrics and some in vernacular language, which stand out in their use of colloquial speech, sometimes even the repetitions found in the spoken language so as to express the obsession of people in love. It is quite unusual in the literati song lyric. For example, the following lines are quite lively as part of song texts: “I detest you, but I also have a crush on you, / I hate you, but I also fall for you, / What, after all, am I to do about you?” (“Heading of the Pleasure of Returning to Farming”) “Finally I’m leaving him, / I’m sure this time it’s all over, / But when we meet, it’s all the same again.” (Another one based on the same tune as the previous one) These lyrics, in spoken speech, read easy and plain, but are actually quite meticulously composed. Take, for instance, the first stanza of “Spring in the Princess’s Garden”: I give my body and my heart So much trouble, all because of him. Heaven knows about it, indeed! How I regret that at our last meeting, No matter how hard I planned, I failed to get close to him


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And we had to part ways early. It’s like picking flowers in mirror Or catching the moon in water, You could see him, but he’s beyond reach. It has left me pining like Flowers fading, leaves falling, With my tender flesh shrinking.

In its ingenuity and liveliness, it somewhat approximates the vernacular songs of the Yuan dynasty later in language. Works like these may unlikely be ranked as first-rate, but they have a flavor of their own and enrich the variety of the song lyric of Northern Song. As regards his lyrics of self-expression, they fall under a different style. These texts share something in common with Su Shi’s works. For example, both his “Lovely Nian Nu” (“A broken rainbow: it clears up after a rain”) and “Heading of Water Tune” (“How emerald green is the grass in fairyland”) try to outline a quiet, open world and express a sense of unconstrained broad-mindedness; using graceful, succinct language, they occasionally resort to allusions or set phrases from predecessors to provide more underlying implications in the text. However, under the influence of his methodology in the composition of shi poetry, they are terse and contain much ellipsis, so they do not read so eloquent and smooth. These lyrics have received different evaluations ever since, but most have agreed that they are not so original. He Zhu (1052–1125) was born in the family of an imperial relative on the side of the empress, and he also married a daughter of the imperial clan. He may be considered as a “nobleman,” but actually he did not have a close relation with the imperial clan of his time. Quite ugly in appearance, upright and stubborn in character, he was always given the cold shoulder in his official career. In his late years he retired to live in the region of Suzhou and Hangzhou. The He family had served in the military for generations, and He Zhu himself also started his official career as a military officer. This, as well as his honest, straightforward, and proud personality, account for the solemn fervor in some of his song lyrics. They have continued the style initiated by Su Shi with an inclination to the “bold and unconstrained,” and compared to Su’s works, are somewhat more incisive and offbeat in style, giving their author a singular niche among Northern Song lyricists. For instance, his “Heading of the Song of Six Prefectures” gives a vivid account of his unrestrained social activity “in chivalrous youth”: “We honored those who excelled in bravery / And

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took pride in unruly conduct. / Surrounded by canopied carriages / And riding together on galloping horses, / We went east of the small town. / We drank like wild at taverns / Where cold jugs lured us with their colors of spring. / We suck the sea of wine like a drooping rainbow. / In spare time, we yelled at our eagles and dogs / And put the white-feathered arrows on our engraved bows.” Then it switches to an expression of the speaker’s indignation at failing to get recognized for his talent, showing a pride in his own attainments: “My sword gave a roar in the west wind. / All my regret, while atop mountains and facing running rivers / Was devoted to the seven-stringed lute in my hand / While I watched the flying swans on their return flight.” The fast tempo and untrammeled style have exerted a great influence on some of the lyricists of Southern Song. Another type of He Zhu’s lyric, using exquisite language to depict romantic love or life’s melancholy, observes the convention of the literati song lyric. The following “Green Jade Desk” is a famous lyric of his: Her steps crossed not the road over billows in the Horizontal Pond. I could only watch her Getting far, her fragrance fading in the dust. The prime time of youth: who am I to share it with? Moon bridges, courtyards with flowers, Engraved windows, crimson door: Only spring knows where she is. Clouds hovered in the blue; ’twas dusk at the sweet-scented marsh. Using my colored brush, I wrote some new heart-breaking lines. One asks: how much melancholy in idleness do you have? The reply: like the misty grass all along the river Catkins in the wind all over the town, And the rain when the plums get ripe.

The first stanza tells how the speaker watches the departing shadow of a woman, and draws an imaginary picture of her living conditions; the second stanza picks up from that and moves on to express a kind of indescribable “melancholy in idleness.” Using exquisite and elegant language, it creates a vague, hardly discernible world of imagination. Apparently it is about romantic love, but the status of the woman remains unknown as all we see of her is a figure viewed from behind. This lyric, just opposite in style to the vernacular “erotic lyrics,” is quite singular among the song lyrics of the Song dynasty.


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In general He Zhu’s song lyrics tend to stress meticulous wording and pursue graceful ornateness. Also, he frequently transforms the lines of his predecessors in wording or in meaning, and sometimes he directly incorporates such lines in his own lyrics. Qin Guan and Huang Tingjian, both his contemporaries, also show a similar, but not as strong, inclination. The phenomenon indicates that at the same time when the song lyric was getting more and more valued by men of letters as a genre, it also got more and more infused with the learning of the literati. From then on, the song lyric developed further away from the vernacular style. Zhou Bang Yan In Emperor Huizong’s reign, Zhou Bangyan (1056–1121), conversant with music, was placed in charge of the Imperial Music Institute. He was the most important lyricist of the late Northern Song. In subject matter, Zhou Bangyan’s lyrics mostly fall under conventional types and there is nothing special about them. His main contribution is that he has made the genre more meticulous and refined in form, so that it is able to provide finer and deeper expression of feeling. Some of Su Shi’s lyrics show a tendency to be detached from music and to become simply literature in written form; Zhou Bangyan’s lyrics are just the opposite to that. He devotes great attention to the agreement between the lyric text and music, and in his hands the song lyric has become more standardized and refined in prosody and metrics. In his lyrics, the use of words differentiates not only between level and deflected tones, but even among the three different deflected tones, which are not to be mixed up. He is also meticulous about structure and phrasing. Even those lyrics of his that read easy and simple are actually very carefully composed. To read Zhou Bangyan’s lyrics, one is reminded of the extremely delicate and graceful paintings of “detailed strokes” from the Northern Song imperial court. In terms of form, Zhou Bangyan’s lyrics include both short and long tunes. His short tunes are often original and vivid, as in his “Outlandish Bonnets”: Fragrant incense burns, Reducing the searing heat. Birds, hailing the fine day, Chirp and peek at the eaves by dawn. The rising sun dries up remaining raindrops on leaves;

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chapter twelve On the water surface, fresh and round, Lotus flowers stand upright, one by one, in the wind. Homeland is far away; When shall I ever return? My home is at the Gate of Su, But I’ve so long been a visitor in Chang’an. Does the young fisherman recall how, in early summer, Riding a little boat, as if in a dream, We entered the river mouth where hibiscus was in bloom?

The first stanza draws a charming picture of the Jiangnan region of rivers and lakes. “On the water surface, fresh and round, / Lotus flowers stand upright, one by one, in the wind.” The image of the sparsely scattered lotus flowers, dynamic and graceful, is based on close observation, which accounts for its appeal. Once one turns to the second stanza, “Homeland is far away,” one will find that the previous image is only one in recollection. By the line, “Does the young fisherman recall how, in early summer,” it once again moves in to recollection that highlights the profound nostalgia for homeland. The lyric, though a very short one, has its twists and turns and reads lucid and refined. His lyrics in long tunes are even more exquisite and ingenious, like the famous “Prince of Orchid Hills: Willows”: The shade of willows makes a straight line; In the mist, thread-like twigs show off their emerald green. Along the embankment from centuries ago, I’ve seen, for many a time, How they hover over waters, light and soft, when dear ones parted. I climb atop hill to look at the distant homeland. Who knows this tired and weary visitor in the capital? At the roadside traveler’s pavilion, Year in and year out, More than a thousand feet of tender branches must have been snapped. Idly, I’ve been back at where I used to frequent, Once again, drinking wine in the sad music of strings At a farewell party under lamplight. Pear flowers, fire from elm-wood, Cold Food Festival gets close. How sad! In a gust of wind, swift like an arrow, With the boatman’s punt-pole half in the warm water, You look back, it’s already several post stations in distance, And you gaze at the person on the northern horizon. How dreary! Misery piled in heaps. Gradually, while water ripples in circles in the river where we parted,


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It’s all quiet at the earthen cabins on the wharf, In the slow-moving glow of the setting sun, spring seems endless. I recall how we held our hands at the Moon Pavilion, And listened to the music of flute at the Dew Bridge. Musing on events in the past, As if all in a dream, I let my tears trickle in private.

This is a lyric in three stanzas. While its subject matter is simply a valediction, its vein of thought is arranged with great care and ingenuity and its expression of emotions is extremely minute and subtle. The first stanza evokes the feeling of homesickness and weariness of wandering in a description of the spring willows, and then it tells how he repeatedly snaps willow branches as keepsakes at farewell parties, by which he explores all the boredom from being a visitor in the capital. The second stanza starts by recalling where he used to spend his time, and shortly afterward, by using the word “again” he brings it in connection with the scene of the farewell party on the previous evening. Then, it switches to the imaginary scenes of how they look at each other in distance after parting. The third stanza begins with two short lines, bringing a gush of melancholy and grief in their fast tempo. Afterward, the tempo slows down, it describes how, after the boat sets off, in the setting sun, the speaker is still walking back and forth, unwilling to leave the place. This is followed by a recollection of their intimate and warm friendship in the bygone days, and it closes with the reality as represented in the line “I let my tears trickle in private.” The structure of the lyric, with all its twists and turns of ideas and various shades of highlighting, provides a subtle and complex unfolding of the speaker’s emotions. In addition, this lyric is also quite complex in its metrics and prosody, but it is handled with great craftsmanship by Zhou Bangyan, which accounted for its popularity among musicians. In general, many of Zhou’s lyrics in long tunes, such as his “Chant of Lucky Dragon” (“The road to the Street of Merrymaking”) and “Six Ugly Sons: Composed When the Roses Went Out of Season,” hold the same special features. Zhou Bangyan’s lyrics are also well known for their skills in incorporating allusions and lines from predecessors. His “West River: Recalling the Antiquity at Jinling,” for example, has even integrated two of Liu Yuxi’s heptasyllabic quatrains, “Rock Town” and “Black Robe Lane,” as well as a poem from the old Music Bureau collection, “Music of Rock Town,” into its lines, but it runs close-knit and

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flawless, without striking the reader as being pieced together in a crude way. The accomplishments of a man of letters and his mastery of the art of the genre are incorporated therein into a perfect unity. In conclusion, in terms of the art and skills of the song lyric as a genre, Zhou Bangyan was indeed another synthesizer among Northern Song lyricists. For that reason, Southern Song lyricists like Jiang Kui, Zhang Yan, Zhou Mi and Wu Wenying all held him in high esteem. Even Wang Guowei, a scholar of recent times, called Zhou Bangyan “Du Fu of the Song Lyric.” (See his Unofficial Records of Master Qingzhen.) However, when the song lyric moved into excessive polish and refinement, it began to lose its vitality.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

POETRY AND PROSE OF THE NORTHERN SONG

Through the Northern Song dynasty, the song lyric, as a literary form, gradually received more attention from scholar-officials. In general, however, it was still treated as “trifling skill and minor arts.” What truly represented the mainstream of the scholar-official culture of Northern Song were still conventional shi poetry and prose. The Empire of Liao, established by the Khitans, existed during more or less the same age as Northern Song. Both Khitan and Chinese were used as their language, and some works of poetry and prose were written. Xiao Guanyin (1040–1075), the wife of Emperor Daozong, composed ten pieces of “Heart-Changing Court”and some other poems, and they were positively received in later times. However, considered in their entirety, the poetry and prose of the Liao were not of a high quality and little remains extant today. Since ours is a concise history of literature, we shall only give a brief mention here without any detailed discussion.

1. Cultural Background of Northern Song Poetry and Prose Political Situation and the Condition of the Literati The Song dynasty was a unified empire established by the Zhao family after many years of separatist regimes of regional military forces, from the Late Tang through the Five Dynasties. Lessons of history accounted for the Song rulers’ high attention to centralization of authority beginning from the founding of the state. Emperor Taizu’s “use of a cup of wine to seize military leadership” made a famous story in history. Emperor Taizong also remarked: “If a state does not have foreign aggression, then it will surely have domestic disaster. Foreign aggression is only something that happens on the border, and it may be prevented. But, if the evil force gets rampant and turns into a domestic disaster, then it’s really scary. A sovereign should always be very careful about it.” (Collected Material of a Sequel to Comprehensive

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Mirror for Aid in Government, Volume 32) They were even willing to pay the price of the weakening of border defense in order to maintain the internal stability of the state. Holding the military leadership at the core, the Song emperors further accomplished a high degree of centralization in administrative, fiscal and judicial power. Thenceforth the Song Empire, with its basis on a sophisticated system of civil officials, autocratic monarchy, and unprecedentedly strengthened centralization of authority, became an imperial dynasty that had not been found before in history. The accomplishment of the centralization of authority was not determined by the will of the sovereign or any astute measures of his only. When the Song Empire was founded, an important condition was already in place. The social stratum of the scholar clans, which remained a tenacious political force for a fairly long period, had made its final exit from the stage of history after the continuous tumult of war and the purge of regional military forces since the An-Shi Rebellion. In other words, after the elimination of regional military forces, there were few political powers to contend with the imperial authority in the social structure of the state. Accordingly, it was not until the Song dynasty when a perfected civil service examination system was established. During the Tang dynasty, the civil service examinations were on a small scale; in addition, there were many channels for the appointment of officials, and even the success or failure in civil service examinations were not entirely (or even, not primarily) determined by the examination scores. In the Song dynasty, due to the institution of anonymity, elements like family background and social relations played a much less crucial role in the examinations. In the civil service examinations of the Song dynasty, as a core mechanism of the system of civil officials, the total number of candidates who succeeded in each subject was ten times that of the Tang dynasty. With the exception of the years around the founding of the empire, the civil service examinations became the only venue for men of learning to enter the political stage, win social prestige, and enjoy a superior material life. Looking in a positive light, the changes cited in the above may be said to have opened up, in a comprehensive way, equal opportunities for the stratum of civilians to share the political power. As long as a man’s family had the basic financial and cultural conditions, however his family status and neighborhood community were, and no matter whether he was rich or poor, he would be able to “study well to

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become an official,” and by taking the civil service examinations, to climb up step by step until he became a senior official. Among the famous officials and men of letters of the Song dynasty, Ouyang Xiu, Mei Yaochen, the Su father and sons, Huang Tingjian and others were all born in poor and humble families. During the Tang dynasty, there was the case of several tens of Presented Scholars, and even highranking officials, coming all from the same family clan; such an example was literally unknown in the Song dynasty. Without doubt, it was a kind of advancement in history. On the other hand, though, the above special circumstances also increased the dependence upon state power of men of letters and scholar-officials. During the Tang, men of letters had a wide variety of ways to pursue an official career and win reputation. When it came down to the Song literati, they were faced with much more limited choices to realize their own worth. For that reason, the extensive range of social activities and the rich variety of ways of living, such as those of the men of letters of the Tang, gradually disappeared during the Song. To use the most obvious example, the life experience of famous literary authors of the Song dynasty, when compared to that of Wang Wei, Li Bo, Du Fu, Gao Shi, and others of the Tang, was much simpler in account. Corresponding to that, the thinking of men of letters and scholarofficials was in pretty heavy shackles during the Song dynasty. On the one hand, it was because the rulers granted favors to the intellectual circles to force them to do their bidding. For instance, the contents of civil service examinations, which determined an intellectual’s career for life, used to include poetry, rhapsody, and essay on current affairs, but beginning from Emperor Zhenzong’s reign, they were changed to focus on Confucian studies, wherein the argument of the essay had to be based upon Confucian classics, and works of all the other masters, if they did not agree with Confucianism, would simply not be allowed to be adopted for use. Starting from Renzong’s reign, it moved one step further in that schools that taught Confucian studies, serving as bases for the training of young scholars, were opened at all prefectures and districts. This tightened the official ideology’s control of the spiritual life of men of learning. On the other hand, the ideological bondage of the Song dynasty also resulted from the self-conscious effort of the men of letters and scholar-officials themselves. The great strengthening of monarchical power certainly accounted for the fact that a man of learning was able to define his own role only in the position of being

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loyal to the sovereign and serving the state. As a government official or as a man who was preparing to become one, he would consider the building and defending of the ethical system of the society as his mandatory moral duty. Since the Mid-Tang times, the unified central regime went through one crisis after another, and the pursuit of sensual pleasures, which arose from economic development and urban prosperity, was constantly eroding the force of traditional morality. Accordingly Han Yu, Li Ao and others already came to the realization that, in order to restore the order of the imperial society, the reconstruction of ethics and morality was as important as the preservation of the centralization of authority, and that such a reconstruction had to be completed by the internalization of morality, i.e., by reaching a self-awareness of morality in one’s inner mind. From Zhou Dunyi, Zhang Zai and the two Cheng brothers of Northern Song all the way to Zhu Xi and Lu Jiuyuan of Southern Song, they all followed precisely such a direction to set up a new comprehensive ideological system of Confucianism, known as Daoxue (“Study of the Way”), Lixue (“Study of the Principles”), or by some in recent times as “Neo-Confucianism.” It was characterized by the presupposition that there existed a kind of self-evident “celestial principles” which threaded together nature, society, and human nature, and life’s significance was defined as the effort to return to the purely good human nature which had its origin in the “celestial principles.” Its actual use was to require human mind to accommodate itself, self-consciously, to ethical standard. Lixue did not become a government-sponsored theory during the Song dynasty, and sometimes, due to some specific reasons, it was even censored by the government, but its great momentum clearly represented the ideological trend of scholar-officials of the Song dynasty. We have no evidence that the above-cited changes exerted any profound influence on the true character and personal conduct of the literati of the Song dynasty. But, at least on public occasions and within the range of the demonstration of their personality, they did appear, as compared to their counterparts of the Tang dynasty, more sophisticated and experienced, more sober-minded and self-restrained, though not as flamboyant and fanciful in person. By the phrase “within the range of the demonstration of their personality,” we also include their poetry and prose, which were regarded by people of the Song dynasty as the verbal demonstration of a serious and solemn nature.


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Views on Literature and Ideology While it was quite commonplace in Chinese history to see literature under the influence of the dominant social ideology of the age, in the Song dynasty it was a much more serious case than previous times. In the course of the reconstruction of the authority of Confucianism, which was supported by the imperial court, quite a few scholarofficials were ideologically high-flown in tone, and the attack against writings that did not agree with the Confucian way was an important part of their emphasis on yielding “writing” to the service of the “Way.” In Early Song, Liu Kai (947–1000) unequivocally called for a canonization of Han Yu and the unity of writing and the Way, and he denounced the style of the writings of the Five Dynasties and Early Song as “flashy and without substance, taking ornateness as craftsmanship and the knowledge of prosody and metrics as competence.” (“Letter No. 3 Presented to Academician Wang”) He also claimed that his own “Way” and “writing” were both inherited directly from Confucius, Mencius, Yang Xiong and Han Yu. (“Self-Defense”) In other words, the “convention of the Way” and the “convention of writing” were inseparable from each other. From a slightly later generation than him, Mu Xiu (979–1032) held similar views on literature. During the middle years of Northern Song, Shi Jie (1005–1045), who once served as a Lecturer of the Directorate of Education, once again stepped forward to make his sharp voice heard, targeting his criticism on Yang Yi, leader of the “West Kunlun School” of Early Song. The works of the West Kunlun School, in fact, were nothing more than a kind of elegant, ornate and refined courtier literature, but Shi Jie chose to brand Yang Yi as “a criminal who violated the Confucian ethical code,” saying that he “in his desire to make his writings the model of the world,” intentionally made people in the world “hear nothing about the Way of Lord of Zhou, Confucius, Mencius, Yang Xiong, Wenzhongzi, and Han Yu (of the Personnel Ministry),” and thus, as a consequence of leaving the people deaf and blind, “the world would only know his own Way.” (“On the Strange”) What, then, would decent writing be like? According to him, it had to be integrated with, or to embody, such things like the Two Orders, the Three Cardinal Guides, the Five Constant Virtues, the Nine Measures, moral virtues, filial piety to parents, meritorious service, enlightenment by education, penal code, and government order. Such an absurd and bizarre enumeration was just an indication of the symptoms of extreme obsession with ideology.

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Likewise, during the middle period of Northern Song when Lixue was gradually on the rise, scholars of Lixue also presented their harsh, or what may be considered as even more thorough in terms of the celebration of the Way, views on the relation between writing and the Way. Zhou Dunyi took the initiative to change the idea of “writing as the means to illuminate the Way,” as proposed by Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan, to a more clear-cut slogan of “writing as the means to carry the Way,” comparing writing to a cargo-carrying carriage which, in a more thorough manner, defined writing as a mere tool of the Way. (“On Writing”) Moving one step further, Cheng Yi and Cheng Hao categorically rejected all literary writings useless to the Way. While Liu Kai and Mu Xiu saw the canonization of Han Yu as of equal importance as the glorification of the Way, the two Cheng brothers pointed out, from an even more exclusive Daoxue stand, that Han Yu’s promotion of the Way was not thoroughgoing and he was not a worthy example: “Tuizhi’s (Han Yu) prose writings in his late years made many good points. Learning is for the purpose of cultivating virtue; only when one becomes virtuous does one have anything to say. In Tuizhi’s case, he somehow went the other way around.” Han Yu was not their only target of criticism. Cheng Yi even denounced some of Du Fu’s poems like “Moving deep among flowers, butterflies come in sight, / Skimming the surface of the water, dragonflies fly gracefully,” on which he observed: “What is the purpose saying such insignificant things?” (Posthumous Manuscripts from the Two Cheng Brothers) Opinions like this were not only from men of letters who were not good literary authors, such as Liu Kai and Mu Xiu, or Lixue thinkers like Zhou Dunyi and the two Cheng brothers. As a matter of fact, it was a universally accepted view among the literati of Northern Song to place the “Way” above “writing,” and to stress the role of writing in serving the purpose of politics and enlightenment by education. Among famous men of letters, Fan Zhongyan once made the appeal to “issue an imperial edict to all officials who are writers, and tell them to restore the ancient Way.” (“Memorial to the Throne on Current Affairs”) Mei Yaochen lamented that “In recent times the Way has somehow been lost, / All writings have turned into empty words.” (“In Reply to Poems Presented to me by Han Zihua [third son in the family], Han Chiguo [fifth son in the family], and Han Yuru [sixth son in the family]”) Su Shunqin asserted that “the rise of literature imperiled virtue.” (“A Letter Presented to Sun Cong, Grand Master of Remonstration”) Even Ouyang Xiu also believed that “writing is not difficult


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to, and will come naturally from, one who excels in the Way,” (“A Letter in Reply to Wu Chong, Candidate of Metropolitan Examination”) , and that “those who devote their entire life to writing are deplorable.” (“A Note of Valediction to Xu Wudang on his Trip Back South”) In short, the upsurge of orthodox Confucian views on literature reached an unprecedented level in Northern Song. This of course does not mean that the literature of Northern Song was completely muffled by such orthodox literary views. The song lyric, discussed previously, was kept by the literati as a “private lot of land” where they could represent their personal feeling and life with more freedom, let alone the prosperity of folk drama and fiction during the Song dynasty, which heralded approaching great changes in the entire history of literature. In addition, even if the writers were dominated by the same principles of orthodox Confucian views on literature, their writing practice, in reality, would still vary in person, time and place. However, it must be noted here that literary views in close connection with the government-sponsored ideology would undoubtedly exert considerable pressure on conventional poetry and prose. In the past, the new “Classical Prose Movement” led by Ouyang Xiu was something in Northern Song literature that received very high evaluation; six of the so-called “Eight Masters of the Tang and Song” chosen in later times were from the Northern Song. Classical prose of Northern Song was certainly not without its achievements; in fact, however, there was only a small portion of literary prose therein. It is nothing strange, as the “classical prose,” from its original purpose, was primarily aimed at “illuminating the Way” or “carrying the Way” as something attached to ideology. The poetry of the Song dynasty also took a different road from that of the Tang. With the exception of works that reflected feeling of nationalism (mostly a kind of community feeling or public feeling), under the circumstances of the national conflicts that brought a crisis to the Song regime, Song poetry usually had very little expression of bold, unrestrained, frank and passionate emotions. Generally speaking, Song poetry had a tendency to take to cognition, and the “plain and bland” was honored by many poets as the highest level of artistic excellence. In discussing the characteristics of Song poetry in his work, An Introduction to Poetry of the Song Dynasty, the Japanese scholar Kōjirō Yoshikawa has singled out “the abatement of grief,” because in the light of cognition, grief was regarded as a childish and shameful feeling. Actually it was not just the case with grief, as all kinds of passion and the beautiful language for their expression

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appeared childish in the light of cognition, and accordingly became, in general, taboo in Song poetry. Doubtless to say, Song poetry has a special flavor of its own, and some of the best poems often contain, beneath its plain and bland appearance, profound thought, complex mentality, subtle sense for the nuances of language, and philosophical understanding of human life. For that reason, generally speaking, those who are outgoing and passionate mostly like Tang poetry and those who are reserved and self-possessed mostly like Song poetry. However, when one talks about how to resort to dynamic emotions and original creativity to challenge the established norm in society and to call forth people’s desire for life, Song poetry is obviously weak in that respect. Some of the men of letters of the Ming dynasty repeatedly observed that “poetry died during the Song” (see, for instance, Zhu Yunming’s Confessions), which was certainly extremist talk, though it has to be acknowledged that they did see some of the problems with Song poetry.

2. Poetry and Prose of the Early Northern Song As regards poetry of Early Northern Song, most poets modeled themselves upon their predecessors. Fang Hui has divided the poetry of this period into three schools, “Style of Bo (Juyi),” “Style of Late Tang,” and “Style of Kunlun.” (“Foreword to a Poem Presented to Luo Shouke”) Though not so precise as categorization, it may be accepted in general. Among the three, the West Kunlun School, which modeled on Li Shangyin, was severely criticized later, while Wang Yucheng’s poetry, which modeled on Bo Juyi, was more closely associated with the formation of the mainstream of the poetry with the “Song Tunes.” In the field of prose, Liu Kai already unfurled the banner of the restoration of antiquity, though without much influence. The one whose prose had more special features was still Wang Yucheng. Wang Yucheng and the “Style of Bo” Poetic Remarks from Cai Kuanfu has observed that in in the beginning years of the Song “scholar-officials all modeled upon Bo Juyi’s poetry, hence Wang Huangzhou (so-called because Wang Yucheng served as a local official at Huangzhou in his late years) was the leader at the time.” This observation indicates the fashion within the circle


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of poets during the first stage of Northern Song and Wang Yuchen’s status therein. However, even before Wang, both Li Fang (925–996), who lived through the Song as someone from the Later Zhou, and Xu Xuan, who lived through the Song as someone from the Southern Tang, were already known as modeling their poetry on that of Bo Juyi. The latter enjoyed an even higher reputation. Wu Zhizhen’s Selected Song Poetry cited an observation of Feng Yansi’s, saying that Xu’s poetry “shared Juyi’s style and metrics,” that it was “casually composed but naturally became extremely exquisite,” and that it was not like most of the other poets who would strive to excel with unusual wording. Actually, Bo Juyi’s works may be divided into two types: those showing political concern and those expressing the author’s mentality in the idleness and comfort of daily life; men of letters of the Five Dynasties did not pay much attention to the first type, and Xu Xuan’s poetry was primarily inclined towards the representation of idleness and comfort. However, as a senior official of the Southern Tang who followed the Last Monarch, Li Yu, in surrendering to the Song, he really could not have lived, notwithstanding that he served as a Policy Advisor afterwards, with a light heart. Accordingly his poems often reveal a sense of solitude and perplexity, containing indescribable grief beneath apparent calm. Take, for example, “Looking Northward after Climbing up to the Sweet Dew Temple”: Tides rise at Jingkou, making the curved banks a straight line; Wind comes from Haimen, sending up white-capped waves. People walk on the sand with shadows in the sunshine; Boats pass by on the river amid the sound of their sculls. Fragrant grass spreads far, fading out of sight at the Yangtze Ferry; Lingering fog covers up, deep and dark, the Guangling City. Passengers who miss each other may be like tangerines, Looking at each other, apart at two places, with emotions.

Most of the poem only depicts a desolate, misty scene in plain and bland language, and it does not seem to hold any strong emotions. However, the last couplet uses the allusion, “when tangerines are transferred north of the Huai, they turn into trifoliate oranges,” from which one may infer that the poem was written after the downfall of the Southern Tang, and one may see the author’s nostalgia for his old home country in Jiangnan. Then, turning back to the description of the misty landscape at the Yangtze Ferry and Guangling City, one may find that these are not mere casual references either. Nothing is

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explicit, though, and even the last couplet refers only to “passengers missing each other” rather than to the author himself. Wang Yucheng (954–1001) became a Presented Scholar during the reign of Emperor Taizong of the Song, served as a courtier for a few years, and for three times was banished to serve at regional posts. As a scholar-official he had a sense of mission that came from the Confucian tradition, and he often reminded himself of his social responsibilities as a government official. Accordingly he not only modeled on Bo Juyi’s poetry about idleness and comfort, but also that with the other aspect of political concern. For instance, his “Facing the Snow,” which was written by him while he served as a courtier with remonstrating obligations, begins by recounting how, on a cold day of winter when it snows heavily, he holds a drinking party in celebration of a family reunion. It moves on to tell how he is reminded of the “people north of the Yellow River” who “toil on the road to provide supply for the borderland,” as well as the “soldiers on the frontier” who “carry their halberds to resist Turkish horsemen,” of how hard it is for them in such extremely cold weather, and it closes in self-reproach—that he, as a remonstrating official, has not fully done his duties, so he really has become “a worm that eats deep into the common people.” Such a framework is often found in Bo Juyi’s poetry. For example, “A Poem Composed from a Thought on My Newly Completed Silk Jacket” starts from how he just has a warm silk jacket newly made in days of cold snow, and moves on to think: “Most common people are suffering from the cold, and there’s nothing I can do; / I alone, get warm by myself but do not feel too good about it.” As a government official, Wang Yucheng’s thinking was of course right. However, “right” thinking does not necessarily make a good poem. That is because a poem like that comes from reasoning, not from the experience of real life, and the desire to express some “meaningful content” is stronger therein than the desire to express one’s emotions. In addition, the author’s self-reproach reads very much like a self-statement, which has actually become the focus of the poem. Because of its stress on “meaningful content,” a poem like that is often quite crude in art, and is unable to appeal to its reader. What best represent Wang Yucheng’s artistic accomplishments are still those works of his which depict natural landscapes or express personal feelings of life. Take, for example, his “Trip to a Village”:


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My horse moves on the mountain path amid early yellow chrysanthemums; I let the horse go by itself, feeling ecstatic about the sight of countryside. Thousands of valleys emit a myriad sounds of nature by dusk; Several peaks, all silent, stand in the slant setting sunshine. Birchleaf pears, in the color of rouge, have shed their leaves; Buckwheat flowers, sweet-scented, are in bloom as white snow. For what reason do I feel low while chanting these lines? Bridges of the village, trees on the plain, look like in my homeland.

This poem was written when Wang Yucheng was demoted to serve at Shangzhou. The frustration from his political setback seems to have dissipated in the “inspiration from the rustic” in the enjoyment of the sight of nature, which accounts for the sense of carefree leisure in the poem. At the end, the “low” feeling arises from seeing that “Bridges of the village, trees on the plain, look like in my homeland.” It is in fact not a general feeling of homesickness, but the grief has been diluted to the extent that it is almost imperceptible. The entire poem, in simple and plain language, unhurried and coherent narration, and neat arrangement of ideas, has used neither startling imagery nor emotional intensity, but it holds all the general characteristics of Bo Juyi’s poetry of “idleness and comfort.” However, the line “Several peaks, all silent, stand in the slant setting sunshine,” uses personification to describe a scene of nature, showing a new skill rarely seen in Tang poetry, which gradually became more frequently used in the poetry and song lyric of the Song writers and is henceforth worthy of notice. Judging from the two special features as discussed in the above, a strong political concern on the one hand, and a sense of ease and casualness in the expression of personal feeling on the other, the observation that Wang Yucheng “initiated the Song style” from Selected Song Poetry does make sense. Actually Wang Yucheng had much admiration for Du Fu as well. He praised that “Du’s collection opened a new world for poetry,” (“Note to Zhongxian When the Day Gets Longer”), and his works also show trace of modeling on Du’s poetry. The two couplets in his “On Events in Early Autumn” are obvious examples of that: “In the mirror, the hair at my temples grows extremely hoary, / From where the sun sets, messages from the capital rarely arrive. / Cicadas drone in the wind, in accord with the rustling of tree branches; / Swallows fly low in the rain, almost touching the ground.” However, it is not easy for Wang’s poetry to approach Du Fu’s majestic and somber style, which is formed from an internal tension. Incidentally, while

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Du Fu gradually won a much higher admiration than Li Bo during the Song dynasty, the Song poetry, due to the absence of that internal tension, is in general not so close to Du Fu. Wang Yucheng provides some of his discussion on prose in “A Letter in Reply to Zhang Fu” and “Another Letter in Reply to Zhang Fu.” He believes that in principle, “Prose is meant to show the Way and enlighten the mind.” It shows an inclination for the veneration of the Way, but by placing “showing the Way” side by side with “enlightening the mind,” it nevertheless leaves some room for the expression of personal character and temperament. In real practice, he is opposed to the kind of prose that is “circuitous and difficult in language, obscure and abstruse in meaning,” and he proposes “to make it easy to say in sentences, and to make it easy to understand in meaning.” It is in agreement with Ouyang Xiu’s idea in later times. Among Wang Yucheng’s prose texts, the best piece is his “An Account of the Newly Constructed Small Bamboo Pavilion at Huangzhou.” Wang Anshi even believed it to be superior to Ouyang Xiu’s “An Account of the Pavilion of the Drunken Old Man.” (See Understanding Prose by Wang Ruoxu of the Jin) Before he wrote this piece, Wang Yucheng was twice relegated to regional posts, “running around with no break for four years,” hence the description of “the scenic sights of life in banishment” in the text to provide some self-comfort. The piece is mostly in regular prose, though it also integrates some of the strengths of parallel prose in terms of the latter’s neat order, suitability for smooth reading, and harmony of sounds. It is eloquent and unreserved in style, and reads quite musical, as in the following section: . . . It captures the splendor of mountains in the distance. From it one draws, at one’s feet, water from the swift-running river. Quiet, secluded, vast, and remote, the sight is beyond detailed description. In summer, it is best to have a lashing rain here when one listens to the sound of waterfall. In winter it is best to have a thick snow here when one listens to the sound of tingling jade slices. It is nice to pluck at the lute and play some harmonious music. It is nice to chant poems with utterly refreshing metrics. It is nice to play the go and listen to the clatter of counters. It is nice to play the pitch-pot game to listen to the clank of arrows. The bamboo pavilion makes it agreeable for all.

A piece of writing like this shares some of the grace of Liu Zongyuan’s travel accounts written during his life in banishment, but it does not show the kind of quiet, isolated world of imagination in Liu’s writings because of its author’s more peaceful mind.


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Style of Late Tang Among what Fang Hui has called the three schools of Early Song, “Style of Late Tang” is rather indistinct and vague in concept. It refers to the poems of the Nine Buddhist Monks (Xi Zhou, Bao Xian, Wen Zhao, Xing Zhao, Jian Chang, Wei Feng, Hui Chong, Yu Zhao, Huai Gu) and also Lin Bu, Wei Ye, Kou Zhun, Pan Lang, etc., generally because they are inclined to resort to the method of meticulous maneuvering to depict scenes of nature on a small scale, so as to represent an attitude about life that is aloof from worldly affairs and material pursuits, and free from vulgarity. It is close in style to that of the school of Jia Dao and Yao He of the Tang dynasty. For instance, Hui Chong, one of the Nine Monks, was said to have “walked along a path around the pond silently, and searched in the profundity of his mind” (see Records from the Wilderness of the Xiang Mountains) for the couplet in his poem, “An Egret at the Pond: Assigned to Use the Rhyming Word of Light”: “Reflected on waters, a thousand yards into the vast; / Perching in the mist, one single spot of light.” This is not unlike the story of Jia Dao’s poetry practice. Lin Bu (968–1028) was the best known poet of this group. After he entered his middle age he lived in solitude at the Solitary Hill by the West Lake, and was said to have never entered the city. For that he was admired by government and celebrities alike, and became a well-known recluse. After his death he was granted the title of Hejing (“Peaceful and Serene”) by Emperor Renzong to honor his aloofness from worldly pursuits. “Plum Flowers” (also entitled “Little Plum Trees in the Hillside Garden”) is a representative poem of his: All sweet flowers fade; they alone look bright, cheerful, And monopolize the scene at the small garden. Their sparse reflections show, crisscross, on clear, shallow waters; Their quiet fragrance drifts in the moon by evening. Flake-white birds, before they descend, peek at them first; Pollen-carrying butterflies, if they ever know them, would be enchanted. Fortunate am I, to be able to chant softly to them with intimacy; No need is there for sandalwood clappers and golden goblets.

The second couplet of the poem has always been celebrated as being “extremely polished.” It was said to have originated from the poetic lines of Jiang Wei of the Southern Tang, whereas the “reflections of bamboos” and “fragrance of cassia” in the original have been modified to “sparse reflections” and “quiet fragrance.” Jiang’s poem is actually

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no longer extant. Notwithstanding this, Lin Bu’s couplet is still praiseworthy. On the one hand, both lines depict the plum flowers, their reflections on waters, and their fragrance drifting in the air—both indirect descriptions which not only provide a unified scene but also its grace in an indistinct serenity. On the other hand, in the aesthetic convention of classical culture, the plum (Prunus mume) symbolizes a kind of transcendent elegance and refinement, and is more suitable for such highlighting than other plants like bamboo or cassia. However, the poem is not so good in its entirety. It is not only small in scale, but also contains such clichés like the “peeking” of the “flake-white birds” and the “enchanted” “pollen-carrying butterflies.” The subsequent statement, professing how he is above worldly pursuits, in fact bespeaks an eagerness to blow his own trumpet. “Style of Kunlun” In Emperor Zhenzong’s reign, a group of men of letters who served at Imperial Academies and Institutes, led by Yang Yi (974–1021), Liu Yun (971–1031), and Qian Weiyan (977–1034), often composed poems in exchanges with one another on social occasions. In 1009, Yang Yi placed poems of this kind together into The Collection of Poems in Exchanges from the West Kunlun, hence the name “Style of West Kunlun,” or simply “Style of Kunlun.” According to a legend, ancient sovereigns kept their archives of books and manuscripts in the Kunlun and Qunyu mountains in the west. The name of the collection indicated the status of the authors as courtiers with literary talents. Since the compositions are of a socializing and entertaining nature from senior government officials, they are obviously characterized by elegant, poised attitude about life and polished, refined cultural attainments. In style, these poems model on that of Li Shangyin, resorting to beautiful diction with hidden meanings and frequent usage of allusions. However, the imitation is on apparent characteristics, something on the surface only, and it is not easy to master Li Shangyin’s burning passion and high poetic tension, formed in the course of incorporating painful experience into his lines. Few of the poems in The Collection of Poems in Exchanges from the West Kunlun express real feeling, and some of them only string together ornate words and phrases. However, unlike as what someone in the past observed, not all the poems are completely devoid of content. Men of letters of Northern Song generally had a strong political


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concern, and some of the works of high-ranking officials like Yang Yi and others, after all, still voice some mild criticism of social reality. For instance, using history as a lesson for the present, the poem series entitled “Martial Emperor of the Han” composed in exchanges by a group of seven poets including Yang Yi, contain their satire on Emperor Zhenzong, who had blind faith in the so-called auspicious signs, and went east to hold the ceremony of heaven worship atop Mt. Taishan. At the end of the one by Liu Yun, it goes: “(Sima) Xiangru, in composing his rhapsodies, was able to satirize only; / It turned out to enhance the transcendental fashion.” It carries an obvious sense of satire. In addition, some of their poems assuming conventional themes in the expression of feeling are not only graceful but somewhat emotional as well. Take, for example, Yang Yi’s “Setting Sun”: By dusk, a myriad sounds of nature arise from riverside reeds; The autumn firmament stretches as far as the eye can see. Birds fly across the level green grassland, Trees, red with the sunset glow, stand in the distance. Over the broad river, boats get lost on their way home. The sound of horns dies away in a refreshing wind. One has not yet come down from a high tower When the crescent moon already hangs up in the sky.

The poem evokes a buoyant mood and a vast world, providing detailed description of the scene on an autumn evening. Although it does not show any strong emotions, it is still quite appealing. Poems that fall under the “Style of Bo Juyi,” popular in the Early Song, often suffer from the shortcoming of sounding vulgar and glib. The strength of the Kunlun style lies, as noted in the Concise General Catalogue of the Four Treasuries of Books, in “being erudite in its use of materials and polished in its wording and phrasing.” It did play a role in rectifying the deviation of the former. At one time, the Style of West Kunlun was extremely influential in the circle of poetry. Ouyang Xiu remarked in his Poetic Remarks from the Layman Buddhist of Six Ones, “Ever since the appearance of The Collection of Poems in Exchanges from the West Kunlun, poets have raced with one another in modeling upon it, and the style of poetry has come through a big change.” However, such compositions of social exchanges from the Imperial Academies and Institutes had their obvious weaknesses, and it was really difficult for it to exert a lasting influence. Their entertaining nature was also incompatible with the increasingly strong orthodox Confucian view on literature. For

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that reason, it would be denounced harshly in the next stage. By the middle period of the Northern Song, the Style of Kunlun disappeared from the world of poetry.

3. Poetry and Prose of the Middle Northern Song The middle period of Northern Song, roughly under the reigns of Emperors Renzong and Shenzong, was the golden age of the poetry and prose of Northern Song. It was also a period during which poetry and prose with the special features of Song culture, or rather those endowed with the so-called “Song tunes,” were really formed. The key figure behind the literary changes of this period was Ouyang Xiu, and Su Shi was the most accomplished author. The middle period of Northern Song was also one during which there was an extensive controversy, even up to a fierce struggle, about political, economic, ideological and cultural issues. The famous men of letters of the time were either central figures on the political stage, such as Ouyang Xiu and Wang Anshi, or those who got deeply involved in political activities, such as Mei Yaochen, Su Shunqin, Su Shi, etc. Accordingly, poetry and prose, which were considered to be serious literary forms, were under the unprecedentedly heavy influence of political ideas and concepts of Confucian ethics, which imposed many restraints on their development. Poetry of Mei Yaochen and Su Shunqin Both Mei Yaochen and Su Shunqin were greatly admired by Ouyang Xiu, who considered them to be pathfinders. Critics have generally agreed that the new style of Song poetry began to take shape with their (especially Mei’s) compositions. In his early years Mei Yaochen (1002–1060) served at several junior regional posts, but was promoted later to serve as a courtier in the capital. At one time he was very close to Qian Weiyan and others of the School of West Kunlun, but later he leveled some harsh criticism on the poetry of this school for its tendency to entertain and play a game, while at the same time he also proposed the theory to use poetry to defend the “Way” and serve politics and education. As said in his poem, “In Reply to Poems Presented to Me by Han Zihua, Han


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Chiguo, and Han Yuru,” “In recent times the Way has somehow been lost; / All writings have turned into empty words. / They depict scenes of mist and cloud; / They chant about green plants and red flowers. / They go to extreme in flattering each other; / They take pride in citing the ancients. / They engage in nothing but prosodic practice / By which they win honor and profit.” He is even more direct and straight in another poem, “Sent by Mail to Ouyang Xiu in Chuzhou”: “I shall not write books about men and women; / I shall not write poems about wind and moon. / I shall only preserve the way of the former kings; / And never mix up the good and the evil.” There was nothing new in such ideas, but Mei Yaochen was the first among Song poets to declare such ideas with strong passion and it played a decisive role in the direction of the development of Song poetry. Based on the above ideas about poetry, Mei Yaochen composed many works concerning social issues and reflecting the hardship and suffering of the common people. For instance, his “Farmers” and “Potters” assume, in general, the old theme of singing about laborers who failed to gain anything for themselves, and his “Words from Farmers” and “A Poor Girl from the High Bank of the Ru River” criticize specific government decrees and measures, with the latter piece going as follows: A girl from a poor family at the high banks of the Ru River Walked by, crying in an agonizing voice. She said: “I had an old father Who was the only man in the family. The prefecture officer arrived, and how rough he was! The district official did not have the courage to resist. They sent my father away in great hurry, Senile as he was, he left, holding his walking stick. I earnestly begged neighbors in his company Asking if they could kindly take care of him. Hearing just now that a neighbor had returned, I went to ask the news, hoping my father was still around. It turned out, however, that my father had died In a cold rain, by the side of the Rang River. Now I, a weak girl, have no one to depend on; Nor am I able to bury my father’s dead body. Having a daughter is surely not as good as a son; Even if I’ve survived, what’s the use?” She beat her chest and cried out to heaven: “Life or death, which way should I go?”

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The background of the composition of this poem was the war that Northern Song waged against Western Xia, when the government drafted among the common people to serve as archers. It says in the poem, “The District official did not have the courage to resist.” It had something to do with the status of the author himself, who at the time was serving as the District Magistrate of Xiangcheng in Henan. We surely could see here a junior official’s anguish about current affairs and his sympathy for the common people. It is strange, however, that what he holds responsible is neither the imperial court which issues the decree, nor the district official who enforces that decree. (In the short foreword to his “Words from Farmers” which was composed on the same occasion, the author even made the unequivocal reference to the original “intention of loving care” of “His Majesty.”) All the blame is placed on “The prefecture officer arrived, and how rough he was.” Here one may feel the dilemma of a junior official. As a poem, the expression of strong feeling therein is surely constrained, as its point of departure is to comment on current affairs with the right attitude. For this reason, the poem refrains from providing a concrete image of the victim, as in Du Fu’s “Three Officials” and “Three Departures,” and even the closing lines, which try to express some grief and indignation, are conceptualized and generalized in language. Compared with the lines that the author wrote to mourn over the death of his infant daughter (“My Infant Daughter, Chenchen, Died on the Twenty-First Day of the Third Month in the Year 1048”) , “The blood in the eyes of your loving mother / Remains undried as the milk from her breasts,” the difference between them is quite obvious. Another aspect of the influence of Mei Yaochen’s poetry on the development of Song poetry was that he consciously searched for themes that remained unnoticed by his predecessors, or made innovative use of themes that had been adopted before. It initiated the common practice in Song poetry in terms of its pursuit for novelty and its endeavor to avoid clichés. Such an effort was of course not without its significance, but it was also related to the sense of helplessness that resulted from the decline of passion. In his search for new poetic themes, Mei Yaochen sometimes chose the path towards ruining the aesthetic beauty of poetry. For example, he would write about lice, fleas, or even crows pecking maggots in the latrine which, we have no choice but to point out here, reveals silly, bad taste.


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In Mei’s poetry, the expanded range of subject matter includes descriptions of the trifles of pedestrian daily life. In order to avoid platitude and dullness in his poems, the author often infuses them with philosophical thinking and discussion to make them more profound in meaning. For instance, in his poem, “A Fellow Visitor at the Residence of Fan Zhongyan (Prefect of Raozhou) Talked about Globefish as Food,” he starts from how precious and rare globefish is, and moves on to depict its scary appearance and deadly poison. However, “All say it’s so delicious that nothing can match, / Who ever talks about the countless death it causes!” At the end, it concludes by saying, “Great beauty is accompanied by evil just as great; / This saying is indeed praiseworthy.” By connecting the eating of globefish, a thing in daily life, with the philosophical truth in the saying, “Great beauty and great evil go side by side,” the poem has become weightier in significance. It was also one of the paths that Song poetry pursued in other directions after its decline in strong emotions. Judging from subsequent circumstances, some of the Song poems with philosophic implications could be quite intriguing, though Mei Yaochen did not seem to have found a good way to do that. In the above-cited poem, too much discussion is piled up on top of an insipid narration; it stands out in its tendency to sound more like prose than poetry. Ouyang Xiu referred to Mei Yaochen’s poetic style as being “archaic and solid” ( gu ying, see his “Poem Sent to Shunqin and Yaochen while Traveling in the Water Valley by Night”) or, on another occasion, “bland and plain” (ping dan, see his “Inscription on Mei Yaochen’s Tomb Tablet”). Mei himself also believed that “In composing poems there’s no difference between past and present, / The only difficulty lies in approaching the plain and bland.” (“After Reading Academician Shao Buyi’s Examination Paper”). The phrase “archaic and solid,” so to speak, perhaps refers to the fact that Mei’s poetry often chooses to use awkward, obsolete words, its syntax is often stilted and its rhythm not so easy; in general, it strikes the reader as something jerky and unfamiliar. As for the phrase “plain and bland,” it is actually from a different angle of vision; it refers in general to its refraining from the expression of strong feeling and rich coloring. It is not necessarily contradictory to the phrase “archaic and solid.” The best of Mei Yaochen’s poetry is a kind of works which, though “plain and bland,” are not dry and dull. Assuming a seemingly loose

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structure and easy, plain language, they describe scenes and express emotions with a sense of delicacy and subtlety. Take, for example, the first half of his “Trip in the Lu Mountains,” which sounds quite casual but is simply beautiful: “The scene happened to suit my fondness of wilderness: / Thousands of mountains, high and low. / Nice-looking peaks changed their shapes all the time; / Going alone along a secluded path, I sometimes felt lost.” Another example is the famous “Eastern Creek”: I made the trip all the way to Eastern Creek to watch its waters; Sitting in front of a solitary islet, I was in no hurry to let the boat go. Wild ducks slept on the banks, as if enjoying their idleness; Old trees in flower did not have any ugly-looking branches. Short budding cattails grew so neat, as if having been pruned; Smooth pebbles and level sand were clean like washed in a sieve. I would never get tired with the scenery, but I could not live there; By early dusk I returned, exhausted, in my horse-drawn carriage.

The poem is emotionally calm and in accordance with that, it is coherent in its vein of thought, unhurried in rhythm, fluent and smooth in language. However, it does not belong to a kind of easy, glib works categorized under the Style of Bo Juyi; it actually is meticulously refined. The couplet of “wild ducks” and “old trees,” while quite ordinary syntactically, is quite original in implications, which reveals Mei Yaochen’s sensibility as a poet. Such an introverted beauty that provides its reader a sense of serenity turned out later to be a special aspect of Song poetry. Some of the characteristic strengths and weaknesses began with Mei Yaochen, so it is certainly not inaccurate to call him the “builder of the first temple on a famous mountain” (founder) of Song poetry. (See Poetic Remarks from Liu Kezhuang) Su Shunqin (1008–1048) once served as a district magistrate, and then was appointed as a courtier through Fan Zhongyan’s recommendation. He was involved in a political struggle at the senior level, and because of it was dismissed from his post on some minor charges by the opposite party. He thereupon built a famous garden in Suzhou, the Canglang Pavilion, and lived there as a civilian. Su Shunqin was often referred to in the company of Mei Yaochen as “Mei and Su.” Ouyang Xiu, in discussing the differences between the two of them, has observed that “Shunqin, who is outstandingly forceful, seeks to startle his reader with unconventional and unique expression. Yaochen, who is a careful and deep thinker, pursues after


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a kind of casual but profound randomness.” (See Poetic Remarks from the Layman Buddhist of Six Ones) Su was by nature open and unconstrained in inclination. His poetry sometimes breathes of the works of Tang poets. For instance, his “Facing Wine,” composed in his early years, makes a surprising beginning with the lines, “If a man is not rich and powerful in youth, / What face does he have to run around in this dusty world.” In the middle of the poem, he reconciles himself with: “While breaking down with tears I suddenly sing aloud; / Finishing a gallon at one drinking, I feel so great at heart.” At the end of the poem, he cries out again: “I’ve read a hundred carts of books, but no one knows; / I can only join Liu Ling’s company in returning to the earth!” It is not as flamboyant as Li Bo, but is quite close. Su Shunqin’s talent and skills, however, seem insufficient to carry him in his longer works. His best poems are heptasyllabic quatrains, as in his “Poem in Exchange: Running into a Favorable Wind on the Huai River”: Broad and mighty, the clear Huai flows to the end of sky; Across thousands of miles, a high wind sends the passenger boat away. It irks one to think that it will moor by evening at some low, noisy place; Only when it gets blown to the blue sea will it be entirely free.

Candid in words and strong in emotion, it shows much of his personality. In contrast, “A Taste of Summer” is light, easy, and extremely charming, with a flavor of its own: Deep, deep in the courtyard, the summer mat is so refreshing; In full bloom, the pomegranates show brightly through the curtains. Shade of trees covers all the ground from the midday sun; Awaken from a dream, now and then, I hear an oriole’s warble.

As regards Ye Xie’s observation that Su, along with Mei Yaochen, “initiated the new complexion of the entire Song poetry,” (Tracing the Origins of Poetry) it does not refer to Su’s style as represented in the above-cited poems. For one thing, Su Shunqin was in agreement with Mei Yaochen in the understanding of poetry’s political function. As someone who cherished great political ambition, Su Shunqin often touched upon serious issues in reality in his poetry. For example, his “Defeat at Qingzhou” shows his distress over the loss the Song government suffered in its war against the Western Xia. “Severe Drought in Wu and Yue” tells how, at the same time when famine and plague made “the dead piling up along the road,” the government was still ruthlessly extorting grains from the people. Likewise, “Thoughts at

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Southern City: Presented to Ouyang Xiu” recounts the horrible sight of famine among the common people and deplores how he himself, without any power and influence, is unable to help those who suffer from hunger and hardship. Because of his personal character, Su Shunqin tends to be more incisive and straightforward than Mei Yaochen in reflecting ills of the times and exposing social problems. On the other hand, his poetry is even less polished than Mei Yaochen’s. In addition, in terms of poetic language, Su Shunqin is fond of using prose-like lines and indulging in empty talk. Ouyang Xiu and the Establishment of the Mainstream Style of the Prose and Poetry of the Song Mei and Su were considered as poets who initiated the new style of Song poetry. Liu Kai, Mu Xiu and Shi Jie, one after another, advocated classical prose that adopted as its main theme the canonization of Han Yu and glorification of the Way. However, they exerted only very limited influence, as the former did not have high social status, and the latter not only lacked sufficiently high social stature, but were not too good as authors themselves. To really establish a mainstream style of prose and poetry that represented the cultural characteristics of the Song dynasty, which would answer the need for the reconstruction of the ideology and culture of the Song imperial court, and to find a proper place for the literary entity of prose and poetry under the covering and control of such ideology and culture and to provide a model for the future, it called for someone with sufficiently superior political status, literary attainments, and great appeal in moral integrity. Ouyang Xiu turned out to play exactly such an important and timely role. Ouyang Xiu was already quite active in the field of literature in his early years. After he began serving as a courtier during the Zhihe reign, he gradually rose to assume crucial administrative posts in the government, and also served, for many a turn, as Examination Administrator, in the position of which he was directly responsible for appointing and recommending talent for the imperial court. Making use of his position and influence, he spared no effort in encouraging and promoting those who shared the same goal and interests as his. For instance, the poetry of Mei Yaochen and Su Shunqin gained high reputation because of his endorsement, Zeng Gong, Su Shi and Su Che all received the title of


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Presented Scholar during his tenures as the Examination Administrator, and he spoke highly of Wang Anshi’s poetry and Su Xun’s prose. Ouyang Xiu thereupon commanded the force of a group around him. On the other hand, when he took charge of the civil service examinations in the second year of the Jiayou reign, Ouyang Xiu showed no mercy in denouncing the so-called “Style of the Supreme School,” the eccentric and weird style in vogue at the time at the School for the Sons of the State, as a result of that “the convention of the examination halls changed ever since.” (See Ouyang Xiu’s biography in History of the Song) Accordingly, Ouyang Xiu’s promotion of what he believed to be decent literary style not only showed his personal preferences, but also represented the exercise of the will of the powers that be, as he did mobilize the administrative power of the government. Of course, some other elements also accounted for Ouyang Xiu’s leadership in the literary world of the middle Northern Song. Not only was he a man of high literary attainments himself, but his propositions on literature were also more reconcilable and tolerant in nature. As mentioned in the above, since the founding of the Northern Song dynasty, the proposition to have the Way dominate or even replace writing had become unprecedentedly prevalent. Such a mainstream view on literature, in principle, had Ouyang Xiu’s approval, and the canonization of Han Yu and the glorification of the Way were also at the very fundamentals of his views on literature, but after all he was not someone like Liu Kai and Shi Jie who suffered from a kind of ideological hysteria. What was indicative of that was his criticism of Shi Jie’s extreme position towards poets of the West Kunlun school: “(You) go for the unusual and aim too high,” “so as to startle people in the world.” (“First Letter to Judge Shi”). He was also not opposed to parallel prose in a simplistic way, observing that “Prose that uses parallelism is not necessarily bad as long as it agrees with reason.” (“On the Inscription on Yin Shilu’s Tomb Tablet”). The following lines also reveal his own aspirations for literary accomplishments: “The white bones of heroes have turned into yellow soil; / Wealth and power are really light like drifting clouds. / Only writings are as bright as the sun and stars / That stand high above mountains in their brilliance.” (“Inspired by the Two Gentlemen”) Judging from the criteria of the Lixue thinkers, Ouyang Xiu, like Han Yu, was far from being thorough-going in his position in defense of the Way. (For references, see the related sayings in Zhu Xi’s “On Reading the Monographs from

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History of the Tang” and Classified Conversations of Master Zhu.) Precisely because he was not so thorough-going, so to speak, he more or less helped, under the circumstances of the time, to preserve the existence of literature as an activity of artistic creation. Through the efforts of the literary group led by Ouyang Xiu, the basic characteristics and dominant style of the “canonical” literature of the Song dynasty were established. Generally speaking, in the field of prose, due to the strengthening of the concept of the glorification of the Way in “classical prose,” there were only a small number of pieces characterized by strong expression of feeling. In form, regular prose dominated, though it in fact integrated some of parallel prose, and one may say that the direct opposition between regular and parallel prose had come to an end. In language, most pieces are facile and plain; they are easy and unhurried in rhythm, with very little representation of overwhelming, strong emotions. In the field of poetry, the emotional force has diminished, and the mentality reflected therein is more balanced and, in accordance with that, it is not so powerful and vivid in imagery, but it displays greater subtlety in its observation and study of things than predecessors. In general, it is characterized by an emphasis on rationality, and in old-style poetry, in particular, prose-like narration and reasoning often take a large proportion. The prose and poetry of the Song dynasty have their own special features, but as regards the sense of sublime beauty and spontaneous expression of strong emotions, they are, without doubt, on the decline. Ouyang Xiu’s own writings are also characterized by the basic features as cited in the above. Some of Ouyang Xiu’s old-style poems are fond of empty talks and elaborated narration of events, with a strong tendency to use prose for poetry. When one opens the Works of Lord Ouyang Xiu to read its very first piece, the poem “Yan and Zhi,” it almost reads like a prose piece, “On Yan Hui and Zhi the Robber.” “Picture of Peonies in Luoyang” reads more like “An Account of Peonies in Luoyang” in prose. These are still poems using more orderly poetic lines. His “Ghost Carriage” starts with the line, “On the twenty-eighth day of the ninth month in the autumn of the sixth year of the Jiayou reign,” and contains lines in the middle that read exactly like prose, “One cannot see its shape / But only hears its sound; / At the beginning it is sad and doleful, / And takes turns being high and low.” On close examination, his intention of doing that was to break free from the norm of poetic convention with such unusual experiment, but one can hardly find any poetic flavor in it.


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On the other hand, Ouyang Xiu was a man who loved sightseeing and getting close to nature. During his tenures at various regional posts, he wrote quite a number of poems, primarily short pieces in regulated verse, which describe natural scenes and express his feeling. These are quite different in style from the kind discussed in the above. They are characterized by their easy, natural language and clear train of thought, and they read with a sense of intimacy. Some of the poems of this type are composed casually, but some, though simple and plain, are quite beautiful. Take, for example, “When I First Came to the West Lake in Yingzhou, I Had Some Lotus and Boxwood Planted: Mailed to Lü, Revenue Section of the Transport Commission, and Xu, Bureau of Receptions of the Supply Commission, in Huainan”: The even surface of the lake, hundreds of acres around, is a sheer blue glaze; Now it is just surrounded, in all directions, by a cool shade. Willow catkins soar in air: they have long since sent spring away; Crabapples, out of season, must be annoyed that I’ve arrived too late. Birds call: they sound like holding a talk with sightseeing people. The bright moon moves idly over the boat that follows in its wake. Every time when I come to a superb, pleasant place like this, I wish I had your company holding a cup of sweet-scented wine.

Unlike the regulated poems of the Tang dynasty, which often moves by leaps and bounds, the train of thought of the poem follows a straight linear course. The scenery description of the two couplets in the middle is quite appealing with a sense of the intimacy between man and nature. A line like, “Willow catkins soar in air: they have long since sent spring away,” is a fine example of something that is plain in meaning but original in idea in Song poetry. As for his “Poem of the Third Bridge,” it even takes on a romantic flavor in its picture-like poetic world: Crimson balustrades stand bright over green waters; The setting sun slants on age-old willow trees. Where should one go to have the best view? Over the soft ripples, facing a young lady.

Among the various genres of Ouyang Xiu’s writings, his attainments in prose received the highest appreciation in the past. However, some of his famous “classical prose” texts, such as “On Partisanship” and “On the Biographies of Masters of Musical Entertainments in History of the Five Dynasties” fall under the category of political argumentation. His “Epitaph at the Long Ridge Tomb Passage,” an inscription on tomb tablet that he composed to honor his father, was sometimes

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placed on a par with “A Funeral Oration for My Nephew” by Han Yu, but they are different in nature. Ouyang Xiu’s piece focus on praising the virtues of his forefathers and on giving an account of his own achievements in bringing honor to ancestors, so as to console them, not on expression of his own feeling. Therefore he only left behind a very limited number of literary prose compositions, of which the best known piece, and also one that is most representative of the characteristics of Song prose, is “An Account of the Pavilion of the Drunken Old Man.” “An Account of the Pavilion of the Drunken Old Man” was written in the sixth year of the Qingli reign, when Ouyang Xiu was demoted to serve as the Prefect of Chuzhou. The piece, easy in language, resorts to sentences in regular prose in its main body, but weaves in sentences of uneven length in parallel prose in the part of scenery description in the middle. Moving in a gentle and unhurried tempo, it is also beautiful in sound and rhythm. The structure of the piece, in its entirety, is closely interwoven. It begins with a sweeping look: “Mountains circle around Chuzhou.” Next the view turns to the mountain peaks in the southwest, moves close to Mount Langya, and stays by its streams and fountains. Then it follows the winding path around the mountain peaks, when the small pavilion over the fountain emerges, leading to the discussion about why the “Pavilion of the Drunken Old Man” is constructed, why the Prefect gives himself the title of the “Drunken Old Man,” and that “what the Drunken Old Man cares about” is the mountains and streams. From there it continues the momentum to a description of the different view there in the four seasons, and then turns back to an account of the wine party of the “Drunken Old Man,” and the scene after the banquet is over. At the end, it declares that the Prefect is none other than Ouyang Xiu from Luling. The entire piece has many twists and turns, but is also coherent, without any ellipsis in between. Every syntactically complete sentence in the piece ends with the word of interjection ye, which is repeatedly used for a total of twenty-one times, creating a sound pattern of chanting and intonation. In short, it is a piece composed with meticulous care. Its obvious weakness is in some kind of affectation. With the exception of the “mountain peaks in the southwest” there were actually no mountains around the Chuzhou prefecture, and to say that “Mountains circle around Chuzhou” was only because it sounded like a good beginning for the composition. (The sentence was said to have been finalized


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by the author after many a revision.) The successive uses of the word ye for twenty-one times also strike the reader as unnatural. As for its coherent train of thought, it actually shows that the author’s emotions are under the control of his reason; when they are represented with a sense of propriety and in an unhurried manner, they also strike the reader, accordingly, as less effective in stimulating his emotional response. “Rhapsody on the Sounds of Autumn” is another famous work of Ouyang Xiu’s. It inherits some of the special features of Du Mu’s “Rhapsody on the E Pang Palace,” and initiates the format of the “prose rhapsody” (wen fu) of the Song dynasty, providing a source of inspiration for Su Dongpo’s two rhapsodies on the Red Cliff. Here is its first section: Master Ouyang was reading in the evening when he heard a sound arising from the southwest. Startled, he listened to it and then said: “How strange! At first it went pitter-pattering like a light rain and soughing like a wind. Then all of a sudden it sounded like the galloping of a horse and the surging of sea billows. It was like tidal waves rising abruptly at night, or the sudden burst of wind and rain. When it got in touch with things around, it clattered and clanged, like gold and iron hitting each other. Then again it was like soldiers marching against enemies, placing gags on their mouth to keep quiet, and moving swiftly; you heard no verbal commands, except men and horses running on. I asked the servant-boy: “What sound is that? You, get out to check it!” The boy said, “The stars and the moon shine bright, and the River of Stars lies across the sky. There is no sound of humans all around, only the sound that comes from the trees.”

This is followed by a description of scenes in autumn, highlighting the all-destructive power of the so-called “vital force of autumn,” by means of which the author reveals his own grief about life. The piece preserved some of the basic characteristics of rhapsody, while simultaneously it also changed the form of the rhapsody, which had long since used parallelism predominantly, into the form of regular prose which integrated the strengths of parallel prose, and thereby gave the age-old literary genre a new life. When one reads more of Ouyang Xiu’s poetry, song lyric and prose, one is constantly aware of the author’s talent as well as the restraint imposed on this kind of talent by a kind of rationality based on orthodox ideology. This was perhaps the destiny of the literature of the Song dynasty.

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A number of authors, who entered an official career or won literary fame thanks to Ouyang Xiu’s endorsement and promotion, were also active in the literary world at the time. In addition to Wang Anshi and Su Shi, who will be discussed in details later, we shall make a brief reference to a few of them here. Su Xun (1009–1066) was the father of Su Shi and Su Che. Known as the “Old Su,” he was good at prose on history and politics, which contains some of the flavor of the ancient political strategists in its sophisticated and crisp style. A famous work of his is “On the Six States.” In comparing his own prose with that of his older brother, Su Shi’s, Su Che (1039–1112) remarked: “Zizhan’s prose is extraordinary; my prose is no more than just being balanced.” (Sayings from the Late Su Che) A famous work of his is “An Account of the Delightful Pavilion in Huangzhou.” Zeng Gong (1019–1083) was more orthodox in thinking. His prose is primarily on politics; mellow and dignified in style, it has very little literary flavor. However, he was particularly admired by those who attached importance to the moral values of prose in later ages. Zhu Xi, for instance, believed that his was better than Su Dongpo in prose. Wang Anshi In the early years of Emperor Shenzong’s reign Wang Anshi (1021– 1086), who became a Presented Scholar in 1042, was placed in important position because of his propositions on reform, and he took charge of the Reform of the Xining reign, well known in history. But the radical measures of his reform policy not only encroached on the interests of many people, but also had many abuses in the course of their execution. He thereupon ran into strong opposition and went though many ups and downs in his career. In his late years he retired to live in Jiangning. Shortly after Sima Guang completely abolished the New Policies, he died from grief and indignation. Early in his life Wang Anshi already expected himself to become a Prime Minister that could lead the state to times of peace and prosperity, so his ideal was never to be a “man of letters” only. His concept of “writing” was that it should be “consistent with the Way” (“Letter Presented to Academician Shao”) and “helpful to the society.” (“Letter Presented to Someone”) In his view, one should not write anything without any practical value. For this reason, even though he has been ranked among the “Eight Masters of the Tang and Song,” he actually left behind almost nothing in literary prose. Among his famous works,


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“Memorial to Emperor Renzong on Current Affairs” and “Letter in Reply to Sima, Master of Remonstrance” are actually political essays on reform. In such little pieces like “On Reading the Biography of Lord Mengchang,” “Postscript on the Biography of Assassin-Retainers,” and “Lament for Zhongyong” his original intention was not to represent experience and feeling in life, but rather to make certain arguments. Even in a piece like “An Account of My Trip to Mount Baochan” which is supposed to fall under travel notes, half of it is devoted to a discussion of his philosophy of life, and consequently it reads neither like a travel account nor a pure essay of argumentation. It is not as simple a case with his poetry, though. He wrote many poems that gave a representation of social issues and made criticism on current affairs, as in “Thought on an Event,” “On Annexing,” “Confiscation of Salt,” “People in Hebei,” etc. The focus of poems like these is on their “significance” rather than on art. Like other poets of his age, he also liked to compose old-style poems that read extremely like prose and primarily make comments, which are of little, if any, artistic value. However, in addition to these poems, Wang Anshi also wrote many poems which are focused on the expression of feeling and are of considerably high artistic level; those from his late years are especially refined. When he suffered from political setbacks, poetry turned into an important outlet for the dejection and worries pent up inside him. He was a stubborn man by nature, known in history as being someone “hard to deal with,” so his poems, accordingly, while quite implicit in expression, are by no means flat and insipid. As a matter of fact, Wang Anshi’s personal character is visible even in some of his poems on historical themes. Take, for example, the endings of the two “Songs of Consort Ming,” which are well known. They read, respectively, “She sent information to her family across ten thousand miles: / I’m all right at the town of yurts; don’t think about me. / Don’t you see how even the Empress of Han was locked in the nearby Tall Gate Palace? / When one fails in life, it matters not where one is—north or south.” “She received less favor from the Han court than from her foreign host. / The greatest delight in life is to have someone who knows your heart. / But how sad that, today, when nothing is left of her grave, / Those sorrow-stricken tunes of hers are still left behind for us.” He does not believe that Wang Zhaojun, a woman whose destiny is beyond her own control, is considered to be happy only if she has to return to her homeland. Instead, in his opinion, her true happiness in life lies only in living with someone

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who knows her heart; whether she stays with the “Hu” or with the “Han” is less important. Some of the author’s personal feelings about life may be implied here, but his sympathy for Wang Zhaojun is quite real. In addition, according to him, one has the right to choose one’s journey in life based on whether one is respected. In the Song dynasty, when “the distinction between Chinese and non-Chinese” became a key content of social ideology, it showed a perception quite different from the prevalent concept, provoking the anger of those who stood by “morality and justice.” At the beginning of the Southern Song, Fan Chong bitterly denounced this poem in front of Emperor Gaozong, saying: “To forget one’s own sovereign and father because she receives favor from foreign foes—if that is not inhuman, what is?” (See Li Bi’s Notes and Commentary on Wang Anshi’s Poetry) While leading a quiet life after being dismissed from office, Wang Anshi wrote quite a number of poems that describe scenes and express emotions, from which one may have a glimpse of his proud and aloof image, as, for instance, in his “Sent by Mail to Cai Tianqi”: Walking on a stick, I went along a moat and under a bridge. Who would be there to share the solitude in high autumn? I stood atop the eastern ridge and scratched my head; Cold clouds and withered grass stretched far and wide in dusk.

Unlike Mei, Su and Ouyang in the middle period of Northern Song, who esteemed Han Yu in particular, Wang Anshi had great admiration for Du Fu. Du Fu’s poems in his late years often place his solitary selfimage against the desolate background in autumn (as in “Ascending the Height”) to represent the grief in his heart, and the above poem by Wan Anshi bears some similarity to that, though he has made it somewhat less intense. For example, the natural scenery in his poem is not as vast and constantly dynamic as in Du’s poetry, by means of which emotions are kept from being overwhelming. However, one may still feel the indignation and pain in his heart in the dreary and forlorn world of the poem. In some of his other poems, the self-image of the poet is represented in apparent calm and leisure, as in “Northern Mountain”: The Northern Mountain transports its green waters that overflow the banks, Sending bright ripples over both straight moats and winding ponds. I sit for a long time while carefully counting the fallen flower petals; And I get to return late from looking, at ease, for fragrant grassland.


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The poet looks so aloof, unrestrained and relaxed in the movements of “carefully counting” and “looking for” something “at ease.” However, one may also feel a sense of helpless solitude in the fact that a brilliant and obstinate statesman now has all the time to spend in “carefully counting the fallen flower petals.” “To understand and enjoy mountains and rivers as a relief from pent-up resentment,” (“Poem Composed at the Request of a Couple of Presented Scholars from Baoying Who Saw Me Off ”) he has made therein the clearest explanation of his behavior to while away the time. Wang Anshi may be counted as a representative of the meticulous attention to language in Song poetry. In his poems, he frequently devoted himself to a strenuous effort to polish the lines so as to achieve refinement and dexterity. One may see his effort from the exquisite lines which nevertheless rarely, if ever, strike the reader as awkward and crude; the last two lines of the above-cited poem, “The Northern Mountain,” provide a fine illustration of that. For another example, let us have a look at the case of the famous line in his “The Boat Moors at Guazhou,” “The spring wind, once again, made the southern banks of the river green.” It was said that the word “green” was finalized only after more than ten revisions to the line. Wang Anshi was also a diligent and erudite scholar, and his attention to poetic language is also represented in his fondness of, and skills in, transforming the diction of predecessors. He has even observed: “Whenever one uses an expression from a Han author, it has to be matched by another expression from a Han author in the subsequent line.” (See Poetic Remarks from the Stone Forest) For instance, in the two lines of his poem, “Written on the Wall of Master of the Shady Side of the Lake,” words from the source of History of the Han are used: “A stream of water surrounds the field sustaining verdant plants; / Two mountain peaks push through doors presenting their greenness.” The adoption of such a method of poetic composition with the help of knowledge and reading was an indication of the development toward intellectualization of the Song poetry. However, Wang Anshi was quite extraordinary in using allusions in such an imperceptible manner. In form, Wang Anshi was at his best in heptasyllabic quatrains, which he composed in a great number in his late years. His heptasyllabic quatrains have generally been considered to be most outstanding in the Song dynasty.

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Su Shi Su Shi’s poetry and prose represent the highest achievements of these two genres in the Northern Song, and the reason why he was able to make such accomplishments was not simply because he was a genius. Among men of letters of the age, Su Shi was a figure of the most romantic temperament and liberal personality. Conversant with the concepts and ideas of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, he had something from each of these three schools. He held sensible and unassuming views, and had no taste for arguments that were too abstruse, too hysterical, or too biased. Various kinds of sketches from the Song dynasty contain a large number of Su Shi’s humorous sayings. The sense of humor in his character came from a clear understanding of human nature, of how easy it was for one to be trapped in illusion and prejudice. As a member of a scholar-officials group, Su Shi took an active part in the political activities of the state with a strong sense of social responsibilities, and he displayed the good character of someone who would not drift with the tide to profit himself. On the other hand, after many years of ups and downs in his official career and setbacks in life, Su Shi gained the first-hand experience of the darkness, ignominy, and danger which were inevitable in political struggles. He was certainly unable to behave like Li Bo, who proudly fought against the social forces which oppressed him; all he could do was to find a path to transcendence in the philosophy of Laozi and Zhuangzi and the abstruse theory of Buddhism and Zen thought. At the same time, he was also frequently inclined to doubt, to get bored with, and to discard all criteria of set values. He felt free, easy and unconstrained at times, and sometimes he felt helpless. Sometimes he tried to comfort himself by resigning himself to destiny, and at other times he felt frustrated and lost. His changing mood deeply reflected the depression in the heart of an intellectual in an age when the imperial autocracy was strengthened. In terms of views on literature, Su Shi stood by the same principle of “illuminating the Way” and “serving practical use” as Ouyang Xiu and others, and he was exactly a younger talent who was personally chosen in the civil service examinations and greatly admired by Ouyang Xiu. However, he was stronger in his literary attainments, and he was not always constrained by such a principle. For example, at the time, Li Bo was severely criticized by some, but Su Shi praised him for his “extraordinary majestic virility and outstanding high spirit,” (“Note


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Inscribed on the Back of Li Taibo’s Monument”), which implied his great admiration for the Tang poet. He also attached more importance to the value of literature as a kind of artistic creation. Confucius’s saying, “Words are only supposed to convey the meaning,” had often been cited to oppose the artistic pursuit in composition, but Su Shi observed in his “Letter in Reply to Xie Minshi”: Words are supposed to convey the meaning only. However, if one thinks that it means artlessness, then one is totally wrong. To grasp the essence of something is like tying up the wind or catching hold of shadows. It is difficult to run into one among thousands who is able to show that thing clearly in the reader’s mind, let alone to show that thing clearly in spoken or written language. To be able to do that is what is meant by “words are to convey the meaning.”

Here he brazenly distorted what Confucius said. “Words are to convey the meaning,” according to Confucius, originally meant to convey facts and ideas clearly by words. Su Shi, however, regarded the extremely high artistic attainment of “the pursuit of the essence of things” like “tying up the wind or catching hold of shadows,” which was based upon individual innermost experience, as the requirements of the saying, “Words are to convey the meaning.” In a case like that, he moved even further than Ouyang Xiu, who shared his fancy for the artistic. Su Shi made a commentary on the style of his own prose: “My prose is like a fountain spring, tens of thousands of gallons in volume, which gushes out of the ground wherever it finds a way out. On the level ground it may gurgle on continuously, even for a thousand miles within a day, without any difficulty. If it runs along a winding path between mountain rocks, then it may vary its shape in the course in ways beyond my knowledge. What I do know is that it will constantly run when it is supposed to run, and will stop only when it has no way but to stop.” This may involve a little self-glorification, though in the system of the so-called “classical prose,” whether compared with the works of Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan before him, or those of Ouyang Xiu and Zeng Gong among his contemporaries, Su Shi’s prose writings, while exhibiting less deliberate attention to structure, framework, and momentum, are indeed as natural and spontaneous as floating clouds and flowing water, showing a striking variation that matches his predominant mood at the moment and his idiosyncrasies. In structure, Su Shi’s prose writings rarely, if ever, copy his predecessors or repeat themselves precisely because they keep changing with his “original mind.”

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His prose writings offer a great variety. Many are historical or political essays, such as “Memorial to Emperor Shenzong,” “On Fan Zeng,” “On Zhang Liang,” “On Han Fei,” “On Jia Yi,” “On Chao Cuo,” etc. These are not literary writings in nature, though one can still perceive his personality and talent in there. He often makes original arguments from common, ordinary events or facts from perspectives beyond normal expectations, and reaches unanticipated conclusions. In style they run facilely and smoothly, but also contain many a climax, with great dynamism and strong appeal. Su Shi’s literary prose writings are found in the forms of sketch, travel account, miscellaneous note, and rhapsody. Such writings often break the conventional bounds of their respective subgenre, and blend many different elements, such as the expression of feeling, the depiction of things, scenic description, argumentation, and the narration of events, into one unity. His emotional response and associated thought dominate in them, making the common thread uniting all those elements in seemingly loose structure. They read spontaneous and with an easy grace. For instance, in “An Account of the Stone Bells Mountain,” he first raises doubts as to the explanations of the name of the Stone Bells Mountain from Li Daoyuan and Li Bo, and then, in a natural way, he switches to his own touring and exploration, and reaches the conclusion that “one cannot make arbitrary assumptions on the existence of something” “without seeing it with one’s own eyes and hearing it with one’s own ears,” a concept with universal significance. The piece displays a predilection for reasoning characteristic of Song writers, but it is not like Wang Anshi’s “An Account of My Trip to Mount Baochan,” which devotes itself to long-winded argumentation and reads dull and stodgy. In style, Su Shi’s prose writings are more closely interwoven than Ouyang Xiu’s works, and more attention is devoted to making the rhetoric more original and eye-catching. Compared with Han Yu’s writings, they are plainer and easier and not as unusual and novel. He is better in expressing his personal feeling through scenic description and in an integration of colors and sounds. Syntactically his writings alternate between parallel and non-parallel prose, and between long and short sentences. Take a section from “An Account of the Stone Bells Mountain” as an illustration: By evening, in bright moonshine, Mai and I, just the two of us, went on a little boat to the foot of the cliff. A huge rock stood on the side,


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a thousand feet tall, looking scary, like a ferocious beast or a strange monster about to strike at people. The falcons perching up the mountain were also startled when they heard our voices, and their cries went up to the clouds. Then again there were sounds like an old man coughing and laughing in the mountain valley. Someone said it was the crane.

In the still of the night, mountain cliffs stand in the shade of the moonshine, and birds make strange cries. A gloomy, terrifying world is presented with just a few strokes. “First Rhapsody of the Red Cliff ” is Su Shi’s best known prose piece. It was composed in the convention of the “Rhapsody of the Sounds of Autumn,” but it entirely broke away from the stiff form and structure of rhapsody in the past. The flow of time, from evening to daybreak, threads itself through the entire course of the sightseeing trip and changing emotions. Scenic description, dialogue, cited poems, and philosophical discussion are well blended in complete harmony. The piece is extraordinarily beautiful and refreshing in language. Here we shall cite its opening part: In the autumn of the year of ren xu (1082), on the evening with a full moon in the seventh (lunar) month, Master Su and his friends went on a boat for a trip at the foot of the Red Cliff. A refreshing wind wafted softly over the water without stirring any ripple. I made a toast to my friends, and we chanted the poem of “Bright Moon” and sang the stanzas about the graceful woman. In a short while, the moon rose above the hills to the east and loitered in between the stars, the Dipper and the Herd-boy. White dew spread across the river, and the gleam of the water mingled with that of the sky. We let the solitary reed-like boat drift on its will over thousands of acres of vast space. We felt as if we were riding on a wind through the vacuum, not knowing where it would ever stop, and as if we had become totally independent by leaving the world behind, having put on wings and turned into immortal beings. Thereupon we drank the wine and felt extremely happy, and we sang a song while beating the rhythm against the side of the boat: “Cassia-wood paddles and magnolia-wood oars / Strike against the transparent radiance and follow the flooding light upstream. / Far and wide my heart travels / To the Beautiful One at the other end of the sky.”

Subsequent to it, a dialogue between the host and a friend assumes a macrocosmic perspective that sees the eternity of nature as embodied in the changes of the myriad things, and thereby finds relief for the transient and insignificant grief in life. Such a realization dissolves one’s passion but also leads to a transcendence of adversity (Su was banished to Huangzhou at the time), keeping one from getting trapped

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in the circumstance of any particular time and location and feeling helpless about it. In addition, some of Su Shi’s prose vignettes are also superb works with a unique grace of their own. For instance, “Written while in Dan’er,” tells how he felt when he first arrived in the Hainan Island and looked at the sea all around the place: A tub of water was poured down on the ground. A mustard seed floated in the water. An ant stayed on the mustard seed and was at a loss where it would go to. After a short while, the water dried up, and the ant went away. When it saw the other ants, it shed tears and said: “I almost failed to ever see you guys again. Who knows that in the twinkling of an eye, there would emerge roads goings in all directions?” Thinking about it may bring one a chuckle.

Beneath the humorous surface there lies a deep grief, but in the deep grief there is also a cheerful and sanguine sense. It provides much food for thought. Strictly speaking, the classical prose of the Tang and Song dynasties fall under a different system in nature from the prose vignettes (xiao pin) of the Late Ming. However, Su Shi was greatly loved by men of letters with unorthodox ideas of the Ming dynasty and, in addition, his writings of this kind exerted a direct impact on the prose vignettes of the Late Ming. The phenomenon was quite significant in helping us to reach a better understanding of Su Shi. Su Shi’s poetry is broad in thematic range, of a large number, and it covers a variety of forms. He is best at heptasyllabic old style, regulated verse, and quatrains. Some of the salient features of Song poetry due to its inclination toward rationality, such as its prose-like style, its fondness of argumentation and abstract reasoning, and its preference for showing off one’s knowledge and learning, are also found everywhere in Su Shi’s poetry, and account for some of its shortcomings. On the other hand, he had superb talent and great sensibilities, so he was able to preserve more of the gist of poetry. Su Shi’s most popular poems fall under two categories: the first deals with life with intimacy and pleasure, and describes things in life that are overflowing with vigor and charm with creative imagination and lively language, displaying his sagacious, gentle and kind personality. Take, for example, his “On the Road to Xincheng”: The east wind was aware that I would make a trip into the hills, It blew until it stopped the sound of rain gathering at the eaves.


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Clouds hover above mountain ridges in sunshine: cotton caps; The early sun hung at the top of trees: a copper gong. Wild peach flowers smiled from short bamboo hedges; A stream-side willow shook by itself over clear water and sands. People at the western hill where the sun set should be the happiest of all— Cooking curly mallow and bamboo shoots from their harvest in spring.

Everything that the poem describes is commonly seen, but in the author’s joyful eyes, all have entered into a communion with man, in good humor and high spirit. The clouds above the mountain ridges look like cotton caps, and the sun at the top of trees resembles a copper gong. It looks somewhat like a picture from a child’s hands. Wild peach flowers are smiling, and the willow shakes softly. Across the field, the delightful scent of cooked curly mallow and bamboo shoots wafts over. A simple life is presented as real enjoyment. Take, for another example, “On Hui Chong’s Evening Scenes along the Spring River”: Beyond the bamboos, two or three twigs of peach are in bloom. The water in the spring river is warm: ducks know it before others. Artemisia spread all over on ground; budding reeds are short. It is precisely the time when the globefish is about to come up.

It is, in its original, a poem inscribed on a painting, but the poet’s description is full of dynamism. In the author’s great sensitivity to seasonal changes, there is a sense of joy for spring’s arrival that holds its appeal to us. The other category includes poems that contain a philosophy of life. The fondness of philosophizing is a universal phenomenon in Song poetry, and quite a number of works have become dry and dull because of that. Su Shi’s poems, however, do not strike us like that so frequently. Some of his fine poems are good at drawing inspiration from specific experience or scenes and blending philosophy and the expression of feeling into one. They are skilled at representing philosophical ideas through intimate, appropriate, and intelligent analogies. As a consequence of that, these poems not only have profound implications but are not lacking in poetic grace. Take, for example, the famous “Inscribed on the Wall of West Forest Temple”: Looking from one side, it’s a mountain ridge; from another, a peak. Far and near, high and low, it varies in different perspectives. I know not the real appearance of Mount Lushan— And that’s all because I am right in its middle.

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It is an enlightenment that comes from natural scenes. Su Shi’s original idea is to say, perhaps, that one can only see the truth of things in the world when one transcends life’s limited environment in which one is trapped, but one can also see it in other ways. All he has done is to provide a vivid analogy. Take, for another example, “In Response to Su Che: Recalling the Past at Mianchi”: What’s it like—where one has ever been to in one’s life? It should be like a wild goose landing on snow and mud. By chance, some trail from its talons is left on the mud; The wild goose, once it flies away, cares not where it was, east or west. The old monk is dead: his bones are stored in a new pagoda. The wall is in ruins: no way to see what we wrote on it before. Do you remember how rugged it was on our way here last time? The road was long, tired were we, and the limping donkeys kept braying.

Human life is like the flight of a wild goose: its course is brief, and its destination unknown. In the course of life, only some haphazard, faint trace remains, but even that is soon to vanish with time. The analogy is extremely original and appropriate, but what is more important is that it is full of emotions and holds great appeal. That is philosophy represented in poetic grace. Su Shi was a man with a liberal personality and the temperament of a genius. He was more acutely and deeply sensitive than others to life’s vulnerability and the pathetic condition of things in the world. Under the circumstances, however, he was unable to find a way away from the oppressive force that was invisible but omnipresent. He was unwilling to dwell on the painful experience; hence he would rather leave some leeway for everything, hoping that he would find something selfcomforting in life in the course of which he felt like a passing passenger. For instance, when he was banished to the Lingnan region which was considered a remote and terrible place in his time, he chanted: “Devouring three hundred litchis every day, / I don’t mind living as a Lingnan local for a long time.” (“Eating Litchis”) It was precisely a representation of his attitude toward life. His mentality somehow weakened the passion in his literary compositions. However, it does not mean that Su Shi was able to forget life’s misery altogether, as some of his poems still reveal the deep grief in his heart, as found in his “Feeling Weary at Night”: “In the lonely village, a dog is barking; / Under the waning moon, a few people are walking. / My hair at the temple has long since turned white / Notwithstanding that I feel peaceful and quiet as a passenger.”


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4. Poetry of the Late Northern Song In the Late Northern Song there were no more renowned prose writers. Most of the poets were rather close in relation to Su Shi. Among them, Huang Tingjian initiated a new style which was markedly different from previous Song poetry in artistic features. The poetic style of Chen Shidao, slightly after him, was also close to it. This kind of poetry attracted many followers due to its novelty in language and prosody. It almost dominated the entire poetic world from the Late Northern Song through the Early Southern Song, and continued some of its influence subsequently. As Huang Tingjian was a native of Jiangxi (the Western region of Jiangnan during the Song dynasty), this school of poets were known as the “Jiangxi School of Poetry.”1 Huang Tingjian Huang Tingjian was ranked as one of the “Four Scholar-Retainers of Su Shi,” and he also suffered quite a few setbacks in the struggle between the Old Guards and the New Guards because of his close relation to Su Shi. In the partisan struggle, imprudent sayings might lead to disaster. During the Xining reign, Su Shi was arrested, tried, and almost lost his life because he was suspected of having satirized the court in his poetry and prose. Huang Tingjian was also implicated in the case. The experience taught him the lesson that he had to be very careful in his poetry and prose composition. He instructed his nephew in “Letter in Reply to Hong Jufu”: “Dongpo’s writings are the best in the world, but his weakness was that he liked to wrangle. You need to be careful not to follow in his wake.” In his prose piece, “Postscript to Wang Zhizai’s Miscellaneous Poems from Mt. Qushan,” he also expressed his deep wariness about how one could end up “craning one’s neck to submit to the blow of an axe, and opening one’s garment to take arrows” because one “fell into calumniating and maligning” in one’s poetry. Hence very little of Huang Tingjian’s poetry involves

1 [Original Note] In the last years of the Northern Song, Lü Benzhong wrote A Diagram of the Sects of the Jiangxi Poetic Society in which he placed twenty-five poets, led by Chen Shidao, after Huang Tingjian as the latter’s “legitimate descendents.” It initiated the name of the “Jiangxi School of Poetry.” (As a matter of fact, more than half of these poets were not natives of Jiangxi, and they were called the “Jiangxi School of Poetry” primarily because of Huang Tingjian.)

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current affairs, and he did not have any more intention, like poets before him, to display his sense of social responsibility in poetry. He was primarily concerned only with the form and techniques of poetry, which may have something to do with the above-mentioned mentality. However, it does not mean that the indignation in his heart was entirely dispelled. The singular and unusual style of his poetry more or less reveals the surging undercurrent of his pent-up emotions. In his Illuminating Chatters, Fang Dongshu of the Qing dynasty observed that Huang’s poetry “created a proud and unusual sound and rhythm of his own, and his spirit and vital force are displayed therein.” He also recognized the underlying relation between the form of Huang’s poetic language and the demand of his lyrical expression. Of course, the formation of the artistic style of Huang Tingjian’s poetry was more out of the consideration of allowing for new creation in the development of poetry. In restraining passion and inclining towards rationality, his poetic style shared some similarities with that of the mainstream of previous Song poetry, but it was a rectification of the latter’s tendency to use prose-like lines and its coherent way of representation. One may say that Huang Tingjian had more concern about the special formal aspects of poetic language. At the same time, he also proposed an entire set of “poetic methods” that may be adopted in practice, which was an important reason why so many poets followed suit. This kind of “poetic methods” and the aspects of the poetry which emerged from their practice had their main characteristics as follows. First of all, Huang Tingjian proposed to base poetry on the foundation of great knowledge from reading. He had great admiration for Du Fu, thinking that in Du’s poetry and Han Yu’s prose, “not a single word does not have its source,” and that “those who were good at writings in the past were really able to blend and incorporate everything in the world, even when one places some used words from the ancients into one’s own composition, they would be like a magic pill, touching iron and turning it into gold.” (“Letter in Reply to Hong Jufu”) Related to this theory of “touching iron and turning it into gold,” there are also the two methods of “taking over the fetus” and “changing the bones.” The former means “not to change its original meaning but to create its way of speaking,” which is to adopt the meaning of something already said by predecessors but use new words in saying it. The latter refers to the method “to follow the example of and to model upon something in


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meaning but elaborate on it,” which is to expand and to renew something already said by predecessors. (See Hui Hong’s Evening Remarks from the Cold Studio) This theory, from the author’s perspective, is to draw inspiration from cultural heritage and to further enrich poetic language. From the reader’s perspective, one has to make use of one’s accumulated knowledge to perceive the wonder of hackneyed expressions and allusions if they are used in an original way. In Huang Tingjian’s opinion, the so-called “touching iron and turning it into gold” and “taking over the fetus and change the bones” would never become an exhibition of clichés; instead one must stay away from clichés and fight against vulgarity. Hence in using allusions, he liked to find material from unfamiliar books. In the case of those familiar to the general reader, he would try his best to use it in an unexpected manner. For instance, in two lines from his “Matching the Rhyme Pattern of Liu Jingwen’s Poem: Thought on Ascending the Terrace of Prince Ye,” “Your poem is like a great beauty / That causes the fall of a city even before getting married,” the widely known set phrase of “causing the fall of a city or a state,” originally from Li Yannian’s “Song of Lady Li,” is used with a sense of freshness. Secondly, in syntactical construction, Huang Tingjian’s poems usually avoid easy smoothness, and are fond of using special, unfamiliar expressions to enhance the forcefulness of representation. For example, the couplet, “The poet chants in daytime: mountains join him as house guests; / The drunken friend sleeps at night: the river keeps rocking his bed,” (“Inscribed at the Falling Star Temple”) tells, in a pithy and pungent way, how the view of the mountains looks so intimate to human beings, and how the sound of the waves is so startling at night. In another couplet, “The heart is not yet dead about that thing in the cup,2 / The spring season is unable to rouge the complexion in the mirror,” (“Matching the Rhyme Pattern of Liu Tongsou’s: Mailed to Wang Wentong”), the words “dead” and “rouge” are used in an ungrammatical way in original, and in addition, the structure and rhythm of “1–2–1–3” are also quite strange and unusual. At the same time, in terms of the structure of the entire poem, Huang Tingjian also makes unusual changes, frequently using ellipses or reversals between lines or couplets which are rarely, if ever, coherent in meaning. In

2

Alcohol.

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addition, sometimes the ellipses become hard to fathom, “frequently thousands of miles stand between lines and couplets, making them unrelated in meaning;” one has to turn them over in one’s mind again and again to understand them. Next, Huang Tingjian’s compositions are mostly in regulated verse, and he is fond of using the “anomalous style,” which was initiated by Du Fu who only adopted it once in a while. In Huang Tingjian’s poems, however, it has been used on a frequent basis. Such a style changes the age-old set pattern of the alternation of words in level and deflected tones, and in agreement with the change of the syntactical construction of the lines, causes an incoherence in sound, rhythm and the vein of thought, and intentionally creates an effect of imbalance and disharmony which, like the stiff curving strokes in calligraphy, provides a sense of strangeness and rigidity. Huang Tingjian’s poems often are awkward and hard to understand. In the following, we shall use as an illustration his famous “Mailed to Huang Jifu” which is among one of his relatively easy poems: I live by the northern Sea; you, the sea in the south; To send a letter via the wild goose? Sorry: it’s beyond me. Peach and plum in the spring wind—a single cup of wine. Rivers and lakes in the night rain—a decade in lamplight. To keep a family in order: I have only the four walls standing. To treat disease, I do not expect to break my arm three times. I imagine you’re already hoary-headed from reading all the books; Across the stream, apes are crying behind waterside vines in miasma.

In describing how the two of them are set apart, lines 1 and 2 use, in an indirect manner, the allusion from the Zuo Commentary, “Your Highness live by the northern sea, I, by the sea in the south,” (the fourth year of Duke Xi), and the anecdote about how the wild geese stop at the Huiyan Peak (“Peak where Wild Geese Return”) at Mt. Hengshan in their flight to the south. There is not only a semantic ellipsis between lines 3 and 4 and the two lines before them, but also one in between these two lines themselves, which consist of entirely common expressions but, forming into a couplet, sound quite original. That is not only because they are constructed exclusively by the enumeration of nominal images, but also because the two lines set up a sharp contrast, with a semantic ellipsis in between, hence creating high tension. Lines 5 and 6 switch to Huang Jifu’s situation. First they tell his straitened circumstances, using the allusion from the “Biography of Sima Xiangru” in Historical Records, “in his family, only the four walls stand.” Then, they use, in an ironical way, the phrase “know-


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ing him to be a good medical doctor as he had broken his arm three times” from the record of the thirteenth year of Duke Ding’s reign in the Zuo Commentary to deplore how Huang has been trapped in an inferior official position for so long. These two lines are both in the anomalous style in prosody, especially line 5, which uses two words in level tones and five in deflected tones in original, making it sound cramped. At the end, the poem unfolds a dreary imaginary scene, and in expressing his indignation, also indirectly uses something similar to what is implied in Li He’s line from his “Southern Garden,” “Where, in writings, is one to cry in the autumn wind?” Considering all and sundry elements, Huang Tingjian’s poetry brought a kind of new change to Song poetry with its main characteristics as represented in its method of paying attention to structure and relentless pursuit of depth and difference, and its unorthodox, close-knit, terse, and jerky style. Its strength lies in its expansion of the capacity of language by using allusions and archaic expressions, and also in its pursuit of novelty through its strenuous effort to avoid clichés, which is in fact an effort to generate excitement in reading through the enhancement of the strangeness of poetic language, as well as a pursuit of the special essence of poetry per se. Its weakness, on the other hand, lies in its frequent excessive obscurity and crudeness which not only cause difficulty in comprehension but also a sense of constraint and distortion in aesthetic experience. For that reason, while praising Huang’s poetry as being “extremely superb in style and appeal,” Su Shi also remarked, on the other hand, that one might “crack up and lose one’s wits” when one read too much of this kind of poetry. (Dongpo’s Postscripts and Colophons) As for the method of “touching iron and turning it into gold” and “taking over the fetus and change the bones,” if mishandled, may well turn into meaningless parade of learning, or even reliance on plagiarizing from the ancients. All this has long since been pointed out by people in the past. Some of Huang Tingjian’s poems are composed in a smooth and clear manner, like one of the “Two Poems: Watching Mt. Junshan after Ascending the Yueyang Pavilion in the Rain”: Having risked ten thousand deaths after being thrown into the wild, I’ve got frosty hair at my temple; Still alive, I’ve emerged out of the Qutang Gorge and passed the perilous Yanyu Rock. I have not reached Jiangnan yet, but I’ll have a smile first: Since I am face to face with Mt. Junshan, up at the Yueyang Pavilion.

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His unyielding personality is in display in the poem, as well as his bitterness and deep feeling of grief. It preserves his forceful, jerky style, but is by no means obscure. Chen Shidao and Han Ju By Su Shi’s recommendation, Chen Shidao (1053–1101) served at a number of low positions. A proud and unsociable person, he was in straitened circumstances all his life. He also spared no effort in advocating the celebration of Du Fu as model and, at the same time, he had great admiration for Huang Tingjian, claiming that “once I saw Mr. Huang, I burned all my compositions and started learning from him.” (“Letter in Reply to Qin Gou”) He was known for his painstaking effort in poetry composition. Huang Tingjian referred to him as “Searching for lines behind closed doors: there’s Chen Wuji.” (“On an Event at the Jingjiang Pavilion after Recovering from Sickness”) In discussing the way of poetic composition, Chen believed that it should be “rather clumsy than ingenious; rather plain than ornate; rather crude than weak; rather unusual than commonplace.” (Poetic Remarks from Houshan) Accordingly his poetry is free from ornateness, well wrought in language, terse in representation, and, because of his circumstances in life and his personality, quite subdued emotionally. The following “Spring Thoughts: to be Presented to Neighbors” is a famous poem of his: Across broken walls, stained with rain, snails have left behind their writings; In the old hut there is no Buddhist monk: swallows have made it their home. More than ever I’d like to get out of the door to look for laugh and talk, But fear that on return the hair at my temples is covered with dust and sand. Wind blows at the spider’s web—opening it on three sides; Thunder shakes the beehives—during their two court gatherings. Repeatedly I missed the spring parties proposed by my southern neighbor; By now, where could we find any flowers that are still in bloom?

The poem reveals the mentality of a poverty-stricken man of letters, who is embarrassed by destitution on the one hand and unwilling to yield to the solitude on the other. Lines 5 and 6 use allusions in


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describing the scenes. On the surface, they seem to be saying nothing more than that the wind has shattered the spider’s web and that the bees are swarming noisily. However, it is not easy to find out whether there is any profound implication hidden therein. Han Ju (?–1135) gained the recognition of Su Shi and later got acquainted with Huang Tingjian. He was also a poet placed by Lü Benzhong in A Diagram of the Sects of the Jiangxi Poetic Society. A part of his poems, deeply polished and carefully conceived, hold the characteristics of the Jiangxi School of Poetry. However, in his late years he was somewhat dissatisfied with both Su and Huang, and the style of his poetry became more plain and facile. “Matching a Poem by Mr. Li from the Superior College: About Something on a Winter Day” is a representative poem of his: The north wind blows at the sun: it’s mostly dark in daytime; By dusk, yellow leaves pile up high, embracing the steps. Tired magpies move around tree branches, showing shadows of their freezing body; A swan goose in flight seems to touch the moon: there descends the sound of its lonely cry. I try to push away my grief: it doesn’t go as if it has been in search. I never made a date with old age: but it begins to trespass on me. To care about a lowly official career is a young man’s business; After I got sick, it is of very small concern to me.

The couplet of “Tired magpies” consists of carefully polished and highly lyrical lines of scenery description that are very well known. Compared to Chen Shidao’s “Spring Thoughts: to be Presented to Neighbors,” as cited in the above, they are similar in painstaking finish, but Han’s poem is clearer in meaning, and its diction more refreshing and beautiful. In addition, Han Ju wrote a group of poems, “Ten Quatrains Composed for Yaqing,” which provide an account of his friend Ge Yaqing’s romance with a prostitute. All of them assume the voice of the female, which was an alternative found in the song lyric during the Song dynasty, but rarely seen in shi poetry. The last piece goes: “Forcing myself to comb out hair on both temples I talked about our next date; / The allegiance between us lies not in the fact that we already know each other. / When you come, do not fall behind the spring wind / And then casually scorn me for having fruit only all along the branches.” In a rarely seen way, it demonstrates a distrust of the passion of the moment from the perspective of the female.

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Qin Guan and Others Qin Guan was well known for his lyric songs, but his poems are far more in number. His poems are colorful, exquisite in language, and detailed in their description of scenes. Take, for example, the two quatrains as follows: Over the night, light thunders rumbled, and a fine rain dripped; It clears up now: light gleams on the jagged blue roof tiles. Peonies, with emotion, hold back tears of springtime; Roses, without strength, lie down on branches at dawn. (“A Spring Day”) Frost has fallen on the canal; the accumulated water is clear. Cold stars, countless, shine bright over the boat. Deep in the water bamboos, one assumes there’s no land therein, Suddenly there comes the sound of people laughing and talking. (“An Autumn Day”)

In style Qin Guan’s poetry stayed far from the mainstream of Song poetry, especially that of the Jiangxi School of Poetry which was prevalent at the time; accordingly its appraisal was not so high. People in the past generally believed that his poetry was close in quality and style to his song lyrics. For instance, Poetic Remarks from Houshan carries the observation that “Qin’s poetry is like his song lyric.” The poem “A Spring Day,” cited in the above, was ridiculed by Yuan Haowen as “the poetry of a young maiden.” (“Thirty Poems on Poetry”) It reflected the conventional concept about poetry that was formed after poetry and song lyric differentiated and went different ways in the Song dynasty. As a matter of fact, Qin Guan’s poetry had a flavor of its own, even though it was limited in its breadth of spirit. In terms of its lyricism, it was quite outstanding in Song poetry. Also, judging from the two poems cited in the above, his poems are not all soft and mild in style. Besides Huang Tingjian and Qin Guan, Chao Buzhi and Zhang Lei were the other two placed among the “Four Scholar-Retainers of Su Shi.” In easy and plain language, Zhang Lei wrote quite a few poems that reflected people’s misery and got a grip on social reality, which seemed to follow in the wake of Zhang Ji of the Tang dynasty, though they were somewhat crude artistically. Chao Buzhi was not even as good as Zhang Lei. In addition, the three brothers, Kong Wenzhong, Kong Wuzhong and Kong Pingzhong, who were known, along with the brothers Su Shi and Su Che, as the “Two Su’s and Three Kong’s,”


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were also reputed for their poetry. Among them, Kong Pingzhong’s poetry was better than that of his two elder brothers, and somewhat close in style to Su Shi, though he lacked Su Shi’s genius in terms of the latter’s great wit and humor. By a brief reference to these poets here, we hope the reader may have a rough idea of the poetry of Late Northern Song.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

LITERATURE OF THE SOUTHERN SONG AND THE JIN DYNASTY

The Southern Song and the Jin were two states that existed almost at the same time but ruled the south and the north of China respectively. The Jin dynasty of the Nüzhen nationality was founded in the year 1115 and within a matter of more than ten years attacked and wiped out, one after the other, Liao and Northern Song. In 1127, the Jin troops marched south and seized Bianjing, the capital of Northern Song. They captured Emperors Huizong and Qinzong, and declared that Northern Song had come to an end. After Zhao Gou, Prince of Kang, assumed the throne, he passed through many places in an exodus to the south before he settled down in Lin’an (Hangzhou in Zhejiang today). He continued the rule of the Song court, known in history as the Southern Song. Song and Jin took turns fighting against or making peace with each other, but roughly speaking they maintained the situation of confrontation along the Huai River. Eventually, both Jin and Song were eliminated by the Yuan court of the Mongols. Although Southern Song and Jin were respectively under the control of different nationalities, both claimed to be the caretaker of Chinese cultural tradition. Literati and popular literature of both the north and the south developed on the same inherent basis of Northern Song, and each made some of its own achievements. In popular literature, the new and different elements of the Jin literature were more remarkable. Medley of the Western Chamber, which emerged in the later years of the Jin dynasty, was significant in Chinese literary history. In addition, some of the masters of the variety play of Early Yuan dynasty, such as Guan Hanqing and others, all entered the Yuan from the Jin, which also proved that important changes were brewing in the literature of Late Jin. Incidentally, due to insufficient materials, it is difficult to differentiate in details the evolution of drama and fiction from Northern Song to Southern Song and Jin, hence we shall discuss them together in this chapter.

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In the case of most authors of shi poetry and song lyric of the Early Southern Song period, they had a life experience that spanned across Northern and Southern Song. Plunged into the turmoil of the time, they showed in their works a strong passion that was absent in the poetry and song lyric of Northern Song. At the same time, answering the need of the expression of feeling, many authors of this period did not make a rigid distinction between the shi poetry and the song lyric. Chen Yuyi and Others The most outstanding poet of the Early Southern Song was Chen Yuyi (1090–1138). He began his official career during the Zhenghe reign of Northern Song. When the Jin troops marched south, he was forced to leave Chenliu and went south in exile. After many years of wandering from place to place, he reached Lin’an, the capital of Southern Song, and served in the government up to the position of State Councilor. Chen Yuyi was ranked by Fang Hui as one of the “Three Patriarchs” of the Jiangxi School of Poetry, to the disagreement of some modern scholars. He had a high regard for the poetry of Su Shi, Huang Tingjian, and Chen Shidao, and took “moving along the frontiers of Du Fu” as the highest goal of poetry composition. (See A Supplement to the Jianzhai Collection) His poems devote much attention to the meticulous choice of diction and to ingenious imagination, in which one may see that he did share some important similarities with the Jiangxi School of Poetry. However, in his poetry composition, on the one hand, he noted that “one should not use allusions for the sake of using them only,” (see Xu Du’s Collection from Retreating and Sweeping), and he also “worked painstakingly,” “did not write readily unless there was some unusual idea above vulgarity and some phrasing that would startle the reader.” (Ge Shengzhong’s “Foreword to Chen Qufei’s Poetry Collection”) On the other hand, few of his poems strike the reader as difficult to understand or awkward-sounding. His ingeniousness relies on his sharp sensitivity and vivid imagination rather than in his learning, and there lies his obvious difference from Huang Tingjian and others. In the period of transition between the two Song dynasties, Chen Yuyi’s poetry provided a sense of freshness for the reader. In describing scenes or expressing feeling, his poems are often characterized by both novelty and spontaneity. For example, the lines describe the changing

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 509 climate when it clears up after rain in a highly subtle way: “Atop the wall, the feathers of the chirping magpies are still wet; / Outside the pavilion, the lingering thunder has not yet calmed down.” (“Clearing up after Rain”) The phrasing is quite original, but by no means eccentric. Another couplet describes the sense of loneliness for someone away from home: “A visitor spends his time in volumes of poetry; /And find information about the blooming of apricot in the sound of the rain.” (“I Missed Tianjing and Master Wisdom, Therefore I Visited Them”) They sound artless, but are in fact technically superb. Take, for another example, his “Rain”: The rain that has pattered for ten days Is firmly sending the heat away. The swallows: a dream of all the passing years. The phoenix tree: not the same as last evening. The comfort of the cool air pierces the bone; Within the four walls, I feel baffled most of the time. In this place of continuous prosperity The west wind blows this traveler’s clothes.

This poem was written in Chen Yuyi’s early years, when he served at lowly positions and was waiting for an appointment at Bianjing. Lines 3 and 4, instead of saying directly about how the autumn wind makes the traveler feel sad, carry an implication of that through a description of things. They tell how the swallows are about to fly south in autumn, with a feeling that the bygone experience is as dim and indistinct as in a dream, and how the phoenix tree, after withering in the rain, no longer looks the same as yesterday. There is a sense of frustration and loss. The implication of the poem is circuitous and indirect, but it is quite refreshing and succinct in language. Lines 5 and 6 give a sense of step-by-step gradation, with a strong flavor of the Jiangxi School of Poetry, but they are by no means obscure. After living through the “calamity of the Jingkang reign,”1 Chen Yuyi’s poetry preserved some of the characteristics of his early period, but in poems expressing his thought on the social upheaval there was a sense of desolation and sorrow not found in his earlier works. In his poem, “Encountering the Enemy Troops on Their Arrival at the

1

The Jingkang reign was that of Emperor Qinzong who ruled for less than a year before he was captured, along with his father, Emperor Huizong, who had abdicated in favor of his son, by the invading Jin troops in 1127, which marked the end of the Northern Song dynasty.

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Fangzhou City on the Twelfth Day of the First Month,” composed on his way as a refugee, he claims that “I resent that I have not, all my life until now, / Taken serious the meaning of Shaoling’s poetry,” which indicates that he reached a direct communion in feeling with Du Fu, and acquired an intimate understanding of the spiritual implication of Du’s poetry. Accordingly, the poems he composed after moving south often approximate Du Fu’s poems in style. Let us have some illustrations of that. “Up at the Yueyang Pavilion”: “Having arrived from tens of thousands away, I still look far into the distance; / Going through many a calamity over three years, I once again confront a perilous height. / White-haired, I ponder on the past in wind and frost; / Old trees, blue waves, there contains an endless sorrow.” “New Year’s Eve”: “In troubled times, the hair at my temples has changed its color with the season; / As much as one likes, the lights shine bright on people. / Comparing to what has taken place in the passing year, maybe we should feel happy; / But, to roam about strange places—it is quite scary to think about.” In these lines, he integrates his personal destiny with the fate of the nation, giving them a solemn fervor. In the following, let us have his poem “Peonies” as another example: Ever since the foreign troops entered Chinese passes, For ten years, the road to the Yi and Luo rivers has been so remote. A decrepit traveler, by the Green Mound Stream, Stands alone in the east wind to look at peonies.

Peony was a famous flower in Luoyang, Chen Yuyi’s homeland. After staying away from home for ten years, he aged, but the recovery of his homeland was nowhere in sight. Hence, when he was looking at the peonies in a strange land, he felt an unspeakable pain in his heart. There is no direct discussion in the poem, but one could feel in the vivid images the poet’s deep feeling for his homeland and the nation. In between the two Song dynasties, Lü Benzhong and Zeng Ji were also classified as poets of the Jiangxi School of Poetry. Similar to Chen Yuyi, they both composed poems which expressed their grief at their vagrant life in the upheaval and their distress at the declining fortunes of the country. For instance, Lü Benzhong’s lines in his “Miscellaneous Poems after the Chaos Caused by the War” are extremely bitter: “To die after others has turned into a burden; / I know not how long I’ll drag out such an ignoble existence.” Zeng Ji’s two couplets in his “Living at Wuxing as a Visitor” reveals a profound sense of helplessness: “Facing each other, we have really turned into the weeping Chu prisoners; / So

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 511 we do not have any resort to ever go to the Divine Land. / All we know is to move around trees like magpies in flight, / But not to build our nests like clumsy turtledoves.” In poetic theory, Lü Benzhong promoted the so-called “method of liveliness,” which requires that poetry composition, while not violating established practice, is nevertheless able to move beyond it (see his “Foreword to Xia Junfu’s Works”), and praises “a natural and spontaneous mind (“A Poem of Thirty Couplets to My Younger Brother after Parting”).” The ideas still stays within the range of Huang Tingjian and Chen Shidao, but it is significant in rectifying some deviation. Zeng Ji accepted Lü Benzhong’s appeal for changes, and often composed some refreshingly lively poems, which have been considered by some to have heralded Yang Wanli’s “Chengzhai Style.” (Qian Zhongshu’s Selected Song Dynasty Poetry with Annotations). Take, for example, his “On the Road in Sanqu”: When the plum fruit turns yellow, it’s fine every single day; Going by boat to stream’s end, I’ve started walking in the mountains. The shade of trees is just as green as it was on the coming trip; But this time we hear the sound, four or five cries, of the orioles.

Li Qingzhao Li Qingzhao (1084–ca. 1151) was born in a family of government officials with a heavy cultural atmosphere, and was gifted and talented since childhood. After she grew up, she married Zhao Mingcheng, also from an official family, who was fond of the study of inscriptions on ancient bronzes and stone tablets. After their marriage, the couple often stayed together, composing poetry and song lyric in exchange, purchasing books, and enjoying the study of bronze and stone inscriptions. In short, hers was the typical life experience of a talented daughter from the family of a senior scholar-official. At the downfall of the Northern Song, Li Qingzhao fled south with her husband who served as the Prefect of Jiankang, but Zhao died shortly afterwards. During the several years when the Jin troops marched deep down the south, and before the Southern Song regime was firmly established, she constantly led a life of wandering from place to place and endless frustrations. Later, she settled down in Lin’an, but still under straitened circumstances all the time. It was said that she experienced an unsuccessful second marriage. In contrast to her early years, the life of her later period was particularly lonely and dreary.

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Li Qingzhao was known by her song lyric, but there are also masterpieces among the few texts of her extant poetry and prose. The famous “Epilogue to Notes on Bronze and Stone Inscriptions,” using as a common thread of ideas the process of how the couple built up and then lost their collection of bronze vessels, stone tablets, paintings and calligraphy pieces, reflects the loss of cultural relics and the grief of personal fortunes caused by the upheaval of times. It shows true emotions and is quite moving in some of its details. The virile fervor of “Quatrain on a Summer Day” is rarely found even from male poets of the Song dynasty: While alive, one should be a hero among men. To die, still a gallant one among spirits. Even today I have in mind the great Xiang Yu Who refused to move to the east of the Yangtze.

On the art of the song lyric, Li Qingzhao put forward, in her “Discussion of the Song Lyric,” a somewhat integrated set of ideas. In the essay, she emphatically argues that the song lyric “is a different kind by itself.” She criticizes Liu Yong’s song lyric for being “inferior and vulgar in language,” which indicates that she opposes the tendency of excessive use of the vernacular and catering to the taste of the townsfolk. She chides the song lyric of Su Shi and others for being “all poetry in lines of uneven length, and frequently failing to observe the prosody,” which shows that she is against the mixture in style of poetry and song lyric and looseness in the observation of prosody. She reproves Yan Jidao’s song lyric for “suffering from the absence of elaboration,” and Qin Guan’s for “focusing on emotions only but lacking in solid content,” which demonstrates how she believes that the song lyric should not only have elaboration and emotions, but also carry deep cultural implications. These quibbles reveal that this female song lyric author held a high opinion of herself, and also define her own pursuit in the genre. Her works are generally consistent with her theories. Due to the agitating changes in life, there is a striking difference between Li Qingzhao’s earlier and later song lyrics in the expression of feeling. In her early song lyrics there is a flavor of life of the gentry. For instance, her “Dreamlike Tune” adopts the conventional theme of springtime lament; with an ingenious dialogue, it uses a careless and indifferent servant maid to serve as a foil to the idle, delicate, spoiled young lady who is sensitive to the fleeting time:

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 513 Last night, amid patchy rain and gusty wind, I had a heavy sleep, but still suffer from a hangover. I try to ask the one who is rolling up the hanging screen Who just says: “The crabapples remain the same.” “Don’t you know? Don’t you? The green must have grown thicker, but thinner, the red.”

The phrasing of “thicker green and thinner red” is both original and sensual. For another example of the author’s talent in using poetic language, there are the lines from her “Drunk in the Shade of Flowers”: “Say not that no one is overwhelmed with sorrow: / The hanging screen rolls up in west wind; / Someone is thinner than the yellow flowers.” An unspeakable melancholy, which is a representation of the author’s complex and intense emotions and her acute sensitivity, may be felt between the lines in these song lyrics. Romantic love, especially lovesickness in separation, makes the most important subject in Li Qingzhao’s earlier song lyrics. It falls under the conventional themes of the song lyric, but prior to her time, male poets assumed a female’s voice in most of the song lyrics that adopted the subject, so they were based on hypothetical imagination. Li Qingzhao, however, expressed her personal experience and inner emotions in her song lyrics, which hold a kind of sincerity, subtlety, and strong appeal beyond the average song lyric authors. Take, for example, “A Sheaf of Plum Flowers”: A sweet smell still lingers from the pinkish lotus root, Autumn is felt in the jade mat. Gently loosening my silk robe I get on a boat alone. In the clouds, who is sending a letter? The swan geese are on their way home. Moonshine is all over the western tower. Flowers keep falling, waters keep flowing. It’s the same lovesickness Shared by two, each in their melancholy and idleness There is no way one can dispel such a feeling: As soon as one gets rid of it from one’s brows, It goes right into one’s heart.

The appeal and charm of the text lie in its beautiful imagery and its graceful and vivid language. The delicacy and demureness characteristic of females is represented in the lithe gracefulness of “Gently loosening my silk robe, / I get on a boat alone,” and in the pathos of “As soon as one gets rid of it from one’s brows, / It goes right into one’s heart.”

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As for song lyrics she composed during the Southern Song period, they still have the sharp sensitivity, but they are charged with grief and desolation. “Joy of Eternal Union” tells how, on the fine occasion of the Lantern Festival, after recalling the “days of prime in the Central Region,” she feels the sharp contrast between the past and the present solitude and bitterness: “Now, looking so haggard, / My hair tousled and windswept, / I’m scared to go out at night. / Better stay under the hanging screen / And listen to people laughing and talking.” In “Spring in Wuling” she first comes to the idea “Hearing that the spring scenery is still nice at the Double Streams, / I also want to go there on a little boat,” but concludes with the lines, “I fear only that the cockle at the Double Streams / Is unable to carry / So much sorrow.” After wandering for a long time and living alone away from homeland, life has become a vehicle wherein she recalls the happy bygone days and feels, in all the remembrances, that all beautiful things will come to ruins. Sometimes, what is represented is a deep pang of sorrow that almost turns devastating, as in “Sound by Sound: in Slow Tempo”: To search, to seek, In such cold and solitude, How wretched, how dreary, how desolate! It is hardest to cope with a time like now When it suddenly turns warm, but then is chilly again. Two or three cups of light wine Are not enough to make one endure The stiff evening wind. The wild geese are passing by, How heartbreaking it is to see them Though they are old acquaintances. Yellow flowers grow all over the ground. So haggard am I By now; who’d still be there to pick these blossoms? I stay by the window Alone, wondering when it will ever be dark. Phoenix trees rustle, as does a fine drizzle, By the time of dusk, It keeps dripping, drop by drop. Facing such a view: How could it be defined only by that one word, “grief”?

In the original text, it opens with seven pairs of duplicated words in a row, an unprecedented practice of originality. However, it is not something that is ingenious on the surface only, as it reveals the speaker’s mentality in a realistic way. The reader, on the other hand,

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 515 is immediately led into a special environment of emotions. Subsequent to that, the text elaborates, step by step, until it creates a climax for “grief ” by a negation of the word. In this kind of song lyric, Li Qingzhao rarely, if ever, directly touches upon the background that involves the rise and fall of the nation. Notwithstanding that, through her personal experience and the great trauma deep in her heart, one may still see the enormous dark shadow of that background. As a female writer, Li Qingzhao managed to be ranked, without any scruples, among the great song lyric masters of the Song dynasty, with some of her own idiosyncrasies. Like that of Li Yu, her song lyric has a simple, pure lyricism of its own, and at its very center is always her innermost emotionality. However, after many years of artistic exploration, compared to earlier song lyric authors like Li Yu, she devoted more assiduous attention to the techniques of the genre. In accordance with her idea that the song lyric “is a different kind by itself,” Li Qingzhao was particularly sensitive to the different ways in expressing feeling between the song lyric and shi poetry, and as a woman, she succeeded in making it even more subtle, mild, and tactful. She is good at grasping the state of her mind through vivid, original details, and at revealing the nuances of her emotional changes through multi-layered dramatic structure with one climax after another. Li Qingzhao also devotes much of her attention to the singularities of language in the song lyric. Her song lyric is well wrought in language, but unlike that of Zhou Bangyan, shows no trace of meticulous artistry, but tries, as much as possible, to sound easy and natural. She is fond of using literary language in a spontaneous way and spoken language in a graceful manner; when the two are integrated into unity, they create a special style of her own. The adoption of some ingenious and lively vernacular expressions in her song lyrics accounts for their tremendous vigor. In short, in Li Qingzhao’s song lyrics, one may see the combination of some of the original features of the genre at its early formation and full-fledged artistic techniques. Zhang Yuangan and Zhang Xiaoxiang Due to the formal characteristics of the song lyric, it is a more suitable form than poetry to represent a disturbed state of mind and constantly changing emotions. Deeply shocked by the cataclysm of the Jingkang reign, the literati found that the song lyric’s artistic form agreed fully with their grief and frustration. The vigorous and sprightly style of

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the song lyric, initiated by Su Shi, was carried forward by some of the song lyric writers, among whom Zhang Yuangan and Zhang Xiaoxiang were representative. Zhang Yuangan (1091–ca. 1161) was a student of the National Academy in the last years of the Northern Song. He was once appointed by Li Gang, a renowned military commander in the war against the Jin troops, to serve on his staff. During the Shaoxing reign, Hu Quan presented a memorial to the throne asking for the execution of Qin Kuai, and was sent into exile. Zhang Yuangan composed his “Congratulation to the Bridegroom: A Valediction to Hu Bangheng, Edict Attendant, on his Way to Xinzhou” to see him off and to express his indignation at the event. It immediately became widely known at the time: Even in a dream I roam along the roads of the Divine Land. How dismal to see, in the autumn wind, Spreading barracks resounding with the painted horns, And the former palaces overgrown with weeds. For what reason did Mt. Kunlun, the nation’s mainstay, collapsed Leaving the yellow flood flowing all over the Nine Divisions? In thousands of villages, there gather only foxes and hares. Heaven is high beyond reach: it’s always hard to question it. Besides, man gets old soon, and it’s tough to tell all his grief. Moreover, at the southern bank of the river, I have to see you, my friend, off. A cool air arises from willows on the bank, speeding off the lingering heat. Broken clouds drift across The bright Celestial River, Scattered stars, in faint moonlight. Across rivers and mountains, thousands of miles away, where will you be? We shall recall how we talked at night across the bed. If it’s beyond the reach of the wild geese, After I write a letter, who am I to send it to? I stretch my eye to the sky’s end, thinking about past and present. Why should we be like kids chatting about only private affairs? So let’s raise a big goblet of wine, And listen to the Song of Gold-Threaded Robe.

The author’s strong grief and indignation was caused by the perilous situation of the nation and the event of how someone in the party advocating the use of military force in defense was clamped down hard. Mt. Kunlun collapses, the Yellow River is in flood, foxes and hares gather in thousands of villages: it is a description of the dangerous situation of the time, as well as a vast background full of dynamism, that is needed

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 517 for the expression of strong emotions. Even in depicting their personal friendship after the separation, the author also uses such expressions like “rivers and mountains thousands of miles away,” “the blue sky,” and “past and present,” which are wide-ranging in space and time, because what he wants to convey is their common interests and solemn fervor under the circumstances of historical upheavals. The song lyric is simple and straightforward in structure, but it still holds a powerful appeal with its overflowing emotions and irresistible momentum. Strong emotions, vast background, dramatic structure with many a climax—these constitute the basic characteristics of this kind of song lyric of Zhang Yuangan’s. For instance, in another “Congratulation to the Bridegroom: Mailed to Prime Minister Li Boji,” composed for Li Gang, it opens with the lines, “Holding a walking stick, I go up the lofty tower. / The Big Dipper hangs from the sky, / Over thousands of acres of blue waves, / With moonshine all over the misty islets.” Then, in the lines “In melancholy I watch the passes and the river; in vain do I grieve along with my own shadow,” and “Right now, in the human world, / People are snoring loudly, like beating drums made of alligator skin,” there is a contrast which brings out a sense of great loneliness: “Who is going to keep me company, / And dance in drunkenness?” Notwithstanding the sense of helplessness, the author refuses to fall into dejection. The gallant, heroic spirit makes him a bridge between Su Shi and Xin Qiji. After making a Presented Scholar, Zhang Xiaoxiang (1132–1170) became an active member of the party that advocated the use of military force in defense. He was a generation younger than Zhang Yuangan, but because of their similarity in the background of composition and in the style of their song lyrics, they are conventionally discussed in the same group. Among Zhang Xiaoxiang’s song lyrics on current affairs, “Heading of the Song of the Six Prefectures” is the best known piece. This tune consists of almost entirely short lines and is in a quick tempo. The author chose the tune deliberately to express a kind of agitating indignation. “Dust darkens the battlefield, / In a stiff, frosty wind; / It’s quiet on the borders”: it describes the doleful scene on the border along the Huai river. “I think of the arrows at my waist, / My sword in its sheath, / In vain are they covered in dust, / What use do they have? / Time fleets easily; / One has ambition in vain; / The year’s at the end”: it is a lament on the disillusion of a patriot. “High-ranking

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messengers / Hurry on their way; / Aren’t they ashamed?” It bitingly satirizes the pacifists. Finally it concludes with: “I was told that old loyalists of the Central Plains / Often look southward / For signs of the imperial troops. / If the messenger ever arrives there, / They would be filled with loyal indignation / And weep copiously.” By describing the disappointment of the people in the Central Plains, it tries to strike a sympathetic chord with the reader. The song lyric is straightforward in structure, but its strength lies in its impassioned eloquence, which accounted for its great appeal to many at the time. Artistically speaking, though, Zhang Xiaoxiang’s “Lovely Nian Nu: Passing by the Dongting Lake,” a song lyric that expresses the poet’s feeling about life in general, is a more accomplished piece: Over the Dongting and Green Grass lakes, Near mid-Autumn now, There isn’t a single breath of wind. Under the Marble Mirror, in the shiny waters thousands of acres broad, There sticks one single little boat of mine. The white moon shares its light, With the Celestial River also in its shade, Up and down, in and out, all crystal clear. Leisurely and carefree I see something wonderful But hard to tell you, my friend, in words. I recall over the passing year, while deep down in the south, It shone on me, all alone, by myself, Well into my open heart, lifting my spirit. My short hair turns sparse; chill creeps through my garment sleeves; But I drift across the vast of blue waves in ease. For a drink I have all the waters of the West River; For a wine-cup, the Dipper in the north; And for company, everything in the cosmos. Tapping the boat’s sideboard for rhythm I whistle loudly alone Not knowing what night it is tonight.

Riding on a boat in the boundless vast of a crystal clear world, the poet’s heart also turns as broad and clear as Nature itself. It is an image of the poet himself who transcends the trifles of the human world and confronts the universe in solitude, carefree and contented. The influence from Su Shi’s two rhapsodies on Red Cliff and the “Heading of Water Tune” is obvious in this song lyric, but there is a sense of aloofness and pride herein that is absent in Su Shi’s works. After all, Zhang Xiaoxiang was younger in age at the time and had more of a fighter’s spirit.

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 519 2. Poetry and Song Lyric of the Middle Period of the Southern Song During the middle period of the Southern Song dynasty, the Song and the Jin regimes were locked in a stalemate in confrontation. The northern expedition, launched during Emperor Xiaozong’s Longxing reign, ended in defeat, but the conditions of the “Longxing Peace Treaty” were somewhat improved than the previous “Shaoxing Peace Treaty,” and were in fact a confirmation of that stalemate. Social stabilization brought about economic development. Thanks to the favorable geographical conditions of Jiangnan, Lin’an, on its inherent basis, developed into a large-scale city with high consumption. Entertainment was brisk as a business with both the upper and the lower levels of society. Lin Sheng, a little known man of letters, left behind a well known poem on the situation: “Hills beyond green hills, in mansions beyond mansions, / All the singing and dancing at West Lake, when will they come to an end? / In the warm wind, sight-seers feel like intoxicated / And take Hangzhou simply as the former capital of Bianzhou.” The satire in the poem shows that, while some had already forgot about the fall of the Central Plains into enemy hands, some others found it hard to forget. In the poetry and song lyric of the middle period of the Southern Song, the call to wipe out the humiliation and recapture the Central Plains, the desire to perform meritorious deeds, to fulfill a personal dream of becoming a hero while simultaneously carry out a mission of the nation, remained as important subjects, and when all these failed to be materialized, there was still a strong outburst of sorrow and indignation. However, men of letters did not devote all their emotions to this respect only. Under the circumstances of a relatively stable society, they developed an interest in all kinds of subject matter, and they also had the free time to make deep exploration into the artistic forms and techniques of literature and to make attempts to break free from the formats of their predecessors. In short, this period was the golden age of Southern Song literature. In the field of poetry, Lu You, Yang Wanli, and Fan Chengda, ranked (along with another poet, You Rou) as the “Four Masters of the Restoration,” and in that of the song lyric, Xin Qiji: all had their respective special features. Lu You and Xin Qiji occupied distinctive niches in the entire history of Chinese literature.

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Fan Chengda and Yang Wanli Fan Chengda (1126–1193) served at a number of senior regional posts and was promoted all the way to Grand Councilor. In his late years, he retired to live a civilian’s life by the Stone Lake (in the suburbs of today’s Suzhou) of his homeland. Fan Chengda had a wealth of experience in his life, and his poetry involves a broad range of social life, with one of its outstanding characteristics in its quite plentiful representation of the conditions and life of the peasantry. In terms of artistic style, his poems are quite complex: some model on poets of the Mid-Tang and Late Tang, others are under the influence of the fashion of the Jiangxi School of Poetry, but what is most noteworthy is the heptasyllabic quatrains that provide a mirror of social conditions and customs. Among them, the best known pieces are the seventy-two quatrains he composed in the sixth year of the Qiandao reign (1170), when he was on a diplomatic mission to the Jin, and what he wrote in his late years, when he retired to live a civilian’s life (“Inspirations on Various Occasions from Fields and Gardens through the Four Seasons: Sixty Poems”). The quatrains written on his mission to the Jin keep a record of what he saw, heard, and thought about while he was in the north. Some of the poems describe the conditions of some historical sites and scenic spots of the Northern Song, now under the Jin control, the life of people of the Han nationality and their expectation of the Southern Song regime to recapture the Central Plains, the backward customs and habits of the state of Jin (which involves some national prejudice), etc. Fan Chengda grew up entirely after the downfall of the Northern Song. Judging from these poems, however, he strikes the reader as if he were someone who was revisiting a once familiar place, being overwhelmed with a sad, nostalgic feeling about all the changes that had taken place. It is because what he expresses therein is a kind of national feeling, the sense of misery and indignation of a scholar-official of the Han nationality over the loss, into alien hands, of the place of origin of his own nation’s civilization. Some of the poems hold great appeal. Take, for example, “Suzhou”: Foxes howl, ghosts whistle, in the dark, black night; It turns out to be the old battlefield of the imperial troops. God of Earth is unable to hide the phosphorescent lights; In twos and threes they flit over the hillocks in front.

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 521 It does not engage in any discussion of the scene, but it overflows with a lament over the ruthlessness of the war and a pity and sympathy for the dead. Take, for another example, “Bridge of the Prefecture”: South and north of the prefecture bridge are the streets of the capital; Year after year, elders have waited for the return of the monarchal carriage. Holding their tears they ask the messenger in cracked voice: “When will the Imperial Six Troops really arrive?”

It describes the sentimental attachment to the Song court of the residents of Bianjing, formerly the capital of the Northern Song, and their disappointment at the Southern Song ruler. Under the circumstances, when there was no hope for a Northern expedition, the burning question “When will the Imperial Six Troops really arrive” was heart-rending to him as a messenger from the south. “Inspirations on Various Occasions from Fields and Gardens through the Four Seasons: Sixty Poems” were composed in Fan Chengda’s late years, when he lived in retirement at the Stone Lake. Previous poems on the countryside either focus on singing about scenes in the countryside and the farmers’ simple life of labor, or on exposing the misery of the real life in the countryside and reproving the exploitation and oppression of the farmers by officials and despotic gentry, each making a series of works. Fan’s poems in the group combine the two kinds. On the former theme, he does not give any excessively idealized description; on the latter, he does not adopt an agitated and sharp tone but strikes a pretty calm note. In the short foreword to the poem series, the author says about these poems that he “always wrote down a quatrain when inspired by an event in the countryside,” which is to say that these came from what he personally witnessed and lived through. Accordingly they are more realistic and provide a rather comprehensive representation of life in the countryside and villages. In the following we shall cite a few as illustrations: After the rain, those living in the mountains get up rather late; Through the skylight, it begins to dawn, but only half-way. The old man leans on his pillow to listen to the oriole trilling; The little boy opens the door and let fly the swallows. Plowing in the field in the morning, weaving at evening, In the village, sons and daughters manage household affairs. The grandchildren know not yet how to plow or weave, But they also learn to plant melons in the shade of mulberries.

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chapter fourteen Giving up plows and hoes, they labor hard to pick water caltrops, Their fingers bleed badly; they are thin and pallid like ghosts. They cannot afford a piece of land, so they turn to the waters; But recently a tax is levied on the surface of the lake.

Using the form of heptasyllabic quatrain to keep a record of the scenes and customs of various places was a kind of passion for Fan Chengda, who had quite a number of similar works in addition to the two long series as discussed in the above. Poems of this type are plain in language and sound quite facile and natural. Some of the best of them have an appeal in their sense of immediacy and spontaneity. However, they are too heavily journalistic in nature, and do not pay any attention to the art of poetry and to the singularity of poetic language. When one read many of them together, they read like a long scroll of customs and habits with a sense of originality, but when one reads the poems one by one, there are not too many good poems among them. This cannot but be regarded as a weakness. Yang Wanli (1127–1206) served as a courtier for years. Later, because he held different political view from Han Tuozhou, who was in power, he lived as a recluse for many years. He had a great interest in Neo-Confucianism (Lixue, “Study of Principles”). History of the Song includes him among Biographies of Confucian Scholars. The “Chengzhai Style” initiated by him marked a big change of the Song poetry after the popularity of the style of the Jiangxi School. In his “Foreword to the Jingxi Collection” Yang Wanli provides an autobiographical account of the course of how he learned to compose poetry. He “began by modeling on the Jiangxi gentlemen,” then on Chen Shidao’s pentasyllabic regulated verse and Wang Anshi’s heptasyllabic quatrains, and after that on the quatrains of the Tang poets. However, “the more effort, the less composition,” he felt it was very difficult to write poetry. Then, one day in the fifth year of the Chunxi reign (1178), he “became somewhat enlightened all of a sudden” about poetry, and he no longer learned from those he previously modeled upon. He “improvised several pieces; they came out smoothly and no longer as awkwardly as before.” In addition, from then on, “while walking in the back garden, climbing up the old city wall, picking wolfberry and chrysanthemum, moving around or through flower trees and bamboos, everything in the world comes up to offer itself as the subject matter of poetry.” Writing poetry turned out to be extremely easy. The description bears great resemblance to the courses of “being enlightened” on Buddhist truth of a Zen student, and shows that Yang

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 523 Wanli, like many Neo-Confucians of the Southern Song, was closely related in thinking to the Zen sect. In fact, his basic ideas about poetry were consistent with his understanding of Zen studies and NeoConfucianism. In the lines from his “Inscribed on Tang Deming’s Jianyi Studio,” he was talking about the way to seek true knowledge, but it would be quite appropriate to use them to refer to his attitude about poetry composition: “All my life, I cudgeled my brains to explore old writings; / Of late, I got to know that it is fruitless to take that road. / From now on, I shall take my ease away from countless books; / Smilingly, I shall lean on a maple tree by the river and splash its water.” Generally speaking, the essentials of Yang Wanli’s poetic theory lie in contempt of book learning and a call to get close to daily life and nature so as to acquire the subject matter of poetry. He is against painstaking poetry composition, believing that poetry should be generated, spontaneously, in the course “when such an object or event happens to come to my attention, and when my heart also happens to get inspired by such an object or event.” (“Letter to Xu Da”) In other words, it is like “This old man does not go around looking for poetic lines; / Poetic lines, all by themselves, come around to look for this old man.” (“Composed on Narcissus Flowers and Lakeside Hills in Evening Chill”) It was a revolt against the ideas of “touching iron and turning it into gold” and “taking over the fetus and change the bones” and the style of a relentless pursuit of depth and difference of the Jiangxi School. The strength of the “Chengzhai Style” lies first in its capability to find poetry in extremely commonplace life and scenes of nature. Actually such a characteristic could already be found in Yang Wanli’s compositions prior to the fifth year of the Chunxi reign, when he claimed that he “became somewhat enlightened all of a sudden.” Take, for example, his “Small Pool”: At the fountainhead, the little stream flows without a sound; The shade of trees is reflected in water, so lovely and gentle in the sun. Little lotus has just shown the very tip of its bud, But a dragonfly has long since stood at its top.

It is a brisk and light-hearted little poem that reveals the author’s quick sensitivity to beauty in nature and his ability to display that sense of beauty in poetry, like a camera shot which captures the moment. However, the pursuit of poetry in commonplace daily life may easily lead to boring trifles, so Yang Wanli often integrates his philosophical comprehension of things into such ordinary scenes, and poems

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composed in this way not only preserve the tremendous vitality of life and nature, but are also rich in implications, as illustrated in the two poems as follows: Say not: “Once you go down the ridge, it won’t be tough any more,” And trick the passenger who will be joyful by mistake. He has just entered the circle of a mess of mountains. As soon as you get out of one mountain, another stands in the way. (“Passing by Songyuan, Cooking Breakfast at Qigong’s Inn: Six Pieces,” 5) Jasper-colored wine: I pour down a cup or two from time to time. The door of the boat: I just closed it, but opened it in another minute. Fine mountains: no one saw their thousands of grooves; Now the setting sun has picked them up, making them all visible. (“My Boat Passed by the Xie Pond: Three Pieces,” 3)

Yang Wanli’s poetry focuses on finding lyricism in ordinary scenes of nature and daily routine and expressing the author’s personal experience and understanding of life. It strives to seek genuine feeling in plain words. Accordingly, he does not pay too much attention to language and form, and mostly uses natural verbal expressions and the vernacular speech in his poems. Most of the lines are written in a coherent and syntactically complete way, so as to seek the effects of the fresh, the lively, the light-hearted, and the humorous in the quotidian situation. It constitutes one of the basic characteristics of the “Chengzhai Style.” The appearance of the “Chengzhai Style” broke the monopoly of the style of the Jiangxi School, and opened a new path for Song poetry in an opposite direction. However, Yang Wangli’s works have their obvious weakness as well. The Zen Buddhist or Neo-Confucian way of thinking in poetry may hold its advantage in obtaining something poetical in the commonplace daily routine, but also have its disadvantage in stilling the poetic passion. In relation to that, few of Yang Wanli’s poems are passionate or profound in feeling, and when he occasionally tried to do that, it was always inappropriate. Take, for instance, in his poem “Two Days after the Double Ninth, I Ascended the Valley of the Stream of Ten Thousand Flowers with Xu Kezhang, and We Passed Cups of Wine Around under the Moon,” he “claimed to be somewhat like Li Bo.” (See Luo Dajing’s Jade Dew in the Cranes’ Forest). The poem tells how, while they are drinking, the moon’s reflection finds itself into the cup, and then: “I raised the cup and swallow the moon at one gulp; / Then I raised my head to look at the moon, which was still up in the sky. / I laughed heartily and asked my friend: / ‘Is the

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 525 moon in one lump, or two?’ ” This is actually feigning craziness in a crude manner. In addition, Yang Wanli believed that poetry was to be improvised at the spur of the moment in a casual and random way, while natural and spontaneous works would not be so easy to come by, so at the same time when he did leave behind some fine works, he also left behind quite a number of crude, coarse, vulgar, and tasteless pieces. Later, some incompetent followers took after his malpractice, and they simply turned the “Chengzhai Style” into a guise of doggerel. For that reason, the evaluation of the “Chengzhai Style,” either positive or negative, has often gone to the extreme, depending largely on the angle the critic approaches from. Lu You Lu You (1125–1210) was born in the family of renowned government officials in Shanyin (Shaoxing, Zhejiang today). His grandfather Lu Dian and his father Lu Zai both served at senior positions in the government. Lu You was brought up in troubled times. He recalled that in his childhood he often saw the older family members gather to discuss state affairs, “some opened their eyes wide or gnashed their teeth, some wept tears or cried bitterly, and everyone took pride in being ready to sacrifice oneself to support the imperial court.” (“Postscript to Supervising Secretary Fu’s Note”) Growing up in the ambience of such a family, he was nurtured in nationalism. However, Lu You was never very successful in his official career. When he was twenty-nine years old, he was ranked first in the provincial examination, but in the next year, he was failed by Qin Kuai’s partisans in the examination of the Ministry of Rites. When Emperor Xiaozong assumed the throne, the war advocates prevailed in the government; Lu You got into Xiaozong’s good graces who granted him the title of Regular Metropolitan Graduate, and later he served at some regional posts. But then, the northern expedition led by Zhang Jun ended in defeat, and the Truce of Longxing was signed, which led to the rise in power of the peace party. Lu You was dismissed from office and he returned to his homeland to lead a civilian’s life for a few years. In the sixth year of the Qiandao reign (1170), when he was forty-six years old, Lu You was appointed as the Controller-General of Kuizhou. Later, he answered the summons of Wang Yan, Pacification Commissioner of Sichuan, to join his staff and assist him in military affairs,

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and arrived in Nanzheng of Hanzhong. It was the western frontier of the Southern Song in its confrontation with the Jin, and Lu You was excited by his life in the military. He went to all the military fortresses of the Hanzhong region on horseback to investigate the terrain, and took an active part in “presenting strategies to keep forging ahead” to Wang Yan. (See his biography in History of the Song.) At the same time, it was also an important stage of his poetry composition. But, only a little more than eight months later, Wang Yan was transferred back to Lin’an, and Lu You was also transferred to serve at Chengdu. In the next few years, he served at a few sinecures or as acting regional officers in Sichuan. Lu You, frustrated with the setbacks, often led a dissolute life and got drunk, and he was denounced and disciplined for that. He simply gave himself the literary name of Fangweng (“The Old Man Who Does as He Pleases”). In the fifth year of the Chunxi reign (1178), Lu You was ordered to transfer back to the capital. After he left Sichuan and returned east, Lu You served as the Tea and Salt Supervisor of Fujian and Jiangxi. Shortly afterwards, he was impeached and dismissed from office. In the subsequent thirty years, he came out to serve off and on, but for most of the time led a civilian’s life in the countryside. During the early years of Emperor Ningzong’s Jiatai reign Han Tuozhou, the powerful official, strongly advocated a northern expedition. Lu You, already in his seventies, came out to serve for the last time as a courtier. Still, eventually he never got to see a successful northern expedition. In the year when he turned eighty-five years old, he fell sick and died. In his deathbed he left behind a poem, “For My Children”: Well I know that, once I’m dead, everything is a void; Still I’m sad that I see not the Nine Divisions in one unity. On the day the imperial army moves north to recapture the Central Plains, Forget not, at the family offering, to tell your old man.

Among the famous poets of the old times Lu You was one who left behind the largest number of his works; his Poetic Manuscripts from Jiannan contains more than nine thousand poems. He lived a long life with wide experience, and his poetry involves a rich wealth of contents. The most outstanding theme among his poems is his desire to engage in the enterprise to fight against the Jin and through it, to attain his personal ideal of achievements. The Southern Song was in an inferior position in its military confrontation with the Jin, so the argument for compromise to make peace frequently got the upper hand; hence this

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 527 kind of Lu You’s poems, while burning with passion, is often filled with grief and indignation. In contrast to that, Lu You also composed many poems which describe scenes of the countryside and nature, and represent daily life; this type of poems generally takes a leisurely, quiet and tranquil tone. This characteristic may surely be attributed to the conventional taste of the literature of the scholar-official, but it is also because that for Lu You, who was dismissed from office and led a civilian’s life for a very long time in his life, immersing in the peaceful life in the village brought him a consolation for his mind. Poems of these two kinds, in different styles, combine to make the basic features of Lu You’s poetry. Poems of the former theme reflect, to a large extent, the common feeling of the nation since the downfall of the Northern Song, but, unlike Yang Wanli and Fan Chengda, contemporary poets who shared the concern for the destiny of the nation, Lu You’s poems of this kind represent more directly, in the first place, the voice of the war advocates, and they often fiercely denounce the party in the ruling class that advocated compromise in order to make peace; secondly, they also display a stronger desire for action. From the lines of his early years, “To die in fighting is what one expects, / As one is ashamed to stay with wife and children,” (“Reading Books on the Art of War at Night”) to those from his late years, “As soon as I hear the military drums, I get excited; / I am still able to recapture the Yan and Zhao for the state,” (“Song of an Old Horse”), one may find a desire to engage directly in a battle against the Jin. Accordingly this type of poems strikes one as strongly heroic and valiant in spirit, as in the two examples beneath: The edict to appease the western tribes was issued fifteen years ago. Military commanders fight no more, just stay on the frontiers for nothing. Behind the heavy crimson gate, they dance to the music of singing. In stables, horses grow fat and die; bows are left with their strings broken. By the garrison tower, the beating of night watches hurries the moon to set. Men joined the army at thirty, now they all turn white-haired. Who could tell the mind of the warrior in the sound of the flute? On the sands, the bones of the soldiers are exposed in moonshine in vain. Fighting in the Central Plains has been known since ancient times, But how could the alien traitors produce here their sons and grandsons! Loyalists drag out an existence, hoping for the recapture of the land. Tonight, at so many places around, they are shedding bitter tears. (“Moon above Mountain Passes”)

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chapter fourteen In early years, how was I supposed to know life’s hardships? Looking north towards the Central Plains, I had such high ambitions! In evening snow, I was aboard a towered ship at the Yangtze ferries. In autumn wind, I rode on an armored horse to the northern pass. In vain have I taken pride in being the “Great Wall on the Frontiers.” Looking in the mirror, I found that the hair at my temples has turned gray. The memorial to dispatch the troops to fight—it deserves its great fame. For a thousand years between now and then, there is simply no match. (“Writing Down My Indignation”)

In Song poetry, there had long been an inclination to restrain passion, but in this type of Lu You’s poetry such an inclination came to a change. The vengeance for the humiliation and shame of the nation in recapturing the Central Plains was, after all, widely acknowledged to be moral justice, and the rousing of passion had foreseeable social support; in addition, it had something to do with the poet’s personality. It was always easy to get Lu You excited with the imagination of life in the military, and to engage in a fierce war was actually understood as a transcendence of an ordinary life. One may clearly see the building up of self image in the kind of lines as in “Song of a Sword Inlaid with Gold”: “A sword inlaid with gold and decorated with white jade / Sends its light through the windows at night. / A man reaches fifty, but has not won honor yet; / He stands alone, holding the sword in hand, and look in all directions. / In the capital city, those he befriends are all extraordinary men / Alike in temperament they expect to live and die together.” Lu You’s short experience of serving on Wang Yan’s military staff at Nanzheng in his middle age left a profound impression in his mind; he claimed that the style of his poetry changed greatly with the experience. However, the detailed remembrances about how “At forty I joined the army and was posted at Nanzheng,” as found in Lu You’s poem, “An Account of Myself,” concentrate on the gallant and unrestrained life style in the military, which includes “carousing banquets,” “heavy gambling,” and even “erotic dancing wherein precious hairpins (of the dancers) sparkles over dinner tables,” which well demonstrates his boredom of the extremely reserved and affected ways of life in the scholar-official convention. On the other hand, while Lu You did adopt the literary name of Fangweng (“The Old Man Who Does as He Pleases”), he was unable, in fact, to break free entirely from the limits of orthodox ideas. In singing about his heroic ideals, he frequently still felt obliged to give a nod to the stand that agreed with orthodox ideas to prevent himself from getting off the beaten track. Take “Song of a Sword Inlaid with Gold” as an example. After the line, “I’d be

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 529 ashamed if my name is not remembered in the history of a thousand years,” he would hasten to add, “All my loyal heart I devote to the Son of Heaven.” In short, compared to that of the average man of letters of the Song dynasty, Lu You’s poetry shows more of the chivalrous and gallant spirit; if compared with Xin Qiji’s song lyric, though, it still strikes more pedantic. Another type of Lu You’s works provides a kind of outlet for his feeling of helplessness when he did not see any opportunity to dedicate himself to the service of the state. However, scenes of nature and the countryside were, after all, what Lu You had a fancy for, and he was able to detect the subtle vitality and charm in these scenes. Many poems of this type hold great appeal, as his “A Trip to the Village West of the Hills”: Scorn not the farmer’s winter brew for being a little turbid; In a good year they have enough chicken and pork to treat guests. Through rolling hills and winding rivers: I doubt if I could find the road. But, beyond shady willows and bright flowers, there stands another village. All around they’re playing flutes and drums: the spring offering is close. Wearing plain caps and clothes, they still keep the archaic taste. From now on, if I am allowed the leisure to enjoy the moonshine, Holding a stick I may knock at your door at night whenever it pleases me.

This poem was written in the early years of Xiaozong’s Qiandao reign, when Lu You was dismissed from the office of the Controller-General of the Longxing prefecture, and returned to his homeland. In the poem, he describes a little mountain village of his homeland, making it sound a little like Tao Yuanming’s Peach Blossom Spring, though somewhat plainer and more commonplace. In his praise of the farmer’s honest, pure and simple life, the author envisages that it may provide a comfort for his soul. However, from the line “From now on, if I am allowed the leisure to enjoy the moonshine,” etc., there still reveals a feeling of solitude and discontent, though it is not easily discernible. The scenery description in the second couplet is both artless and artful, and it also contains a sense of universal philosophy which transcends the content of the poem itself, hence it is extremely popular with the reader. In Lu You’s poems, there are numerous well-wrought couplets that describe scenes of nature and daily life. Another couplet that may match this one in beauty and reputation is that in his “A Spring Rain Has Just Cleared Up in Lin’an”: “Through the night at the little mansion, I listened to the spring rain; / The next morning, deep in the lane, someone was selling apricot flowers.”

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In his early years Lu You learned poetry composition from Zeng Ji, so he was under some influence from the style of the Jiangxi School. Through his old age, he did not get out entirely of such habits as meticulous attention to poetic language, fondness of employing allusions and using lines of predecessors in variation. However, he was unwilling to be restrained by such practices, and especially after he moved into his middle age, the style of his poetry changed significantly. On the one hand, he learned broadly from the strengths of his predecessors, so one could find in his poetry the bold and unrestrained of Li Bo, the profound and exquisite of Du Fu, as well as the lighthearted and lively tone of Bo Juyi’s Poems of Leisure. On the other hand, as shown in his famous saying, “The art of poetry is beyond poetry itself,” (“Shown to My Son Yu”) he stressed that poetry’s charm arises from wide experience in life and a deep sense of the world in reality, and that one should not simply imitate those from the past. Hence, at the same time when one learns widely from the strengths of others, one should devote more attention to flexible usage of such learning out of one’s personal need. As a consequence of that, Lu You’s poetry is quite diversified in style. Generally speaking, more of his good poems are composed in heptasyllabic verse, and among them, those in heptasyllabic old form are often passionate and daring in style, and his heptasyllabic regulated poems are particularly acclaimed by the reader. Some of them express his desire to serve the state or his indignation in a deep and energetic manner; some describe scenes of nature and daily life in a simple but beautiful touch. “Writing down My Indignation” and “A Trip to the Village West of the Hills,” as cited in the above, may be considered as representatives of these two types. The weakness of Lu You’s poetry, frequently mentioned previously, is that he sometimes wrote too fast and too much, so he also had many crude and unrefined compositions (especially in his late years). Careless poems of this kind often repeat what has already been said again and again, much to the reader’s annoyance. Accordingly the fact that so many of Lu You’s poems have been preserved is not necessarily a good thing to his reputation as a poet. Lu You was also capable of writing the song lyric. He did not value the song lyric as much as poetry, but he still left behind a few good pieces, such as “Phoenix Hairpin”: Soft pink hands, Yellow-labeled wine,

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 531 Spring is everywhere in town set by willows over palace walls; East wind is bitter, Fickle is the joy of love; My heart is full of sorrow, I’ve been desolate for years. Wrong, wrong, wrong! Spring is just like before, People have grown thin in vain; Stains of tears are all over the soaked red silk scarf. Peach blossoms drop, Pond-side pavilions are deserted. Solemn vows are still kept, But a letter of love can’t be sent. No, no, no!

This piece was said to have been composed for Tang Wan, his former wife who he was forced to divorce. In recent years, someone has suggested that it was unrelated to the experience, not without some ground. Notwithstanding that, the piece holds great appeal in its portrayal of the mentality of a pair of lovers who are set apart. In addition, his “Telling My Heart” expresses the grief and indignation from thwarted ambitions, and his “Fortuneteller: On the Plum” creates a self-image using the plum as analogy and reveals a kind of aloofness and pride. Both are quite impressive. Xin Qiji Xin Qiji (1140–1207) was born in Licheng which was under the rule of the Jin at the time. His grandfather Xin Zan served as an official in the Jin, but always cherished the desire to recapture the Central Plains, and shared it with Xin Qiji in instruction. In the thirty-first year of the Shaoxing reign (1161), during a war between the Song and the Jin, Xin Qiji, twenty-two years old at the time, joined an army of volunteers against the Jin led by Geng Jing, and acted as Geng’s representative to contact the Southern Song court. On his way back to the north, hearing that Geng Jing was killed by Zhang Anguo, a traitor, and that the army of volunteers was defeated and dispersed, he immediately led a small number of picked troops in a sudden attack of the enemy’s camp, captured the traitor and took him back to Jiankang. The heroic undertaking brought him a great fame. Thenceforth Xin Qiji began his official career in the Southern Song. At first he did not get any important appointment, but from thirty-three

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years old to forty-two, for a period of ten years, he started as the Prefect of Chuzhou, and then served successively at important regional positions, which indicated that his talent was not unrecognized by the top level of the ruling class. However, as someone who came from the north, his experience in government service was unconventional in official circles. His gallant and stubborn personality and his undiminished enthusiasm for northern expedition also made it difficult for him to find a secure foothold in the over-cautious and sly official circles. In the winter of the eighth year of the Chunxi reign (1181), he was eventually dismissed from office because he was impeached, and lived afterwards as a civilian at the Belt Lake Villa, which he constructed for himself at Shangrao, for an entire decade. It was not until the second year of the Shaoxi reign (1191) that Xin Qiji was reinstated again, when he first served as the Judicial Commissioner of Fujian and then was promoted to serve as the Military Commissioner there. But only about two years later, he was once again impeached and dismissed from office, after which he moved to live in Qianshan and led a civilian’s life for another eight years. In the third year of the Jiatai reign (1203), Han Tuozhou, who advocated a northern expedition, placed those among the war advocates in important positions. Xin Qiji, already sixty-four years old, came out to serve as the Prefect of Shaoxing and concurrently as the Military Commissioner of Eastern Zhejiang, and later transferred to serve as the Prefect of Zhengjiang. However, the hastily organized northern expedition led by Han Tuozhou went down to a devastating defeat, and Xin Qiji was repeatedly assailed. This great author of song lyrics, who had regarded himself as a hero all life, spent his late years, a feeble and sick person, in grief and disappointment. Xin Qiji was fifteen years younger than Lu You. His life experience and the temperament of his literary works bear much resemblance with Lu You. However, it may be easier for us to understand Xin Qiji the man if we examine the differences between the two of them instead. First, as Xin Qiji said of himself, “My family was originally natives of Qin, true descendents of military commanders.” (“Note on My New Residence at Shangliang”) [The author’s note: The Xin family was originally from Didao, Gansu.] His family did not have any rich heritage of the scholar-official cultural convention, and he was also brought up in the north under the rule of the Jin, having received relatively little education of traditional culture which made one conform invariably to convention and rules. There was a profound gallantry and valiance

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 533 in him or, judging from the orthodox perspective, he was in fact a dauntless and fierce type of hero.2 In their impeachment of Xin Qiji, the Remonstrance Officials accused him of “using money as if it were worthless like mud and sand, and killed people as if they were not worth a straw.” (See his biography in History of the Song) Although it sounded like malicious exaggeration, it still indicated that he did not conform to the rules of the official circles in his conduct. Lu You once had a loving wife, but he was forced to obey his mother’s order to divorce her, and he held regret until his old age. It would be unimaginable in the case of Xin Qiji. Also, as a statesman with practical talent, Xin Qiji was, for quite a few turns, in charge of regional military forces at the level of the “circuit” (equivalent to the province of today). He even trained a “Troop of Flying Tigers” all by himself when he served as the Military Commissioner of Hunan. His pursuit of resistance against the Jin was more vigorous and more in accordance with his ambition, as a valiant person, to take advantage of the tide of events. When one compares Xin’s lines, “To complete the sovereign’s task in the world, / And win a name both in lifetime and afterward,” (“Breaking the Formation”) with Lu’s lines, “I’d be ashamed if my name is not remembered in the history of a thousand years, / All my loyal heart I devote to the Son of Heaven,” one can clearly see the former’s self-confidence and pride. Xin Qiji did not like to write shi poetry and devoted himself entirely to the composition of the song lyric instead; it was because the latter form was more suitable to express his intense and ever-changing emotions. The song lyric of the Song went through another great reform with Xin Qiji’s practice. In terms of the so-called “bold and unconstrained” style of the song lyric, Su and Xin have habitually been mentioned side by side. However, Su Shih’s song lyrics, though showing broad horizons in imagination, are not characterized by intense, strong emotions. Due to a sense of sophistication based on the philosophy of Laozi and Zhuangzi, his song lyrics usually move from excitement to calm emotionally. Xin Qiji’s song lyrics are, on the other hand, always filled with fiery emotions, with their basic tone in heroism and the grief of a hero who fails to fulfill his ambition. “Man, it is said, holds a heart of steel until death. / Let’s see how he tries his hand / At patching up

2 [Original Note] Chen Tingzhuo has remarked in his Remarks on the Song Lyric from the White Rain Studio that the Xin family “could have turned into the likes of Huan Wen.”

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the broken sky.” (“Congratulation to the Bridegroom”) “For me, to suppress foreign invaders over ten thousand miles / And gain fame and honor is by itself / Truly a Confucian task. / Don’t you know, my Lord?” (“Chanting of Dragon in Water: In Celebration of the Birthday of Minister Han of the Southern Creek in the Year of Jiaxu”) The valor and confidence therein is so exciting. Just as forceful is the agitation from suffering a setback, as when he compares himself with Li Guang in his “Tune of Ganzhou in Eight Rhymes”: “When they advanced the frontiers during the Han, / People won honor across thousands of miles. / Then why was it that at the time, / Even valiant ones found no use for themselves!” Even when he became dispirited from disappointment, he was unable to transform his excited emotions into serenity: “All my life is to be spent in the wine-cup; / All things in the world are void of meaning. / Since the ancient times there have been only a few heroes; / Where are they now, amid wind and rain, / Palaces and temples of Qin and Han?” (“Sands Washed in Waves”) Even in such lines which sound bighearted, what comes through is the persistent pain in the author’s heart, when confounded high expectations have turned into despair. Throughout his life, Xin Qiji, always reluctant to spend his life in an ordinary way, preserved his heroism, and it shines in his lyrics songs. They play the most forceful notes in the song lyric of the Song dynasty. The following song lyric, “Chanting of Dragon in Water: Ascending the Pavilion of Amusement at Jiankang,” was composed by Xin Qiji in the twelfth year after he moved to the south, when he made a return visit to Jiankang, the first place he arrived in his move to the south. The southern sky extends for thousands of miles in refreshing autumn; Autumn waters flow as far as the sky goes, without end. One stretches one’s eye to the distant mountain peaks Which provide nothing but grief and sorrow Looking like jade hairpins on dark coiled hair of women. Up at the pavilion, in the setting sun, Amid the cry of a wild goose that has lost its company, The passenger in the Southland Looks at his fine sword and Taps all over the balustrades; But there’s no one there who understands What’s in his mind climbing up and looking down. Talk not about the delicious minced perch: The west wind is all over the place, But has the stranger Zhang Han gone home?

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 535 If one just look for a piece of land to make a home Then one would be just as ashamed To meet with someone as heroic as Master Liu. How deplorable the year is running out again, Amid the doleful wind and rain, Even trees have aged like that! Who should one ask To summon someone in a red scarf and green sleeves To wipe the tears from the eyes of a hero?

It is a grief over the divided land and for unfulfilled ambition. Stricken with a grief like that, it is even more startling to realize how time fleets indifferently. But even when the author of the song lyric makes no secret of his disappointment in life and tells his misery and tears, we do not feel anything meek and weak in his tone, and what is presented here is still the soul of a hero who refuses to give up. The same lofty aspirations run all the way to his “Joy of Eternal Union: Recalling the Past at the Beigu Pavilion of Jingkou,” which was composed by him in his late years, when he served as the prefect of Zhengjiang: Rivers and mountains stand, through a thousand ages; But there is no way to find today A hero like Sun Zhongmou (Sun Quan). Platforms and stages once were wild with singing and dancing; But all the grandeur is gone now In lashing rain and stiff wind. Amid grasses and trees, in the setting sun, Some ordinary-looking alley Was, it’s said, where Liu Yu once lived. Way back in the old times, Holding his golden dagger-axe, riding on his iron-armored horse, How he, like a tiger, intimidated enemies across thousands of miles. The hasty plan in the Yuanjia reign To make an offering to Heaven at the Wolf Mountain Ended in fleeing away from the north in a panic. Forty-three years later, I still recall, in gazing afar, The road to Yangzhou in the flames of war. But do I bear to look back? Beneath the shrine of Tuoba Tao, an alien invader, There rises the bustle of croaking crows and village drums. Why should anyone still ask the question: “Lian Po is old now; “But could he still eat much?”

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At the time, Xin Qiji was making preparations for the prospective Song-Jin war, but simultaneously he also felt considerable apprehension. In the song lyric, he expresses his feeling while integrating the historical relics of Jingkou, personal remembrances, and current situation. People from the past, Sun Quan, Lian Po, Emperors Wu (Liu Yu) and Wen (Liu Yilong) of the Song of the Southern Dynasties, loom side by side with the author himself in the space of the song lyric which tells the splendor, as well as the “panic,” in history, and also gazes at another act of history that may begin. The reader has nothing but admiration for its enormous implication and tremendous vitality. The two pieces in the above may be counted as the best known and most representative of Xin’s song lyrics, but when we talk about Xin Qiji’s reform of the song lyric of the Song, we are not referring to how he composed many works of this type only. The song lyric, as composed by Xin Qiji, is broadened thematically to the extent of almost without any restriction. Affairs of the state and the army, philosophy of life, scenes in the fields and gardens, customs and habits, daily life, friendship or romantic love, even inspirations from reading—anything that others write about in other literary forms, may be treated by him in the song lyric. Some of these may be inappropriate, but generally speaking, he opened up, in the wake of Su Shi, an even wider horizon for the song lyric. The style of Xin’s song lyric may be said as being characterized by the magnificent and unconstrained, but it is not simply that: in accordance with the changing content, subject matter and emotions, the artistic style of Xin’s song lyric varies in many different ways. As observed in Liu Kezhuang’s “Foreword to Xin Jiaxuan’s Works,” “The Master’s compositions, from those in the high-pitched thundering roll to those in the low-pitched humming ripple, run across the vast space and stand through millenniums in time. They are unprecedented ever since the beginning of the human race. Even the delicate and exquisite ones among them are not below the works of Yan the junior (Yan Jidao) and the young master Qin (Qin Guan).” For instance, the well-known “Scooping Up Fish” is so exquisite in style in writing about the feeling of carpe diem in spring and the lament of the court lady, and using it as an analogy for the author himself in expressing his grief and indignation at being repeatedly assailed. Many of his pieces which describe the scenes in the countryside and the life of the peasants show their strength in their simple beauty and vivaciousness. “Peach and plum in the city suffer in wind and rain; / But spring is found in the flowers of the shepherd’s purse by the village streams” (“Partridges in the Sky”),

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 537 “Seven or eight stars high up in the distant sky; / Two or three drops of rain drip in front of the hills” (“Moon over the Western River”), lines in such plain but refreshing style are beyond the reach of the ordinary. We shall cite in the following his “Music of Peace and Serenity”: Eaves of the thatched shed are low and small; Grasses by the stream are ever so green. While drunk, the Wu dialect sounds so enchanting to my ear; Who are they: the white-haired old man and woman talking there? The eldest boy is hoeing the beans east of the stream; The second boy is weaving up a cage for roosters. What pleases me most is that little rascal—the little boy Who’s lying by the stream, shelling the lotus seedpod.

It is an extremely charming scene of countryside life. Among the Music Bureau poems of the Southern Dynasties, there is a set theme, “Quatrain of Three Young Wives,” which sets off the loveliness of the “youngest wife” with the behavior of the “eldest wife” and the “second wife.” Xin Qiji transformed that theme for the three young sons of a countryside family and breathed vitality into it, whereas the original source remains almost unseen. Xin Qiji also made tremendous pioneering effort in the use of language in the song lyric. It has been said before that Su Shi wrote the song lyric as poetry, and Xin Qiji wrote the song lyric as prose, which is not so accurate, but one can certainly see that the language of Xin’s song lyric is freer and quite unconstrained. The first characteristic of its language is its looseness in form and remarkable semantic coherence. Xin Qiji rarely, if ever, deliberately made his lines compact in meaning; he preferred to express the movement of his changing emotions in semantically coherent lines. Take the lines of “Chanting of Dragon in Water” as an example: “Up at the pavilion, in the setting sun, / Amid the cry of a wild goose that has lost its company, / The passenger in the Southland / Looks at his fine sword and / Taps all over the balustrades; / But there’s no one there who understands / What’s in his mind climbing up and looking down.” The lines are arranged according to the end rhymes as in the convention, but semantically they run coherently as a lengthy complete sentence, which represents the dramatic surging of the speaker’s emotions. The second characteristic of the language of Xin’s song lyric is its multifariousness—everything is fit for use, from the vernacular to the refined, from folk slang to sentence patterns in literary Chinese which incorporate many function

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words and auxiliary words. The third characteristic is the author’s fondness of using allusions and the set phrases and lines from previous poetry and prose. The numerous examples of entirely appropriate and perfectly natural usage of these greatly expand the connotations of the song lyric. Take, for example, the second stanza of the above-cited “Chanting of Dragon in Water: Ascending the Pavilion of Amusement at Jiankang.” It uses, in a row, the stories of Zhang Han, Liu Bei, and Huan Wen and, by resorting to the images of those historical figures, express the author’s mentality from many a different angle, making it extremely rich in implication. At the same time, such use also reveals Xin Qiji’s sense of history. To generalize in one sentence: with Xin Qiji, the song lyric, as a literary form, really moved into an unrestrained sphere and left extremely spacious room for development for later writers. At the time, Chen Liang and Liu Guo, who were among Xin Qiji’s acquaintances, were also close to Xin in terms of the style of song lyric. They have often been ranked, along with a few others, as “song lyric poets of the School of Xin.” However, they are distant from Xin Qiji in terms of artistic level.

3. Poetry and Song Lyric of the Late Southern Song Fan Chengda, Yang Wanli, Xin Qiji and Lu You, famous poets and song lyricists of the Middle Southern Song, passed away, one after another, in the span of more than a decade between 1193 and 1209, which marked the end of a literary period. Major political events that took place during this period also exerted considerable influence on the tendency of literary changes. One of these was when the military campaign of northern expedition, launched by Han Tuozhou in the second year of Emperor Ningzong’s Kaixi reign (1206), suffered a devastating defeat, and the Southern Song gained temporary peace only under even more humiliating conditions. As a consequence, the dream of the recovery of the Central Plains, once cherished by the scholar-officials either serving in the government or leading a civilian’s life, became increasingly distant. There were still some who carried on the impassioned tone, overwhelmed with heroic spirit, as found in the works of Xin and Lu, but it was, after all, no longer so loud and clear. Another event was when, subsequently, Shi

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 539 Miyuan monopolized power at the court. He muzzled public opinion and carried out literary inquisitions, which led to the demoralization of social and intellectual culture. Literary writers of the Late Southern Song were mostly inferior in social status, so it was naturally much easier for them to make singing about their private sensibility to nature and season the focus of their composition. In terms of his lifetime Jiang Kui, who was younger than Xin and Lu though the year of his death was closer to theirs, could have been considered as a writer of the Middle Southern Song period, but his song lyric, characterized by its main themes in daily life and scenes of nature, its mild, indirect, and melancholy style of expression, and its meticulous attention to language and form, led to the direction of the development of the song lyric of the Late Southern Song. The “Four Ling’s,” whose years of activities were slightly later, also strengthened the pursuit of formal beauty in the field of poetry. Poetry composition of the Late Southern Song did not make high achievements, but it indicated a significant trend to break free from the mainstream of previous Song poetry and attempt to return to the convention of Tang poetry, which heralded the inclination to restore ancient ways and honor the Tang in the poetry of the Yuan and Ming dynasties. It was precisely against such a background that Yan Yu’s Canglang’s Remarks on Poetry, an important work in the history of literary theory, emerged. In discussing poetry, Yan Yu bases himself upon poetry’s fundamental nature of “chanting and singing about personal feeling,” and Biographies of Literary Authors from Fujian also summarizes Yan’s poetic theory in “clearing away praising and satirizing and indulging only in the representation of personality.” Throughout the entire book, Canglang’s Remarks on Poetry does not involve anything about poetry’s relation with Confucian morality and its function in politics and education. Instead it pays much attention to the art of poetry and from it, poetry’s inspiration for human heart, which was in direct opposition to the outlook on literature of the Lixue thinkers. Based on the above-cited belief, Yan Yu sharply criticizes the Jiangxi School as “making poetry out of mere written words, making poetry out of book learning, and making poetry out of argumentation,” and thenceforth, touches upon the universal defect of Song poetry, making the observation that “people of our dynasty value reasoning, but suffer from their idea and affective image,” and expressing considerable dissatisfaction with both Su Shi

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and Huang Tingjian. In exposing the main flaws of the Song poetry, Yan Yu’s criticism was quite forceful. At the same time, he borrowed the way of thinking as well as the language of Zen Buddhism in making the suggestion that, “Poetry finds a material of its own which has nothing to do with books; poetry has an interest of its own which has nothing to do with natural principle.” In his opinion, the secret of poetry composition lies in “wondrous enlightenment,” i.e., the intuitional experience that transcends rational cognition and logical analysis. He also sets poetry of the High Tang as the highest level, and makes the demand to reach an imaginative world of “antelopes that hang by their horns, leaving no track to follow,” a simple, natural, and sublime world, rich in meaning beyond words, that one cannot trace from specific writing and can only experience as a whole. With a keen eye he has come to realize that the conception and appreciation of poetry are different from logical thinking, and poetry is neither the result of accumulated knowledge, nor that of theoretical analysis, that poetic language, in its essence, is not explicative but suggestive. Compared to previous works, Canglang’s Remarks on Poetry involves, at greater depth, issues of poetry theory that are of more crucial importance, and it has exerted an enormous influence on both the practice of composition and poetic theory of later ages. Jiang Kui and Wu Wenying Born in the family of a junior bureaucrat, Jiang Kui (ca. 1155–ca. 1209) was known for his talent when he was young, but he tried his hand at quite a number of civil service examinations with no success. He was skilled in calligraphy and painting, very good at music, capable of writing poetry, song lyric and prose. He led a vagabond’s life as a civilian, and relied on the patronage of senior-ranking scholar-officials who were fond of literature and arts, making a living on their financial support in a status that was half way between friend and retainer. He once claimed that he “had been appreciated by all the so-called famous lords and great scholars in the world,” (Zhou Mi’s Rustic Talks from Eastern Qi) not without a sense of pride. However, it would be hard to lead a carefree and happy life under such circumstances, and a little reserve and aloofness from material pursuits were quite necessary to retain his dignity. Such a special way of living formed Jiang Kui’s character and also had an impact on the art of his song lyric. Fan Chengda remarked that Jiang’s “writing and personality are both like the refined scholars

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 541 of the Jin and Song” (Zhou Mi’s Rustic Talks from Eastern Qi), which obviously referred to his refined temperament; on the other hand, he had nothing to do with the aristocratic indulgence of the men of letters of the Jin and Song period. As for his song lyrics, they have often been evaluated as “refreshingly open,” which is roughly constituted by elements in four aspects. First, the emotions represented in these song lyrics mostly fall under the noble, unsullied, elegant, and refined sentiments of men of letters and scholar-officials, i.e., they involve very little of the worldly desires of all sorts, and also very little of gallant passions. Second, in the way of expression, they mostly seek meaning beyond words, and a free and natural grace and spell, and they avoid the blunt, direct touch. Third, the diction and imagery of these song lyrics are mostly not brightly-colored and grandiose, but are rather inclined to be quietly elegant. Fourth, the imaginative world of these song lyrics generally refrains from the cramped and packed space, and is mostly open and spacious. Accordingly, in his The Sources of the Song Lyric Zhang Yan described the style of Jiang’s song lyric as “A lonely cloud drifts by itself, leaving no track to follow,” and Zhou Ji, in his “Introduction to The Song Lyrics of Four Song Masters,” called Jiang “refreshingly strong,” and “unrestrained and open.” Jiang Kui wrote some song lyrics which expressed the concern and worry of the nation, but even the style of works under this category remains essentially that of his own. Take, for instance, the “Yangzhou Adagio” which he composed when he passed by Yangzhou in the third year of the Chunxi reign (1176): Famous capital city East of the Huai, fine scenic spots at “West of the Bamboos,” where I alight to have a brief stop on my trip’s first stage. Through “ten miles of spring wind” I have passed there is nothing except the verdant millet. Ever since the foreign horsemen spied from across the river and left, even the ruined pools and shady trees around here look too tired to tell about the war. It’s getting close to dusk now; bugles are blowing in the cold over there in the deserted city. Du Mu, the young master, loved the place; Yet were he to revisit today, he would surely be startled. Though he was skilled at his lines on the round cardamom and his dream of blue mansions was so nice, it would be hard for him to express such strong emotions.

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chapter fourteen The Twenty-Four Bridges are still around; and swaying in the heart of the waves is the cold moon, without a sound. My thoughts are on the red peonies by the bridge: for whom do they bloom, year after year?

The song lyric describes the desolate scene after the Jin troops invaded the south at Yangzhou, a famous city, and tells people’s fear of and weariness about war. As a contrast, it also cites the idea in Du Mu’s poems which praise the romance and prosperity of Yangzhou, strengthening the sense of sadness. In that year, Jiang Kui was in his twenties, but the song lyric does not show any excitement of a young man. All it reveals is a sense of helplessness and sighs of grief. The world it represents is a desolate one, and somewhat illusionary. It is a kind of psychological trauma left by the war, and also a reflection of the author’s personal character. In the year when he was thirty-seven years old, Jiang Kui was invited to live at Fan Chengda’s Stone Lake Villa, where he composed two song lyrics, “Subtle Fragrance” and “Sparse Shadows,” to the great admiration of Fan Chengda, who gave Xiao Hong (“Little Red One”), a singing-girl that he kept in the house, to him as his bride. On his way back from the villa, Jiang Kui wrote a poem, “Passing the Hanging Rainbow Bridge,” with the lines, “I composed a new song in enchanting rhymes; / Xiao Hong sang it softly, while I played the flute.” From the well-known romantic story in literary history, one may get a glimpse of Jiang’s way of life, and the two songs are among Jiang’s representative works. Let’s cite here his “Subtle Fragrance”: The moon, in bygone evenings: how many times did it shine on me playing the flute beside the plums? I woke up my lady fair and, in spite of the cold, picked flowers with her. Now, our poet, like He Xun, gets old, and even forgets how to compose his songs in the spring breeze. He regrets only that the few flowers beyond the bamboos would send its cold sweet scent over to the lavish banquet. The land by the river is quiet and still. I heave a sigh: it is too far to send a branch there while the snow begins to pile up at night.

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 543 Facing a jadeite cup, it’s easier to shed tears while the red blossoms remain silent in mutual memory. I always recall the places where we held our hands together, beneath the weight of thousands of trees, lies the cold azure of West Lake. And, petal by petal, all the blossoms are gone; when shall I ever see them again?

The content of the song lyric is roughly recalling the plum (Prunus mume) in the past, and also using the plum as an analogy for people. But, it is rather vague and indistinct, and there is no way to figure out whether those in the remembrance are real people or simply fictitious characters in the world of the song. The structure of the piece is wellwrought and elaborate. In the first stanza, it begins by connecting past and present through the moon and the plums. Then, it switches to the memory of picking plum flowers in the moonlight with “my lady fair,” and from there to the present, comparing himself to He Xun, saying that he fails to compose anything in spite of the beautiful sight. This is followed, however, by the observation that the fragrance of the plums keeps seeping into and inspiring one’s heart, making it impossible for the speaker to ignore them. In the second stanza, it makes a digression at the beginning, but immediately afterwards goes back to the speaker’s remembrance of his old acquaintance, and then unfolds another scene in the speaker’s memory, watching the plums while holding their hands together at the West Lake. Finally, it returns to the present, expressing a sense of pity that the plum flowers are dropping, petal by petal, and one has no idea when they will blossom again; what is subtly implied is that no one knows when the speaker will reunite with the person he holds in memory. Through the complete text, the song keeps swaying between past and present, and keeps expanding in the swaying. It is beautiful and suggestive, and almost hallucinatory. Song lyrics of this kind, which combine the description of things closely with the expression of feeling, and integrate fact and fiction, hold a considerable proportion among Jiang’s works, and they are also admired and modeled upon by later authors. The ever-changing and enchantingly uneven structure of “Subtle Fragrance” represents one of the characteristics of Jiang’s song lyrics. In addition, meticulous wording and syntax also constitute a special feature of Jiang’s song lyrics. The lines in “Yangzhou Adagio,” “and swaying in the heart of the waves / is the cold moon, without a sound,” describes the desolate solitude of the deserted city. The lines in “Subtle

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Fragrance,” “beneath the pressing of thousands of trees, / there lies the West Lake, in cold azure,” depicts the gracefulness of a stretch of drooping plum flowers after a snow. Also, the lines in “Crimson Lips,” “Several peaks suffer badly / while planning for the rain at sunset,” tries to bring about the atmosphere when, in between several scattered mountain peaks, clouds and fog gather before a pending rain. All these reveal a certain subtlety and minute observation in description. The use of verbs is particularly fresh and appropriate. Jiang Kui was well conversant with music. He was not only able to write song lyrics according to the prosody of the genre, but also revise old scores, and use various means to initiate new music scores, so as to write song lyrics based on them. Compared to the average song lyric authors, he had more advantage and liberty, as it was possible for him to choose longer or shorter lines, and words of different tones relatively freely, provided that he keep the sounds harmonious. It made it easier for him to write fine song lyrics. “Yangzhou Adagio” and “Subtle Fragrance,” cited in the above, are both based on his own musical compositions. Jiang Kui also enjoyed some reputation as a poet, and was later ranked among the “Poetic School of the Rivers and Lakes.” He was good at meticulous wording, rendering well-chosen diction and exquisite lines that notwithstanding sound quite natural and spontaneous. Some of his quatrains are quite elegant, sharing the same charm as his song lyrics. Take, for example, “Returning to Tiaoxi from the Stone Lake on New Year’s Eve”: Fine grasses show through sands; the snow is half melt; At the Wu palace it’s cold and misty; waters spread far. The plum flowers remain unseen inside the bamboos; All night, they send their sweet scent across the stone bridge.

The other famous song lyric master of the Late Southern Song was Wu Wenying (year of his birth and that of his death unknown), who belonged to a later generation than Jiang Kui. Like Jiang Kui, he never had an official career all life, and he was a retainer of such high officials like Jia Sidao, Wu Qian and Shi Zhezhi, etc. Among his song lyrics, many of those composed for social purposes and in exchanges with others are insignificant. Some of the pieces which recall the romantic love in the past are better written. Wu Wenying, also conversant with music, paid much attention to the musical features of the song lyric, and he was also able to write song

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 545 lyrics based on his own musical compositions. On the other hand, the style of his song lyric is remarkably different from that of Jiang Kui. If Jiang Kui’s song lyric is characterized by the elegant, unrestrained, and open, then Wu Wenying’s is characterized by the elaborate, exquisite, and suggestive. Generally speaking, Wu Wenying’s song lyric holds the following special features: it is brighter and more brilliant in color, more densely arranged in imagery, and is fond of using substitute expressions (as the use of “pieces of embroidery” for fallen petals in the subsequent example). It is semantically compact and the train of thought therein is often interrupted and elliptical, hence not so easy to understand. It holds some connection with the poetic style of Li Shangyin, etc. In the history of the song lyric, it continued in the wake of Wen Tingyun and Zhou Bangyan with some of its own variations. Let us use his “Clouds across the River: Qingming Festival on the West Lake” as an illustration: Red with blushing: knitting the brows for gentle melancholy, not falling yet in the evening wind, though, some pieces of the embroidery already dot the thick green mattress. Old embankments split like swallow’s tails; cassia-wood oars, light sculls: holding my jewel-bridled horse still, I stand in the remaining snow. Through thousands of silk threads, in the doleful color of emerald, I go along the road, gradually, that leads to the fairy’s castle and the ford where one gets lost. How heartrending to see, through the flowers, her slender waist from the back of her silhouette. I walk back and forth: to write something on the door to show my regret? or to drop my shoes to keep some connection open? It’s too hard to count on the next appointment. only by now I’ve begun to see that one gets emotional because of vision that one’s waist gets thinner due to the spring season. Tomorrow’s affairs are like the cold dreary mist that envelops the entire lake where wind and rain are so disheartening. Hills sink into darkness; limpid waves, in light green color, leave no trace behind.

This song lyric recalls how he made acquaintance with a singing-girl in Hangzhou. It resorts to ornate diction, but the spatial and temporal

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relations, and the transition between and movement of people, scenes, and feelings are not very clear; this could not help but make it strike the reader as quite obscure in meaning. On the other hand, a close reading of the text may reveal considerable emotional implications through its evasive and elliptical gracefulness. Evaluations of Wu Wenying in later ages, either positive or negative, are often contradictory to each other. In The Sources of the Song Lyric, Zhang Yan observes that Wu’s works are “like a tower, made of the seven jewels, that dazzles people’s eyes, but once it is set apart, it shatters into a thousand pieces.” Zhou Ji, in his The Song Lyrics of Four Song Masters, sings the praise: “Mengchuang’s (Wu Wenying) song lyric, with its creative imagination and outstanding beauty, either rises high up the sky or dives deep into an abyss. It turns away from the artlessness and transparency of the Southern Song and assumes the luxuriance and intimacy of the Northern Song.” The strength of Wu Wenying’s art of song lyric lies in his ability to compose extremely well-wrought lines that allow somewhat massive implications and provide an extremely colorful world of imagination and mystifying atmosphere. Also, just as Zhou Ji has remarked, in this type of song lyric, the luxuriance of its diction is related to the intimacy of its expression of feeling. On the other hand, considering that in Wu’s song lyric, the train of thought is so extremely obscure that it sometimes becomes perplexing to the reader, making it too toilsome for him to understand the surface meaning, Zhang Yan’s criticism is not without its reason, though it is perhaps too harsh in its disapproval. Wu Wenying was fond of writing song lyrics based on long tunes. His three songs to the tune of “Prelude of the Trilling of a Warbler,” all in four stanzas with a total number of two hundred and forty Chinese characters, are of an unprecedentedly large scale among song lyrics. They not only demonstrate the author’s competence at elaboration, but also indicate an inclination to seek full expression of feeling in the form. The Four Ling’s of Yongjia and the School of the Rivers and Lakes During the reigns of Emperors Ningzong and Lizong of the Southern Song, Chen Qi, a book merchant of Hangzhou, became a key figure in the poetic circle. It was a remarkable phenomenon in literary history. As a rich merchant and a poet, Chen Qi liked to befriend refined men of letters and to print poetry collections. He also often lent books, or

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 547 gave books as presents, to others. His bookstore turned into a hub of communication and contact for poets. Ye Yin, in his poem “Presented to Chen Yunju (Chen Qi),” described him: “When he got some books, he would like to share them with people in the world; / When he selected poems, they have long been chanted by his civilian friends,” He also praised Chen, “In the world of the rivers and lakes, he has been pointed out as a compass,” which indicated Chen’s place in the mind of the so-called “Poets of the Rivers and Lakes.” From the important groups of poets of the Late Southern Song, Chen Qi published Selected Poems by the Four Ling’s edited by Ye Shi, and he also collected and selected some poet’s collections, and published them under the general title of Collections of Rivers and Lakes. Subsequently he also published the Second Collections and Supplementary Collections of Rivers and Lakes. These are sometimes known under the general title of Poetry Collections of Rivers and Lakes. Respectively, the “Four Ling’s of Yongjia” and the “School of the Rivers and Lakes” were not the same, though in a wide sense the former were also classified as “Poets of the Rivers and Lakes.” The “Four Ling’s of Yongjia” refer to the four poets, Zhao Shixiu, Xu Ji, Xu Zhao, and Weng Juan. They were all natives of the region of the ancient Yongjia prefecture (around Wenzhou, Zhejiang today). The word “Ling” was used either in their style or in their literary name, hence the name. The four of them either served only at extremely low positions or never served in the government all life. Their theory of poetry was directly opposed to that of the Jiangxi School. They were against poetry composition based on book learning, but neither would they follow in the wake of the “Style of Chengzhai” and make it too light and easy. Instead they modeled upon Jia Dao and Yao He, and advocated “painstaking maneuvering.” Their poems, accordingly, are primarily pentasyllabic regulated verse in form, and mostly about scenes of nature in subject matter. They are fond of representing a kind of aloof and refined flavor of life in a remote and still world of imagination. In their poetry composition, the “Four Ling’s” engaged in meticulous, painstaking maneuvering, and some of their poetic lines are quite ingenious. For instance, the following lines are able to produce exquisite sensations: from Zhao Shixiu, “The land is quiet: soft is the sound of the fountain; / The climate is cold, red is the setting sun” (“Above the Moat”), from Xu Ji, “The hall is still: dim is the lantern’s light; / Sutras are incomplete: hollow is the sound of the bell” (“Putting up at the

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Buddhist Temple”), from Weng Juan, “A few monks return; looking like visitors; / A single Buddha statue has crumbled into mere clay” (“Straw Cape Temple at Xinzhou”), and from Xu Zhao, “Thousand of mountain peaks stand through the end of the rain; / A single wild goose brings with it the autumn season” (“An Inspiration in the Mountains”). However, their poems are mostly restrained in feeling, with rather limited world of imagination, and they often repeat and echo one another in imagery and diction, so they could hardly be highly creative. The “Four Ling’s” became well-known because of Ye Shi’s recognition, but later even Ye Shi criticized them for “restraining their feeling and personality, and standing out because of their limits” (“Inscribed on Liu Qianfu’s Poetry Manuscripts from the Southern Mountain”). Zhao Shixiu enjoyed the highest fame among the four, and his poetry is somewhat more remarkable in features. His heptasyllabic quatrain, “Appointment with a Friend,” is widely known for its aesthetic appeal: In the season of the yellow plum, it’s raining at every house; At the pond among green grasses, frogs are everywhere. The appointment broken; no one comes. It has past midnight; Idling I tap the game pieces aboard, dropping candlewick snuff.

The “Four Lings” were only a small group of minor poets, but they were quite influential at the time. It was because they represented an effort that turned away from the mainstream of the style of Song poetry and returned to the convention of Tang poetry, and their assiduous attention to the formal beauty of poetry was also significant in stemming the corrosive influence of the orthodox Confucian view of literature. Accordingly, notwithstanding their modest achievements, they made a noticeable link in the evolution of the entire history of poetry. The so-called “School of Rivers and Lakes” got the name from Chen Qi’s publication of the Collections of Rivers and Lakes. These poets were in fact a group with very loose connections. Among them, Jiang Kui was not only older in generation, but also had no dealings whatsoever with Chen Qi and others; nor did they ever make any proposal of poetic theory that was widely acknowledged. Strictly speaking, then, they did not make a school of poetry. In general, these poets mostly had the experience of leading a civilian life of wandering among “rivers and lakes,” and most of them did not like the style of the Jiangxi School, which became a common feature. The best known of this group of poets were Dai Fugu and Liu Kezhuang.

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 549 Dai Fugu (1167–?) wandered all round as a civilian all his life. Quite a few of his poems reflect people’s misery and criticize the government, such as “Lament from the Weaving Woman,” “Composed in the Year of Gengzi (1240): Successive Years of Famine” etc., which are quite pungent in pointing out and reprimanding ills of the times. As regards the art of poetry, he maintains: “It must come out from my own mind, / And never is it to follow in the wake of others” (“Ten Quatrains on Poetry”), and argues that one should learn widely from others without focusing on anyone among them. In terms of form, most of his compositions are in pentasyllabic regulated verse, but they are not restricted to it as he also wrote in the song form, pentasyllabic old form, and both pentasyllabic and heptasyllabic regulated verse. He was not so meticulous on language like the “Four Ling’s;” instead he often resorts to the use of the vernacular and slangs. (His song lyric, “Looking across Jiangnan: A Self-Ridicule” contains the line, “It doesn’t matter when Du Fu uses the vulgar in his diction.”) They sound crude at times, but sometimes they achieve a simple vigor in easy, plain language and are quite accomplished. Fine illustration of that may be found in the two couplets from his “Zhao Yongfu from the Three Mountains Ancestral Shrine Asked me about My Recent Poems . . .”), “Gain and fame: the two wheels that keep spinning. / Past and present: they unite into one when I lean on the railing. / Along the spring waters: one ferry beside another ferry; / In the setting sun: mountains beyond mountains.” For another example, there is the following “Putting up for the Night at a Peasant’s”: With an umbrella as company I travel all by myself. Throughout the spring, I have not changed my old clothes. In the rain, I walk across the yellow mud mountain slopes; By night, I knock on the white wood gate of the farmers. My body goes to sleep amid the noise of croaking frogs; My heart returns from a dream of the butterfly. Nine out of ten, my letters home will never arrive; North and south up the sky, the wild geese keep flying.

The poem provides a realistic account of his wandering life and emotions. Poems under this subject may easily adhere to Du Fu’s convention, but this poem is free from any trace of imitation and has an appeal of grace and intimacy. In his early years Liu Kezhuang (1187–1269) served as a junior official or on someone’s staff for many years. During the Chunyou reign he was granted the status equal to Metropolitan Graduate and

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he served all the way up to the Minister of Works. Among the group of poets known by the name “Rivers and Lakes,” he was among the rare ones who reached official distinction. At first he modeled on the “Four Ling’s” in poetry, but later he felt that they were too small in scale, so he learned widely from both Tang and Song masters. Liu Kezhuang seemed to be quite open-minded in his outlook on poetry. In his opinion, the poetry of the Tang authors was fine, but that of the great masters of his “own dynasty” was just as fine, and he had no preference for one or the other. As for the strengths of his own poetry, it is greater in scale, more broad-minded in manner, more diversified in subject matter, and it more frequently involves critical social issues. In terms of its weakness, it does not show much of his own personality; and also, due to his eager desire to be more productive, there are quite a number of unpolished pieces. The poem “Black Rock Mountain,” cited as follows, is simple and graceful in recalling his childhood and expressing his feeling about life: In childhood, when we played truant from school, I often came here; One by one, I remember and revisit all the places I frequented. To get wet and play with fish, we went into the water in a group; To hear the sound of knocking on rocks, we raced in ascending the peak. To recall all such things of old, there is only one old man, my neighbor; What have hastened the passing of our green years are the evening bells. After all, in this world of ours, what really enjoys a long life? In front of the temple, thunder struck down the hundred-year-old pine.

Liu Kezhuang was also known for his song lyric, the style of which was under Xin Qiji’s influence. However, like most of those who modeled on Xin’s song lyric, he had the weakness of mistaking the rough and careless as the bold and uninhibited. As a key figure of the School of Rivers and Lakes, the book merchant Chen Qi also wrote some fine poems. Take his “Buying Flowers” as an example: This morning, feeling fresh, I walked with a brisk step, Holding my stick I idly went to the front court. Something amid the noise of the market held an appeal, I bought some autumn flowers to put in a little vase.

Not so refined in diction, it is realistic and graceful in revealing life’s appeal in a daily trifle. The line “noise from the market held an appeal,” interestingly, reminds us of the author’s status as a merchant. In addition, Ye Shaoweng was not counted as a famous one among Poets of Rivers and Lakes, but his beautiful and philosophical poem, “A Trip

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 551 to a Garden Which Happened to be Closed,” is a piece known even to women and children: They should have pitied us: our clogs leaving tracks on the green moss. We tapped the thatched door softly for a long time, to no avail. The spring view that fills the garden is not to be closed inside: A twig of red apricot comes out from above the walls.

Zhou Mi, Zhang Yan, and Wang Yisun Zhou Mi, Zhang Yan and Wang Yisun were all song lyric poets who lived from the Song through the Yuan dynasty. They sang the swan song of the Song song lyric in a refreshing, gentle but melancholy tone. Zhou Mi (1232–1298) served at a regional post during the Song, but when the Yuan dynasty superseded he never served in the government again. He was named along with Wu Wenying as the “Two Windows,”3 but the style of his song lyric was actually quite different from that of Wu Wenying, and closer to that of Jiang Kui. On the other hand, while his song lyric shared the same special features as that of Jiang Kui in being refreshing, beautiful, and plaintive, it is not as exquisite and delicate. Here we shall cite his “Autumn in the Jade Capital”: Vast are the misty waters. Tall trees in the forest are playing with the setting sun, And sadly chirp the cicadas by dusk. Rhythmic: laundry beating at the dark stone slab; Falling leaves are drifting over the silvery well curb. My clothes get damped, in the shade of phoenix trees, from the cold dew. Picking cool reed catkins, I compose, at times, lines of autumn snow. I sigh over how easily we parted; All the private emotions that fill my mind Only crickets can tell. A passenger on road, I’m afraid to hear the autumn sounds. Long is the song of lament; The marble pot, unknowingly, got broken. The emerald fan gets disfavored; Fragrance fades from red robes; Everything has perished and worn away. My bones of marble stand in the west wind. I resent nothing more than

3 So called from their styles, respectively Mengchuang (“Dream Windows”) [Wu Wenying] and Caochuang (“Thatched Windows”) [Zhou Mi].

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chapter fourteen Idling away the season of the new coolness. The wailing sound of a southern flute: Who stands at the western tower in the faint moon?

This piece, composed before the downfall of the Song, expresses the melancholy while he lived as a visitor at Lin’an. One can feel therein the author’s frustration in life, but he tried his best to write about that in an implicit and roundabout manner, using visual images to set off his feeling. Compared to Jiang Kui’s song lyrics, it is not as multi-layered in meaning. Take, for instance, the description of scenes in the first stanza. It is certainly quite beautiful, but it only develops its ideas in one dimension. In his song lyrics after the downfall of the Song, there is more resentment about the conquered nation; they are deeper and stronger in emotions, and the connotation is clearer, as in his “A Single Red Calyx”: “Recalling my dreams of ever returning from the earth’s end; / I almost feel that my soul is flying to Western Riverside, / And I’m shedding tears at the Eastern Prefecture. / I face mountains and rivers of my homeland; / My heart and eye stick to my former garden; / I’m like Wang Can when he ascended the tower. / I have let down / Hair buns and hand mirrors, / Such fine rivers and mountains / For what reason do I come for a visit now?” However, this kind of emotion does not transform into a surging passion; what is expressed, instead, is more like a kind of helplessness and sentimentality. Zhang Yan (1248–?) was from a family of several generations of distinguished officials. In his early years he led the comfortable life of a young aristocrat. After the downfall of the Song he never served in the government, wandered all around, and lived in straitened circumstances until his death. Zhang Yan wrote The Sources of the Song Lyric, a famous study of the form. In his discussion of the song lyric, he had a high regard for Jiang Kui, and advocated the concept of “Sao-like elegance”4 and “refreshing openness.” He was able to share some of Jiang Kui’s strengths in his own compositions. He was skilled at using plain diction in an elaborate way and good at symbolism, expressing his feeling in a world of imagination half way between reality and illusion. Most of his extant song lyrics were written after the downfall of the Song; because of his family background, they often revealed a deep anguish about the conquered nation and sound quite melancholy. For example, his “Tall Sun

4

From Qu Yuan’s Li Sao (“On Encountering Trouble”).

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 553 Terrace,” which describes a spring dusk at the West Lake, begins in the conventional way of lamenting for the fleeting of the spring season, but then, step by step, plays up an ambience of desolation and forlornness. At the end, it concludes with the line, “I’m not in the mood to continue the dream of music and singing,” and even “I’m afraid to see flowers drifting and to hear the cuckoo’s cry,” revealing a deep sadness. His “Detaching a Chain of Rings: A Single Wild Goose” uses symbolism to describe an object: Over the southern river it is empty and dark. How regretful: to be away from company by thousands of miles and sadly startled at the separation. Looking at its own shadow, it wants to descend to the cold pond where the sands are clear, the grass withers, and the waters extend all the way to the horizon. It fails to make a letter and can only send a tiny dot of my yearning for you. Due to its delay it misses to forward the message from the heart of an old friend who endures the snow with a broken felt blanket. Who will pity the wanderer’s continuous solitude and sorrow? All over the Tall Gate, it’s quiet at night; a silvery zither is playing out all the grief. It thinks about its partner that may still stay for the night by the reed catkins and also thinks about taking the return trip before spring arrives. Calling each other in the rain at dusk, they suspect that, all of a sudden they may meet again by the Jade Pass. Then they will feel as much pride as the swallows who fly back in a pair by the painted curtain, half rolled down.

A single wild goose, all alone by itself, living in agony and scare, and missing its company and partner, is exactly a representation of the author himself, who felt helpless and without a future in the upheaval of the age. Wang Yisun (years of birth and death unknown) served as a junior regional official when he lived into the Yuan dynasty. His best known song lyrics are those on things, which also hold the largest number among his extant pieces. In singing about objects, Wang shows striking characteristics: he always incorporates his own emotions in the

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description of the object or the elaboration of related allusions, and integrates the various elements or fragments into a coherent concept. The emotions that he expresses are subtle and complex; accordingly, the structure of his song lyrics is extremely circuitous, and the diction remarkably exquisite. Let us cite, for illustration, “Pleasure all under Heaven: Cicadas” as follows: Her regret lingers, though the soul of the palace lady is gone, year after year, in the green shade of the courtyard tree. Now it mourns on the cold branch, then it moves under dark leaves where it tells again, its deep sorrow in separation. A rain passes by the western window; how strange: jade pendants ring in the sky, and the string posts of a marble zither are being adjusted. The mirror has turned dark; make-ups, worn-out; for whom should one keep such lovely hair on the temples? The bronze immortal seems to be all in leaden tears, sighing over the plate being far removed making it hard to contain the dew drops. Its wings have got ill through the autumn, its emaciated shape has seen this world, how many more times will it face the setting sun? The lingering sound is even more miserable why should it, all alone, sing such sad tunes which create all the overwhelming grief? In vain does it think about the warm southern wind in which thousands and thousands of willow twigs dance.

The song lyric involves his nostalgia for the former nation and his grief over his personal misfortune. At the same time, it also blends a feeling of how time brings great changes, the realization that events in the world are unpredictable and vicissitudes are beyond human control. However, on the surface of the text, it never deviates from the imagery and relevant allusions of cicadas, and the implications take turns being apparent or obscure. Perhaps the choice of such a way of presentation was not primarily due to the pressure of circumstances (the rulers of the Yuan dynasty did not really care for this kind of literary works), but rather because of the contradictions and distress in his mind. The use of language, in telling one’s yearning for the former nation and the anguish in one’s heart, also becomes a force of relief.

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 555 Wen Tianxiang and Wang Yuanliang During the days when the Southern Song came to its end, Wen Tianxiang, as a martyr for the state, and Wang Yuanliang, as an adherent to the former regime, wrote the last poems of the Song dynasty in different tones. When he was twenty years old, Wen Tianxiang (1236–1283) was ranked first in the examinations for Presented Scholar. When the main forces of the Mongolian army moved close to Lin’an, he was appointed as Prime Minister on the Right and concurrently as Military Affairs Commissioner. Afterwards he was sent to the Yuan troops as an envoy for negotiation, and he was held in custody. Later he managed to escape out of danger and returned to the south, where he continued activities in an attempt to restore the state, but he was defeated, captured again, and sent to Dadu (Beijing today) where he was imprisoned for four years. Eventually he was executed because he refused to capitulate to the new regime. Wen Tianxiang was aware of the harsh fact that the downfall of the Southern Song was irretrievable. He was even not opposed to his own relative’s choice to serve in the Yuan dynasty, and considered that morally speaking, each of them had a different option.5 Notwithstanding that he still persisted in his own choice in life, which was to spare no effort in one’s duty, and then to follow that up with death. Such a noble personality and spirit are strongly represented in his related poems, as in the famous “Crossing the Solitary Bay”: Destined to live in a time of hardship, I rose with the help of a classic; Weapons of war have been sparse and scattered for four cycles of the stars. Mountains and rivers are split and broke: catkins cast in wind; My life experience flutters and sways: duckweed lashed by rain. At the Terrifying Shoal I talk about being terrified; In the Solitary Bay I lament my own solitude. Since ancient times, every human life ends with death; I’ll leave behind my loyal heart to shine in the book of history.

5 [Original Note] For example, in his poem presented to his second younger brother Wenbi (who served in the Song dynasty but surrendered to the Yuan), “I Heard that Jiwan Had Arrived,” he used the line “Each of the three of us, to live or to die, has his own purpose,” to refer to the different choices of the brothers. Also, in his “Family Letters from the Prison” he also observed that “Either for loyalty or for filial piety, each serves his own purpose.”

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The poem blends into one unity the distress for his personal lot and the sorrow at the peril of the nation. All kinds of complicated feelings like grief, pathos, agitation, and despair are interwoven together, making it extremely appealing to the reader. His “Song of the Noble Spirit” uses the deeds of a series of historical figures to praise the awe-inspiring integrity of those who would not yield to power or get bewildered by wealth and rank, and states that the author would like to resort to the “Noble Spirit” to defend himself against the erosion of all kinds of evil forces in the prison and to keep intact his personality. It has also become a widely cited famous text in the history of poetry. Wang Yuanliang was a musician who served as an Attendant of the imperial palace. After the Yuan eliminated the Song, he was captured along with the Song imperial family and sent to the north. Later he became a Taoist priest, and returned to Qiantang in the south. No one knew how he died. Under the special circumstances, his ten “Songs of Intoxication,” twenty “Songs of Yuezhou,” and ninety-eight “Songs of Huzhou,” adopt the form of the series of heptasyllabic quatrains. Each quatrain is about one event. They respectively tell how the imperial family of the Southern Song surrendered, how the warfare destroyed the society of Jiangnan, and also what he saw and heard during his trip to the north. With these he won the reputation of being the “Poet Historian of the Downfall of the Song.” (See Li Jue’s “Colophon to Categorized Manuscripts from the Lakes and Mountains”) Poems of this type mostly use plain language to describe and narrate, but they often reveal severe trauma, as in one of the “Songs of Intoxication”: With a series of chaotic beats the night watch came to an end; Blazing torches shone in the court while we waited for daybreak. Palace attendants already drafted the petition of surrender For this humble imperial spouse to sign her name therein.

The poem provides a factual account of how Empress Dowager Xie signed the petition of surrender in humiliation, and it integrates all the satire, compassion, and sense of disgrace as a native of the Song. In addition, many of his poems use the form of recalling the past and lamenting the present to express the sorrow in his heart, as, for instance, in the grief-stricken lines of “Pengzhou”: “Forked roads extend into the boundless, in vain do we stretch our eye; / Rise and fall, endless in history, seep into my sad heart,” or the lament in “Platform for a Horse Show”: “I would like to mourn for the brave souls, but where are they? / Countless skulls and skeletons fill up the lengthy islet by the river.” Wang Yuanliang was not a poet of great learning, so the strength of his compositions does not lie in fine diction. However, it is impossible

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 557 for those who have never had any personal experience to bring out the realization of how time brings great changes and the anguish about the conquered nation in these poems.

4. Fiction and Drama of the Song Dynasty The development of the city and the commerce of the Song dynasty had an impact on literature in many aspects. In the above, we have mentioned the relation between the performance of the singing girls in the city and the spread of the song lyric and that between the book merchant’s publication of poetry collections and the trends of poetry, but what was more remarkable than these was how the literature of the townspeople was stimulated into prosperity. As recorded in the occasional jottings of the Song authors, in cities, with Bianjing, capital of the Northern Song and Lin’an, capital of the Southern Song, as centers, places for entertainment known as the “tiled sheds” (wa she) were widely constructed. Inside these “tiled sheds” there were also several “curved complexes” ( gou lan) where all and sundry performing arts were put on, among which the two most important items were variety play and “story-telling (shuo hua),” which forcefully speeded up the development of classical drama and vernacular popular fiction. Fiction in classical language written by men of letters also had some new changes because of the influence of the literature of the townspeople. The Art of Story-Telling and Popular Fiction of the Song Dynasty “Story-telling,” as a performing art, already existed during the Tang dynasty. From data of the Song dynasty, we know that story-telling as performance was already popular among the commoners at the time. Both Meng Yuanlao’s Dreams of Splendor of the Eastern Capital and Naide Weng’s Wonders of the Capital City keep the record of the names of classifications of story-telling of the Song dynasty. Among these, the most important categories are “small talk (xiao shuo)” and “retelling of history (jiang shi).”6 As recorded in Zhou Mi’s Things Bygone in Wulin, just at a single location, Lin’an, there were some fifty-two well-known

6 [Original Note] Wonders of the Capital City divides the “story-telling” into four categories, but due to the obscurity of the original text, the names of the other two have been controversial. According to the classification of Lu Xun’s A Concise History of Chinese Fiction, they are “Sutra stories (shuo jing)” and “combined lives (he sheng).”

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performers of small talks; as for established history-tellers, there were also twenty-three of them. What consists of the basic texts used by story-tellers and stories modeled upon such texts was the huaben (“prompt book” or “vernacular story”) fiction. The earliest of extant huaben was published in the Yuan dynasty; hence it is difficult to discuss vernacular fiction of the Song dynasty in any specific details. (Popular Fiction in the Capital Edition, which was once believed to include huaben of the Song dynasty, is considered by many scholars as a forgery of Miu Quansun, its “discoverer.” It is by and large confirmed.) However, according to records from documents, some of the content of the huaben printed in the Yuan dynasty was, without question, already in circulation during the Song. Among the collections of huaben fiction compiled in the Ming dynasty, some texts are clearly stated to have originated from the works of Song authors; this may also serve as an indirect channel of examination. For instance, in Common Words to Caution the World, under the title of the story, “Editorial Assistant Cui: Lovers and Foes in Life and Death,” it is noted: “A story from the Song entitled as ‘Jade Avalokiteśvara.’ ” In Constant Words to Awaken the World, under the title of the story, “Fifteen Strings of Coins: Words of Joking Turned by Chance into a Disaster,” it is noted: “Entitled as ‘Cui Ning Wrongly Beheaded’ in the Song edition.” Even if the texts of the stories were rewritten, the main characters and the basic storyline should have been existent. (Otherwise there was no need to make that kind of explanation.) From the characterization and storyline of these two stories, one can get a strong flavor of the life of townspeople. In particular, “Jade Avalokiteśvara” tells how a “nursing maid” in a prince’s household takes resolute action to court a “jade craftsman” in the same household. After she is beaten to death, her ghost still returns to live together with the man she loves, and when she has no other alternative, she would rather seize him to join her in becoming a ghost. Her passionate personality is quite appealing. In short, while we know very little of the facts about the vernacular popular fiction of the Song dynasty, it certainly exerted considerable influence on the development of this type of fiction. Classical-Language Fiction of the Song Dynasty Classical-language fiction written by men of letters of the Song dynasty may still be roughly divided into two categories, the zhi guai (“tale of the supernatural”) and the chuan qi (“tale of the marvelous”). In

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 559 Writings from the Shaoshi Mountain Lodge, Hu Yinglin of the Ming dynasty has discussed the difference between the classical-language stories of the Tang and the Song, and he observed: “From the Tang authors and in earlier times, narratives are mostly fictitious, and they are more embellished in language. From the Song authors and in later times, stories contain more facts, but they are not as enriched in language.” Generally speaking, the somewhat universal weakness of the classical-language stories of the Song dynasty lies in poorer imagination, excessively plain language, and inclusion of more moral lessons. As for the cause of that, Lu Xun has remarked that it was because “men of letters were used to prudishness.” (A Concise History of Chinese Fiction) Take, for example, “Biography of the Green Pearl” by Yue Shi: notwithstanding that it is written in the chuan qi form, it is quite simple in storyline, contains a great deal of moral lesson, and also, as Lu Xun has pointed out, is “stern and cold” in attitude. (Same as above) However, some of the works among classical-language stories of the Song dynasty showed a tendency to get close to the vernacular “story-telling,” which is worthy of notice. For instance, the four stories about Emperor Yang of the Sui, “Supplementary Records of the Daye Reign,” “An Account of the Sea and Mountains of Emperor Yang of the Sui,” “An Account of How Emperor Yang Opened the Canal,” and “An Account of the Labyrinth of Emperor Yang of the Sui,” are remarkable examples. The authors of these stories are unknown; some claimed to be from the Tang dynasty, but Lu Xun, in A Concise History of Chinese Fiction, considers them to be from the Song. The stories primarily describe how Emperor Yang, who indulged himself in pleasures, was negligent in governing, which led to his fall and death, but the storylines are mostly fictitious, and their purpose has nothing to do with serious political denouncement. Lu Xun has observed: “Sovereigns who indulged in pleasures are not what people in the world like to live under but what they like to talk about. People in the Tang Dynasty loved to talk about Xuanzong; during the Song, they added Emperor Yang of the Sui.” The interest in the imaginary life of the emperor lies at the core of these stories. On the other hand, when these stories depict Emperor Yang’s grief in the face of his downfall, they are permeated with a universal sentimentality about life’s precariousness. For instance, in “An Account of the Labyrinth,” it tells how Emperor Yang, on one evening while in Jiangdu, hears some palace ladies sing a children’s folk rhyme which implies that the imperial Yang family is falling and the Li family is rising. He drinks some wine and sings a song

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to himself: “In the dark shade of the palace trees, swallows are flying; / Rise and fall, going on since the antiquity, are still quite saddening. / Some day from now, the labyrinth will have even prettier views: / In the palace, the overwhelming gorgeous will shine in red glow.” There is a strong sense of sad premonition, that the labyrinth will change its ownership, and that even if there will be “even prettier views,” they will all belong to others. Because of the attention to the reader’s interest, these stories often excel in the description of details, as in the following section from “Supplementary Records of the Daye Reign”: As a tribute, the city of Chang’an presented a girl for the emperor’s pleasure in the carriage, Yuan Bao’er. Fifteen years old, she had slim, drooping waist and limbs, and she was lovely, innocent, and extremely beautiful in her various postures. The emperor loved her very much and treated her very well. . . . At the time, Yu Shi’nan was writing a draft of “An Edict of the Sound of Virtue for the Commander of the Military Campaign against Liao” by the side of the emperor; Bao’er gazed at Shi’nan for a long time. The emperor said to Shi’nan: “In the past, it was said that Feiyan could dance on someone’s palm, and I often considered it to be just some fancy writing from literary men. How could any human being manage to do that? Now that I have obtained Bao’er, what took place in the past has been confirmed. However, she often shows a silly naivety. Now, she keeps her eyes on you. You are such a talented man. Why not poke some fun at her?” Answering the emperor’s demand, Shi’nan composed a quatrain: “Mid-way through learning to dab on yellow face powder / With drooping shoulders and loose sleeves she looks too naive. / Her naivety is what wins the sovereign’s tender pity, / So she gets to hold a flower twig and walks next to the imperial carriage.” His Majesty was greatly pleased.

Just as Lu Xun has observed, such description may be considered fine writing with a charming grace. (See A Concise History of Chinese Fiction) The stories mentioned in the above, taken as a whole, had a close relation with the popularity of “retelling of history” among the commoners. The subsequent Accounts of the Sui and Tang Annals and Romance of the Sui and Tang were precisely completed by further elaboration on such a basis. Among classical-language fiction of the Song dynasty, quite a number of works that depict the life of commoners share similar characteristics with the huaben fiction. For instance, “Zhang Hao: Marrying Miss Li under the Flowers,” included in Grand Talk behind Latticed Windows, serves as an illustration. The story’s author remains unknown. It tells

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 561 how Zhang Hao, who likes a young woman of the Li family for her beauty, makes an engagement with her in private, and the woman asks Zhang for a poem written by him in his own handwriting as a proof. Later, Zhang Hao’s uncle plans to marry Zhang to someone else, and the woman from the Li family brings a lawsuit and presents to the government the proof that she has obtained, which is validated, and she eventually marries Zhang Hao. The story was written in a rough and crude way, and the storyline not so rational. However, it regarded the engagement made by a man and a woman all by themselves in private as a rational and even legal basis for marriage, which was the kind of concept of marriage frequently found in popular literature of later ages, and it also reflected a taste of the marketplace. In format, the story is cluttered up with poems and song lyrics in the course of its narration, which is also close to the extant huaben stories. Quite a few texts from Grand Talk behind Latticed Windows are in such a format, so some scholars have called them “Stories in the Huaben Style.” Notwithstanding if it is a precise way to call them that, one may be certain that this type of stories had a close relation with “story-telling” and “story script.” In brief, while the classical-language stories of the Song dynasty were artistically inferior, they showed some new features in their interaction with popular literature, which made an important phenomenon in the history of literature. Precisely because of that, popular literature of later ages, from time to time, looked for source material therein. For instance, the stories from “Su Xiaoqing” and “Biography of Wang Kui,” from Luo Ye’s Tattle from the Drunken Old Man, have been perennially adopted in drama ever since the Yuan dynasty. Drama of the Song Dynasty From the perspective of literary history, sophisticated dramatic literature did not appear until the Yuan dynasty. However, in the course of the development of traditional Chinese drama, the Song dynasty also made an important stage. Prior to the Song dynasty, the “adjutant play” of the Tang and the Five Dynasties already contained some elements of drama. The adjutant play had two types of role, the “adjutant (can jun)” and the “dark eagle (cang gu),” one major and the other secondary, whose performance, through dialogues and movements, contain humorous and comical contents. Modern performing arts like the cross-talk (xiang sheng)

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and one-man comic show (dujiao xi) still bear some similarities with it. Some of the adjutant plays were also performed in the form of singing. Drama of the Song dynasty was called the “variety play (za ju).” According to the record in Zhou Mi’s Things Bygone in Wulin, the name was “official-version variety play.” Like “story-telling,” it was the most important performing art at the tiled sheds and curved complexes, and they were also performed in the palace and at the banquets of government officials. What was known as “variety” or “miscellany” (za) in the term “variety play” implied variegation and referred to its multifarious forms, which roughly fell under two major types: the comic play which had developed from the adjutant play, and the musical. The latter had some connection with the adjutant play, though it had changed greatly and gradually turned into the major form of the variety play of the Song dynasty. Things Bygone in Wulin recorded two hundred and eighty titles of the official-version variety plays of the Song dynasty, and according to Wang Guowei’s research in his A History of Song and Yuan Drama, more than a hundred of them used “great tunes,” a large-scale musical score with both singing and dancing. In addition, some of the several tens of them, which adopted the medley, Buddhist songs, or song lyrics, were perhaps also musicals. However, the performance of the musical also contained comical elements. Hence Wu Zimu’s Notes from the Golden Millet Dream remarked that “the variety play entirely uses fiction and focuses on the comical.” Since it was an art form that aimed at amusement, it was important to make it interesting to the audience. In fact, even in the variety play of the Yuan dynasty, impromptu gestures and remarks of a comical nature were still indispensable. No text of the variety play of the Song dynasty has survived, so we are unclear about its contents in performance. We could only make some general supposition from the title of some of such plays. For example, “Cui Hu in Six Refrains” should have been a performance based on the story of Cui Hu’s poem about “peach flowers and a lady’s face.” However, according to the documentation of Notes from the Golden Millet Dream, in its performance it had a total number of four or five fixed roles, which could even be increased when needed. It indicated that the variety play of the Song dynasty should contain somewhat complex storyline, and was different from the simple comic like the adjutant play. Although the characteristic of persona format was not yet clearly defined, it was in the process of transformation in that direction.

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 563 5. Literature of the Jurchen Jin Dynasty The Jurchen Jin dynasty was established on the rapid rise of nomadic tribes. The Jurchen (Nüchen or Nuchen) written language did not begin to take form until after Wanyan Aguda proclaimed himself an emperor, which showed how weak their inherent cultural basis was. However, during the more than a hundred years when it controlled the Central Plains, the Jurchen ruling class gradually merged with the scholar-officials of the Han nation, and formed a culture with the Han culture as its main body but also containing various elements. Compared to the culture of the Southern Song of the same age, it had its own characteristics. In terms of literature, although we are unable to have a comprehensive view due to the insufficiency of documentation, the significance of some of its special features in the entire history of Chinese literature is still quite evident. Yuan Haowen and the Poetry and Song Lyric of the Jurchen Jin Not too many of the men of letters of the Jin left behind their collections of literary writings. Their poems and song lyrics were preserved primarily in the Collection of the Central Provinces and the attached Music Bureau of the Central Provinces compiled by Yuan Haowen. Men of letters of the early Jin period included in Collection of the Central Provinces had all lived in the Song before they lived under the Jin regime. Among them, Yuwen Xuzhong and Gao Shitan were known for their poetry, Wu Ji was skilled in both poetry and the song lyric, and Cai Songnian was at his best in the song lyric. They lived through the chaos of the downfall of the Northern Song, and served in a court of foreigners, so they could not help but feel much pain in their heart, and their works were often filled with pathos. Take, for example, Yuwen Xuzhong’s poem, “A Spring Day”: Lament not that it’s too late to enjoy spring north of the Huan River; In the third month, it’s still cold from the wind that brings the flowering. From afar, I recall that how, at this same time, in the Southland, Over the entire river the dark green waters flirt with the setting sun.

Wu Ji’s song lyric, “Someone under the Full Moon,” was inspired when he saw a palace lady captured and taken from the Northern Song at the banquet given by an official of the Jin court:

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chapter fourteen Over a thousand years in the Southern Dynasties tragic events occurred, But they are still singing “Flowers in the Backyard.” Swallows who used to stay at the halls of the Wang’s and Xie’s: now, whose house are they flying toward? It’s as if in a dream: her fairylike skin whiter than snow and her raven-black hair put up in buns. The “officer from Jiangzhou who wets his dark robe with tears” is likewise from the farther end of the sky.

This song lyric was quite popular in both the northern and the southern states. The sorrow in the text touched the heart-strings of many people. After the middle period of the Jin, the north and the south made peace and the society gradually became more stable. The situation for men of letters of Han nationality was also improved. In a generation who were born and brought up under the Jin reign, they did not feel the same sorrow and misery as their predecessors, so more of their poetry and song lyric became flowery and elegant. Su Shi and Huang Tingjian, famous poets of the Northern Song, had much influence on poets of this period. However, men of letters of the Jin were more liberal in thinking than those in the Southern Song, and the trend of the entire poetic circle was not that narrow-minded, and many of them proposed to learn more widely from previous ages. Gradually, they formed a tendency of honoring the past in taste. It was most noteworthy that in the discussions on poetry in the middle and late Jin period, there was an opinion which showed dissatisfaction with the inclination of rationalization in the poetry of the Jiangxi School and focused on the expression of emotions. For instance, Wang Ruoxu observed in his Poetic Remarks from South of the Hu River, “Genuine joy and sorrow that are generated from one’s personality make the right representation in poetry.” Li Chunfu has noted in his foreword to Liu Ji’s Collection from the Western Cliff, “The three hundred texts . . . are varied in size and length. They could be difficult or easy, heavy or light, however the author feels inclined. Even the sayings of laborers or housewives, inspired by their sorrow or indignation, feel no shame in mixing up with those of men of virtue and sages, as they all speak their respective mind.” (Cited in the “Liu Ji, the Western Cliff ” section of the Collection of the Central Provinces) Either in theory or in practice Yuan Haowen, who lived at the end of the Jin dynasty, took an entirely different road from the mainstream of the Song poetry.

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 565 Yuan Haowen (1190–1257) lived during an age when the Jin court declined and collapsed under the oppression of the Mongolian forces. Having served on local positions of country magistrate and others, he moved up to become a senior courtier. After the downfall of the Jin he no longer served in the government, devoting himself to poetry writing and the compilation of Jin documents. Yuan Haowen was the most outstanding poet of the Jin dynasty who gained great appreciation in later times. He authored a large amount of compositions discussing poetry, among which the thirty quatrains “On Poetry” are especially well-known. He spoke very highly of poets of previous ages, like the passion of Cao (Cao) and Liu (Zhen), the depth of Ruan Ji, or the sincerity of Tao Qian, but he was rather dissatisfied with Song poetry. In addition, he declared unequivocally: “On poetry, why should I bow down in front of Tingjian? / I would never be a member of the Jiangxi School.” Concise General Catalogue of the Four Treasuries considers Yuan Haowen’s literary style to be “lofty and archaic, poised and gloomy.” In general, his poetic taste shows an inclination towards a kind of simple vigor and majestic boldness that was determined by inner passion. Among Yuan Haowen’s poems, those that reflect the misery of warfare around the downfall of the Jin make the best kind. Zhao Yi of the Qing dynasty was referring to this kind when he observed enthusiastically, “Of the heroic and moving regulated poems since the Tang dynasty, with the exception of the more than ten texts of Du Fu, there have been absolutely nothing in continuation, but Yishan (Yuan Haowen) had something like that from time to time.” (Poetic Remarks from Oubei) Take, for instance the second of the three “Qiyang” poems: Around mountain passes and rivers difficult of access, weeds stand erect; For over ten years, the capital of Qin has been darkened by the dust of war. Looking west to Qiyang, one receives no message from the city; From over the east-flowing Long River, one hears the sound of wailing. Wild vines seem emotional, twining around the bones of the war dead; The setting sun: for what intention do you shine on the empty city? To whom are we to ask in details towards the vast heaven: Why did the ancient Chi You invent all those deadly weapons?

This poem uses as its background the military event in the eighth year of the Zhengda reign,7 when the Yuan forces captured the city of Fengxiang. The author’s sorrow and indignation find a way out forcefully in 7

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the compact and neat form. In particular, the symbolism in lines five and six, the sharp contrast between the seemingly emotional and weak wild vines, which twine the bones of the war dead, and the setting sun, which shines over the empty city in a vast enshrouding indifference, provides a profound depiction of war’s cruelty and the great pain in the poet’s heart. The last two lines break free from the stand of the opposition between “ourselves” and the “enemy,” and make a reproach that borders on accusation against the phenomenon of human warfare, which is quite stirring to the reader. Yuan Haowen, a descendant of the Tuoba family of the Xianbei nationality that had long been Sinicized, served in the Jin court of the Jurchen nationality and faced the violent forces of the Mongolians. Such a complicated racial background was probably an important reason for his transcendent position, and it was precisely such an accusation of war from his individual experience which accounted for the emotional force of the poem. For another example, the beginning of the second poem of the five “On Events after His Majesty made the Eastern Hunting Trip in the Twelfth Month of the Year of Ren Chen8,” also treats war itself simply as something to be cursed in a straightforward manner: “Dragons and snakes fight daily, making it dark and dismal; / The warfare almost wipes out all living creatures.” Yuan Haowen’s song lyrics are also quite remarkable. His praise of true love between men and women strikes the reader as more forthright and passionate than song lyrics on the same theme from Song authors. Take, for instance, his “Scooping Up Fish” which was composed, according to the short foreword to the text, for the sake of “a young couple from the families of some commoners at Daming who committed suicide by drowning because they could not have their wish fulfilled in their love affair.” The author does not reproach the young couple at all. Instead he praises their lasting spirit through the hearsay that they have transformed into twin lotus flowers on one stalk: “Even when the sea dries up, when the rock gets rotten, their predestined love relation exists; / Their quiet resentment is not buried in the yellow soil.” Another song to the tune of “Scooping Up Fish” also writes about “love,” and there is also a short foreword to the text: In the year of Yi Chou,9 I went to take the examination at Bingzhou. On the road there I ran into someone who captured a wild goose, who said: “Today I captured a wild goose and killed it. The one that escaped from 8 9

1232. 1205.

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 567 my net cried sadly and would not go away, and it turned out it threw itself against the ground and died.” I thereby purchased it and buried it by the side of the Fen river, piling up some rocks there to mark the location and calling it “Wild Goose Hillock.” Many fellow travelers at the time composed poems for the occasion. I also got a “Song of the Wild Goose Hillock.” My old composition, however, was not written on a musical score, so I have revised the final version here. How regretful, in this human world: what kind of thing is this so-called love that makes people abide by it, dead or alive? North and south between heaven and earth, the couple in flight: how many cold and hot seasons have they flapped their old wings together through? The taste of joy and the misery of separation: inside all are some crazy young men and women. You should have something to say: across layers of clouds that spread thousands of miles, against the view of the hundreds of mountains at dusk, a lonely shadow there: to whom are you going? On the road that stands across the Fen river, How dreary-sounding was the playing of flutes and drums back then! Across the plains, there still stands the smoky mist in the wilderness. Whose soul shall we summon in the Southland? The Mountain Spirit cries to itself in wind and rain. Even Heaven is jealous, it’s hard to believe that they have turned into yellow soil along with orioles and swallows. Rather they’ll last for tens of thousands of ages, waiting for poets who sing wildly and drink like crazy to come to visit this place, the Wild Goose Hillock.

The story about how Yuan Haowen purchased the wild goose and gave it a burial should have truly taken place. “How regretful, in this human world: / what kind of thing is this so-called love / that makes people abide by it, dead or alive?” Such a beautiful eulogy of romantic love was inspired by the story of the wild goose. Medley of the Western Chamber and the “Guild Texts” Just as in the Southern Song, popular literature also had some remarkable development in the Jin. In particular, the medley (zhugongdiao, literally “several melodies in the gong mode”) and the guild texts (yuanben) provided a firm basis for the variety play of the Yuan dynasty.

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The medley was a kind of performing arts which was dominated by singing but also contained speaking and telling. It received its name because of its use of several melodies in the gong mode in a series for its singing. In its performance both narration and speaking in the voice of the characters were included, not unlike the modern pingtan (storytelling and ballad singing in Suzhou dialect). According to the record in Notes from the Golden Millet Dream, it was initiated by Kong Sanchuan, a performing artist of the middle period of the Northern Song. It first became popular in Bianjing, and flourished in the Jin dynasty. However, only two texts of the medley are extant today: one is the incomplete Medley of Liu Zhiyuan, and the other is the well-known Medley of the Western Chamber. At the beginning of the latter, however, when it introduces the story which it will sing about, it resorts to the form of saying “it is neither this nor that” and mentions the titles of eight stories in a row, which indicates that at the time, there were actually quite a number of titles under the category of the medley. The author of Medley of the Western Chamber, Dong Jieyuan, lived in the middle period of the Jin dynasty. “Jieyuan” was a term widely used for and in honor of the educated people at the time. (In its reference to storytellers in Lin’an, Things Bygone in Wulin also mentions someone by the name of “Zhang Jieyuan.”) Nothing is known about the author’s real name and his life. However, at the beginning of the work Dong Jieyuan made some self-introduction, such as: “Beneath the quilt of mandarin ducks, at the house of joy; / I am well known and somewhat valued for my gallantry, / Admired by all the smart vagabonds there,” “Once I get home and start thinking, I am haunted by many poetic spirits; / I love to choose romantic melodies. / Compared to the compositions of previous talents, mine is unworthy, / But among the medleys, mine is ranked high.” From these we may know that he was perhaps an unconventional and unrestrained but talented commoner, who made a living by composing the medley. Yuan Zhen’s story, “The Story of Yingying,” tells how a young man and a young woman fall in love with each other on their own, and at the same time also leaves behind a closure, somewhat destructive in nature, which uses some hypocritical excuses to cover up the selfish conduct of the male protagonist. The story contains within itself contradictory elements. By the Song dynasty, there appeared some new works based on the story, of which the most important one was the “Butterfly’s Fancy for Flowers in the Shang Mode,” composed by Zhao

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 569 Delin in the form of chantefable. It does not make much revision on the plot, but adopts a reproachful attitude towards Zhang’s desertion of Yingying. It also enhances the tragic atmosphere of the story, which represents a kind of dissatisfaction with the attitude toward life in the original story. With Medley of the Western Chamber, some fundamental change has occurred with the nature of the story. Zhang and Yingying have become a couple who love each other and will not change even in death, who eventually become husband and wife after having gone through all kinds of hardships. Yingying’s mother, who has taken few initiatives in the original story, has turned into a representative of the authority of the head of the family and the Confucian ethical code. The basic contradiction of the story has changed into a conflict between romantic love and old-time ethical code. Such changes had a broad and wealthy intellectual and cultural background. Generally speaking, “romantic love,” the free love between man and woman, is an appealing literary theme. Restricted by traditional ethical code, however, it could hardly receive a positive representation. With the prosperity of urban economy and the culture of the urban residents, such restrictions were gradually removed. In the previous introduction to the literature of the Song and the Jin, we could see that works with a positive view on romantic love were on steady increase. It was especially true with the north governed by the Jin nation, because the Jurchen nationality still preserved some liberal matrimonial customs, which somehow pounded at the culture of ethical code of the Han nationality. The other medley texts mentioned in the beginning of Medley of the Western Chamber are no longer extant, but judging from the records of some documentation and works of performing arts of later ages which inherited their themes, such works like Pulling up a Silver Vase from the Bottom of the Well, Shuangjian in the City of Yuzhang, and The Departing Soul of a Beautiful Lady should have all affirmed and praised romantic love. For that reason, Medley of the Western Chamber did not appear as an isolated singularity. At the same time, we could not help but note that so far as the extant materials are concerned, Medley of the Western Chamber is the first literary work in the entire history of Chinese literature, written in grand scale with a complex plot and detailed, in-depth description, that represents the conflict between romantic love and ethical code in a positive light, and affirms freedom in love and marriage. On the basis

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of this work there loomed the Yuan variety play, Story of the Western Chamber, a classic of traditional Chinese literature about love. In addition, the affirmation of freedom in love and marriage was in fact the basis and starting point of the affirmation of the universal individual freedom and right. From the literature of the Jin and the Yuan all the way to the new literature of the “May Fourth” period, a large number of works which adopt such a theme imply the above significance in various degrees. Accordingly, Medley of the Western Chamber may indeed be regarded as a landmark of the development of classical Chinese literature in the direction of more recent times. From the scale of more than three thousand words in length for “The Story of Yingying,” it has developed to that of more than fifty thousand words in length for Medley of the Western Chamber. The plot has become much more complicated. Many episodes in it, such as when Zhang stirs up trouble at the rites, Cui and Zhang compose linked verse in the moonshine, Yingying visits the patient, farewell saying at the traveler’s pavilion, meeting in the dream, and so on, are new additions. Accordingly, the work manages to provide a detailed and full description of the characters, as well as their conflicts with one another because of their respective personality, and it is able to better disclose the complex relationship between characters and their life circumstances. For instance, Yingying’s affection for Zhang changes from hesitant to firm, from passive to active, and eventually she even sacrifices her own life for the sake of love; the entire course of her changing feeling has been represented subtly in all its complexity. At the same time, the author devotes much space to delineating the emotions and thinking of the characters. For instance, in the section about how Zhang misses Yingying when he is staying at the inn on his way to the civil service examinations, the song text which depicts his mental activity runs to six to seven hundred words in length and has an extremely fine touch. It was unprecedented in previous works of narrative literature. Generally speaking, Medley of the Western Chamber still has some shortcomings. It contains too many digressions; some parts sound quite loose in structure; and on some occasions the speech or conduct of characters are not represented in a reasonable manner, etc. In making full use of the advantages of narrative literature, however, it made an invaluable effort, provided important experience for later writers, and played a role that is not to be ignored in the development of Chinese literature.

literature of the southern song and the jin dynasty 571 After the Jin nation took control of the north, the variety play in the north was renamed as the “guild text.” According to Records from Someone who Stopped Farming in the Southern Village by Tao Zongyi at the end of the Yuan dynasty, “The guild text and the variety play are in fact exactly the same.” The book also keeps a record of nearly seven hundred titles of the guild texts of the Jin dynasty. None of the guild texts is extant today, but judging from these titles, the proportion of works of the Jin guild texts that are stronger in narrative features is higher than the variety play of the Song dynasty. For instance, “Zhuang Zhou’s Dream,” “Warfare at the Red Cliff,” “Du Fu’s Spring Outing,” and “Master Zhang Boils the Sea” were all adopted by the variety plays of the Yuan dynasty. We need to point out here that some of the important authors of the Yuan variety play, such as Guan Hanqing and Bo Pu, were all originally living in the Jin nation but then lived in the Yuan after the downfall of the Jin. For that reason, many scholars believe that full-fledged drama should have already appeared at the end of the Jin. However, there is no way we can know which works of these authors were written before the end of the Jin dynasty. It is, however, a reasonable inference. In addition, notwithstanding that, many of the characteristics of the medley and the Jin guild texts provided conditions for the coming of age of drama.

A Concise History of Chinese Literature Volume 2

By

Luo Yuming Translated with Annotations and an Introduction by

Ye Yang

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2011

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

LITERATURE OF THE YUAN DYNASTY

The Yuan dynasty was the first unified regime established by an ethnic minority in Chinese history. The more than a hundred years of the Yuan period was one with booming economy and culture. The Mongolian ruling class of the Yuan dynasty always valued actual profit and encouraged commerce. Fang Xiaoru of the Ming dynasty has observed: “The Yuan regime lured the world with material gain . . . and the old customs of the Song dynasty died out.” (“A Valediction to Lu Xindao”) The development of industry and commerce accounted for the unprecedented prosperity of important cities, both the old ones and the newly rising ones, which was revealed in the description, full of admiration, of cities like Dadu, the capital of the Yuan, etc., in the Travels of Marco Polo. At the same time, the Yuan regime also adopted an active foreign policy. It continued the institution of the Maritime Trade Agency of the Song regime. In addition, during the Zhiyuan reign, Kublai, Emperor Shizu of the Yuan, even gave instructions to make up the “Rules of Maritime Trade” which regulated overseas commerce and protected nongovernmental boat business. Precisely because of the support of the government, China’s foreign trade was roaring during the Yuan period and surpassed previous ages. The Yuan dynasty was an expansionist empire, and also one with a great spirit for commerce and adventure. Certainly, as soon as the Mongol rulers entered the Central Plains, they gradually accepted more and more of the traditional culture of the Han nationality. After Kublai assumed the throne, he changed the name of the nation to “Yuan,” taking the meaning of the word from the line in The Book of Changes, “Great is the Qian Yuan (divinatory symbol for Heaven).” Just as Xu Heng suggested to Kublai, “You have to practice the ways of the Han, then you could last long.” (See his biography in History of the Yuan) It was necessitated by the implementation of governing. On the other hand, the penetration of “alien elements” in the culture of the Yuan dynasty was nevertheless most conspicuous among the various unified imperial regimes in Chinese history. During the Yuan dynasty, the government also tried to make

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use of Confucianism, but the bold, straightforward, unconstrained and rough character of the Mongolians and their customs that valued material gain were always estranged from the ideas and theory, of an inhibitory nature, of Confucianism. Accordingly, in reality, Confucianism was quite weak as a force of ideological rule during the Yuan dynasty. The saying in the society, “Confucian scholars rank ninth and beggars tenth” (see Xie Fangde’s “A Valediction to Fang Bozai Who Returns to the Three Mountains”), bespoke the dilemma of the Confucian scholars. At the same time, the system of the civil service examinations, which had reached full maturity in the Song dynasty, was also severely damaged in the Yuan dynasty. At the beginning of the Yuan dynasty, not only were the civil service examinations abolished for several decades, but even when they were restored, they were far less important than in the Song dynasty because the appointment of government officials had many different venues. To the educated of the Han nationality, even if they disregarded the abominable discriminatory policies of the Yuan rulers towards the Han people, such as the so-called “institution of the four classes of people,” there was much that was disappointing in their governing. On the other hand, at the same time, the specific social condition of the Yuan dynasty also led to a series of consequences of a positive nature, even though these were not necessarily from the original intention of the rulers. First of all, the ruler’s neglect of ideological control led to a relatively free and liberal situation for men of letters, and even some heresies were tolerated. Secondly, when a large number of educated people gave up the hope for an official career, they also freed themselves from their dependence on the state; as the urban economy generated the demands for cultural consumption, they were able to earn a living by selling their intelligence and knowledge to the society. As a result of that they not only strengthened their sense of individualism but also obtained an intimate understanding of life in reality. In this way, the society of the Yuan dynasty produced a group of outstanding men of letters who were not of the traditional type, and they began to have some of the characteristics of self-employers. Precisely due to such circumstances, the literature of the Yuan dynasty showed extraordinary vitality. Forms of marketplace literature and arts like the variety play, storytelling, and the chantefable, which were of a popularized nature, had already been widespread among the commoners for a long time. They contained some vitality within, but before the participation in their composition from outstanding men of

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letters, they were unable to generate great works. If we acknowledge that Dong Jieyuan’s Medley of the Western Chamber at the end of the Jin dynasty was a landmark, then when we move into the Yuan dynasty, we would see more geniuses join in the composition of the variety play and because of that, Chinese drama had all its glory and splendor. After the appearance of the Yuan variety play, drama and fiction, as fictitious narrative literature, became genres that could best represent the achievements of Chinese literature, which changed the aspects of literary history thenceforth. It was due to the fact that fictitious narrative literature has its special advantages in reflecting the complex relationship between human beings and surroundings, and in representing human desires in and imagination of life, and authors with great originality pressed home such advantages.

1. The Variety Play of the Earlier Yuan Period The variety play of the Yuan may be roughly demarcated by the Dade reign (1297–1307) into two periods. During the earlier period, most of the authors of the variety play were active in northern cities, with Dadu as the center. In the later period, most of the authors were active in coastal cities in the southeast. This kind of change had something to do with the rapid economic development in the coastal cities in the southeast and the obvious lowering in status of the northern cities. However, in terms of the accomplishments of their works, the first period was the golden age of the Yuan variety play. The Structure of the Yuan Variety Play On the basis of the variety play of the Song and the Jin, the Yuan variety play took its shape by incorporating many of the characteristics of the medley and by integrating some of the elements of other folk performing arts. It resorted to speaking in the voice of the characters completely. The basic structural format of the Yuan variety play is that each single “text” (ben) which represents one title contains four acts and usually with an additional wedge or induction. Only a few titles are in plural texts. Each “act” (zhe) represents a narrative unit as well as a musical unit. Every act consists of a series of melodies in the same gong tune. (During the Yuan dynasty, there were nine popular gong tunes: fairy

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feminine gong, southern feminine gong, regular gong, central feminine gong, yellow bells gong, double tune, Yue tune, shang tune, and large stone tune.) The “wedge” (xiezi) is a short opening which provides a synopsis of the plot or a transition that connects the acts, usually in one or two melodies only. The Yuan variety play is by nature a kind of opera. Its core part is the libretto. Usually the singing of each text is principally restricted to one of the two roles: the leading female (zheng dan) or the leading male (zheng mo). The text wherein the leading female sings is called the “female text,” and that wherein the leading male sings is called the “male text.” The regulation of a single singing role has placed some restriction on the rational arrangement of the story line and multiple characterizations. The roles of the Yuan variety play may be divided into five major types: female, male, the painted-face (jing), the outsider (wai), and the miscellaneous (za). Each main type is further divided into several subtypes. Such a classification of the various characters in the play into a number of types facilitates the somewhat stylized performance. Guan Hanqing’s Variety Plays A new kind of literature and arts calls for a great writer to elevate and finalize its format. For the Yuan variety play, Guan Hanqing was not only one of its earliest authors, but also wrote the largest number, in the greatest variety, and represents its highest artistic achievements. Without doubt, he was the most important founder of the Yuan variety play. We can only get some rough idea about Guan Hanqing’s life from some extant fragmentary materials. In A Roster of Ghosts, Zhong Sicheng placed him first among “famous masters and talents of the older generation who already passed away” leaving behind some plays. In the last years of the Yuan dynasty, in his “Foreword to the Blue Mansion Collection,” Zhu Jing ranks Guan clearly as “adherents of the former Jin dynasty” along with Du Shanfu and Bo Pu. We may be sure that he was a native of the Jin who lived after it was superseded by the Yuan. In addition, Guan Hanqing composed “A Sprig of Flower in the Southern Feminine Tune: Views in Hangzhou,” which proved that he was once in Hangzhou and accordingly he should have passed away after the Yuan unified the entire nation. Guan Hanqing’s aria set “A Sprig of Flower in the Southern Feminine Tune: Not Yielding to Age” provides some description of his life


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style and personality. (See the later section about the individual aria.) He claims therein that: “All my life I have slept around in houses of joy,” “I am the head of the prodigals at the top of the world,” “I am conversant with the five musical scales and the six temperaments,” which indicate that he frequented the market and the pleasure quarters over the years, and earned a living by his talents. He felt quite proud of such a profession. Of Guan Hanqing’s variety plays, the titles of sixty-six of them were found in various records, and eighteen of these are extant today. Among them, Guan’s authorship of thirteen are without any questions: Injustice to Dou E, Going to a Meeting with a Single Broadsword, Mourning for Cunxiao, Butterfly Dream, Tricking the Maiden, The Rescue of a Courtesan, Golden Thread Pool, Riverside Pavilion, Crimson Robe Dream, Xie Tianxiang (Heavenly Fragrance), Moon-Praying Pavilion, Double Dream, and Jade Dressing Table. Whether the other five, including Lu Zhailang and others, are also by Guan is still controversial. In the following we shall select and discuss briefly three works, Injustice to Dou E, The Rescue of a Courtesan, and Going to a Meeting with a Single Broadsword, which are remarkably different from one another both thematically and stylistically. The complete title of Injustice to Dou E is Moving Heaven and Earth: Injustice to Dou E. Characterized by strong tragic aspects, it reveals the injustice in society. To highlight the theme the author intensifies such aspects in two ways. On the one hand, Dou E, the protagonist, is shown as small and weak, kind-hearted, and faultless. An orphan, she is sold to the Cai family, when she is still a child, as a future daughterin-law, because her father is unable to pay back an usurious loan. She becomes a widow when she is very young, and she waits upon her mother-in-law, also a widow, with all her heart and all her might. In the law court, she cannot bear to see her mother-in-law tortured, so she takes upon herself to admit the trumped-up charge. Even on her way to the execution ground, she is afraid that her mother-in-law may be sad to see her, and makes a special request to the executioner to go by a roundabout route. In such details, Dou E’s “chastity” and “filial piety” are surely praised, but they essentially serve to show that Dou E has all the virtues that are affirmed in society, and through that to emphasize her kindness, honesty, and innocence. On the other hand, it also indicates that step by step, all kinds of social elements account for her misfortune. From an orphan to a child daughter-in-law and then a widow, her tragic experience already arouses great sympathy.

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Then, she happens to run into Donkey Zhang and his son, both local ruffians and scoundrels, who bully and frame her. Confident in her own innocence, she boldly goes to the law court, but what awaits her there is an incompetent and stupid governor who treats human life as that of an insect. As a matter of fact, every single character that shows up in the entire play, including Dou E’s father and her mother-in-law that she waits upon loyally, to various extent, directly or indirectly, causes Dou E’s endless misfortune. A muddleheaded and greedy government official, in addition to local ruffians and scoundrels, finally sends her to death by decapitation. Such a consequence thoroughly reverses the principle that common people generally believe in, that good and evil will each get its due reward. In the story line itself, as well as in the mind of the audience, it stirs up strong emotions, which eventually find vent in Dou E’s angry cry: There are the sun and the moon that hang up there day and night; There are divinities and spirits who hold the authority over life and death. Heaven and Earth! You should have made a distinction between the clear and the turgid. Then, how could you have mixed up Robber Zhi and Yan Yuan the Sage! Those who do good deeds suffer from poverty and live a short life; Those who do evil enjoy rank and wealth, and also a longer life. Heaven and Earth! Fearing the strong and bullying the weak in your behavior— So you have turned out to simply push the boat along with the current. Earth! You make no difference between good and bad: how could you be Earth? Heaven! You confuse the worthy and the ignorant: you are Heaven to no avail! Alas! I have nothing left but streaming tears. (“Rolling Silk Ball”)

In the story, the destruction of the virtuous is complete, which leads people to consider the order of human society with an attitude that transcends any specific event, and gives them a tremendous shock. In this respect, Wang Guowei’s opinion that Injustice to Dou E is by no means inferior to any of the great tragedies of the world (A History of Sung and Yuan Drama) is not an exaggeration. However, the author is unable to keep the tragic force through the very end, as eventually her father, who becomes a government official through civil service examinations, redresses the unjust case, which pacifies the passion and sharp conflicts in the play.


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The Rescue of a Courtesan is an ingeniously organized comedy. The three main characters in the play are well portrayed, and they work well with one another. Song Yinzhang and Zhao Pan’er are both courtesans; the former is naive, credulous, but vain; the latter, sophisticated and worldly-wise. The other character, Zhou She, is a frivolous, dissolute, sly and fierce scoundrel. Song Yinzhang is tricked into a bad marriage with Zhou She. Zhao Pan’er, exploiting Zhou She’s lustful nature, seduces him with herself and rescues Song from the living hell. In the play, Zhou She, who represents the evil force, is placed in a position to be fooled. Because of his despicable character, he is seduced and falls into the trap, and eventually is terribly down on his luck. Undoubtedly it brings great pleasure to the general audience. To trick by seduction, which usually is disapproved by morality in society, turns out to be the necessary and reasonable means of revenge of the party that represents justice. It obviously reflects the ethics of the townspeople society, and accordingly the story of the play becomes quite exciting. Take, for example, Zhao Pan’er’s response when Zhou She accuses her of breaking her oath: “All along the street of flowers, when one asks the company of those daughters of joy, there is not a single one among them who would not face incense sticks and candles, there is not a single one among them who would not point towards Heaven and Earth, there is not a single one among them who would not swear by ghost and divinity. If you are to trust such oath and swearing, then your entire family would long since have dropped dead.” She sounds so bold and assured with justice on her side, showing all her daring vigor. The Riverside Pavilion tells a story with similar features: Tan Ji’er, facing the dangerous situation when Master Yang tries to kill her husband and forces her into marrying him as a concubine, deftly fools the man by use of wine and her feminine charms, and has him reduced to a prisoner. Going to a Meeting with a Single Broadsword, a lyrical verse play assuming a historical subject, is quite simple in its plot. Lu Su arranges a banquet and invites Guan Yu to cross the Yangtze, in an attempt to force the latter to hand over Jingzhou. Guan Yu, fully aware of Lu’s intention, refuses to give the impression of weakness and goes to the meeting all by himself, and then makes his return safely. As a play, it is not so strong in its storyline and action, but it is quite effective in terms of its lyricism. Guan Hanqing, undoubtedly, was very proud in personality. By portraying some heroic figures in history, he expressed his own chivalry and gallantry in life. For instance, the well-known aria Guan Yu sings when he is crossing the river is not so important to

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the development of the narrative, but it is quite appealing in its strong melancholy emotion: Waters rush on; mountains stand one after another. The young Master Zhou: where is he now? Unknowingly everything has turned into ash and smoke. How regretful, Huang Gai now laments and mourns. The boats that destroyed Cao Cao’s troops are all gone; But the waters of the river where the battle raged are still running warm. Alas! How sad I am to think about all this! (Speaks) This is not a river. (Sings) It’s the blood of the heroes which has flowed without end for twenty years! (“Stopping the Horse to Listen”)

The course of history could be horribly tragic, but when the horribly tragic history turns to nothingness in a flash, it is a melancholy thought. However, even if that is the case, heroes should never give up their action in history; instead they must perform their deeds in history. That is an exciting thought. Accordingly, the above aria has been much beloved through the ages. Guan Hanqing’g variety plays are diversified in theme, content and style, and they are uneven in quality. However, generally speaking, they demonstrate his great artistic creativity which has its root in the author’s liberal personality and his broad mind. His plays involve all kinds of people from various social groups, and they are mostly vividly portrayed. Just like in real life, these people show multiplicity in character, and few are depicted from dull, insipid abstract terms. He focuses on the life of the weak and wretched and on their dreams. He not only exposes the injustice imposed on them in the society, but also represents their indomitable and quick-witted fighting spirit, greatly expanding the range of Chinese literature. As a playwright of the early stage of development of Chinese drama, Guan Hanqing already had a great understanding of the characteristics of dramatic literature in their close relation with stage performance. Some of his masterpieces are skilled in creating the dramatic atmosphere in intense conflicts and in articulating feelings in succinct narrative tempo; they are simple and fast-paced in structure, and are also full of dramatic changes. In language, Guan Hanqing has been considered as the representative of the “School of the Natural Color” of the Yuan variety play. Such


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language is relatively free from rhetorical ornament. It not only suits the status and personality of the characters in the play, but also sticks close to the lively vernacular of the society of the age, helping to better orient the feeling of the audience to the story line and the destiny of the characters in the play. On the other hand, just as Wang Guowei has observed, Guan Hanqing is “entirely independent in working up his great texts.” (A History of Sung and Yuan Drama) They are products of his artistic creation, not simple usage of the vernacular in daily life. Simple, easy and plain language is wrought into something delicate and refined, yet constantly fresh, lively, and full of vitality: there lies their principal characteristic. The Yuan variety play played an important role in the change of Chinese literature in the direction of primary use of the vernacular, and exercised its impact, in a fundamental way, on the understanding of language for many people in later ages. Guan Hanqing, as the founder and exemplary author of the Yuan variety play, deserves all the praise for his contributions. Bo Pu’s Variety Plays Bo Pu (1226–?) was born in the last years of the Jin regime. His father Bo Hua was a famous poet of the Jin. In his childhood Bo Pu lived through wandering and hardship, and after he grew up his family came down in the world. He no longer looked for an official career, roamed for years north and south of the Yangtze, and settled down in Jinling only in his late years. He was the earliest writer of the Yuan dynasty who engaged himself in the composition of drama as the descendent of a well-known literary family. The titles of sixteen plays of his are documented, of which two complete ones are extant today: Atop the Wall and on Horseback and Rain over the Parasol Tree. Atop the Wall and on Horseback adopts its subject matter from Bo Juyi’s new yuefu poem, “Pulling up a Silver Vase from the Bottom of the Well,” which tells the story of a young woman who elopes with her lover but is eventually deserted. The poem’s short foreword clearly declares that its theme is “to stop elopement” and that it was composed for the purpose of moral education. On the other hand, the poem tells an interesting story about the illicit love. Hence, just like Yuan Zhen’s “The Story of Yingying,” its content contains contradictory elements. Medley of the Western Chamber has referred to another medley which tells the story of “Pulling up a Silver Vase from the Bottom of the Well.” Although it no longer exists, judging from the author’s introduction, its

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theme should have already been changed from the original poem. Bo Pu’s Atop the Wall and on Horseback may have further evolved from the medley text, and its storyline bears some slight resemblance with Bo’s poem. Li Qianjin, the daughter of Li Shijie, Commander-in-chief of Luoyang, who is at the top of the wall, gets a glimpse of Pei Shaojun, the son of Minister Pei, on horseback. The two fall in love with each other at first sight. On that very evening, Li elopes with Pei, and lives at the back garden of the Pei residence in secret for seven years, giving birth to a son and a daughter. When Minister Pei finds out about it, he forces Pei Shaojun to divorce her. Later, after Pei Shaojun wins the honor of the Principal Graduate in the civil service examinations, he tries to appeal to Li Qianqin with the love between mother and son, and only then are the husband and wife reunited. Full of praise for the free-willed wedlock between men and women, the theme of the variety play is entirely contrary to that of Bo Juyi’s poem. “To Stop Elopement” has turned into “In Praise of Elopement.” Li Qianjin is the most important character in the play, and also one with the greatest individuality. As soon as she shows up in the play, she sings an aria that boldly expresses her need to satisfy her sexual desire: If I manage to marry a romantic husband, then why’d I waste my time learning to draw faraway mountain ranges. I’d rather have the light shine bright from the silver lamp, and with the embroidered bed-curtain drawn down, there, deep in the lotus flowers, sleep the mandarin ducks, and hidden in the shade of parasol tree, lie a pair of phoenixes. On such an invaluable nice night, at every moment of a spring evening, who’d care about me, alone with the pillow and quilt, counting the length of time; this embroidered mattress, which occupies half of the bed, should not have been called a quilt of mandarin ducks in vain. (“Dragon in Muddy River”)

After setting her eye on Pei Shaojun, she not only takes the initiative to date him, but also, from beginning to end, defends her elopement with assurance and confidence. Using bold and daring language, she rebukes the reproach of her conduct from Minister Pei and others. At the celebration banquet of the “happy ending,” she even sings like this: “There’s only a single Zhuo Wangsun whose mind is broad as rivers and lakes, / And Zhuo Wenjun whose beauty has no match. / Once, he


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eavesdrops the phoenix’s love-seeking song; / Later, together they ride the carriage drawn by four horses; / That’s the blessing destined for him in his previous life. / Why is our love story, from one atop the wall to another on horseback, / Be any less than that of one scooping the wine and another warming it at the fireside?” In short, through the action and words of such a character like Li Qianjin, the play affirms and praises, in a frank and open manner and without any flinch, free-willed love, elopement against the decorum, and the sexual desire between men and women. It was unprecedented in literature before the time. Rain over the Parasol Tree adopts its subject matter from Bo Juyi’s poem, “Song of the Everlasting Sorrow.” In the course of its description of the love tragedy between Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang and Consort Yang, it focuses on delineating the inner world of the emperor. Due to his political setback, he falls from the peak of power, and can no longer lead a lavish and pompous life. He loses Consort Yang, beautiful like a fairy, as well as the overwhelming, passionate love. In loneliness and advanced age, he experiences the solitude and sadness about the disappearance of the dreamlike past, and a sense of disillusion with the unpredictable vicissitude that is beyond one’s control. Happiness is frail and life ends in sorrow—that is the basic mood revealed in the play. Undoubtedly it is permeated with the author’s sad feeling about the changing times from his personal experience. Rain over the Parasol Tree is a lyrical verse play. Compared to Atop the Wall and on Horseback, which shows an inclination for the popular townspeople taste, it reveals more of the taste of men of letters, and it is especially known for its elegant and graceful arias which hold the characteristics of lyrical poetry. The twenty-three arias in the fourth act, in particular, are almost entirely the emperor’s monologues about what is going on in his mind, remembrances of the past, mourning for the dead, yearning for his sweetheart, shame and remorse, loneliness, sorrow, and so on. Among them, the last thirteen arias, in their description of the parasol tree in the autumn rain, repeatedly make a contrast between the desolate and dreary surroundings and the character’s mentality; the two are blended into one, creating strong lyrical effects. Here, let us take just the final section of the last aria, “Yellow Bell Coda,” as an illustration: I muse about this night: Rain keeps close company with man. Accompanied by the knocking of the bronze pot for time-keeping,

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chapter fifteen Rain gets heavier; tears are no less. The cold tree-tops are wet with rain; The imperial robe is stained with tears: They refuse to leave each other alone. With the single parasol tree between them, they keep dripping until dawn.

Ma Zhiyuan’s Variety Plays The years of Ma Zhiyuan’s birth and death remain unknown, but his lifetime was slightly later than Guan Hanqing and Bo Pu. The titles of fifteen plays of his are documented, of which six are extant today: Autumn in the Han Palace, Tears on the Blue Robe, Monument of Blessing, Yueyang Pavilion, Chen Tuan the Recluse, and Ren the Madman. Autumn in the Han Palace, the best known of Ma Zhiyuan’s variety plays, elaborates on the story of how Wang Zhaojun goes beyond the frontiers to marry a Hun ruler (as an attempt to cement relations with him). The original story contains many elements of hearsay, on the basis of which Ma Zhiyuan added more fictionalization. The reason of why Zhaojun goes beyond the frontiers is changed to the story that the Xiongnu moves its troops to attack the Han in extortion. Emperor Yuan becomes an incompetent and weak sovereign, controlled by his ministers, who is sentimental and deeply loves Wang Zhaojun. Wang Zhaojun ends up committing suicide by drowning herself in the river at the borderline of Han and Xiongnu. By means of these changes, Autumn in the Han Palace has turned into a love tragedy of the imperial court that borrows something from history but incorporates a large amount of fictionalization. Autumn in the Han Palace is a play in “male text” and Emperor Yuan of the Han is the protagonist. In the play, even the emperor cannot be his own master, and is unable to keep the woman he loves. In this way, the implication that the individual is dominated by destiny and tossed by great historical changes becomes more strongly obvious. In fact, Emperor Yuan, as portrayed by Ma Zhiyuan, shows more of the feelings and desires of the ordinary people. When his ministers, using as a pretext that “feminine charms may cause the fall of a state,” urge Emperor Yuan to give up Zhaojun, he remarks angrily: “For someone like Zhaojun, there is an equal chance of success or failure in life: but what’s less free than this official business as the Son of Heaven!” When he sees her off at the Baling Bridge, he sighs with emotion: “Leave the two of us, husband and wife, in dismay. Even the humblest household


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is shaken with grief at parting when someone has to leave.” It reveals an admiration for the life of a loving couple among the commoners. Tears on the Blue Robe is elaborated from Bo Juyi’s “Song of Pipa,” with a fictionalized love story between Bo and Pei Xingnu, a courtesan, interposed with the deception and sabotage of the merchant and the madam who runs the brothel, which creates the dramatic entanglement. In the triangular relationship of the man of letters, the merchant, and the courtesan, eventually the courtesan falls in love with the man of letters and not with the merchant. It perhaps may be regarded as a kind of complacent elation on the part of the man of letters. Ma Zhiyuan’s variety plays are not so strong in realistic description, and lack intense dramatic conflicts. Their strength lies in the composition of beautiful, lyrical arias. In language they are not as exquisite as Story of the Western Chamber and Rain over the Parasol Tree, but are rather a combination of the plain and natural with the elegant and refined, which has received high evaluation in the past. In the following we shall cite, as an illustration, the section in which Emperor Yuan tells his misery of parting with Zhaojun in Act III of Autumn in the Han Palace: Alas! In front of me was the desolate wilderness where the grass had long turned yellow in a frost-stricken view. Dogs shed their fur and looked so shaggy; Men lifted their tasseled lances; Horses carried luggage; Wagons, packed with provisions; Hunters gathered to set their siege. She, yes, she sadly said farewell to her Han master; I, yes, I held her hand and walked across the bridge. She entered the desert with her followers. I rode my carriage and returned to the capital. I return to the capital and pass through the palace walls; I pass through the palace walls and walk around the corridors; I walk around the corridors and get close to her private chamber; I get close to her private chamber and there is the faint yellow moon; There is the faint yellow moon and the night gets chilly;

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chapter fifteen The night gets chilly and the cicadas chirp in the cold; The cicadas chirp in the cold beyond the green screen window; The green screen window that feels nothing. (“Plum Flower Wine”) Alas! Only the iron-hearted would feel nothing; Even the iron-hearted would shed uncontrollable sad tears. I shall hang up a portrait of the beauty in my palace tonight Where I shall enshrine and worship her; The bright light from the silver lamp shines on her red raiment. (“Capturing Jiangnan”)

Wang Shifu and Story of the Western Chamber Wang Shifu, a native of Dadu, was listed behind Guan Hanqing, Bo Pu, Ma Zhiyuan and others among “famous masters and talents of the older generation who already passed away” in A Roster of Ghosts. He has generally been considered to be a writer from the Jin dynasty who lived during the Yuan dynasty after the downfall of the Jin, whose lifetime was the same as or slightly later than Guan Hanqing. Judging from the elegy written in his honor by Jia Zhongming, who lived at the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming dynasty, he was also a romantic and unconventional man of letters like Guan Hanqing. The titles of fourteen plays of his are documented, of which the extant ones include, in addition to Story of the Western Chamber, Hall of Beautiful Spring and Story of the Derelict Cave Dwelling. Story of the Western Chamber has drawn its material from Dong Jieyuan’s Medley of the Western Chamber, but has done a recomposition to answer dramatic requirements, and also remedied the defects of the latter at a number of key places, as shown in the following. On the one hand, many unnecessary digressions and cumbersome parts are deleted to make its structure more coherent and its plot more focused. On the other hand, which is even more important, the characters in the play more firmly stick to their respective stand. The Old Lady remains inflexible in keeping a strict watch on her daughter, in firmly opposing to the free-willed wedlock of Cui and Zhang, and in preserving the impeccable reputation and dignity of the “genealogy of the Grand Councilor.” Zhang and Yingying do not yield an inch in


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their pursuit of love’s consummation. The conflict between the party of the two of them, plus Hong Niang, and that of the Old Lady thereby becomes even more intense. In this way, the play not only holds more tension and appeal, but also has its theme more highlighted, and its characterization more distinctive. The structure of the Yuan variety play to represent one story in four acts and to allow only one single singer has created severe restrictions on the full unfolding of the plot and the portrayal of multiple characters. Story of the Western Chamber, however, is a play in many acts on a large scale. It consists of five parts in twenty-one acts. (Among them, it remains controversial whether Part V was composed by Wang Shifu himself or a sequel by someone else.) In each part a different actor leads the singing, and accordingly the above restrictions are hereby removed. In its storyline, the play has many a climax; conflicts and confrontations succeed one another closely. From the very beginning, when Cui and Zhang meet by chance and fall in love with each other at the Pujiu Temple, they are trapped in a dilemma. Later, under the condition that the Old Lady agrees to their marriage, Zhang averts the danger of the siege of the temple by Sun Feihu’s troops, and the conflict seems to have been resolved. However, right after that, the Old Lady reneges on the marriage agreement, and the plight resumes. Afterwards, with Hong Niang’s help, Cui and Zhang keep a secret communication, but due to Yingying’s apprehension, the course towards happiness does not run smooth. The lovesick Zhang takes to his bed, and his beautiful dream seems to be on the verge of turning into an illusion. All of a sudden, Yingying pays him a visit at night, and they cohabit secretly in the climax of love. Next their affair is known, the Old Lady is driven to a fury, and a tension is built up again. Hong Niang argues forcefully on just grounds and, taking advantage of the Old Lady’s weakness, pressures her into accepting the fait accompli. The conflict seems to have been solved again. However, the Old Lady attaches the additional condition that the Grand Councilor’s family would never take a “civilian sonin-law,” and forces Zhang to leave for the civil service examinations, causing the sad departure of the lovers. In Part V, which is possibly a sequel written by someone in later times, before the ending of the happy reunion, it also happens that Zheng Heng, who has a previous engagement with Yingying, makes an attempt to trick her into marriage with him, providing another unexpected setback. Such a complicated

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storyline, with all the ups and downs, is generally impossible for a short variety play. It gives the story more changes and makes it more interesting, and in addition to that, by having the protagonists going through the continual difficulties, their love is highlighted more vividly and in great detail. The main characters in the play, Master Zhang, Cui Yingying, and Hong Niang have their striking personality, and they set off one another beautifully. Zhang is frivolous, but honest and kind-hearted; unrestrained, but also pedantic and laughable. He is daring, acts recklessly, and infatuated with love, which makes him someone who takes the initiative in creating all the conflicts. In the play, Zhang holds the status of a scholar, but his image is actually permeated with the taste of the townspeople society. Yingying’s image is also presented in Story of the Western Chamber in a more polished way than in the short story or the medley. She always yearns for the freedom to love. It is only because of the restriction of her family and the bondage of her status and education that she constantly feels out, now in advance and now in retreat, the possibility of finding true love, and she often acts in contradiction. At one time she flashes amorous glances; next she puts on airs. She has no sooner sent a letter to ask for a date than she makes a complete denial. . . . Because of such personality of hers, the play gets complicated in its exposition. However, eventually she breaks free from her apprehensive and contradictory mentality by daring elopement. In describing how she takes the initiative in pursuit of love in appreciation, the author has managed to breathe vitality and illumination into the play. Hong Niang, who has only turned into a main character in the medley, becomes even more vivacious in the variety play. She is quick-witted, intelligent, warm-hearted, daring, and full of sympathy. Often, when Cui and Zhang find themselves in a corner in their love affair, she would use her idiosyncratic intelligence to solve the problem. She is only a humble servant-maid, but she represents a healthy life, full of vitality, so spiritually she is always brimming with confidence and takes up a commanding position. Zhang’s pedantry, Yingying’s affectation, and the Old Lady’s obstinacy and peremptoriness—none of these could get free from her mocking, sarcasm, and even stern rebuttal. She is not constrained by any dogma, and any reasoning in the world may be transformed by her into some rationale in her favor. She represents the life attitude of pragmatic thinking, in terms of the pros and cons in reality, of the townspeople society.


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An important element that accounts for the success of Story of the Western Chamber is its beautiful language. Different from the style of “natural color” of Guan Hanqing’s variety plays, Story of the Western Chamber has an exquisite style of the verse play. The text of its arias integrates widely the vocabulary and imagery which have their origin in the convention of the shi poetry and the song lyric, and have these ingeniously combined with lively vernacular expressions. A romantic love story is thereby told in charm and pathos, with lively dialogues that are extremely appealing. Take, for example, a section of Yingying’s singing at the opening: It’s the time when the spring is about to leave us, east of the Pu prefecture, behind locked doors, inside a desolate temple. Water flows—red with fallen flowers. One feels all kinds of anguish and woe in idleness, silent, with nothing to say, annoyed by the east wind. (“Appreciating the Blossoming Season: In Continuation”)

It reveals the growing pain and nameless melancholy of females living within constraints. For another example, let us cite Yingying’s two arias in the episode of “Farewell Saying at the Traveler’s Pavilion”: Clouds hover in the blue sky; Yellow flowers spread on ground; West wind is stiff, Wild geese in the north fly southward. At dawn, what makes the frosty woods so intoxicating? It must have been the tears of the dear departed. (“Just Right”) Seeing that the coach and horses are ready to set out, I can’t help but be increasingly annoyed. Who’d have the heart to get flowers and cosmetics to dress up in lovely charm? I’ll just get my quilt and pillow ready so as to sleep as in a coma. From now on my blouse and sleeves will be soaked with scalding tears. Oh how miserable and wretched I am! Oh how miserable and wretched I am! Long afterwards, sad and anxious, I need you to keep sending me letters! (“Note of Chattering”)

The first aria implicitly borrows the lines from Fan Zhongyan’s song lyric, “Sumuzhe,” setting off the feeling of the dear departed with an

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autumn landscape. The second aria changes into the vernacular, telling the misery of separation at a stretch. The two arias, in different language style, coordinate to provide a more refined description of feeling. From the Tang chuan qi tale, “The Story of Yingying,” to Medley of the Western Chamber, and then to the variety play, Story of the Western Chamber, literary works which adopted love as theme were continually evolving. Story of the Western Chamber was most remarkable in its artistic achievements. For quite a long time it exerted a lasting influence on the progress of later literature, and even on people’s concept of life. Orphan of the Zhao Family, Li Kui Carries a Birch, and Other Plays Ji Junxiang’s Orphan of the Zhao Family and Kang Jinzhi’s Li Kui Carries Thorns are both famous works among the variety plays of the early Yuan dynasty. Orphan of the Zhao Family is elaborated from the historical story contained in “Hereditary House of Zhao” of Historical Records which tells the conflict and fight between the two family clans of Zhao Dun and Tu’an Gu. In the play, Tu’an Gu is portrayed as an extremely fierce and cruel person of the type of “powerful and treacherous court official.” He not only kills the entire Zhao family, some three hundred people, and will not even let off a newborn baby. Cheng Ying, a retainer of Zhao Suo’s, stealthily takes the Zhao baby out of the palace. Han Jue, who is charged with guarding the palace gate, cannot bear to see a baby killed; so he allows Cheng Ying to leave and then kills himself. Afterwards, Tu’an Gu even issues the order to kill all babies from one month to half a year old in the entire nation. Chen Ying and Gongsun Chujiu, a friend of Zhao Dun’s, make up a plan. Cheng offers his own son as the Zhao orphan, and then comes forward to expose Gongsun, saying that he is the one who hides the orphan. Gongsun and the fake orphan are killed, but the real orphan is thus kept alive. After he grows up, Cheng Ying tells him the truth, and eventually wreaks the great revenge. Orphan of the Zhao Family focuses on the portrayal of a group of people with a sense of justice who oppose the cruel evil force. Someone meets his death for a just cause, another endures humiliation, making the greatest sacrifice possible to carry out an important mission that he has chosen on his own initiative; they have achieved sublimity in character in their deeds. For instance, when Han Jue finds out that Cheng Ying is stealthily taking out the Zhao orphan, he feels that it is a shameful thing to make any profit from doing harm to the innocent


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little one, so he will rather commits suicide than destroying his own dignity as a human being. The aged Gongsun Chujiu feels that to die for the sake of saving the orphan is more delightful and exciting than to live on in boredom, and he sings loudly: “Why should a real man ever worry about losing his life? Let alone me, with my fluffy white hair!” And Cheng Ying, to rescue and bring up the orphan, does not scruple to sacrifice his own son and his reputation, and faces even greater danger and mental pressure. In short, the main characters in the play gain their individual will in fighting against powerful external force; accordingly dramatic conflicts, sharp and intense, occur one after another successively, and the atmosphere is constantly tense, and a typical sense of tragic beauty is presented in the play. For this reason, Wang Guowei believes that just like Injustice to Dou E, it is an equal match to be placed among the famous tragedies in the world. Orphan of the Zhao Family was also the earliest among classical Chinese dramatic works to find its way to the West; it was rewritten by Voltaire as L’Orphelin de la Chine (The Orphan of China). Among the Yuan variety plays, there were also a large number of works which took as subject matter stories about the Water Margin, the titles of more than thirty of which were found in documentation, and six of them have survived in complete: Li Kui Carries Thorns, Yan Qing Bets with Fish, Yellow Flower Valley, Double Merit, Competing in Paying a Debt of Gratitude, and Return to the Prison. These plays are generally characterized by their telling the story of how powerful and corrupt officials, local ruffians and scoundrels (especially people like “the son of a high official”) bully the nice and innocent commoners, seize women and try to obtain money and property by scheming, while the brave men of Mt. Liangshan, as representatives of the force of justice, put the evil forces on trial and punish them. The brave men of Mt. Liangshan are not only rebels who oppose the government, but also seem to exercise the function of the local governments which have neglected their duty. They even protect the morals in the society. For instance, an aria of Return to the Prison goes, “Let’s kill all the adulterers and adulteresses; only then will humanity and righteousness be spread all over the four seas.” It reflects the thinking of the common people in the old times. Li Kui Carries Thorns is the best known among the “Water Margin” plays of the Yuan dynasty. Nothing is known about the life of its author, Kang Jinzhi. The play tells how two villains, Song Gang and Lu Zhi’eng, pose as Song Jiang and Lu Zhishen and seize Mantang Jiao

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(“All-Round Lovely”), the daughter of Wang Lin, who runs a wineshop. When Li Kui hears about the event, he is beside himself with fury. He returns to the mountain and raises a rumpus at the Hall of Loyalty and Righteousness, rebuking Song Jiang and Lu Zhishen for tarnishing the reputation of Mt. Liangshan. Later, when he finds out about the truth, Li Kui regrets that he has acted rashly, so he begs for forgiveness (by carrying a bundle of thorny sticks and asking to get beaten as a penalty). He helps Lu Zhishen to catch the villains and thereby makes amends for his faults by good deeds. It is a comedy that works on “the method of misunderstanding.” In creating Li Kui’s image as someone who distinguishes clearly between right and wrong, loves and hates with passion, but also naive and rash, the author uses detailed strokes, making the character look both funny and lovely. For instance, at the beginning, after Li Kui hears Wang Lin’s tearful complaint, he returns to the mountain fortress. Without waiting for an explanation, he pulls out his axe and cuts down the banner. Then he bets his head with Song Jiang in writing the military pledge, which shows his fiery temper and disregard of consequences. While keeping company with Song Jiang and Lu Zhishen, as the accused, when they go down from the mountain to confront the accuser, because of his preconceived idea, he is doubtful of every word and movement of the two of them. It is extremely funny to see him, an honest and straightforward person in reality, thinks of himself as being astute and shrewd. After the whole truth has come out, he has the courage to admit his mistake but, in order to save his life, feigns ignorance and tries to shirk his responsibility shamelessly. At the end, he catches the villains and feels quite complacent, believing that he is the one who clears Song Jiang and Lu Zhishen of their bad reputation. The entire play is tightly structured and full of humor, with a fluent command of language. There were a large number of variety plays in the earlier Yuan period. Other better known works include Shang Zhongxian’s Liu Yi Forwards a Letter and Li Haogu’s Master Zhang Boils the Sea, both plays of fairy tales about romantic love, also Yang Xianzhi’s Rain in Hunan and Shi Junbao’s Qiu Hu Plays Tricks on His Wife, both representing women’s misery in their marital life. Lord Bao was a popular topic with plays in the Yuan dynasty. In addition to Guan Hanqing’s Lu Zhailang and Butterfly Dream that we have referred to previously, Li Qianfu’s Story of the Chalk Circle was also an excellent work. It is realistic and forceful in telling about money’s destruction of old-time family and the bullying of the weak in the world. Story of the Chalk Circle has been


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translated into many foreign languages including English, French and German. The famous German playwright Bertolt Brecht revised it into Der Kaukasische Kreidekreis (The Caucasian Chalk Circle).

2. The Variety Play of the Later Yuan Period After the Yuan regime unified the entire nation, many variety play authors in the north either traveled or moved to the south, and men of letters originally in the south also tried their hand at variety plays. In general, after the last years of the Dade reign, the center of the composition of variety plays gradually moved from Dadu to Hangzhou. The time from then until the end of the Yuan dynasty made the later period of the Yuan variety plays. In the later period, outstanding variety play authors and their works hardly matched those in the earlier period in number, though there were still some important works with new characteristics. At the same time, under the influence of the northern variety play, the southern play began to rise in popularity. Zheng Guangzu’s Variety Plays According to A Roster of Ghosts, Zheng Guangzu “was appointed, as a Confucian scholar, as a sub-official functionary of the Hangzhou Circuit.” Zhou Deqing’s Rhymes in the Central Plain placed him in the same rank as Guan Hanqing, Bo Pu, and Ma Zhiyuan, and they were known later as “Four Masters of the Yuan Drama.” A Roster of Ghosts carries the titles of seventeen plays of his. Seven are extant today, and among them the three best known works are The Departing Soul of a Beautiful Lady, Wang Can Ascending the Tower, and Pretty Plum Fragrance. The Departing Soul of a Beautiful Lady, Zheng Guangzu’s representative work, was revised on the basis of the supernatural tale, “An Account of the Departing Soul,” by the Tang author Chen Xuanyou. It tells how Wang Wenju and Zhang Qiannü (“Beautiful Lady”) originally have a prenatal betrothal arranged by their parents, and they love each other when they grow up. But Zhang’s mother dislikes Wenju because he has not made any accomplishment for an official career, so Wenju is forced to leave for the capital for the civil service examination. The soul of Qiannü splits into two, and one of them departs from her body to follow Wang Wenju, and keeps company with him for many years.

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After Wang Wenju makes the Principal Graduate, he takes Qiannü’s soul back to the Zhang family, where the departing soul reunites with Qiannü, who has all along stayed at home. On the basis of the heritage from its predecessor, this play makes use of the preposterous storyline and provides a more in-depth description of the mentality of women who were under the constraint of the ethical code in the old times. On the one hand, Qiannü’s departing soul, in pursuit of love, goes against the ethical code and boldly follows her lover closely, showing great resolution and courage. One may say that the departing soul represents the power of internal desire and emotion of such a type of women. On the other hand, Qiannü, who stays behind at home, remains sick in bed and suffers all the hardship. When Wang Wenju writes a letter to the Zhang family, saying that he is about to come home together with his wife (Qiannü’s departing soul), Qiannü is filled with deep sorrow as she thinks he has married someone else. This image of Qiannü represents women in real life, whose marriage is beyond their own control. Pretty Plum Fragrance is a play on romantic love in imitation of Story of the Western Chamber. It tells the fictitious story of the love affair between Pei Xiaoman, Pei Du’s daughter, and Bo Mingzhong, Bo Juyi’s younger brother. Wang Can Ascending the Tower, based upon Wang Can’s “Rhapsody on Ascending the Tower,” expresses the indignation about unrecognized talent of men of letters. Zheng Guangzu’s variety plays have little originality in conception and structure. All three above-mentioned plays base their plot on earlier works. Their strength lies in the exquisite language of their aria texts and their rich lyricism which display remarkable literary talent. For instance, in The Departing Soul of a Beautiful Lady, it tells how the departing soul goes in pursuit of Wang Wenju, wherein the description of the scene and the expression of feeling blend into a beautiful unity. To use one section as illustration: Suddenly I hear horses neighing, people talking, all the clattering noises. Taking cover under the weeping willow I’m so scared: I could hear my heart beating wildly. It turned out to be someone clanging clappers while catching fish and shrimps. Here I stand quietly, listen to the western wind until it drops. In the peaceful gleam of dewdrops, Facing the bright and clear moon, I watch the cold wild geese, honking when startled, fly up from the level sand. (“Little Red Peaches”)


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Qin Jianfu’s Variety Plays Qin Jianfu, a native of Dadu, later wandered and took residence in Hangzhou. Little is known about his life. Five titles of his plays have been documented, and three of them are extant today: Old Man of the Eastern Hall, Selling Hair to Treat Guests, and Zhao Li the Loving Brother. Old Man of the Eastern Hall tells how Zhao Guoqi, a rich merchant, has an unworthy son by the nickname of “Yangzhou Slave.” On his deathbed, Zhao entrusts his son and some gold with his good friend Li Shi, who is known as the “Old Man of the Eastern Hall.” Later, the Yangzhou Slave befriends some scoundrels, recklessly spends without restraint, and finally is reduced to beggary. Li Shi uses the money left behind by Zhao Guoqi to purchase all the property sold by the Yangzhou Slave, and gives him earnest teachings for many times until the prodigal son eventually turns back. Then Li gives the property back to him so that he can restore the family’s prestige. In the old Chinese convention, because business and commerce were somewhat corrosive to the political order which was established on the basis of agricultural economy, agriculture had always been promoted at the cost of business and commerce. As reflected in literature, businessmen were always castigated, as if they had all profited by other people’s toil. In the Yuan dynasty, however, the development of business and commerce brought about changes in mentality in the society, which is very clearly represented in this play. For example, in one of his arias the Old Man of the Eastern Hall gives his unqualified approval of the businessmen who accumulate their wealth through industrious management: I recall how when I was young, full of vigor and vitality, I tried so hard to win even a pittance of profit, alas, which accounted for all my illness and disability today. I went to the lairs of tigers and wolves. Did I ever ask whether it was night or day? whether it was rain or shine? I went back and forth, running all over the Vanity Fair. Did I ever enjoy even a single day of calm and peace? After toiling like this for decades Now I have more to live comfortably, but it was all accumulated by innumerable hardships. It still jolts me thinking about all the bygone events. (“Rolling the Silk Ball”)

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Among Yuan variety plays, Old Man of the Eastern Hall is a work with strong realistic touch. All the play does is to elaborate on a story often known in the business society with a rational storyline and plain language; there is little that is unusual. The story, which tells how a prodigal son destroys his family but then regrets and changes his behavior, contains some moral lesson. What it represents, however, is not the morality of the scholar-official which “values righteousness and ignores profit; rather it is the morality of the businessman which is more realistic and connected with the pursuit of materialistic profit. Nor does the author make any effort to give a reasonable explanation of that; instead he reflects it naturally in realistic description. Accordingly, in both its attitude toward life and its art of composition, Old Man of the Eastern Hall represents an important progress in dramatic literature. The Variety Plays of Qiao Ji and Gong Tianting Qiao Ji (?–1345) was a native of Taiyuan, Shanxi, who moved to live in Hangzhou. Eleven titles of his plays have been documented, and three of them are extant today: Two Generations of Lovers Brought Together by Destiny tells the love affair between Wei Gao and Han Yuxiao, a courtesan; Dream of Yangzhou tells that between Du Mu and Zhang Haohao, a singing girl; and Story of a Gold Coin tells that between Han Hong and Wang Liumei. All three plays, fictitious about famous men of letters in history, are typical drama of “talented young men and beautiful young women.” Qiao Ji was a well known author of the individual aria (sanqu). The arias in his variety plays, exquisitely and ingenuously composed, work very well with their storylines about the romantic love of the talented young men. Gong Tianting (years of birth and decease unknown) was once in charge of a government academy in Zhejiang. Later he was maligned by some bigwigs, and although he managed to clear his fame, he did not get appointed in any other position. Six titles of his plays have been documented, and two of them are extant today: Chicken and Rice Party of Fan and Zhang tells how during the Han dynasty, Fan Shi and Zhang Shao give up their ambition for official career because they are indignant at some treacherous officials in power, and become friends who can die for each other. The Seven-Li Shoals tells how Yan Ziling declines the official appointment of Liu Xiu, Emperor Guangwu of the Han, and lives at the Seven-li Shoals as a recluse, taking pleasure in


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fishing there. Both plays carry the overtone of using the past to disparage the present, reflecting the author’s ideals in life. For instance, in The Seven-Li Shoals, Yan Ziling says to Liu Xiu: Neither are you my sovereign, Nor am I your minister. Let the two of us promise first, after drinking a cup of wine: If you have to leave tonight, as the Great Sage Ruler; Then I shall set out tomorrow for a trip to the Seven-li Shoals. We have not changed our family and given names. You are Liu Xiu, the wine seller of ten years ago. I am Yan Ling, who fishes at the Seven-li Shoals.

Using historical imagination, it displays contempt for the authority of the sovereign, in the hope of winning the right to live beyond the hierarchy of political order. Such importance attached to individual dignity would become a basic tendency in literature after the Yuan dynasty.

3. The Southern Play of the Yuan Dynasty After the imperial Song court crossed the Yangtze and moved south, the variety play of the Song dynasty in the north evolved into the farce play of the Jin, and then the Yuan variety play was generated, a branch of classical drama which became full-fledged earlier than others. In the south, the variety play of the Song dynasty evolved into the southern play (nan xi), a branch of classical drama which reached maturity relatively late. The southern play used to be known as “play text (xi wen),” and because it was initiated in Yongjia (in the region of Wenzhou, Zhejiang of today), it was also known as “Yongjia variety play” or “Yongjia drama.” The several remaining documentations differ greatly about the years of its production. Zhu Yunming’s Trifles suggests that it was made during the Northern Song, “after the Xuanhe reign and during the southbound crossing.” But Discussions of the Southern Play, attributed to Xu Wei in the past, notes that it began in the reign of Emperor Guangzong of the Southern Song. There is a difference of sixty to seventy years between the two suggestions. In recent years, Mr. Hu Ji found, in the Manuscript from the Water and Cloud Village by Liu Xun who lived at the beginning of the Yuan dynasty, some material which had been unnoticed before, i.e., what is said in the “Biography of Song Lyricist Wu Yongzhang” in the fourth chapter: “During the Xianchun reign, the Yongjia drama emerged, and some roguish young men transformed

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it, after which the depraved singing became popular and the virtuous music was no longer heard.” Xianchun (1265–1274) was the name of the reign of Emperor Duzong of the last years of the Southern Song dynasty. Liu Xun’s lifetime was close to that, so what he said should be more reliable. According to this, the “Yongjia drama,” at its beginning, was perhaps popular only in the region of today’s Wenzhou, and it did not spread to and became popular in other places in the south until the last years of the Southern Song regime. It remained popular during the Yuan dynasty. The earliest southern plays, the titles of which are documented in Trifles and Discussions of the Southern Play, are Zhao Zhennü and Cai Erlang and Wang Kui. Like the extant early southern play, Zhang Xie the Principal Graduate, these two plays were also from Wenzhou and were both stories about men who become unfaithful after they win rank and wealth. It reflects a special feature of the early southern play. This kind of plays had their specific social background. With the institution of the civil service examinations, many a “poor scholar” was in with a chance to achieve instant fame and embark on an official career, which easily led to instability of his previously existing marriage. Reading for the purpose of seeking an official career, however, was not only a personal conduct; it frequently also needed the effort of a family and even an entire clan. The southern plays of the early period used as an important subject matter the censure of unfaithful men; it reflected the concept of morality of the common people in the Wenzhou region during the Song and Yuan dynasties, and also displayed the strong folk flavor of the southern play itself. More than two hundred and thirty titles of the southern play have been documented, most of which were written during the Yuan dynasty, showing how popular the form was in that period. Among southern plays of the early period, however, only three of them have survived with the text, Zhang Xie the Principal Graduate, Sun Junior the Butcher, and Missteps of the Son of an Official Family, which are included in the extant volumes of the Yongle Encyclopedia. Of these, most scholars consider Zhang Xie the Principal Graduate as a work of the Southern Song dynasty, though the actual date awaits further exploration. The other two plays have generally been regarded as works of the Yuan dynasty. Judging from the form and content of the plays, Zhang Xie the Principal Graduate, without doubt, was the oldest of the three. It begins by using an outsider for prosi-metric narration and then turns into the performance of the characters afterwards.


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On the other hand, in Sun Junior the Butcher, there already appeared the form of “combined sets of southern and northern tunes,” which reflected how the southern play was under the influence of the variety play in the north. In various aspects, the southern play is freer and more flexible in form than the northern variety play. Notwithstanding some set conventions, the organization of its musical tunes does not follow the strict format of the gong mode, and they could be arranged more liberally according to the need of the story line. Nor is the structure of the southern play like that of the variety play which, due to the restriction of its music, is in the set format of “four acts and one induction.” Instead it is divided into different acts based on the entrance and exit of the characters with deft variations. The plays may be long or short, but most of them are longer than one act of the variety play. In addition, unlike the variety play which stipulates that only one character may sing in each act, anyone may sing in the southern play, and there are also the various forms of successive singing, singing together, or chorus of many characters which help to combine the music, speech and performance into an organic entity. The southern play came of age later than the northern variety play. When famous authors like Guan Hanqing produced a large number of masterpieces, there was nothing worthy of notice in the southern play. It was because, as noted in Discussions of the Southern Play, “leading authors failed to pay any attention (to the form).” After the unification of the country under the Yuan reign, the authors of the variety play in the north, one after another, went down south. The southern play was evidently no match for the highly developed variety play, but this opened up opportunities for the exchange between the northern and the southern play, and the southern play got to learn from the variety play, effecting important changes. For instance, titles and some of the musical tunes of the variety play were adopted, and more importantly, the overall theatrical art was improved. By the end of the Yuan dynasty, there appeared masterpieces like The Story of Pipa and The Story of the Moon-Praying Pavilion, which became landmarks of the higher development of the southern play. With the further development of the southern play, the advantages of its freer form in facilitating the unfolding of complex story lines and more forceful characterization became more obvious. Eventually, on the basis of the structure of the southern play, a new dramatic form that combined the strengths of the northern and the southern play took

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shape—the chuan qi drama which became popular after the Ming dynasty. Gao Ming’s The Story of Pipa Rui’an, Gao Ming’s (?–1359) native town, was located within the old Yongjia prefecture, which was exactly where the southern play was initiated. He also wrote poetry and prose, but was best known for his southern play, The Story of Pipa. Among southern plays of the early period, Zhao Zhennü and Cai Erlang tells the story of Zhao Wuniang and Cai Bojie. Cai Bojie was Cai Yong, a renowned man of letters of the East Han dynasty. In folk hearsay, however, Cai Bojie was nothing more than a mere borrowing of name of the historical figure. Lu You says in his poem: “Visiting a Nearby Village in a Small Boat, I Took a Walk on My Way Home, Leaving the Boat Behind,” “In the setting sun, by the old willows, there stands the Zhao’s Village; / A blind old man, carrying his drum, is making a performance. / Who is in control of all the pros and cons after one’s death? / All over the village, people listen to the story of Cai, the second brother.” From the poem we may know that Cai Bojie’s story already became a popular subject in the folk prosimetric literature during the Southern Song dynasty, and that Cai was already depicted as a villain. The play Zhao Zhennü and Cai Erlang, presumably, evolved from the kind of prosimetric storytelling of the “blind old man.” According to Discussions of the Southern Play, this play tells how “Bojie, who abandons his parents and deserts his wife, is struck to death by a bolt of lightning.” It was, among earlier southern plays, one that focused most exclusively on a story about a poor scholar who turned unfaithful after he acquired wealth and rank. Gao Ming’s The Story of Pipa is a revision of this story, but he gave a complete change of Cai Bojie’s image in the play. Just as summarized in the play’s “title couplet,” both the male and the female protagonists are described as model of morality: “Zhao Zhennü is ready to die in defense of her chastity / Cai Bojie is able to preserve both loyalty and filial piety.” Certainly, Gao Ming did not write the play as a practice to reverse the verdict only, but also meant to propagate the orthodox morality of “readiness to die in defense of chastity,” “loyalty to the sovereign,” and “filial piety.” However, in the play’s description of how Cai and Zhao, husband and wife, become such models of morality, they suffer all kinds of spiritual pressure and life’s hardship in the course, which shows an internal conflict between


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the author’s understanding of life’s reality and his moral beliefs. His description discloses the irrationality, even the violation of humanity, of the existing moral order. There lies the true value of the play. Cai Bojie, as presented in The Story of Pipa, is a man of letters who loves his parents and his wife, and who is fond of life in the countryside. At first he has a family that is almost in complete harmony. However, when his father forces him to go to the capital city to attend the civil service examination, on the ground that the “great filial piety” lies only in the exercise of loyalty in serving the sovereign and the establishment of a fame, he has to leave his family behind reluctantly. After he receives the title of the Principle Graduate, because of an imperial edict, he has no choice but to agree to Prime Minister Niu’s request to take him into the family as a son-in-law. When he begs to resign from his official post so as to return to his home to take care of his parents, it is denied by the emperor on the reason that “great as filial piety is as a principle, its ultimate end is in serving the sovereign.” He is forbidden from not attending the examinations. He is not allowed not to accept the marriage arrangement. He is not granted the permission to resign from his official post. Under the circumstances, Cai Bojie can neither reunite with his wife nor take care of his parents and as a consequence, his parents are left to die in a famine. Such details in the plot, as revised from the original story of “Bojie abandoning his parents and deserting his wife,” are not so fair and reasonable, but they help to push to the foreground how Cai Bojie has to yield his own will to the moral practice of “loyalty” and “filial piety,” and is thus restricted by external forces and, as a result of that, has to suffer from the disaster. This gives the work a universal significance. Regardless of whether the author realized it or not, objectively he has disclosed the irrationality of those imposing moral demands which may cause great calamities to individuals. What Zhao Wuniang goes through is even more miserable. Deserted by her husband, she still has to take care of her parents-in-law. The family is in straitened means and they run into a famine year. She tries her best to exercise “filial piety” but still falls under her mother-in-law’s suspicion. Finally, in spite of all the hardship she goes through, even in sustaining herself by eating chaff, her parents-in-law still pass away tragically. After getting them buried, she has to take the pipa in her arms and goes on a trip, begging from door to door, looking for her husband. In the author’s intention, to place Zhao Wuniang in such extreme adversity is meant to highlight women’s great virtue in their

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preservation of the family by means of self-sacrifice. He even uses Zhao Wuniang as his own mouthpiece: “I might as well become a good wife and a woman of filial piety so that my name will become known in history.” This obviously makes a moralistic appeal to the audience. However, the description of many details in the play gets a good grip on reality, and they closely reflect the kind of inhumane hardships women suffered in old times. What is so moving in Zhao Wuniang’s sad revelation is by no means her “readiness to die in defense of her chastity” or her “filial piety and virtuousness,” but her misfortune. The Story of Pipa ends in a grand reunion: Zhao Wuniang wins the reception of Miss Niu who is “deeply conscious of the righteousness of a cause,” and after Cai Bojie ends observing a period of mourning for his deceased parents, the three of them, husband and his two wives, begin to lead a harmonious life. Notwithstanding that ending, however, all the spiritual misery and physical hardships that Zhao Wuniang and Cai Boji have lived through are not to be wiped out. The Story of Pipa represented the higher artistic achievement of the southern play before we entered the stage of the chuan qi drama of the Ming and Qing dynasties. The plot of the play develops along the double lines of the different experiences of Zhao Wuniang and Cai Bojie. On the one hand, Cao Bojie is utterly dejected and miserable in spite of a life of prosperity, power and wealth. On the other hand, Zhao Wuniang struggles through severe depression and desolation. The southern play is quite free in its changing of scenes, and the singing is not restricted to one character, so the play keeps switching in its many scenes between the double lines as mentioned in the above, and the two protagonists take turns sing their respective lyrics which, set in contrast, create striking effects. This is something impossible to achieve in the northern variety play. The language in the play, mostly natural and spontaneous, manages to bring out, with more depth, the emotions and psychology of the characters. In the act of “Chaff and Husks: A Self-Complaint,” Zhao Wuniang’s two lyrics are well known: The vomiting makes me ache all inside And break down in tears, And I still feel a lump in my throat. Oh chaff! You are pounded with a pestle in a rice huller; You are sifted in a sieve; you are winnowed with a fan, And you go through all the hard knocks. You are just like me, in sore straits,


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Going through a sea of troubles. A bitter person, eating something bitter in taste. When two bitter things meet each other, It’s no wonder I find it hard to swallow. (“Song of Filial Piety”) Chaff and rice Originally stay together But being winnowed, fly to two places: One cheap, the other valuable. Just like my husband and myself Who cannot expect to see each other ever again. (Speaks) My husband, you are the rice: (Sings) Rice is somewhere else, nowhere to be found. (Speaks) I am the chaff: (Sings) How is chaff supposed to relieve people’s hunger? It’s like: when my husband leaves, How am I supposed to Provide decent food for my parents-in-law? (Same tune as above)

The lyrics describe how Zhao Wuniang is moved by the occasion to thoughts. The chaff is hard to swallow, and she thinks about her misfortune of going through all the adverse circumstances in life. From the difference between rice and chaff, she thinks about the separation between her husband and herself, and she starts thinking and complaining about him. What goes in her mind is lively presented in natural vernacular language. Four Masterworks of Southern Play In addition, what count as the other famous southern plays of the Yuan dynasty are The Story of Thorn Hairpin, The Story of Liu Zhiyuan and the White Rabbit, The Story of the Moon-Praying Pavilion, and The Story of Dog-Killing, conventionally known as Jing, Liu, Bai, Sha (by the first character of the respective titles of the four plays). They are referred to as the “Four Masterworks” in Ling Mengchu’s Miscellaneous Notes on Aria and Drama. The texts of these plays were mostly polished and revised during the Ming dynasty. Of these four plays, the one that has won the highest critical acclaim is The Story of the Moon-Praying Pavilion (also known as The Story of the Secluded Boudoir), the author of which has generally been considered to be Shi Hui. This play is a revision of Guan Hanqing’s Moon-Praying

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Pavilion, which tells how Wang Rulan, the daughter of a cabinet minister, marries Jiang Shilong, a scholar, in the chaos of wartime, and later she is forced by her father to separate from him. Many years later, Minister Wang takes the new Principal Graduate of the year to be his son-in-law, who turns out to be none other than Jiang Shilong, so the husband and wife are reunited. The characters and the plot of The Story of the Moon-Praying Pavilion are somewhat similar to Guan Hanqing’s work, but in comparison of the two texts, the structural advantages of the southern play are eventually demonstrated. Guan’s work tells a story that involves a broad range of life in society within the limited structure of four acts, displaying the extraordinary talents of its author. In the southern play, however, due to its grand scale, it is able to add many lively details, in-depth descriptions, and nuanced expression of feelings. Accordingly, the development of the plot contains more dramatic twists and turns. This play displays, not infrequently, a literary grace in its natural and plain language, to the acclaim it has received over the years. Li Zhi has noted that it is even better than The Story of Pipa and is a rival to The Story of Western Chamber, saying that: “Moon-Praying Pavilion, in its dialogues and lyrics, approximate nature. It seems to have been created by heaven, and it is hard to believe that it was written by a human being!” (“Li Zhuowu’s Criticism of The Story of the Secluded Boudoir or The Moon-Praying Pavilion”) The Story of Thorn Hairpin has generally been considered to be authored by Ke Danqiu of the Yuan dynasty. It tells how Wang Shipeng, a poor scholar, and Sun Ruquan, a very rich man, make a marriage offer to Qian Yulian, using as betrothal gift, respectively, a thorn hairpin and a pair of golden hairpins. Qian admires Wang’s talents and marries him. Later, Wang goes to the capital and receives the title of the Principal Graduate in the examinations, but because he refuses the imposition of a marriage offer from Prime Minister Moqi, is sent to an official appointment on the frontier. His letter to his wife is stolen by Sun Ruquan, who changes it into a bill of divorcement. Yulian, who is not fooled by the fraud, firmly refuses her stepmother’s demand for her to get remarried with Sun Ruquan. She throws herself into the river to commit suicide, but is rescued. Wang Shipeng, who hears about Yulian’s suicide, swears never to marry again. Later, by means of the hairpin, the husband and the wife get reunited. The Story of Liu Zhiyuan and the White Rabbit was written by “some talent from the Yongjia story-tellers” based upon sources that include Vernacular Stories from the History of the Five Dynasties and Medley


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of Liu Zhiyuan. It tells the story of how Liu Zhiyuan, the founding emperor of the Later Han of the Five Dynasties, “gained fame and power,” and his separation and reunion with his wife Li Sanniang. The Story of Dog-Killing tells the story of Sun Hua. Born in a rich family, he befriends some rascals and expels his younger brother Sun Rong. His wife Yang Yue kills a dog, disguises it as the corpse of a human being and leaves it outside their gate. This helps him to realize, in a forged unexpected disaster, that only his blood brother is truly trustworthy. The play shares the same plot as Killing a Dog to Persuade the Husband by Xiao Dexiang, a variety play author of the Later Yuan period, but it is difficult to figure out which one appeared first. As for its author, it was generally considered in the past to be Xu Chen, who lived during the end of the Yuan through the early Ming times. However, most modern scholars believe that he was actually only someone who edited and revised the play. Both plays are plain in language and often contain crude sections, but the story is interesting and lively, keeping some of the characteristics of folk art.

4. The Individual Aria of the Yuan Dynasty The Structure and Characteristics of the Individual Aria Generally speaking, the so-called “Yuan qu” includes two major affiliates of different nature. One is drama (chiefly the northern variety play), and the other is the individual aria. In the former the term qu refers to the arias sung by the characters in the play; in the latter, to a kind of poetry in the broad sense. The two are identical to each other in musical features and prosodic forms, and they share exactly the same repertory of tunes. Arias in the play, however, constitute a part of the entire play structurally, whereas the individual aria is independent. The individual aria may be divided into two kinds: the short aria and the aria set. The short aria mostly consists of a single aria, but it may also consist of two or three arias in a group and is known as such as a “take-along aria.” The aria set consists of many arias of the same gong tune which form a longer text, and is somewhat similar to the aria set in the variety play. Originally the individual aria used northern musical tunes only, and it was only in later times that there appeared a few which used southern tunes or a combination of northern and southern tunes.

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The individual aria is closely related to music. In language it falls under the form of long and short lines in fixed prosody, making it closest to the song lyric in form. In addition, quite a few of the tunes of the Yuan qu originated from those of the song lyric of the Tang and Song dynasties. On the other hand, there are major differences between the individual aria and the song lyric. More importantly, first of all, the individual aria is different from the shi poetry and the song lyric in its differentiation of rhyming. In the shi poetry and the song lyric, the differentiation of rhyming was already detached from the changing spoken language. In the individual aria, the differentiation of rhyming was based on the spoken language in the north at the time, which showed that the individual aria was closer to life’s reality in nature. Secondly, in the individual aria, one may add padded words, numbering from one to ten, that are not in the fixed tunes. Accordingly the composition of the individual aria enjoys more freedom and exactly because of this the sentence pattern of the individual aria has greater variety. Thirdly, the language of the individual aria is more colloquial, especially in its earlier stage, which uses a large amount of everyday and informal expressions, including such interjections like “ai yo” and “hai ya.” Just as Ling Mengchu has noted in his Miscellaneous Notes on Drama: “Local and everyday expressions are assembled into a piece, and there is simply no place to put in any allusions.” Such characteristics as mentioned in the above give the individual aria a lighter and more liberal form, making it a more proper vehicle for the lively expression of impulsive or whimsical feelings. The socalled “shrilling arias and marvelous feeling” (Zhi An: “Discussion of Singing”), i.e., an unprecedented feeling of freshness and liveliness, constitute the main artistic features of the individual aria. In addition, it is different from the sense of something new and different in the shi poetry and the song lyric, which is achieved by rhetoric means. Instead it is a kind of unrestrained and straightforward expression of emotions that is entirely contrary to the refined and reserved aesthetic concepts in the convention of Chinese poetry. We can easily see such a kind of characteristics by looking at the example of the anonymous “Autumn with Swan Geese on the Frontier: A Drinking Party of Village Folks”: Guests are drunk; so is the host; so are the servants. Sing for a while, dance for a while, and laugh for a while. Who cares if one’s thirty, or fifty, or eighty years old? You fall on your knees; so does he; so does everybody. No strings, nor pipes, are played to liven it up.


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Just eat, till that red ball, the sun, drops in the west, When we’ll break the plates, the dishes, and the bowls.

The rise of the individual aria, originally a lively, popular song form of folk entertainment, had something to do with the development of the song lyric, which had become more and more elegant and refined at the hands of the literati. During the Yuan dynasty, when some of the literati freed themselves from their dependence on the state and got close to the society of the townsfolk, thereby removing themselves from the restriction of moral and ethical conventions, the individual aria provided them with an instrument that managed to find an expression of their feelings in a freer and more complete way. At the same time, it was also due to the participation of a large number of men of letters in its composition that the individual aria flourished during the Yuan dynasty and became a new poetic form that shared the literary stage side by side with the shi poetry and the song lyric. During the Yuan dynasty, the individual aria consistently synchronized with the variety play in its changing prosody. Like the variety play, the development of the individual aria may be divided roughly into two periods. In the early period, the composition of the individual aria had its center in the north, but it shifted to the south in the later period. Due to the influence from the culture in the south, the style of the individual aria went through a process of change, from the plain and popular to the elegant and refined. The Individual Aria of the Early Yuan Period The earliest author of the individual aria was Yuan Haowen, the famous shi poet during the transition from the Jin to the Yuan. Subsequent authors included Guan Hanqing, Wang Heqing, Bo Pu, Ma Zhiyuan, etc., men of letters closely associated with the townsfolk society and urban culture, and Lu Zhi, Zhang Yanghao, Wang Yun and others, those who rose higher in official circles. The individual arias of these two groups bear some similarity, but also hold obvious differences. With the loss of traditional beliefs, the authors of the early period generally adopted a negative attitude towards old-time political values. In his “Someone under the Full Moon: Moving to the East Garden of My Maternal Grand-Parents,” Yuan Haowen declared in unequivocal terms: “Ask not, my friend, / what is good and what is evil, / in the passing years, or in days to come.” As they observed, “Past and present keep moving in the wind and the clouds; / Rise and decline alternate

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under the sun and the moon,” (Lu Zhi: “Intoxicated in the East Wind: Stepping Backward”) “Accomplishment and fame at the top of the world turn eventually into nothingness,” (Bo Pu: “Shady Tree: Facing a View”) politics was depicted as nothing but a big void. “With a nation’s rise, people suffer; / with a nation’s decline, people suffer.” (Zhang Yanghao: “Sheep on the Slope: Remembrances of the Past”) The rise and decline of dynasties were shown as nothing more than a melodrama involving only a few characters. Qu Yuan, who embodied the spirit to sacrifice oneself for politics and the sovereign, was often ridiculed, as in such lines: “Was it worth the trouble to torture oneself amid wind and waves?” (Chen Cao’an: “Sheep on the Slope: Untitled”) “Who cared about Qu Yuan, who died all in vain?” (Ma Zhiyuan: “That One Cannot Break by Plucking: Untitled”) The concept of “loyalty to the sovereign,” which had served as the foundation of Confucian ethics, was already wavering. Under the influence of such a consciousness, men of letters of the latter group were fond of depicting the carefree life of the recluse as an ideal, which was consistent with the conventional interest and sentiment of the scholar-official stratum. For instance, Lu Zhi noted, in his “Intoxicated in the East Wind: Leading an Idle Life”: “Say something about the farming crops / With a couple of old men in the village. / Spend one’s days in cheap turbid wine in clay pots; / When one’s drunk, there opens the enormous universe. / Just sleep soundly, and let the cool wind blow through the tall willows.” Zhang Yanghao observed in his “Aria of Heaven Worship: Untitled”: Along embankments with willows And streams beneath bamboos, Sunlight filters through gold and emerald shade. Walking unhurriedly, stick in hand, I get close to the fishing rock To watch gulls and egrets having their fun at ease. Old farmers and fishermen, Busy with making their livelihood, Have no idea that they live in a perfect picture. Facing such a landscape And sit: Even without wine, it gets one drunk.

Literati of the former group, on the other hand, were more likely to see worldly pleasure-seeking and the satisfaction of romantic love, including sex, as the necessary and rational pursuit in life and the source of beauty and happiness. So far as the establishment of the style and spirit


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of the individual aria, so characteristic of the age, is concerned, their contributions were even more important. Guan Hanqing’s individual arias share many similarities with his variety plays: bold, uninhibited, with a touch of shrewdness and a passion for life. They have a keen insight into things in the world, and often disclose a sense of humor. Some of Guan Hanqing’s individual arias express his personal feeling about life; the aria set “A Sprig of Flower in Southern Feminine Tune: Defying Age” is the best known text among them. As mentioned earlier in the chapter, Guan described therein his amorous encounters as a libertine, and he was by no means ashamed of his experience; in the closing section he even boasted about it: I’m a copper pea that won’t get soft being steamed—nor tender being cooked—nor flattened being hammered—nor burst being fried—simply outstanding, You young guys: who told you to get into that slow-moving thousandlayered embroidered trap that won’t break being hoed—nor split being axed—nor untied or loosened however hard you try. I play beneath the moon at the royal garden, drink wine from the Eastern Capital, watch flowers in the city of Luoyang, and snap willows along the Pleasure Lane. I am able to play the go—to kick a ball—to join a roundup in hunting—to crack gags To sing and dance—to play pipes or strings—to perform vocal tricks—to compose poems—to play a game of chess. Even if you knock out my teeth—twist my mouth—break my legs or my hands, I’ve been endowed with all such evil symptoms by heaven And I’ll never give up! Except when Yama, King of Hell, makes a personal call Or when gods and demons arrive in person to take me away When all the souls and spirits in me are returned to underworld and get lost in the shades below. Oh heaven! Only by then will I stop walking in and out of the houses of joy!

Works of autobiographical nature always involve some value judgment of life. For example, Qu Yuan’s “On Encountering Trouble” disclosed an unswerving loyalty to the sovereign and the state, Tao Qian’s “A Biography of the Gentleman of Five Willows,” an indifference to society, each characteristic of its own age. The above aria set of Guan Hanqing’s became a new manifesto. Certainly, it bespoke the unconventional

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and self-indulgent manner which belonged to the scholar-official convention, but instead of transcendent aloofness, it identified itself with the full enjoyment of the worldly life of the urban society of townsfolk. Just as in the case of “On Encountering Trouble” and “A Biography of the Gentleman of Five Willows,” we do not need to regard “Defying Age” as a truly realistic record of life. Its real significance lies in its capability to express, for someone who loved freedom and who had the talent to preserve his freedom, the sense of happiness that he felt after he freed himself from his dependence on political power and traditional value system, hence its high-spirited and humorous tone. Most of Guan Hanqing’s individual arias are about romantic love. These texts, frequently narrative in nature, manage to present people’s emotions in a vivid, lifelike way within a very short narrative frame. Take “Half and Half: On Love” as an example: Outside the blue screen window it’s quiet and nobody is around; Falling on his knees in front of the bed, he wastes no time to get intimate. I curse him: “You’re so ungrateful!” and turn my back on him. My words sound harsh, But I’m half reluctant, and half willing.

The aria set “New Water Melody in Double Tune: Untitled” describes the course of a dating between a young couple, and even includes a section on their sexual act. In Guan Hanqing’s view, it was a praiseworthy matter, accordingly he could write about it in such a honest and beautiful way. Such an attitude provided new energy for the new development of classical literature. Wang Heqing, a friend of Guan Hanqing’s, was a humorous man who was skilful in making fun of things. His “Sky in Intoxication: On a Big Butterfly” is quite well known: By flapping its double wings in the east wind It shatters Zhuang Zhou’s dream. It explores all the three hundred famous gardens Leaving nothing behind its trace. Who’d expect that by spreading its romantic seeds It’d intimidate the fragrance-seeking honeybees? Soaring lightly It sends the flower-seller east across the bridge.

Honeybees and butterflies, feeding themselves on flowers, are usually used as a metaphor for romantic love. In this short aria, however, what the image of indulgence, presented in a hyperbolic manner, is more an embodiment of the expansion of human vitality.


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Bo Pu was born in a family of literary authors. His individual arias display influence of the popular taste of the townsfolk on the one hand, and a closer connection to traditional literature on the other. As an illustration of the former, his “Spring Aria: On Love” tells, in colloquial language, how much a woman cherishes life’s sensual pleasures: Chuckling, she covered the silvery candlestick with her red sleeves And would not let her talented young man read at night. Hugging closely against each other they had a really good time. “It’s just attending the civil service exams—that’s all; When you win the title, what’re you going to do?”

For the latter, his “Clear Sky over the Sand: Winter” depicts a beautiful scene of nature in refined language: There sounds the bugle at the watchtower; A new moon shines across half the courtyard in dusk. The snow rains in front of the hills and by the rivers. Bamboo fence—thatched hut Faint mist—withered grass—solitary village.

Among authors of the early Yuan period, Ma Zhiyuan left behind the largest number of individual arias, the content of which holds more variety. To consider the rise and decline in history in a nihilistic view and to deplore the dreamlike illusion of life makes his favorite and the most noticeable subject. For instance, his short aria “That One Cannot Break by Plucking” contains the inquiry: “What’s the use of all the royal schemes and achivements?” His aria set “Night-Sailing Boat in Double Tune” depicts the dispute and struggle in human society in a scornful tone, as shown in the following, its closing aria “Coda of a Banquet at the Travelers’ Pavilion”: Only after the crickets stop chirping would I have a sound sleep. Once the cocks crow the myriad things go on anew without a rest. Those who scramble for fame and gain: what year will they ever stop? Just look at the swarm of ants forming into military formation, The flock of bees making their honey, And the flight of flies racing for blood sucking. Lord Pei’s Hall of Green Plains,1

1 Pei Du (765–839) once served as Prime Minister. In his late years, when the eunuchs were in power, he resigned from office and led a recluse’s life at his residence, Hall of Green Plains.

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chapter fifteen Magistrate Tao’s White Lotus Shrine.2 I just love those things that arrive with autumn: Picking yellow flowers wet with dew, Cooking purple crabs when frost sets in, And burning red leaves to warm up wine. Consider: the limited number of cups in a life, How many Double Ninth festivals are we to spend? If someone asks about me, my naughty boy, remember to say: “Even if Kong Rong arrives to see me from the Northern Sea, Just say I’m drunk by the Eastern Fence.”

The lines that start with “the swarm of ants forming into military formation” disclosed the author’s indignation at and disillusionment about the history of politics. Of course, political accomplishments, so much treasured in the past, were completely insignificant to him. In addition, the subsequent admiration for the recluse’s life no longer implied any perseverance in some kind of moral integrity; instead it only expressed the hope to transform one’s brief life into aesthetic enjoyment. Such a consideration of life’s values, detached from politics and based on a personal stand, held an immediate appeal to literati of later ages. “Clear Sky over the Sand: Autumn Thoughts,” previously attributed to Ma Zhiyuan, has always enjoyed great popularity. However, in its reference to this short aria, the Yuan dynasty writer Sheng Ruzi’s Miscellaneous Notes from Someone Who Studies in Old Age at the Commoner’s Studio attributes it to “an anonymous author.” Its authorship seems to be problematic. Notwithstanding that we still cite it as follows: Withered vines—old trees—crows at dusk A little bridge—a running stream—someone’s cottage. An age-old road—the west wind—a lean horse. The sun sets in the west. Someone stands at the end of the world, with a broken heart.

Bo Pu also used the tune of “Clear Sky over the Sand” for seasonal scenes, and his description bears some similarity with this aria. The piece “Winter,” as cited in the above, may serve for some comparison. It is certainly questionable whether it was composed by Ma Zhiyuan, but it is quite apparent that its specific way of description was once quite popular at the time.

2 Tao Qian served as the Magistrate of the Pengze County. He was said to have attended the White Lotus Shrine with the famous Buddhist monk Hui Yuan in charge.


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The Individual Aria of the Later Yuan Period In the later Yuan period, many men of letters who were born in the north moved south, and those who were known by their composition of the individual aria included Guan Yunshi, Qiao Ji, etc. Some men of letters from the south also took an active part in the composition of the individual aria, and Zhang Kejiu acquired the highest reputation among them. The individual aria, at its origin, was very closely related to the song lyric. In its later stage, as represented by the works of Qiao Ji and Zhang Kejiu, it moved further towards a refined elegance approximating the style of the song lyric. While they also used colloquial expressions, these were highly polished, which pushed the individual aria away from the interest and taste of townsfolk art. Guan Yunshi (1286–1324) was a Uighur. Born in an aristocratic family, he started out on a promising official career. However, he withdrew from the official circles early on, and led a roaming life in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang region. Guan Yunshi was a chivalrous and gallant man by nature, and his individual arias, brisk and neat in tone, have a style of their own. Take, for example, his “Clear River Prelude” written after he resigned from office: To give up the flimsy fame and go homeward—how happy I am! I let out a laugh that sounds beyond the white clouds. Now what can stop me from drinking heartily With a couple of soul mates? Drunk, we dance with robes and sleeves up in the air, feeling there’s not enough room between heaven and earth.

The aria poses a bold and uninhibited gesture of pride which smacks of Li Bo’s poetry. Zhu Quan’s Taihe Manual of Prosody observes that Guan Yunshi’s works are “like a celestial horse free from harness,” and this aria may serve as an illustration of that. Guan Yunshi was also very good at describing scenes of nature, adopting a graceful style with a relish of spontaneity, as in his “Clear River Prelude: On Plum”: With its fragrant heart, it seems to be talking to us, ah so lovely, Making it ever so hard to snap it, even softly. Light mist rises from the bridge across the stream; A bright moon shines over the thatched hut. So much prospect of spring is implied therein!

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In his “Single Melody of Green: A Self-Account” Qiao Ji calls himself “A sage of wine from time to time; / A Zen poet from place to place; / A Principal Graduate amid mists and clouds; / A drunk immortal by rivers and lakes.” Of his individual arias, two hundred and nine short arias and eleven aria sets are extant today; most involve the four decades of his life as a wanderer, showing his free, unrestrained spirit as a talent among civilians. In some occasions, they disclose a free imagination of a life in freedom and his gallant personality. Take, for example, his “Pleasure in Front of the Hall: Ascending the First Tower over Mountains and Rivers”:3 Tapping the balustrade, Through the wet fog I feel the cold sea wind blowing my hair. I sing loudly: the floating clouds get startled and disperse. Carefully I count the number of green mountain peaks And point to the Fairyland of Penglai, which is within my view. Above the shore which is like a gauze kerchief I’m used to riding on the back of a crane. I raise my head and let out a deep howl And make my way straight to the celestial altar.

On other occasions, they may reveal a sense of solitude and desolation, as in his “Someone by the Balustrade: En Route to Jinling”: Riding a scrawny horse which carries my poetry I’m at the world’s end. Sleepy birds cry sadly over a small cottage with a couple of houses. Blowing against my head, the drifting willow catkins Add to the whiteness of my hair at the temples.

It presents an entirely different mindset, but likewise provides a truthful account of the vacillating emotions. Qiao Ji’s individual arias usually observe the prosodic form and are in a quick tempo, and the diction is also highly polished. Lines describing scenes are often exquisitely composed, like: “Mountains look haggard draped in clouds, / Streams seem empty with the moonshine in the flow.” (“Aria of Snapping Cassia: Mooring at the Qingtian County”) They display an inclination to the song lyric in form. On the other hand, Qiao Ji often managed to integrate into one piece colloquial expressions, slang, and refined diction and, by doing so, preserved the simplicity and liveliness of language characteristic of the individual aria. A typical example may be found in his “Water Fairy: Remembrances 3 Another name for the Tower of Great Views at the Beigu Temple by the Yangtze in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu.


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of Love”: “I carry a shoulder-pole with a load of worries as big as the sky; / Talking about how I miss you, I find it so hard to turn back. / In the Rooster Lane on moonlit night, / Up the Swallow Tower in the spring wind, / One single day is like three autumns.” According to A Roster of Ghosts Zhang Kejiu (ca. 1270-after 1348) was a native of Qingyuan (in the region of Ningbo, Zhejiang today), and once served at the lowly positions of “sub-official functionary of the route command” and “staff supervisor.” Judging from his individual arias, he often led a life of recluse and wanderer. More than eight hundred and fifty short arias and nine aria sets of his are extant today, which make him one who left behind the largest number of compositions among the Yuan authors of the individual aria. In content they mostly write about a leisurely and carefree mood in his life as a recluse or about romantic love, and they are especially skillful at the description of landscape. Most of Zhang Kejiu’s individual arias are short ones made up of a single tune. They rarely use padded words and avoid the use of colloquial expression and slang; instead they incorporate more of the vocabulary and creative concept of the shi poetry and the song lyric. Compared to Qiao Ji, his works are closer to the song lyric. However, in comparison to traditional literati song lyric, his compositions still sound more animated and lively, and in this sense still preserve the characteristics of the individual aria. The Ming dynasty writer Zhu Quan praised his works as “fresh and beautiful, flowery but never ostentatious, with a taste of someone above all the material attractions of the world.” (Taihe Manual of Prosody) A style as such was more appealing to the scholar-officials. Accordingly Zhang Kejiu’s individual arias met with high critical esteem in the past. Zhang Kejiu was very good at describing the landscape of the Jiangnan region, as in his “Universal Happiness: On an Occasion in Late Spring”: By the side of the old plum tree, Beneath the Solitary Hill, There stands the rainbow of the Sunshine Bridge Where pipa is being played on a little boat. Spring lingers in the cry of the cuckoos; Fragrance hangs around the raspberry trellis. In light or heavy makeup, picturesque are the hills. There waves a wine-shop banner over two or three houses. The setting sun shines on colorful clouds, Lovely clouds hover above pure waters, Willows and flowers still stand, though fading fast.

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It is one of Zhang Kejiu’s many compositions that describe the landscape of the West Lake. It shows a keen sense of the picturesque in its description of nature. The contrast in the last two lines is quite artistic in its integration of contradictory elements: “Lovely clouds hover above pure waters, / Willows and flowers still stand, though fading fast.” “Just take the poem as a painting to look at,” (“Red Embroidered Shoes: En Route to the Tiger Hill”) the author was fond of looking for common grounds between painting and poetry. The short arias about romantic love are mostly quite dynamic, as in “Making Obeisance to the Son of Heaven: Spring Thoughts”: When I see him I’ll ask: “How come you forget our words back then?” In the east wind, my dream lingers by the little gauze window. The cold moon shines over the swing. I hold the pipa And play it in front of the lamp. Spring is almost over; but he’s not home yet. With five florets in its mane, a fine steed Stands under the drooping willows—but where?

Zhang Kejiu regarded himself as a talented scholar and had a very high opinion of himself, but he had a long career serving as a low-level functionary, hence his dreary and pessimistic view about official career. His “Pleasure in Front of the Hall: During a Trip” writes about the hardship in one’s official career: “The black mud path leads up to the little Sword Pass; / The red leaves fall on the bank of the Peng River; / White grass spread all the way to the clouds. / Half a sheet paper of the official honor / Means all the wind and snow over a thousand mountains.” Accordingly there is always a penetrating sad mood in his individual arias. He draws such a self-portrait in his “Someone under the Full Moon: Visiting Chuihong”: “Yellow flowers cover the courtyard. / A dim lamplight shines on the night rain. / My white hair wafts in the autumn wind.” Sui Jingchen, an author of the late Yuan period, left behind very few compositions, but one aria set among them, “Exposition in the Banshe (Yu) Tone: Emperor Gaozu Returning to Homeland,” is quite wellknown. Through the eye of a common villager, it describes in a humorous tone the scene of the home return of Emperor Gaozu of the Han dynasty, (in Gaozu’s own words) “With my power topping everywhere within the seas, I return to my homeland,” making it appear ridiculous


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and funny. It may be understood as an act of mocking of the imperial authority by making use of historical tales from the literati of the Yuan dynasty. However, what is notable is a kind of profound thought implied therein: when one describes exactly the same event in different ways, the result may turn out to be entirely different. For instance, in the eye of the villager, what the imperial guards of honor carry turn out to be a tangled mess: “Forks painted in red; / Axes plated with silver; / Some sweet or bitter melons gilded in gold,” “On one banner: some chickens learn to dance; / On another, dogs get pair of wings.” It sounds like the villager’s ignorance, but to those who are willing to think twice, it may lead to the conclusion that many so-called holy and solemn things are actually simple things deliberately made to be mystifying.

5. Poetry and Prose of the Yuan Dynasty Without question, drama and fiction best represented the creativity and achievements of the literature of the Yuan dynasty. To most of the men of letters of the time, however, poetry, with the longest tradition, remained the primary literary form to express feelings about life. The poetry of the Yuan dynasty not only reflected the turbulent and complex social conditions within one hundred years and represented the changing spirit of the intelligentsia of various periods, but also held great values for an understanding of the development of Chinese poetry and its relation with the emerging new literary genres. As forerunners of the Yuan poetry, the north as represented by Yuan Haowen, and the south represented by the “Four Ling’s” and Yan Yu, reversed the long-standing tendency in the Song poetry of focusing on intellect and reasoning at the cost of emotion. With the Yuan regime’s expansion of power, the northern and southern currents converged into one flow, and such a reversal of the Song poetry became the mainstream of the Yuan poetry. It was a prevailing position among poets of the Yuan dynasty to return to the Tang dynasty and even to the Han, Wei and the Six Dynasties, the actual meaning of which was to restore the tradition of attaching importance to the expression of feeling as represented by the Tang poetry. Their poetry was perhaps not as profound as the Song poetry, but just as the Ming dynasty writer Hu Yinglin observed in his Confluence of Poetry, “the Yuan poets strived to correct the mistakes of the Song,” so the move in such a direction had great significance for the development of poetry. By the end of the Yuan

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dynasty, with cities in the southeast, which enjoyed a booming commercial economy, as its main base, and with Yang Weizhen and others as its representatives, there appeared in poetry such new phenomena like an integration with townsfolk literature and arts, the foregrounding of individual values and personal feelings, and the aesthetic inclination against classicism, all of which embodied a tendency to move closer to recent and modern times. In the following section I shall primarily make an introduction of Yuan poetry, with some discussion of prose and the song lyric. Northern Poets of the Early Yuan Period In the period from the Yuan court’s control of the north to shortly after its unification of the entire country, major poets born in the north included Yelü Chucai, Hao Jing, Liu Yin and others. In this period, the achievements of the Yuan poetry were quite limited, but the northern poets still showed some of their own features. Yelü Chucai (1190–1244) had the earliest lifetime among these poets. He was a descendent of the imperial family of the Liao who served the Jin regime. Later, summoned by Genghis Khan, he eventually became a renowned Prime Minister of the early Yuan. He had a complicated experience; at the same time when he got involved in the cataclysm of history, deep in his heart he often yearned for a commonplace life. Such a kind of feeling is often presented in a simple and truthful way. As in the fourth poem of his “Matching a Poem by Chen Xiuyu in the Same Rhyme: Passing by the Capital of the Yan,” he started by the lament in the line “In the rest of my life, I won’t get to enjoy the forest and the hills,” and moved to remembrance of scenes of his youth, “Several volumes of an incomplete collection entertained my eyes; / Or I just covered my head under a closely stitched quilt.” To him that was the happy life. The second poem of his “Missing My Parents,” composed while he was on the western frontier, was also quite moving: Traveling for thousands of miles, I alone came to the western borders; I’m still in my life’s prime, but already got white hair at my temples. When the white geese came, I think about the northern palace; When the yellow flowers are in bloom I recall the eastern fences. The time when the miserable traveler stops late at his camp, Is exactly when his old parents stand by the gate missing him. Views in the foreign region are invariable as in the past; Every time when I feel transported I’d compose a poem.


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Concise Catalogue of the Four Treasuries of Books rightly observed on Yelü Chucai’s poetry that “using natural and unaffected diction it follows wherever the mind dictates, and does not aim at artfulness.” While his poetry is not particularly refined, it is quite fluent and unlabored. In the course of the merging of cultures of many ethnic groups during the Yuan dynasty, it had a noticeable presence. Even before he assumed the throne to become Emperor Shizu of the Yuan, Kublai Khan thought highly of Hao Jing (1223–1275). He was sent to the Southern Song as an imperial convoy, and was imprisoned there for more than ten years, but he remained loyal to the Yuan. A believer of Confucianism, he served the Yuan sovereign with Confucian moral integrity and was respected by the Yuan people. It made an intriguing case for the study of Chinese civilization. Hao Jing’s poetry shows discernible trace of the influence of Han Yu and Li He. He was fond of writing in the old style that allows more room for the changing surges of emotions and for the incorporation of reasoned discussions. He favored the use of a strange, rarely used vocabulary. His poems are frequently filled with an expansive force. What is quite noteworthy is that he liked to use poems in such a style to eulogize the bravery and fierceness and to express a worship of military force, sometimes even with a smack of blood-thirstiness. One may see therein the influence of the warlike Mongolian cultural temperament on the literati of the Han nationality and thenceforth its penetration into Chinese poetry. Take, for example, his “A Trip to the Northern Mountain Ridges”: The Central Plains are bordered in north and south by two mountain ridges, Wild foxes loom high atop the Great Yu Mountains. They raise their heads capped by the sun and their tails thrust into the sky; They stand along the ridge which towers around the remote land. To its south, the Five Terraces4 look like ants-hills; Downward, the Nine Divisions stay at the bottom of a deep well. Above there, there’s the dead old ice, frozen since the antiquity; Buried in sand, eroded by soil, it still looks ever so shiny. Stone steps circle up, hard and slippery, among the rootless grass. When sky-scraping barren rocks fall, they turn into mines. The southerners ascend the ridge, but dare not move forward; The wind whips up their faces: it’s so strong it almost topple them. Heaps of white bones pile up as high as the mountains;

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The Wutai Mountains in the northeast of the Shanxi province.

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chapter fifteen Within thousands of miles there’s a cold, dreary aura of death. Between heaven and earth north of the ridge, men and horses are vigorous; Snow sheathes their bows and swords; their necks are covered with frost. A few sparse stars look like cups straight above the Dipper; The Grand White5 looks like the moon, casting shadows for men. I’d like to leave a word for the city-defending generals of the Han: Do not even think about galloping towards the battlefield.

The poet spoke entirely from the stand of the Mongolian court, and some of the content smacks of politics. However, simply in terms of its landscape description, its forcefulness and vigor is rarely found in classical poetry. Liu Yin (1249–1293) served as a courtier but resigned from office before long. He was a Lixue scholar, but also a gallant man, and some of his poems have a bold and heroic air. For instance, the second half of his “Crossing the White Gully” tells about his own loneliness and wasted opportunity, but it sounds high-spirited: “Yellow clouds soar above the ancient fortress, it’s evening at the old city; / The sun sets in the west wind, a single goose flies across the autumn sky. / Within the four seas, half of those who know my name are gone; / Carrying my solitary sword, at the world’s end, who should I visit?” For another example, see his “En Route on the Cold Food Day”: Flowers in hair, lovely brides go back to visit their parents; Carrying spades on shoulder, many are on their way to the tombs. Through a myriad of ages, human life has continued its vitality; With the blooming peaches and plums, it makes another new start.

In examining the alternation and cycling of life and death, the poet focuses on the joy of life, displaying a sanguine disposition. Zhao Mengfu, Dai Biaoyuan and Others After the Yuan regime unified the country, major authors of prose and poetry who lived from the Southern Song through the Yuan period included Zhao Mengfu, Dai Biaoyuan, and Qiu Yuan, etc. Zhao Mengfu (1254–1322) was a descendent of the imperial family of the Song dynasty. After the downfall of the Song regime he became a civilian. When he was thirty-three years old he answered the summons

5

Old name for the planet Venus.


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to serve in the Yuan government, all the way up to be a senior courtier. In consideration of his special identity and status, such a career was not something he was willing to pursue, nor was it something he was able to escape from, hence the deep remorse and dejection in his heart. The retrospect of history turned into his personal endeavor to relieve himself from shame in everyday life. In his best-known poem, “The Grave of Yue, the Prince of E,” Zhao Mengfu expresses his emotions about the downfall of the Song and the ensuing sorrow: On Prince Yue’s grave, weeds are springing up; On this dreary autumn day, the stone animals appear in ruins. After crossing to south of the river, men of letters ignored the state; On the Central Plains, elders kept waiting for the imperial banners. Our hero passed away—alas, time won’t bring him back. The balance in the split land no longer managed to hold. Do not try to sing this song to the West Lake: The view of waters and hills cannot stand the sadness.

Since the rehabilitation of the injustice to Yue Fei during the late Southern Song period, the military commander who advocated military resistance had become another focus of attention in people’s imagination of a different kind of historical possibility. The poem starts by describing the dilapidated appearance of the grave, which bespeaks the desolation that is left behind by the complete shattering of hope. To those who still live in the course of a historical cataclysm, however, forgetting is simply impossible, and they have no choice but to endure the unbearable pang of sorrow. However, the imagination elicited by Yue Fei’s case is somewhat groundless. Throughout Chinese history, the confrontation between the north and the south always ended in the latter’s defeat, behind which there is some arcane truth. “Hearing the Sound of Beating Clothes in Washing,” which was written by Zhao Mengfu after he moved north, push the historical retrospect even further back: “Alfalfa always fed the Hun’s steeds well; / Pipa in hands, wept the maid from Han.” When the individual falls into the vortex of history, he finds it impossible to explain why he has to bear the burden of the inexplicable history: “In the human world, while one looks up and down, the present has turned into the past. / Why does one have to wait until sometime in the future to feel lost?” Most of Zhao Mengfu’s poems are graceful and implicit; the expression of feeling is based upon great cultural accomplishment.

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In his Selected Poetry of the Yuan Dynasty, Gu Sili of the Qing dynasty observed: “Zhao Zi’ang served in the government as a descendent of the imperial family of the Song. Refined and scholarly, he represented the very best of his time. . . . Poetic composition had another change because of him.” Thanks to Zhao’s move to the north, the poetry of Yuan was artistically enhanced and developed towards more polish and elegance. Dai Biaoyuan (1244–1310) served at a regional educational post during the Song but after its downfall lived as a recluse. In his late years he was recommended to serve at a local educational post, but he resigned shortly afterwards and went home. History of the Yuan noted that during the Zhiyuan and Dade years he “was known as a great writer of the time” in the southeast. Among early Yuan poets, Dai Biaoyuan was a major figure who promoted “the Tang style” and strived to rectify the malpractice of Song poetry. His “Foreword to Hong Qianfu’s Poetry” disapproved Song poetry in general for its deviation from the style of Tang poetry. According to Yuan Jue’s “Memorial Tablet Inscription for Master Dai’s Tomb,” he was deeply dissatisfied with the damage to literature brought by Lixue, “he forcefully observed that during the one hundred and fifty years of the later Song, literature came to an end with the rise of Lixue.” When the Southern Song regime collapsed, Dai Biaoyuan lived a hard life drifting from place to place in central Zhejiang. At one time, he took a refuge from the warfare in the Siming Mountains. A considerable part of his poems, quite characteristically, provide a record of the hardship he lived through and the calamity to the common people caused by the war. For instance, his “Passing By beneath the Southern Mountains” offers a soul-stirring account of how fragile human life is during the war. In a plain but truthful way, his “On What Took Place on the Third Day of the Sixth Month in the Year of Xin Si (1281)” describes the anxiety of those who take refuge from the disaster with lines like: “In misery, we begin to think about our entire life; / Sad and worried, we look like aged people.” A little poem like “Thatched Studio,” on the other hand, takes on a different flavor in its depiction of life in a mountain studio on a spring day: After a rain, the red apricot in the garden woods is in bloom; On remote slopes, deep in grass, frogs croak noisily. The spring wind cares not how small my thatched studio is; It just sends the bamboo shoots sprouting in front of the steps.


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In its evaluation, Selected Poetry of the Yuan Dynasty notes that Dai’s pentasyllabic and heptasyllabic regulated poems are “refined and graceful in prosody.” Generally speaking, Dai’s poetry has its strength in distinctive style and vivid imagery. Its meaning is easy to grasp, and it is not as implicit or philosophical as conventional Song poetry, but it has a fine flavor, all of which embodies a pursuit of new artistic criteria. Dai Biaoyuan was also known for his prose compositions. For example, his “Valediction to Zhang Shuxia on His Trip to the West” gives an account of the song lyric author Zhang Yan’s charisma as a young nobleman and his straitened circumstances in his middle age, with a vivid description of how he sings after getting a drink and forgets about his hardship. The piece is written in simple language, genial and spontaneous in feeling, and is free from any high-flown discussion. Qiu Yuan (1247–1326) served as a local educational official after the Yuan takeover. In his late years he lived a life of leisure by the lakes and in the hills until his death. His “During a Drink” says, “As long as I could have a goblet of spring brew / To sleep after getting drunk, I feel better off than the Grand Master of Chu.” Just as in many individual arias of the Yuan dynasty, the poem defies the traditional tenet of “loyalty” as symbolized by Qu Yuan. As regards poetry, he claimed that he “followed Tang poetry in regulated verse and the Wenxuan (Selections of Refined Literature) in old style.” (See Fang Feng’s “Foreword to Posthumous Collection from the Mountain Village.”) He also advocated modeling after Tang poetry and restoration to the archaic as a reaction to Song poetry. Of his poems, those in heptasyllabic regulated verse are better known. Most of these express his emotions on the vicissitudes in the world. Take, for example, “Matching Hu Weihang’s Rhyme Scheme”: I remember when I first got to know you in springtime. Idle by nature, we liked going out to walk on scented grass. Shortly after a rain, half of the pear blossoms were gone. Cuckoos stopped crying, yet spring passed on by itself. At the age-old double tombs, few came to make offering; The sun set at the Solitary Hill: there were not many visitors. Cold climate still lingers in Jiangnan now; Don’t take off your padded clothes in the east wind.

“Four Masters of the Yuan” By the middle period of the Yuan dynasty, the society began to stabilize, the Mongolian rulers showed more respect of Chinese culture,

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and the mind of the literati was gradually relieved from the impact of war and dynastic change. Since Zhao Mengfu moved north, he had brought with him the “refined and scholarly” poetic taste, and by now the poetic circle with the capital as its center further wielded its influence. At this time, the main authors included Yu Ji (1272–1348), Yang Zai (1271–1323), Fan Peng (1272–1330), Jie Xisi (1274–1344), known as “Four Masters of the Yuan.” One after another they served at the Hanlin Academy in the capital, and often exchanged and discussed their poetry compositions with each other. By and by they became honored as masters. In terms of their poetic practice, they essentially still followed the principle of modeling after Tang poetry and restoration of the archaic style in opposition to Song poetry. For instance, Yang Zai’s opinion was quite representative of the group: “Poetry should take its subject matter from the Han and Wei, and model after the Tang in prosody.” (See his biography in History of the Yuan) Selected Poetry of the Yuan Dynasty observed that the poetry of the four poets “reached the culmination of the entire Yuan dynasty,” and the evaluation was often repeated in later times. So far as the attention to poetic art and the polish of their composition are concerned, they certainly stood out during the Yuan dynasty. However, as senior courtiers, they could not help being restricted by the mainstream orthodox aesthetics in their compositions, and in the expression of their individuality were in fact not as good as poets at the end of the Yuan dynasty. Yu Ji began to serve in the government during the Dade reign of Emperor Chengzong, and he enjoyed the imperial favor through successive reigns. He argued that poetry should be gentle, kind, and peaceful, and also beautiful in sound and rhythm, and his own poems followed his own argument. However, except for some which eulogize the great virtues of the imperial court, his poems still focus on the expression of feeling under the pretence of political correctness. Take, for instance, his “Sitting Alone in the Courtyard”: Some time in coming years, where am I to live the rest of my life? In the mountains or along the river, I’ll always feel my emotions. For no reason, pine trees have grown all around my house; So often have I taken the sound of the wind as that of a rain.

While pursuing an official career, he yearned to live a life of recluse in the world of nature. Lines three and four say that the sound of the wind blowing through the pine trees is like that of rain, and it adds to the


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desolate feeling in his heart, hence he uses the phrase “for no reason” to express his astonishment. On the other hand, it may be symbolic: in official circles, a “wind” is taken as “rain” “for no reason,” and that is what makes one think about a retreat so as to feel one’s emotions “in the mountains or along the river.” The poems he wrote after he became a senior official are somewhat more exquisite and romantic than his earlier works. Take, for example, the piece “Crab-Apple Flowers” from a series of poems inscribed on paintings: Awake from sleep, one’s filled with romantic thoughts. Indistinct and vague, there looms the beautiful Taizhen.6 A red branch all wet with dripping tears Seems to recall the spring in the old palace.

Of the four masters, Yang Zai was more a romantic poet by nature. Fan Peng, in a foreword to Yang’s poetry collection, observed that his poetry “goes wherever the poet’s mind wanders in its bold and proud outlook of the world.” The unrestrained nature of his personality may be shown in the expression of feeling, as in the lines: I let myself free in between heaven and earth; Seeing neither present nor the past. Wherever and whenever the ancients were having their fun I’d join in with no obstacle between us. (“An Improvised Random Composition”)

Or it may be displayed in the description of scenery, as in the lines: The north wind blows from the sea; How spectacular is the heavy snow! Up and down, for an expanse of ninety thousand miles It clears the world of all the tiniest dust. (“Snow Veranda”)

In addition, unlike the poetry of Yu Ji and others who mainly express their thoughts in association with events and people in reality, Yang Zai’s poetry frequently gives free rein to imagination. For instance, the famous couplet from his “Watching the Moon at Zongyang Palace: In the Distribution of the Rhyme Scheme I Got the Word ‘Sound’,” seems to be looking down at the human world from heaven in its vast overview: “Mountains and rivers all over the earth cast some light shadows; / Up

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The imperial consort Yang Yuhuan of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang dynasty.

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in the open skies, all is quiet in wind and dew, without a sound.” The poem “On a Dream” also displays a kind of enchanted beauty: In all four directions, green hills stand in verdant radiance. Towers and terraces face each other, the gate to heaven is open. Deep at night, I often become a wandering immortal in a dream. The moon shines over the jade-white field; thousands of cranes fly.

Fan Peng was fond of writing in the old song form, and he paid much attention to prosody and structure. However, he always appeared weak in originality. Some of his quatrains are rather graceful, like the poem “Xunyang”: Dew falls, the sky is high, the moon shines bright over shoals; The traveler points west toward the city of Wuchang. His mind arrives there way before the little boat he’s on: Lying in there he listens to the drums from the tower of Xunyang.

Jie Xisi, born from a poor and humble family, shows feelings close to the common people in his poetry. For example, his “Maid from Linchuan” tells how a blind girl is deserted by her mother and elder brother but is rescued by some nice people, providing an in-depth description of the feeling of helplessness of those in straitened circumstances. In her own words: “My mother used to be kind and loving; / My elder brother, also tireless despite our hardship. / Driven by sickness and our poverty / They are forced to change their inner heart.” However, what is conspicuous about his poetry is its “fresh, graceful, mild, and indirect” style as observed in Concise General Catalogue of the Four Treasuries of Books. Take, for example, his “Holding Another Banquet for Li Shiyi: A Composition on the Moon by the Southern Tower”: Gracefully she arrives above the ancient fortress; Dazzlingly she leaves behind the misty trees. Her chill penetrates into the depth of the Great Lake; Her white light brightens the dusk in the entire southwest. From my folding stool I feel closer to her than ever; Sadly I hold a cup of wine as I have no way to keep her. The back of the wild geese are almost covered by frost; From the top of trees in the forest falls the early dew. My old friend: when you moor your boat tomorrow evening, Where will you be when we try to watch each other? Shine on the East Lake for those who go back: Send off the returning boat on its way home.


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Yang Weizhen and Poetry of the Late Yuan Period In fact Yuan poetry reached its peak of accomplishment in the late Yuan period. In the “General Introduction” to his Selected Poetry of the Yuan Dynasty, the Qing author Gu Sili noted that “by the end of the Zhizheng reign, more extraordinary talents emerged.” Major poets of that period included Sa Dula, Yang Weizhen, Gao Qi,7 Gu Ying, etc., who mostly undertook their activities in the cities of southeast. In late Yuan period, economy developed very fast in southeastern cities, and the urban community had expanded far more than in previous times. Under the impact of the craving for material gain in society, those in the upper stratum of the urban community often exerted a considerable local influence which even extended into cultural domains. For instance, Gu Ying, the poet, and Ni Zan, the artist, were both quite wealthy. In his Random Talk from the Garden of Art, Wang Shizhen of the Ming dynasty observed that people like the two of them, by means of their wealth and talent, were “at the top of the southeast in their attainments and generosity, and Yang Lienfu (Yang Weizhen) was the de facto leader of the group.” The close association between businessmen and the arts was unprecedented in history. Due to its close connection to the urban society and townsfolk culture, their poetry holds some special features of its own. One of such features is its rich taste of secular life, as it often describes urban prosperity and worldly pleasures in admiration. Another feature is its strong self-consciousness; for example, Yang Weizhen’s “Lyric of a Great Man,” Gao Qi’s “Song of Master of Green Hills,” Gu Ying’s “Inscription on My Own Portrait,” all provide a direct spiritual image of themselves and put forward a demand to respect and honor their own personality. At the same time, artistically speaking, their poetry also frequently breaks away from conventional norm; Yang Weizhen’s poetry was even condemned as that of “a poetic monster.” Judging from a different angle of view, though, poetry of the late Yuan period, in many respects such as representation of life, subject matter, and vocabulary, was under the influence of the newly rising townsfolk literature and arts,

7 (Original Note) Following the convention, Gao Qi is to be discussed in this book among authors of the Ming dynasty. In fact, though, he was involved in his activities primarily at the end of the Yuan dynasty. Accordingly, in our discussion of the general features of the literature at the end of the Yuan dynasty, we cannot avoid referring to him.

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fiction, drama, and the individual aria, so the differentiation between the so-called “refined” and the “vulgar” literature became blurred. All this meant that classical poetry was seeking new historical changes. Sa Dula (ca. 1300–?) was of the Hui nationality. Born in the family of a military commander, he served at various local positions in the south, and led a civilian’s life in Hangzhou in his late years. Sa Dula was a disciple of Yu Ji’s. Yu Ji remarked that Sa’s poetry “had its strength in expressing emotions in its refined eloquence and refreshing mildness.” (“Foreword to Fu Yuli’s Poetry Collection”) There are quite a few works on female beauty and romantic love in his poetry collection, some of which are close in style to the “Songs of Bamboo Twigs,” and are quite passionate. Take, for example, his “A Trip to the West Lake”: “Cherishing springtime I once spent a night on a boat on the lake; / As I was thirsty with a hangover, the local maid split an orange for me. / Suddenly she heard me calling her by her pet name; / She turned her head around, a smile on her face, with her back against the lamplight.” It brings out a vivid scene in life, and sounds somewhat like a lively individual aria. Some of his long poems in the old song form are close in flavor to the palace poetry. For instance, his “Song of Parrot: Inscribed on Consort Yang’s Embroidered Pillow” contains the following description: “The beautiful lady could never sleep enough in springtime; / In her dream, she made a trip to the Bright Sun Palace along with the Flying Swallow. / When she woke up her powdered face was stained with her perfumed sweat; / On the pillow there threaded a new red line of truly light trace.” It obviously differs from the “Four Masters” of the mid-Yuan period whose poetry was predominantly “refined and elegant” in style. Another type of Sa Dula’s poems with a distinctive feature of their own are those that are filled with a sense of history in their expression of his emotions. A gallant man, he had a high opinion of himself, and these poems, eloquent in language and charged with emotion, display his chivalrous and heroic character. Take, for example, his “Double Ninth Day”: On the Double Ninth Day I happened to be at the Beigu Hill. The slight chill of the weather ran through my blue robe. In the river of Xiang, the water level fell; dark dew dropped. In the land of Wu, in deep autumn, white geese soared high above. Only people like us would drop our caps to watch the flowers; Crying out to falcons, playing with horses, we recalled our youth. The great career of those heroes, Sun and Liu: where would it be found? With a gallon of wine, we could have some great fun just like Li Bo.


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Sa Dula was also an important song lyric author of the Yuan dynasty. His “Lovely Nian Nu: Ascending the Tower of the Stone City in Dongpo’s Rhyme Scheme” is a famous text written to match Su Shi’s song lyric: Above the Stone City I watch the sky towering over Wu and Chu With nothing else in my view. I try to point out the famous spots of the Six Dynasties But I see only the green mountains like walls. Banners that covered the sunshine, Masts and sculls that connected with clouds, And the multitude of white bones, like snow. North and south of this one single river Washed out the life of so many heroes. At the solitary temporary palace to escape the summer heat East wind blows over the road where the imperial carriage used to run, Scented grass, year after year, has grown. In the setting sun, no one is seen on the path beneath pines, Only the will-o’-the-wisp glimmers, high and low. In front of the singing and dancing, with the passing of wine-cups, In all the luxury and pomp reflected in the mirror, The black hair of youth has changed on the quiet. One feels heart-broken over the passing thousand of ages, While the moon shines bright over the Qinhuai River.

This song lyric shares something in common with the above-cited poem, “Double Ninth Day,” in its regret over the impassive transience of human life, but it sets out from the vast time and space and accordingly commands a more grandiose view. Compared to Su’s text, the theme of which is to recall ancient heroes in admiration and lament his own missed opportunities, this lyric focuses more on the disillusionment of history and life’s misery, and has a desolate flavor of its own. Yang Weizhen (1296–1370) was the poet who brought even greater changes to the poetry of the late Yuan period. He served at several regional posts, and lived a recluse’s life in Songjiang in his late years. At the beginning of the Ming dynasty, he answered the government’s summon and arrived in Nanjing to participate in the composition of the chapters on rites and music in history, but he went home shortly afterwards. Yang Weizhen’s poetry was quite influential in the southeast region at the end of the Yuan dynasty. In a monument tablet inscription for Yang’s tomb, Song Lian remarked, “Most of the scholars in Wu and Yue celebrated him, like all the mountains paying their homage to the Sacred Mountains, or all rivers running into the sea. It was like that for

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more than forty years.” Around Yang there formed a circle of poets, as he himself claimed: “Those known for good at poetry among my followers count more than a hundred in north and south.” (“Foreword to Collection of Memorable Pieces”) One of the main points of Yang Weizhen’s theory of poetry is an emphasis on poetry’s origin in feeling and personality, as in his own words: “Personality gives birth to feeling, and feeling gives birth to poetry.” (“Foreword to Poetry from Shan and Shao”) Secondly, at the same time when he advocated “a restoration of the ancients,” he was against imitation, as he maintained that “The more accurate the imitation, the further deviation from the ancients.” (“Foreword to Manuscript of Wu Fu’s Poetry”) Thirdly, he attached much attention to the artistic features of poetry and argued that “poetry should have its feeling, its sound, its imagery, its taste, its rules, and its body.” (“Foreword to the Collection from the Pavilion that Brings Cranes”) These arguments exerted an obvious influence on the authors of the Ming dynasty. In terms of poetic form, he did not like regulated verse with its strict prosody, but chose to write mostly in the Music Bureau (yuefu) style. His own poetry collection was entitled Archaic Yuefu Poetry from the Iron Cliff. However, this kind of “archaic yuefu” not only marked itself different from conventional yuefu poetry in style, but was much broader in range and included the song of bamboo twigs which was close to heptasyllabic quatrain, the palace song, and the poetry of the fragrant toiletry case. Accordingly, Yang’s so-called “archaic yuefu” was in fact a kind of free form. Yang Weizhen’s poetry is complex in its content, but has conspicuous main characteristics. It concentrates on individual life’s will, displays the promotion of a self-centered spirit, praises worldly pleasures, and represents a desire for beautiful females. Many of Wang Weizhen’s poems describe the image of a self-centered spirit, like “Lyric of a Great Man,” “Song of a Taoist,” and “Trip to the Five Lakes.” The self-image transcends time and space, stands alone between heaven and earth, goes freely in all directions, and seeks a proud solitude without any company. It originated from Lu Xiangshan’s philosophical concept, “My heart is the universe.”8 (Lu’s concept originated from the study of Buddhism.) However, its main purpose is not in explicating any philosophical concept, but in promoting the

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Lu Jiuyuan (1139–1193), a philosopher of the Song dynasty.


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individual will, which is precisely what brings the free, uninhibited posture of the characters in these poems. Take, for example, “Trip to the Five Lakes”: There is a boat of the water fairies on the Leather-Bag Lake; On the boat rises a twelve-layered tower of the water fairies. Beneath peach flowers, spring waters swell up to the sky; Seventy-two dark spiral shells are blown beyond the horizon like dark bubbles. Our Taoist has been banished to the world for three thousand autumns. He holds in hand a dark jade scepter, a dragon in shape. The sun rises on the Eastern Fusang Sea, reddening the mulberry trees; Due to the sea wind, he is bound to live on the Isle of the King of Wu. In front of the Isle of King of Wu, he inspects a battle on water: A hundred thousand men, in rhino-skin armor, like gulls afloat. All night, the sound of the waters comes into the pool by the terrace. There are no longer any deer roaming on the terrace. We sing the songs of Wu; We brandish Wu scimitars; We summon Master of Leather Bag9 and get intimate with God of Waves. The towered boat does not have to get to the Penglai Hill. Xi Shi and Zheng Dan, legendary beauties, sit on his two sides. Our Taoist lies down in the boat and plays his Iron Flute. He raises his head to look at the blue sky, and the sky runs backward. Old men from the Shang: How many games of chess will you play? Master of the East: How many peaches of immortality will you steal? Jingwei10 filled up the sea with pebbles, which turned into a hillock. The sea leveled the Imperial Mausoleum, sending skeletons adrift. Why should we stop drinking and indulge in the sorrow of spring?

“Our Taoist lies down in the boat and plays his Iron Flute.” The line directly refers to the author’s literary name, “Taoist with an Iron Flute.” The poet’s self-image as presented therein wanders, free and unfettered, in both the world of immortals and that of men. He casts his eye at both past and present, watches the vicissitudes of history and nature, and all along never fails to enjoy worldly pleasures. The poem bears the trace of influence from the supernatural ideas of the poetry of the

9 During the Spring and Autumn period Fan Li, who helped Gou Jian, the King of Yue, to restore his nation, adopted the name of “Master of Leather Bag,” and lived a recluse’s life afterward. 10 In ancient Chinese mythology, the daughter of Yandi, the legendary king, was drowned in the Eastern Sea. Her spirit turned into a bird named Jingwei which tried to fill up the sea with pebbles and pieces of timber from the Western Mountains.

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wandering immortals of Li Bo and Li He, without the latter’s disgust at the world and its ways and transcendence of earthliness. The “great man” in his “Lyric of a Great Man” is someone who, on the one hand, “The Son of Heaven cannot claim him as a subject; / Princes and Lords cannot call him a peer,” and on the other, “He desists not from carnal desire; / Nor does he engage in practice of alchemy.” What all this signifies is that spiritual transcendence does not have to be at the cost of the vulgar worldly life. Beautiful women are figures who show up recurrently in Yang Weizhen’s poetry; they make life happy. For instance, “Song of a Beautiful Woman in the West of the City” goes: “Beautiful women are like paste of pearls / That warms up an icy-cold heart by its vital force of harmony. / . . . Beautiful women, oh, beautiful women! / You play your jade flutes, / You play the copperleaf song, / You present to me, once again, the golden goblet. / Beautiful women of the old times have already turned into dust. / Don’t waste time: let those in red raiment hold the candles.” It is interesting that, while the beautiful women in previous poetry mostly strike one as being fragile, idle, or sad, most of those presented in Yang Weizhen’s poems are physically strong and full of vitality. Take, for example, the following two poems: Outside the Cloud-High Tower, between the red ropes Who sends, flying down, the fairy from the clouds? A stiff wind blows her past, too fast to catch in view: Just a pair of “golden lilies,”11 upside down in the sky. (“Twenty Poems as a Sequel to the Collection of Toiletry Case: The Swing”) From a lake boat with a deer-head prow I sing, making my man blush. At the prow, no pair of wild mandarin ducks will sleep. I sing and dance for my man, I’d rather die for him Than care for pearls to be measured with a bushel. (“Nine Songs of Bamboo Twigs from the West Lake”)

As regards the first poem, while the image of a maid on a swing is mostly presented in previous poetry in an implicit way, such as “From across the wall there looms a shadow of the swing,” Yang Weizhen, instead, gives full rein to a description of the dynamic action. The second poem brings out the maiden’s bold passion. In both the females are no longer gentle and fragile.

11

Women’s bound feet.


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The aesthetic concept of Yang Weizhen’s poetry deviates from the requirement of the “elegant correctness” of the poetic convention, but chimes in with that of fiction, drama, and the individual aria, genres of popular literature of the Yuan dynasty. In his Confluence of Poetry, Hu Yinglin, quite perceptively, noted on Yang’s “Eight Poems of the Fragrant Toiletry Case”: “(these) are binding expressions from popular songs into shi poetry. If the lines are slightly uneven in length, they would fall under the likes of Wang Shifu and Guan Hanqing.” However, such a feature is most remarkable in “Twenty Poems as a Continuation of the Collection of Toiletry Case,” wherein the author uses a sequence of poems to describe the entire course of how a young woman makes a wedding vow all on her own and eventually manages to get married, and celebrates her beauty from many and various respects. Simply by reading the subtitles of these poems, like “Meeting Each Other,” “Missing Each Other,” “Receiving the Message,” “Secret Dating,” they seem to be telling a story, almost like the synopsis of a variety play. One can hardly call Yang Weizhen’s poems exquisite artistically, and some of them are rather bizarre. However, they are quite dynamic and lively. Their real significance lies in their embodiment of the demand for development and evolution of classical Chinese poetry generated by the changing culture of the southeast coastal region at the end of the Yuan dynasty. Engaged in business, Gu Ying (1310–1369) made himself a man of enormous wealth. His private garden, “Thatched Cottage of the Jade Hill,” was said to be “the best in the world in terms of its view of garden and pond and its chorus and orchestra,” and: “Many renowned men of letters in the country came to play the host at his residence.” (Classified Record of Events during the Yuan and Ming Dynasties) It actually became a meeting place of the literati of the southeast region. Yang Weizhen also frequented the place as a host of the literary gatherings. Gu Ying also compiled Collection from the Refined at the Thatched Cottage of the Jade Hill which included the poems of those who attended the gathering, and the collection was widely circulated at the time. The gathering of the literati had always been elitist in nature. The parties at the Thatched Cottage of the Jade Hill, on the other hand, reflected the pursuit of cultural values of the merchants after they made their wealth, as well as their power and prestige in cultural dimensions. It was a noteworthy phenomenon. Because of Gu Ying’s life experience, which was different from that of the average man of letters, his poetry has some special features of its

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own. For instance, one of his poems, entitled “The Painting of Driving Carts on a Winding Way in Snow,” depicts the hardship of businessmen who engage in long-distance transportation of goods and the risks they face, and it also expresses the merchants’ indignation at government bureaucrats, which is quite unusual in classical poetry. Another poem of his, “Inscribed on My Own Portrait,” provides a self-portrait of his personality: Wearing a Confucian robe, a Buddhist cap, and a Taoist’s shoes, I could allow myself to be buried at any green hills in the world. If one speaks of all the gallant men in the old times, there I am, Mounted on the same fine horse as those in the imperial quarters.

The first two lines outline his way of thinking and his amiable, easygoing view of life, and the next two lines show a sense of pride in his capability to measure up to aristocrats as a businessman.

6. Fiction of the Yuan Dynasty The most outstanding achievement of the literature of the Yuan dynasty lies in the sustainable development of fictitious literature, with the variety play and fiction as its leading representatives. However, as the authorship of popular fiction was, in most cases, not very clear, and in the course of circulation such fiction often went through revision from the publishers, accordingly the date and year of production became a highly complicated issue. For example, works printed during the Yuan dynasty could have been produced at the time, but might have been passed down from previous times as well. In the case of texts which were confirmed to have appeared during the Yuan dynasty, it is also difficult to ascertain to what extent they went through revision if only printed versions from the Ming dynasty are extant. On the question, we shall try our best to provide some illustration. Huaben (“Vernacular Story”) Fiction The performing arts of storytelling, which was popular in the Song dynasty, remained as such during the Yuan, and the categories of “small talk” and “retelling of history” were still the most important kinds. Of the early huaben fiction texts, however, it is difficult for us today to distinguish which were from the Song and which from the Yuan


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dynasty. Researchers, accordingly, have had no choice but to adopt the more reliable way of referred to them generally as “the Song-Yuan huaben.” Luo Ye’s Tattle from the Drunken Old Man, a book from early Yuan period, contains the titles of many story scripts, the content of a few of which is still found in Common Words to Caution the World. In the “Three Collections of Words,” however, many drew their material from previous ages, including some which provided a brief note after the title as having originated from “fiction from the Song authors,” as previously mentioned. Having been revised to a considerable extent, these can only be regarded as secondary source for the study of the Song-Yuan fiction, rather than directly as the latter. In addition, Qian Zeng’s Catalogue of the Library of the Hall of Reviewing the Old Times and Catalogue of the Library of Also a Garden include entries about “scripts from the Song authors,” five of which are found in Vernacular Stories from the Mountain-Level Hall of the Qing (a remnant part of Hong Pian’s Stories from Sixty Authors from the Jiajing reign of the Ming dynasty).They include “Buddhist Monk Who Sent an Anonymous Letter,” “Story of Three Pagodas by West Lake,” “Story of Liu Qiqing’s Poetry Compositions and Drinking Parties at the Tower of Playing by the River,” “Romance at the Pavilion of Auspicious Immortal,” and “Story of a Contract.” However, according to Mr. Zhang Peiheng’s research, all five have been attributed to the Yuan dynasty.12 Compared to the stories that drew material from previous times in the “Three Collections of Stories,” these five texts, somewhat crude and plain in language, are presumably closer to originals of the Song-Yuan fiction. These stories, while crude in structure and description, are mostly quite strange in plot. Presumably, the “storyteller” elaborated much during the performance, so the script only needed to stick to a compelling storyline. Another striking feature is their townsfolk interest, so they are often loose in moral standards. For instance, “Buddhist Monk Who Sent an Anonymous Letter” tells how Huangfu Dianzhi is deceived to believe that his wife has an affair with someone else, and divorces her; later, when he runs into her with her new husband at the Xiangguo Temple, they gaze at each other for a long time, being still in love; by

12 [Original Note] “On the Extant So-Called ‘Huaben from the Song Dynasty’,” Bulletin of Shanghai University, (1) 1996.

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the time when he finds out that he has been deceived, he manages to reunite with his wife. What is involved in the story is the human touch of the urban townsfolk which, certainly, could also turn out to be vulgar as well. For instance, “Story of Liu Qiqing’s Poetry Compositions and Drinking Parties at the Tower of Playing by the River” tells how Liu Qiqing (i.e., Liu Yong, the song lyricist, but in fact has no factual base), while serving as District Magistrate of Yuhang, falls in love with Zhou Yuexian, a courtesan, who resists his advance; he thereupon gives order to a boatman to rape her, and subsequently, at a banquet in her presence, he sings the poem she composed after the mortifying experience, to her fear and shame. The author does not reprove such act of villainy; instead he lets the story go that Zhou Yuexian is thus subdued, and thenceforth becomes willing to attend upon Qiqing. Obviously, the author does not apply the rules in real life to his characters in the story, and simply tries to satisfy some kind of hidden desire of the reader (the audience). For vernacular story in the “retelling of history” category, there are currently quite a few extant versions printed during the Yuan dynasty, including Vernacular Stories from the History of the Five Dynasties Stories and Five Kinds of Completely Illustrated Vernacular Stories, i.e., Completely Illustrated Vernacular Stories of King Wu’s Conquest of King Zhou of the Shang: a New Print, Completely Illustrated Vernacular Stories of Yue Yi’s Strategic Plan against Qi or the Latter Part of Spring and Autumn Annals of the Seven Kingdoms: a New Print, Completely Illustrated Vernacular Stories of Qin’s Annexation of the Six Kingdoms: a New Print, Completely Illustrated Vernacular Stories of the Sequel to the History of the Former Han: a New Print, and Completely Illustrated Vernacular Stories of the History of the Three Kingdoms: a New Print from the Zhizhi Reign. In addition, there is also Events during the Xuanhe Reign of the Great Song Dynasty, which consists of records from previous books, with a few parts in it of the nature of “retelling of history.” Of the above fiction texts, Vernacular Stories from the History of the Five Dynasties is more remarkable. In the storytelling of the Song dynasty, the retelling of the “Trichotomy” or “Three Kingdoms” and that of the history of the Five Dynasties were both quite popular in the repertoire. Vernacular Stories from the History of the Five Dynasties, of a print of the Yuan dynasty, probably originated from the master script of storytellers from the Song dynasty. In history, both the Three Kingdoms and the Five Dynasties were “turbulent ages” and also times


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when those of driving ambition took their chances, by hook or by crook, to distinguish themselves; their stories were easy to generate excitement among the audience. Sovereigns of the Five Dynasties were mostly born and brought up as commoners, and their experience of “rising up to power and prestige” was more likely to provide pleasure for the urban townsfolk. In terms of narrative art, Vernacular Stories from the History of the Five Dynasties was also written in a brief and plain way, but it was clearly more eloquent in style than Five Kinds of Completely Illustrated Vernacular Stories, and some of its sections were already quite detailed and vivid, making it more appealing to the reader. It signified that the “story script,” originally used as the master copy of the storyteller, had made a sustainable development toward bona fide text of fiction. There was also Chantefable of the Sutra Search of Tripitaka of the Great Tang Dynasty which was a kind of source of the subsequent Travel to the West. There have been two different scholarly opinions about its date, attributing it either to the Song or the Yuan dynasty. “Retelling of sutras” used to be placed among categories of “storytelling,” but it did not fit its surface meaning of elaborating on the stories from Buddhist sutras very well. As a matter of fact, the storytellers themselves did not necessarily make any strict distinction, and latecomers do not need to have a detailed classification of all the story scripts. Artistically speaking the above-mentioned story scripts are not so accomplished, but they are significant in the development of classical fiction. “Story of Jiao and Hong”: A Story in Classical Chinese There were very few good pieces among stories in classical Chinese during the Yuan dynasty, with the exception of a very special work in the history of fiction, “The Strange Connection between Shen and Wang: a Fireside Story of Jiao and Hong,” known in brief as “The Story of Jiao and Hong.” It runs to more than seventeen hundred characters in length, unprecedented among stories in classical Chinese. Baichuan’s Notes on Books, by Gao Ru of the Ming dynasty, contains this work and attributed it to Yu Ji of the Yuan dynasty. According to another source of documentation, it was written by Song Meidong (Song Yuan) of the Yuan dynasty. Some scholars believe that neither of these two authorship attributions is reliable.

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The story of this work is not so unusual; nor is it complex in any way. Shen Chun, a scholar, visits the house of his maternal uncle, ControllerGeneral Wang, where he falls in love with his cousin Jiao Niang and has an affair with her. The Shen family sends a matchmaker to the Wang’s to make the proposal, which is turned down by Controller-General Wang. Later, Shen Chun obtains the degree of Metropolitan Graduate in the civil service examinations, and Controller-General Wang agrees to the marriage. However, when the Marshal’s son hears about Jiao Niang’s beauty and makes a proposal, Wang agrees to marry Jiao Niang to him instead. Seeing no hope, Jiao Niang desists from eating and dies, and Shen Chun also hangs himself. Both turn into immortals after death. Of previous stories in classical Chinese, the longest one, “A Visit to an Immortals’ Grotto,” is under nine thousand characters in length, but it often rambles on, or is unnecessarily loaded with fancy phrases. “Story of Jiao and Hong,” however, never diverges from the story; its great length is reached entirely in the author’s meticulous, detailed description in unfolding the storyline. Unprecedented in previous stories in classical Chinese, it is complex in plot, rich in details, and exquisite in delineation. For example, about four thousand characters are devoted to how the two protagonists get to know and profess their love for each other alone. Through a series of trivial events, the author describes how they begin to have favorable impression of each other, how they sound out each other, how they come closer to each other, all the way to the eventual spiritual coupling of the two young souls. Thenceforward, the story turns to how the two of them repeatedly fight against oppressive forces to preserve and protect their love, and it is equally meticulous in description. In fact, such a way of representation already involved a new comprehension of fiction: it not only has to tell an integrated story but also need to create, through imagination, scenes of life in reality; it not only has to narrate the actions of the characters, but also has to go deep into their mind. Only then will fiction truly give free rein to its artistic advantage, which is to represent the contradiction between human desire and circumstances, and thereby appeal to and move the reader, unbeknownst to them, in a kind of fictitious reality. In this respect, “The Story of Jiao and Hong” was already a forerunner of A Dream of Red Mansions. Precisely due to such a kind of effort, however, the incorrigible shortcoming of “The Story of Jiao and Hong” also gets exposed. Classical Chinese is a written language detached from the language of everyday


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life. It may be proper to compose some brief, refined stories in classical Chinese, but when one uses classical Chinese to give description in minute details, it may generate a force of resistance due to the discrepancy between reading experience and psychological reaction, and as a result it is impossible for the reader to enter into the world of imagination in fiction; under the circumstances, the language turns out to sound lengthy and jumbled. From this we may also see that on the surface, classical Chinese fiction transformed itself toward the use of vernacular language because of popular need, but the deep cause of the transformation actually lies in the artistic features of fiction itself. Romance of the Three Kingdoms The appearance of the two novels, Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin, marked that classical Chinese fiction reached a new peak in its development. Like the variety play of the Yuan dynasty, such achievements resulted from a combination of the cultural attainments of outstanding men of letters and the vitality of folk arts. Romance of the Three Kingdoms was originally entitled Popular Romance of History of the Three Kingdoms. The lifetime of the author, Luo Guanzhong, remains unknown. Currently, generally following the material provided in Jia Zhongming’s Sequel to A List of Ghosts (attributed it to an anonymous author by some) and other books. His family, originally from Taiyuan, once lived in Hangzhou. His lifetime should have been mainly at the end of the Yuan dynasty, but it remains unknown whether he lived into the Ming dynasty. The earliest extant edition of this book, in twenty-four juan, two hundred and forty entries, was printed in the first year of the Jiajing reign of the Ming dynasty. Later, a forged “Li Zhuowu’s Critical Edition” incorporated it into one hundred and twenty chapters. During the Kangxi reign of the Qing dynasty, Mao Lun and Mao Zonggang, father and son, made a revision of the book, including the rewriting of its chapter titles, as well as some additions and deletions in both the storyline and the language, though they basically kept the book as it was. The 120-chapter version, known in brief as Romance of the Three Kingdoms, became the most popular version later. Even in the middle period of the Ming dynasty, however, the book was known in its shorter title, as found in Mo Yunqing’s Dust from Writing Brushes, cited in Wang Keyu’s Web of Corals, and the Maos, father and son, were only continuing the former practice.

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The period of the Three Kingdoms was an exciting age of social upheavals with generations of heroic figures. Chen Shou’s History of the Three States provides very rich materials about the history and figures of this period, which were greatly expanded by Pei Songzhi’s annotation. Free from any restriction in its format, much of the material provided in Pei’s annotation is interesting and delineative in nature. For instance, some of the characteristics of Cao Cao, as a literary character, are already found in the “Biography of Cao Man” cited in Pei’s annotation. Accordingly, the history and figures of the Three Kingdoms period had long been the subject matter of the shi poetry and song lyric of the literati, and the related stories had long been known among the people. According to Du Bao’s Anecdotes from the Daye Reign, Emperor Yang of the Sui dynasty watched some performances on his boat, and the repertoire included the stories of Cao Cao striking at a flood dragon in the Qiao River, and Liu Bei jumping across the Tan Brook on horseback. Su Shi’s Dongpo’s Memorabilia also includes a record of how parents of annoying, mischievous “little kids in the streets and alleys” gave them some money so they could attend retelling of stories of the Three Kingdoms. In the storytelling profession of the Song dynasty, there was the exclusive subject of “retelling of the Trichotomy” and performers who exclusively engaged in the subject. Among the extant early story scripts of the retelling of the history of the Three Kingdoms, there was the Completely Illustrated Vernacular Stories from the History of the Three Kingdoms printed during the Zhizhi reign of the Yuan dynasty. At the same time, stories about the Three Kingdoms were theatrically put on the stage of the Yuan dynasty in great number; there are more than forty extant titles of such plays. Luo Guanzhong’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms continued and brought into full play the folk art that was essentially “retelling of history,” but also showed great difference from it. Compared to Completely Illustrated Vernacular Stories from the History of the Three Kingdoms which, in addition to being brief and crude, contained many errors in historical facts, Romance of the Three Kingdoms displayed its author’s great familiarity with and effective use of historical material, whereas the content of folklore was ingeniously inserted within the framework that was mainly based on historical sources. As regards the history of the Three Kingdoms, it was primarily during the Song dynasty that there formed a kind of evaluation which regarded the Shu-Han as the “legitimate party,” which in turn exerted


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its impact upon the stories about the Three Kingdoms circulated among the people. Romance of the Three Kingdoms continued that inclination in assuming the general attitude that celebrates Liu Bei and denounces Cao Cao. At the same time, it also integrated the moral concept of “righteousness” which had been highly glorified in folk art, which is evident from the description of the sworn brotherhood of Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei at the Peach Garden at the very beginning of the novel. The so-called “righteousness” here is in fact a kind of townsfolk virtue that emphasizes the principle of how men should help one another and pay the debt of gratitude, so as to help them to build up a strong relation of common interests beyond political clique and consanguinity. In the novel, orthodox old-time morality combines with townsfolk morality, establishing a general criterion to explain history and evaluate historical figures. However, we do not need to treat the moral concept in Romance of the Three Kingdoms too seriously. It did provide a basic stand the author needed for his narration, but it had very little to do with the literary vitality of the novel. All that one need to come to an understanding of this point is to consider: the most vivid and unforgettable character in the novel turns out to be Cao Cao, the “traitor of the Han.” What is truly appealing to the reader in Romance of the Three Kingdoms is that, within a grand narrative framework, it manages to present highly dramatic and spectacular scenes of history and depict the conflict, disintegration, and realignment of all kinds of political forces from the collapse through the reconstruct of social order. What concerned the author above everything else was man’s desire and conduct in history. The author had almost no control whatsoever of his hero-worship. He would often simply take off and throw away the moral veil that he had made for himself and, warmly glorified any character, regardless of whichever political party he belonged to, as long as he was endowed with such noble qualities like courage, wisdom, dignity and perseverance, i.e., all the forces of life. In such historical struggles, the weak and the stupid were ruthlessly ousted, notwithstanding how superior their original status (like the pathetic imperial family of the Han), or how powerful they used to be (like the brothers Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu). The story of the battle at the Red Cliff in the novel, which contains the largest amount of fictitious elements, makes an excellent example of that. A key battle that determines the tripartite balance of forces among the three kingdoms, it has only received a brief account in History of the Three States. The novelist elaborated on it, expanding it into

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eight chapters which are full of dramatic changes with all the twists and climaxes. The main characters of all three parties are delineated as heroic figures. Cao Cao’s intoxication with self-satisfaction, with a touch of desolation, when he is composing a poem while holding his spear crosswise; Zhuge Liang’s deep insight into people’s mind, calm and unhurriedness when he goes lobbying in the East Wu; Sun Quan’s reluctance to yield to strong opponents and his agitation when he splits his desk and makes the oath; Zhou Yu’s wisdom and resourcefulness when he draws the plan to lure and trick the enemy; all of them have left a deep impression on the reader. History is depicted therein as a great stage on which heroic figures display all their passions in life, their will and their talent. Wang Qi of the Ming dynasty observed, without providing any grounds, that Luo Guanzhong was “someone who held the ambition of a king-maker.” (Collection of Historical Anecdotes) He probably reached that conclusion from reading the novel. Heroic figures may suffer defeat, but they remain heroes as they do not lose their dignity even in defeat. For instance, when Pang De is captured by Guan Yu, who urges him to surrender, he calls the latter “a youngster,” and says that “Liu Bei is mediocre;” he dies unyielding. In the novel, a poem is cited in his praise: “A great man, brave and gallant, / Who’ll leave a name that shines over a millennium.” When Guan Yu is captured by the East Wu, Sun Quan personally urges him to surrender, but Guan curses him loudly as “a blue-eyed lad and a rat with purple moustache,” and says that he “will do nothing but die.” Again, the novel cites a poem in his praise: “His vital force, without match, is like wind and thunder; / His will, with a light of its own, shines like the sun and the moon.” In addition, there is a man of letters like Mi Heng, who originally detaches himself from the overall situation in history, and is flamboyant and unrealistic in speech and conduct. However, the story of “Beating Drums and Abusing Cao,” which tells how he refuses to yield to power, and publicly humiliates Cao Cao who has set out to humiliate him in the first place, is also full of vitality. As China’s first novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms also opens the first gallery of characters in Chinese literature. In Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the description of the characters is not so refined yet, and the personalities of the characters do not yet have fine, subtle nuances of complexity. However, many kinds of characters whose personalities differ remarkably one from another still set one another in sharp relief and begin to demonstrate the multiplicity of human nature. Take, for


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example, the passage of “Guan Yu Decapitates Hua Xiong while the Wine Is Still Warm”: Yuan Shao said, “What a pity my top commanders, Yan Liang and Wen Chou, are not around! If only one of the two were here, who’d be scared by Hua Xiong?” Ere he finished speaking, someone from down the steps stepped out and shouted: “This humble officer is willing to go cut off Hua Xiong’s head, and present it in front of the tent!” People all looked at him and beheld that it was a man about nine chi in height, with a beard two chi in length, the eyes of a crimson phoenix, the brows of a supine silkworm, the face in the color of the dark jujube fruit, and a voice like that of a huge bell, standing in front of the tent.13 Shao asked who the man was. Gongsun Zan said, “This is Liu Xuande (Liu Bei)’s younger brother, Guan Yu.” Shao asked what position he currently served at. Zan said, “He follows Liu Xuande and serves as a cavalry archer.” From up there in the tent Yuan Shu shouted: “Are you insulting us, all the lords up here, that we do not have any top commander? How dare you, an archer, talk such nonsense? Kick him out for me!” Cao Cao promptly stopped him, saying: “Don’t be angry, Gonglu (Yuan Shu). The guy talks big, so he must have some courage and resource. Let’s give him a try on his horse, and if he loses, then it’s not too late to punish him.” Yuan Shao said, “If we send an archer to the front, Hua Xiong will surely make fun of us.” Cao said, “The man looks extraordinary. How could Hua Xiong tell that he’s an archer?” Master Guan said, “If I lose, please cut off my head.” Cao issued the order to prepare a cup of hot wine for Master Guan to drink before he rode away. Master Guan said, “Have the wine ready, I’ll be back soon.” He went out of the tent, picked up his broadsword, and in a flash went on his horse. The lords heard a hubbub of loud drumming and shouting outside the wall of the fortress, as if heaven and earth and all the great mountains had collapsed. All were startled. Just when they were about to send someone to check out the news, there arrived at the headquarters a horse with the little bells on it tinkling, and Yunchang (Guan Yu), holding Hua Xiong’s head in hand, threw it to the ground.— The wine was still warm.

Consistent with the entire book of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the language used herein is also rather concise in style. A close reading of the passage is still quite intriguing. Hearing Yuan Shao’s lament that “my top commanders are not around,” Guan Yu, who is still an insignificant character serving only as a “cavalry archer” at the time, stepped out “shouting,” fully displaying his pride. The Yuan brothers,

13 The Chinese length unit, chi, varies through the ages. During the Three Kingdoms period it was approximately 24.2 cm. So Guan Yu is described as about 2.18m (7’1’’) in height, and his beard is 0.48 m (1’7”) in length.

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warlords from hereditary aristocratic family, both look down upon men with humble background like him, but they are different in their reaction. Yuan Shu is extremely impetuous, whereas Yuan Shao, who is not unwilling to give Guan Yu a try, worries about being ridiculed by Hua Xiong, which shows his vanity and indecisiveness. Cao Cao, on the other hand, displays his insight and intelligence throughout the event. At the end, Guan Yu’s act of throwing the head to the ground proves once again his great valor and also his insolence. Each of these acts is related to the characters’ respective personality, and the respective fate of each character is herein presaged.14 In addition, for a few of the major figures in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the author has nonetheless recognized the complexity of their personal character. Cao Cao makes an outstanding example as such. There have always been many contradictions in the various historical sources about Cao Cao, which are treated in the novel as comprehensible multiple aspects of his personality. As soon as he appears on the scene he is lauded as “a great hero,” but then he is denounced morally all the time; he is often gallant and decisive, but then he also appears suspicious at times; he is usually magnanimous, but sometimes he acts in a narrow-minded way. Cao Cao is really the first personage in Chinese literature with a colorful and complex character, a personage that leaves much room for further explication. However, there are not so many such examples in the book, which has not yet set characterization of its personages as priority. From the cited passage above, one can also see the prose style of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a mixture of classical and vernacular Chinese. The reason for its adoption was perhaps because the author had to cite historical sources on a frequent basis in the book, and it would be hard to do by using the vernacular exclusively. Another possibility was that the vernacular had not yet reached full maturity at the time as a language for literature. Notwithstanding that, it still reflects the course of evolution of the language in fiction. The appearance of the novel indicated a kind of new literary consciousness: human life need to be understood in a widely held view, within the vast dimension of time and space, and in complex human relations. The main impetus behind all this is the human concern for

14 [Original Note] For the reading in the above paragraph I am indebted to C. T. Hsia’s book, The Classic Chinese Novel: A Critical Introduction.


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self-existence. Without question, we may call Romance of the Three Kingdoms a landmark in the history of the development of Chinese literature. The Story of Water Margin The History of the Song and other historical books contain brief records of some armed rebels led by Song Jiang. The group, with some thirtysix commanders, once “went on a rampage in Qi and Wei,” “moved around in ten prefectures, and none of the government troops dared to confront it.” Later, they were ambushed at Haizhou by Zhang Shuye, and surrendered. The story of Song Jiang and others quickly developed into folklore. In his foreword to A Tribute to Song Jiang and the Thirty-Six Men, Gong Kai, a writer who lived at the end of the Song and the beginning of the Yuan dynasty, mentioned that “the events of Song Jiang were told in street gossip.” Among the titles of storytelling during the Song and Yuan dynasties which were recorded in Luo Ye’s Tattle from the Drunken Old Man, there were already “Sun Li the Rock,” “Blue-Faced Beast,” “The Dissolute Monk,” “Wu the Layman Buddhist,” etc. Some parts of Events during the Xuanhe Reign of the Great Song Dynasty, though concise in content, already appeared somewhat systematic, from the story of how Yang Zhi and his men send the freight of garden rocks under escort, and how Yang Zhi sells his sword, and subsequently, in chronological order, from how Chao Gai and his men raid by strategy the freight of birthday gifts (silver ingots), how Song Jiang kills Yan Poxi and how he receives the celestial book at the Temple of the Dark Lady of the Highest Heavens, to how Zhang Shuye summons Song Jiang to surrender. In addition, as mentioned in the above, there were a considerable number of texts based on Water Margin among the variety plays of the Yuan dynasty. In short, beginning from the transition from the Song to the Yuan dynasty, the stories of Song Jiang and others, mainly in the form of storytelling and drama, were on the rise among the people. Precisely on such a basis, the novel Water Margin took shape. The earliest record about The Story of the Water Margin was found in Baichuan’s Notes on Books by Gao Ru of the Ming dynasty: “The Story about Loyalty and Righteousness of the Water Margin in 100 chapters, authentic text of Shi Nai’an of Qiantang, arranged in order by Luo Guanzhong.” According to this, then Luo Guanzhong was the author of the book and it was revised by Shi Nai’an. The so-called

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“authentic text” meant that it was the veritable text, the best edition. Little was known about Shi Nai’an, except that he lived at the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming dynasty, and that he once lived in Qiantang (Hangzhou, Zhejiang of today). Water Margin differs greatly in language from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, so one may presume that Shi Nai’an made a considerable amount of revision. However, it was not a simple matter like that. At the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming dynasty, no other work written in such fluent vernacular language like Water Margin was found; accordingly, Water Margin, as what we read today, may have gone through another significant revision when it was published during the Jiajing reign of the Ming dynasty. The problem of the editions of Water Margin is extremely complicated and highly controversial. To put it simple, the book has two systems of text, the unabridged and the abridged version, with the latter being a shortened version of the former; however, at the same time when the latter deleted some of the detailed descriptions from the former, it also added some new content in the storyline. In the system of the unabridged version, among the extant texts, the edition with a foreword by “Officer Outside the Imperial Capital” and the edition printed by the Indulgence Hall, both in 100 chapters, are relatively close to the original. In addition, there is also a print by Yuan Wuya in 120 chapters, entitled Complete Story about Loyalty and Righteousness of the Water Margin, which adds therein a rewritten text of the story of the suppression of Tian Hu and Wang Qin that is found only in the system of the abridged version. At the end of the Ming dynasty, Jin Shengtan cut off the unabridged version of Water Margin with the great assembly at Mt. Liangshan as its closure, and that became the 70-chapter version. It preserved the best part of the original, and the language was also improved, hence it has become the most popular version of the novel. At the end of the Ming dynasty, there was an edition which combined Water Margin and Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the title of which, Records of Heroes, indicates the common features of the two novels. Unlike Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which is based essentially on historical sources, Water Margin, notwithstanding its use of some historical background, actually makes up all its characters and stories which have little to do with historical facts, with the exception of the name of “Song Jiang” and the nature as rebels of the Liangshan armed force. In addition, most of the personages in Romance of the Three


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Kingdoms are well-known historical figures and belong to the upper strata of society, while the personages in Water Margin mostly belong to the lower strata and are heroes among commoners. The image of these personages reflects more directly the taste of the urban townsfolk. Like Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Story of the Water Margin takes a moral stand in its narration. An apricot-color banner up at Liangshan is embroidered with the words “Practice the Way on Behalf of Heaven,” and the horizontal board in the conference hall of Liangshan is inscribed with the words “Loyalty and Righteousness.” Both are what the author set as the moral prerequisite for the cause of Liangshan. The slogan “Practice the Way on Behalf of Heaven” shows the contempt of this group of brave men for the so-called supreme will that is located above all human power, which sets heaven as the origin of legitimacy for the political order in reality. It is because that, in Chinese cultural convention, there was the understanding that when there was a big political upheaval in an age, it signified that the “Way of Heaven” was not in display, and during such a time, it would be, at least on the surface, reasonable for some force other than the regime to “Practice the Way on Behalf of Heaven.” The description of the deplorable political situation at the end of the Northern Song dynasty in Story of the Water Margin provides a basis in reality for the “Practice of the Way on Behalf of Heaven” of the brave men of Liangshan. “Loyalty” signifies that the “Practice of the Way on Behalf of Heaven” is essentially consistent with the ultimate loyalty to the emperor and the imperial court. In other words, at the time, “Heaven” has not yet given the directive for dynastic change, so the mission for the Liangshan troops is to help the emperor in their mountain fortifications, so that the conduct of the regime may return to the orbit required by “Way of Heaven”: “Kill all the cruel and corrupted officials; / Repay the kindness of the imperial family with loyalty.” As a universal concept of justice, “Righteousness” is far more complicated in its content; it provides the principles for the brave men of Liangshan to deal with their relationship with one another as well as with other social communities, with more elements of urban townsfolk morality therein. The above principles constitute a moral coverage for the rebellion of the Liangshan heroes which may be, at least in a far-fetched and strained way, explicable according to conventional concepts in society. As a matter of fact, though, the moral concepts found in Story of the Water Margin are quite confusing and indistinct. The core content of the novel lies in its description of the extraordinary life of townsfolk

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heroes. Sometimes their actions may be admissible within the range of orthodox ideas, but in more cases are contradictory to the latter. In addition, a band of “robbers,” no matter how they “Practice the Way on Behalf of Heaven,” eventually pose a serious challenge to the existent order of power. The congregation at Liangshan starts from the raid of the freight of birthday gifts by Chao Gai and his men. Prior to the event, Wu Yong urges the three Ruan brothers to join the group, the initial purpose of which is not to fight against the government but rather, “for all of us to have a life of fun.” In addition, it is almost a pet saying of the brave men of Liangshan “to eat meat in big chunks, to drink wine in large bowls, and to distribute gold and silver in large plates.” Such language of the commoners, chivalrous and vulgar, expresses the yearning for a free and happy life through the possession of material wealth. The combination of the appetite for good food and the free, romantic spirit of self-indulgence find its most strikingly dramatic illustration in the story of how Lu Zhishen raises a rumpus at Mt. Wutai. To stay away from trouble Lu Zhishen is forced to become a Buddhist monk; finding it too hard to stand the insipid ascetic life at the temple, he goes down the mountain and gets hideously drunk; afterward he goes back up the mountain with a cooked dog leg tucked in his bosom, crashes a kiosk, smashes the statues of Vajra’s,15 chases and strikes at the other monks, forcing them to eat the meat, and they all get scared and run away from the main hall. Such a vivid and unrestrained description of the secular human desire is what marks Story of the Water Margin out of the common run. When a heroic character suffers from oppression, the vital forces of his life gather for an outburst in an extremely startling way. Wu Song wants to uphold justice for his elder brother, but finds it impossible to bring a lawsuit, so he draws his sword to take revenge; later, Director-in-Chief Zhang’s persecution of him leads to the bloodshed at the Mandarin Ducks Tower. In the face of adversities, Lin Chong repeatedly exercises forbearance until he is driven into a corner, and eventually he takes his revenge at the Shrine of the Mountain God, and goes up to Liangshan on a snowy night. To ask for the return of a dead tiger which is shot to death by them, Xie Zhen and Xie Bao are sent to the death row by Great-Grandfather Mao, a local despot; this

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Sanskrit term for Buddha’s warrior attendants.


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prompts Sister-in-Law Gu and others to break into the jail and fight their way out of the Dengzhou city in rebellion. All these make some of the most fascinating stories in Water Margin. The recognition of the right for revenge and the celebration of retaliation constitute a major characteristic of Water Margin. In accordance with one’s intolerance of being bullied and pushed around, the intolerance of seeing others, especially the weak, to be bullied and pushed around is equally an indication of heroic temperament. On behalf of Jin Cuilian, who is unrelated to him, Lu Zhishen kills Butcher Zheng with a couple of punches, and thenceforth has to give up his position as a military officer and lead a vagabond life. Wu Song declares, “I’ve always restricted myself to hitting only those unreasonable tough guys in the world;” he gives Door-God Jiang a good beating and takes back “Happy Woods” for Shi En, and it is also because his opponent uses his strength to bully and push around the weak. If such actions succeed in upholding justice, they are actions that exert the will of the brave men in the first place. As for details which have little to do with social conflicts, like how Lu Zhishen pulls out a willow tree from ground or how Wu Song hits the tiger at the Jingyang Hill, they simply, from a different angle, sing the praise of the valor and vigor of the heroes. Such stories, not involved in the confrontational tension of human relation, have something graceful about them in addition to their strident valiance, and they make some adjustment of the ambience of the novel. It is necessary to point out that Water Margin contains some sanction of savage violence. For instance, Zhang Qing and his wife run an inn of dark deeds where they kill travelers to make buns stuffed with human flesh; Li Kui, in order to force Zhu Tong to join them up at Liangshan, has no scruples whatsoever in slashing to death the prefect’s four-year-old son who is under Zhu’s care; events of the kind are found throughout the book, and they are treated by the author in a casual and light-hearted manner. The story of how the good fellows live their life by “rivers and lakes” is originally connected with the background of secret societies among the commoners; accordingly “Practice of the Way on Behalf of Heaven” is unwittingly tainted with a touch of blind destructiveness. In addition, Water Margin is a novel with an extremely strong consciousness of male chauvinism. The contempt for women, especially the hostility towards “women of easy virtue,” also becomes the proof of heroic soul. The spirit of Western knight-errantry is nowhere to be found therein.

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Notwithstanding such shortcomings, and in spite of all kinds of contradictions in its recognition of “justice,” the main body of Water Margin nonetheless strives to glorify the freedom and happiness of human life on certain principles about justice that smack of something fresh and new. After all, the life of the common people is eventually commonplace; people have to live through it, and yet they cannot help but feel bored by it. The good fellows of Liangshan are a different kind of people; legendary and idealized, they are closer to commoners than the personages in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The personality, vigor, and uninhibited emotions found in them provide a sense of pleasure that comes from the expansion of the vital force of life, and give the reader great mental satisfaction. In the history of literature Water Margin was the very first novel written exclusively in the vernacular language. The success of vernacular literature was by means due to “write however one speaks.” The vernacular adopted as a language for literature had its course of development. It began to be used starting from the transformation texts and story scripts of the Tang dynasty, and by the story scripts of the Song and Yuan dynasties it had made much progress, though the mixture of the classical and vernacular, and the crudity and plainness, still prevailed. With the appearance of Water Margin, the vernacular finally turned into an eloquent and vivid language for literature; in terms of “lifelike vivacity” it demonstrated a kind of effectiveness impossible for the classical language. With Water Margin, the vernacular language was securely established in its advantages in the composition of fiction; in that respect, it is worthy of being regarded as a landmark. In its structure as a novel, Water Margin is not as grand in scale and as integrated as Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but it has devoted more effort to its characterization and made greater achievements in that respect than the latter. Originally formed on the basis of folk storytelling and stories from drama, it has still preserved, within its lengthy framework, some units with independent significance and some of the most important personages; with some overlapping in between, they respectively take the space of several chapters, and their personal traits are thereby portrayed vividly and incisively in great detail. It displays the top priority for characterization in fiction. Moreover, for the personages in Water Margin, the author often brings out their respective personality according to their difference in social status and life experience. For example, Wu Song’s valiance and gallantry, Lu Zhishen’s hate of evil as personal foe and fiery temper, Li Kui’s artless innocence and


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painful honesty, and Lin Chong’s unyielding uprightness—they are all so true to life. Jin Shengtan observed that in the work “everyone has his own disposition, his own temperament, his own appearance, and his own sound and voice.” (“Third Foreword to The Fifth Book by the Gifted and Talented: Shi Nai’an’s Water Margin”) Certainly there is some exaggeration in his remark, but so far as several tens of major characters of the novel are concerned, they fully deserve the honor. Even with some secondary characters in the novel who are sketchily depicted, they are sometimes graphically portrayed. Take, for example, Niu the Second, whom Yang Zhi runs into while selling his sword, is in a full display of his infamous vileness. The heroic figures in Water Margin have strong personal traits but show relatively little complexity and changes through the story, which has something to do with the novel’s legendary nature. It is easier to appeal strongly to the reader to delineate the extraordinary dispositions of the heroic figures in bold, strong colors. However, it does not mean crudeness and simplicity. Take Li Kui for example: the author often sets out from the reverse side, and depicts his unsophisticated personality through some seemingly “crafty and cunning” words and deeds of his. Lu Zhishen makes another example: he is fiery in temper, but often shows his quick wit at critical moments. In addition, notwithstanding their nature as legendary figures, their actions are often portrayed in a convincingly realistic manner by the author, who is often capable of taking into consideration the influence on them from their respective detailed circumstances in life. For instance, when Lin Chong sees someone taking liberties with his wife, he flies into a rage, “when he was just about to swing his fist, he saw that it was none other than Master Gao, the adopted son of his superior Commander-in-Chief Gao . . . and lost his nerve.” Due to his position as a drill instructor of the imperial army which provides an affluent life for him, he has to keep on the safe side, and he understands that once he lands a punch, “it would make Commander-in-Chief Gao lose face.” In short, because of its skilful use of the vernacular language, and the shifting towards a central focus on characterization in content, Water Margin represented a record level in the progress of popular literature, and it also heralded the direction of the development of classical fiction.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

POETRY AND PROSE OF THE MING DYNASTY

The history of approximately two hundred and eighty years of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) corresponded roughly, within the range of the world, to the period of the Renaissance in Europe, an age of the transition from the medieval age to the “modern times.” For a long time, it was quite controversial whether some budding capitalism already emerged during the Middle and Late Ming times. Regardless of whether it was ever possible for the European format of capitalist production to appear spontaneously on the Chinese soil, the series of changes in the economy, ideology, and culture in the society that took place during the Ming, some of which may even be traced back to the Yuan dynasty, were quite remarkable. At the end of the Yuan, the economy of the handicraft industry and commerce in the coastal cities of southeastern China was already quite dynamic; after the recession at the beginning of the Ming, it was restored and expanded further by the Middle and Late Ming times. Scholars have noticed in their research that at some textile mills the phenomenon of wage labor, on the scale of several tens of laborers, already began to occur. In the field of ideology, the theory of Wang Yangming,1 from the Middle Ming, used its philosophical proposition, “human mind equals reason,” to call for revisions to the Lixue theory of Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi; with its underlying recognition of the individual’s right to learn truth and that of individual dignity and its opposition to idolatry, it was in vogue among scholar-officials for a time. By the Late Ming period, Li Zhi’s theory moved even further on the basis of Wang’s ideas. He not only fully affirmed human desire, but also argued, repeatedly, that it was a rational representation of human nature to seek profit for oneself. In addition, he also put forward the demand to get rid of the dependence on the “original classics” in history and reconstruct the ideology and

1 Wang Shouren (1472–1528), a Chinese philosopher. He has been better known as “Master Yangming” as he once built a residence at the Yangming Cave of his native town.

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culture in society. It is not out of bounds to call him a thinker of the enlightenment in pre-modern China. Not unlike the European Renaissance, the trend of ideology and culture of the Middle and Late Ming periods may also fall under humanism in its connotation. In the former, however, humanism referred to the individual’s liberation from the authority of god, whereas in the latter, humanism stood for the individual’s liberation from the bondage of the community consciousness and community morality with the purpose of preserving the system of imperial dictatorship and hierarchy. As widely acknowledged among the academia of today, the kernel of the intellectual trend of the Late Ming was the liberation of individuality. Two important theorists of the “May Fourth” movement of New Literature, Hu Shi and Zhou Zuoren, voiced different opinions in tracing the origin of the trend of New Literature; the former regarded the literature of the Jin and Yuan dynasties as the origin of New Literature, while the latter gave more emphasis on the inspiration of the literature of the Late Ming on New Literature. Each of them had personal preferences in their suggestions, and we are not going to discuss them in detail. We can probably say that as early as during the Jin and Yuan times, there already germinated a transition in the direction of modernity in classical Chinese literature, and by the Late Ming such a transition was even more clearly and strongly represented, and it already crystallized in literary theories with a philosophical foundation. Accordingly, the literature of Middle and Late Ming displayed unprecedented scope and depth in the exertion of individual will and in the representation of the conflict between human beings and environment and the straits of human existence. However, as widely known, the Ming dynasty was also an age when the system of imperial autocracy was strengthened in an unprecedented way. Compared to the social changes mainly in the coastal cities of the southeast since the end of the Yuan, the system of imperial autocracy, within the range of the entire nation, enjoyed a far deeper and more solid basis in agricultural economy and the village society, and the response to the historical challenge of its representatives was to contain stalwartly any forces that might imperil their own existence, and to strengthen the ideological control that aimed to enslave human nature. Thereupon the historical course of the transition toward modernity looked extremely difficult, and the complexity of the background also accounted for the complexity of the literature of the Ming dynasty.

poetry and prose of the ming dynasty

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1. Poetry and Prose of the Early Ming Period Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming dynasty and a man of great talent, bold vision, resolution, and cruelty, may be regarded a figure with historical sensitivity. After he founded the state, he not only built up, by ruthless means, an unprecedented dictatorship, but also forcefully pursued the policy of “supporting agriculture and restraining business” socially and economically. At the same time when he encouraged the cultivation of wasteland and propped up agriculture, he used military forces to block maritime traffic and prohibit foreign trade among the common people. In the coastal region of the southeast, which had the greatest vitality, a large number of local rich men either had their property confiscated or were forced to move elsewhere; Suzhou, a key city, at one time turned desolate. All these were meant primarily to destroy the foundation of anything that might constitute a threat to the imperial rule. In ideology and culture, Zhu Yuanzhang also exercised strict control. He declared: “The Mongolian Yuan lost from lenience. Now that I have restored China, I have no choice but to resort to brute force. However, the evil people detest strict law and like lenience; they slander the state and stir up trouble by demagogy; they can hardly be controlled.” (“The Emperor’s Note in His Majesty’s Own Handwriting” included in the Works of Liu Ji) This showed his abhorrence of free speech. At the beginning of the Ming dynasty there were quite a few cases of seemingly absurd, baffling literary inquisition. For example, a few prefecture instructors were all executed at the same time because the memorials to the throne they did the actual writing for contained the phrase in which the emperor was praised for “setting up the criterion” for the world, and the character for “criterion,” ze, was regarded as an insinuation of the character for “thief,” zei. Some considered this action to have resulted from narrow-mindedness, but actually there was a different profound implication therein. By slaughtering in such senseless and inexplicable style of “imposing punishment for mere thinking,” the absolute imperial authority could be brought out in full display so as to give a tremendous shock. In Chinese cultural tradition, scholars had always enjoyed the right to seek “hermitage,” and even took pride in that, but the Great Edict proclaimed by Zhu Yuanzhang laid down the rule that “men of letters in the nation who refuse to serve the sovereign” would be regarded as having committed the crime punishable by decapitation and confiscation of property; by

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this way the scholar-officials were completely deprived of their option to keep themselves detached from the regime. The cultural control in the Song dynasty may be considered as rather tight, but at least on the surface, the personal dignity of the scholar-officials was still respected, so they were able to pursue, more or less, their ideal that the search for the “Way” was their ultimate purpose in life, whereas the Ming regime, from the very beginning of its establishment, tried to cast the personality of men of letters in a slavish mould. During the Ming dynasty, the Cheng-Zhu Lixue was honored, forcibly, as a government-sponsored theory, and their annotated editions of Confucian classics were held as the required texts for daily learning and as the basis of the civil service examinations. From the beginning of the Ming to the Chenghua reign, the standard format in the civil service examinations gradually took shape. The eight-legged prose, with fixed number of characters in length and the requirement that one could only “compose in the voice of the ancients” rather than freely assume one’s own, further reinforced the shackles on the thinking of the literati with a lasting influence. (See “Survey of Official Appointment” in History of the Ming) Thereupon the free and lively literary practice, introduced in the last years of the Yuan, came to a sudden stop at the beginning of the Ming. The more than a hundred years afterward (1368–1487), through the last years of the Chenghua reign, made a rather lengthy period of decline in the history of literature. Gao Qi and Others The Poetic School of Suzhou, which started at the end of the Yuan, kept its momentum for a short while at the beginning of the Ming. At the time, with Yang Weizhen in his declining years, Gao Qi (1336–1374) became the main figure. He was born and brought up in Suzhou. During the upheaval at the end of the Yuan he lived at his hometown in seclusion. At the beginning of the Ming he answered the government’s summons and went to Nanjing to participate in the composition of the History of the Yuan. Later he served at the Hanlin Academy, and subsequently he was offered the senior appointment as Vice Minister of Revenue, but he firmly declined and went back home. In the seventh year of the Hongwu reign, on the pretext of Gao’s involvement in another case, Zhu Yuanzhang had him executed at the age of thirty-nine. As regards Gao Qi’s death, it was attributed in the History of the Ming to


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his composition of some poems satirizing Zhu Yuanzhang, which was not necessarily reliable and nor was it so important; the primary reason was his noncooperation. Because of his fame and prestige, the warning that Zhu Yuanzhang issued to those among the literati who were unwilling to submit to his will became even more grim and stern. Gao Qi, sensitive and poetic by nature, was a contemplative man who found it difficult to live without freedom. In fact, he was not without any intention to take part in politics, but his personal character was obviously at variance with politics, so he made up his mind to be content with being a poet only. In his “Song of the Master of Green Hills” which demonstrates his personality, he describes himself as “Not willing to bend my waist for five gallons of rice; / Not willing to wag my tongue to take over seventy towns,” “I care not the hard fight between a dragon and a tiger; / I care not how the sun and the moon keep running around. / I just sit alone by waterside, / Or walk by myself in the woods.” It indicates his weariness of the fight among the various political camps that was going on at the time. We may have a better comprehension of his weariness of politics by reading another poem of his, “Passing by the Battlefield of Fengkou.” After depicting the horrible sight created by warfare, the poem makes such a lament: “For the passing year, the war has seen no end; / Both the strong and the weak engage in making conquests. / Rank and honor: who will eventually acquire them? / People are killed around between earth and heaven. / I’m ashamed that I have no way to end the chaos; / I just stand still with a broken heart.” Poetry became the source of happiness for Gao Qi. His friend Yang Ji recalled: “When Jidi was in Suzhou, whenever he composed a poem he would run over to show it to me, and he would be amazed at himself over any lines that he took pride in.” (“Short Foreword to the Poem ‘I Dreamed about My Friend Gao Jidi’ ”) One could imagine what he looked like at such moments, and it was because writing excited him, making him feel the expansion of his life-force. “Song of the Master of Green Hills” goes, “Mobilize the primary force / Search for the primary essence, / It makes it hard for the myriad things from the creator to hide their truth. / I send out my mental troops in all directions of the vast; / While I sit, I hear all the sounds in the great silence.” The subjective mind, as a dominant force, controls and reconstructs everything in the world, and makes the world present itself in a way which used to remain hidden. “My ingenious mind often meets that of spirits and divinity; / The beautiful scenes I see therein often compete with the rivers and

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mountains in nature.” In the world of poetry, the poet has become the creator who is on a par with spirits and divinity and with Nature itself. The admiration for one’s own creative power helps the poet to free himself from the oppression in reality and to enjoy, all by himself, the joy of creation: “Nothing in the world is going to entertain me; / Only that comes from metal and rock will make its roaring sound.” For Gao Qi, poetry does not serve any external purpose; it only satisfies the need of the poet’s own mind. His understanding of poetry’s exclusive artistic nature and its individuality was rarely found before him. However, Gao Qi was still summoned by Zhu Yuanzhang, and went to Nanjing. Freedom was impossible. All the poems composed during his short stay at the capital smack of a kind of anxiety and sorrow under high pressure. For instance, “A Wild Goose on the Pond” uses as a self-image a wild goose: “Due to its wild nature it was not to be domesticated,” but “All by chance it was captured by a hunter.” It is being fed and kept at a “beautiful pond,” but “It always felt shame and fear; / It was not at ease any more;” all it does is to gaze at its faraway homeland, “Crying sadly it often stood still.” Take, for another example, his “Hearing Grand Scribe Xie Reciting the Poems of Li Bo and Du Fu”: At first, he sang “Hard Is the Way to Shu,” Then he sang “Song of Straits.” The sound of music, loud and sharp, came out from the shabby house. Birds in the woods flew up at night; neighbors were startled. Sad with solitude, I was about to go to sleep; Hearing it, I got up and sat, feeling at a loss. I sang loudly to join him from the next door; I burst into tears in front of the green lamplight. Attendant Li, Reminder Du, Led a wretched life then—both were pathetic cases. Lord Yan wanted to kill one; the eunuch was angry with the other. White-headed they roamed by rivers and sea, worried and hungry for long. Extremely talented as the two masters were, it was like that. Now you, my friend, and I: what are we going to do?

One can hardly tell the background of this poem, but still feel in there an unspeakable sorrow and indignation, as well as the poet’s premonition that once one gets involved in the official circles one may get drowned therein. During the Yuan dynasty Gao Qi, for a long time, led the life of a recluse, which was often described as easy and peaceful, but Gao Qi’s mind appeared to be in a turmoil and complicated state, and he could


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hardly find any rest for his soul. Under the high pressure of the politics of the Ming, with a sharp sensitivity, he was even more enveloped in anxiety and fear. Even after he resigned from office and went back home, he was still unable to get over his depression. As it goes in his “Taking a Walk to the Eastern Plateau”: The slanting sunshine keeps half the river bright. The reclusive man often takes a solitary walk. In gloomy mood, he confronts the somber dusk. His poetic mind gets refreshed when autumn arrives. A bird keeps pecking, tearing apart the withered willow; With an insect hanging on it, a leaf falls so lightly. How is it that even after getting to return He feels the same as when he’s away from home?

The poem does not show any sense of the leisure of living quietly in mountains and woods; instead it is full of grim melancholy. Lines 5 and 6 contain the central imagery of the entire poem: a withered willow tree is torn apart by a bird’s pecking, an insect hangs mid-air by a thin thread onto a falling leaf, which seem to symbolize human life being devastated, without a place to settle down, and with no sense of security whatsoever. In “Poem on a Solitary Crane” Gao Qi uses the image of a crane for a free and beautiful world in imagination: “A large stretch of forest provides it with shade; / It washes itself by the side of a clear stream. / In its high-pitched voice it lets out a loud cry; / Flowers and the moon shine on each other at midnight.” However, it is simply beyond his reach. What his poem discloses to its reader is the sorrow of the awakened individual spirit under trying circumstances, and the worth of freedom which seems invaluable when one recalls that one used to enjoy it but has lost it forever. In conventional criticism, Gao Qi was considered to have initiated the poetic canon at the beginning of the Ming, so as to prove how the “fortune of literature” synchronizes with the “fortune of times;” it presented Gao Qi in a distorted image. Gao Qi, along with Yang Ji, Zhang Yu, and Xu Beng of the Suzhou region, were known as “Four Talents of the Early Ming.” A close friend of Gao Qi’s, Yang Ji’s reputation as a poet was second only to the latter. He was a mild person, and his poems are mostly ordinary works describing scenes or expression emotion. They do not have any conspicuous characteristics; their strength lies in deep sensitivity and striking images. Besides them, Yang Weizhen’s disciple Bei Qiong and Yuan Kai were both renowned poets of the Suzhou region.

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Suzhou, a region that enjoyed booming economy and culture at the end of the Yuan and was also the base area of Zhang Shicheng and his troops, was what Zhu Yuanzhang targeted for his crackdown. More than a dozen renowned men of letters of the Suzhou area, one after another, met their death for political reasons, including all “Four Talents” mentioned in the above. The literature of the Suzhou region, which had its bright days at one time, went into decline thenceforth, and did not see a revival until the middle years of the Ming dynasty. Among the several local poetic schools, “Ten Masters of Fujian” led by Lin Hong were worthy of mention. Generally speaking, poets of the Suzhou school regarded the celebration of the ancient yuefu poetry as the mainstream. Yang Weizhen even noted: “The rise of regulated verse was a disaster for poetry.” (“Foreword to Selected Regulated Poems under Banana Tree by the Window”) Lin Hong, on the other hand, advocated learning from High Tang poetry, and as a matter of fact he focused on regulated verse. A Critical Collection of Tang Poetry includes an observation of his; after a brief discussion of the shortcomings of the poetry of his predecessors, Lin said, “Only authors of the Tang dynasty could be regarded as synthesizers. . . . During the Kaiyuan and Tianbao reigns, poems excellent in sound and prosody were found everywhere. They should serve as models for those who want to learn poetry.” Through the systematic explication of Gao Bing’s A Critical Collection of Tang Poetry, this proposition had quite an influence on the subsequent development of poetry during the Ming dynasty. As for Lin Hong’s poems, they received an evaluation in Concise Catalogue of the Four Treasuries of Books as “excelling in artistic style.” Song Lian and Liu Ji At the same time when the Ming government tried to dampen the spirit of the culture at the end of the Yuan, it also strove to use its political power to put literature under its ideological control. A representative of the execution of such a will was Song Lian. Song Lian (1310–1381) was recruited by Zhu Yuanzhang in the twentieth year of the Zhizheng reign (1360). After the founding of the Ming state he served as the Editor-in-Chief of History of the Yuan, and later was appointed as a senior courtier. As the designer of the institution of rites and music of the Ming state, he was called “the head of the civilian officials at the founding of the nation.” (See his biography in History of the Ming)


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Song Lian considered Zhu Xi’s philosophy as the pillar of the cultural reconstruction of the Ming court, and the development of his arguments about “writing” was entirely predicated on it. The kernel of his arguments was the concept “Writing and the Way are two combined into one,” which had been presented long since by the Lixue scholars of the Song dynasty; however, in the brutal and violent political ambience at the beginning of the Ming, the presentation of such arguments sounded even more overwrought and bombastic. For instance, he observed in Origin of Writing: “Alas! What I consider to be writing is generated by heaven, carried by earth, and promoted by the sages. When the fundamental is established, the incidental will be in order; when the body stands out, then all the ornaments will be in use. That is what is called riding the great waves of changes of the yin and yang, setting right the three cardinal guides and enforcing the six disciplines!” He also noted in “Foreword to Prose Collection of Instructor Xu”: “One who establishes oneself by his words must never deviate from the classics; only then can he begin to talk about Writing, otherwise he is not worthy to participate in it.” Then, using a long series of parallel sentences, he points out how a variety of works of different content and style are all “not to be considered Writing.” In conclusion, after Mencius, “there was not any more Writing in the world.” None from Jia Yi and Sima Qian to Han Yu and Ouyang Xiu was up to the standard, and only a few Lixue theorists of the Song dynasty were worthy of the “Writing of the Six Classics.” Such a view is simply horrifying. What Song Lian put forward was the government’s stand, not his personal opinion, which may be demonstrated from the stylistic format of History of the Yuan commissioned by Zhu Yuanzhang and for which Song served as Editor-in-Chief. Ever since Fan Ye used “Assembly of Confucian Scholars” and “Garden of Literary Authors” in History of the Later Han to make a distinction between men of the study of classics and men of literary writings, the practice had subsequently been continued by those commissioned to write official histories. History of the Yuan, however, removed that distinction, set “Biographies of Confucian Scholars” therein only, and provided an explanation in that biography: “the writings of the study of classics and literature should not be divided into two.” “How could writing, if not having its origin in the Six Arts, be worthy of the name?” As a matter of fact, Song Lian’s thinking was originally rather complex. Although he started in Confucian studies, at one time he observed Taoist practice, and was also fond of Buddhism. During the Yuan

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dynasty, he was a close friend of Yang Weizhen’s, and later, when he wrote the epitaph for Yang’s tomb tablet, even defended the latter’s cynical conduct of “mocking the world.” His arguments in the above were meant to cater to Zhu Yuanzhang’s pleasure, and he also posed therein as the supervisor of ideology of the new regime. Pathetically, Zhu Yuanzhang did not recognize him as a “great Confucianist,” and referred to him rather contemptuously as a “man of letters” only. (See “Biography of Gui Yanliang” in History of the Ming) It was because that, in Zhu Yuanzhang’s political institution, no place whatsoever was allowed for a “great Confucianist” or a supervisor of ideology in society, as the emperor himself was the supervisor of ideology. Eventually Song Lian and his entire family were banished and moved to Maozhou because of his grandson Song Sheng’s involvement in the case of Hu Weiyong, and while en route Song Lian died of sickness at Kuizhou and became another victim of the despotic rule at the beginning of the Ming. Like Song Lian, Liu Ji (1321–1375) was also someone who rendered meritorious service at the founding of the Ming state. He shared something in common with Song Lian in his view on literature. As regards poetry, he was displeased with the proposition that “poetry’s value lies in self-entertainment” which was popular at the end of the Yuan dynasty. (“Foreword to Wang Yuanzhang’s Poetry Collection”) He maintained that only the pieces in The Book of Songs were worthy of simulation and admiration, as “they eulogize or satirize, they mock or caution, but all they do is to the benefit of the education of the society.” (“Foreword to Poetry Collection of Monk Zhao Xuan”) However, he was different from Song Lian in many ways. On the one hand, Liu Ji’s ideology, based on traditional Confucianism and without a special preference for the Cheng-Zhu Lixue theory, was not as exclusive. On the other hand, judging from his writings, Song Lian’s collection kept very little of his works composed before he began to attend upon Zhu Yuanzhang, so it completely assumed the voice of a “subject of the Ming;” Liu Ji’s extant poems and prose pieces (especially his poetry) were mostly composed at the end of the Yuan dynasty, so they appeared much more lively. Among Liu Ji’s prose pieces, his short fables are better known, but his major achievements are still in poetry. His poems cover a wide range of subjects; some reflect people’s hardship and suffering from a Confucian position, and some, from his personal stand, express his sorrow at the chaos of the time or his regret for not getting recognized for his talent;


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quite a few of his poems, devoted to scenery, season and nature, actually fall under the category of “self-entertainment.” His poems are not so polished and exquisite in language, but they still strike the reader as fresh and graceful. Some of his yonghuai (“revelation of innermost feelings”) poems reveal some gallant temperament and have some special features of their own, as in his “Expressing my Feelings”: Since I came of age I have traveled far and wide, Free and at ease, I looked around in all directions. How vast is the space between heaven and earth! Mountains and rivers stretch into nothingness. Birds are flying all by themselves; Trees simply stand still in desolation. Climbing to a high place, one sees thousands of miles away; Recalling what happened in the past, one feels heartbroken. I stand still watching the drifting clouds. How could I ever ride the wind and fly?

Style of Terrace and Hall “Style of Terrace and Hall” refers to the style of poetry popular among senior courtiers from the Yongle to the Chenghua reign (in a wider sense it also refers to prose), with the “Three Yang’s”—Yang Shiqi, Yang Rong and Yang Pu as its major figures. All three, one after the other, served all the way up to the post of Grand Secretary. At this time, the Ming regime had already been established for many years, and the society gradually became more affluent. A kind of “Sound of the Golden Age” was needed in coordination. On the other hand, Zhu Di (Emperor Chengzu) used military force to usurp the throne, and he clamped down on his subjects no less brutally than Emperor Taizu. Afterward, the political severity was gradually scaled down, but people still lived in fear. History of the Ming contains a combined biography of the “Three Yang’s,” with the tribute saying that they “were all able to base themselves on Confucian principles and act in an understanding and reasonable manner.” Simply put, they strictly observed the tenets of the Cheng-Zhu Lixue theory, and acted in an extremely cautious way to cater to the sovereign’s arbitrary and unpredictable will. Accordingly, the motive behind the rise of the literature from the “Terrace and Hall” of the Early Ming was the desire of the senior officials “to articulate their feeling of composure and ease in the sound of an age of peace and prosperity.” (Yang Shiqi: “Preface to Poetry Collection from the Jade Snow Studio”). In content, their works mostly represent the life of the senior

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courtiers, with an extremely large number of poems composed under imperial commission or in exchanges with one another. In expressing their individual feelings, they are also required to “adapt to the correct traits in their character,” and to give vent to their “thoughts of love for parents, loyalty to ruler, self-criticism and self-deprecation.” (Yang Rong: “Preface to Collection of Self-Retrospection”) In short, it was a kind of literature that set out from subdued morality and mediocre personality and lacked any creative passion, even artistically. This kind of poetic style, at one time, became the mainstream of Ming poetry. Shen Deqian’s “Twelve Quatrains on Ming Poetry” remarked: “After the Three Yang’s poetry went on decline; / Then there suddenly rose Xiya known for its resurgence.” He believed that Li Dongyang (1447–1516) turned it around in terms of the style of Early Ming poetry. During the years of the Chenghua and Hongzhi reigns he led the poetic circles while serving as a senior official of the Cabinet. In terms of its style, his poetry was within the range of the Style of Terrace and Hall. However, in his views on poetry he, on the one hand, held Tang poetry in esteem and emphasized the importance of modeling after Du Fu, and he also argued that “Song poetry was profound, but deviated far from Tang; Yuan poetry lacked depth, but stayed close to Tang.” (Poetic Remarks from Hall of Yearning for the Foothills) On the other hand, he devoted much attention to the art of poetic language. In his Poetic Remarks from Hall of Yearning for the Foothills, he provided meticulous analysis of issues on the prosody, sound and tone, structure and diction, which displayed his intention to restore the lyrical functions and aesthetic characteristics of poetry.

2. Poetry and Prose of the Mid-Ming Period The approximately one hundred years from the Hongzhi to the Longqing reign (1488–1572) made the middle period of the literature of the Ming dynasty. During this period, with the resurgence and marked increase of agricultural production, handicraft industry and commerce had a development that surpassed previous dynasties. In particular, the cities in the southeast, once again, demonstrated their enormous vitality. Take Suzhou, which was dealt the severest blow at the beginning of the Ming, as an example. Wang Qi’s Miscellaneous Notes from a Family Garden made a reference to its changes. It described the sight at the


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beginning of the Ming as, “the entire neighborhood looked desolate, and people had little means for livelihood.” By the Zhengtong and Tianshun reigns, “it slightly recovered its old look, but was not yet on the rise.” By the years of the Chenghua reign, it already “looked like a wonderland.” During the years of the Hongzhi reign, at the time of the author’s composition of the passage, “it is even more prosperous than before,” “the streets are lined with rows upon rows of houses; in every corner of the town, on the bank of all rivers, there stand pavilions and buildings, leaving no space in between;” not only did it restore its prosperity of the good old days, it even became once again the economic center of the southeast region. By the Mid-Ming period, the political atmosphere at the upper level was not as harsh as at the beginning of the dynasty, the bureaucrat stratum obviously performed a more important function in the nation’s political life, and there was not as much literary inquisition as before. At the same time, with the development of urban industry and commerce, and the increase of public wealth, the state apparatus with moral creed as its foundation quickly showed its frailty. Greed grew, extravagance and waste prevailed, and politics corrupted; all these, by and by, became widespread. The Cheng-Zhu Lixue, as the state-sponsored ideology, disclosed its severe discord with social development and life in reality. In fact, it was difficult to ask the ruling class “to maintain heavenly principles and eliminate human desire,” and there was simply no way whatsoever to change the basic law of the imperial system, which based its possession of wealth on power; it was equally impossible to restrict the pursuit of sensual pleasures within a narrow, small range forever. When rules of morality became neither feasible nor trustworthy, it would surely cause a crisis in society. Under the circumstances, the reconstruction of morality turned into an urgent problem. Wang Yangming’s theory, which emerged in the Mid-Ming period, was an effort to make a profound adjustment within Confucianism itself. However, while the original intention of his theory, which regarded “mind” as the origin of “principles” and tried to reach the understanding and perception of truth through the introspective experience of the individual, was to emphasize the internalization of morality so as to resolve the conflict between the incongruous “knowledge” and “conduct,” what it contained therein, self-respect and denial of external authority, might lead to heretical interpretation. Some other men of letters, who did not enjoy high social status but had a closer connection with the townsfolk

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society, did not regard the re-framing of a national ideology as their duty, and they were more concerned with ways to remove the restriction of obsolete value system upon individuality. Master Zhu’s Confessions, written by Zhu Yunming, who lived in about the same time as Wang Shouren, was a work of unorthodox ideas which emerged relatively early in the Ming dynasty. Of the two most salient points in the book, one was its opposition to the Cheng-Zhu Lixue, denouncing it as “fake scholarship,” the other was its strong doubt of authority, antagonism to the old conventions, and abhorrence of the spiritual inertia that echoed the views of others and lacked any vitality of life. He observed, “In discussing scholarship, they would just point to Cheng and Zhu as the Confucian canon; in talking about poetry, they would only celebrate Du Fu as the great master. . . . All these things seem to have been determined by heaven and handed down by divinity, never to be changed or moved all life and through all the ages, as if they had been generated while still in mother’s womb, and understood the moment away from mother’s body. How laughable and how regrettable!” At the same time when Mid-Ming writers opposed the Lixue of the Song dynasty, they also rejected the literature, and even the entire culture, of the Song dynasty. In his Confessions, Zhu Yunming not only denounced Song Lian’s Origin of Writing, which was based on the Cheng-Zhu Lixue, as “so repulsive in its scruffy appearance,” but also noted bluntly that “poetry died in the Song dynasty.” Specifically, he also wrote an essay, “On How Scholarship Went Wrong in the Song Dynasty.” Li Mengyang also remarked, “When the Confucians rose in the Song, the writing of the ancients fell,” (“Of Studies”) and “there was no poetry in the Song.” (“Foreword to Sound of Fou”)2 One needs to consider the somewhat radical saying of this kind against the background of some specific psychology of the time. Against the impractical and trivial ideological and cultural fashion of the time, “when those of the Song dynasty said ‘yes,’ those of today will also say ‘yes;’ when those of the Song dynasty said ‘no,’ those of today will also say ‘no,’” (Yang Shen: “Decline of Writing”) the above arguments were not only significant in redressing the deviation, but also mounted resistance to the state-sponsored ideology, established at the beginning of the Ming dynasty, in a circuitous style.

2

Fou, an ancient percussion instrument made of clay.


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Generally speaking, the Mid-Ming period was one during which literature restored its vitality from its decline in the earlier period and gradually moved to its culmination. Such a change certainly went through many ups and downs. Four Talents of Suzhou The revival of literature in the Mid-Ming period was first embodied in two literary groups, “Four Talents of Suzhou,” and the “Earlier Seven Masters.” The former was a local group; none of its members enjoyed any superior social status, and the range of the group’s influence was relatively narrow. However, they were active in Suzhou, a place where the urban economy was booming, and they were in close touch with the thinking and culture of the townsfolk stratum, so their literary works contained much fresh new connotation. The Earlier Seven Masters mostly succeeded in the civil service examinations, their activities were centered in the capital, and their influence spread in the entire nation. After succeeding in winning his degree of Metropolitan Graduate, Xu Zhenqing, one of the Four Talents of Suzhou, became one of the Earlier Seven Masters, providing a linkage between the two groups. “Four Talents of Suzhou” referred to Zhu Yunming, Tang Yin, Wen Zhengming, and Xu Zhenqing. Among them, Zhu Yunming (1460– 1526) was the de facto leader. He was born in a family of generations of officials. During the Hongzhi reign, after he received the degree of Provincial Graduate, he tried his hand at the examinations for the Metropolitan Graduate for seven times with no success. He thereupon started serving, in his status of a Provincial Graduate, at a number of regional posts; but he resigned from office shortly afterward. By nature he was “arrogant toward the elite people,” “cynical and self-indulgent, and was afraid of getting close to Confucian scholars who observed the rites and rules.” (“Biography of Zhu Yunming” in New Records of National Treasuries) Zhu had a solid foundation in traditional culture, and was said to be “conversant with various schools of thinking and well-read in classics.” (Liu Feng: Sequel of Tributes to Sages of the Past in the Wu Region) He was fond of thinking in philosophical terms; although his criticism of conventional thoughts was denounced as “overbearing and weird,” it actually displayed his power of reasoning. In discussing prose, he observed, “One had better read the prose of the Tang than that of the Song, one had better read the prose of the Six Dynasties, the Jin

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and Wei than that of the Tang. Roughly one just keeps one’s preference going backward like that, until one reaches the pinnacle of the Six Books.” (Master Zhu’s Confessions) The argument sounded as if it were for “return to the ancients,” and it also used the “Six Books,” i.e., the Six Classics, as its facade, but its real intention was, quite clearly, the promotion of the literature of the Six Dynasties which, generally dismissed since the Tang and Song dynasties under the Confucian principles, actually had conspicuous belletristic characteristics; during the Ming dynasty, from Zhu onward, it received increasing attention and appreciation, which reflected a significant change in the outlook of literary history. A salient feature of Zhu Yunming’s poetry and prose was an urgent demand of the external expansion of the consciousness of self-awakening. From its very beginning “Rhapsody on the Great Trip” goes, “I, Yunming, believe that the Way of the universe reaches its end in me!” “Matching Tao Yuanming’s ‘Drinking Wine’ in Rhyme Scheme” says, “You look all round between heaven and earth; / What thing in there is as invaluable as me?” “A Celebration of My Birthday in the Year of Ding Wei (1487)” contains the delineation of the mental image of himself, which goes: “Inspired by righteousness, my vital force may go through the white sun. Broadminded, I have a heart that is as big as the blue sea. In thinking I want to go as far as the horizon in all eight directions. My ambition is to stay high up above a thousand yard. I bathe myself in the light of the sun and the moon, and ride the wind and the clouds. The pheasant in the valley ‘till death would love no other’. The rooster in the mountains looks at its own reflection and falls in love with itself. I set out all by myself and will not turn back in spite of a thousand setbacks.” Obviously, such presentations shared something in common with the literature of the Suzhou region at the end of the Yuan dynasty, though it contained more philosophical connotation than Yang Weizhen’s writings of the same kind. As someone of foresight, Zhu Yunming could not help but feel the great pressure from his surroundings. Also, he was unable to find a way out in the society in reality for his desire to expand his individual will, which led to a feeling of depression. “Song of the Short and the Long” goes: Time of yesterday was short; Time of today is long. Short as yesterday was, it was sunny and warm; Long as today is, it’s cloudy and cold.


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Why doesn’t it snow as a good sign for the year? Why doesn’t it turn warm, and let the early sun shine? There is nothing but the dark gloom that covers the sky and the sun, Keeping all humans and things in the dark, without any illumination. The world expects things to run in a constant way; But the creator is really hard to predict. As for climate, fine times are rare; For the gentlemen, the Way is seldom clear. Rain or shine, long or short, it’s impossible to tell; Since archaic times, the myriad things have been inscrutable! I just have pity on the traveler who sleeps by the side of the sea Whose soul still haunts the boat on the misty river of Jiangnan.

The poem was written by Zhu Yunming in his fifties, when he served as District Magistrate of Xingning, Guangdong. A man of great pride all life, he was not happy to serve as a junior official at such a remote place. The focus of the poem, however, is not in the sorrow about “failure to get recognized for his talent.” Rather, it starts from his unpleasant experience on a cloudy day, and moves in association onto the dreariness in society; he deplores that the gloomy world deprives all men and things of their own light and luster, and even extends to his doubt of the entire history. We may see that the kind of social criticism contained in Gong Zizhen’s “Miscellaneous Poems in the Year of Ji Hai (1839)” already found its harbinger here. Zhu Yunming’s prose writings are mostly devoted to intellectual thought, and there are not too many good pieces in terms of their literary value. Concise Catalogue of the Four Treasuries calls his poems “refreshing and refined in style, much inspired by Six Dynasties;” they often integrate the expression of feeling with philosophical reasoning, and are not so polished in rhetoric. Tang Yin (1470–1524) was born in a family with a long line of businessmen, and he was the very first child in the family to seek an official career through studies. During the Hongzhi reign he won first place in the provincial examination. In the metropolitan examination, he got involved in a case of fraudulent practice in the examination hall and was thrown into prison; subsequently he was banished and lost any hope for an official career. After he returned to Suzhou he lived on selling his paintings, and “led an even more dissolute life disregarding the Confucian ethical code.” (Wang Shizhen: “Accolade Attached to a Portrait”) Tang Yin’s poetry and prose have some remarkable features in their honest and straightforward representation of urban life, worldly

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pleasures, and his personal feelings. For instance, his “On an Event at the Chang Gate” declares, at its very beginning, “Suzhou is the paradise in the world;” then, he describes the prosperity of Suzhou, a city as a commercial center, and discloses the joy and confidence of the son of a businessman in two couplets: “Up and down the towers stand three thousand maids in green sleeves; / West and east of the waters there go a million ounces of gold. / Even by the fifth watch, the market never closes; / Dialects from all four directions show all their differences.” He was said to “hold admiration for the Six Dynasties” in his early writings, but it was not simply imitation of the style of the bygone age. (Yuan Zhi: “Foreword to Tang Bohu’s Works”) For example, his “Rhapsody on the Gilded Land of Blessing” describes scenes of excessive indulgences in extremely ornate diction, which is actually a pompous highlighting of the social milieu, with its pursuit of material life, in southeastern cities at the time. The case of the examination hall incident not only crushed Tang Yin’s dream of an official career, but also subjected him to great humiliation. However, after taking the option of selling paintings as a means of life, he became a self-employed professional in the commercial society, and he was thereby relieved of any mental pressure. His poem “Expressing My Will” says: “I don’t make pills of immortality, nor do I sit in meditation; / I don’t carry on any trade, nor do I do farming. / In leisure, I just paint some green hills and sell the picture, / So I don’t have to use any sinful money in the world.” It displays his joy, even pride, in staying away from the mainstream of the society. For all such value systems honored by the scholar-official stratum like civil service examinations, power, and fame, he showed only his contempt, and he even deliberately strengthened his own image of being “arrogant and weird.” In correspondence to that, many of Tang Yin’s poems in his late years, such as “Song of a Year,” “Song of the Peach Flower Shrine,” “Song of Holding the Wine and Facing the Moon,” and “Song in Intoxication,” are completely deviated from the norm of traditional literati poetry. Using the easiest possible language, light-hearted and carefree tone, they describe his commonplace life and his love of such a life. Let us take “Song of Peach Flower Shrine” as an example: Inside the Peach Flower Glen there’s the Peach Flower Shrine; Inside the Peach Flower Shrine there’s the Peach Flower Immortal. The Peach Flower Immortal has planted some peach trees, And he also picks peach flowers in exchange for the money for wine. Awake from a drunken stupor, I just sit in front of the flowers;


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After getting drunk again, I come to sleep under the flowers. Half awake, half drunk, day after another day; Flowers bloom, flowers drop, year after year. I only wish to age and die between flowers and wine Rather than to bow down in front of horses and carriages. Dust from carriages and horse-hoofs: those are fun for the noble. Cups of wine and twigs of flowers: these make the destiny of the poor. If the rich and noble are to be compared with the poor: One’s in heaven, and the other on the flat ground. If the poor are to be compared with those on horses and in carriages: Well, they have to gallop and move around, while I have all the free time! The others scoff me for being too crazy and wild; I scoff the others for not being able to see things through. Don’t they see: the five mausoleums of those gallant men in the past Have been turned into farming land, with no wine and no flowers around?

This type of poetry was a kind of violation of the conventional literati poetry. Thereupon Wang Shizhen ridiculed it as “like a beggar singing ‘Lotus Flowers Drop’.”3 (Random Talk from the Garden of Art) However, one can see a strenuous experiment therein to break with the classical tradition in spirit as well as in philological form. Earlier Seven Masters The so-called “Earlier Seven Masters” made a literary group that was led by Li Mengyang and He Jingming and also included Kang Hai, Wang Jiusi, Bian Gong, Wang Tingxiang and Xu Zhenqing. All seven men won the degree of Metropolitan Graduate during the Hongzhi reign. They took pride in their own talent, and in politics they often assumed an attitude of defiance and challenge to men or affairs with which they were displeased, in particular Li Mengyang, who opposed powerful eunuchs and imperial relatives, and was repeatedly thrown into prison, but refused to repent and mend his ways. They had gatherings and exchanged poems with one another, and they made thrilling suggestions on literature which, likewise, expressed the intention of a newly rising group of young officials to lead the literary fashion and to introduce changes in the culture of the society.

3 [Original Note] Interestingly, Hu Shi’s new poetry was initially also ridiculed by Mei Guangdi in exactly the same way.

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Li Mengyang (1473–1530) won the degree of Metropolitan Graduate in the sixth year of the Hongzhi reign, and served as a regional officer of education. His family had a long line of businessmen, but his father engaged in Confucian studies and once served as an Instructor at the residence of Prince Fengqiu; an elder brother of Mengyang’s, however, still earned a living as a businessman. He thereupon had many acquaintances among businessmen and wrote biographies and other occasional pieces for them. Two points stand out in Li Mengyang’s view on literature: the emphasis on emotion, and the proposition to return to the past. The concept about the emphasis on emotion primarily involves poetry. In “Foreword to Master Meiyue’s Poetry” Li Mengyang makes the suggestion that the motive of poetic composition lies in emotion. Emotions are inspired by external things, and mind answers in accordance which takes shape in sound and language; there comes poetry. “Foreword to Collection of Singing in Spring” puts it in an even more concise way, saying that poetry is “emotions voicing themselves.” Because of his emphasis on emotion, he especially admires natural and lively folk songs that arise from innocent feeling. “Foreword to My Own Poetry Collection” says, “Now, the real poetry arises from the common people.” Someone asked for Li Mengyang’s instruction on poetry, and was told by him to imitate “Southern Twigs,” a popular urban townsfolk ditty at the time. (See Li Kaixian: Poetic Jokes) Within such a theoretical framework, it is hard for the position to regard poetry as the tool for “politics and education” to take any foothold. Li Mengyang’s theory of “return to the past” mainly tried to provide the best samples to model after in both poetry and prose. In general, for prose, he honored the pre-Qin and the two Han dynasties; for poetry in old style, it would be Han and Wei, and for regulated verse, the High Tang. In his biography in History of the Ming, it was summarized, in a simplified and inaccurate way, as “for prose it must be Qin and Han, for poetry it must be the High Tang.” The motive of the return to the past was, in the first place, to use the great spirit of the culture of the Han and Tang dynasties to reform the poetry and prose of the Ming, which had become weak and lifeless due to the bondage of the Cheng-Zhu Lixue and the popularity of the eight-legged prose. What was involved therein contained an understanding: all forms and genres of poetry and prose are always perfect and full of vitality when they reach the stage of maturity. At the same time, this kind of theory also implied the rejection of the Tang and Song classical prose and Song poetry.


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The way for the return to the past was to learn the “style” and “rules” of writers of the past. Without any precise definition, these concepts generally referred to such elements like format, prosody, structure, syntax, etc. To attach importance to them was meant to make the theory more practical and feasible; practicality and feasibility were the prerequisites for a leader to hold his appeal to the mass audience. In Li Mengyang’s view, there was no contradiction between the emphasis on emotion and modeling after ancients, since one could “resort to personal feeling and represent the events of today by following the format of the past step by step and by inheriting their ways of expressions.” (“A Letter Rebutting Mr. He’s Views on Prose”) In fact, however, it was problematic. Emotion and feeling make the most active elements in literature, they need the philological form to keep adapting to them in making corresponding changes all the time. The focus on “rules of the past” easily leads to restrictions in form, and in the case of writers with little creativity, it may readily generate counterfeit works of forgery. However, undeniably, the movement to call for the return to the past, initiated by Li Mengyang, was quite powerful in reversing the literary trend of the age. As pointed out in Concise Catalogue of the Four Treasuries of Books: “Scholars eagerly answered his call, bringing about a sweeping change in the form and style of writing.” From this time onward, the concept of “Writing and the Way are two combined into one,” from Song Lian and others, as well as the “Style of Terrace and Hall,” suffered a total collapse from which they never recovered. Some of Li Mengyang’s poems are inclined to be crude and stiff, but some of his good poems have a bold masculine vigor. “Looking Around in Autumn” is a famous poem of his: The Yellow River moves around the walls of border fortresses of Han; Above the river, in the autumn wind, there fly several rows of wild geese. The traveler cross the trench in pursuit of wild horses; The general shoots an arrow at the celestial wolves. Caravan of army provisions gets lost in the yellow dust at the old ferry; The white moon stands in the sky, shining on the cold battlefield. It has been said that there are many brave and smart ones on the frontier. So, as of now, who is the General Guo Ziyi of today?

He Jingming (1483–1521) won the degree of Metropolitan Graduate during the Hongzhi reign. On the basic principle of “return to the past” for literature, He Jingming had no difference from Li Mengyang,

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but he had a debate with the latter on the issue of the methodology of composition. They exchanged letters back and forth, each insisting their respective opinion. He Jingming used his concept of “leaving the raft behind and getting ashore” (“A Letter to Li Mengyang on Poetry”) as an antithesis to Li’s idea of “following the format of the past step by step,” which was meant to stress that learning from the past was only supposed to be part of the course of moving to original creation, just like one could not stay on the raft all the time after crossing the river. Theoretically speaking, He’s idea was more reasonable, though in carrying out its real function of leading a new tide it was not as effective as Li’s proposition. He Jingming’s poems are known for being refreshing and graceful; they are mostly facile in language, soft in sound and tone, and agreeable in its imaginary world. The display of masculine vigor that Li Mengyang craved was nowhere to be found in his poems; there was an obvious difference in taste between the two men. In the following we shall cite his “Post Station by the Yuan River,” a poem written by He when he was on a mission to the south at the beginning of the Zhengde reign. The little post station stands outside the solitary town; It’s dark and gloomy here, with lush flora around. In the evening cool, I lean on the railing of a waterside pavilion; During an autumn rain, I sit in the tower by the side of the river. It’s hard for the wild geese to reach this remote land; The traveler, all alone, feels sad facing the empty mountains. Late at night, very few boats return to the ferry; Only firelight from fishermen shines on the islets.

The Tang-Song School and Gui Youguang After the first high tide of literature, set off by the Earlier Seven Masters and the Four Talents of Suzhou, was over, there emerged the confrontation, during the Jiajing and Longqing reigns, between the “Tang-Song School” led by Tang Shunzhi (1507–1560) and Wang Shenzhong (1509–1559), and the “Later Seven Masters” led by Li Panlong and Wang Shizhen. During the Jiajing reign of the Ming dynasty, the crisis in society deepened. Quite a number of people among the scholar-official stratum, feeling increasingly disillusioned with the imperial court and the political order of the state, cared for nothing but leading an extravagant life of sensual pleasures, which signified that they assumed an apparently


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passive attitude in dealing with the imperial authority, as well as the state which it represented. Tang Shunzhi, Wang Shengzhong and others, on the other hand, belonged to another group of people who still adopted an active attitude with their social responsibility, and they were deeply distressed over the situation. At the time, Wang Yangming’s theory began to become popular; both Tang and Wang befriended several major disciples of Wang Yangming’s, and they were very interested in Wang’s ideas. However, their interest in the Wang Yangming theory was mainly to integrate some of its content that was in accordance with the orthodox old-time culture and with the Cheng-Zhu Lixue, and they believed that Wang Yangming’s idea of introspective cultivation might help the individual to “control anger and desire, restrain oneself and restore the rites.” (“To Vice Minister Hu Boquan”) By this way, they could become the “real hero” in a moral sense. In their view on literature the so-called “Tang-Song School” primarily called attention to the spirit of respect for the Way as embodied in Tang and Song classical prose and in Song poetry, in opposition to the alienation of literature from the Confucian tradition caused by the movement to call for return to the past led by the Earlier Seven Masters. In addition, strictly speaking, Wang Shenzhong and Tang Shunzhi were in fact Song worshipers or, more clearly put, were Daoxue (“Study of the Way”) believers, as what they really venerated, in the first place, was the Lixue of the Song dynasty, not literature. Tang remarked that “the books of Masters Cheng and Zhu” “bring to light, word for word, the import of the ancient sages,” (“A Letter to Wang Yaoqu”) and he also said that “for prose after the Three Dynasties (Xia, Shang, and Zhou), none could match Nanfeng (Zeng Gong) and for poetry after the Three Dynasties, none could match Kangjie (Shao Yong).” (“To Vice Minister Wang Zhunyan”) Wang also observed, “After the Western Han, there was no greater age (in literature) than the years between the Qingli and Jiayou reign of the Song dynasty, and the one who made himself a source of illumination then was Master Zeng of Nanfeng.” (“Foreword to Best Prose of Zeng Gong”) Even among the Song writers, Zeng Gong’s prose and Shao Yong’s poetry had the least literary flavor. Accordingly, although what are being discussed here are poetry and prose, the criterion for evaluation was in fact Daoxue. While they were able to point out some of the shortcomings of the movement to call for the return to the past in literature, they maintained that the purpose of “recent men of letters who talked about the Qin, the Han, Ban Chao and Sima Qian” (Tang Shunzhi: “To Chen Lianghu”) was not to rectify

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the disadvantages of the movement of return to the past, but rather to strive to combine, once again, Writing and the Way. Tang Shunzhi put it very clearly, “Writing and the Way are not two things.” (“In Reply to Superintendent of Education Liao Dongyu”) Such a kind of viewpoint inflicted more damage to the development of literature. As for Tang Shunzhi, who argued that in writing one should “go directly to what’s in one’s mind and readily write it out,” (“The Second Letter in Reply to District Magistrate Mao Kun”) and “show one’s throat on opening one’s mouth,” (“Another Letter to Hong Fangzhou”) which seemed to be somewhat similar to the literary theory of the “School of Natural Sensibility” of Late Ming literature, the two were in fact completely different in their premise. What the theory of “Natural Sensibility” attached importance to, “the happiness, anger, grief, joy, sensual and lustful desires” of human beings, (Yuan Hongdao: “Introduction to Xiaoxiu [Yuan Zhongdao]’s Poetry”) was exactly what Tang Shunzhi and his company tried to restrain and eliminate. Mao Kun, a member of the Tang-Song School, was known for his compilation of Selected Prose of Eight Masters of the Tang and Song Dynasties. He chimed in with Tang and Wang in theory, but was not as radical as and somewhat detached from them. He also sounded more like a “man of letter” only. As for Gui Youguang (1507–1571), who was formerly placed as among the Tang-Song School, it was a somewhat different case. He began his official career rather late, so his influence on the literary circles was also later than that of Tang Shunzhi and Wang Shenzhong. The target of Gui Youguang’s criticism and denunciation was primarily the “Later Seven Masters” who had great prestige in the latter times of the Jiajing reign. He was displeased with the proposition to return to the past in literature, but he was particularly opposed to the fashion of imitation which he vehemently condemned. He argued that Writing had its root in the Six Classics and promoted moral virtues, and that was the main reason why he was ranked as a member of the Tang-Song School. However, he was not someone with a strong Daoxue taste. In prose writing, he was extremely fond of Sima Qian, and he liked to discuss “Longmen’s personal methodology;”4 at the same time he did not reject the prose of the Song and Yuan dynasties. In addition, he attached more importance to literature’s function of expressing emotions, as he once said, “Poetry

4

Longmen (“Dragon Gate”) was Sima Qian’s birthplace.


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is nothing other than what comes from one’s emotions.” (“Foreword to Master Shen Cigu’s Poetry”) He also noted that “a sage is someone who is able to explore all the true feelings in the world;” and what he meant by “true feelings” were “what the common men and women take for granted.” (“The Ultimate Virtue of Tai Bo”) In Gui Youguang’s prose collection, many pieces smack of pedantic didacticism. However, some of his prose pieces, such as “A Few Things about My Mother,” “An Epitaph for Chillposy,” and “The Xiangji Belvedere,” are quite moving, which must have something to do with the “true feelings” of “the common men and women.” Take, for example, “An Epitaph for Chillyposy”: The girl was my wife Madame Wei’s maid. She died on the fourth day of the fifth lunar month in Ding You (1537), during the Jiajing reign, and was buried on a small hill. She served us, but not to the end. Wasn’t it destiny? When the girl first came over at my wedding, she was only ten years old. Her hair was tied in two hanging knots, and she dragged around in a dark-green cotton skirt. One day when it was very cold, we made a fire and cooked some water chestnuts over it. The girl peeled them, filling up a small earthen pot. When I entered the room from outside, I picked some to eat, but the girl took the pot away and wouldn’t give me any more, which set Madame Wei laughing. My wife often told her to lean at the side of our table to eat her meal. Whenever the meal was about to be served, she would roll her eyes around slowly in her sockets, and my wife would point it out to me for a chuckle. Looking back on those days, I suddenly realized that ten years had already passed. Alas, woe is me!

To capture glimpses of impressive experience of daily life, and to tell them, loaded with deep emotions, in fine details—there lies the strength of this kind of Gui Youguang’s prose writings. Later Seven Masters The “Later Seven Masters” made another literary group which rose after the “Former Seven Masters,” once again to advocate the return to the past in literature. The group, formed after the middle period of the Jiajing reign, was led by Li Panlong and Wang Shizhen and also included Xu Zhongxing, Liang Youyu, Zong Chen, Xie Zhen and Wu Guolun. The group had extremely broad social connections; at the time there were also the “Later Five Masters,” the “Further Five Masters,” and the “Last Five Masters,” all in close contact with them, and they “gathered the smart and gallant people, and boasted of their talent and

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grace,” (Qian Qianyi: Short Biographies in Selected Poetry of Various Reigns), enjoying enormouos prestige. Wang Shimao, Shizhen’s younger brother, once discussed the background of the formation of the “Later Seven Masters”: “During the Jiajing reign, in the nation there was some admiration for the prose of Jinjiang (Wang Shenzhong) and Piling (Tang Shunzhi); in poetry some tried to follow the Terrace and Hall, and in scholarship some engaged in the cave of the Lixue. Then, Yulin (Li Panlong) began to revitalize the situation with the power of his learning, and the other gentlemen firmly joined in his chorus. They marched forward in long strides and, with their sharp tongue and their strong vigor, none was able to look down upon them.” (“Congratulatory Message to the Promotion to Left Provincial Administration Commissioner of Grand Master Xu Ziyu of Tianmu”) Evidently, the movement of revitalizing the call for return to the past led by Li Panlong, Wang Shizhen and others was in fact related to the retrogression in literature caused by the Tang-Song School. However, in their literary activities, not only did the inherent shortcomings of the literary movement of the return to the past, especially the tendency for imitation in artistic form, appeared even more serious, but their factionalist consciousness and sectarian bias were far stronger than the “Earlier Seven Masters.” When the trend of thoughts of the age developed further in the direction favorable for the freedom of individuality, the theory and practice of the Later Seven Masters appeared to have lagged behind the times. Accordingly, in the latter period of the Jiajing reign, Xu Wei leveled his severe criticism at the Later Seven Masters from an entirely position from the Tang-Song School, making the demand to cast aside the theoretical banner of “return to the past,” which turned into the prelude of Late Ming literature. Li Panlong’s (1514–1570) literary view mainly followed that of Li Mengyang, though he moved a step further. For instance, those who called for return to the past generally considered Historical Records and History of the Han as the models of classical prose, but Li Panlong tried to derive “rules of the ancients” from the even more archaic books like Intrigues of the Warring States and Master Lü’s Spring and Autumn Annals, as if one could establish even more superiority in style by that. Under the influence of such point of view, the writings of Li and some of the other classical prose writers were often filled with expressions that had long since been obsolete in history and rhetoric from ancient times, making them very difficult to read. Li Panlong’s poems, meticulous in word choice, contain reflection of his feelings about life, but in style they always stay close to some kind of


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previous models. Take, for example, “Four Frontier Songs: Valediction to Yuanmei (Wang Shizhen)”: Military dispatch marked with feathers white as frost was sent out of the cold frontiers; Beacon fires, giving alarm about foreign invasion, broke out all the way to the capital of Chang’an. Above the city wall, a sheet of moonshine spread over the western mountains; Which was watched by so many soldiers, on their horseback, sent on the expedition.

It sounds somewhat like a High Tang quatrain, but it is too much of an imitation of the Tang poets. Among the “Later Seven Masters” Wang Shizhen (1526–1590) had the highest accomplishments in various aspects. He was born from a family with a long line of government officials. When Yan Song was in power, Wang Shizhen once resigned from office and lived at home because his father was executed. At the beginning of the Longqing reign he resumed office and served all the way up to the Minister of Justice in Nanjing. Gifted and wide-read, Wang was a prolific writer. In discussing his collected works, Manuscripts in Four Sections from Mountaineer of Yanzhou and More Manuscripts, Concise Catalogue of the Four Treasuries of Books made the observation: “Among all the collected works since the ancient times, none could match Shizhen in bountifulness.” Wang Shizhen was an important critic who not only manifested the main purpose of the literary movement for a return to the past since Li Mengyang, but also, in his Random Talk from the Garden of Art and other works, made a systematic explication on the issue of poetic “rules.” He stressed that “where there are things, there are rules,” and believed that without talking about rules, one could not discuss literature, which was actually a significant point of view. His specific arguments contained some prejudices in worshipping only the past, but also some brilliant ideas which enriched the classical theory of formalistic criticism and were much appreciated in later times. In addition, in his late years he also changed some of his ideas about literature; while the basic tenets remained the same, he became more inclusive. Wang Shizhen was meticulous with the rhythm and prosody of poetry in the old style. Let us take his “A Short Song Making Fun of Myself” as an example: I’m unable to take wings and fly up to the sky; Nor can I lower my brows and bend my waist in front of the nobles.

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chapter sixteen I’ve served as a director for five years; In dire straits without a promotion, I look at all the messages and documents and my mind is at a loss, All I know is to waste the money from the imperial revenue each month. So I submitted a report to the Director of Personnel Evaluations And ask to be granted the permission to return to farming. The Director smiled and said, “You are like the moustache and brows on a man’s face; There’s no good to keep them, but without them the face is incomplete. The color of the Western Mountains is so green it dazzles my eyes. Why not just pick your nose and write a poem for me.” It’s quite ordinary for this gentleman to poke fun at others. If I have the wine, I should just run after the wild east wind.

The poem was written by Wang Shizhen when he served as a Director in the Ministry of Justice in Beijing during the Jiajing reign. A talented young aristocrat, he certainly had a high opinion of himself; it was not until he started serving as an official that he realized how dirty the political circles were and how difficult it was to stay in the capital. Under the pretext of “Making Fun of Myself,” the poem in fact poked fun at reality. Another poem in pentasyllabic old style verse, “Ferry of Dezhou,” is rather elegant in describing how a woman sees someone off: The moon is so thin it looks just like a sickle; At times it looks as if on the rise, then it goes out of sight. A beautiful woman sits in the sands, Her silk socks get wet in the white dew. She lowers her head, feeling sad about the departing boat; Then she raises her head, and grieves at the waning moon.

The above citations may somehow show how Wang Shizhen’s poetry mediated between learning from the past and creating a voice of his own. Xu Wei In the fields of poetry, prose, and drama, Xu Wei was a forerunner of Late Ming literature. He was, however, of a humble social status, and in his lifetime his name was unknown outside his native place, and it was not until over a decade after his death that he acquired great fame because of Yuan Hongdao’s promotion, a phenomenon which forcefully denoted that by the end of the Mid-Ming period, with the steady growth of the ideas of the liberation of individuality, the shortcomings of the literary movement that called for the return to the past


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had already turned into an obstacle to the progress of literature, and it was an urgent need for literature’s own development to criticize that movement and to clarify the situation. Xu Wei (1521–1593) was born in Shanyin (Shaoxing, Zhejiang today) from an impoverished official’s family. Gifted and talented, he was known as a prodigy in childhood, but he never even won the degree of Provincial Graduate, and experienced many setbacks in life. In his late years, he suffered from mental disease, attempted suicide for many times, and eventually died in straitened circumstances. Ideologically Xu Wei was much under the influence of Wang Yangming’s exploration of human mind, but Xu’s elucidation on it bordered on heresy. He called Zhu Xi a cruel official, and regarded the hierarchical concept of “sovereign and subject, father and son” as superficial stuff in Confucianism. He observed, “Up to those who become sovereign of the world and ruler of billions, and down to those who are skilful in mastering the art of one song, as long as what they do is beneficial to people, they are all sages.” (“On Centrality”) It demonstrated the highest respect for those who created something in material production, which also reflected the historical progress of the social ideas of the Ming dynasty. In literature, Xu Wei set as his top priority the unrestrained representation of his feeling and personality; he was therefore extremely displeased with the school of the “Later Seven Masters” dominant at the time. For instance, he remarked in “Foreword to Ye Zisu’s Poetry”: Having nothing to say themselves, they just steal what has already been said by others; they make observations that a certain poem is after the style of such and such a person, and another one is not; that a certain line resembles the work of such and such a person, and another one does not. No matter how strikingly similar to someone else’s such poetry is, it is no more than a bird mimicking human speech.

It was obviously aimed at Li and Wang. As for his own poetry and prose composition, on the premise that it would accommodate his own need, he would learn from the strength of his predecessors without any specific preference for models. In prose some, such as “Note on the Hall of Sudden Vision,” approximated the works of authors of the Song dynasty, while some of his short pieces heralded the Late Ming xiaopin (“vignettes”), such as “To Ma Cezhi”: My hair is white, my teeth are shaking, and yet I still hold an inch-long writing brush in hand, travel thousands of miles, and keep myself busy

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chapter sixteen on a cold brick bed.5 How is this in any way different from an old farm bull, with tears in its eyes and scabs all over its shoulders that staggers along tilling in the fields, finding it hard to pull the plough any more? Alas, how deplorable! Every time the season for water chestnuts and bamboo shoots arrives, I am sure to sit alone quietly, in a trance, and what I miss most of all, Cezhi, is your place! Please take good care of the books in those cases; when I return, my health permitting, I’ll read them with you.

This was a short letter Xu Wei wrote to a disciple of his when he served on the staff of the Xuanfu prefecture in his late years. Informal and yet pithy in language, it brings out, in an extremely vivid way, his melancholy and misery while living in dire straits, while simultaneously it also displays his personal character of being reluctant to depend on others for a living. In poetry Xu Wei was fond of Mid-Tang poetry, and he especially admired Han Yu and Li He, which went directly contrary to Li and Wang; that was because he found the startlingly difficult and grim style of Mid-Tang poetry more suitable for the expression of his agitated mentality. In poems that fall under the genre of “recalling the past,” he often voices opinions that defy the status and hierarchy of sovereign and subject. For instance, “Shrine of Master Yan,” which discusses Yan Guang, includes lines like “It was just a trifle that he once put a leg on the emperor’s belly; / Why should it be a topic for the discussion of others up to the present?” “Shrine of Lord Wu,” which discusses Wu Zixu, contains the lines: “Notwithstanding their innocence, his entire family was killed like weeds; / Yet the talk of latecomers has only been the flogging of the corpse!” In poems expressing his personal feeling about life, he often reveals that, “In his heart he was full of enormous indomitable vitality, but he also harbored the kind of sorrow felt by a hero in misfortune who could find nowhere to settle down;” (Yuan Hongdao: “Biography of Xu Wenchang [Xu Wei]”) in other words, a staunch declaration of his resistance to social pressure. Take, for example, his poem “Youth”: In his youth he must have been a gallant and romantic one, Who slept, with his falcon on arm, beneath the Dragon-Spring Mountain. Now that he’s old, he’s fond of a pet monkey, Living on five pieces of gold a year, and disdained by everyone.

5 One usually warmed by fire underneath, widely used in northern China in the past.


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Disdained by everyone, he told me: “Tonight, running into you, my friend, we’ll have some fun. I shall play on the drum a tune from Yaojiang.” The sound of his drum suddenly turns into clapping of thunder. Throwing down his drumsticks, unwilling to yield to he who played The “Yuyang Roll,” he also has the bravery to berate Cao Cao.

The poem tells how an aging tutor of private school, who used to be gallant and romantic, now lives in dire straits and is treated with disdain. He exchanges his feeling of indignation with Xu Wei, who is likewise under straitened circumstances, and plays the drum for him to express his resentment about the injustice in the society and his passion for life. The poem, in fast, pulsating rhythm, sounds like giving vent to the author’s pent-up feelings. What became evident in such poems and prose pieces by Xu Wei was that the aesthetic taste of the kind of “archaic style” and “archaic tone” really failed to meet the need of the development of literature.

3. Poetry and Prose of the Late Ming The time from the Wanli reign to the end of the Ming dynasty (1573– 1644) made the late period of the literature of the Ming dynasty. It was an age when the ruling of the imperial Ming court went to its downfall, but also one when the literature of the Ming dynasty reached its climax comprehensively. During the Late Ming period, so many serious confrontations and conflicts occurred in the society. At the same time of the continuous growth of industry and commerce, the imperial regime suppressed and plundered them with increasing severity. During the Wanli reign “the national treasury was seriously depleted,” and Emperor Shenzong dispatched a large number of eunuchs to serve as tax collectors and mine supervisors, so as to extort the wealth directly from nongovernmental industry and commerce. On vital communication lines of both land and water, “numerous checkpoints were set up for repeated taxation,” the tax collectors and mine supervisors committed all kinds of outrages. This led to widespread violent resistance from the people. During the several years around the thirtieth year of the Wanli reign, all the actions of driving out the tax collectors and mine supervisors that took place in Huguang, Shandong, Suzhou, Jingdezhen in Jiangxi and other places were joined by several thousand, even several tens of

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thousand of people. In the countryside vagrants, who were generated because of large-scale land annexation, provided a constant source of strength for social upheaval. On the other hand, the functions of the state apparatus were fundamentally damaged from within itself. Due to the emergence of a large number of “rich people,” it became very difficult to preserve a social institution which roughly corresponded to their political status, power, and wealth, and this led to the insatiable desire of the powerful stratus to seize excessive wealth. It has been pointed out by researchers that at the time, even within the scholar-official stratum itself, the unpredictable gain and loss of wealth became a widespread phenomenon. For a family of officials, if the descendents were unable to pursue an official career, then what the property they used to own would very likely be plundered or taken over by the newly rising bigwigs. It was clear evidence that the function of the bureaucrat stratum to perform their duty in public affairs was substantially weakened, and the state apparatus was losing its efficiency because of corruption. The ideological fight among the Late Ming intelligentsia also appeared to be extremely fierce. During this period, the orthodox old-time morality, characterized mainly by the restraint and denial of human desire, was neither observed by the rulers themselves nor by the townsfolk stratum as well as the intellectuals who were nurtured in the spirit of commodity economy; it was only a power of control that was imposed on the society, and a hypocritical demonstration of the ethical rationality of the imperial rule. The historic progress of the society itself had already reached a stage when it was ready to pose a fundamental challenge to such a kind of outdated value system. However, at the same time, it was also difficult and dangerous to pose such a challenge, since the chance of changing the structure of Chinese society was still far from arising. Under the complicated circumstances, literature thrived in a state full of contradictions. Li Zhi and Late Ming Literature An important feature of Late Ming literature was its theoretical selfconsciousness, which was associated with the thinking about society and human nature that involved more breadth and depth. Ideologically, Li Zhi should be counted first among those who played a significant role in stimulating the development of Late Ming literature.


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Li Zhi (1527–1602) served at a regional post in Yunnan, but later he resigned from office to give lectures. Eventually he was arrested and imprisoned on the charge of “daring to advocate the Way to disorder, confusing the world and misleading people,” and he committed suicide by cutting his throat. Li Zhi’s theory integrated some elements of Wang Yangming’s study of human mind and Zen Buddhism, but went far beyond the spheres of these two sources; it took a clear-cut stand in putting forward the demand for social reform. Li Zhi went public in claiming to be a “heretic,” raised his doubt over the authority of Confucius, holding him up to ridicule: “People all regard Confucius as a great sage,” not because they really knew what Confucius was about, but only as it was so said by generations and generations, so that people would simply “listen to them as if they were blind and deaf themselves.” (“Inscription on a Portrait of Confucius at the Iris Buddhist Shrine”) He also noted, “When heaven gives birth to a man, he has his own use which is sufficient by itself and does not rely on getting any supply from Confucius.” (“In Reply to Vice Censor-in-Chief Geng” from A Book to Be Burned) In addition, he discussed, in a contemptuous tone, the Six Classics, the Analects and Mencius, saying that these books were either from the excessive praises of government historians and other officials, or the nonsensical recording from pedantic and dull-witted disciples. While Li Zhi did not make a systematic criticism of traditional culture, he, to say the least, already made such a kind of demand in a clear and definite manner. Another important content of Li Zhi’s thoughts was his full approval of human desire. “Human beings certainly have selfinterest,” “it is a natural thing and a sure sign.” (“On the Descendents of Virtuous Confucian Officials” in A Book to Be Stored) Thereupon it would be perfectly all right for human beings to seek interest for themselves, and carnal lust and greed for money would be quite natural. As for the “governing, penalty, morality, and rites” all through the ages, they were all “imposed on the world” by a few people “to yield to themselves.” (“Discussion of the Past: First Note” in Mr. Li’s Prose Collection) The reason why the ruling stratum was so much scared by these viewpoints was because they, so easy to understand and so sharp, were targeted directly at the foundation of the imperial system. The above-cited observations stimulated free literary creation in the sense that they lifted the ideological confinement, while what Li Zhi expounded in his “Discussion of the Heart of a Child” was a literary theory which set out from the concept of humanism and exerted an even more direct influence on Late Ming literature. The so-called “heart

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of a child,” as defined by Li Zhi, is “the original human mind at its initial stage, entirely free from falsity, and purely innocent.” It refers to the unfeigned, true feeling generated from original human nature; its very opposite is the “hows and whys from what is heard and seen,” acquired through the ears and the eyes, i.e., the knowledge and value systems that human beings learn from the instruction of the society. He proposed: “None of the world’s very best writings has its origin other than the heart of a child.” The more “hows and whys from what is heard and seen” one acquires, the more the “heart of a child” is to be covered up, and the falser the literature that is generated from that. It is no longer just a general, vague discussion of how important genuine feeling is to literature; rather it has pointed out that only when human nature is freed from the bondage of the current knowledge and value systems will the true feeling be disclosed, and the “very best writings” produced. Li Zhi believed that the supersession of one literary kind by another represented the development of literature per se, and he attached great importance to drama and fiction. With a passion unprecedented among scholar-officials, he sang the praise of masterpieces of drama and fiction, and made personal commentaries and revisions of such works like Water Margin, The Story of Western Chamber, and The Story of Pipa. Because of Li Zhi’s great fame among a large number of intellectuals, drama and fiction acquired a much higher place in the mind of the literati. In short, in some sectors of profound significance Li Zhi made an impact on Late Ming men of letters and their writings. That he was arrested due to his promotion of heretic ideas and eventually committed suicide also proved that while the ideological control in the Late Ming society had long been lax, there was still a limit to the tolerance of the old-liners. His persecution was meant as a warning and, correspondingly, the momentum of the development of Late Ming literature was thereby slowed down. The Theory of Literary Reform of the Gong’an School The Gong’an School, most important literary school in the Late Ming period, was so called because its main authors, the three Yuan brothers, were natives of Gong’an, Huguang (within Hubei today).Yuan Hongdao (1568–1610) was the leading figure of the Gong’an School. Of the three Yuan brothers, Yuan Zongdao (1560–1600) was the eldest and least


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talented, and he was more amiable in disposition. Yuan Zhongdao (1570–1623) considered himself to be a chivalrous and gallant man, and led a life of indulgence in his youth. It was not until at forty-six years of age that he became a Metropolitan Graduate and started serving in the government. In addition, Tao Wangling, Jiang Yinke and some others were men of letters in close relations with the three Yuan brothers. All three brothers had a close relation with Li Zhi, who expressed great admiration for Yuan Hongdao. The view on literature of the Gong’an School was primarily represented in the concept of “natural sensibility” initiated by Yuan Hongdao. The expression “natural sensibility” had been used in literary commentaries as early as during the period of the Northern and Southern Dynasties. For instance, Yan Zhitui observed, “The form of writings highlights inspiration and brings out natural sensibility;” (Family Instructions of the Yan’s) in his use, the meaning of the expression was close to that of “natural dispositions.” On the other hand, Yuan Hongdao’s concept of “natural sensibility” was elaborated on the basis of Li Zhi’s concept of “mind of a child;” in direct opposition to “reason” or “hows and whys from what is heard and seen,” i.e., the existent principles of conduct and habit of thinking in the society, the expression clearly shared in the spirit of the liberation of individuality. In Hongdao’s view, “natural sensibility” reveals itself in “delight” and “charm.” As for “delight,” “it is acquired more from nature than from learning.” That’s why children are the most delightful, and in the case of the “foolish and unworthy” ones with inferior moral character, who know nothing except to satisfy their desire for good food and sensual pleasures, who “just follow their own nature without any restraint,” it also makes a kind of “delight.” It is precisely those who engage in studying and become senior officials who are “entirely bound, every pore and every joint in their body, by the knowledge acquired from what they hear and see; the more they explore into reason, the further away they get from delight.” (“Introduction to Chen Zhengfu [Chen Suoxue]’s Collection of Cognition) In short, the preservation of the innocence and liveliness of human nature is the top priority, and even genuine inferiority is better than false superiority formed under the pressure of old-time tenets. In evaluating literary works, the genuine, truthful representation of uninhibited feeling and desire has therefore become the most important criterion. In “Introduction to Xiaoxiu’s Poetry” he observed that compared to the poems of the literati, the folk songs “sung by women and children in the local neighborhood” are

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even worthier of being circulated, because such songs “let out whatever is from their heart, which corresponds to the happiness, anger, grief, joy, sensual and lustful desires of human beings.” Actually, whether it is the “heart of a child” or “natural sensibility,” it simply cannot possibly be anything that comes purely from nature and entirely untainted by social consciousness. However, so far as it is human nature in its true state without being concealed or distorted, it will surely keep a distance from, and in conflict with, the social consciousness, and when profound changes are taking place in society, the distance and the conflict will both become greater and greater. In the orthodox view on literature all through the ages, the primary responsibility of poetry and prose is to convey the Way and to show one’s high ideals, which is beneficial to the enlightenment of people by education. While it is not opposed to the exposition of personal disposition, it makes the demand that it must fit the “correct and refined” norm set by the moral and ethical doctrines of the society. When Yuan Hongdao and others put forward the concept of “natural sensibility,” they deliberately placed it in direct opposition to “reason” and “knowledge acquired from what is heard and seen,” the real significance of which was exactly to remove all kinds of restraints imposed on literature, and to provide a rationale for the “happiness, anger, grief, joy, sensual and lustful desires,” not quite in step with oldtime morality, to be represented on a large scale in literature. Literature marked by “natural sensibility” required more freedom in forms of language to fully satisfy the need for the expression of singular individuality. This led to the theoretical conflict between the Gong’an School and the literary movement for the return to the past, mainly the Later Seven Masters. The reason why Yuan Hongdao made all his effort to promote Xu Wei was because Xu cared little about the fame and prestige of Li Panlong and Wang Shizhen, and while his poetry “may be inferior in structure and style at times, but, fresh and original, it has the lofty air of a prince, that one cannot expect to ever find in the works of those who wait on the delight of others like women.” (“Biography of Xu Wenchang”) He denounced the obnoxious poetic style wherein the imitation of the past was taken for the restoration of the past, which was formed in the factional and partisan practice of the Later Seven Masters. “Those with talent are restricted by rules and dare not make the most of their talent; those without pick up some generalities and piece them up to be a poem. . . . One sings, a billion join in the chorus; even actors and coachmen are talking about ways of literary


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elegance.” (“Foreword to Collection from the Pavilion of Snow Waves”) In discussing his younger brother’s compositions in “Introduction to Xiaoxiu’s Poetry” he remarked: Most do nothing other than conveying the natural sensibility, and are not limited by any set pattern or style. He would not put the writing brush to paper unless he had something coming directly from his heart. Sometimes, if the feeling accorded with the scene, a thousand words would flow out in a flash, like a river running east, which was indeed amazing. Among these pieces there are some good lines, and some defective ones; even the defective lines mostly show his originality, let alone the good lines. However, I, for one, am fond of his defective lines, as the so-called good ones, regretfully, still contain some whitewashing or slavish simulation of others, and the reason for that was because he had not yet been able to free himself from the practice of the literati of recent times.

One thing worthy of notice herein is how Yuan Hongdao clearly suggested that for poetry, if one simply follow in the wake of predecessors, then even the “good lines” are not to be admired; on the contrary, as long as they are original, even the “defective lines” are adorable. What is implied herein is a new consciousness that one must take a new path even if one has to violate the canonical convention. In fact, from Tang Yin (who was also admired by Yuan Hongdao) to the Gong’an School, they indeed made some experiment of a detrimental nature to the classical Chinese poetic tradition; while they failed to find a better way out, the significance of such experiment in the history of literature is not to be underestimated. As for the sentence “do nothing other than conveying the natural sensibility, and are not limited by any set pattern or style,” it may be regarded as a slogan, in the nature of a summary, that represented the main proposition about literature of the Gong’an School. Zhou Zuoren once observed that the essence of the “doctrines of eight no’s” in “literary revolution” advocated by Hu Shi was already included in Hongdao’s sentence. While the observation may be somewhat inaccurate, he did recognize that the New Literature Movement had an inner association with the demand for literary reform in history. That we would devote a relatively large space, in a concise history of literature, to the literary theory of the Gong’an School is also due to the fact that it was remarkably representative in the process of classical Chinese literature’s move in the direction of modernity. On the other hand, the theory of the Gong’an School also had its obvious limitations and internal contradictions. Yuan Hongdao and others were, in the first place, not as rebellious in spirit as Li Zhi, and

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they stood in awe of the conservative political and social forces. Even a few years prior to Li Zhi’s persecution, Yuan Hongdao already had the feeling that Li’s ideas were “not reliable and solid enough,” in other words, too radical (see Li Zhi’s obituary written by Yuan Zhongdao), and he also worried that “among those who served in the government these days, quite a number were calumniated in malicious gossip or got into unexpected disasters.” (“In Reply to Huang Wujing of the Ministry of Rites”) After Li Zhi’s death, they took it as a warning and lived in more dread of calamity. (See Yuan Zhongdao, “Biography of Li Wenling (Li Zhi),” Tao Wangling “A Letter Mailed to My Younger Brother Junshi after Arriving in the Capital in the Year of Xin Chou (1601),” etc.) Accordingly, while the literary theory of the Gong’an School had its foundation in the spirit of the liberation of individuality, it hardly involved, if ever, the direct confrontation between individual and community as an inevitable consequence to “do nothing other than conveying the natural sensibility.” In addition, in his early years Yuan Hongdao admired the poetic style of the “vigorous and resentful, poignant and blunt” (“Introduction to Xiaoxiu’s Poetry”), but later he suggested: “For all things, if one brew them, they’ll be sweet, if one burns them, they’ll be bitter, only the bland is not something that may be manufactured; what is not to be manufactured is the genuine natural sensibility of a man of letters.” (“Introduction to Collection of the Rules of the Guo Family”) Such a change took place, after all, as a result of shrinking back, step by step, in his attitude about life. Poetry and Prose Vignettes of the Gong’an School Yuan Hongdao remarked that in writing poetry, he himself tended to “let it flow from heart by itself and then just blurt it out in voice.” (“To Zhang Youyu”) In discussing his own poetry, Yuan Zongdao also said, “I dislike the clichés of people outside there, so I strive to have more variation in language. However, my weakness lies in that much of it is blemished in being too casual and easy, and not at all implicit.” (“Mailed to Vice Commissioner Cao Zunsheng”) Generally speaking, the three Yuan brothers share the common features in their poetry: they blurt out thoughtlessly in an easy, superficial and straightforward manner; they would rather resort to the colloquial and vernacular language than clichés and vogue words. Therefore in the style of their language they were quite naturally more inclined to Bo Juyi and Su Shi. However, the three of them differed in talent and personality, so they also varied in the characteristics and achievements of their poetry.


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Yuan Hongdao was better in poetry than his brothers. He often made trenchant criticism in his poems. For example, in the second poem of his series, “Composed on the Lake: Saying Farewell to Master Tongfang,” he condemned Yue Fei’s loyalty and integrity in a rare boldness: “Why should he get so close to the boiling water and the fire / To turn into the lamb and rooster for use?” In the second poem of “Hosting a Gathering for the Gentlemen at the Temple of Divine Witness: Using Words about Mountains and Woods in the City for the Rhyme Schemes,” he said about himself, “My poems do not have a single word about the concern for people,” and the reason for that was “Ever since the Old Du (Fu) acquired his poetic fame, / The concern for the ruler and the love for the state have become a game of children,” which had some depth in meaning. Such remarks revealed a sense of alienation from the imperial state. Yuan Hongdao’s poems are usually not too polished, but some, due to their originality of idea and deep sensitivity, are lively and graceful. Take, for example, his “Someone in Jiangnan” which sounds like a folksong: Waken from a dream by parrots, she gets up amid the crows’ cry at dawn; Her eyes are fine like autumn, her face smooth as water; Her white wrists, supple and slender like white lotus roots; She turns to look at her back, thinking of it as a phoenix’s tail. Not only are others driven to despair by her lovely sight, Even she feels transported by her own image in front of a mirror. In embroidered robe—riding on a white horse—who’s the young man? My man is no match for you. What am I going to do?

It is a moment when a beautiful married woman, dissatisfied with her own husband, feels the thumping of her heart for the unknown person “in embroidered robe and riding on a white horse.” To the poet, there is nothing wrong with her feeling, so he describes it as a beautiful and touching moment. Some poems are terse and forceful like “An Evening Sight En Route to Dong’e”: The east wind blew, sending the trees around the pavilion in red bloom; Alone I went up the highland, feeling sad at sunset. How pathetic! The dust from the hooves of the black horses Were blown into a mist in front of the sightseers’ eyes. The green hills got higher when the sun set low; In the waste garden, the bird, in freezing cold, made a single cry.

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chapter sixteen By the Memorial of Three Estates the ancient monument got buried up; At General Xiang Yu’s Graveyard, only the stone horses were neighing.

Here the author is presented in a self-image, standing alone on the highland and looking down at the human world. The eyes of the sightseers are covered up by the dust that comes from the horses of those of wealth and rank—it serves as a metaphor for the life of the masses. In the waste garden, the bird makes a single cry in freezing cold—it conveys a sense of uneasiness and fear in this gloomy world. The imagination of Xiang Yu’s graveyard, where some stone horses are silently neighing—it represents a yearning for the immortal heroic spirit in history. All of these, however, vanish in the dusk eventually. Yuan Zhongdao’s poetry is intense in feeling; those composed before he started his official career often express the bitter resentment at his setbacks or his chivalrous spirit. For instance, high indignation show clearly in the lines in “Composed to Show Li Zhexing and Cui Huizhi in the Boat during Wind and Rain Shortly after Failing at the Examinations” are filled with indignation, and the bold self-revelation is quite startling: “I only wish I had known that I would live in such straits! / How I deplore I had not been a crooked guy, who’s sure to succeed!” Take, for another example, the fifth of his series “Poems to Express My Feeling”: When I was young I had the spirit of a hero; Brave and gallant I set my eye on history. How would I repay the kindness of my bosom friends? I would use the pair of scimitars at my waist. I was born, alas, out of my time; Laughing loudly I entered the imperial land. My eldest brother: an officer in the forbidden palace; My second elder brother: a magistrate in the south. While I, the youngest one, do not serve the state, I get to befriend all the venerable elders. In the north, there are many of wealth and rank Who ride white horses and wear purple fur coats. I have the sharp tongue of Junqing;6 I can write as well as Ziyun, the master.7 For ten days I’d be nowhere to be found: I’d be lying down up at the storied tavern.

6 Junqing was the style of Lou Hu, someone of the Han Dynasty well known for his eloquence of speech and sharp tongue. 7 Ziyun was the style of Yang Xiong, the renowned Han writer.


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As soon as I hear a word unagreeable to my ear I would rave against even a high-ranking marquis. Giving a loud yell, I’d leave in a huff And roam at waterside where the recluses stay.

The poem smacks of Li Bo’s flamboyance and pride; it runs in a casual, unpolished way, but sounds quite impassioned and forceful. There are also some short poems, such as his “A Fountain Spring at Night,” which show some of the author’s brilliance: Mountains turn white, suddenly the birds cry; Rocks feel cold, the frosts about to set in. The running spring, acquiring the moonshine, Has transformed into a stream of snow.

Both Hongdao and Zhongdao had quite a number of poems which were composed in an extremely careless way, making them sound like straight vernacular or even doggerels. Some really do not sound like poetry at all, such as the lines of the former, “Sick and sad is the rain for three days, / Dizzy and slippery goes the autumn season,” (“Mailed to Jiang Jinzhi (Yinke) on the Mid-Autumn Day When There Has Been a Rain for Days”) or those of the latter, “One single mountain peak, in fresh green, / Suddenly looms beyond the blue sky.” (“Poems to Express my Feeling”) Classical Chinese poetry has a great, strong convention. The Yuan brothers still adopted the classical forms of the convention and, within that range, it was impossible for them to make any convincing accomplishment by their copious usage of colloquial and plain language; on the contrary, it would strike the reader as awkwardly nondescript. In his late years, accordingly, Yuan Zhongdao maintained that in poetry one should “model after the three Tang periods,” (“Foreword to Cai Buxia’s Poetry”) and thereby returned to the convention. Yuan Zongdao’s poetry rarely expresses any strong feeling. Simple and plain, it is easy to understand, and sometimes sounds wordy, somewhat similar to Bo Juyi’s casual poems from the late years. They hold quite limited appeal, and we shall not give it much discussion. The Gong’an School made more outstanding achievements in the field of prose, represented in something known as “vignettes” (xiao pin), which also had greater significance in the history of literature. The expression “vignette” used to be a Buddhist term that referred to the abridged versions of long Buddhist sutras, and it was not until the Late Ming period that it was used for general prose writing. Lu Yunlong, a book publisher at the end of the Ming dynasty, compiled

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Vignettes of Sixteen Masters from the Imperial Ming Dynasty, which is extant today. Prior to that, in his prose piece, “In Reply to Cai Yuanlü, Surveillance Commissioner,” Yuan Zhongdao already identified the main characteristics of this type of prose writing, though he did not use the exact term of “vignette”: Recently I read the works of Tao Zhouwang (Wangling), the Libationer. The compiler, having observed the conventional criteria for prose, kept only his works in dead seriousness and excluded all those with charm and grace, not knowing that the casual, indeliberate writings are where one’s personality is embodied in and often worthy of being handed down to posterity. That one may get known by writings that do not have to be handed down is because such writings are easy to hold their appeal and to enjoy great popularity in pleasing readers. Ban Chao and Sima Qian both learned the secret in their history writings. Now Dongpo’s lovely writings are mostly in his short prose pieces and anecdotes, while his long essays in big volumes are not so much in favor; if all those short ones are excluded and only the long essays in big volumes are preserved, there wouldn’t be a Master Dongpu any more! . . . I ran into some short notes and playful pieces from Pingqian (Huang Hui) and Zhonglang (Hongdao); all are simply marvelous. Now, Shikui’s (Tao Wangling) compositions should include some records of his sightseeing trips to mountains and letters, which he mailed to me in the past, and it’s a pity none of them is in the collection. We don’t know if there will be a separate collection for those later. Every fragment of writing, every drop that flows out of the nectar of intelligence from men of wisdom like him, contains the samadhi (“secret of truth”). Our only regret is that there are too few of such pieces, and how could one bear to eliminate them further through selection and thereby make them disappear from this world!

In the piece, such names like “short prose pieces and anecdotes” or “short notes and playful pieces,” placed in opposition to “long essays in big volumes,” as well as the explanation of the special features of this kind of writing, have already set forth the connotation of the vignette as a generic concept. Generally speaking, the Late Ming vignette is usually brief and short, and tends to be light-hearted and pithy in style; mostly it represents fresh and vivid experiences in life, and devotes much attention to mood and tone; it is more inclined to quick-witted thought so as to avoid direct discussion of serious subjects. In addition, as Yuan Zhongdao said, “one may get known by writings that do not have to be handed down,”—notwithstanding that their content is not necessarily so important, writings may still be handed down to posterity due to their artistic value; his saying also identifies the characteristics of the


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vignette from the author’s attitude about his creation. Furthermore, it does not refer to any specific literary genre; all such writings like letters, records of sightseeing, biographies, diaries, forewords or colophons to books may fall under the name. The vignette, in a wider sense of the term, may be dated way back in time. A New Account of Tales of the World may be counted as a famous work of the genre in the early period, and more importantly, Su Shi’s short prose pieces have been considered as the direct forefather of the Late Ming vignette. However, it was not until the Gong’an School put forward the concept of “natural sensibility,” wrote quite a number of fresh, light-hearted prose pieces with the expression of genuine feelings, and deliberately differentiated such writings from the mainstream of previous prose, that the “vignette” got to be established as a genre. By flaunting the banner of “natural sensibility,” it was directly opposed to the classical prose of the Tang and Song dynasties, which promoted the Confucian canon, and its deviation from that canon led to a new liberation of prose writing. In his letter “To Qiu Changru,” Yuan Hongdao depicts, in a tone of self-ridicule, the misery of serving as a district magistrate: In my service as the magistrate I act like a buffoon, which is beyond description. In general, when I see a superior, I turn into a slave; when I wait for a passerby guest, I become a prostitute; when I take care of monies and grain, I am an old watchkeeper of the granary; when I try to enlighten the common people I am an old wench of a mountaineer’s family. Within a single day, it alternates, unpredictably, between the warm and the cold, the overcast or the shine, for a hundred times. I have lived through all the misery and suffering of the human world. How miserable! How virulent!

The misery of an inferior official is delineated, exhaustively, by the use of a series of trenchant figures of speech; and the personal character of a man of letters who loves freedom which hardly suits the official circles is vividly brought out. From the piece, we may know the reason why Yuan Hongdao repeatedly resigned from his office. Because they were unable to answer their desire to let out their individuality, the Late Ming literati were forced to find spiritual sustenance in the pleasures of nature and daily life. As a consequence of that, a large number of pieces about self-indulgence or regret over the fleeting time appeared in, and dominated, the form of the vignette. Yuan Hongdao noted in his piece, “West Lake,” “The hills were like a lady’s dark eyebrows, and the flowers were like her cheeks. The gentle breeze

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was as intoxicating as wine, and the ripples were as soft as damask silk. I had barely lifted my head before I felt drunk and overwhelmed. At the moment I tried to describe it but found myself speechless; probably the Prince of Dong’e (Cao Zhi) felt about the same way when he first saw the Goddess of the Lo River in his dream.” It tries to get intimate with West Lake as if it were a young woman. However, one cannot say that the vignette was only the product of feeling in carefree leisure. In Yuan Hongdao’s well-known “Biography of Xu Wenchang,” he expressed the collective misery of the literati of the time, being sensitive but finding it difficult to let out their individuality, by providing an account of Xu Wei’s painful life experience with all its ups and downs. One of its sections is as follows: Wenchang took great pride in his knowledge of the art of war, and he was fond of discussing strategies. When he talked about military maneuvering he would often go right to the heart of the matter. He was unable to find anyone among his contemporaries who was his equal in talent, and yet he never had his luck. Unsuccessful in his official career, Wenchang indulged himself in drinking and in enjoying the beauty of nature. He traveled in the regions of Qi, Lu, Yan, Zhao, and explored the northern deserts. In his poetry he wrote about everything: undulating mountain ridges and hurling sea waves, whirling sands and drifting clouds, howling wind and trees prostrate in it, the quiet mountain valley and the metropolis, human beings, animals, fish, and birds, and all kinds of events and things that amazed and astonished him. In his heart he was full of enormous indomitable vitality, but he also harbored the kind of sorrow felt by a hero in misfortune who could find nowhere to settle down. Therefore he took turns raging and laughing in his poetry, which is like a river roaring through the gorges, or sprouts bursting out of soil, like a widow weeping at night or a wayfarer sleepless in the cold. His poetry may be inferior in structure and style at times, but, fresh and original, it has the lofty air of a prince that one cannot expect to ever find in the works of those who wait on the delight of others like women.

The piece depicts Xu Wei as a new hero of the age: out of step with the society, he suffers many setbacks, but he never bows his head to others in submission, and prefers to fulfill his tragic destiny. Yuan Zhongdao’s prose, equal in strength to Hongdao’s, takes turns being vigorous, caustic, concise, or carefree; in general it reveals his true feelings and appeals to the reader. His “A Note in Celebration of My Eldest Sister’s Fiftieth Birthday” falls under more formal writing, but it shares something in common with the vignette in its exclusion of clichés and set phrases, and in its direct expression of feeling. The first half describes scenes of their childhood: because of the loss of their mother


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in their early age, sister and brother are more attached to each other. It is quite moving: Mr. Gong, our Uncle, took Sister under his care in the city. More than four years old, I already entered the elementary school at Yu’s Village. From the crevice of the window I saw Uncle come, riding a horse, from Sun’s Ridge; he held Sister in his arms, with the wind blowing up their silk sleeves. When they passed by the school, they called Zhonglang and me to say farewell. Sister was weeping on horseback, and said to the two of us: “I’m leaving. Brothers, study well!” Both of us wiped our tears but, being afraid of the tutor, dared not cry. After they left, Zhonglang took me out and ran to the pine woods at the back of the hill, and we watched the dust from the horse carrying its riders settle around Xiao’s Ridge. Only then did we return, and for the rest of the day we were unable to say anything.

Yuan Zhongdao was the author of Wood Shavings from Daily Life, notes and sketches about what he saw and heard in everday life, which was published in the 1930’s under the title of Yuan Xiaoxiu’s Diaries. A casual and informal book, it reads especially easy, free, and unrestrained, and does not observe the format or assume the tone of “literary composition,” which is rather unusual in classical prose. The following is one of the shorter entries: At night there was a heavy snow. I had planned to take a boat trip to Shashi, but had to give up the plan due to the snow. Yet it was somewhat nice to hear the snow pellets tinkling among thousands of bamboos and to read, at random, a few chapters by the dim light from the dark window and the red glow of the fireside. I deplore that I’ve often failed to carry out my travel plan, but one should really go with the flow of the stream and stop when an islet stands in the way—just take it easy. As Luzhi (Huang Tingjian) says, “Wherever I go I’m able to have a nice dream.”

After the Gong’an School, there appeared, one after another, quite a few authors of the prose vignette; collectively they opened up a brandnew prospect in the history of prose. The Jingling School The Jingling School acquired the name because its leading figures, Zhong Xing and Tan Yuanchun, were both natives of Jingling (Tianmen, Hubei today). Zhong Xing (1574–1624) became the Metropolitan Graduate in 1610, and served at regional posts. Tan Yuanchun (1586–1637) was very smart in childhood but not so successful in the civil service examinations. In the tenth year of the Chongzhen reign, he died on the

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way to the metropolitan examinations. Zhong and Tan compiled the anthology Destination of Poetry (separately published as Destination of Ancient Poetry and Destination of Tang Poetry). In the introduction to and commentaries in the book they publicized their view on literature, which became popular at the time, and because of it the Jingling School became a poetic school with considerable influence. The shortcomings of the poetry of the Gong’an School lay in its being vulgar, superficial, and careless, which became even more serious by its later stage. It led to the new variation of the Jingling School. Zhong and Tan accepted, in theory, the slogan of “doing nothing other than conveying the natural sensibility” of the Gong’an School, but simultaneously they also advocated a kind of “deep, tranquil, aloof and vigorous” style to rectify the errors of the latter. In his “Foreword to Destination of Poetry” Zhong Xing discussed the issue on how to seek “the true poetry of the ancients,” and he noted: “True poetry comes from the spirit: to explore one’s feeling in tranquility and mood in loneliness, to walk alone and remain quiet in clamor and noise, and then, by using one’s power of settling down in the vacuum of mind, to travel all by oneself, in meditation, beyond this world.” In attaching importance to the representation of the spirit of the self, the Jingling School agreed with the Gong’an School, but the two differed widely in their aesthetics, behind which was their difference in attitude about life. The poets of the Gong’an School also showed the aspect of shrinking back in society, but they were bold enough to doubt and deny the criteria of traditional values, and they were sensitive enough to feel the pain of the social oppression; hence they were still significant in their spirit of resistance. They liked to use shallow but colorful and dynamic language to represent their pursuit of all kinds of sensual pleasures in life and the gamut of their emotions, revealing their open mind and outgoing personality. The poetic world of the “deep, tranquil, aloof and vigorous” of the Jingling School, on the other hand, demonstrated an introverted mentality. Their poetry was focused more on innermost feelings within a limited sphere, and revealed strong subjectivity. It was fond of depicting scenes of solitude, dreariness, coldness, even eeriness, and in language it was jerky and erratic, often violating normal grammar and prosody and using bizarre diction which struck the reader as extremely awkward. Take, for example, Tan Yuanchun’s “A View of the Broken Silk Pond”: Algae and confervae are contained in water and sky; The pond has the deep pool as its substance.


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Dragons take their sleep in the pool in rain; Scared of people, they mostly hide themselves. All kinds of monsters are doing everything possible, Whispering softly like fish in the water. Each of the eyes in the ripples breathes by itself: Would they want to join the rapidly running streams? I gaze at everything without any pause; My spirit and my body have congealed into one. How grim, alas, is the original transformation! I now see the drippings from the True Master.

The poem is difficult to understand. Roughly, it tells about the cold waters of the pond, the quiet and secluded environment, where strange sounds are emitted all around as if all kinds of monsters lie hidden. After a long gaze, the speaker has lost track of his own existence and thereby, in the gloomy atmosphere, recognizes the invisible working of the Creator. Many poems of Zhong and Tan are like that; they show little interest in active secular life and concern themselves with the indistinct “spirit” beyond this world. They flaunt the banner of “solitary walking,” “solitary feeling,” and “solitary attainments” (Tan Yuanchun’s “Foreword to Destination of Poetry”) but, agitated and uneasy, they are unable to reach the calm and serenity in Tao Qian’s style. This has resulted from strong self-consciousness, the inability to let out their individuality freely and consequently, the turn to introversion, and it has led to the feeling of aloofness, shabbiness, misery, and acrimony in their poetry. The poetic style of the Jingling School was quite popular at the end of the Ming and even at the beginning of the Qing dynasty, and its influence was more lasting than that of the Gong’an School. It reflected the aesthetic inclination that came from the morbid mentality of the literati, after the ideological trend in search of the liberation of individuality during the Late Ming period was cracked down. In prose the Jingling School was opposed to the fresh and easygoing gracefulness of the Gong’an School, and put in hard effort to the approach and organization of composition, though each of the authors had their slight variation. Zhong Xing is good at argumentation and he often presents original views. Regarding his prose style, Lu Yunlong has observed that it “returned to naturalness after hard laboring;” (“Foreword to Master Zhong Bojing’s Vignettes”) it works on graceful twists and turns, but is not so jerky in language. Tan Yuanchun’s prose is inclined to deliberate obscurity and choppiness, and it is fond of depicting of dreary, desolate scenes, sounding like his poetry.

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Generally speaking, most of the prose compositions of the Jingling School are awkward reading, which is the so-called “deep, tranquil, aloof and vigorous” style. On the other hand, in their pursuit of the special effects of language, they provided some valuable experience. Wang Siren and Zhang Dai Wang Siren and Zhang Dai were important authors of the Late Ming prose vignette. We need to point out that the famous works of prose extant today by Zhang Dai, celebrated as the great synthesizer of the Late Ming vignette, were entirely composed at the beginning of the Qing dynasty. That we provide an introduction to him in this chapter is not to observe the convention, but mainly to present, more readily, a panorama of the development of the prose vignette since the Gong’an School. Wang Siren (1574–1646) won his degree of Metropolitan Graduate during the Wanli reign. When the Manchu troops seized his native town of Shaoxing, he died from fasting. Wang Siren’s prose has a distinctive style; it uses an original and unfamiliar vocabulary, which shares something in common with the Jingling School. But its train of thought moves by leaps and bounds, and it has a fertile and witty imagination, full of surprises for the reader. It is also rich in humor, and often mixes the colloquial and vernacular expressions with exquisite, refined ones, which makes it markedly different from others. For instance, in its scenery description the piece “Small Ocean” goes: “The mountains all turned the color of the rind of a ripe melon. Seven or eight patches of rosy cloud, in the shape of goose feathers or oddments of cloth, glowed like gold and litchi. These soon piled into two big clouds which looked like glittering, translucent grapes.” This shows so much of his quick intelligence. The following is his “Mt. Tianmu”: I entered the area from Nanming. The mountain looked like the thick end of a bamboo shoot being peeled layer after layer, or the top of a spiral; the further one entered, the higher it went. I passed by the Peach Villa where the stream gurgled and trees danced; with the white clouds above and the green vales below, it had some trace of human activities. I had a meal at the Speckled Bamboo Ridge, where the maiden who warmed up the wine at the tavern was absolutely gorgeous. Peaches were in bloom, the river kept running, sesame released its rich scent; I did not expect to see such a tender woman in the middle of the old mountain. I passed by the Gathering Villa, went into the Peach Shrine to watch the bamboos,


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which were all as thick as a well-bucket; the green bones of their trunk gave a sense of cold rain, but their leaves were so lush, just like the tail of a phoenix in clouds. If I could plant a couple hundred of these at my house, take off my turban and my pants beneath them, there wouldn’t be any vulgar creatures arriving there to dampen my spirits. After I walked for ten li, I saw the Tianmu Peak in distance, towering in blazing crimson. By the time I arrived there, there was nothing there except some homeless Buddhist statues sitting in a piece of wasteland, where a mist hovered over some weeds and broken monuments stood, the characters on which had simply become illegible. The monk-farmers cowered when they saw me. They didn’t even know who Li Bo was; how could I rave about my dreams in front of such idiots?

The landscape description is extremely vivid. The expressions “tender woman” and “old mountain” are set in contrast, revealing the author’s sense of humor. Zhang Dai (1597–1697) was born in Shanyin, in a family which had a long line of officials. He never served in the government. According to his autobiography, in his early years he was a “playboy” who was “extremely fond of luxury and pomp.” (“An Epitaph for Myself”) After the downfall of the Ming regime he went into the mountains to write his books, leading a life of hardship, but he remained a recluse all life. A gifted man, Zhang Dai had wide experience in his life; selfindulgent by nature, he enjoyed sensual pleasures; he maintained his integrity on matter of principle, but was not punctilious about trifles. The two collections of his prose, Dream Memories from the Tao Hut and Searching for West Lake in Dreams, consist exclusively of his recollections. As he noted, “Looking back on my life, I have found that all the extravagance and luxury have turned into nothingness in front of my eyes, and all the passing fifty years have become a single dream.” (“Foreword to Dream Memories from the Tao Hut”) Notwithstanding the melancholy mood, they still focus upon the beautiful things in the human world and the charm of his former homeland, and are filled with the interest in life. So it goes in “West Lake on the Day of the Full Moon in the Seventh Lunar Month”: On the day of the full moon in the seven lunar month, there was nothing worth seeing at West Lake except the people milling around. If you looked at people who came out on that evening, you could classify them into five types. First, there were those who arrived in a multi-decked boat, bringing with them musicians playing flutes and drums. They were fully dressed up, and they ordered sumptuous meals. At their brightly lit place they enjoyed performances by entertainers in a tumult of light and sound. They were supposed to watch the moon but actually they

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chapter sixteen were unable to see it, and we could watch them. There were those who also came in a boat that was also multi-decked. They were accompanied either by celebrated beauties or gentlewomen, and sometimes they also brought with them handsome boys. Laughs and sobs burst out in turn. They sat in a circle on the balcony and glanced right and left. Although they were right there under the moon, they really did not bother to give it a look, and we could look at them. There were those who arrived in a boat, with musicians waiting upon their pleasure, in the company of renowned courtesans and Buddhist monks who had time to spare. They sipped their wine slowly and sang in a soft voice, accompanied by the soft music of pipes and strings; human voice and the sound of musical instruments set off each other. They were indeed beneath the moon, and they did look at the moon, but they also wanted people to watch them looking at the moon, and we could watch them. Again there were those who came neither in a boat nor in a carriage; they were casually dressed. After having eaten and drunk their fill, they met in groups of three to five and joined the crowd, making a lot of noise shouting wildly at the Celebration Temple or the Broken Bridge. They pretended to be drunk and sang tuneless songs. They looked at the moon, at those who were watching the moon, and also at those who were not watching the moon, but in fact did not look at anything in particular, and we could look at them. Then there were those who arrived in a small boat with gauzy curtains. They sat by a clean table and a clay stove, and had water boiled in the pot to make tea; then they passed it to one another in white porcelain cups. They came with good friends and beautiful women, and invited the moon to be their company. They either hid themselves in the shade of the trees or stayed away from the clamor on the Inner Lake. They came to watch the moon, but people were unable to see how they conducted themselves while they watched the moon; nor did they ever watch the moon with full intent, and we could watch them. When the local people in Hangzhou made their trip to the lake, they usually came out around ten o’clock in the morning and returned before six in the evening. They stayed away from the moon as if from a personal enemy. On that evening, however, they all came out of the city in groups, merely for the purpose of having something to brag about. They paid heavy tips to the city-wall gatekeepers. Their sedan-chair carriers held torches in hand and stood in a row on the bank. As soon as they got into their boats, they instructed the boatmen to hurry for the Broken Bridge to join in the big party there. Therefore before the second beat of the night watches, the boiling hullabaloo of human voices and music at the place was like that during an earthquake or in a nightmare, loud enough to make everyone deaf and mute. Boats big and small were all moored along the bank. There was nothing there to watch except the boats and the punt-poles hitting one another, and people rubbing shoulders and looking into the faces of one another. After a while their frenzy was exhausted. Government officials left after their banquets were over, office runners shouted to clear the way, and sedan-chair carriers yelled and scared people in the boats by


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saying that the city gates were closing. Lanterns and torches moved like a trail of meteors, and people hurried away surrounded by their retainers. Those on the shore also hurried to return in groups before the city gates closed. The crowd got sparser and thinner, and in a short while they were all gone. Only then would people like us move our boats to the shore. The stone steps of the Broken Bridge had just cooled down. We placed mats on them and sat down, and invited our friends to drink to their hearts’ content. Now the moon was like a newly polished bronze mirror. The hills and the lake seemed to have just washed their faces and put on new makeup. Those who had been sipping their wine slowly and singing in a soft voice came out. Those who had been hiding themselves in the shade of the trees also emerged. We greeted them and pulled them over to sit among us. Poetic friends and renowned courtesans arrived on the scene; wines cups and chopsticks were laid out; human voices and musical instruments blended in unison. Only when the moon was fading fast and the east gradually turning white would our guests take their leave. We set our boats adrift to find ourselves among miles of lotus flowers and to sleep soundly. There, with the fragrance assailing our nostrils, we would have sweet, sweet dreams.

All kinds of people gathered around West Lake on the day of the full moon in the seventh month. Some show off their rank and wealth, some are merry and curious, some coquet and flirt, some pretend madness and play the fool, and some feign modesty and reservedness; all appear a little silly, but also somewhat lovely. Only after the end of the clamor and tumult, however, does West Lake present its beauty to those who are deeply in love with her. The panorama of local customs and secular life brings to its reader a combination of humor and wit on the one hand, fun and pleasure on the other. The piece does not contain any argument or reasoning, and there is nothing profound about it, but it leaves much room for the reader’s imagination. It is indeed a beautiful piece of writing. In the reform of both poetry and prose initiated at the same time by the Gong’an School in the Late Ming period, the prose vignette had considerable success because it was easier for prose, not as dependent on special forms of linguistic representation as poetry, to transform itself into free expression. In the past, prose had also been under greater influence of the view on literature being “vehicle of the Way,” and once it took a turn toward the aspect of “natural sensibility,” it more readily made its fresh, new appearance. Under the impact of conventional concepts, many people had considered the so-called “Eight Masters of the Tang and Song,” who represented the system of “classical prose,” as the canon of classical Chinese prose; notwithstanding that, in terms

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of literature per se, the Late Ming prose vignette, which deviated from that system, was closer to modern prose, and precisely because of that, it provided more valuable experience for the prose in the period of the New Literature Movement.

4. Individual Aria and Folk Song of the Ming Dynasty Individual arias and folk songs of the Ming dynasty were both being sung at the time, but they differed in that the former were composed by men of letters or scholar-officials, and mostly used to liven thing up at banquets for family or guests (it was quite prevailing for scholarofficials to own entertainers at home in the Ming dynasty), and they observed set musical scores. Folk songs, on the other hand, were chiefly composed by anonymous authors and while they also observed some basic tonal patterns, their musical requirements were rather simple and there were few prosodic rules about them; many were sung in houses of singing-girls or brothels. On the other hand, in the Ming dynasty, the literati had close connection with urban life in the first place, and many among them were fond of folk-songs from the townsfolk. The folk-songs of the Ming dynasty sound bold, vigorous, and unrefined, and they smack of the flavor of the lower social stratum. However, during the Yuan and Ming dynasties, the refined and the unrefined had blended, and there was nothing unusual for a man of letters to engage himself in the composition of such works to be circulated among the commoners. For example, in the Mountain Songs compiled by Feng Menglong, some are marked to have been composed by himself, or by his friends. Individual Aria of the Ming Dynasty Since its rise in the Yuan dynasty, the individual aria had, to a large degree, replaced the song lyric in function; during the Ming dynasty, it still continued to move in that direction, so the rise of the individual aria was coupled with the decline of the song lyric. Unlike the individual aria of the Yuan, that of the Ming was not as fresh and original, but the number of authors and compositions surpassed that of the Yuan. (According to the counting in Ren Na’s General Introduction to the Individual Aria, 330 writers composed something in the form.) Some masterpieces, from renowned authors, managed to enhance some further development, both in the exploration of new content of


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life, and in the in-depth representation of human feeling and social condition. For a considerably long period in the Early Ming times, the individual aria, like other literary genres, was on the decline. At the time, the most influential author of individual aria was Zhu Youdun, an aristocrat of the imperial clan, who had the collection of Music Bureau Songs from the Sincerity Studio. His individual arias, known for their harmonious musicality, were perennially popular. In style he followed in the wake of the bold and uninhibited school of Ma Zhiyuan and Guan Yunshi. In content they mostly take as subject matter enjoyment of flowers, romantic love, banquets and parties, or occasional exchanges, and they smack of rank, wealth and leisure. During the Hongzhi and Zhengde reigns, the individual aria of the Ming dynasty saw a remarkable development. At the time, renowned authors in the north included Kang Hai, Wang Jiusi, etc., and those in the south, Wang Pan, Chen Duo, Tang Yin and others. Kang Hai (1475–1540) and Wang Jiusi (1468–1551), among the Former Seven Masters, were both also authors of drama and individual aria. They were both natives from Shaanxi and, identified as belonging to Liu Jin’s political faction, they were both banished from service and led a secluded life in their native town where they often attended parties together. Many of their individual arias show their discontent with the politics in reality, indignation at their own experience, and self-consolation, out of a sense of helplessness, in the peace and comfort of life in seclusion. Take, for example, Kang Hai’s “Water Fairy: Drinking Wine”: Talking about self-indulgence, I am self-indulgent indeed; Talking about intelligence, who could match me in that? Thinking carefully about things in the past—all are pure illusion. I almost missed to get drunk in spring wind at the Village of Five Willows. Heroic figures of the Han, Gallant men of the Tang, Let me ask: where are they now? Good ones, evil ones, one by one, they only went into the songs of fishermen and woodcutters; Strong ones, weak ones, helter-skelter, they all got buried in the west or north suburbs. Those who sing, dance and enjoy life: don’t let down the beauty of mountains and waters.

It is a complaint after having suffered setbacks. The denial of political life and heroic accomplishments, as well as the praise of everyday life, was a direct continuation of the individual aria of the Yuan.

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In the same period, the works of the authors of the individual aria in the south smacked more of urban life and had a broader range in content. Wang Pan (ca. 1470–1530) never served in the government. His individual aria, ranked as the best in the north in Wang Jide’s Prosody of the Aria, has its strength in its brisk, succinct and graceful style. Most of his compositions tell his enjoyment of life in leisure, and a few others present scenes of life in the society. For instance, his aria set “Ridiculing Those Who Go in All Directions” pokes fun at Buddhist monks who go from one place to another, without stop, rendering their hired service of religious rituals. The short aria “Making Obeisance to the Son of Heaven: Ode to Trumpet,” a satire of eunuchs who ride roughshod over the people, is quite well-known: Trumpets, Horns, You play little tunes in big sound. Government boats, coming and going in hustle and bustle, Rely on you to raise their status and prestige. When the soldiers hear you, they are worried; When the common people hear you, they get scared; How are they supposed to tell which is real, which is fake? Right in front of our eyes, they ruin one family And then hurt another, Until all the geese fly away, leaving only the clear waters behind.

The refreshingly pungent style, exclusive to the individual aria, is given its full play here. Chen Duo (before 1469–1507) lived in Nanjing. He was a Commander by hereditary appointment, but rather than discharging his duty, he was fascinated with the composition of arias, and was known in the Palace Music School of Nanjing as the “King of Music.” The content of his compositions is predominantly on romantic love, and they are facile and graceful in style. He issued a small collection, Humorous Tunes, which includes one hundred and thirty-six arias; taking as subject matter the variety of professions in the society, primarily those in the city, they represent all kinds of human emotions and social conditions. It was a work that broke new ground for the individual aria. According to each of the different objects, the author takes his turns sympathizing, ridiculing, or denouncing, but he is more inclined to poke fun at them, and he is also more successful in this type of composition, which is quite vivid and lifelike. For example, he describes the Community


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Head as: “For small lawsuits, it’s a matter of three cups of light wine; / In the case of a big one, it has to be one pig’s head.” For a wizard, “Beating a broken drum, / He murmurs about subduing the evil spirit. / After taking a meal of the chicken and wine for offering, / He pouts his fleshy lips.” For a school tutor: “For several decades he has dapped smudged red and black ink on paper; / Produced four or five pieces of worthless history or essay, / And cited thousands of times from the Songs or Analects.” The following is a piece in complete: Searching for the “dragon’s veins” in circling waters? Too much labor. Finding the right direction in choosing one’s grave? Not a done deal. Keeping the wind in gathering the vital force? Sheer nonsense. I’m telling you, the mountaineer, that you should think carefully: Choose a hill of good omen as a graveyard for your ancestors, You will live a long life and keep yourself fit, You will become a big official, and sure to become wealthy. Isn’t that better than currying favor from all the princes?8 (“Water Fairy: The Burial of a Scholar”)

Around the Jiajing reign was the golden age of the individual aria of the Ming dynasty. There appeared many famous authors, and their works showed richer variety in style. In terms of the musical score, before the rise of the Kunshan tune, some used both northern and southern tunes, with the former in the majority; afterwards, the northern tunes were on the decline and the southern ones were on the rise. There was even a group who called themselves that of the Southern Arias. Renowned authors of this period included Shen Shi, Yang Shen, Jin Luan, Feng Weimin, Liang Chenyu and others. Among them, Feng Weimin made the most distinguished achievements, and Liang Chenyu was a representative of the Southern Arias. Shen Shi (1488–1565) was a famous painter in Hangzhou. His individual arias, exclusively on erotic love, contain graphic and vivid descriptions and are known as of the “Green Gate Style.” Take, for example, “Locking up the Southern Branches: A Song about What I Saw”: Next to the painted balustrade, At the side of the curved path, I ran into her, who suddenly shot me a glance. It made me tongue-tied, unable to speak; It made my feet feeling soft, stuck to the ground. 8 This aria contains many expressions of superstitious practices, including the fengshui.

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chapter sixteen She just turned around and left like a puff of smoke. I begged the wintersweet branch: could you catch her and turn her back?

In accordance with the spirit of the Yuan aria and the folksongs of the age, this kind of arias is narrative in nature. During the Zhengde reign Yang Shen (1488–1559) won first place in the metropolitan examinations, and was appointed as a Senior Compiler at the Hanlin Academy. At the beginning of the Jiajing reign he was demoted to serve at Yongchang, Yunnan, and afterwards, for a long time, he lived either in his native Sichuan or in Yunnan where he served. In the Ming dynasty, Yang Shen was known for his erudition, and he was also a poet. The individual arias composed by him and his wife Huang E were compiled by someone in recent times as Individual Arias of Yang Shen and His Wife. Yang Shen’s arias do not observe prosody strictly, and they were derided by Wang Shizhen as “mostly in Sichuan dialect, hence unagreeable to the original northern or southern tune.” (The Beauty of Arias). In content they mostly express the disappointment and sorrow in his heart. They concentrate on the world of imagination, and smack somewhat of the song lyric. Take, for instance, his “Oriole: Spring Evening”: A shallow sheet of water cuts us apart. In the biting cold, I miss her at sunset. In the small courtyard where pears bloom, people have just quieted down. I’m in no mood to listen to the playing of jade flute, Nor do I want to pour wine from the golden cup. The moon is bright, there’s no shadow at the idle swing. I’m unable to dream either, Only hear the resounding of rice pounding in the village Which I mistake for the sound of boatman’s singing.

Jin Luan (ca. 1495–ca. 1584) was originally a native of Gansu; in his middle age he went in the company of his father who served in Nanjing where he stayed for a long time. He never served in his life, but socialized mostly with senior officials and famous literati, and he often felt indignant at his lack of opportunities. However, he was by nature gallant and uninhibited, so he was able to transform the resentment into mockery. For instance, in his aria series, “New Water Melody in Double Northern Tune: Setting Out on Road to Beihe at Dawn,” he ridicules himself: “I’ve dropped by the crimson gates of some noblemen; / I’ve called upon some ministers of imperial council; / I’ve kept following


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in the wake of their carriages and horses in the capital region. / I’ve completely worn out my pair of leather shoes / And end in leaving bare my heels.” One could feel therein the mixture of sanguine humor and bitterness. Artistically his individual arias are known for being refined in prosody; they are skilful in blending the vernacular and the literary language into unity, and they read both tactful and smooth, and with a sense of humor. However, he wrote many perfunctory arias in social exchanges, and there lies his weakness. Some of his arias, which describe scenes of life in the brothel, do not try to beautify it in any romantic way, and they are truthful and lively. Take, for example, his “Northern Tribe Tunes, No. 18: Amorous Mockery”: It’d be crazy to keep thinking about you, Nor should one keep saying “I miss you.” Do not jump into the Yellow River with open eyes. There are too many lies in honeyed words. If I make you die for it, my young man, How am I going to feed myself? I’ve already come to grief so many times; I see through everything, yet I still find it unbearable.

Feng Weimin (1511–ca. 1580) was the most important author of the individual aria in the Ming dynasty, and his achievement may be compared to the famous Yuan authors. His compositions, in addition to those on the description of nature, expression of feeling, social gatherings and occasional exchanges, also include quite a number of pieces that deplore people’s suffering, expose social problems, or satirize the evil of the official circles, which are rather unusual for the genre of the individual aria. The aria set “ ‘It’s Nice to be Upright’ in the Major Gong Mode: A Panorama of Lü Chunyang’s Three Worlds” is an unusual work. On the one hand, the nether world, in the author’s description, is all dark and chaotic, which shows his intention to satirize politics of the imperial society; on the other hand, the preposterous judgment of legal cases in the nether world also suggests that, in the author’s opinion, past or present, right or wrong, it is all a big mess. For instance, for two of the “Twenty Four Examples of Filial Piety,” Guo Ju, who wants to bury his son alive, is condemned as “pretended benevolence,” and the judgment for Wang Xiang, who lies down on ice, is “fake filial piety;” as for the wife of Qiu Hu, who throws herself into the river, she is ruled to be “rude and unreasonable.” It represents, with a playful touch, the literati’s derision of conventional values in the Middle Ming period. All such writings expand the range of the individual aria.

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Feng Weimin’s individual arias, not so elaborate and overwrought in language, are lively and natural, smacking of the gallant, uninhibited air of the individual arias of the Early Yuan period. Take, for example, his “Song of Jade River: A View of the World”: I love youth, But youth doesn’t love me. I’m afraid of a white beard, But my white beard is nowhere to be hidden. Rank and wealth—what about them? Gallant and graceful? I’m all right with that. When there’s wine, I’ll drink it; If there are flowers, I’ll put one in my hair. If there’s music, then I’ll sing, And make a group with those who understand the sounds. I don’t have much of property, But I will scrape along somehow, Walk on the road, sound and safe, Sit in the courtyard, out of harm’s reach, And I shall never again get myself bound for the sake of fame and profit.

It was written by Feng after he resigned from office and returned to farming. The idea in the aria is not so original. With the average scholarofficial, it will surely lead to some complaint about life’s setbacks, but with Feng, it sounds so light-hearted and sprightly. Feng Weimin was also very good in his vivid portrayals of the society. He had quite an experience of amorous adventures at the houses of joy. The eight arias in the set “Making Obeisance to the Son of Heaven: Presented to Tian Guifang” show that he had some true tender feelings for this type of women, but he was also able to provide penetrating depiction of all the falsity and trickery in the brothels, the ten arias in the set “Fairy Walking in the Toad Palace: Ten Evils” being representative of that. In addition, “Locking up Southern Branches in the Southern Mode: A Prostitute Taking a Nap” is very well written: The guests who make fun of us would never leave the dinner table. My upper eye-lids bullied my lower ones. I tried to raise my spirits, but it was a hard struggle. Holding the pipa in my arms, I reeled forward and almost fell. I sang a song, which was like talking in a sleep. How could we have a banquet that never came to an end? By midnight, in the small hours, on the winding road, I staggered along, unable to take care of my bags. In a daze I arrived at home, In a sleep, in a dream, I was in the company of someone I knew; By the time I woke up at daybreak, I saw it was only you.


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The aria was meant for mockery, but it provides a truthful account of the prostitute’s helplessness in life and both the physical and mental hardship she has to go through, arousing sympathy for her. Feng Weimin’s individual arias are most valuable in their spontaneity and truthfulness. Unsuccessful in the civil service examinations, Liang Chenyu (ca. 1521–ca. 1594) engaged himself in literary composition and led a chivalrous life. He became famous at the time for his plays using the local Kunshan music, and his individual arias were also quite influential. His arias strictly observe the prosodic rules and adopt a polished style. He was fond of transforming famous lines from the shi poetry and the song lyric, and the portion of the vernacular was reduced in his arias, which were close to the song lyric in form. “Double-Tuned ‘Boat Traveling at Night’ in the Xianlü Pitch: Adopting the Conventional Title ‘Recalling the Past at Jinling’” is a typical example, “Leaning by the balcony, / I watch in late autumn my native land / Where distant trees stand in clouds / And a boat on its way back at the horizon. / The mountain / Still stands over the cold river, as always; / How many rises and falls in history have you seen?” It is quite forceful and vigorous, and its rephrasing of set lines from previous authors may be regarded as quite polished and natural, but it really does not sound so much like an individual aria. Some of his pieces on romantic love are not completely like that, such as his “Jade Abdomen Cover: Message for a Fish”: Fish, I owe you one on this: Come to the riverbank and let me tell you a few words. Please make sure that you won’t delay in riding the spring tide; Take great care, and make no mistakes. My man now lives at the source of the Shanxi river That flows all the way down right from his door.

Smooth in sound and tone, it is also refined in syntax, but it still keeps the spirit of the vernacular and the special features of the individual aria in its liveliness and dynamism. The evaluation of Liang Chenyu’s arias has been quite controversial. Those who admired him called him the “Sage of Arias,” (An Anthology of Southern Melodies selected by Zhang Chushu) but those who depreciated him observed that due to the practice of polished language which he promoted, “all the original expressions exclusive for aria writers were wiped out, and in addition, all the sayings of truthful feelings in the human world got stifled and simply disappeared.” (Ling Mengchu: Miscellaneous Notes on Aria and Drama) Objectively, Liang’s individual

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aria, as his personal creation, had some characteristics and achievements of its own, but it was also a fact that he did initiate a fashion that led to the disappearance of the original generic features of the individual aria. In the Late Ming period, literature flourished, and the folk-song was attached increasing importance, but the individual aria of the literati, compared to the previous period, was on the decline. The most important author of this period was Shi Shaoxin (1588–ca. 1630). Unsuccessful in civil service examinations, he gave up the hope for an official career, and instead enjoyed traveling to scenic places, or indulged himself in the houses of joy. His works mostly express his personal feelings in everyday life, with those on nature, scenes of the four seasons, exchanges with friends, and romantic love in the majority; there are also a few pieces that recall the past and deplore the present among them. After Liang Chenyu advocated for more polish in language and wrote the individual aria in the style of the song lyric, Shen Jing, subsequently, devoted more attention to details of prosody and music; under their influence most authors honored Liang in style and Shen in prosody, and in these two aspects the individual aria was under much restriction. Shi Shaoxin was conversant with music and he was also found of beautiful diction, but he was not particularly obsessed with the refinement of form. He was able to use his talent to express his genuine feelings about life in natural, refreshing lines, and thereby became the last famous author of the individual aria in the Ming dynasty. The most outstanding feature of Shi’s works is its deep feelings. He depicts erotic love, but it never strikes the reader as vulgar or frivolous. Themes of “wind, flower, snow, and the moon” may easily turn to clichés, but he is able to give his reader a sense of originality. Take, for example, the song to the tune of “Three Sections” in his set “God Erlang in the Southern Shang Mode: Affection for Flower”: Like dust in the air, Light and misty, whose soul in a dream is it? Like fish scales in front of doorsteps, In sparse dots, the stains of whose tears? At dawn, it suddenly gets extremely cold. Even when the embroidered curtain is left down, the wind is still strong. Just the time when I hold my head in a daze from drunkenness, And too sleepy to dress up myself.

However, by Shi Shaoxin’s time, very little, if any, of the brisk, neat and vivid in the Yuan individual aria was left.


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The Folk Song of the Ming Dynasty The folk song had its special significance in the literature of the Ming dynasty. Starting from the Middle Ming period, from Li Mengyang and He Jingming to Li Zhi, Yuan Hongdao, Feng Menglong and Ling Mengchu, etc., they were not only fond of the folk song from personal interest, but also regarded the special features of the folk song, its genuine feeling, original thinking, liveliness and uninhibitedness, as the aesthetic ideal for literature. In giving instructions on writing poetry, Li Mengyang said one should model after “Locking up the Southern Branch.” Feng Menglong observed that the folk song had the effect of “using the genuine feelings of men and women to expose the fake medicine of orthodox ethics.” (“Foreword to Mountain Songs”) From this one can understand some of the basic aspects of the literature of the Ming dynasty. Regarding the popularity of the folk song in the various periods of the Ming dynasty, Shen Defu has provided, in his A Book of Acquisitions from Out of Office during the Wanli Reign, a rather detailed account: The short song began to be circulated in northern China during the Yuan dynasty, and became even more popular later. From the Xuan[-de] and Zheng[-tong] all the way to after the Cheng[-hua] and Hong[-zhi] reigns, such kind of songs like “Locking up Southern Branch,” “By the Side of the Dressing Table,” and “Sheep on the Hillside” were circulated in the Central Plains. When Mr. Li Mengyang first moved to Bianliang from Qingyang, he heard these songs, and thought they made a continuation of the Songs of the States. Then He Jingming arrived, and he was also extremely fond of them. Now the three extant texts of “Clay Figurine,” “Divination by Shoes,” and “Holding out Hair in a Coil,” were the best of these three songs, and their fame was well-deserved. Afterwards, there were also melodies like “Playing with Kids,” “Stop the Scudding Clouds,” “Intoxication in Peace,” etc., but they were not as popular as those three songs. During the Jia[-jing] and Long[-qing] reigns there also arose the likes of “Making a Scene at Dawn,” “Mistletoe,” “Lament at the Silk River,” “Crying to the Imperial Heaven,” “Dried Lotus Leaves,” “Pink Lotus,” “Song of Tongcheng,” and “Loops of Silver String,” which spread from the Huai river valley to Jiangnan and gradually deviated far from the song lyric and the aria as they were about nothing except love and lust, and they were quite crude in prosody. In recent years, there have also appeared two songs, “Pole to Strike Jujubes” and “Hanging on the Twigs,” which are more or less alike in musical scores; north or south, men or women, young and old, high and low, all practice them, and all like to listen to them. They have even been published in books and circulated throughout the nation; people have known them by heart. No one knows

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chapter sixteen where their musical scores originated from; it is really astonishing. Also, “Sheep on the Hillside” was a favorite song of the two masters, Li and He; by now, it is a title adopted in both northern and southern tunes. However, in the north what is extremely popular is only “Reproving Sheep on the Hillside,” a melody that was initiated from the three towns of Xuan, Da, and Liaodong. The singing girls in the capital use this song as a substitute of the northern melodies accompanied by strings, and the text of their singing is obscene and vulgar. It has moved far beyond even “Among Mulberries” and “Along the Pu River” (erotic songs of ancient times). People who travel far away from home are particularly fond of it; when they hold a drinking party at midnight, they always ask someone to sing it.

Judging from Shen’s account, we may have some rough idea how these folk-songs first appeared in the north and then spread to the south, and how they became increasingly popular after the Middle Ming period until they were “circulated throughout the nation.” In the course of that, men of letters and scholar-officials had always taken a part, and because they promoted them, and compiled them for publication, the circulation was accelerated. Most of these songs were sung by prostitutes, and the musical scores were relatively simple. In content they were largely about romantic love, and they also became increasing explicit in language. In general the development of the form kept in step with the changes of the general mood of the society and the evolvement of the literati literature of the Ming dynasty. The extant earliest collections of the Ming folk-songs are the four anthologies published by Mr. Lu of Jintai during the Chenghua reign which include Stop the Scudding Clouds at the Fifth Watch of the Night in Four Seasons: A New Collection. While they did not yet show any remarkable special features, those that describe the feeling of men and women in disappointed love affairs are quite lively in tone, as in the following piece: The glory and splendor of wealth and rank made me yield my body to him in mistake. My beauty was sold at the price of gold and silver, to the tongue-lashing of others. Tut-tut! A pink-colored peony flower atop green leaves and black branches is nipped by the hard frost. Even if I have to become a nun I shouldn’t have married him!


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It tells a woman’s regret after her unhappy marriage, as a consequence of her coveting after rank and wealth, with a wicked man, and thereupon affirms the importance of true love in life. New Sounds in an Era of Prosperity, published in the Zhengde reign, A Collection of the Gorgeous in the Woods of the Lyric and Music Bureau Songs of Harmony and Light, both published in the Jiajing reign, all include some early folk songs, which are more reserved than later works. However, among the earlier folk songs, some masterpieces have still been handed down. Take, for example, the two pieces of “contemporary songs of Bianliang” included in Chen Suowen’s Chronicles of the Southern Palace Songs, one of which is the “Clay Figurine,” ranked by Shen Defu as the very best piece to the tune of “Locking up Southern Branch”: Silly handsome one, Hey you, my elder brother! Let’s mix some yellow clay And make the two of us. Make one of you And make one of me. Let’s make them exactly lifelike And make them lie down on bed with us. Let’s smash the clay figurines, Put some water in and mix them up again. Let’s make another one of you And another one of me. Now inside the elder brother there’s the younger sister, And inside the younger sister there’s the elder brother.

It is no surprise at all that the men of letters of the time were utterly amazed at its sweet innocence and creative imagination. In the Wanli reign there appeared many anthologies of selected individual arias and contemporary songs (some also included drama), and those which included more folk-songs among them were One Bough in the Woods of the Song Lyric, edited by Huang Wenhua, Elegant Melodies of Hui Pool, edited by Xiong Renhuan, and Marvelous Sounds of Selected Brocades, edited by Gong Tianwo. The majority of the folk-songs included therein are on romantic love, and they are characterized, different from the folk-songs in the above-mentioned anthologies, by their bold and genuine emotions and their original and ingenious diction. Certainly, the dating of the anthologies was not necessarily that of the included pieces, but judging from the musical

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tunes they adopted, they should be mostly from after the Jiajing and Longqing reigns. Let’s use a song to the tune of “Lament at the Silk River” as an example: Outside the gauze window The moon was shining high up. Suddenly I heard someone playing the jade flute. What the flute played was a lovesick, oh lovesick melody, Which, telling so much of the sorrow of parting, Added so much to my misery. I’d like to tell what’s in my mind from the beginning, oh from the beginning, I’d like to accuse Heaven for going against our will And making us so far apart, across mountains and rivers. Suddenly I heard some lonely wild goose, oh lonely wild goose, cry in the air; The cry gave me so much pain at heart. I entered my bedroom; tears poured down my cheeks. Who, alas who, should I tell all my anguish to?

Feng Menglong, a specialist in popular literature of the Late Ming period, showed great interest in the folk song. He compiled Hanging on the Twigs (also entitled First Show of Childish Infatuation) and Mountain Songs (also entitled Second Show of Childish Infatuation). The former, already slightly incomplete today, includes a total of 435 pieces; the latter contains 380 pieces, including some long pieces of more than a thousand characters. “Hanging on the Twigs” was a contemporary melody popular in both the north and the south during the Wanli reign, and some of those included by Feng Menglong, according to the explanation in footnotes, were composed by the literati. Mountain Songs is an exclusive collection of folk songs of the Suzhou region, composed in the Suzhou dialect. Among the several important collections of folk songs, the works included in these two anthologies were from the latest period in time. They are bold in the representation of emotions, even downright explicit and unrestrained, reflecting the social ambience of the Late Ming society. The love songs in Hanging on the Twigs are often passionate in feeling but also minute and meticulous in description, with a strong sense of life in reality. Take, for instance, “Having a Dream”: The dream I had was indeed funny: I dreamt that you were making love with someone else; I woke up, and you were still in my arms. It was simply because I couldn’t let you go in my heart.


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Let me just hold you tight, and try to have some sleep. I only wish that you, while staying right next to me when awake, Wouldn’t leave me again in a dream.

Some of them have a sense of humor, showing a widespread special aspect of Late Ming literature, as in “Valediction”: Seeing off my sweetheart, I went all the way to the road to Danyang. You were crying, I was crying, And then the donkey-driver also joined us in crying. Hey driver: Why are you crying? He said, The one who’s supposed to leave won’t leave, The one who’s weeping just keeps weeping. When the two of you keep flirting with each other, My donkey is suffering.

Hanging on the Twigs already include pieces with sexual content, Mountain Songs was even more so in that respect, with a considerable number of pieces containing implications or direct descriptions of sex acts. In those pieces, the vulgarity of urban life and the pursuit of freedom and happiness are mixed up in one. Some of them, however, are rather pretty and moving. For example, “Simulation” is so vividly lifelike in its description of the infatuation with each other of a young couple: When I don’t see my sweetie, I feel so sad in heart. Judging your heart by mine, it should be exactly the same. I close my eyes, blow a kiss in the air, And repeatedly say, “My pretty sweetheart.”

The long pieces in Mountain Songs are mostly narrative in nature, with a mixture of speaking and singing. Compared to the short pieces, they bring into fuller play of the folk song’s characteristics, its lively manner of speaking and expression of emotions. They provide excellent material for the study of folk arts in the Suzhou region.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

DRAMA AND FICTION OF THE MING DYNASTY

In the previous chapter, with a focus on poetry and prose, we provide some necessary explication of the changing social and political background in the Ming dynasty. Such an explication works just the same with drama and fiction. Like its poetry and prose, the drama and fiction of the Ming dynasty also went through three stages, the decline in the early period, the resurgence in the middle period, and the climax in the late period. In addition, such a condition of synchronization is a good indication of the close relation between traditional literary kinds and popular literature in the Ming dynasty.

1. Drama and Fiction from the Early to the Middle Ming Period New Tales Told while Trimming the Lampwick New Tales Told while Trimming the Lampwick is an Early Ming collection of short stories in classical language. It contains twenty stories in four sections, plus one appendix section. Its author Qu You (1341–1427) was known for his poetry which once won Yang Weizhen’s appreciation. According to the author’s “Postscript to the New Edition of New Tales Told while Trimming the Lampwick,” kept in the Japanese edition of New Tales Told while Trimming the Lampwick with Line-by-Line Explanation, the book was completed in the “year of Wu Wu during the Hongwu reign” (1378). Among works of fiction in classical language, New Tales Told while Trimming the Lampwick is a combination of the supernatural and the chuan qi tales. Some of the stories in the book represent the life of urban townsfolk and their feeling and thinking, which may have something to do with the influence of the huaben fiction. In the grim and harsh environment for literature during the Early Ming times, it was rather unusual for this book to maintain much of the spirit of the literature at the end of the Yuan dynasty.

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More than half of the stories in New Tales Told while Trimming the Lampwick are about romantic love, and the truthfulness or falsity of feeling was attached much importance in the depiction. For example, “Biography of Emerald” tells how Emerald, “daughter of a commoner’s family in Huai’an,” falls in secret love with her fellow student, Jin Ding. When her parents try to make an arranged marriage for her she openly declares, “It will have to be Jin Ding of the family west of ours. I have already promised myself to him. If you will not give us your approval, I have no choice but to die.” Later, the two of them, husband and wife, are separated because of war. Emerald is captured by someone who forces her to become a concubine. The author makes no denouncement whatsoever of her “loss of chastity,” and still praises her love with Jin Ding. Obviously, there was little concern for the Confucian ethical code. For another example, “Story of the Tower of Double Fragrance” is a romanticized tale filled with the sentiment of worldly pleasure. A young businessman, Zheng Sheng, is taking a bath at the bow of a boat. Xue Lanying and Xue Huiying, the two daughters of a rich merchant, peep at him from a riverside tower and become enamored, so they “threw down a pair of litchi fruit” to show their affection. In the evening, when Zheng is standing at the bow of the boat, the sisters use a bamboo basket to pull him up from their window: “After they met, they were too happy to say anything, so they just went together to bed, to the satisfaction of all their desires of the flesh.” The father of the Xue family is “shocked,” but eventually he agrees to their union. Such an open description of the pursuit of freedom in love of young men and women was hardly, if ever, found in previous fiction. In its style, New Tales Told while Trimming the Lampwick still showed some shortcomings such as its preference for parallel sentences and citation of poetic lines, but its narration was already completely in simple, easy-to-understand classical language, which was an indication of the direction of the development of fiction in classical language. In the Yongle reign, there was also Leftover Tales Told while Trimming the Lampwick, written by Li Changqi with New Tales Told while Trimming the Lampwick as its model. It is close to the latter in content and also in other general aspects. “Story of Jia Yunhua’s Resurrection” was apparently influenced by “The Story of Jiao and Hong” of the Yuan dynasty, but it added a happy ending of grand union with the female protagonist’s return to life after death. New Tales Told while Trimming the Lampwick and Leftover Tales Told while Trimming the

drama and fiction of the ming dynasty

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Lampwick had their singular aspects in Early Ming literature, but no other compositions appeared in step with them at the time. During the Late Ming period, quite a few stories in these two books were integrated into vernacular fiction and drama. Early Ming Drama The field of drama was also enveloped in the cultural autocracy during the Early Ming times. According to the law, it was forbidden for anyone to play the roles of “emperors and kings, queens and consorts, loyal ministers and martyrs, sages in history” in folk theaters. However, “those who play immortals, Taoist priests, righteous husbands and chaste wives, sons and grandsons with filial piety, and urge the audience to do good deeds are not within the range of taboos.” (Royal Charters of a Shining Age) Drama was required to serve the politics and education of the imperial regime. Under the circumstances, the most popular compositions among theatrical works of the time were those which entertained as some embellishment for a peaceful age or those which promoted old-time morality. In that specific situation, Zhu Youdun (1379–1439), an aristocrat of the imperial clan, became the most influential Early Ming playwright. A grandson of Emperor Taizu, he inherited the title of the Prince of Zhou, and was given the posthumous name of “Xian,” so he became known as Prince Xian of Zhou. He wrote thirty-one variety plays, known in a collection as Music Bureau Songs from the Sincerity Studio. The contents of most of them were meant to serve as entertainment for families of rank and wealth, such as enjoyment of nature, birthday celebration, singing and dancing in a peaceful age, Taoist practice of seeking immortality, etc. Those which involved life in the society were also consciously filled with moral concepts to answer the demand of the ruler. For instance, Lament of an Incense Bag tells how Liu Panchun, a prostitute, falls in love with Zhou Gong, who has the degree of Cultivated Talent. The madam of the brothel forces her to receive Lu Yuan, a rich businessman, as a patron, so she commits suicide to show her aspirations. After her corpse is cremated, the incense bag that she used to carry with her, which keeps inside a love poem presented to her by Zhou Gong, remains intact. The story adopted the old stuff of the triangular relationship of a scholar, a rich merchant, and a prostitute which had been found in the Yuan variety play, but it made use of fairy tale in commending the woman’s chastity to highlight the moral theme.

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Zhu Youdun’s plays were primarily meant for entertainment, but he realized that they had to be ideologically correct. During the Chenghua and Hongzhi reigns, Qiu Jun, a leading scholar of the Study of the Principles (Lixue) and a senior official, took an even more active attitude of using drama as an educational tool. His play, Story of Loyalty and Filial Piety: All-Comprehensive Five Human Relations, has two brothers as protagonists, whose names are Wu Lunquan (“All Five Human Relations”) and Wu Lunbei (“Comprehensive Five Human Relations”). It is about how they manage to accomplish “All-Comprehensive Five Human Relations;” such exhibition of moral theme was without equal. Qiu Jun served all the way up to Minister of Rites and Grand Secretary, and the reason why he would engage himself in drama, which had always been disdained by orthodox men of letters, was aimed to “make the sons in the world fulfill their duty to parents and the subjects in the world to be loyal to their sovereign after seeing the performance.” It may be considered a forceful expansion of the literature of Terrace and Hall which was centered in moral concepts. Middle Ming Variety Play After the Hongzhi reign, the composition of drama began to take a turn for the better. While the consciousness of promoting loyalty and filial piety still existed, the adoption of subject matter gradually breathed of life in reality, and no longer focused deliberately on the moral ideas of the ruling class. By the time of Xu Wei’s Four Screeches from Monkeys, the spirit of resistance and the consciousness of a new age were already brought out in bold relief. By the Middle Ming period, the variety play was no longer dominant in drama, but some writers were still fond of this relatively short form. On the other hand, this kind of variety play was very different from the Yuan variety play: it did not have to be in four acts, it did not have to be sung by one single person, and there was frequently a mixture of northern and southern tunes. Wang Jiusi’s Du Fu’s Spring Outing and Kang Hai’s The Wolf of Mt. Zhongshan were both famous variety plays that appeared relatively early in the Middle Ming period. Both were meant as satires, which had something to do with the authors’ banishment because of their relation with Liu Jin. Du Fu’s Spring Outing tells how Du Fu, on a trip to the suburbs of the Chang’an city in spring, sees the desolate villages and dilapidated palaces, and he lashes at Li Linfu and the other treacherous


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senior officials for having brought the damage to the state. Then he pawns his official robe at a tavern for wine, and makes up his mind to become a recluse. It was said that Li Linfu in the play was actually meant to stand for Li Dongyang, a powerful courtier of the time. The Wolf of Mt. Zhongshan, which uses as its plot Ma Zhongxi’s fable “An Account of the Wolf of Mt. Zhongshan,” tells how Master Dongguo (“Eastern City-Wall”) saves a wolf but is almost killed by it; fortunately an old man maneuvers to rescue him. The play devotes itself to the portrayal of the treachery of the wolf. At the end of the play, through the old man’s saying, it demonstrates the ingratitude of many people in the world, revealing a strong sense of cynicism: “Aren’t they, each and every one of them, a Wolf of Mt. Zhongshan?” Some also believed that the play was a satire of Li Dongyang, as Kang Hai once came to the rescue of Li and got him out of prison, but it was difficult to ascertain that. Artistically speaking both lack real strength, but since they contain more of the authors’ personal experience and feeling, they are still able to hold some appeal to the reader. By the time when Feng Weimin’s variety play Monk and Nun as Accomplices appeared, it became more interesting. This play tells how Ming Jin, a monk, and Hui Lang, a nun, have an affair; they are caught in the act by neighbors and sent to the government office. Wu Shouchang of the administrative office has the two flogged with bamboo sticks, and then closes the case by ordering them to resume secular life and get married to each other. He says, “To help the two of them to achieve their aim, it’s because their feeling deserves some sympathy. To satisfy the demand of both feeling and law is a great deed that will be rewarding in retribution for those of us who serve in the government!” Feng was by nature fond of ridiculing. By making Ming Jin and Hui Lang get married happily after a flogging, he justified both feeling and law; it was also a display of his personal disposition. While such an attitude was still different from that in the Late Ming drama, which tried to gain the right in a forceful and serious manner, it was after all somewhat humane. In the play, Ming Jin sings, “We all grow up normally to become adults./ I am also a good offspring with my own Daddy and Mom. / I am not someone without human feelings. / The only difference is that I’ve left my family and become a monk since childhood. / Sometimes I cannot but feel the stirrings of love and break down in tears; / Sometimes I despair for failing to get my spouse and clench my pearly-white teeth. / Just when I’m about to chant sutras, I let out a few sighs; / Right after I prostrate myself in worship, I moan

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several times.” It shows the sympathy for the human misery caused by the ascetic commandments. Xu Wei had a variety play collection, Four Screeches from Monkeys, which includes Crazy Drummer in one act, Dream of the Emerald Land in two acts, Mulan of the Fair Sex in three acts, and Female Principal Graduate in five acts. There is no fixed length for these plays, and they use both northern and southern tunes and are really quite free in form. Among Middle Ming dramatic works, including the chuan qi plays, Xu Wei’s plays were masterpieces shining with new ideological luster; like his poetry, they represented the transition from Middle Ming literature to Late Ming literature. Both Mulan of the Fair Sex and Female Principal Graduate tell the stories of women disguised as men. Mulan takes her father’s place to join the army and fights in the battlefield. Huang Chonggu wins the degree of Principal Graduate and becomes a competent official. Both plays highlight women’s talent, and pose a direct challenge to the conventional thinking treating females as inferior to males, “A companion in petticoats and hairpins / Is just as dauntless and indomitable betwixt heaven and earth. / Why does it have to be a man?” Crazy Drummer makes up the story of Mi Heng and Cao Cao who, by the arrangement of the nether world authorities after their death, replay the scene of the chastisement as before. The content of “the chastisement of Cao” therein is nothing more than that from historical records and folklores: Cao Cao is condemned for his ruthlessness, hypocrisy, craftiness, and treachery, and for acting with utter disregard for human life. However, by using Mi Heng as his mouthpiece, Xu Wei primarily aimed to vent the mental pain, anger and indignation caused by the enormous social pressure. At the time, this play gained the admiration and deep appreciation of many men of letters, because it was neither history for history’s sake, nor using history as an allegory for politics in reality; the appeal lies in the author’s uninhibited personality and fiery passion. Dream of the Emerald Land tells the story of how Yu Tong, an eminent monk who is yet “to attain the right fruit” after several decades of painstaking self-cultivation, breaks the religious precept against lust on one single evening with Red Lotus, a prostitute. In his next incarnation, he turns into a prostitute, Emerald Willow; once the relationship is brought to her attention, she acquires immediate enlightenment. The story has its background in Zen thought, but it tells a universal truth: man is unable to reach moral perfection through the means of asceticism, and any commandment of this kind is fragile and easily breakable. On the


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contrary, it is possible to learn the truth of life after going through life’s adversity. After Yu Tong breaks the commandment he has a dialogue with Red Lotus who, as a symbol of the power of lust, appears aggressive and bold, while Yu Tong, in trying to defend himself, sounds weak and pathetic. Compared to Feng Weimin’s Monk and Nun as Accomplices, the denouncement of asceticism is more direct and powerful in this play, and the author’s thinking on the issues of clergy, religion, lust and morality is also quite intriguing. The aria texts in Four Screeches from Monkeys use very little embellishment in language, but the author’s genius is on full display; the lines are well polished but remain very close to the vernacular language. For that reason, Wang Jide has observed that they “stay on the heels of the Yuan authors.” (Prosody of the Aria) In the following we shall use, as an example, the song to the tune of “Ibid. (Mistletoe)” in Mulan of the Fair Sex: I’ve left my home by the distance of one arrow’s shot And now I hear the splashing of the water in the Yellow River. The horse lowers its head; I point to a wild goose that descends among the reed catkins afar. Suddenly my single-layer iron armor is dotted with frost. The deep sorrow for departure emaciates the peach flower of my face. All of a sudden I recall the closely stitched clothes, Two lines of tears trickle down, like a broken string of pearls.

The Middle Ming Chuan qi Play Most of the chuan qi plays since the Early Ming times were revised from plays of the Yuan dynasty, and their composition was on decline. There was an obvious change by the Middle Ming period. Li Kaixian’s Story of a Precious Sword, Story of the Crying Phoenix by an anonymous author (some believed it was by Wang Shizhen), and Liang Chenyu’s Story of Silk Washing represented the rise of the chuan qi play in the Ming dynasty. Li Kaixian (1502–1568) was once dismissed from office and lived as a commoner for more than twenty years. Story of a Precious Sword tells the story of how Lin Chong is forced to go up to Mt. Liangshan, but its plot and theme are quite different from those in Story of the Water Margin. In Story of a Precious Sword, Lin Chong is persecuted because he twice submits memorials to the throne impeaching Gao Qiu and Tong Guan for mismanaging affairs of state; later he leads the main forces of

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Mt. Liangshan in besieging the capital, and eventually clears the court of the treacherous officials. The theme of the play, as said in the opening song of “Partridge in the Sky”: “Punish the fawning sycophants, and recommend the loyal and talented, single out truth and use fiction as pretext to promote the Cardinal Guides and Constant Virtues.” The play is not free from quite a number of didactic elements, but after all, it is rather bold and gallant imagination to utilize a rebellious force to force the imperial court to rectify its mistake. “Running Away at Night” is the best act of the play. The aria texts, desolate in tone and vigorous in style, have a strong sense of lyricism. Take, for example, the following song to the tune of “Buying Good Wine”: Holding my sword with its snow-white edge in arms, I take a step forward, and start crying loudly. Holding up the front of my long gown I hurry along the winding footpath; Fortunately the bright stars are shining above. Suddenly it turns dark with the clouds above and the fog beneath. The wind howls, sending leaves to fall. The mountain forests are resounding with the roaring of tigers. Around the streams and vales the monkeys screech sadly. I am scared out of my wits. In a hurry, I am unable to even get out of the old temple at the foothill.

Story of the Crying Phoenix, produced during the Longqing reign, was a play which concerned contemporary political events. The author made a polarized description of the “treacherous party” of Yan Song, his son, and Zhao Wenhua on one side, and the “loyal ministers” of Yang Jisheng, Dong Chuance and others on the other, so the conflicts appeared to be extremely sharp and violent, which was quite unusual among plays of that age. But, precisely because of that, the characters in the play, especially Yang Jisheng, portrayed as an embodiment of “loyalty and righteousness,” appear to lack the emotions and feelings of normal human beings, and strike the audience as rather stiff. Plays which depict the struggles between the loyal and the treacherous are easily prone to suffer from such weakness. Liang Chenyu’s Story of Silk Washing was the very first play performed in the Kunshan Tune. According to the record in Discussion of the Southern Play, during the middle period of the Ming dynasty, the tunes which were more widely circulated in the south included the Yiyang Tune, the Yuyao Tune, and the Haiyan Tune, and in addition


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there was also the Kunshan Tune, “which was adopted only in the Suzhou region.” Approximately by the middle and late Jiajing reign, a group of performers led by Wei Liangfu made some reform of the Kunshan Tune. The reformed Kunshan Tune, gentle, soft and complex, was rich in undulation and variation; in sound and tone it “always makes use of its depth to enhance the tragic,” with great artistic appeal. (Yu Huai: Notes of Listening to Singing Performances at the Garden to Heart’s Content) Liang Chenyu, a Kunshan native in the first place, first presented, with Wei Liangfu’s assistance, the new tune on the stage, and he played a great role in its circulation. Thenceforward the Kunshan Tune took a dominant place in the performance of the chuan qi play. Story of Silk Washing made an effort to combine politics and love. The story goes like this. At the beginning, Fan Li and Xi Shi fall in love with each other, and they use a piece of silk that has been washed in the stream as their pledge of love. Later, the state of Yue faces extermination. Fan Li, who puts great store on affairs of the state, urges Xi Shi to go to the state of Wu on the mission of seducing the King of Wu. After the state of Wu is eliminated, Fan Li retires after having achieved his goal, and the two of them get married in a boat on Lake Taihu. In the political part of the story, Xi Shi is only a tool for the benefit of the sovereign and the state, which is fundamentally contradictory to the love theme. The author was obviously aware of this, so he devoted more space to highlighting the deep sorrow Xi Shi feels when she becomes a victim of politics. Take, for instance, one section of the song to the tune of “Golden Chain” in the act “Reception of Shi”: “We have made a piece of silk in the stream as our pledge. / For what reason is man so fickle in love? / I was indeed born under unlucky star! / I’ve never been worlds apart from him. / In time I’ll be drifting alone in an alien land, / Hearing no message from him whatsoever, / Dropped down a deep, deep well.” For another example, here is the song to the tune of “Pride of Fisherman: Mixture of Two Modes” in the act “Recollection”: How shameful! Months and years drag on. I’m sick in heart from sad solitude. Day after day, I’ve grown more haggard. Flowers and willows have stopped growing; Who knows they would turn so provocative! The ruler? He has long been in detention at a neighboring state. The ministers? They have long been prisoners in another nation. The cities? Half of them have long turned into wasted mounds.

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chapter seventeen How hampering! Thereupon I’ve roamed all by myself, And the couple, who knows, are taken far apart! On that side, he identifies me as a casual acquaintance that he runs into on the road; On this side, I’m recognized inside the embroidered bed-curtain as a lifetime spouse.

Xi Shi’s tragic fate was not taken for granted, so when the author depicted her sorrow, it was appealing to the audience. It was distinctively different from those plays which invariably promoted old-time ethics without any concern for human feeling. Story of Silk Washing is exquisite and polished in language, to the disapproval of drama critics who advocated the “inherent nature” or “original color” (ben se) of the genre. However, one should see that because of the author’s talent, the exquisite language of the play does not sound affected and rigid. Travel to the West In the Middle Ming period, in step with the increasing demand in literature and arts from the townsfolk stratum, the publishing of fiction reached unprecedented prosperity. It was during the Jiajing reign that Story of the Water Margin and Popular Romance of History of the Three Kingdoms began to be widely printed and circulated. Travel to the West, another great novel in the history of literature, also appeared in about the same time. The story of Travel to the West had its origin in the historical event of Xuan Zang, a monk of the Tang dynasty, who made a pilgrimage to India in search of sutras all by himself. The events of the pilgrimage, and what he heard and saw on the road to the west, were first dictated by Xuan Zang himself and written down by his disciple Bian Ji as Accounts of the Western Regions under the Great Tang; subsequently two other disciples of Xuan Zang’s, Hui Li and Yan Cong, composed The Biography of Master Tripitaka of the Great Temple of Love and Kindness of the Great Tang. The latter work contains some hyperbolic descriptions as well as some anecdotes and hearsays of the foreign land with a touch of mythology. Afterwards, stories about the sutra search gradually became important material of folk arts. In the field of drama, titles of plays related to it are found in both the guild texts of the Jin and the southern play of the Song and Yuan; among variety plays there


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were The Search for Sutras in the West of Tripitaka of the Tang by Wu Changling of the Yuan, Travel to the West by Yang Jingxian who lived at the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming, etc. In the field of fiction, Chantefable of the Sutra Search of Tripitaka of the Great Tang Dynasty, a huaben story published in the Yuan, was brief in length and rather crude in style, but it already provided a rough outline of the story of Travel to the West. In the book, there is a monkey Buddhist layman, who transforms himself into a white-robed scholar to escort the Tripitaka (Monk of Tang) as bodyguard; it was the prototype of Monkey (Sun Wukong, “Monkey who is Aware of Vacuity”).1 A more complete tale, Travel to the West, already appeared by the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming at the latest; it is no longer extant today, but the story about “Beheading the Dragon of the Jing River in Dream,” cited in the entry of the word “Dream” in Section #13139 of the Yongle Encyclopedia, is marked as from Travel to the West, and its content is in general similar to the first half of Chapter Nine of the extant 100-chapter version of the novel. Common Affairs with Annotations, a textbook of Chinese in ancient Korea, contains eight footnotes which introduce the main story of the sutra search; it is very close to the 100-chapter version of Travel to the West extant today. Judging from these, we may infer that the Yuan edition of Travel to the West already had considerable length, and it laid down the basic framework of the 100-chapter version of the novel. A New Illustrated Official Edition of Travel to the West in Big Characters, published by the Hall of Virtuous Generations of the Tang Family in the twentieth year of the Wanli reign of the Ming dynasty,2 was the earliest edition of the novel extant today; it is in twenty sections and one hundred chapters. The book was entitled a “New Edition,” and Chen Yuan’s foreword mentioned “there used to be a preface,” so it was evident an older version had already existed prior to it. Presumably, the final completion of Travel to the West should have been in the middle to later period of the Jiajing reign. None of the editions of Travel to the West before the modern times carried Wu Cheng’en’s name. However, the Local Records of the Huai’an Prefecture noted that the works of Wu Cheng’en (ca. 1500–ca. 1582), a native of Shanyang,

1 For names of the characters in Travel to the West, I have followed those used in Arthur Waley’s popular abridged translation, Monkey (1943). 2 1592.

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included the book, Travel to the West, so Wu Yujin and Ruan Kuisheng of the Qing dynasty deduced from it that Wu was the author of the novel, Travel to the West, and it later won further approval from Lu Xun and Hu Shi. In the last several decades, quite a number of scholars, both domestic and abroad, have suspected that Wu Cheng’en’s Travel to the West, as noted in the Local Records of the Huai’an Prefecture, was not the 100-chapter novel Travel to the West. Travel to the West is a novel with vivid imagination and a strong sense of humor. In A Concise History of Chinese Fiction, Lu Xun has refuted all kinds of far-fetched explications of the novel from the Qing critics, and made the simple and matter-of-fact suggestion that the book “actually originated from amusement.” However, if a novel does not have any specific and profound intention, it does not necessarily mean that it lacks any deep implication. The strange mythological tales in Travel to the West, written in a humorous tone, are permeated with the author’s thorough understanding of human nature, as well as his sanguine and intelligent view of life. The novel provides the reader with amusement, and it also triggers strong associations and provokes intriguing thought from him. Travel to the West has a narrative framework in the style of “Adventures.” Such a narrative framework is most often found in fictitious literature, past and present, Chinese or foreign. It not only facilitates the unfolding of a thrilling and fantastic plot, but often turns into a metaphor of the course of life itself, though not necessarily by intention. The protagonist of a pilgrimage, as a matter of course, should have been Tripitaka, but in Travel to the West, which eventually took shape after a long-time evolvement, it is Monkey who takes the central place of this story of adventures. In addition, the first seven chapters have turned into a solo performance of the Monkey King. Such a change implied a choice. If the novel had been centered on the “saintly monk,” it would have been of a different nature; it could not help but to have more religious touch and it would have become more solemn and serious in tone. Obviously, it would not have appealed to a readership that primarily consisted of urban townsfolk. When the novel is centered on Monkey, there is far more space to stretch the imagination. From when it gets born into the world by splitting the rock, the monkey is a spirit beyond everyone’s control. Next, he travels far and wide to learn his skills, forces his way into the palace of the dragon, breaks into the office of the nether world, and makes havoc in the celestial palace, throwing the world into complete disorder. During the days when he


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stays at ease and claims to be a king up the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, he is carefree, defies any law, and feels happy and cheerful. Such a series of descriptive details smack of fairy tale; they are the innocent imagination of the uninhibited human nature that frees itself from any bondage and wins absolute freedom. Certainly, so far as the human condition is concerned, the restrictive force is always stronger than the ability to win freedom; hence Monkey is eventually suppressed by the protector of the celestial order and taken to the supreme gate of Buddhism. However, even if it is the “Right Way” for Monkey, an uncouth divinity, to experience the “nine multiply by nine equals eighty-one” disasters on the road of the sutra search and, eventually, to become “Bodhisattva of Triumphant Warrior,” the author would not pay the cost of making an excessive change of Monkey’s basic character. On the road of the sutra search, he still claims to be the “Great Sage Equal of Heaven,” and takes every opportunity to boast of his glorious history of troublemaking. He remains stubborn and unruly, and takes liberties with such venerable divinities like Jade Emperor and Most Exalted Lord Laozi, and sometimes even makes a scene with Bodhisattva Guan Yin3 and Tathāgata, Founder of Buddhism. For the monsters, as long as they are respectful to him, addressing him as “Grandpa,” he will in most cases pardon them. In short, in spite of the limit on freedom, the author would still use Monkey, the mythological hero, to represent man’s ultimate desire for freedom in his nature. The image of Pigsy (Zhu Bajie, “Pig of the Eight Precepts”), on the other hand, represents another aspect of human nature, the greed for substantial worldly pleasures. To him, it is important to have his woman, passable amount of property, and enough food to eat to his heart’s content, and he is also willing to obtain them through industrious labor; when some other women are willing to “have some fun” with him, that belongs to his random harvest. Because of his lust, he is constantly teased by female monsters and even by bodhisattvas, which is rather pitiable and deplorable. His philosophy of life is inherently contradictory to the act of sutra search which is inclined to idealism and the principle of spirit above everything else, because the latter is purely, incomprehensibly absurd. Accordingly, on the road of the sutra search, whenever something goes wrong, he is always eager to make the suggestion, “let’s sell the White Horse, and buy a coffin for Master,”

3

In Sanskrit, Avalokiteśvara.

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which is the most thorough way to cancel the act of the sutra search. However, although Pigsy has so many weaknesses, he still belongs to the company of “good guys,” and all the ridiculing of him remains good-willed, since those weaknesses of his are simply universal human weaknesses being magnified. It was an unprecedented literary image, and its appearance indicated that Chinese literature had become more tolerant of human weakness, and also heralded that the characterization in Chinese literature would develop towards becoming more faithful to everyday life, more varied and more complex. The image of Monkey and that of Pigsy make a sharp contrast. However, while Pigsy, stupid and more like an uncouth, vulgar fellow, is always teased and tricked by Monkey, the smart hero, their bickering on the road of the sutra search is still quite interesting, because they both have what Li Zhi called “the heart of a child.” Actually, even the demons and monsters in Travel to the West are not all ugly and horrifying. As a mythological novel with strong entertaining aspects, its author obviously had not adopted an attitude of strict moral judgment. Accordingly, at times, divinities and bodhisattvas may be funny, and demons and monsters, lovely. Many of the monsters have originally escaped from Heaven to spend some carefree and leisurely time in the human world; they perform some bad deeds, or carry on their romantic affairs from relationship in their previous incarnations, and then return to Heaven to resume their practice of austerities; there is nothing fundamentally different between this and what Pigsy and Sandy go through. For instance, both the Yellow-Robed Demon’s love for Princess Baihuaxiu (“One Whose Beauty Puts All Flowers to Shame”) and Manushya-Rakshasi’s hate of Monkey because of the separation from her son are rather comprehensible. Even Prince Ox-Demon, who dallies with other women outside on the one hand and tries to fawn on his first wife on the other, deserves some sympathy for his effort. Accordingly, all such stories about demons and monsters hold much appeal to the reader. In the history of Chinese literature, literary compositions which adopted mythology as material had never been fully developed. Through its vivid artistic imagination, Travel to the West portrays a fantastic mythological world and makes up, to a certain extent, for the abovementioned weakness. The novel brings the reader inexhaustible pleasure, because it indulges in such wild fantasy and yet is also truthful and convincing, it runs as boundless as the sky and the sea and is also so lively and lovely, and in style it is also facile and vivid, reflecting the


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vigor in Chinese literature once it got rid of ideological restrictions. It took on considerable significance in the history of literature.

2. Late Ming Fiction The composition of drama and fiction achieved great prosperity in the Late Ming period, it is therefore necessary to make an introduction of each of the two genres separately. With The Plum in the Golden Vase: Prosimetric Version as its representative, there appeared an important change in the Late Ming novel: it began to move from the fictitious to the realistic, from the stories of extraordinary heroes to the daily life of the common people. Thenceforward, to a deeper and fuller extent, the novel displayed its important function: to examine the condition of human existence and the predicament of human nature in a fictitious and imaginary world, so as to express the human desire in life. In collections of vernacular short stories, the “Three Words” compiled and composed by Feng Menglong and the “Two Striking’s” compiled and composed by Ling Mengchu, we are able to feel equally strong atmosphere of the life of urban townsfolk. The vernacular fiction, without doubt, represented the highest achievements of Late Ming fiction; however, if we thereby ignore the development of fiction in classical language it would be inappropriate. As a typical example, “Biography of the Unfaithful Lover” and “Pearl Shirt,” written by Song Maocheng, laid down the important foundation for two of the most outstanding stories in the “Three Words,” “Du Shiniang Sinks Her Jewel-Box in a Rage” and “Jiang Xingge Re-Encounters the Pearl Shirt.” That kind of situation once again indicated that the mixture of the refined and the vulgar was an important motivation for the development of Chinese literature in its latter times. The Plum in Golden Vase: Prosimetric Version The Plum in Golden Vase: Prosimetric Version was the first pre-modern novel that took the daily life of a common family as its subject matter. The title of the novel is made up from the names of three major female characters, Pan Jinlian (“Pan the Golden Lotus”), Li Ping’er (“Li the Vase”), and Chun Mei (“Spring Plum”). It borrows the story of Ximen Qing and Pan Jinlian from Water Margin as its beginning; then it tells

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how Pan Jinlian is not killed by Wu Song, but marries Ximen Qing as his concubine; from there it turns to a series of events that take place in Ximen Qing’s family, as well as scenes of the society in connection with this family, until Ximen Qing dies because of excessive indulgence in carnal desires, his family breaks up in ruins, and his concubines separated and scattered. The novel has the Northern Song as its historical setting, but what it reflects is actually the aspects of the society with the characteristics of the Late Ming times. The completion of the novel and its early circulation were somehow different from the several famous novels before it. Before it came out, no prototypical work with similar content had ever existed. Shen Defu, the author of A Book of Acquisitions from Out of Office during the Wanli Reign, was an erudite man who devoted his attention to folk literature and arts, but before he read the novel, he had no idea whatsoever what kind of book it was. Judging from the usage of Tu Long’s “Elegiac Address to a Scarf” in the novel, its completion should not have been earlier than the beginning of the Wanli reign, and it quickly got copied and circulated among a few celebrities. According to a letter to Dong Qichang from Yuan Hongdao in the twenty-fourth year of the Wanli reign (1596), he once got to copy part of the book in Dong’s possession. Then, according to A Book of Acquisitions from Out of Office during the Wanli Reign, Shen Defu made a copy of the complete book in Yuan Hongdao’s possession. There was every indication that the novel was the product of the independent composition of a man of letters, and the range of its early circulation was among the literati. The earliest edition of The Plum in Golden Vase available today was The Plum in the Golden Vase: Prosimetric Version in one hundred chapters, which has, before the text of the novel, the foreword by Dong Wu Nongzhuke (“The Man Who Plays with Pearls in Eastern Wu”) in the forty-fifth year of the Wanli reign4 and the foreword by Xingxingzi (“Master of Joy”). Next, there was The Plum in the Golden Vase with Illustrations and Commentaries in a New Edition, published during the Chongzhen reign, and The Plum in the Golden Vase with Zhang Zhupo’s commentaries during the Kangxi reign of the Qing dynasty, both with revisions to various extents. The novel’s author used Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng (“Smiling Scholar of Lanling”) as his penname; there

4 1617. Dated in the winter of the year of Ding Si (1617), it could be in early 1618 as well.


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have been all kinds of speculations on who he actually was since the Ming dynasty, and contemporary scholars have also made many suggestions, though nothing is as yet finalized. The Plum in the Golden Vase: Prosimetric Version, because of the considerable amount of descriptions of sex act in it, was for a long time regarded as a pornographic novel. Indeed, this kind of description is too explicit and lacks any aesthetic consideration, which had something to do with the more indulgent social ambience in the Late Ming society. Artistically, the novel has many crude places, such as its rather scant attention to detail, its lack of agreement between the hyperbolic and the realistic, etc. The author was fond of resorting to the prosimetric literature in style, inserting into its text a large amount of rhymed pieces such as song lyrics and arias which sound rather verbose. Notwithstanding all of that, modern scholars have highly evaluated its place in the history of Chinese fiction. Novels in the past had taken shape by using primarily historical tales or folklore as subjects, and through a long period of adaptations and revisions in the performance of folk “story-telling” and the theater, so they were by and large characterized by their legendary nature. For instance, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, and Travel to the West were all about the extraordinary experience of extraordinary people. The Plum in the Golden Vase: Prosimetric Version, however, was different; the characters were ordinary people without any unusual accomplishments or achievements, and the story was also commonplace with nothing breathtaking or thrilling about it. In addition, it showed more concern for the ugly human nature and the deplorable human existence in a cynical and mocking attitude. The idyllic description and the cheap reliance upon retribution for good and evil, most frequently found in Chinese literature, were almost non-existent here; on the contrary, indulgence in carnal desires and death turned into the keynotes of the life of the characters in the novel. However, precisely due to its in-depth examination and detailed description of the commonplace and truthful condition of human life, it became the very first social novel, in the true sense of the term, in our country; or, as Lu Xun called it in A Concise History of Chinese Fiction, a “book of social affairs.” In the novel, Ximen Qing, the male protagonist and Pan Jinlian, the most active of the three female protagonists, are both evil but full of vitality. Their actions dominate the main series of ideas, and their attitude of life and destiny constitute the keynote of the novel.

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Ximen Qing is a rich merchant of an upstart type, an illustrious figure of the newly rising townsfolk stratum. The Plum in Golden Vase: Prosimetric Version devotes much space to representing, through his actions, the relationship between the officials and the merchants in the society of the time. The Late Ming period was one wherein the hierarchy of the imperial state, centered on political order, was severely eroded by the power of money which the merchants held. The Civil Code of the Ming Dynasty stipulated in exact terms the hierarchy of household utensils, dress, and personal adornment for people of different social status, but we see in the novel that the extravagance of material enjoyment of Ximen Qing’s family was far above that of the bureaucrat in general. Facing the power of money, even the bureaucrat stratum had no choice but to drop their pretentious airs and haughty manners. In Chapter 30, Grand Preceptor Cai, the highest-ranking official in court, receives generous gifts from Ximen Qing, and accordingly grants the latter the position of a Battalion Commander of the Judicial Bureau, with a brevet fifth-rank; on his birthday, he even uses the protocol higher than that for treating “all civil and military officials in court” for a reception of the rich merchant, who brings a large amount of money and goods to get recognized as an adopted son. In Chapter 49, Censor Cai, a literary talent, is a guest at Ximen Qing’s house where he is treated extremely well, even with two singing-girls to keep him company for the night; each and every one of his illicit demands is readily agreed to or satisfied. Being able to bribe political power, Ximen Qing becomes bold enough to do whatever he likes and believes that money makes the mare to go: “Even if I had raped Chang E (Lady in the Moon), had an affair with the Weaver Girl, kidnapped Xu Feiqiong, and stolen the daughter of Queen Mother of the West, my enormous wealth and prestige won’t drop off in any way!” However, at the same time, the author also revealed that someone like Ximen Qing was still, more or less, detached from the imperial regime. There are two intriguing details in the novel. First, in Chapter 49, Dong Jiao’er (“Dong the Lovely One”), the singing girl, attends on Censor Cai for one night and obtains one ounce of silver “enveloped in a large red paper bag;” she shows it to Ximen Qing, who says with a sneer: “In a civil position, he has no big money for you, so this is already your very best luck.” It indicates the rich merchant’s disdain of the povertystricken civil official. Another detail is in Chapter 57, when Ximen Qing says to his infant son, “Sonny, when you grow up, you should still earn your position as a civil official. Don’t go after your Dad who has only


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a purchased title. It sounds nice, but is not much respected.” What is demonstrated here, however, is his yearning for the position of a “civil official,” a key member of the state apparatus. While he is able to buy a part of the political power for his use, he is yet unable to display his own power in the political affairs of the state. In the novel, Ximen Qing is a character full of vitality. This kind of vitality is backed by money, and may to some extent even be regarded as the embodiment of money. As a wealthy merchant, Ximen Qing lacks both the space for social activities and the moral conviction in traditional culture. Accordingly, giving vent to his vitality uninhibitedly, especially the continuous pursuit of the fair sex, becomes the way for him to identify and demonstrate his own existence, until he dies from excessive indulgence in carnal desires. After his death, a group of his retainers compose an extremely funny funeral oration in which they passionately eulogize his sexual potency. Such a mockery of death sounds both ludicrous and chilling. Pan Jinlian is indeed born to be Ximen Qing’s match in the novel. She is pretty, smart, perverse, with the character of a sex maniac and a sadist, extremely cruel at times. A close reading of the novel reveals that her evil has developed in her tragic destiny. Pan Jinlian is born in the family of a poor tailor. She is sold, when she is only nine years old, to the residence of Commissioner Wang to learn music and singing, to “put on airs and graces.” Later she is resold to the house of the wealthy Zhang Dahu, and is taken as a concubine by the old man when she is only eighteen. Next, she is forced to marry Wu Da, “a man of wretched appearance.” Exceptionally pretty, smart and ingenious, she nevertheless never has the opportunity to win her own right as a human being under normal circumstances. After she comes to Ximen Qing’s family, she is, needless to say, unable to be compared to Wu Yueniang (“Wu the Moon Lady”), the respectable mistress of the house, nor is she as wealthy as Li Ping’er and Meng Yulou (“Meng the Jade Tower”) who are able to buy favors from others. However, she is unwilling to be held in contempt by people, so she can only rely upon her beauty and quick wit, and strives to win, by hook or crook, the favor of Ximen Qing, the master, so as to contend with others. Her mental perversity is caused by suppression; she resorts to evil means to seize happiness and enjoyment, and also destroys herself in her evil deeds. In works of literature and arts about Pan Jinlian adapted in modern times, precisely as a consequence of the pity of her destiny, more sympathy has been extended to her.

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Xinxinzi (possibly another penname of the author), who wrote a foreword to The Plum in Golden Vase: Prosimetric Version, claims that the purpose of the book is to “explicate human relations, caution against licentious acts, make a distinction between the virtuous and the wicked, and educate about the good and the evil.” As a matter of fact, this is only a kind of conscious and routine flaunting, while the novel itself has very little moralizing based upon conventional ethics. What is noteworthy is a kind of contradictory attitude on the part of the author. In the novel, money and lust not only push human nature toward greed and vileness but, simultaneously, make the uncontrollable pursuit of human nature. They are regarded as the source of all evil, and also depicted as the origin of pleasure and happiness. Take, for example, the portrayal of Li Ping’er. At first she is married to Hua Zixu, and they do not have any affection for each other. Then she is married to Jiang Zhushan, but she remains unsatisfied; in this part of her life, she appears to be more lustful and even ruthless in personality. After she is married to Ximen Qing, she finds sexual satisfaction and also gives birth to a son, so she displays more of her female gentleness and virtuousness. What this indicates is that while indulgence in carnal desires certainly leads to evil, the restraint of natural desires, on the other hand, may also cause human nature to deteriorate. The Plum in Golden Vase: Prosimetric Version is not a novel of a critical nature, written with some positive view of life and shared values, and the author also lacks a clear stand to cope with the contradictions of human nature. However, at least he has an understanding of the complexity of human nature, and he has made deep exploration of that aspect. Accordingly, in this novel of one hundred chapters, there is not a single “positive character,” nor is there any “negative character,” in the usual sense of these terms. For instance, as mentioned in the above, Li Ping’er has two different sides, nor is Pan Jinlian purely a villain, and even Ximen Qing’s “evil” is not represented in the simple style of a symbol. His generosity and gallantry, “helping people in poverty or trouble,” more or less demonstrate the kind of virtues that the townsfolk stratum attach importance to. For women, he is always insatiably greedy in his attempt to take them into his possession or to dally with them, but when Li Ping’er dies of illness, he does demonstrate some genuine sorrow. The description of this event is extremely detailed in the novel. On the one hand, Qimen Qing insists on staying by the side of the dying Li Ping’er, despite the Taoist Priest Pan’s warning, “I’m afraid this will bring some calamity to you;” and after her death, he weeps


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bitterly, regardless of everything, while holding her body in arms. On the other hand, the author uses as a mouthpiece Ximen Qing’s trusted servant, Dai An, to point out: “Why does our Daddy feel so much pain in heart? It’s not for the person; it’s for the money.” Here, it does not mean that Ximen Qing’s affection is affected, but rather that Ximen Qing feels particularly heartbroken about Li Ping’er, because it comes to his mind that she brings a large amount of money and goods to him at marriage. Greed for money is the foundation of his affections. Such genuine, impulsive affections, on the other hand, do not change Ximen Qing’s natural instincts of shameless lechery. Next, the novel tells how, after only “two or three nights” keeping vigil beside Li Ping’er’s bier, Ximen Qing seduces and has an affair with Ru Yi’er (“As You Will”), a wet nurse, right in front of the bier. In general, there is not sufficient accuracy and minuteness in the characterization of The Plum in Golden Vase: Prosimetric Version, and there are often sloppy places. However, the author was indeed extremely intelligent, as he was able to grasp the basic characteristics of his characters with perfect ease, and provided a portrayal of them with fine and subtle nuances. In novels of legendary nature, the plot of the story often occupies an important place; with The Plum in Golden Vase: Prosimetric Version, it has obviously diminished in importance. The author often devotes his attention to some trivial, seemingly unnecessary details and seeks to create, through such details, vivid scenes of life and to disclose the personal characteristics of his personages. For example, in Chapter 56, Chang Shijie (“Regular Times”), a hanger-on, is scolded severely by his wife because he does not have the means to support his family; then, when he acquires more than ten ounces of silver from Ximen Qing who helps him out, he turns arrogant when he comes back home, and his wife immediately becomes humble and subservient. This kind of descriptions, so far as the unfolding of the novel’s storyline is concerned, is entirely omissible, but it reflects, with poignant clarity, how pathetic and pitiable human nature is under the drive of money. Precisely due to many “trivial parts” of this kind, the general atmosphere of the novel is highlighted. As for the language of The Plum in Golden Vase: Prosimetric Version, notwithstanding some crudities, especially the cited shi poems, song lyrics and arias, which often disagree with the respective status and breeding of the characters, it still bursts with vitality in general. The author is very good at mimicking the lifelike tone and mood of his characters, as well as their mien and movements, so as to display therein their mentality and personality and to present them, in highly

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visualized scenes, right in front of the reader. Lu Xun has observed in praise, “The author really had a thorough understanding of ways of the world, and his descriptions, straightforward at times, complicated at other, sometimes make exposures in great details, sometimes keep it implicit with a touch of scorn, and sometimes tell the two sides of something at the same time to make it lifelike; all the changes and variations are brought out clearly. None of the novels from the same age could outrival it.” (A Concise History of Chinese Fiction) For instance, in Chapter 49, Ximen Qing hosts a banquet in honor of Censor Cai, asking the latter to look after his business. After the banquet he asks Cai to stay for the night, and they arrive at the Jadeite Lodge: They saw two singing girls, in splendid attire, standing in front of the flight of steps. They moved forward to make kowtows in their gorgeous dress. Seeing them, Censor Cai found it hard to move either forward or backward, and he said, “Siquan [Qing’s style], how could you dote on me like this? I’m afraid it’s inappropriate.” Ximen Qing laughed and said, “What’s the difference between this and the trip to the Eastern Hills in the old times?” Censor Cai said, “I’m afraid I’m not as talented as [Wang] Anshi, but you do have the noble interest of Wang Youjun [Xizhi].” Thereupon he held the hands of the two girls in the moonlight, and felt, in a daze, not unlike Liu [Chen] and Ruan [Zhao] who went into the Tiantai Mountain. When he entered the lodge, he saw all the stationery there, so has asked for paper and writing brush to write down his impressions. Ximen Qing gave order to his page boy who immediately made some thick ink in the Duan Inkstone and spread out a piece of writing paper with pressed flowers. Censor Cai, after all, had the talent of a Principal Graduate. He took the brush in hand and, without using any punctuation and in vigorous handwriting, composed a poem, at one go, in the lamplight.

Intertwining elegant appearance and vulgar mentality, the author depicts both sides without turning a hair. Subsequently, such a style of writing was highly developed in An Unofficial History of the Scholars. The Late Ming was an extremely complicated age. On the one hand, traditional values were losing their appeal, and the affirmation of “love for goods” and “love for sex” had become the new ideological trend of the time; on the other hand, it was difficult to establish new values of a positive nature. Human desires became overwhelming and insatiable, and one saw no end of that, which threw some of the more sensitive people into a panic for human beings per se and for the significance of existence. Previously, we have mentioned that indulgence in carnal desires and death turned into the keynotes of the life of the characters


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in the novel, which was permeated with a melancholy atmosphere, and such an atmosphere was to be felt in the world of Chinese literature for a long, long time. However, there is no reason for us to ask literature to undertake the mission to supervise social progress. As a novel, The Plum in Golden Vase: Prosimetric Version broke a new path for classical Chinese fiction, with its cool and in-depth exposure of social reality, its chosen angle to represent the dilemma of human nature in commonplace, ordinary everyday life, and its artistic power to create the images of vivid and complex personages. That is where its value lies. It was along such a new path that An Unofficial History of the Scholars and A Dream of Red Mansions made their further development. The Red Inkstone Studio’s Commentary of The Story of the Stone (i.e., A Dream of Red Mansions) was not without some insight in making the observation that the novel “mastered the secret of Golden Vase.” With the wide circulation of The Plum in Golden Vase, there appeared a number of sequels. In A Book of Acquisitions from Out of Office during the Wanli Reign, Shen Defu noted that one of such sequels was entitled Lovely Jade Plum, “in a style of great ease and verve which seems to outshine The Plum in Golden Vase,” but the book is no longer extant. There was also A Sequel to the Plum in Golden Vase written by Ding Yaokang at the beginning of the Qing dynasty, but it is not so impressive. Destined Matrimonies that Awaken the World Destined Matrimonies that Awaken the World, in one hundred chapters, was originally marked as “edited and composed by Xi Zhou Sheng (“Scholar of Western Zhou”) and proofread by Ranlizi (“Master Who Burns Goosefoot”). Yang Fuji of the Qing dynasty observed in his Trivial Notes Taken after Awakening from Dreams: “Bao Yiwen has said that Liuxian [style of Pu Songling] also wrote a novel, Destined Matrimonies that Awaken the World, which made allusions to reality.” Based upon that information, Hu Shi conducted some textual research by which he believed that it was really written by Pu Songling. However, in recent years, many scholars have voiced their objection to that. The novel calls the Ming dynasty “our dynasty,” refers to Zhu Yuanzhang as “Taizu, our Father,” and does not avoid the taboo of using Emperor Kangxi’s personal name, so we may confirm in general that it was a work from the end of the Ming dynasty. The book was

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already included in the Catalogue of Books Imported by Boats published in the thirteenth year of the Kyōhō reign in Japan (the sixth year of the Yongzheng reign of the Qing dynasty, 1728), so it was probably first printed in between the end of the Ming and the beginning of the Qing. Destined Matrimonies that Awaken the World put its setting in the Early Ming (from the Zhengtong to the Chenghua reign), and it tells a story of destined matrimonies and samsara retributions for two generations. The first twenty-two chapters tell the story of the first incarnation of life: Chao Yuan takes Zhen Ge, a prostitute, as his concubine; when they go out hunting together they shoot and skin a fairy fox, and then they maltreat Lady Ji, Chao’s wife, and make her kill herself by hanging. Chapter 23 and afterward tell the story of the life of reincarnation: Chao Yuan turns into Di Xichen in his reincarnation; he first marries Xue Sujie, who is the reincarnation of the fairy fox, and then takes as his concubine Tong Jijie, the reincarnation of Lady Ji. Xue and Tong, in this incarnation, are both extremely evil-tempered shrews, who think up all kinds of improbably atrocious ways to torture their husband. Di Xichen, on his part, is extremely afraid of his wives and invariably resigns himself to the maltreatment. Later, Hu Wuyi, an eminent monk, enlightens them on the causality of their previous incarnation, and also instructs Di Xichen to chant Diamond Sutra for ten thousand times, by which the retribution from the karma gets to come to an end. On the other hand, retribution comes to Zhen Ge in her lifetime: she dies after being tortured in many ways. Destined Matrimonies that Awaken the World has a clearly defined theme, which is to urge people to do good deeds through karma and retribution, and there is nothing so striking about it. However, the novel has some other values of its own. While it is not on the same level in writing as The Plum in Golden Vase, it is close to the latter in terms of its special feature, the realistic description of family life. It dwells upon, with great relish, the maltreatment of one another among family members and the details of “the henpecked,” and some elements of perverse mentality are involved therein, but it also reflects, from an angle rarely assumed in previous novels, the calamities for family and individual caused by the irrational marriage system. In addition, while the novel focuses on family life, it involves an extremely broad range of life in society. Up to the imperial court and government offices, down to urban commoners, it directs attention to all and sundry characters. The author seemed to be familiar, in particular, with the life style of


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the middle and lower social strata in small towns, in his description of the family condition of the gentry or rather, that of the family of limited means and without powerful connections. Its depiction of lowly government functionaries, merchants, and local ruffians appears exceptionally vivid, considering which it still has a distinguishing quality of its own. Destined Matrimonies that Awaken the World runs to more than a million characters in length, making many digressions and giving trivial, protracted details, so it is not highly readable. Its strength lies in some of its more distinctive characterization; the dialogues of the personages use a large amount of dialects and slang, making them extremely lively in tone. In particular, the kind of acrimony, pungency, and innovation in variety, pouring forth in a steady flow, when Xue Sujie rails at her husband, while rather coarse and vulgar, really displays much ingenuity. It takes quite a lengthy citation to provide a taste of that, so we have no option but to spare it, albeit reluctantly. Romance of the Investiture of the Gods and New Records of the Various States In the Late Ming period, under the management of book publishers, there appeared a large number of novels, most of which were written for profit and entertainment in a crude manner. Romance of the Investiture of the Gods and New Records of the Various States were among the better ones of these. An original print of Romance of the Investiture of the Gods, in one hundred chapters, is included in the Japanese Library of the Grand Secretariat. It was printed by Shu Zaiyang, with forged commentaries in Zhong Xing’s name. The second section of this book contains the inscription, “edited by Xu Zhonglin, the Old Recluse of Mt. Zhongshan,” hence Xu has generally been regarded as the author, though it is quite controversial. The story of how Jiang Ziya helps in King Wu’s conquest of King Zhou of the Shang dynasty had long been the material of folk storytelling. Completely Illustrated Vernacular Stories of King Wu’s Conquest of King Zhou of the Shang: a New Print, printed in the Yuan dynasty and extant today, contains quite an amount of supernatural content. In addition, there should have been something similar in folklore. Romance of the Investiture of the Gods was a book that collected and revised all such stories in folklore. It contains the term yanyi (“elaboration

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of official historiography”)5 in its original title, but actually had very little historical material for its use. In the war between the Shang and the Zhou regimes, the divinities and immortals in heaven are divided into two schools, the Explicators and the Obstructers, respectively in support of King Wu and King Zhou; the full-scale war of divinities and monsters makes the core content of the novel. In the end, King Zhou sets himself on fire, and Jiang Ziya holds the Investiture of Gods for each and every one of those who die in the war on both sides. It is therefore classified, in general, as “supernatural fiction.” Romance of the Investiture of the Gods also makes use of some of the most basic ancient political concepts in its depiction of the fight between Shang and Zhou, such as its praise of the “benevolent governing” of sagacious rulers, its opposition to the cruel rule of fatuous and self-indulgent tyrants, and its eulogy of the spirit of loyalty to the sovereign (including a despotic one), etc. However, for entertainment reading, such concepts serve only to facilitate the narration, and are of little ideological significance. The more attractive places in the novel are the scenes of fighting of divinities and monsters, which display fantastic and preposterous imagination. Some of them can see in a distance of a thousand miles, some can hear anything passed on by the wind, some can fly on wings of flesh, some can flee by going through the soil at will, and some can transform into a variety of seventy-two appearances. In addition, they are further assisted by their respective magic weapons, which make it look so fantastic. However, the author was rather limited in talent, as his divinities and monsters are very simple in character, and the plot also contains too much duplication, so the novel is of dubious literary value. Of the stories in it, the one about Nezha is more interesting. Nezha, in the image of a child, creates havoc in the Palace of the Dragon King, picks out his own bones and returns them to his father. Later, he transforms into a lotus flower, expressing his rebellious spirit against patriarchic authority in an imaginary form, which has something in common with the image of Monkey. A considerable number of yan yi novels were produced from the Middle to the Late Ming times, and they formed a complete historical series which, in addition to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms before, include the entire Chinese history from the creation of heaven and earth all the way to the Ming dynasty. Of these, Story of the Various States,

5

In general the term is rendered as romance in the translation.


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composed by Yu Shaoyu during the Jiajing and Longqing reigns, tells the historical stories of the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period. It was expanded and revised on a large scale by Feng Menglong into a novel in one hundred and eight chapters, with a new title, New Records of the Various States. In its content the book basically draws all its material from history classics like Zuo Commentary, Conversations of the States, Intrigues of the Warring States, and Historical Records. Its strength lies in its facile style and its competence in chronicling the numerous and complex history of the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period in great order. After the author’s polish some stories, which had already had much material in history classics and were of a dramatic nature, read vivid and dynamic. During the Qianlong reign of the Qing dynasty, Cai Yuanfang made some slight revision and refinement on the basis of Feng’s work, and the novel was published and circulated as Records of the Various States of the Eastern Zhou. Feng Menglong and the “Three Words” Feng Menglong (1574–1646), a native of the Suzhou area, served at a regional post in Fujian for a few years. He devoted the energy of his lifetime to the collation and composition of popular literature with outstanding achievements. Previously, we have already mentioned how he collected and published collections of folksongs, Hanging on the Twigs and Mountain Songs, edited and composed the novel, New Records of the Various States, but his most important work was the editing and composition of thee collection of vernacular short stories known in general as the “Three Words,” Illustrious Words to Instruct the World (originally entitled Stories Old and New), Common Words to Admonish the World, and Constant Words to Awaken the World; they were respectively printed around the first year, in the fourth year, and in the seventh year of the Tianqi reign. Each collection includes forty stories, with a total of one hundred and twenty stories. During the Middle Ming period some huaben stories were already collected and printed. A remnant part of Stories from Sixty Authors, printed by Hong Pian during the Jiajing reign, is now known as Vernacular Stories from the Mountain-Level Hall of the Qing. It includes twenty-seven complete stories and two fragmentary ones; some of those included were composed before the Ming dynasty, while all the rest were by Ming authors. It reflected the warm reception of the huaben

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fiction in written form in the society, and was a forerunner of the “Three Words” and “Two Striking’s,” though artistically it is far beneath the latter. In the past a forgery, Popular Fiction in the Capital Edition, was mistaken as something that had preserved the original appearance of the huaben fiction of the Song and Yuan dynasties, which led to the erroneous understanding and evaluation of the “Three Words.” As a matter of fact, only in the “Three Words” are we able to read short stories written exclusively in the vernacular language that is worthy to be called exquisite and polished. The materials for these stories were from many different sources; only a part of them were revisions of original storytelling scripts, while most of them were composed by making use of bi ji (“sketch-book”) and chuan qi fiction from previous authors, historical tales, and hearsay from the society of the time. These stories still revealed the trace of simulating the storytelling script, frequently assuming the voice of the “storyteller” in narration. However, the author devoted much attention to the language of the text, and did not regard it as only a “prompt book” for storytelling. Taken in their entirety, the “Three Words” already showed a relatively strong consciousness of original composition. For example, “Red Spider and White Spider,” a huaben tale from the Yuan dynasty, was a chief source for “Military Commissioner Zheng Wins Honor by His Bow for a Magic Arm,” a story in Constant Words to Awaken the World. According to Huang Yongnian’s research of the newly discovered pages of the tale from a Yuan edition, the former is less than half of the latter in length. In addition, “Commoner of Kunshan,” included in History of Love edited by Feng Menglong himself, is only a record of hearsay less than two hundred characters in length. In its revised new form in “Governor Qiao Makes Arrangement for Wrong Matches through Erroneous Identification,” it has been developed into a superb piece with a complex storyline and full of comedy. In addition, because of the large scale of the “Three Words,” some scholars have surmised that Feng’s friends may have participated in their composition, which is yet to be confirmed by textual research. The “Three Words” draw their material from a wide range of sources that involve all kinds of people from different strata of the society. However, as collections of stories, they are characterized, noticeably, by their large amount of depiction of the life and desires of common townsfolk. At the same time, as publicly flaunted in their titles, the books were meant to provide life’s experience and moral lessons. In the course of narration, the author would frequently assume the stand


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of the society and conventional virtues to give advice, or even warning, to the reader. On the other hand, the author would also often speak from his personal position, asking for the respect for human feeling, and affirming people’s right to follow their own will in going after happiness in life. The latter makes another noticeable special feature of the “Three Words.” “The Young Oil Vender Monopolizes the Queen of Flowers” displays something of both the two above-mentioned special features. In the story, Xin Yaoqin, as a celebrated courtesan and the “Queen of Flowers,” socializes with young men from families of wealth and rank, but what she feels in her extravagant life is the humility of her personality. From Qin Zhong, a lowly oil vender, she is able to win almost infatuated love and meticulous consideration. Eventually, she chooses to leave with Qin Zhong to lead a simple life wherein they care for and look after each other. It is a story of tender feeling, a story about beauty and kind-heartedness. On the other hand, in “Du Shiniang Sinks Her JewelBox in a Rage,” revised from “Biography of the Unfaithful Lover,” a young aristocrat’s betrayal of love is strongly denounced. In the story, Li Jia and Du Shiniang, a renowned courtesan in the capital, fall in love with each other. Li fears that his father, a high-ranking official, will not tolerate him if he lands in poverty and takes the courtesan home, and urged by Sun Fu, a rich merchant with a glib tongue, he agrees to transfer Shiniang to the latter. According to conventional moral standard, there is nothing wrong for him to give up a courtesan to court his father’s favor. What Sun Fu says in trying to persuade Li Jia also accords with the average “reason”: “The natural bonds and ethical relationship between father and son must be preserved. If you, my brother, provoke your father due to a concubine and desert your family because of a prostitute, then you will be regarded as a dissolute and immoral man in the world.” In this story, however, Li Jia’s betrayal is considered as a serious immoral conduct. Shiniang, in front of the public, throws the countless previous jewels in her private collection into the river, lashes out at Sun and Li, and then leaps into the river to her death. Her action turns out to represent the deepest contempt for, and the strongest protest against, the betrayal. In telling stories about the dilemma of young people because of their love and lust, the author assumed a rather contradictory stand. However, there are still quite a few of them which clearly express a warm human attitude. “Ruan San Pays the Debt as Retribution at Drifting Cloud Shrine” tells the story of Ruan San, the son of a rich merchant who falls

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in love with Yulan, the daughter of Defense Minister Chen, but has no chance to date with her. Ruan San becomes ill because of that. Under the arrangement of a nun, the two of them manage to have a lover’s tryst at a secret room in the nunnery, where they indulge themselves in delights, but Ruan San suddenly passes away. Chen Yulan endures all the hardship to give birth to a fatherless son, and brings him up. While it contains some jejune explication of “predestined relationship” and the like, the story itself is romantic and melancholy, eliciting the reader’s sympathy for the young men and women who paid great price in pursuit of the freedom to love in the old times. As for “Jiang Xingge Re-Encounters the Pearl Shirt,” revised from “Pearl Shirt,” it shows more distinctive features of its own. The story goes as follows. Jiang Xingge, a young merchant, shares great affections with his wife, Wang Sanqiao. When Xingge is on a business trip, however, Sanqiao is seduced to have an affair with Chen Dalang, another merchant, and the two of them fall in love with each other. On his way home, Jiang Xingge hears, by accident, about the affair, so he sends his wife back to her parents’ family. Later, Sanqiao is taken as a concubine by an official, and Xingge gives her the sixteen boxes of clothes and goods in her room, because he is still sad whenever he sees these things. Next, Xingge accidentally commits manslaughter in Guangdong, and the official in chage of the case happens to be Sanqiao’s new husband. Sanqiao invents the pretext that Xingge is her cousin and asks her husband to save Xingge. Later, when Xingge and Sanqiao get to meet, they hold each other in arms and cry bitterly. Finding out the story upon inquiry, the official allows the two of them to resume their relationship. The view of life demonstrated in the story is quite remarkable. According to the old ethical code, it is great evil, absolutely unpardonable, for a woman to “lose her chastity” because of her lust, the gravity of which may be felt in the details about the slaughtering of “women of easy virtue” in Water Margin and other works of fiction. In “Jiang Xingge Re-Encounters the Pearl Shirt,” however, Sanqiao always appears lovely and unstained in her image. The description of the mentality of the couple, from their divorce all the way to their remarriage, in fact makes the recognition that it is not an unforgivable crime for a woman to “lose her chastity,” and that at the same time when she “loses her chastity,” the love between the husband and the wife still exists. The honest and matter-of-fact view of human nature, as well as the sympathetic and tolerant attitude towards women who “lose their chastity,” is really illuminating in human touch, which was rather unusual in pre-modern Chinese literature.


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The story is also outstanding in demonstrating the strength of vernacular fiction. In dealing with the two classical stories by Song Maocheng, the “Three Words” use different ways. As a story in classical language, “Biography of the Unfaithful Lover” is a superb piece, so “Du Shiniang Sinks Her Jewel-Box in a Rage” makes very limited revision: all it does is to make it a little easier to understand and to add a few dialogues in spoken language; precisely due to that, some of the weaknesses of the classical story have also been retained therein. In particular, since a story in classical language usually seeks brevity and does not engage in psychological depiction, we miss a much needed convincing explanation of why the intelligent and careful Du Shiniang would ever choose Li Jia, eventually proven to be of truly ignoble personality, as her lifelong companion. On the other hand, “Jiang Xingge Re-Encounters the Pearl Shirt” uses only the story outline of “Pearl Shirt,” and its length is ten times that of the latter. In language it does not keep anything in classical language from the original text, but rather uses a wealth of detail and considerable description of the mental activities of the characters, and as a consequence the characters appear distinctive and well-developed. For instance, in telling the event after Jiang Xingge gets to know that his wife has had an affair with someone, it expands what is only a few words in length in the original text, “after he sold all the goods, he went home,” into a section of quite some length: . . . (Xingge) returned to the inn. He kept thinking about it in resentment, almost wishing that he could find a way to shrink the distance in land so he could be home instantly. He packed up all night and right the next morning went aboard the boat to return. . . . He was back in his hometown in great speed. When he saw the door of his house, he could not help bursting in tears. He thought, “Formerly, the two of us, husband and wife, how deep in love are we! It was all because of my greed for the teeny-tiny profit that I had left her alone at home in her youth, like a widow, which caused such scandal, and now, it’s too late to regret!” He had been impatient en route, wishing he could get home sooner. Now that he arrived, he felt so disgusting and miserable that he slowed down and could hardly drag on.

His irritation, resentment and regret are portrayed in a meticulous and truthful manner which would have been impossible to achieve in fiction in the classical language. Incidentally, the lifetime of Song Maocheng and that of Feng Menglong were quite close, and “Jiang Xingge Re-Encounters the Pearl Shirt” was placed at the very beginning of Illustrious Words to Instruct the World, the first of the “Three Words,” so it should have been, without much doubt, written by Feng himself.

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Due to insufficiency of materials, today it is already quite difficult to provide a clear account of the course of the artistic development of the vernacular short story. However, there is every indication that before the participation of a superb literary man like Feng Menglong, artistically it was rather crude, therefore the “Three Words” may indeed be considered as a landmark in the history of Chinese literature. The “Two Striking’s” and Other Works The “Two Striking’s,” known alongside the “Three Words,” refer to Striking the Table in Amazement and Striking the Table in Amazement: Second Book edited and composed by Ling Mengchu. The first book, completed in the seventh year of the Tianqi reign, contains forty stories in same number of sections. The book sold so well after its publication that the second book was composed in answer to the demand of the book publisher, and it was completed in the fifth year of the Chongzhen reign. It is also divided into forty sections, but the twenty-third section is a duplication of the same section in the first book, and the fortieth section, an appendix, contains a variety play, “Song Jiang Makes a Scene on the Lantern Festival,” so the book actually includes thirtyeight stories. Ling Mengchu (1580–1644) devoted his life to writing, and served only in his late years at some regional posts. The “Two Striking’s” no longer included any compositions revised from earlier story scripts, and were written entirely by the author himself on the basis of unofficial history books, sketches, fiction in classical language, and hearsay in contemporary society. In representing the ambience of the life of a townsfolk society, the “Two Striking’s” appeared even stronger than the “Three Words.” The “Foreword” to Striking the Table in Amazement says, “People of today are amazed only at things that they are unable to hear and see, such as monsters and goblins. They do not know that in what they are able to hear and see in their daily life and surroundings, there are actually many things that are eerie, fanciful, strange, weird, and beyond our normal comprehension.” The stories write about all and sundry things, from the fluctuating fortunes of human life, business adventures, paying the debt of gratitude or avenging a wrong, to adultery, kidnapping, fraud, and robbery; indeed they involve all the amazing things one can think of. Ideologically the books are also a confusing mixture, often inserted with moral preaching on causality and retribution and the like. However, generally speaking, what the books represent is a life full of hustle and bustle motivated by


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desires, and the author’s life philosophy is simply incompatible with the outworn concept of “maintaining heavenly principles and eliminating human desire.” “The Great Confucian Scholar Gets Angry about Trifles in Forcing Himself to Review a Civil Case,” which mounts a direct attack on Zhu Xi, was obviously a deliberate attempt. It tells how Zhu Xi holds a personal grudge against Tang Zhongyou; in order to frame a case against the latter, he wantonly persecutes Yan Rui, a courtesan, torturing her abusively. The author, intentionally, places Zhu Xi in contrast with Yan Rui: the renowned Confucian scholar is portrayed as a sheer villain, while the courtesan is “awe-inspiring in speech and appearance,” commanding “great respect” from people, and the author even observes: “This girl, Yan Rui, is really someone who is able to preach on the Study of the Way.” The story had its origin in Zhou Mi’s Rustic Talks from Eastern Qi, but was not based on historical fact. The attack of Zhu Xi in the story, as a matter of fact, shows utter disgust with the Cheng-Zhu Lixue as the government-sponsored ideology. Many stories in the “Two Striking’s” reflect the business activities of the merchants and their wealth-seeking life philosophy. Take, for example, “Luck Turns in the Favor of the Man in His Adventure with the Lake Dongting Red Tangerines” and “Cheng the Traveling Trader Gets Assistance in Repeated Investment in Rare Commodities.” Both depict the fantasy adventures of merchants in a lively style. The fantastic elements therein aside, they in fact praise the choice for adventurous wealth-seeking in life. As popular literature, the “Two Striking’s” still take adultery as the most important subject matter; in that respect, the best story is “The Lamplight Leads into the Lady’s Chamber for Two Faithful Hearts,” revised from the piece, “Zhang Youqian,” in Feng Menglong’s History of Love. It tells how Luo Xixi and Zhang Youqian fall in love with each other since childhood, and exchange marriage vows in private. Later, Xixi is betrothed by her parents to someone else, and she pledges her life in resistance. She keeps a tryst with Youqian night after night. They went on like this for half a month. Youqian got a little scared, and he said to Xixi, “For this run I’ve come every night, and you always go to bed early and get up late. I have the feeling we are too daring. What if someone gets the wind of something?” Xixi said, “Sooner or later I’m going to die, anyway, so let’s just be happy. Even if it leaks out, it’s nothing worse than death. What is there to be scared of?”

A young woman’s bold resistance against the Confucian ethical code in pursuit of her personal happiness is portrayed therein with a touch of heroic tragedy.

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Compared to those in the “Three Words,” the stories about adultery in the “Two Striking’s” include more descriptions of sex. Without doubt, part of that was to cater for the vulgar taste of the townsfolk, needed by the book publisher, but frequently there arise from that an unrestrained temperament in pursuit of happiness. For instance, “Scholar Wen Has a Wild Fight at the Green Floating Nunnery” tells how a daughter of the Yang family is tricked into going into the nunnery at childhood. Later, she falls in love with Wen Renjia, a scholar, so she disguises herself as a monk and leaves the nunnery. On a boat that travels by night she takes the initiative to seduce Wen Renjia, and eventually the two of them consummate a happy marriage. The author comments on it, saying: “The taste of all the sex acts—even if it may be acquired by force, it would not have been by one’s own will.” In many stories, to do things “by one’s own will” becomes the rationale for the conduct of the protagonist. Artistically, the “Two Striking’s” are less refined and more straightforward than the “Three Words.” They are still sophisticated in style, but not meticulous enough, and too simple in their description of the mental activities of the characters. Accordingly it is impossible to find, in the “Two Striking’s,” such masterpieces that are exquisite and polished from beginning to end like “Jiang Xingge Re-Encounters the Pearl Shirt” or “The Young Oil Vender Monopolizes the Queen of Flowers.” The large number of collections of vernacular stories in the Late Ming period reflects the human feelings and social conditions at the end of the Ming dynasty. A better work among them was Second Collection of West Lake Stories, in thirty-four sections, compiled and edited by Zhou Ji and first published in the Chongzhen reign. In content it primarily includes tales of folklore related with the West Lake, many of which involve the customs and habits in the Hangzhou city, and are imbued with a strong smack of everyday life, hence its popularity. Among them, “An Ingenious Courtesan Assists Her Husband to Rise to Fame” is the sarcastic story of a resourceful courtesan who helps a poor scholar to take advantage of loopholes in society and gain money and prestige by cheating. It was a usual practice for popular fiction to flaunt the concept of “giving advice to society” and enlightenment by education; the “Three Words” and “Two Striking’s” were certainly no exception. However, as long as the authors’ personal view of life was not so narrow-minded, the actual connotation of their works would become more colorful and lively. At the end of the Ming dynasty, when the society began to fall


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apart, in some of the vernacular stories, there was a representation, even more active than in the “Three Words” and “Two Striking’s,” of the consciousness to remedy the manners of the society and public sentiment by means of conventional morality. For example, The Rocks Nod Their Heads by Tianran Chisou (“An Old Man Crazy by Birth”), Bells on Peaceful Nights by Weiyuan Zhuren (“Master of the Vetch Garden”), and The Sobering Stone by Dong Lu Gu Kuangsheng (“Ancient Crazy Scholar of Eastern Lu”), all claim to have the purpose of “inferring the causes from the effects, and urging people to do good deeds.” Words as Models of the World, discovered in recent years, also falls under this type. The book, in ten sections and forty chapters, was written by Lu Renlong, published approximately in between the fifth and sixth year of the Chongzhen reign. It had long been lost in China, and an original edition was found in the Kuizhang Pavilion in the University of Seoul in South Korea. In recent times, it first came to the attention of overseas scholars; subsequently, in 1993, China Books Inc. published a newly proofread and punctuated edition. The stories in the book are all about events of loyalty, filial piety, friendship, brotherhood, defense of chastity by death, moral integrity, and the like; many of them are quite repulsive. Take, for example, “The Adulteress Betrays Her Husband and Gets Killed; The Gallant Man Is Bestowed a Favor and Receives Pardon.” It tells how Geng Zhi, the “gallant man,” has had an affair with Madame Deng, the “adulteress,” for a long time; at the end, because she treats her husband too badly, he kills her. Such a heartless and shameless villain comes to the author’s praise. On the other hand, as Words as Models of the World draws its material essentially from the tales and anecdotes of figures of the Ming dynasty, one may get to know therein the habits and customs, as well as all kinds of social phenomena, of the time.

3. Late Ming Drama Drama grew extremely prosperous during the Late Ming period, and it was especially popular in the southeastern region. At that time, it became a widespread fashion for scholar-officials to entertain their guests with theatrical performances at banquets and social gatherings. Some of the wealthy families even kept private troupes. Without doubt, it stimulated the composition of plays. Just like fiction, Late Ming dramatic composition was deeply influenced by the new ideological trends

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of contemporary society. The spirit of honoring “feeling” and opposing “reason,” and the pursuit of the liberation of human nature, stand out in particular in some plays on the themes of love and marriage. Due to the popularity of drama, there was a more intense discussion of the theory of the artistic forms of drama. There emerged some important studies of drama, such as Shen Jing’s Musical Scores of the Thirteen Tunes in the Nine Southern Gong Modes, Wang Jide’s Prosody of the Aria, Lü Tiancheng’s Ranking of the Aria, etc. The period also witnessed the remarkable achievements in the editing and publishing of dramatic works. For instance, Zang Maoxun’s Selected Yuan Plays, Mao Jin’s Sixty Plays, and Shen Tai’s Variety Plays of the High Ming, all rank as the most important pre-modern anthologies of dramatic works. Tang Xianzu’s Dramatic Works Tang Xianzu (1550–1616) was the most important Late Ming playwright, and his Peony Pavilion remains one of the most representative works of Late Ming literature. After becoming a Metropolitan Graduate in 1583, he first served in Nanjing but later, after he submitted a memorial to the emperor in which he denounced the politics of the time and reproved the Grand Council, he was demoted to serve at a junior regional post in Guangdong. Then, after serving for five years as a District Magistrate in Zhejiang, Tang Xianzu finally resigned from office and returned to his hometown after the twenty-first year of the Wanli reign.6 He devoted his last years to the composition of plays. In the latter period of his service in Nanjing, Tang Xianzu became acquainted with Da Guan, a famous Zen monk, and they became very good friends. At approximately the same time, he got to read Li Zhi’s A Book to Be Burned, and was fascinated by it. Many years later, he met with Li Zhi at Lingchuan. Li Zhi and Da Guan, honored as the “Two Great Founders” in the Late Ming ideological circles, extended a significant influence on Tang Xianzu’s thinking. In its view on literature, Tang Xianzu’s theory has been summarized as that of the “celebration of feeling” which, like the theory of “natural sensibility” of the Gong’an School, had its origin in Li Zhi’s concept of “the heart of a child.” He does not simply attach importance to the function of expressing feeling

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in a general sense, but rather places “feeling” in opposition to “reason” so as to enhance the significance of feeling and oppose the control of feeling by reason. “Reason involves right and wrong,” and “feeling involves love and hate,” so the two are in fact mutually exclusive, and often, “when feeling exists, reason is gone.” (“Foreword to Shen’s Discussion of Gain by Shooting”) It is even like “when there is feeling, there is surely no reason, and when there is reason, there is surely no feeling.” (“Mailed to Da Guan”) What Tang Xianzu calls “feeling” refers to desires and vitality of life in their natural and genuine condition, and what he calls “reason” is the principle of right and wrong that prompts the society to establish order in life. By nature, reason is restrictive while feeling is dynamic, so they are in conflict all the time. When the society is in an age of reform, the violent conflict between feeling and reason is unavoidable. Under the circumstances, to celebrate feeling and subdue reason is to place individual desires above current social norms. It is a kind of representation with a humanist touch and, in literary composition, it is demonstrated as a spirit of the liberation of human nature. A proposition related with the theory of celebrating feeling is the honoring of the extraordinary and unusual. Tang Xianzu was extremely disgusted with the condition of human nature which tended toward pettiness and ossification under the restriction of the outmoded conventions in contemporary society. He noted in “Foreword to Gathering of the Strange”: “In this world of ours, the only one who we could not discuss writings with is the kind of old pedant who has heard and seen nothing, but instead judges all the writings in the world by presenting his inferior and limited view. Would there be any writing left to discuss?” In “Foreword to Qiu Maobo’s Manuscript,” he moved one step further: “It is all on account of the extraordinary that a work in the world has any vitality. When an author is extraordinary, he will have a brilliant mind. A brilliant mind is able to take flight. When it is able to take flight, it is able to go up and down between heaven and earth in space, and go to past, present, and future in time. It is then able to bend or extend, to become long or short, to live or die at will. When it does anything at will, it is able to go wherever it wants.” This was meant to emphasize the imagination and creativity of literature, with a penchant for romanticism. Tang Xianzu was also one of the most important Late Ming literary critics. Just by the brief summary of his ideas, one may see that his literary view has distinctive characteristics, and is closely connected to his creative activities.

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In his early years, Tang Xianzu wrote mainly poetry and prose. Yuan Hongdao once observed that Tang and Xu Wei were, among the poets, two outstanding ones not under the influence of the Former Seven Masters. In the field of drama, his earliest work was Story of the Purple Flute, written during the early years of the Wanli reign but left unfinished; later it was revised into Story of the Purple Hairpins in the fifteenth year of the Wanli reign. The other three of his plays are Peony Pavilion, Story of Handan, and Story of the Southern Branch, all written in his later years after he resigned from office. These four plays have been known as The Four Dreams from the Jade Tea Hall, by the name of his studio. Peony Pavilion, or in its complete title, Story of the Revival from Death at the Peony Pavilion, is the most famous love play along with Story of Western Chamber, the Yuan variety play. It takes the plot from the vernacular story, “Falling in Love Du Liniang Revives after Death,” which tells how, during the Southern Song dynasty, Du Liniang, the daughter of Governor Du Bao, takes a trip in the garden by herself, and in a dream she has a tryst with Liu Mengmei, a scholar who she does not know before, and they enjoy all the carnal pleasures. After she awakes, she cannot relieve herself from melancholy and depression, and she passes away. Before Du Bao is transferred to serve at a different place, he has his daughter buried in the garden of his government office. On his way to the capital examination, Liu Mengmei passes by the place and happens to pick up Du Liniang’s self-portrait. Looking at the painting, he misses the person, and eventually he gets to meet with Liniang’s soul. Then, Mengmei digs the grave and opens the coffin, and Liniang revives from death, and the two of them become husband and wife. Next, Mengmei wins the title of Principal Graduate in the examinations, but Du Bao refuses to acknowledge their marriage. Eventually the emperor takes it into his hands to settle the issue, and the entire family enjoys a grand reunion. Strictly speaking, Peony Pavilion has some obvious weaknesses. The entire play consists of fifty-five acts, and it appears loose and lengthy in structure, especially in the latter half, where the content about Li Quan’s military rebellion and Du Bao’s suppression of the rebellion is detached from the main theme of the love story. The ending wherein Liu Mengmei wins Principal Graduate and the emperor issues an imperial edict for their marriage is also commonplace and mediocre in its conception. However, the response to the play at the time was really no small matter. Shortly after it came out, it “became known to every


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household, and almost made the Western Chamber drop off in value.” (Shen Defu’s Miscellaneous Notes on the Aria) It was not only extolled by many men of letters, but also caused a great sensation in the society. After reading Peony and Pavilion Yu Erniang, a woman in Loujiang, deplored her own destiny and died in grief. While performing the play Shang Xiaoling, an actress in Hangzhou, found it too hard to bear the sorrow and died suddenly on the stage. These anecdotes indicated that Peony Pavilion was an excellent play with distinctive characteristics of the age and enormous artistic power; compared to previous love plays, it contained important new connotations, therefore its weaknesses were not enough to outshine its brilliance. In comparison with Story of Western Chamber there is something distinctively different about Peony Pavilion. Du Liniang’s love story is not initiated by a certain real object; at first she yearns for the opposite sex and thirsts for love, and it is led by spontaneous impulse of life that she goes to the tryst with Liu Mengmei in a dream wherein she indulges in the pleasures of the moment and falls in a love unforgettable in life and death. This detail makes the most unequivocal announcement that love, as well as sex, is first and foremost a young woman’s personal need, that in the relationship between the two sexes, the female does not have to be the passive one, and that if love does not exist, it may still be generated by the internal desire of life. In that age, it was a startling expression that created a great stir. In the two most moving acts, “Awakened from a Dream” and “In Search of a Dream,” Liniang’s subdued yearning of life is brought out in a series of beautiful and exquisite arias, as in one to the tune of “Black Silk Robe” in “Awakened from a Dream”: So it turns out that all the rich and lovely colors are in bloom everywhere; Yet, however pretty, they are presented only to the broken well and walls. Fine moments, beautiful scene: but what about heaven? Happy moods, pleasant things: whose courtyard are they in? Flying in the morning, rolling up by evening, Are all the clouds over the emerald-green pavilions; Threads of rain, slices of wind, And a fishing boat amid misty waves. People behind embroidered curtains take this precious time too easy!

It says that a beautiful human life is being wasted like the beautiful springtime, but one is unwilling to resign oneself to it. In the dreamland,

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the scene of the rendezvous, when they indulge in love, and wherein life dances cheerfully in the satisfaction of desire, is portrayed in an extremely appealing manner. By the time when Liniang wakes up, she still feels its great flavor of “unspeakable happiness and fragrance.” Even when the good dream is shattered, in a growing depression she feels, deep in her heart, that life no longer holds any appeal to her, she still wishes that after her death she may get buried by the side of the plum tree (a symbol of Liu Mengmei—“Willow that Dreams of Plum”), so that her soul may get to recall the scene in that dream: “Like this, to have all the flowers and grasses that one can love as one likes; / In life or in death they will do as you will; / And so, even in all the distress and misery, no one will ever regret!” Another major difference that marks Peony Pavilion different from Story of the Western Chamber is that its author set out with a more distinctive position against the consciousness of the imperial society. On the surface, the play does not seem to have any character in opposition to Du Liniang and Liu Mengmei. Liniang’s love affair in dream, as well as her revival after death to reunite with Mengmei, is all conducted unknown to others. However, the work, as a matter of fact, makes one feel that she is constantly struggling within an invisible network. As the only daughter from an official’s family, Du Liniang lives behind the crimson gate and deep in a large mansion entirely secluded from the outside world. One of her parents is an honest and upright official, the other a typical good wife and loving mother. As people who succeed by taking the normal road in the imperial society, they put their daughter under the highest pressure with their “love,” and try their best to cast her in the role of a virtuous maiden who conforms fully to the Confucian ethical standard. Even when she takes a nap in daytime in her boudoir because she feels bored, when she takes a trip to the garden, or when she embroiders a pair of flowers or birds on her robe or skirt, her parents will feel unhappy or get startled, lest that it may cause the stirring of love in her. Chen Zuiliang, Liniang’s tutor, is the only male who she is able to come in touch with besides her family members, but he has “studied Confucianism since childhood,” manages only to become a Cultivated Talent after becoming white-haired in taking all the examinations; with the exception of some lines from the classics, he does not know what life really is. As a failure on the normal road of the imperial society, he is devoted to tampering with Liniang’s fresh, colorful life with the moldy stuff he has learned. The author’s depiction of Liniang’s surroundings and people around her


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reveals, in a profound way, that what she confronts is the social force and the orthodox consciousness in their all-powerful entirety; what she can do is only to resist all in vain, and her ending in reality is only to die in resentment. To take Liniang’s death as the tragic closure of the entire play may endow it with a strong critical nature, but it would not satisfy Tang Xianzu. Even if the strong resistance would be totally impossible in reality, as a literary man he could still manage to make use of fantasy and romantic fictitiousness and put life’s free will in serious conflict with the outmoded social practice, so as to provide the play with all its dynamics. Liniang “passes away from falling in love,” but she is unwilling to resign herself to it even after her death; her soul roams around and eventually she comes back to life. The storyline, preposterous and strange as it is, has its true significance, as it implies that the human will in pursuit of freedom and happiness is never to be entirely broken, and eventually it will find its way to success. Here, literature serves its basic function for human beings to create ways for them to live their own life. It was precisely based on this that the play caused a sensation in the society and, in particular, made such a great stir among some young women. On the other hand, when the story returns to the real world, the author had no choice but to resort to the cliché of the emperor’s edict for the marriage, which may be regarded as an ill-conceived flaw, but even so it still makes people realize, however dejectedly, that dream is fundamentally helpless in reality. In addition, even a small, not indispensable detail may have something extremely disturbing about it: after Liniang returns to life and when she is about to get married with Mengmei, the author makes her announce: “I am still a virgin.” The revelry in dream has not yet violated the “saintly chastity” of a virgin. Peony Pavilion is a beautiful play in verse. The author uses graceful and refined language to create many romantic and fanciful scenes; a large number of monologues revealing the characters’ innermost feelings help to create a strong lyrical atmosphere. Like in the two acts of “Awakened from a Dream” and “In Search of a Dream,” the bright, colorful landscape of the garden in springtime, Liniang’s lament for the fleeting youth and the secret deep in her heart are blended into a unity in exquisite, ornate diction; it is extremely moving. The abovecited piece to the tune of “Black Silk Robe” is a famous aria. The act “Painting the Self-Portrait” tells how Liniang gets ill because of the dream and grows increasingly haggard. She fears that her beauty is to

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fade eventually, so she comes up with the idea “to do a self-portrait to be kept in the world.” Two arias in the act are as follows: I spread the light silk and thumb across the mirror. Using the brush tip I gently trace the image. Oh my reflection, Let me examine you carefully. Your cheeks: bantering with so much fun. I’ll have to put in some cherry red for the lips Draw the brows like willow twigs And then highlight the cloudlike hair at the temples like a drifting mist. The tips of the brows are not darkened yet The beauty of the one in there lies all in the autumn ripples of her eyes, How comely the spring hills in light ink, like tiny jadeites. (“The Sound of Wild Geese Passing By in Flight”) Best is when she smiles, Standing in the east wind with her slender waist, As if she is in a grief over spring. Then add some hills and waters, A few doors and windows Around that single person in there Having a little fun with herself By holding a green plum in hand in her idleness. She watches the hills over the lake at dreamlike dawn And faces the drooping willows in the gentle breeze. So slim she is! Let me add a couple of green banana leaves sideways. (“Prelude to Revelation of Mind”)

The self-pity she feels while looking at her own image, full of sorrow, expresses a deep yearning for life. Primarily through the text of the lyrical arias, Liniang is presented in a vivid image with a spectrum of emotions. In her everyday conduct and mien, she never loses her status as a young lady from a high-class family; even when she takes a trip in a quiet and deserted garden, she still thinks, “Walking in the lady’s quarters, how could I allow myself to be seen in my entire body?” When she is in meditation all by herself, she cannot help but let out her admiration for the “secret promises for private dating” between “talented men and beautiful women.” On a deeper level, when she is completely free from the bondage of reality and enters the world of dream, her underlying desires are fully set alive; she is passionate and without any coyness. Such multi-layered description


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displays the author’s understanding of the innermost human nature and his approval of it to an even greater degree. Precisely because of this, he was able to create the image of Du Liniang, a female unprecedented in all the previous love plays. Generally speaking, the Ming chuan qi drama, when compared with the Yuan variety play, has more trace of artificial polish in language, and devotes too much attention to diction. Likewise, Peony Pavilion is also inclined to showing off learning. Talent and passion, however, account for the vitality of the play notwithstanding its ornateness, which is quite unusual. Of the other three plays by Tang Xianzu, Story of Handan, which draws its material from the Tang chuan qi tale, “An Account of the World inside a Pillow,” i.e., the story of “Beautiful Dream of Yellow Millet,” has more special flavors of its own. The play is not merely an elaboration of the original text, but rather incorporates the author’s experience of the politics among the upper social strata during the Middle and Late Ming period. The play tells the story of Master Lu, a scholar, who begins to render great meritorious service, but is framed and persecuted, and exiled to Yazhou; in the imperial court, not a single one says anything on his behalf. He is even badly insulted by the lowly Revenue Manager of Yazhou, but when he is reinstated, the latter ties up himself and apologizes to him. When Lu is critically ill, all the officials, high and low, show their deep concern, but they actually each have an axe to grind. The fickleness of human relationship in the official circles is hereby vividly portrayed. Lu serves at the highest positions and lives in great extravagance, but he likes to talk about “giving up sex,” and eventually he dies in engaging himself in the sexual practice of “plucking the yin to sustain the yang.” Most sadly, even before death he does not forget to “get promotion and receive a posthumous title,” worries about how his meritorious deeds will not be fully recognized, and even writes a memorial for himself before he passes away. When he wakes up from the dream, the millet he puts on stove is not yet fully cooked. Usually plays of political themes are prone to fall under the hackneyed pattern of the struggle between the loyal and the treacherous, written in a hyperbolic style. While Story of Handan involves some caricatures, it still has a realistic basis. The chronic malady of politics at the higher strata, the mentality of scholar-officials, and the sinisterness of human relationships, are all depicted in depth by the author in a grave and stern manner. The play, which consists of only thirty acts, is among the short and pithy ones of Ming chuan qi drama. The text

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of its arias is terse, succinct, facile, and sophisticated, bitingly satiric but calm and unperturbed in tone, attaining a new plane of its own in language style. Story of the Southern Branch and Story of the Purple Hairpins draw their materials, respectively, from the Tang chuan qi tales, “The Story of the Governor of the Southern Branch” and “The Story of Huo Xiaoyu,” and both are centered on “feeling.” Artistically speaking, they are slightly inferior to Story of Handan, so they will not be discussed here. Shen Jing and the Wujiang School During the years of the Wanli reign, drama was attached an unprecedented importance by men of letters. The “Wujiang School,” led by Shen Jing (1553–1610), regarded drama as a special art form, made a deeper exploration of its various aspects including prosody, language, performance, and even its structure, and exercised a more widespread influence. The name of the “Wujiang School” came from that of Shen’s hometown. Traditional Chinese drama was a kind of opera, and what Shen Jing concerned himself with was primarily its singing part, especially the beauty of harmony of its sound and rhythm. He was a famous scholar of dramatic studies, and his Musical Scores of the Thirteen Tunes in the Nine Southern Gong Modes made textual research, on the basis of works from previous authors, of seven hundred and nineteen tunes of southern arias, and pointed out the correct and erroneous places; it became an authoritative textbook for all latecomers to compose and perform arias. However, this specialty also brought with it some prejudice about prosody. He observed in his Master Ciyin on the Aria, “Since it is known as music bureau poetry, then it must be made to abide by rules and follow the tunes. We would rather stay unappreciated by contemporaries than to make one scratch one’s throat and twist one’s larynx.” Because Peony Pavilion did not meet Shen’s prosodic requirement based on the standard of the Kunshan Tune, he changed it to Story of the Mutual Dream, which sparked an angry protest from Tang Xianzu, who emphasized, in sharp contrast, that “writing should give priority to its appeal and manner.” (“In Reply to Lü Jiangshan”) That was the fight between Tang and Shen, well-known in the history of Ming drama, the conflict of which focused, in the final analysis, on the problem whether the literary or the musical should be the dominant factor in drama. Regarding the debate between the two famous authors,


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some drama scholars put forward some eclectic, compromising theories. For instance, Lü Tiancheng, who was considered a direct descendent of the Wujiang School, observed in his Ranking of the Arias, “If one can adhere to Mr. Shen’s rules with Mr. Tang’s talent, isn’t that a combination of two beauties?” This was an opinion representative of the age. Lü Tiancheng’s Ranking of the Aria, a work that criticizes playwrights and their works in terms of their ranking in quality, contains some good ideas, but reads unorganized and fragmentary due to its lack of systematic theoretical views. On the other hand, Wang Jide’s (?–1623) Prosody of the Aria remains the most systematic and theoretical work among drama studies of the Ming dynasty. Wang honored Xu Wei as his teacher in his early years and subsequently won Shen Jing’s admiration. He was formerly classified among the Wujiang School, but he had great respect for Tang Xianzu. Prosody of the Aria, in forty chapters, involves the history of drama, the structure, style, prosody, dialogue of plays, and the evaluation of playwrights and their works. The author tried his best to sum up the achievements in previous studies and develop them, including all and sundry issues in the composition and criticism of drama, with a broad outlook, and came up with many brilliant ideas, the most noteworthy of which was a principle, “in discussing drama, one should look at how its overall power is.” In discussing drama, most previous critics had talked about only one respect, or even just singled out some individual aria or specific words or lines for criticism, whereas Wang Jide, for the very first time, suggested that one should evaluate a play in its entirety and in the combined effects of its various elements. It was a great progress. According to a list given in the aria to the tune of “Riverside Fairy” in the first act of Shen Zijin’s play, Lakeview Pavilion, members of the Wujiang School include, besides Shen Jing, Lü Tiancheng, and Wang Jide, also Ye Xianzu, Feng Menglong, Fan Wenruo, Yuan Jin, Bu Shichen and Shen Zijin himself. Evidently they enjoyed considerable prestige and influence. Shen Jing wrote seventeen plays, of which Story of the Red Dasheen, Story of the Buried Sword, and Story of a Pair of Fish stand out in unusual story and complicated plot. They displayed an inclination toward more attention to stage effects and exercised significant influence on later dramatic works. However, Shen was rather pedantic in his way of thinking, and he was not good at depicting the mentality of his characters in depth, so his achievements were limited. Wang Jide was quite impressive in drama theory, but rather weak in his own plays,

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not unlike Yan Yu in the field of poetry, the author of Canglang’s Poetic Remarks who was not a good poet himself. Among those mentioned in the above, Ye Xianzu’s plays are mostly love stories, and a more outstanding one is Story of Winter Clothes, a variety play, which draws its material from the “Biography of Emerald” in New Tales Told while Trimming the Lampwick. In the original tale, Emerald and Jin Ding die from depression whereas in the play, it concentrates on the story of Emerald who, after having endured the humiliation of giving herself to General Li in the war, the two of them, Emerald and Jin Ding, try every possible way until eventually they get to live together again as husband and wife. Illuminated by genuine love, the dark shadow of “the loss of chastity” no longer lies there; the author displays therein a healthy philosophy of life. Yuan Jin’s chuan qi play, Story of the Western Tower, tells the love story of Yu Juan, a scholar, and Mu Suhui, a courtesan, making much effort to depict Yu Juan’s infatuation and highlight the indelible “feeling.” The play displays the strength of the Wu Jiang School in its attention to sound and prosody, and also has a complicated plot, so it has been perennially popular. Story of the Jade Hairpins and Story of the Red Plum Story of the Jade Hairpins, a famous work of Ming drama, has been continually put on the stage for several hundred years, and is second only to Peony Pavilion in popularity. Little is known about its author, Gao Lian, who only left behind two plays, but the other one, Story of Chastity and Filial Piety, is rather uninteresting. Story of the Jade Hairpins tells how Chen Jiaolian, a young woman, is separated from her mother when they flee from the Jurchen Jin troops that march southward; she enters the Chastity Nunnery in Jinling and becomes Miao Chang the Nun. Next, Pan Bizheng, the nephew of the Abbess, puts up for the night at the Nunnery, and the two of them, Miao Chang and Bizheng, after a complicated process of tea party, lute provocation, and secret poetry exchange, perform the act of love in private. Their love affair is discovered by the Abbess, who forces Bizheng to set out on his way to the examinations. Miao Chang chases after him and meets him in his boat, telling him her love in tears. When Bizheng succeeds in the examinations and gets appointed as an official, he gets married with Miao Chang. In the last part of Story of the Jade Hairpins, it is made known that the parents of Pan and Chen have actually arranged a prenatal betrothal for


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them. The author deliberately added the detail as a justification of the legitimacy of the love affair of the two characters, but judging from the unfolding of the storyline, it is nothing but a story of the free union of a young couple who smash the bonds of ethical and religious asceticism. The play has a few conspicuous strengths. First, it has a simple plot and is free from the weakness of confusing complication of the chuan qi drama in general; accordingly it is able to focus on a detailed description of the process of the love affair of Pan and Chen and their mental activities. In particular, Miao Chang’s passionate yearning for love, her modesty and shyness, and her ambiguous attitude toward Bizheng, are vividly delineated. Second, it has a measured sense of propriety: the author assumes a humorous and light-hearted tone to deal with the impermissible love affair, and does not evade the issue of carnal desire; it is romantic, but never vulgar. Third, the text of the arias is simply beautiful; it is neither flowery nor plain, but is rather humorous and pretty in style that appropriately embodies the romantic flavor of the play, which to a certain extent is a comedy. In the following we shall cite as an example the aria to the tune of “Song of Fairy Worship” in the sixteenth act, “Exchange in Music-Playing,” You are by birth so young-looking and of a romantic nature. Affectionate or not? I see you just come over to ask me with your smiling face. In my mind I’m smart to know everything but I pretend to look stern on my face and feign hardness in my voice. I’m about to answer but I’m too shy to respond to him. When I see him, I keep pretending; When he’s not around, I often miss him. Now, when I look at the shadow of flowers in the moonshine, I find it so desolate and dreary, just as solitary as him, just as solitary as me.

Little is known either of Zhou Chaojun, another playwright during the Wanli reign. He wrote more than ten chuan qi plays, but the only one extant is Story of the Red Plum. The play is complicated in plot and not well organized, but Li Huiniang therein holds a moving image. Huiniang, a concubine in Prime Minister Jia Sidao’s residence, is cruelly killed only because she blurts out, when she sees Pei Yu during a trip on the lake, “What a handsome young man!” Huiniang, however,

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is not reconciled to giving up her true love, and her wandering soul slips into the Jia residence to meet with Pei, and helps him to escape. In the act of “The Ghost in Defense,” Jia tortures his concubines to find out who releases Pei in secret, and Huiniang steps out bravely to answer for it, and proclaims in challenge: “I had a joyful meeting with him down the western corridor; we made love and had fun.” “A young girl, but I’m always daring, so I risk the rest of my life to argue my case.” It represents the spirit of revenge and the rebellious character of women under oppression. The modern Beijing Opera, Li Huiniang, was revised from the story in the above. Wu Bing and Ruan Dacheng At the end of the Ming dynasty Wu Bing (?–1647) assisted with the little court of Prince Gui, and after being captured he died from fasting. During the Hongguang reign of the Ming dynasty, Ruan Dacheng (ca. 1587–1646) opposed the literati of the Donglin Party and the Restoration Society, and subsequently surrendered to the Qing regime, so he has often been derided by the literati. The two of them, Wu and Ruan, acted differently in politics, but in their dramatic works they have often been discussed in company, with their common characteristics in harmonious, polished sound and prosody, and in complex, intricate plot. Wu Bing’s works of chuan qi drama include Story of the Western Garden, Green Peony, Soup to Cure Jealousy, Story of Love at Posthouse, and Lady in the Painting, known together as Five Plays from the Smiling Flowers Studio. All five plays adopt the theme of honoring true love. Story of the Western Garden is Wu Bing’s representative work. It tells how two young women, Wang Yuzhen and Zhao Yuying, live together in the garden of Yuying’s home. Zhang Jihua, a scholar, runs into Yuzhen at the Western Garden and falls in love with her at first sight, but mistakes her for Yuying. Yuying is betrothed, in her childhood, in an agreed match to Wang Boning, an extremely stupid and unruly fellow who has the nickname “Wang the Plebeian;” she gets ill from depression and dies in grievance. When Jihua hears the news of her death, he thinks the one who has passed away is his beloved one, and is filled with deep sorrow. When he sees Yuzhen again, he mistakes her to be Yuying’s ghost. Later, Jihua returns to Hangzhou. When he thinks about Yuzhen late at night, he keeps calling Yuying’s name; Yuying’s ghost, being moved, pretends to be Yuzhen to have a tryst with him. Afterwards, after a series of more occasions of misun-


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derstanding and misidentification, eventually Zhang Jihua and Wang Yuzhen get married. The play is meticulous in structure and intricate in plot, but the threads of its storyline are very clear; it is a play that pays much attention to stage effects. However, its complex structure does not merely try to impress with its ingenious conception, but rather, in the course of the unfolding of its dramatic climaxes, also serves to reveal, step by step, the characters’ destiny and their mentality, especially Zhao Yuying, who is unwilling to resign herself to an unhappy marriage arrangement, and after she becomes a ghost, she still wants to get close to the one she loves, even if she has to do that in someone else’s name. Hers is a passionate personality. Her misery is put in contrast in the eventual happy union of Zhang Jihua and Wang Yuzhen who love each other, giving the play a strong sense of tragedy. Four plays are extant today from Ruan Dacheng’s collection, Plays from the Hall of Unbosoming: The Swallow’s Love Note, Spring Lantern Riddles, Two Candidates on the Golden List, and Union of Buddhist Pearls. The first three are representative of the style of Ruan Dacheng’s plays, i.e., attention to the entertaining values in performance and skill in using the detail of misidentification. Take, for example, Spring Lantern Riddles, or in its complete title, Ten Misidentifications: Spring Lantern Riddles. In the play, the relationships of father and son, elder and younger brother, husband and wife, father- and son-in-law, all go through some misidentification, showing the ingenuity of conception. However, compared to Wu Bing’s works, which also use the means of misidentification and coincidence, Ruan’s plays somewhat overuse such means and often feel unnatural. The Swallow’s Love Note is Ruan Dacheng’s representative work. It tells how Huo Duliang, a younger scholar of the Tang dynasty, befriends a courtesan Xing Yun, and he paints a picture about the two of them on a pleasure trip, “Painting of Listening to Orioles and Catching Butterflies.” By mistake the painting is sent by the person hired to mount it to Fei Yun, the daughter of Li Andao, Minister of Rites. Fei Yun is inspired by the painting and writes a poem on a piece of notepaper, which is carried away by a swallow in its bill and then happens to drop into Huo’s hands, and the two of them, who have never met, begin to yearn for each other in love. Then, there comes a certain Xianyu Ji who, after hearing the story, stirs up some trouble. After many ups and downs, Huo finally gets to marry, one after another, both Fei Yun and Xing Yun. There is nothing new about the story, but its plot is

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complicated and full of changes, so it is exciting and lively in performance. As for the text of its arias, it has always been praised for its polish and eloquence. For instance, in the act “Picking up the Note,” Huo Duliang finds that his painting has been erroneously changed to “Painting of Guan Yin in Ink,” and he sings: I spent so much effort to bring out the beauty in front of the stove. But the moron, so easily and readily, passes on her flower-like features. I suppose she looks too lifelike and natural in the painting, So she turns into some cloud and rain by the Sun Terrace. Lost is the beauty’s image among peach and plum in spring wind, In exchange, here looms the waterside Guan Yin from Putuo in moonshine. (“Returning in Drunkenness in Someone’s Arms”)

Many masterpieces of Late Ming drama are about love and marriage, but one cannot say that they express people’s hope for beautiful love and happy marriage only. The freedom of love is a gate that leads to complete human freedom; it is always the one that gets known first and what people need in the first place. However, when people knock at the closed gate, deep in their heart they will, consciously or unconsciously, yearn for more.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

POETRY AND PROSE OF THE QING DYNASTY

Qing, China’s last imperial dynasty, was founded by the Manchu, who only made up a very small portion of the population of the nation, and was dominated by the Manchu in governing. If a newly established autocracy always need to strengthen its ideological control, then the need was even more urgent for the Qing court, as it would be hard to imagine, in a more liberal ideological ambience, how the majority of the population would not question the legitimacy of the minority governing. That the governing of the Qing regime, when compared with the Yuan regime which was also founded by an ethnic minority, was steadier and more efficient, was really because of this kind of ideological control. To acknowledge the canonical place of traditional Chinese culture, in particular Confucianism, and to claim to be the heir to this kind of culture, was the necessary procedure for the rulers of the Qing regime to change their place from that of the guest to that of the host. However, prior to the beginning of the Qing dynasty, the so-called traditional Chinese culture, Confucianism included, had already taken on its rather numerous and complicated aspects, and only by making choices and explication could the direction be determined. In this respect, the Qing rulers found ready-made examples from their counterparts at the beginning of the Ming dynasty, which was to exert a gradual influence over the people, especially the educated, to make them docile and submissive, through making the most of the part in traditional culture favorable for the execution of autocracy, or more specifically, through the promotion of Lixue. In the early years of the Kangxi reign, Encyclopedia of Nature and Principle, compiled during the Yongle reign of the Ming, was reprinted; on the basis of that, Emperor Kangxi personally chaired the compilation of Essence of Nature and Principles, and issued an edict to circulate the book in the entire nation. The emperor spared no effort in celebrating Zhu Xi, praising the latter as one who “enlightened the foolish and ignorant and set up fixed rules for billions of generations,” (“Introduction to the Imperial Edition of the Complete Books of Master Zhu”) and “even if one would like

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to quibble, it remains impeccable.” (“Imperial Instructions from the Benevolent Emperor Shengzu”) The meaning of such praises, which bordered on deification, already went beyond intellectual evaluation, as its only purpose was to eliminate people’s independent thinking by establishing an absolute ideological authority. In addition, the Qing court resorted to brutal literary inquisition, coupled with a policy of restraint to enlist the celebrities and to give preferential treatment to the literati, and thereby built up a network of cultural autocracy. On the other hand, the literati were also faced with their own choice. During the Late Ming period, because the trend of individualism was not strong enough to bring about any social reform, there was much confusion in ideology and culture. By the time when the society broke apart at the downfall of the Ming, what was on the mind of many was not to push forward any social reform, but rather to restore the social order protected by the old morality and virtues. In particular, faced with the intense racial conflicts, some regarded the old moral convention as the only force to keep human mind in order and save the civilization from extinction, of which Gu Yanwu was an outstanding representative. One certainly has reasons to affirm his moral integrity and methodology of scholarly studies, but his thinking was based on his defense of the Cheng-Zhu ideology. He rejected all the ideas against the tradition after the Middle Ming times, from Wang Yangming to Li Zhi, and even condemned the latter as, like the Dark Learning of the Wei-Jin period, what led to the conquest of the nation, and “committed more vicious crimes than Jie and Zhou.” (“Final Conclusion on Master Zhu’s Late Years” in Notes from Daily Learning) He tried his best to re-set, from traditional studies of classics, the dominant trend of social thought. Accordingly, not considering the elements of the racial conflict at the beginning of the Qing, most of Gu’s ideas accorded with what the Qing rulers advocated. However, historical changes have the deeply-seated and internal motivations of their own. While such changes may be obstructed or slowed down, they are not to be prevented. When the chaos from the warfare came to an end, and the rule of the Qing regime stabilized by the middle of the Kangxi reign, the agricultural production, first of all, showed significant increase, and next, the urban commerce and industry also moved toward resurgence. In the Qing, the handicraft industry’s dependence on the state and the workers’ dependence on workshop owners were not as heavy as in the Ming, hence commerce and industry quickly surpassed the previous

poetry and prose of the qing dynasty

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dynasty in both vitality and scale, and the amassment and turnover of capital was far more conspicuous than before. Take, for example, a credit institution like the old-style private bank, which developed in a far more widespread and organized way than in the Ming, precisely as a consequence of the attempt to answer the need of the increased scale of the management of commerce and industry, as well as the expanded range of the management. In addition, similar conditions not only existed in the coastal region in the southeast, but also in cities like Beijing and Taiyuan in the north, Hankou in the middle, and Foshan in Guangdong. Without doubt, Chinese society was gradually moving towards modernity, whatever form it would take. On the other hand, from the end of the seventeenth century to the middle of the nineteenth century, while capitalism developed rapidly, and modern science, technology and culture changed with each passing day in the West, the progress in China, under the system of imperial autocracy, was extremely slow, and eventually, the natural course of the progress was blown off by external forces. It was the same situation in the field of ideology and culture. The rulers made huge effort to assume ideological control, but they were unable to halt the historical progress represented by the ideological trend of the Late Ming. They even failed to bring about the situation like that at the beginning of the Ming, when everyone spoke in the same voice. On the one hand, it was because the rulers, in order to win the support of the scholar-officials of the Han nationality, had no choice but to tolerate, more or less, those who did not oppose the Qing court directly. In the final analysis, though, after the surge of the Late Ming ideological trend, it was no longer so easy to keep people in ignorance. Take the textual scholarship of the Qianlong and Jiaqing reigns as an example. Even though it was, to a large extent, a refuge from high ideological pressure for the learned men, the spirit of rationality displayed in exclusively academic research was in fact a resistance against the arbitrary and ignorant forces in the convention of the study of classics. In the field of literature, the Tongcheng School, which was centered on the Cheng-Zhu Lixue and claimed to be the preserver of the Confucian canon, was disdained by many celebrities and scholars from its very beginning. Accordingly, literature in the Early Qing period, though at a low tide, still developed in the direction of Late Ming literature. By the Middle Qing, the concept of “natural sensibility” advocated by Yuan Mei, in many respects, carried forward the interest and spirit of Late Ming literature, and the novels,

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An Unofficial History of the Scholars and A Dream of Red Mansions,1 marked the new height of premodern Chinese literature; as for Gong Zizhen’s literary view, it further displayed the special features of moving closer to modernity. In the past, Gong Zizhen used to be discussed as a figure of “recent times” that began from the year of 1840, but Gong died in 1841, and his thoughts and compositions had little to do with the changes in Chinese society after the Opium War. From the Early to the Middle Qing, Chinese literature moved forward along its own route. After the Opium War broke out, the natural courses of Chinese politics, economy and culture went through radical changes under the tremendous impact from external forces, and literature also entered a state of dazzling sudden changes, which eventually led to the birth of the “May Fourth” New Literature. However, if one regards it as only a result of external influences, it was really not the fact. Liang Qichao noted, “The so-called New Scholars during the Guangxu reign all lived through a period of Gong worship. When they first got to read Works from the Stillness Shrine, they felt as if having been electrified; after a while, though, they began to abhor its superficiality.” (Introduction to the Academic Research of the Qing Dynasty) Evidently, Gong Zizhen’s interest and thinking, in essence, shared something in common with the ideological reform at the end of the Qing. Taken as a whole, the elements of reform in Chinese literature since the end of the Yuan, especially since the Middle and Late Ming, based in humanism and centered on the demand for the enhancement of individuality, had kept continuous growth in difficulty, notwithstanding having suffered many setbacks. Stimulated by Western culture, Chinese literature saw rapid expansion, and transformed because of its integration, on a large scale, of elements from Western culture. In the final analysis, though, its development has been, evidentially, on a continuous course, which had already come to the attention of thinkers of the “May Fourth” period. To facilitate our recounting, we shall discuss first the poetry and prose, and then the drama and fiction, of the Qing dynasty in two separate chapters. The outline of the background of the age in the above, however, was for the complete Qing literature.

1 For the title of the novel I have followed the rendition of Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang (1978–1980) as a tribute to the husband-and-wife team of translators.


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1. Poetry and Prose of the Early Qing Period Here the Early Qing period refers to the times from the entrance of the Manchu troops into the Shanhai Pass until the end of the Yongzheng reign (1644–1735). From the Late Ming to the Early Qing, history underwent extremely complex changes. There was not only the upheaval from the dynastic change, but it was mingled with violent racial conflicts, and simultaneously, there were also the contradictions between orthodox old-time culture and heretic tendencies. All such conflicts were interwoven at the time, and the educated were hereby faced with life’s dilemma, hard to cope with, as well as difficult choices. The poetry (including the song lyric) and prose of this stage, accordingly, also appeared to be quite varied and intricate. Qian Qianyi and Wu Weiye In the Early Qing poetic circles, Qian Qianyi and Wu Weiye were poets who had already enjoyed great fame at the end of the Ming, and continued to wield considerable influence after the beginning of the Qing. Along with Gong Dingzi, they were known as the “Three Masters East of the Yangtze.” In the various poetic schools in between the end of the Ming and the beginning of the Qing, they represented their respective different inclinations. At the end of the Ming, Qian Qianyi (1582–1664) served up to the position of Vice Minister of Rites, and he was also a leader of the Donglin Party, hence his considerable influence among the literati. On the other hand, he was hit many times by his political opponents and was once even thrown into prison. At the Southern Ming court he served as Minister of Rites, but later, being among the first to surrender to the Qing, he was disdained by the literati. Shortly afterwards, he resigned on the excuse of illness, and kept contact with anti-Qing forces, providing counsel for them. He struck one as always being in a dilemma, having continually gone through ups and downs in the political vortexes through his life. Qian Qianyi adopted a negative attitude toward the new ideological trend since the Middle Ming and the related literary reform. He believed that, because “the fallacies of learning for the last hundred years shaped the destiny of the world and infiltrated people’s mind,” it led to the consequence that “the writings of recent times degenerated

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incorrigibly, like a river bursting its banks with rotten fish lying all around.” (“Foreword to Selected Prose from the Hall of Reliance on the Ancients”) The way to rectify it was to “establish a scholarship that is conversant with the classics and draws inspiration from the ancients, so as to reject the vulgar studies.” (“A Letter in Reply to Xu Botiao of Shanyin”) In discussing poetry, he liked to flaunt the concept of “personality,” but also stressed the importance of “learning,” saying that “poetry and prose have their bud in the intelligent mind, get awakened in the destiny of the world, and thrive in learning,” imposing some restrictions on the representation of “personality.” (“Inscribed on Du Canglüe’s Criticism of his Own Poetry and Prose”) He was opposed to the narrow celebration of any one particular master or school, and argued that there was something nice in the poetry of the Tang, the Song, and also the Yuan dynasty, though he did show more penchant for Song poetry. The school of Qing poetry that honored the Song dynasty actually had started from Qian. Qian Qianyi’s life philosophy and his feeling were both complicated. In presenting an image of himself in his poetry, he found the proper posture through rational thinking. A remarkable special feature of his poetry is its combination of the exquisite diction and strict prosody of Tang poetry on the one hand, and the dialectic nature of Song poetry on the other. In “Seven Entries on Reading Qian Qianyi’s Works,” Xiao Shiwei praised Qian’s poetry as peerless in its “stability and sophistication,” which were to be found in both its expression of feeling and in its philological skills. Let us use as an illustration the first one of his series, “Ten Poems Composed En Route to Jingkou after Being Dismissed”:2 Wearing a battered hat and black robe I came out of the Forbidden City; Thanks to the generous imperial favor I’m permitted to return to farming. Going to the court along the “Dragon Tail” paved path: it’s like a dream; Safely lying under the “Ox Garment” made of hemp: for the rest of my life.

2 The complete title of the poem series is “In the Fifth Month of the Year of Yi Chou of the Tianqi Reign (1625), An Imperial Edict Was Issued for My Dismissal from Office and Return to the South, I Went Aboard the Boat by the Lu River, and It Took Me Two Months to Arrive in Jingkou; On the Road I Thought about the Imperial Favor and Was Inspired by the Events, and I Composed Ten Poems at Various Times.”


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Outside the door is the road for banished travelers leading to the horizon. Beside the bridge, in wind and snow, trots the crippled donkey. In the middle of the Han reign, it is an age of great prosperity: What’s the need for a “Song of Five ‘Alas’” to vent any grievance?

It really is worthy to be called implicit and considerate as all the complaints are registered in the tone of “singing the praise of His Majesty.” After surrendering to the Qing and then returning to his hometown again, Qian Qianyi wrote more poems expressing his emotions over the rise and fall of the nation. In particular, when Zheng Chenggong led his navy onto the Yangtze, many of his poems sharply vilified the Qing regime, showing excitement in his hope for the restoration of the former state. However, due to his inconsistency, such poems of his were denounced as pieces to whitewash himself, but Zhang Taiyan [Zhang Binglin] believed that they were “not entirely false-hearted.” (“Appendix” in A Book of Imposing Words) It was perhaps an effort to ransom himself spiritually to compose poems of this kind and to participate in the anti-Qing activities. The following is the fourth piece of his series, “Thirty Quatrains Composed at the Waterside Pavilion of the Ding Residence,”3 Outside the garden, willow catkins await for the evening tide; Across the stream, peach leaves line up the red bridge. I gaze at the setting sun: spring is like the waters. In front of the T-shaped curtain, there passed the Six Dynasties.

Along the Qinhuai River, the view looks the same, but all the grace and romance of the former dynasty have disappeared like a dream. It is profound in thought and implicit in touch. Qian Qianyi was highly accomplished in culture. His poetry is skilful at using allusions and colorful diction. These account for its great appeal to many Qing poets who attached importance to a refined taste. Wu Weiye (1609–1672) served as a courtier at the end of the Ming. After the downfall of the Ming, he was forced to render his service under the pressure of the Qing court, and was once appointed as an education official, but before long he resigned from office and returned

3

The complete title of the poem series is “In the Spring of the Bing Shen Year (1656) I Sought Medical Advice in Qinhuai, Lived at the Waterside Pavilion of the Ding Residence for Two Full Months, and Composed Thirty Quatrains Before Leaving.”

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south. Wu Weiye had no strong interest in an official career, and after the founding of the Qing regime he no longer took a part in political activities. To protect his family and clan he reluctantly came out to serve the Qing regime, which gave him great pressure under the traditional concept of “moral integrity,” so he felt utterly miserable. “In the floating life, all I owe to it is a death.” (“Thoughts while Passing by Huaiyin”) “It’s no easy matter to give up wife and kids like taking off my shoes. / Now I’m not even worth the price of a coin: what’s there to talk about?” (“Congratulation to the Bridegroom: Thoughts in Illness”) Such expressions are less about the feeling of shame and disgrace deep in his heart, or self-defense, than a portrayal of the individual’s uncontrollable grief over the vicissitudes of history. Unlike Qian Qianyi, Wu Weiye did not adopt a negative attitude in evaluating Ming poetry, especially those who advocated “return to the ancients,” and he modeled after Tang poetry in his own composition. In his late years, he wrote about romantic love in a fresh and beautiful style. Poems he wrote during the dynastic change using major historical events as background, like “Song of Yuanyuan,” “Song of Listening to the Lute Playing of Bian Yujing, the Taoist Priestess,” “Song of the Mandarin Duck Pond,” “Song of the Pipa,” “Song of an Old Prostitute from Linhuai,” “Song of the Palace of Everlasting Peace,” etc., enjoyed great reputation. These poems, known as representative of the “Wu Meicun Style,” are dominated by narratives with a strong touch of lyricism, and they are meticulous in using a rich vocabulary and in sound and prosody. As a poet, Wu Weiye showed more concern with the destiny of the individual in history. Take, for example, the famous “Song of Yuanyuan,” which tells the experience of complications and frustrations of Chen Yuanyuan, a renowned courtesan: In her former incarnation she must have been a lotus-picking girl, With the waters of the Transverse Pond in front of her door. With two oars, the boat went like flying across the Transverse Pond. Where did the mighty lord come, who abducted her on the boat? At that time, who could tell if it was not due to her tragic fate? At the moment, all she could do was to shed tears over her robe. The lord’s enormous power reached into the imperial palace Where no one cared much for her bright eyes and shiny teeth. Snatched from the Eternal Lane, she was returned to the mansion Where she learned new songs to sing before a house of guests. The guests drank from their goblets, on and on, until the red sun set; She played a sad song on strings, but to whom could she tell her grief?


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A white-complexioned marquis, youngest among the men, Picked up a twig of flowers, and looked back again and again. In the morning, he took the lovely bird out of the cage; When would be the time when they could cross the River of Silver? How hateful were those military orders hurrying up his departure! In misery he made a promise for the future which was so misleading. They made a pledge in deep love, but it was hard to meet again. Within a day, the bandits swarmed the capital of Chang’an like ants. How pitiful it was to the lovesick wife, that the willow by the tower Was mistaken for the powdery catkins on the horizon! They besieged big houses searching everywhere for the Green Pearl; They forced the Crimson Tree to get out of the carved balustrades.4 If the mighty warrior had not won a complete victory with his troops, How could they manage to retrieve the dainty-browed one on horseback. The dainty-browed girl was passed on galloping horses and presented, Her cloudy hair was still disheveled, and she was still agitated at heart. She was welcomed by him in the light of torches on the battlefield; The cosmetics wore out with her tears all over her face.

This section tells how Chen Yuanyuan is first purchased by Tian Wan, a member of the imperial clan, and presented to Emperor Chongzhen; later she is sent out of the palace, and Wu Sangui takes a fancy to her, so Tian gives her to Wu as his concubine. When Li Zicheng’s troops seize Beijing, Liu Zongmin, a senior military commander under Li, takes possession of her. Wu Sangui brings in the Qing army for a pincer attack on Li’s troops, and takes her back in his possession. Chen Yuanyuan seems to have become the key to a turn in history, but as a matter of fact, she has never taken any initiative, and is only moved around by destiny. The poem is implicit and elusive in wording when it comes to Wu Sangui’s conduct, showing ridicule as well as sympathy. “Everyone in the Imperial Troops wept bitterly in their white mourning clothes; / He alone was in a towering rage because of a pretty face;” “Wife and children were not supposed to get involved the big plans; / A hero became helpless when he became too affectionate. / The white skeletons of the entire family turned into dust and soil; / The red raiment of the beauty of the age illuminated history.” These lines reveal Wu Sangui’s tragedy. He is unable to endure the humiliation of seeing his beloved one taken by others, but thenceforth the price he pays is the destruction of his entire family, including his father. When

4 Both the Green Pearl and the Crimson Tree were names of legendary beauties in Chinese history.

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Wu Weiye composed this poem, Wu Sangui was still at the height of his powers, but the poet already implied that the latter would never be forgiven in the tradition of Chinese history and culture, and that once someone was trapped in the dilemma of history, it would be impossible for him to make a choice satisfactory for both sides and to escape from a tragic destiny. “Song of Yuanyuan” has a dreamlike flavor and is filled with all and sundry emotions; it holds great artistic appeal. Wu Weiye’s composition of long old-style songs has special features of its own. It was noted in Concise Catalogue of the Four Treasuries of Books: “In prosody it has its origin from the Four Talents, but it is stronger in its appeal and feeling. In narration it is close to Xiangshan [Bo Juyi], but it is greater in elegance and talent.” This is an accurate generalization. So far as the nature of this kind of poems by Wu Weiye is concerned, they are close to such narrative poems by Bo Juyi like “Song of the Everlasting Sorrow” and “Song of the Pipa,” but unlike Bo Juyi, he does not follow the chronological order of the event in his narration; instead he learns from the way of organization of the lyrical songs of the Four Talents of the Early Tang, and makes leaps and bounds, back and forth, within the poet’s mental associations. For instance, “Song of Yuanyuan” centers on the relationship between Chen Yuanyuan and Wu Sangui, but it also interweaves the story with the major events in Yuanyuan’s life and the author’s lament over the destiny of his protagonists, making the poem more dynamic and graceful. Wang Shizhen From the end of the Shunzhi reign to the middle years of the Kangxi reign, the dynastic succession was largely secured, and the Qing court’s policy of winning the support of the literati of the Han nationality gradually took effect. While the anti-Qing sentiment was far from being wiped out, the mentality in the society had already changed. The one who adapted himself to this kind of change and became the leading figure of a new generation of poetic circles was Wang Shizhen (1634–1711), known as the “Patriarch of Literature of the Age.” He won the degree of Metropolitan Graduate in the Shunzhi reign; subsequently he was in Emperor Kangxi’s favor, and was promoted all the way to the senior position of the Minister of Justice. Wang Shizhen was only ten years old when the Ming was subjugated, hence he had very little old grievance from history or emotional


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burden. As a scholar, he had to put his personal career in connection with the new regime, and that is the premise to an understanding of his poetic works. In the autumn of the fourteenth year of the Shunzhi reign, Wang Shizhen, who had already had his success in the provincial examinations two years before that and was about to attend the metropolitan examinations in the next year, set up a poetic society with some celebrated men of letters on the shore of the Daming Lake in Ji’nan, and composed his “Autumn Willows: Four Poems.” As soon as the series came out, it was widely circulated both north and south of the Yangtze, and the number of those who wrote in response in similar rhyme schemes reached several hundred, which indicated that it was not an ordinary lyrical piece, and that its connotations appealed to the heart of many men of letters. The first piece of the series is as follows: When autumn comes, where’s the most heartbreaking place? It’s the Baixia Gate, in west wind, and the setting sun. The image of spring swallows, hovering high and low, of another day, Has turned today into nothing but a thin veil of evening mist. Grief arises from the “Song of the Yellow Horse” on the road; Dream goes far to the “Village of the Crows’ Night” in Jiangnan. Listen not to the flute playing the “Three Movements” in the wind. It is, after all, hard to talk about the sorrow over the Jade Pass!

The “Autumn Willows” series has long been known as evasive and hard to understand, and there have been all kinds of speculations. But if we read it along with the extant poems in exchanges by others on the occasion, we know that, without any doubt, it was meant to express the grief over the end of the Ming rule. From the very beginning, the poem refers to “Baixia Gate” in Nanjing, the city that was the political center of two special times, when Zhu Yuanzhang founded the Ming regime and when the Southern Ming court came to its end; and it was a place of all the glory and pomp of the old days. Outside the Baixia Gate, in west wind and the setting sun, stand the withering willows in autumn; and the image of spring swallows flying around in memory has disappeared without a trace. It is an image of disillusionment. “Song of the Yellow Horse” was a melody the Tang musicians composed by Emperor Taizong’s commission after his conquest of Dou Jiande’s troops; it is a metaphor of the rise of the Ming. “Village of the Crows’ Night” in Kunshan is used here as a reminder of the fierce anti-Manchu struggles in Jiangnan at the beginning of the Qing. However, with all the allusions serving as its foil, the poem treats the

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grief over the downfall of the Ming as something in the past tense, or rather a historical grievance; the beautiful diction and elusive imagery also decrease the irritation to people’s mind from the sense of disillusionment. Wang Shizhen made herein a plea to extricate oneself from the grief over the end of the Ming rule, and it gradually came to be accepted by the scholar-officials. By the middle years of the Kangxi reign, it seeped deeper into their mentality, and a work like Peach Flower Fan was a product from the same background. So far as the artistic characteristics are concerned, Wang Shizhen’s “Autumn Willows” series avoids the use of poignant, acerbic language to express its sentimentality about life, but rather reveals it in an evasive and indistinct way through its beautiful imagery and gentle, harmonious sound and prosody; it may be sensed, but not to be pinned down. This already fit the poetic theory which he proposed later, the so-called concept of “spirit resonance.” When Wang Shizhen served in Yangzhou at the beginning of the Kangxi reign, he compiled an anthology of Tang regulated poems and quatrains entitled A Collection of Spirit Resonance, which is no longer extant; it was the beginning of his flaunting of the concept. In his late years, he compiled another anthology A Collection of the Samadhi of Tang Sages, wherein he again advanced the idea. For Tang poets, Wang disliked Du Fu, Bo Juyi and Luo Yin, and was partial to Wang Wei, Meng Haoran, and Wei Yingwu, and the selections in the above anthology were mostly the works of the latter group or the like. Judging from Wang’s introduction to the book, his poetic theory had its origin in Sikong Tu and Yan Yu, making the demand for poetry to have a lofty, subtle world of imagination and spontaneous charm and appeal, with a flavor beyond words. On the other hand, his concept of “spirit resonance” was not a simple repetition of previous poetic theories; it not only incorporated the attention to “prosody” of the Seven Masters, but also added a touch of the stress on “natural sensibility” of the Gong’an School. As Yang Shengwu pointed out, “Once the concept of ‘spirit resonance’ is formulated, the three arguments for ‘mode and style,’ ‘talent and manner,’ and ‘rules and regulations’ are all exemplified therein.” (“Inscription on the Tablet of Wang Shizhen’s Tomb”)5

5 The complete title is “Inscription on the Tablet Guarding the Passageway to the Tomb of Lord Wang, Grand Master for Assisting in Governance, Lecturer of the Classics Colloquium, Minister of Justice.”


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The aesthetic inclination of the concept of “spirit resonance” is embodied in some of Wang Shizhen’s famous quatrains, which express the feeling entirely through scenery description, with a vast world of imagination, as in “By the River”: Dreary and desolate is the evening in an autumn rain; Vast is the darkness that falls over the southern river. At times, there looms a boat sailing on its way Toward the misty horizon beyond waters and clouds.

The author preened himself on the poem, having once praised it as “words inspired at the moment; those who understand the taste beyond the regular tastes would be able to appreciate it.” (Sketches by the Ancestor of Fragrance) The poem does present a beautiful visual image, and some sense of solitude may be felt, though it is very elusive. Wang Shizhen was truly talented and enjoyed a superior status; after he proposed the concept of “spirit resonance,” it was extremely popular in the poetic circles of his times. However, some poets were opposed to it, and the best known among them was Zhao Zhixin, who was the husband of Wang’s niece. In his Notes on the Dragon, a work on poetics, Zhao criticized Wang’s poetry and poetics which may be summarized in three points. First, the concept of “spirit resonance” is too elusive and indistinct; second, Wang is too narrow-minded in his partiality for one school of poetry only; third, “there is no trace of human being in the poetry” of Wang’s. These critical observations are not without some ground. Zhu Yizun, Chen Weisong, and Nalan Xingde During the Yuan and Ming dynasties, because of the popularity of the individual aria, the song lyric was on the decline. However, to the Qing literati who were more reserved and of a more refined taste, the fresh but vulgar language style of the individual aria sounded improper, but the song lyric, as a special poetic form, was closer to daily life and true feelings than the shi poetry, though more “elegant” in comparison to the individual aria. This accounted for the “resurgence” of the song lyric in the Qing dynasty. The rise of the Qing song lyric was attributed to, more than anyone else, the promotion of Zhu Yizun and Chen Weisong. As Tan Xian noted, “When Xichang (Zhu Yizun) and Qinian (Chen Weisong) arose, the school of the song lyric of our dynasty

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was established.” (Song Lyrics within the Suitcase) On the other hand, so far as his outstanding talent is concerned, the peerless one would be Nalan Xingde, a young Manchu aristocrat, who made a fine story in the history of Chinese literature. Zhu Yizun (1629–1709) was born in the family of renowned officials in Zhejiang. For a long time he traveled widely working on the staff of local officials, and it was not until he was fifty years old that he took a special examination as a cotton-clad commoner and won the degree of Erudite Literatus. He was then appointed to serve at the Hanlin Academy; later he resigned from office and returned to his hometown, devoting all his time to writing. He was a scholar conversant with classics and history works, and also a famous poet, known in the company of Wang Shizhen as “Zhu in the South and Wang in the north.” After Qian Qianyi, Zhu and Zha Shenxing led the rise of the school of Qing poetry that modeled after the Song. His poetry stresses the importance of talent and vocabulary, and strives to achieve elegance and refinement. It was highly evaluated during the Qing, which had something to do with the trend of the time, the emphasis on learning. So far as the appeal and flavor of his poetry are concerned, it is no match for that of Wang Shizhen. In the field of the song lyric, Zhu was the founder of the “School of the Song Lyric of Western Zhejiang,” the most influential school of the genre in the Qing dynasty. For the song lyric, Zhu Yizun advocated taking the Southern Song as model, and he in particular admired the song lyricists of that age who observed strict prosody such as Jiang Kui and Zhang Yan. He observed, “When people talk about the song lyric, they always refer to the Northern Song, yet the genre did not reach the peak of its techniques until the Southern Song, and it was only by the end of the Song that it has explored all its variety. Jiang Yaozhang (Jiang Kui) was the most outstanding one among them.” (“Introduction” to An Omnibus of the Song Lyric) His song lyrics strictly observe prosodic rules, and their choice of diction is meticulous and refreshing. Some of the superb pieces present a pure and refined imaginary world and are exquisite in language, as his “Song of Immortal in Caves: Setting Out at Dawn from the Wu River”: The lake is clear, the moon is dim; All around there sounds the sideboard tapping of the fishermen. In an instant, gently moving through the waves is the scull, We’ve passed by the Rainbow Pavilion And then the Bridge of Quacking Ducks.


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By the end of the fences there burst into bloom Dots and dots of the morning-glory flowers. At this moment, I think, up the red towers, Those young men and women, How many still keep the lamplight on by the window? Take it easy. Just lie down and sleep. On the pillow I still hear the southern songs. Before the sound dies down, I’m having a dream, soon to be shattered, though I’ll have another. No matter what, this is better than Cracking a whip in rugged mountains, Listening to the jingling of the harness bells, And dashing into the fog on horseback.

It provides a detailed description of a boat sailing in early morning in the region of lakes and rivers in Jiangnan. All along the way, in the dim moonshine and over gentle waves, flowers blossom by fences, lamplights linger from up storied buildings, and the person in the boat is half awake and half asleep amid the singing of southern songs. There is a quiet and secluded ambience about everything. Some of Zhu Yizun’s song lyrics about love are said to have been composed for the younger sister of his wife; they are mostly implicit, gentle in tone, and deep in meditation, as in “Autumn at the Cassia Hall”: I recall things in the past While we cross the river. She droops her dark eyebrows low like the southern hills. We all sleep in the same boat, listening to the autumn rain; On small mats, under light quilts, we each feel the cold, apart.

A short lyric in a single tune, it has been recommended as a representative piece of Zhu’s song lyrics. It tells how, while the entire family is riding in the same boat, the lovers find it equally difficult to leave each other out of sight or to get close to each other. It offers a realistic depiction of the appalling dilemma: the distance between the two is only a matter of one foot in length, and yet they are worlds apart. Among song lyricists of the Qing, Zhu Yizun may be counted as first-rate in terms of his artistic consummation and refinement. However, his song lyrics do not provide a broad world of imagination, and they lack variety in style. While some of his pieces, either remembrances of the past or on history, do show some grim vigor, they are after all not among his major compositions.

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The so-called “School of the Song Lyric of Western Zhejiang” obtained the name from an anthology, Song Lyrics of Six Masters from Western Zhejiang, with Zhu as the leading author among them, compiled by Gong Xianglin, but the other five authors are not so remarkable. It was not until the Middle Qing period that the school saw another important song lyricist in Li E. Chen Weisong (1625–1682) was known for his talent early in youth, and was by nature a gallant man. At the end of the Ming he was a government student, and after the Qing rule began he traveled around; in his late years he won the special examination for Erudite Literatus, and was appointed to serve at the Hanlin Academy. Chen Weisong left behind about one thousand and eight hundred extant song lyrics, an extraordinary number among song lyricists of all times. They involve a broad range of topics that deal with all and sundry things. He followed in the tradition of Su [Shi] and Xin [Qiji] that wrote the song lyric in the style of the shi poetry, and those expressing his emotions about life and destiny or discussing past and present are most remarkable in holding some characteristics of their own. In style he obviously modeled after Xin Qiji, like in “Congratulations to the Bridegroom”:6 Holding my wine, I start singing wildly when, up in the sky in the sheet of glaze thousands of acres in area the moon is shining bright like waters. Down below the great river runs without end, passing so many jagged mountains and ruined forts. Who said that all the heroes had passed away! The moment I hear the zither playing I feel intoxicated; I hate the bright moon which just shines on me, now in such crabbed age. The sound of the night watch keeps coming from up the gate-tower. That year, on the same night, at that little plaza in Suzhou, there were countless

6

The complete title is “Congratulation to the Bridegroom: On the Mid-Autumn Day of the Year of Jia Chen (1664) I Was in Guangling (Yangzhou) and Had a Drink at Sun Baoren’s Hall of Irrigation, On Return I Composed the Song and Showed It to Ruanting (Wang Shizhen).”


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redwood clappers, golden-threaded robes, bright eyes, and shiny teeth. Laughing, I performed General Xie [Shang]’s “Dance of Myna,” even Cheng and Li were beneath my notice.7 But how would I know then that I would be so wretched today! The bright moon has no feeling; the one with the cicada-like hair is gone. So let me just return to the Five Lakes and keep a fishing pole in company. The only one who understands me is Master of Ruanting.

This piece was written in the third year of the Kangxi reign. At the time Wang Shizhen (Ruanting) was serving in Yangzhou, and Chen befriended him. In the song, the author sighed over the collapse of the Southern Ming court, expressed his recollection of the former nation and the grief and indignation of a heroic figure who failed to realize his ambition. The song is in a fervent and impassioned tone. In terms of the syntax of its lines, the song contains elements of prose, with a coherent thread of thoughts as well as clear-cut pauses and transitions in its rhythm, which carry forward precisely the characteristics of Xin Qiji’s song lyrics. Of Chen’s song lyrics, such pieces with a bleak but bold and uninhibited vigor hold the largest number, and quite a few of his short lyrics also have much kinetic energy, like “Happy Event in Near Future”: “After our departure, things in the world have totally changed. / Except me, who remains the same as before. / When we touch on the topic of heroes who failed in life, / Suddenly a cold wind arises.” In addition, just like Xin Qiji, Chen Weisong also composed a few song lyrics in the gentle and charming style. In his Remarks on the Song Lyric from the White Rain Studio Chen Tingzhuo criticized Chen Weisong’s song lyrics as “going all the way out, but without any lingering flavor.” That was because Chen was partial to the intrinsic, private style in the song lyric. As for the weaknesses of Chen’s song lyric, the first was that the imitation of Xin Qiji is too obvious therein; also Chen wrote too many and too fast, so it was only unavoidable that some of his works turn out to be rather crude and careless.

7 Both Cheng Bushi and Li Guang were celebrated military commanders of the Han Dynasty.

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At the time, a group of song lyricists whose style was close to Chen Weisong’s gathered around him, and they were known as the “Yangxian School” from the archaic name of Yixing, his hometown. In the Early Qing period, the song lyricist who had a unique style of his own was Nalan Xingde (1655–1685), a Manchu native under the Pure Yellow Banner,8 and the eldest son of Grand Secretary Mingzhu. Nalan Xingde fell under the type of genius with deep sensitivity and a brilliant, lively mind. Poets of this type tended to be short-lived. On the surface, as a young aristocrat, he led a peaceful life and suffered few setbacks except the death of his former wife and several trips to the frontiers on various missions. However, he was not happy with the life in between the residence of the Grand Secretary and the imperial palace, but felt unspeakably constrained instead. He would rather live the mundane, ordinary life of a commoner, because it would mean more freedom for him. “I’m an unruly wild guy / Who by chance / Got covered in the dust of the capital / In the elite residence of the Black Robes.” (“Song of Golden Threads: Presented to Liang Fen”). “I truly admire those born in the world of ordinary mortals / Who simply lead a befuddled life of drunkenness and dreams.” (“Song of Golden Threads: A Note to Liang Fen”) These lines disclosed what was in his mind. In “Dreamlike Lyric” it goes: In the ten thousand dome tents all get drunk; The twinkling stars look as if they were dropping. My dream went far across the Wolf River, And it was shattered by the sound of the river waters. Go to sleep again, Go to sleep again, As I know it’s so boring when one’s awake.

The feeling of life’s ennui is simply disheartening. Nalan was a man with deep affection, which led to some later assumption that Jia Baoyu in A Dream of Red Mansions was about him, perhaps due to the disposition and temperament revealed in his song lyrics. Many of his song lyrics about romantic love or in mourning 8

One of the eight administrative divisions, known as the “Eight Banners,” initiated by Nurhachi (1559–1626), the Manchu leader who unified the Manchu tribes and founded the state of the Later Jin. (After the establishment of the Qing Empire, Nurhachi was honored as Emperor Taizu of the Qing.)


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for his deceased wife are very moving, like in “Butterfly’s Fancy for Flowers”: For hardship, I have the most pity for the moon in the sky, only on one night is it round as a circle, while on all others it is a penannular white jade ring. If the bright wheel-like moon stays forever, I would ignore all the ice and snow to warm you up. We don’t have the bonds of the world which easily come to an end; only the swallows keep twittering while gently perching on the curtain-hooks. After I finish singing the “Graveyard in Autumn” I’m still in grief when I behold a pair of butterflies staying still in the groves.

Nalan’s song lyric is closest in style to Li Yu’s. It is so spontaneous, even in the more elegant places it never feels overcharged, and it always holds its appeal in its genuine feeling and deep understanding. For example, it is so spectacular in a natural way in the beginning of the above-cited “Dreamlike Lyric”: “In the ten thousand dome tents all get drunk; / The twinkling stars look as if they were dropping.” Take, for another outstanding example, the lines from “Flowers in the Hills.” Some visualize the feeling boredom and depression: “In the wind, I have no one in front to tell my grief, / So I just count the returning crows.” Some demonstrate a special understanding of “love”: “When one has too much love, it’s no longer as deep; / By then, one really regrets having had too much love.” Wang Guowei spoke very highly of Nalan, saying that he “used the eyes of Nature to look at things, and used the tongue of Nature to talk about love; it was because he entered the Central Plains for the first time, and he was not polluted by the bad habits of the Han people, so he could have such genuine vividness. After the Northern Song, he was the only one like that.” (Remarks on the Song Lyric from the Human World) The Variations of Prose After the beginning of the Qing rule, with the renewed strengthening of imperial culture, the tradition of “prose as the vehicle of the Way,” which used to exist in prose, resurged. To the Qing rulers, it represented a move from decline to rise, as noted in the Concise Catalogue of the Four Treasuries: “The genre of the classical prose turned shallow and hackneyed with the Seven Masters, frail and frivolous with the

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three Yuan brothers, and was in serious degeneration by the Tianqi and Chongzhen reigns. At the beginning of our dynasty, it began to return to purity in style, and scholars of the age once again talked about the rules and regulations established since the Tang and Song dynasties.” But judging from the values of literature’s representation of individuality and free expression, it was actually a sharp decline. On the other hand, the decline was not simple and straight. First, during this period some were still carrying forward the heretic ideas of the Late Ming, and Liao Yan (1644–1705) was the most notable example. His work, “On Human Nature,” made a stinging attack on the Cheng-Zhu Lixue. In On Miscellaneous Topics from the Mountain Lodge, he even made a declaration that lay an extreme emphasis on self, “In the world there is only one person, and that’s me; all others are my variations.” It might have something to do with Liao Yan’s inferior and unnoticeable status at the time (he was only one with the degree of Cultivated Talent from the region that is Shaoguan today), but it was also an evidence that it was impossible to completely block the progress of the Late Ming ideology, and the problem was only how it could find its representation. The composition of the Late Ming vignettes also continued, though there was a general inclination toward a more leisurely temperament. Some of the works of Zhang Dai, conventionally placed in the Ming but actually written in the Early Qing, represented precisely such an inclination. In addition, Li Yu’s Casual Expressions of Idle Feelings included many pieces, very close to the sketches of recent times in nature, that discussed ways to turn daily life into an art of enjoyment, many of which in a very original manner. For instance, the piece “Bok Choy” observes that the plant (Brassica chinensis), while quite ordinary, is nevertheless invaluable because of its great plenty and luxuriance, just like “the sovereign is light in weight while the people are priceless.” Such a kind of association is quite unusual and meaningful. The piece goes: Flowers planted in gardens are usually several to several tens in number, no more than several hundred and that are the end of it. Are there any among them that bloom all over the fields and the paths through them, and stretch as far as one’s eye can see? The answer is no. If the answer is negative, then the bok choy flower may be considered as the most luxuriant one. Once the vital force prompts it, ten thousand flowers blossom at the same time, all the green farmland and the white soil turn into a golden yellow with it. Isn’t that spectacular? During the season, call a few friends and take a walk through the sweet-scented fields. The aromatic


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breeze leads the winebibbers to look for the sign of a tavern; the colorful butterflies scramble for the road with tourists. The pleasure in the suburban farmland is ten times, even a hundred times, than that in the gardens, and its best season is when the bok choy is in bloom.

That kind of writing does not necessarily have any brilliant ideas, but aesthetically it is quite lively, and is more interesting as literature than the kind of affected high-flown argumentation. Those who held a canonical place in the literary circles were the classical prose writers who, as noted in the Concise Catalogue of the Four Treasuries, “once again talked about the rules and regulations established since the Tang and Song dynasties.” First there were Hou Fangyu, Wei Xi, and Wang Wan, the so-called “Three Masters” of the Early Qing; then there arose the Tongcheng School. The former represented the transformation in style from the Late Ming to the Early Qing, and the latter, the establishment of the format of classical prose that agreed with the will of the state. In reflecting the changing style in the transition from the Ming to the Qing, Hou Fangyu (1618–1654) was the most representative author. At the end of the Ming he was a young nobleman and celebrity active in the southeast region, so quite naturally he contracted in his conduct the habit of willful self-indulgence characteristic of the literati of his age. After the end of the Ming rule he returned to his hometown and changed the name of his study from Zayong Hall (“Hall of Mixing up with the Mediocre”) to Zhuanghui Hall (“Hall of Regret at Thirty Years of Age”), to manifest his desire to rectify his mistakes. It was also demonstrated in his changing attitude toward writing. As his sworn brother Xu Zuosu said in “Foreword to Prose Writings from the Zhuanghui Hall”: “Ten years ago, Mr. Hou wrote neat and florid pieces, but in recent times he roundly condemned his earlier writings, set himself the aim to model after Han [Yu], Liu [Zongyuan], Ou [-yang Xiu], Su [Xun, Shi, and Ce], Zeng [Gong], Wang [Anshi], and even Sima Qian, and he has tried very hard to achieve that.” Hou himself discussed the earlier writings he denounced, saying that they were overloaded with embellishment, “even when there were occasionally some pieces which abided by rules, they were only like colorful spring flowers, frail and ostentatious, which would wither and look pathetic in no time.” (“A Letter on Prose Writing to Ren Wanggu”) Judging from such description and from the literary fashion of the literature of celebrities in the southeast, his earlier writings were dominated by pieces in parallel prose, with an inclination to the ornate, and explicit in the

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expression of feeling. In his personality, Hou tried to change from arrogant willfulness to Confucian cultivation (see his “An Account of the Zhuanghui Hall”); in prose writing, he changed from writing something “like colorful spring flowers” to paying attention to “the rules and regulations established since the Tang and Song dynasties.” As a matter of fact, it was not simply because he became more serene and stable when he grew in age and lived through some upheavals, but rather due to his effort to adapt himself to the changing times and his attempt to find a new foothold in a new social environment. However, it would be very difficult to completely change one’s penchant in literature. Hou Fangyu’s prose writings from his latter period, indeed, moved closer to the tradition of “classical prose,” but they were still far from “having their origin in the Six Classics.” Wang Wan, who was equally reputed at the same time, criticized Hou for “writing classical prose in the style of fiction.” (“A Colophon to Wang Yuyi’s Posthumous Collection”) Wang served, at one time, as a Junior Compiler at the Hanlin Academy, and his “writing and conduct” once won Emperor Kangxi’s praise. He strived for elegance and correctness in his prose, which was well-organized and in plain language. The Three Masters of the Early Qing continued the tradition of the Tang and Song in treating prose as a vehicle for the Way, but they themselves were not accomplished enough to represent an age. With the stability of the rule of the Qing court and its more effective ideological control, Fang Bao rose to answer the demand of such a “golden age” by putting forward his theory of classical prose, coupled with his own practice in the form. It was a systematic theory which had its core in the Cheng-Zhu Lixue, considered the prose of pre-Qin and the two Han dynasties like Zuo Commentary and Historical Records, and works of the Eight Masters of the Tang and Song as the canon, aimed at rendering service to contemporary politics, and contained detailed instructions on the form and methodology of the form. As Fang Bao and those who continued his theoretical arguments, Liu Dakui and Yao Nai, were all natives of Tongcheng, Anhui, so they went by the name of the “Tongcheng School.” With Yao Nai’s efforts, the “Tongcheng School” turned into a nationwide school with the most lasting and widespread influence, which continued all the way to the Republican period. Fang Bao (1668–1749) became Metropolitan Graduate during the Kangxi reign. Involved in his fellow native Dai Mingshi’s case about the latter’s Collection from the Southern Hills he was imprisoned and


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also sentenced to be decapitated, but received a pardon and later even served as a senior courtier. In his “Foreword to the Prose Collection from Wangxi” his disciple Wang Zhaofu cited Fang’s own saying that he regarded as his life’s ambition “to follow in the heels of Cheng [Yi and Hao] and Zhu [Xi] in learning and conduct, and to stay between Han [Yu] and Ou [-yang Xiu] in writing.” This is an important saying for the understanding of his view on literature. There were many reasons why the Tongcheng School was able to exercise a lasting and profound influence, and an important one of them was that from its very beginning, the theory that Fang Bao put forward was characterized by being succinct and systematic. His method was to establish a theoretical system by providing a multilayered explication of a core concept, “substance and order.” The most basic definition of the so-called “substance and order” may be put very briefly, “Substance is what [The Book of ] Changes says, ‘Speech should have substance;’ order is what the Changes says, ‘Speech should be in order.’” (“Another Note Written after the ‘Biography of the Moneymakers’”) In other words, it simply means what one says should have substance and be in good order. If one tries to generalize the concept by integrating other writings from Fang, then “substance” primarily refers to the purpose, conclusion and criteria of writing, and “order” mainly refers to its overall arrangement, structure, and style. But what Fang Bao called “substance and order” are those of “classical prose.” “As for classical prose, it has its origin in the study of classics and depends upon the principles of things.” (“A Letter in Reply to Shen Qianju”) In other words, to talk about “substance and order,” one has to narrate and argue, in the first place, with a basis upon the purpose of the classics. This kind of classical prose has a historical system of its own, “Classical prose has come a long way. The Six Classics, The Analects, and [The Book of] Mencius were its origins. Among those who became later tributaries and acquired their essence, none was above Zuo Commentary and Historical Records. . . . Next would be Gongyang and Guliang Commentaries, . . . the histories and memorials of the two Han dynasties, and the prose from the Eight Masters of the Tang and Song.” (“Introduction to Selections of Classical Prose”) However, in Fang Bao’s view, even the Eight Masters of the Tang and Song had their inadequacies; for example, Liu Zongyuan and the Su father and sons were too weak in their learning of the study of classics, and Ouyang Xiu was also too superficial in that respect.” (See “A Letter in Reply to Shen Qianju”) Actually, Fang was simply taking over the

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banner of the “canon” of the Tang and Song classical prose, incorporating some of the views of the Lixue scholars of the Cheng-Zhu school, and making some rectification of the inadequacies of those who learned from the Eight Masters of the Tang and Song. Notwithstanding the distinction between “substance” and “order,” Fang Bao in general used the two together as a single integrated concept. Accordingly, when he talked about the specifics of prose writing, he also discussed “substance and order.” In that respect, substance and order would include structure and style as well. He was rather vague about structure, but gave detailed instructions in style, with its principle in “refinement and terseness.” To adhere to this principle, “one should not use sayings from Conversations, the embellished entertaining sayings of the Wei, Jin and the Six Dynasties, the stiff, weighty syntax from the Han rhapsodies, and the frivolous, crafty sayings from the history of the Northern and Southern Dynasties.” (Cited in Shen Tingfang’s “A Colophon to the Biography of Master Fang”) In short, in style classical prose should not be superficial, frivolous, and ornate, as it may lead to feelings that are not serious and solemn. In general Fang Bao replaced the previous concept of “writing and the Way” with that of “substance and order.” “Writing” and “Way” might be easily distinguished as two separate concepts, while “substance and order” are closely integrated as one. While “substance” and “order” have their respective connotations, order is generated from substance, and substance is manifested in order, so the two may be combined as one. At the same time, “substance and order” also include many feasible specifics about composition, so the concept may be easily accepted by the educated public. For this reason, Fang Bao’s set of theory, while unappreciated among contemporary renowned scholars and men of letters, gradually expanded its influence in the society. Of Fang Bao’s own prose writings, the biographies he wrote for others are most meticulously composed, since it is easiest to display “substance and order” in narrative pieces. A few of his travel notes are extremely stiff and dull. His “Miscellaneous Notes from Inside the Prison” should be counted as the most valuable piece of all his writings. It was from his personal experience, and the anxiety, fear, and indignation he felt at the time are as fresh as yesterday in there. It has kept a realistic and penetrative record of all and sundry horrifying and sorry sights in prison, and its argumentation is relatively free from pedantry, displaying the accomplishment of Fang Bao’s writing. On the other hand, it is not “classical prose” in the strict sense of the term, nor is it representative of Fang Bao’s prose writing in general.


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Liu Dakui (1698–1779) served in his late years at a local educational post. He became known through Fang Bao’s commendation of his prose writing, and he honored Fang as his teacher; in turn he was held in esteem by Yao Nai, so he served as a link between past and future in the formation of the “Tongcheng School.” His “Random Notes on Prose Writing” made further elucidations of Fang Bao’s theory. He moved one step further in exploring the issue of artistic forms of prose writing, and devoted his attention to its “spirit and vital force,” “sound and rhythm,” “words and sentences” as well as their interrelations.

2. Poetry and Prose of the Middle Qing Period The Middle Qing period was from the beginning of the Qianlong reign to the nineteenth year of the Daoguang reign (1736–1839). During the Qianlong reign, the historical cataclysm of the dynastic change from the Ming to the Qing was completely past history. As a legitimate link of Chinese history, the imperial Qing court had already been recognized as an indubitable fact. On the other hand, conflicts caused by social development, more fundamental in nature, once again provoked people’s thoughts in a simple and incisive manner. While this did not lead to a remarkable ideological trend like that in the Late Ming, the disgust over the phenomenon of how people had turned so slavish under the rule of the imperial autocracy and the dejection about the failure to develop individual creativity were represented in the literature of the Middle Qing in a lasting and profound way. Theories of “Sound and Prosody” and “Texture” During the Kangxi reign Wang Shizhen led the literary circles by advocating the concept of “spirit resonance.” By the Qianlong reign, that poetic theory was opposed by renowned authors like Shen Deqian, Weng Fanggang, and Yuan Mei who, however, each headed in a different direction. Shen Deqian did not win the degree of Metropolitan Graduate until he was sixty-seven years old, and then he served up to Grand Secretary and concurrently as Vice Minister of Rites. He won Emperor Qianlong’s trust and respect, so he primarily exerted his influence during the Qianlong reign. He wrote a book on poetics, Toddler Remarks on Poetry, and in order to expound his view he also compiled anthologies like The Origins of the Old Poems, Differentiation of Tang Poetry,

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Differentiation of Ming Poetry, and Differentiation of the Poetry of Our Dynasty (i.e., Differentiation of Qing Poetry). Shen Deqian’s poetic theory has generally been known as the concept of “sound and prosody.” Originally the expression “sound and prosody” originally referred to those of poetry and simultaneously also the sense of sublime and virile beauty represented by them. The theory had its origin in the Former and Later Seven Masters of the Ming, but with some variations. Accordingly, in the case of Ming poetry, Shen honored the Seven Masters but rejected the Gong’an and Jingling schools, and in the case of poetry in general, he celebrated the Tang and renounced the Song. On the other hand, Shen’s poetics had another most important and fundamental premise, which was the demand for a kind of “education by poetry” that was beneficial to the ruling order, and that met the requirement of being “gentle and kind.” In the very first section of Infantile Remarks on Poetry, he remarked, “The Way of Poetry may be used to cultivate personality, improve the interrelationship of things, appeal to divinities and ghosts, provide education for the nation, and deal with feudal lords; its use is as heavy as that.” There shows how he was completely different from those of the Ming dynasty who advocated a return to the past. While he also said that poetry “had its origin in personality,” he believed that it would “do harm to people’s mind” to “talk about the land of warmth and tenderness at every turn,” and poetry of this kind must be excluded. (See “Introduction to Differentiation of the Poetry of Our Dynasty) Hence, at the same time when one honored the Tang and paid attention to sound and prosody, one must also “hark back to the origin of the Feng and the Ya, only then would the Way of Poetry begin to hold its distinguished place.” (Toddler Remarks on Poetry) That was very close to the attitude of the classical prose writers of the Tongcheng School toward the works of the Eight Masters of the Tang and the Song. In short, the essence of Shen’s poetic theory is to have the concept of “poetry as means of education” of the Confucians of the Han as its basis, and to make use of the “sound and prosody” of Tang poetry, in an effort to create a poetic style that would both conform to the strict ideological control of the Qing regime and also help to improve the “atmosphere of the golden age” of the Kangxi and Qianlong reigns. Weng Fanggang (1733–1818), who served as Grand Secretary during the Qianlong reign, was known for putting forward the theory of “texture.” Being a scholar, he adopted a scholarly position in discussing


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poetry, saying that, “In learning, one must base upon textual research; in the composition of poetry, one must base upon texture.” (“Foreword to Collection of the Expression of Will”) The term texture referred to the structure of poetry itself as well as the organization in its composition. He believed that learning was the basis of poetry composition, “One should be conversant with classics, histories, and textual research, and then one’s poetry would become extremely mellow.” (“Foreword to Poetry of the Three Masters of Eastern Guangdong”) At the same time, he thought that in terms of its meticulously coherent thread of thought, Song poetry was better than Tang poetry; hence he maintained that one should model after Song poetry. In promoting a “mellow and correct” poetic style, he in fact shared common ground with Shen Deqian. Accordingly, the concepts of “sound and prosody” and “texture” represented, from different angles only, the poetic taste of the Qianlong reign with its center in the imperial palace. Yuan Mei and the School of Natural Sensibility Among the poetic circles of the Middle Qing period, the one that represented new changes was the School of Natural Sensibility led by Yuan Mei. It was not a poetic school in the strict sense of the expression, but only referred to a group of people whose views on poetics and style of their own poetry practice were close. In terms of actual achievements, besides Yuan Mei himself, Huang Jingren and Zhang Wentao were the most important among them. During the Qianlong reign another group was known as “Three Masters West of the Yangtze,” referring to Yuan Mei, Zhao Yi and Jiang Shiquan, so sometimes the latter two of this group were also classified as belonging to the above school. Zhao and Yuan did share much in common, but Jiang Shiquan, who took an interest in commending Confucian virtues, almost ran in exactly the opposite direction to the above-mentioned people. (Jiang was also a playwright, and his plays were characterized by that same interest.) In addition, Zheng Xie was also included in the school. After becoming a Metropolitan Graduate in 1739, Yuan Mei (1716– 1797) received an appointment in the Hanlin Academy, and later went out of the capital to serve at local posts, having been a District Magistrate for six years in Jiangnan. Subsequently, he resigned from office, and lived at the Accommodation Garden at the foothill of Mt. Xiaocang in Jiangning (Nanjing today). Yuan Mei was sensible in thinking, exceptionally talented, slick and sly in socializing, and dissolute in

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personal life. His social status was not so high, but he befriended many senior officials, wealthy merchants, and men of letters in the entire nation, and enjoyed enormous prestige at the time. What was remarkable about Yuan Mei, first of all, was that he reiterated, in many aspects, the anti-traditional thoughts of the Late Ming. Like Li Zhi, he affirmed the rationality of human desire and, starting from that standpoint, he launched a vigorous attack on hypocritical fake Daoxue (“Study of the Way”). In his prose piece, “On Moral Integrity,” he maintained that the rule of the Confucian Sage was to satisfy the human desire that was “fond of money and women,” and he also said, “When he of fake moral integrity arises, he will only sleep with his own wife on special occasions, then he is able to seize the wives of others and make the children of others orphans without any stricken conscience; he can eat just one cake for the whole day, then he is able to feed on people’s flesh and blood and reduce the salary of his clerks without a change of heart; he will close his door to all relatives and friends, lying down stiffly so that he does not have to avoid arousing suspicion, then he is able to secure his position and associate with his boss without any hesitation.” It tells how those who preen themselves on being ascetic not only have an axe to grind, but are often brutal and inhuman. Yuan Mei was equally adamant in opposing the blind worship of Confucian classics. In “Second Letter in Reply to Dingyu,” he suggested that the six classics, with the exception of The Book of Changes and The Analects, were “mostly questionable,” and the content of the six classics is not necessarily “all appropriate,” “all mellow,” and he even made use of Zhuangzi’s saying in his attack, “all six classics are dregs.” (“A Random Composition”) Zhang Xuecheng, the scholar, denounced Yuan, saying that he “dared to talk about the rights and wrongs of the six classics, finds fault with the sages and defy the laws.” (A Colophon to a Workshop Print of Poetic Remarks”) It actually showed how liberated Yuan was ideologically. Yuan Mei’s views on poetry have generally been known as the “concept of natural sensibility,” which mainly continued the concepts of the Gong’an School of the Late Ming like “doing nothing other than conveying the natural sensibility, and unlimited by any set pattern or style,” and also integrated observations from Yang Wanli of the Southern Song, to build up his own system of theory. Its main points are roughly as follows. It is emphasized that poetry is generated from feeling, “There is no poetry beyond character and feeling.” (“Thinking of


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Qian Yusha, Regional Earl, I Sent This in Mail to Tell Him about My Return to Hometown”) Furthermore, character and feeling are always, more specifically, those of an individual, so in composing poetry, one must strive for individuality. In poetry composition, “one should have all three of talent, learning, and intelligence, but talent has the top priority.” In summary, the three essentials are genuine feeling, individual character, and extraordinary talent. On the above premises, Yuan Mei also affirmed the necessity of learning from poets of the past and meticulous polish, and attached importance to the “polished wonder” of poetry. Compared with the Gong’an School, these ideas share something in common but are not as iconoclastic. Yuan Mei’s poetry has remarkable characteristics of its own, but is not worthy of being called that of a great master, and it has something to do with his life philosophy. With an acute intelligence he was able to drift with the tide of the society and to derive pleasure from amorous encounters. As he said in his “Self-Mockery”: “Once an official, I stopped serving to seek pleasure alone; / Under the pretext of not having a son, I turn into a philanderer. / I laugh at myself: what a fine talent who could do good to society / Is forced to accept Heaven’s assignment to be a poet.” It strikes us that he eased almost all his misery by himself. Accordingly, while his poetry is varied in form and style, it is not characterized by any dignified vigor or intense passion, but rather by novelty and ingenuity. Take, for example, his “Miscellaneous Poem on a Spring Day”: Around the Qingming festival, for days, it has rained steadily; We watch how it has left the trace of spring up to the magpie’s nest. The affectionate moon has sent me an invitation To meet with her atop apricot flowers by night.

The first two lines describe a scene of how spring starts in rain, and the next two, that of the quiet beauty of moonlight atop apricot flowers. The moon seems to be an animate object that invites the speaker to enjoy the scenery—this is used as an ingenious and lively link between the first and second half of the poem. For another example of ingenuity, “Mailed to Cong Niang” tells how he misses his favorite concubine while he is busy running about in his official career: Thinking about you on the sea, I was in the company of morning clouds; I galloped on horseback along the road to Handan: the sun had not yet set.

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chapter eighteen I was just about to give up all leisurely and carefree thoughts When I saw you again in the darkened eyebrows of distant mountains.

Yuan Mei’s poetry was well received in the society of his time, because its spirit of liberation and vivid imagination performed a function of relieving people’s mental pressure. Yuan Mei was also good at prose writing. He was disgusted with the general classical prose authors, who in his view cheated people by “the manifestation of the Way” at every turn, so his own compositions held their basic characteristics by open-minded views and genuine emotions, with very different tastes and interests from the Tongcheng School. Of them, the most outstanding piece was his “An Elegiac Address to My Younger Sister.” Suwen, Yuan’s younger sister, could not endure her husband’s maltreatment and fled back to her parents’ home, but she shortly died at a young age. The piece deplored her misery, expressing the author’s grief through remembrances of daily trifles in the past with great appeal in its truthfulness. In style the piece is close to Han Yu’s “A Funeral Oration for My Nephew,” which was excluded by Yao Nai in compiling his A Classified Anthology of Classical Prose. It demonstrated their different understanding of what “classical prose” was. Technically, “An Account of Accommodation Garden” is a fine work among Yuan Mei’s prose pieces. It runs smooth and spontaneous, without any trace of labor, and yet it is also full of vigor and strikes one as being tightly organized, displaying much of the author’s accomplishment and talent. Zhao Yi (1727–1814) once served at a military post in western Guizhou. He was a renowned historian, and his Notes on the Twenty-Two Histories and Research in Various Fields from Ridges between Fields won him public acclaim. In poetry he regarded the expression of individuality and originality as the highest criteria. His quatrain “On Poetry” says: Poems of Li and Du, passed on the lips of a myriad people, No longer feel as fresh and new today. Across the vast land, every age has its own geniuses Who’ll lead the poetic circles for hundreds of years.

Not only is the idea exceptional therein, the poem also shows its author’s proud and uncommon mentality. One of the characteristics of Zhao’s poetry is his inclination to make argumentation. Because of his quick and acute intelligence, and due to the fact that his arguments mostly expressed his own sentiments, it


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would not sound so dull. “Twenty-One Poems on Reading Histories” represent this special feature in a concentrated way. For instance, the eighth poem, a discussion of the story of “Guo Ju Buries His Son Alive” from the “Twenty-Four Cases of Filial Piety,” denounces the inhuman elements in old-time morality. The first two lines make a blunt opening by pointing out that evil things which appear to be good often arise due to the search for fame and reputation, “In a decadent age, fame and reputation are honored; / People’s conduct tend to be false and radical.” For another example, the seventh poem begins by telling the story about how Zheng Xuan, a great Confucian scholar and Hui Yuan, an eminent Buddhist monk, win the esteem, one after another, of “big robbers,” and then, by extension, it makes the argument that in an age of harsh laws and severe punishments, such a story may lead to an entirely different consequence, “If they had run into some vicious, crafty officials, / They would have been convicted as accomplices of bandits. / No matter whether you are a Confucian or a Buddhist, / The power of the officials get to be wielded first.” This will probably bring an understanding smile to the face of the reader. Huang Jingren (1749–1783) was a poor scholar who lived through much hardship. “During the sixty years of the Qianlong reign, he was ranked first by poetry critics.” (Bao Shichen: Four Methods of People Management) Huang began in an early age to travel widely looking for a means of livelihood, and failed in quite a few civil service examinations. Impoverished and sick all life, he died at the age of thirty-five only on the road to seek shelter from Bi Yuan, Governor of Shaanxi, because he had to flee from his debtors. The details of his life under straitened circumstances naturally make the important content of Huang Jingren’s poetry. The grief and misery of a poverty-stricken scholar are brought out in lines like “In my life, a myriad things have gone wrong. / Just when I was about to see a round moon, it vanished from my sight;” (“It Rained on the Evening of the Mid-Autumn Festival”) “All my family members are living in the sound of the wind; / We haven’t had our clothes made yet in the ninth month;” (“Autumn Thought at the Gate of the Capital”) “Grim looks the wicker gate on a night of wind and snow; / At this moment, having no son at all is better than having one.” (“Saying Farewell to My Old Mother”) However, it would be far from doing justice to Huang Jingren if he is to be considered in this respect only, as his poetry frequently also represents a celebration of human dignity and ensuing from it, a feeling of solitary pride. A typical example of that would be his “Song

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of Encircling the Tiger,” which depicts a performance of tiger-taming that he attended in Beijing. Through a description of the beast of prey which allows itself to be tramped upon, making all kinds of seemingly awesome postures which in fact only serve to “entertain people,” the poem expresses a deep grief about human nature being distorted when it yields to the pressure of external forces, with an underlying implication to demand the return of heroic personality. The famous “Random Thought” goes: Taoism and Buddhism, boundless and vague—I’ve failed in both; All I do know is to raise my cries about all the injustice alone at night. Like fleabane in wind, all my vigor to sing sadly is blown away; As willow catkins dropping on mud, I’ve been known as a fickle man. Nine out of ten people outside there are worthy of my glance of disdain; Of a hundred uses in the world I, a mere scholar, am of none. Don’t think of my poetry as bad omen due to the grief therein; Like birds in spring or insects in autumn I simply emit my own sounds.

Despite its low-spirited tone, the poem still displays the author’s pride, a high opinion of himself, and his persistence in finding his own voice in the human world, beneath which one may recognize his indomitable personality in the face of adversity and repeated setbacks. Poems of this kind reflected the resurgence and strengthening of individual consciousness in the literature during the Qianlong reign. Of Huang Jingren’s poetry, the heptasyllabic pieces best demonstrate his special features. Under heavy influence from Tang poetry in style, he was nevertheless quite original in conception. Respectively in different forms, his heptasyllabic old-style poems mostly model after Li Bo, especially those which describe dynamic and spectacular views and express strong, uninhibited emotions, “those who read them thought the banished immortal had returned to life.” (Hong Liangji, “A Biography of the Late Mr. Huang”) For instance, “Song of Tide Watching” describes the tidal waves of the Qiangtang River: “We just saw silvery mountains come rolling over the ground; / They already sent the crimson shore adrift beyond the sky. / Banging cliffs and slamming hillsides they howled in a myriad caves; / Heaven and earth rocked, the six tallies kept shaking.” His heptasyllabic regulated poems are vivid in imagery and subtle in the expression of feeling, with a flavor of Late Tang poetry, especially Li Shangyin’s poetry, such as his “Inspired by Recalling the Past,” “A Thought of Love,” etc. Some reveals the feeling of loneliness, “I stand alone at the town bridge; no one knows who I


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am; / I watch a star for a long time, as if it were the moon.” (“A Random Composition on the Last Evening of the Year of Gui Si (1833)”) Some bespeaks the misery of the yearning for the beloved, “Stars like these are unlike those of last night; / For whom am I standing in wind and dews at midnight?” (“A Thought of Love”) All manage to bring out the melancholy in the author’s heart in polished language, appealing and unforgettable. Zhang Wentao (1764–1814) had great admiration for Yuan Mei, and shared with him exactly the same view in discussing poetry: “If a poem does not have oneself in it, it had better been deleted;” (“Eight Poems on Writing”) “Poetry is good only when it gets close to human nature.” (“Twelve Quatrains on Poetry”) His own poems express his own feeling with a spirit of freedom and liberation. For example, classical Chinese poetry rarely, if ever, provided any direct portrayal of the intimate feeling between husband and wife, but Zhang Wentao did not consider that to be a topic of taboo at all. In “Inside the Carriage at the Speckled Bamboo Pond” it goes: Red flowers cluster on the plum tree which shows the splendor of spring; The myriad stems of speckled bamboos in a grove all look so fresh and new. The beauty of the lady in the carriage catches the eye of village women; From my writing brush, in neat ink, arise bright flowers in my intoxication. The biographies of Lixue thinkers are not to include someone like me; Fine is the poetry of Fragrant Toilet Case, with me to carry on the trend. As long as she is with me like the legendary flute-playing fairy couple, I don’t mind tread on the gentle and soft dust year after year.

He was at ease in showing off his wife’s beauty and expressing his love for her, and also disclosed his disdain for self-conceited Lixue thinkers from the stand of a poet of “Fragrant Toilet Case” which had always been held in contempt, assuming a posture in resistance to the cultural convention of contemporary society. In the art of language, Zhang Wentao’s poems are mostly refreshing, easy to understand, dynamic, and lively, in pursuit of the ideal as phrased in the line, “Spontaneity arises from continuous refinement.” (“Twelve Quatrains on Poetry”) His scenery-describing short poems are in particular outstanding, as in “Inscribed on the Wall while Passing by Anju En Route to Chengdu”:

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chapter eighteen Bamboos stand in wind over range and range of rolling hills; I keep yelling to a house across the waters, but hear no answer. The reflection of the setting sun glimmers on the breaking ripples; Nets are taken in on little boats where fish hawks bask in the sun.

Li E and Zhang Huiyan Li E (1692–1752) was an heir to Zhu Yizun in both the shi poetry and the song lyric. From a family of scanty means, he was by nature unsocial and upright and just loved reading. He compiled Chronicles of Song Poetry, which increased the influence of the school that celebrated Song poetry. His poetry has distinctive features of modeling after Song poetry, such as its partiality for unfamiliar allusions and stories and its profound implications. Some short regulated poems reflect his unsociable personality in a transcendent sense of serenity and seclusion, as in “Cold Spring Pavilion”: Numerous mountain peaks gather at the pavilion; The sound of the fountain arises from the lush greenery. In the stillness I hear the Sanskrit chanting in the distance; Standing alone, I feel enlightened in the clear light. When the leaves fall, the remaining monks sit in meditation; It’s cold in the mountains; very few birds are flying back. Beyond the pines, the moon rises rather late and Shines on the monk robes on my behalf.

The influence of the song lyric of the Zhejiang School continued from the Early to the Middle Qing, and Li E, subsequent to Zhu Yizun, became a pillar of the school. In discussing the song lyric, he borrowed the theory of painting by classifying Xin Qiji, Liu Kezhuang and their group as the Northern Sect, Zhou Bangyan, Jiang Kui and their group as the Southern Sect, saying that just as in painting, the Southern Sect is more accomplished than the Northern Sect. In terms of style, it means that the graceful and subtle is better than the impassioned and unconstrained. Of his own song lyrics, most are accounts of sightseeing, scenery description, and on tangible objects, which are refined in both prosody and diction. Unlike that of Zhu Yizun, Li E’s song lyric is permeated with an unsociable disposition. When that sort of feeling finds its outlet, it may be enhanced into a kind of self-assurance, providing the text with an unusual vigor. Take, for example, “Pleasure All under Heaven: Watching the View Across the River after the Snow Clears Up from Mt. Wushan”:


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My slim bamboo stick seems to be calling me: Let’s go climbing! The river looks calm; snow has stopped, the wind is light. Towers and terraces are wet with the powdery snow; The city walls stand in freezing cold; No red flowers in spring are visible in the breeze. Indistinct are the high peaks in the south Half frozen beneath the clouds, Half covered up in sands and grasses. Could anyone ask the gulls If there is any boat from the ancient Jin age today? Several times I’ve tried to ease my distress By what I could recall of The few laughing sayings of my old friends. In aching loneliness, From morning till dusk, I’ve been chanting, to the irritation of plum flowers. Pick a flower, put it on my cap, And howl aloud in the air To the highest mountain peak. The setting sun suddenly emerges, Darting its beams, like jade dragons, all the way to the horizon.

After Li E, the song lyric of the Zhejiang School continued some of its influence, but with much less prestige. During the Jiaqing reign, the newly rising school of the song lyric was the “Changzhou School” represented by Zhang Huiyan (1761–1802). A scholar of the study of classics, he was also renowned for his song lyric and prose. Selected Song Lyrics, which he compiled, reflected his view on the genre. Ever since its birth, the song lyric had been a special poetic form that was partial to the expression of personal feeling in daily life. Judging from the orthodox view on literature, it was the so-called “leftover in poetry,” a somewhat inferior literary kind. However, precisely because of that, the song lyric was less restrained by the orthodox view on literature, and retained more freedom in its expression of feeling. Zhang Huiyan wanted to raise the status of the song lyric, and there was nothing wrong with that. However, he did not adopt the stand to stress the characteristics of the song lyric in its expression of feeling and artfulness, but rather suggested, as in the Foreword to his Selected Song Lyrics, that the canonical form of the song lyric was one that was similar to The Book of Songs, The Songs of the South, and the rhapsodies, a form that used the method of comparison and associated image to express “the innermost feeling of grief and indignation of the sages and gentlemen who were unable to talk about it themselves, so it had

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to be voiced in an implicit and roundabout manner,” a “profound, beautiful, and all-inclusive” form that devoted attention to language and style. Actually, he provided an explication of the tradition of the song lyric through distortion, so as to make it fall in step with the Confucian criteria for literature. Selected Song Lyrics selected the works of a total of forty-four Tang and Song lyricists, and those who were particularly commended in the Foreword included, from the Tang, Wen Tingyun, and from the Song, Zhang Xian, Su Shi, Qin Guan, Zhou Bangyan, Xin Qiji, Jiang Kui, Wang Yisun, and Zhang Yan. At first sight it is not easy to find any common ground among those on the list, but Zhang had an explanation for it. The one who won his greatest admiration was Wen Tingyun, and the reason was that, in his view, all the diction and vocabulary of “beautiful women and fragrant plants” in Wen’s lyrics were meant as comparison and associated image, with profound and subtle moral implications. (It was actually the method of the school of Contemporary Study of Classics.) The eight lyricists of the Song, on the other hand, were not without their weaknesses, as they “could not avoid letting out some indulgent and unconventional words in an impulsive moment in their texts.” Therefore, while he did include Su and Xin, he mainly selected only those implicit and subtle pieces of the two. This kind of theory of the song lyric, which smacked of the study of classics, actually favored an even more narrow-minded approach than the Zhejiang School, and it advocated a more reserved and obscure manner in the expression of feeling. After Zhang Huiyan, Zhou Ji (1781–1839) further developed his theory for the song lyric, and suggested, in unequivocal terms, that “just like the shi poetry, which has its history, the song lyric also has a history, so it may well stake out its own course.” (Miscellaneous Writings on the Song Lyric from the Jiecun Studio) He stressed therein the status of the song lyric as an independent literary genre. For that reason, the arguments of Zhang and Zhou were also known as the “Movement to Honor the Form” in the history of the song lyric. However, it did not bring about any tangible results in the development of the composition of the song lyric. Among lyricists of the Changzhou School, Zhang Huiyan’s own lyrics had some strength in their plain, succinct language and implicit expression of feeling in minute details, but they were obscure and hard to understand in meaning. Also, he was fond of using the content of “thoughts in spring” or the like to make “comparison and associate image for unspoken implication;” when several of such lyrics are placed together, repetition arises. Perhaps because of


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this, Zhang did not write many lyrics. As for the other authors of the school, they were even less noteworthy. Wang Zhong and the Parallel Prose The Qing dynasty was an age when all kinds of literary forms flourished, including the parallel prose. It could be dated back to the Late Ming period, when those of the Restoration Society already promoted the parallel prose. After the beginning of the Qing rule, due to the general inclination towards elegance and refinement in the cultural trend, it was easier for the parallel prose to receive support. Famous writers of parallel prose of the early Qing, Chen Weisong, Mao Qiling, and others, were in fact those who carried on the trend of the Late Ming down to the Qing times. In the years between the Yongzheng and the Qianlong reign, Hu Tianyou became the connecting link between his predecessors and the next generation, and he was praised by his contemporaries as “outshining Xu [Ling] and Yu [Xin] in parallel prose.” (Qi Zhaonan: “Foreword to Collection from the Stone Container Mountain Lodge”) By the years between the Qianlong and the Jiaqing reign, parallel prose became even more popular. The popularity of the parallel prose in the Qianlong and Jiaqing reigns savored of a confrontation against the classical prose of the Tongcheng School. Famous scholars and men of letters of the time, such as Qian Daxin, Yuan Mei, Zhang Xuecheng, and Ruan Yuan, all denounced the Tongcheng School from their respective standpoint. Among them, Ruan Yuan set forth his views based on the concept of “wen (‘writing with a pattern’) and bi (‘simple writing’)” of the Six Dynasties. He gave his approval of Xiao Tong’s opinion that compositions generated from “deep meditation and literary embellishment” should be considered as “writing with a pattern,” whereas works of classics, histories, and the thinkers should not, and considered the parallel prose to be the canon of prose writing. (See his “A Colophon to the Foreword to Selections of Refined Literature by the Crown Prince Zhaoming of the Liang”) Li Zhaoluo compiled a large-scale Selections of Parallel Prose, which contained more than seven hundred pieces from the Qin to the Sui, actually including many pieces in non-parallel prose, with the intention of “combining the parallel and non-parallel into one, from my worry that those who engage themselves in the composition of classical prose only know to model after the Tang and Song, but do not know to model after the two Han dynasties.” (See Li’s

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biography in the Manuscript of the History of the Qing) Another purpose of his was to compete with the Classified Anthology of Classical Prose compiled by Yao Nai. The anthology compiled by Wu Zi, Selected Parallel Prose from Eight Masters of Our Dynasty, contained the works of eight contemporaries, Yuan Mei, Shao Qitao, Liu Xingwei, Wu Xiqi, Sun Xingyan, Hong Liangji, Zeng Yu, and Kong Guangsen, known as the “Eight Masters of Parallel Prose.” On the other hand, Wang Zhong should be counted as the most accomplished author in practice. Wang Zhong (1744–1794) led a life somewhat similar to that of his friend Huang Jingren. “In childhood he suffered from being an orphan. When he grew up, he suffered from going all around for livelihood. In late years, he suffered from sickness.” (Wang Xisun: A Chronological Life of Master Wang Rongfu) Unsociable and upright by nature, he was inordinately proud of his talent and considered a crazy man by others. He disliked the study of the Confucian scholars of the Song, and often condemned old-time ethical code and conventional thinking. For instance, in the chapter “On Omens” in the Liezi, there is a story about how the “Robber of Hufu” runs into Yuan Jingmu on the road, who is about to die from hunger, so the robber saves him by feeding him with food. When Yuan wakes up, he adheres to the principle of righteousness of not eating food from a robber, and eventually he dies from hunger. Originally the story set its foothold on moral preaching, but Wang Zhong, in a reversal, composed his “In Praise of the Robber of Hufu,” singing the praise of the good virtue of the Robber of Hufu for saving others. In his view, the food from the robber is what he acquires by risking the death penalty, and it is due to the “arousal of his inner compassion” that he uses it to help someone else without expecting anything in return, so it is particularly invaluable. He remarked emotionally, “Alas! Who has as much benevolence as the robber!” It not only arises from his personal life experience, but really reflects the author’s deep thinking of issues on human nature and ethics. Wang Zhong’s parallel prose pieces, “A Response about Guangling,” “Lament for the Salt Boats,” “An Account of Myself,” etc., have all been highly acclaimed. In particular, “Preface to the ‘Elegy for Ma Shouzhen Composed While Passing by the Site of the Former Southern Garden’” is beautiful in style and extremely moving: It was in the year of Gui Mao (1783) when I lived in the southern part of the city of Jiangning as a visitor. On the way in and out of my resi-


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dence I passed by the Reflection Temple, to the east of which there was a deserted garden. A crystal clear cold stream ran through it; in autumn cabbages were all over the field. All the buildings were gone, only an ageold cypress tree stood, half-alive, in the wind and mist, and several rocks, in strange shapes, scattered among grasses. It was the site of the former residence of Ma Shouzhen, a courtesan of the Southern Garden of the Ming dynasty. Like the waters in the Qinhuai River which flowed past, little was left of the vestige of her existence, though her name was still known. Many among those with memories of the past were still able to recall her beauty and accomplishments. I once saw some of her paintings of cluster of orchids or slim bamboos, looking gentle and frail, but there was a lithe grace beyond the ink strokes. I always admire her talent and regret that I did not get to meet with her. To have sought a living in the entertainment business, and to have grown up in the house of joy, life was really difficult for her. How could she be blamed for not holding her chastity in death? The coquettish smile on her face when she stood by the door and the pleasure she provided during the act of love were presumably because she had no choice. In the past, there were the grief-stricken [Ban] Jieyu and the indignant [Cai] Wenji; compared to them her fate was even more dreadful. Alas! Heaven endowed such talent in a woman, but she could not expect to live a long life of a hundred years and travel for thousands of miles. How could she be granted such beauty, and then humiliated and destroyed in such extreme! I, an orphan from a humble and poor family, am unable to make a living with the little scrap of land and tiny house in my possession. The lives of young and old depend on my ten fingers. Ever since I started serving with my writing brush, I have changed several masters. Superior and subordinate are different in interests; the latter has no joy or sorrow of his own, and can only follow those of the former. I am either like Mi Heng, who was able to get into Huang Zu’s mind, or Chen Lin, who was used as an arrow on Yuan Shao’s bowstring. When I consider all this in quiet meditation, how is my destiny any different from that lady? I have the good fortune of enjoying two of the three pleasures, as Rong Ruqi said, of being born as a man, so I have been exempted from suffering the humiliation in bed. The song heard from the river arouses the sympathy of one who suffers from the same illness; the autumn wind and the chirping of birds bring sadness to those who hear them. When one thinks about all the heartbreaking events in life, I do not mind comparing myself to her, though of different status.

It is difficult for poor and humble people to preserve the dignity of their personality. Even if they have talent and intelligence, they are unable to avoid being humiliated and insulted in society, therefore “life was really difficult”—this kind of first-hand personal experience accounts for the author’s treatment of Ma Shouzhen (alias Ma

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Xianglan), a courtesan who was considered to be of lowly social status, as a fellow sufferer. When he mourns for her, he is also mourning for himself. There is a profound understanding and a humanist spirit in the piece, which is different, in terms of the background in time, from Bo Juyi’s lamentation, “We are both down and out in the world, at a far corner of the earth.” Alternating between parallel and non-parallel lines, it unfolds in an unhurried tempo and in a roundabout, subtle manner. It is indeed an unusual piece of belletristic work. Yao Nai The Tongcheng School, notwithstanding being attacked on various fronts, did not find its foundation for existence undermined. Due to Yao Nai’s promotion, it even extended its influence and became a nationwide camp. After becoming a Metropolitan Graduate Yao Nai (1731–1815) served in the Ministry of Justice and the Office of the Four Treasuries of Books. Later he resigned from office, and was in charge of private academies in Jiangning, Yangzhou, and other places, one after another, for four decades. Yao’s theory of classical prose was formulated from a systematic summation and also some revision, in adaptation to the circumstances of the time, of the concepts and ideas of his predecessors. There are three major points in the theory. Firstly, Yao Nai suggests that there are three aspects in the field of learning, namely principle, research, and writing, and “only by practicing all of them would it become good enough.” (“A Letter in Reply to Qin Xiaoxian”) In the case of “classical prose,” “principle” refers to correct thinking and reasoning, which is of paramount importance, “research” refers to the knowledge needed for composition and also the ability to make fine judgment, and “writing” refers to literary talent. These three elements must be combined in an appropriate way. Secondly, he sums up the artistic style of writing in two opposite categories of “virility of the yang” and “gentleness of the yin.” Compared to the concept of Western aesthetics, “virility of the yang” is close to the “sublime,” while “gentleness of the yin” is close to “the beautiful.” He also points out that in combination to different extent, virility of the yang and gentleness of the yin may generate all kinds of variations; they may have their respective strength, but one should


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not go to the extreme of either one pole. His arguments in this respect involve issues of the aesthetics of art with universal significance, and his induction is quite concise and succinct. Thirdly, he has expanded Liu Dakui’s concept of the four elements of writing into eight, “namely, spirit, texture, vital force, flavor, form, rules, sound, and color.” The first four of these are regarded as “the fine elements of writing,” and the next four “the crude elements of writing.” However, one has to represent and grasp the first four, all abstractions, through the next four, all concrete specifics, and once one gets to comprehend the first four, one needs to free oneself from the restrictions of the next four, and thereby finds one’s entrance into the sphere of “mastering the fine elements and leaving behind the crude ones.” (“Introduction and Contents of A Classified Anthology of Classical Prose”) Compared to that of his predecessors of the Tongcheng School, Yao Nai’s literary theory is characterized, first of all, by its greater attention, under the premises of having the Lixue at its core, to the beauty of writing, its pursuit of the ideal of “the Way and the art coming together.” Next, it is clear and easy to understand and, in addition, it has proven to be extremely practicable. A Classified Anthology of Classical Prose, compiled by Yao Nai, is clear in format, judicious in selection, and has attached commentaries, making it easy for the reader to get the main ideas of the theory of classical prose of the Tongcheng School. The book was widely circulated in the country, which helped to greatly enhance the prestige of the Tongcheng School. Some scholars looked down on the Tongcheng School, and one of their reasons was because of its platitudes, but platitudes of this kind were precisely an important talisman of the Tongcheng School to win widespread support. Yao Nai’s prose compositions are usually dominated by argumentation and reasoning, and mostly pedantic, but among those about people or scenery there are occasionally some lively pieces. Unlike those of Fang Bao, which sound stiff in seeking solemnity and terseness, Yao Nai’s travel notes devote more attention to literary grace. The following is the section about the watch of sunrise in his “An Account of the Ascendance of Mt. Taishan”: On the day of Wu Shen, the last day of the month, at the fifth beat of the night watch, I sat in the Sun View Pavilion with Ziyin, waiting for sunrise. A big wind arose, sending the accumulated snow up to smack our faces. Clouds swirled east of the pavilion, extending all the way to

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chapter eighteen our feet. In a short while, there loomed tens of white spots, in the shape of circular cones, standing in the clouds, which turned out to be mountain peaks. Above the horizon there hovered a cloud in a different color which, momentarily, turned polychrome. Then the sun rose, bright red like cinnabar, with some flickering red light holding it from beneath, and some said, “This is the Eastern Sea.” I turned around to look at the mountain peaks west of the pavilion. Some were in the sunshine and some not; they were in different colors, some in deep red and some in white. They all looked like hunchbacks.

Yao Nai was in charge of private academies for forty years, and he had a large number of disciples who made a great impact on increasing the influence of the Tongcheng School. Among them, Guan Tong, Mei Zengliang, Fang Dongshu, and Yao Ying were known as the “Four Major Disciples.” Six Records of a Floating Life Among works of prose of the Middle Qing, Six Records of a Floating Life was rather remarkable. Its author, Shen Fu (1763–?), was a native of Suzhou, Jiangsu. He made a living by serving on the staff of local officials or in business, and was not known for writing. His Six Records of a Floating Life was a work of autobiographical nature. Originally it had six chapters, but only four are extant today. It depicts life at home and as a traveler. The first three chapters, “The Joy of the Wedding Chamber,” “The Pleasures of Leisure,” and “The Sorrows of Misfortune,” tell the affection between the author and his wife Chen Yun, and about their daily trifles. They also give an account of the miserable experience of the two of them, husband and wife, of how they are forced to leave their home because they have lost the favor of his parents, how they suffer from poverty and illness, and how Chen Yun dies in dejection. One thing peculiar about Six Records of a Floating Life is its narration of the facts in meticulous details, which unequivocally point out that it was his father’s insensitivity and rudeness, and his younger brother’s selfishness and loose conduct, that led to the straitened circumstances of the couple, and also to Chen Yun’s tragic death, still in her youth. One may have a deep understanding of the dreadfulness of the disaster caused by the patriarch’s authority in the family of the old times. The author always uses respectful and cautious expressions in his description, but because of his tender devotion to his wife, he is not


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afraid to expose the faults of his parents or to air in public the dirty linen in his family, which does not observe “the way of filial piety” at all. Contents of this kind made the book a forerunner of works of the New Literature that exposed the horror of the family in premodern society. In style Six Records of a Floating Life does not care about embellishment, nor does it devote much attention to organization and structure, but it is natural, crystal clear, and sincere, with great emotional appeal. In addition, as Chen Yinke remarked, this kind of writing which portrayed “the affectionate intimacy inside the wedding chamber and the trifles about daily necessities of ‘fuel, rice, oil, and salt’” was “exceptional composition” at the time. (Manuscript of My Research on the Poetry of Yuan Zhen and Bo Juyi) A little book by an obscure author, it nevertheless did not sink into oblivion; instead it has won increasing popularity since the “May Fourth” movement, exactly because it overcame the scruples about the proprieties of ethics, representing a tendency in prose writing to find an in-depth expression of genuine human nature and true human feeling. The following is a passage that depicts a trivial event of how the couple finds an excuse to sneak out for a sightseeing trip: Qian Shizhu of Wujiang passed away, and my father wrote a letter back with the order for me to go to the funeral. Yun said to me in private, “If you go to Wujiang, you’ll have to cross Lake Taihu. I’d like to keep you company for an eye-opening trip.” I said, “I was just thinking how lonely I’d be on the trip. It’d be great to have you in company, but there is no excuse for that.” Yun said, “Just say that I want to make a visit to my home. You go on the boat first, and I’ll be there after you.” I said, “If so, on our way back we’ll moor the boat by the Bridge of Ten Thousand Years. You and I will wait for the moon to rise and enjoy the cool, to continue our romance at the Pavilion of Blue Waves.” It was the eighteenth day of the sixth lunar month. In the cool of the morning I took a servant along and went first to the dock at the Xu River, got on a boat and waited. Yun indeed arrived being carried in a sedan chair. The boat was untied, and we went out of the Bridge of Roaring Tiger. Gradually we saw sailboats in the wind and birds on the sandy shore; the water and the sky were of the same color. Yun said, “So this is Lake Taihu. Today I got to see how big the world is, and I have not lived in vain! I guess there are women who have lived their entire lives without having seen anything like this.” We haven’t chatted for long before we arrived at the town of Wujiang where the willows on the shore waved in the wind. I went ashore to the funeral. When I returned after I finished the ceremony, the boat was empty. I asked the boatman in anxiety, who said

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chapter eighteen pointing in the direction: “Don’t you see someone watching cormorants catching fish in the shade of the willows by the long bridge?” It turned out that Yun had already gone ashore with the daughter of the boatman. I went to stand right behind Yun, who was perspiring while she leaned on the girl in a trance. I tapped her shoulder and said, “Your robe is soaked with sweat!” Yun turned around and said, “I’m afraid someone from the Qian family might come to the boat, so I try to avoid that. How come you’re back so soon?” I laughed and said, “I’m here to catch someone who escaped!” So we got on the boat hand in hand, and made it back to the Bridge of Ten Thousand Years, when the sun had not yet set. We let down all eight windows on the boat. A refreshing wind blew softly. Using our round silk fans and slipping on our silk robes, we cut open and ate some watermelons to relieve the heat. In a short while, the bridge turned red in the evening glow, and the willows grew dark in the mist, the moon was about to rise, and the entire river was glimmering with the light from fishing boats.

Gong Zizhen After becoming a Metropolitan Graduate in 1829, Gong Zizhen (1792– 1841) served as a Director in the Ministry of Rites. At the age of fortyeight, he resigned from office and returned south. Two years later, he died suddenly at the Yunyang Academy of Danyang. A knowledgeable man, he was an intelligent and profound thinker as well as a literary writer with great imagination and passion. Gong Zizhen’s writings, in various kinds, were almost all composed before the Opium War broke out. His exposure of social evils and thinking about the crisis in the society were primarily focused on the chronic maladies of a fundamental nature caused by the imperial autocracy. He rarely cited any theories of the Ming authors, but many of his key concepts, such as the importance he attached to the self, his affirmation of private interests, and his praise of “the heart of a child,” etc., clearly came down in one continuous line from Li Zhi and others. He predicted the decline of the Qing court, but did not regard external violence as the cause of such a decline. All these indicated that his thoughts resulted from the development of Chinese society, and also that even before Western culture came into China on a large scale, those with insight and vision had already made a clarion call for the rejection of imperial autocracy. The emphasis on the subjectivity of self was one of the special features of the Late Ming ideological trend, and Gong Zizhen raised it to an unprecedented high level of importance. “What dominates all


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people is neither the Way nor the Ultimate Principle, but is called, by itself, as I,” and this “I” is considered to be the source that generates and transforms all things in the world. (See his “First Observation of Embryo between the Ren and Kui Years”) In terms of its world view, such an idea originated from Buddhist philosophy, but its practical significance lies in its affirmation of specific personal values of the individual. In “On Selfishness,” Gong stressed that “selfishness” was the basis for people to consider all problems; as regards all generally acknowledged virtues like patriotism, loyalty to sovereign, filial piety to parents, love for children, and chastity to husband, they were ascertained, without exception, on the “selfish” position of the objects on the receivers’ side of those virtues. This kind of view had profound significance as it was not only an affirmation of selfish interests, but also involved the true nature of virtues the sine qua non of which was the protection of interests. By the time of the “May Fourth,” theories of individualism became popular, and some of the typical representations of such theories were very close to Gong’s arguments. For example, Yu Dafu remarked, “If there is no ‘I,” where is there such a thing as sovereign? The Way that does not fit ‘I’—is it to be counted as the Way? When we talk about parents, they are the parents of this ‘I.” If there is no ‘I,’ then how could there be any such things as society, state, and clan?” (“Introduction” to The Second Collection of Prose in General Anthology of New Chinese Literature) The root cause for the decline of society, in Gong Zizhen’s view, was the suppression of individual dignity and creativity, especially the widespread degradation of personality of the scholar-officials, who were supposed to be the pillars of the society. On the one hand, the scholar-officials yielded themselves to the autocracy and knew only to fawn upon and toady to it, “ever since the day when they submitted their memorials and the year when they received their first promotion, few of them have retained their sense of shame!” (“Second Observation on Conscience”) On the other hand, “whenever some talented scholars and people arise, they will be controlled, bound, and even killed, by hundreds of untalented ones.” (“Ninth Observation during the Years of Yi and Bing”) The society would use its ruling power of both material and ideology to hold down the talented to mediocrity or silence, so that “On the left there are no talented prime minister; on the right there are no talented historians; in the military there are no talented commanders; in the schools there are no talented scholars; in the fields there are no talented farmers; in the marketplaces there are no talented

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craftsmen; on the thoroughfares there are no talented merchants. Also, in the alleys there are no talented thieves; in the shopping plazas there are no talented brokers; around the lakes and ponds there are no talented robbers. There are not only few gentlemen; there are few small men either.” (Ibid.) When a society deprives the individual of the possibility for his development, it deprives itself of the possibility for its own development, and turns into the “society of decline,” the lowest of the “three levels of society,” and “it is not far from approaching its doom.” (Ibid.) What made Gong Zizhen extraordinary was the way he considered the decline of the Qing regime, not merely from some of the specific phenomena in society, but from the imperial institution itself, which had lost the vitality to renew itself. Some of Gong Zizhen’s prose writings are close to what is called “miscellaneous prose” today, the characteristics of which is to make use of artistic imagery to express the author’s thought with a touch of personal feeling. For instance, his “Wu Zhiqu” is a kind of biography, but not about any specific real person. This “thin” man (the meaning of the character qu in the name Zhiqu) is very anxious about the society, and likes to find faults with people. He points out that the officials and functionaries in the capital are “soft and willful,” which makes them worse than the “staunch and willful” ones in the old times. He denounces “those who are upright and incorruptible among aristocrats and senior officials” as “lacking an indomitable spirit, and not as good as those with many shortcomings in speech and conduct in the past.” Sharp and incisive, he displays an uncommon eye for the “society of decline.” In fact, he is a reflection of the author himself. For another example, his “An Account of the Sick Plum Shelter” is a well-known piece of work: Coiling Dragon Plaza in Jiangning, Dengwei Hill in Suzhou, and Western Stream in Hangzhou all abound with plum [Prunus mume]. Someone said, “Plum is beautiful when it has curving trunk and branches; it is not graceful if these are straight. Plum is beautiful when its trunk is aslant; it is shapeless if its trunk is upright. Plum is beautiful if its flowers are scattered; it is unsightly if it is thick with flowers.” Sure. It is what men of letters and artists know in their heart, not something they should give enormous publicity to, and to set as a standard for all the plums in the world. Nor are they supposed to tell people in the world to cut the straight trunks and branches, pluck the flowers to make them not so thick, to uproot the upright ones, and to seek profit in running a business of short-lived and sickly plum trees. The curving, the slanting, and the scattered plums are not something the stupid, money-seeking


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commoners are able to acquire with their limited intelligence. Someone told plum-sellers about the eccentric secret of men of letters and artists, and the sellers cut all the upright ones, cultivated sideway branches, plucked flowers to make them scattered, killed young twigs, uprooted straight ones, and put a stop to their vitality so as to seek a high price. As a result the plums in Jiangsu and Zhejinag all turn sickly. How dreadful the disaster brought by men of letters and artists is! I purchased three hundred pots. They are all sickly, and not a single one is healthy. I wept for them for three days. Then I made an oath to cure them, let them free, and allow them to grow the way they want to. I smashed all the pots, freed them from the binding of coir ropes, and planted them all in the ground. I set a time limit of five years for them to return to health and normal. I have never been a man of letters or an artist, and I am willing to take all the blame. I built a Sick Plum Shelter to house them. Alas! How I wish I had more spare time and empty fields, so that I could house all the sickly plums in Jiangning, Hangzhou, and Suzhou, and use all my lifetime to cure the plums!

A short prose piece of only a few hundred words, it incorporates narration, argumentation, and lyricism into one unity. Using the plum as a metaphor for human beings, it exposes how the morbid society prevents talented people from achieving a natural and healthy growth, and expresses the desire to shake off the yoke and go after free development, as well as the ambition to come to the rescue of the society. It is of profound significance. Gong Zizhen had the makings of a poet. In his “Miscellaneous Poems in the Year of Ji Hai (1839),” he said, “In my early youth I had more joy and sorrow than others; / I’d sing or weep for no reason, but every word I said was true; / Since I reached thirty, in dealing with others, I’ve mixed craziness with cunning; / The heart of a child comes back into my body when I’m in a dream.” The remembrance and cherishment of “the heart of a child” arises from the realization that the innocent human nature gets drowned in filth and mire because one has to “deal with” the mundane society. As a person with foresight, and a man of ideals who was reluctant to escape the world for his own comfort, he often felt miserable spiritually. “Flute and sword,” his recurrent images, represent the two sides of his personality, his sentimentality and his chivalry. He led a life holding himself aloof from the others in a sense of solitude, pride, and indignation, as shown in the lines from his early years, “In grief I play the flute, / elated I talk about swordsmanship, / feeling transported in both” (from the song lyric “The Moon in Hunan”), to those from his late years, “The vigor

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from the sword and the heart in the flute have both disappeared.” (“Miscellaneous Poems from the Year of Ji Hai”) Notwithstanding that, his poetry always breathes of an extraordinary disdain for the mundane and vulgar world, and a high-flying, transcendent spirit of his personality. Pieces that condemned the evils of the age represented one aspect of Gong Zizhen’s poetry. The harmfulness of opium, the soaring of prices, and the rulers’ extortion of the people, all found their reflection in his poems, but the most poignant criticism was leveled at the base and despicable among the literati. Take his “On History” as an example: Fifteen prefectures in the southeast share in the pomps of golden powder; Myriad cases of gratitude or grievances arise with the celebrities only. Holding the salt-pans, retainers have control of the entire production; Waving their round fans, concubines take charge of the upper reaches. I leave banquets from my fear of hearing about literary inquisition; I write all my books for the single purpose of earning my livelihood. Tian Heng and his five hundred men: where are they today? Who knows if they would all become noblemen had they returned?

In the upper-class society of the southeast “in the pomps of golden powder,” everyone was leading a life of resignation, boredom, and selfconceit. The poet could not help but to ask: was the heroic spirit of Tian Heng and his five hundred men never to be found in the world again? He sank to the depths of despair. Judging from Gong Zizhen’s personal character, it was inevitable for him to come into conflict with the depressing environment. In his poem, “On the Evening of the Twentieth of the Tenth Month, There Was a Big Wind, I Failed to Go to Sleep, So I Rose to Express My Thought” it opens with the lines, “One night the nobleman dropped some words of slander / In such supreme arrogance exactly like the God of Wind,” giving an account of how he was suddenly under the pressure of some extremely arrogant power. He looked into the cause of the conflict, and found that it was because “I take my humble place betwixt heaven and earth, an extremely lonely man, / But I have tremendous vigor and a sincere heart. / I often sit back and crack jokes which startle all present; / Just by doing that, I can’t avoid irritating the bigwigs.” From this one could imagine how the proud and aloof poet made people astonished and uneasy in the stodgy official circles, and how he irritated “the bigwigs” with his unusual behavior.


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Gong Zizhen’s poems are not infrequently stricken with a seizure of grief, as in the lines: “With strong affection, I find sorrow and joy everywhere; / I don’t have to heave a deep sigh only when I suffer some setbacks,” (“Miscellaneous Poems”), “All my internal organs brim with bitter tears / Which pour at night like a fountain spring.” (“Five Cautionary Poems”) However, it is by no means the moaning of the weak, but rather the self-pitying of a warrior in his solitary struggle. Notwithstanding some self-pity, the poet still maintains an indomitable spirit which is able to keep itself up. His poetry is known for its singular beauty, which is the artistic representation of the force of such a spirit. Gold and black hair: both are nowhere to be found anymore; Even in the “six-nine” adversity I have not lost my heart of a child. I let out a howl to summon the orange-red moon below the curtains; All around me, the shadows of flowers rage like tidal waves. (Second of “Four Quatrains Composed in a Dream”)

“Six-nine” is a divinatory symbol of the yin and the yang which signifies adversity in the cycle of creation. Here in this poem, the poet creates a beautiful and spectacular world of illusion through his vivid imagination. In addition, many of his lines are characterized by bold conception, rich, unusual vocabulary, and dynamic imagery: “At the Western Pool, after the drinking party is over, the dragon speaks sadly; / Above the Eastern Sea, tidal waves rise against an incredibly bright moon;” (“I Got the First Line in a Dream and Completed the Poem after I Woke Up”) “In autumn, my heart is like the sea, like its tidal waves; / But in autumn my soul is nowhere to be summoned;” (“My Heart in Autumn: Three Poems”) “We shall not allow the bright moon to sink beyond the sky; / But waves rise in the river and come crashing against the ground;” (“Poems of Three Special Favorites”) “Today, over the sign of the wine shop, autumn is dimly discernible; / Across the huge sky a swan flies away on its journey.” (“Miscellaneous Poems from the Year of Ji Hai”) When the poet writes about fallen flowers, it may even go like the following: “They are like the tidal waves in the Qiantang River, roaring at night; / They are like those who fought the battle at Kunyang, carrying all before one in the morning; / They are like eighty-four thousand heavenly maidens, after washing their faces, / Pour all their rouge down to this place.” (“Song of Fallen Flowers in the West Suburbs”) In poems of this kind, one may feel the swift

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surging of passion, and also the dynamic postures assumed by the poet’s soul, as if he were flying or dancing under enormous pressure. Love poems also take up a considerable portion of Gong Zizhen’s collection. They certainly provide evidence of his being “indiscreet in small matters” in life, but also offer a record of his pursuit of true feelings and beautiful dreams of life in the boring human world. The following is one of his “Miscellaneous Poems from the Year of Ji Hai”: The one who was able to make me angry and also make me happy Was the girl in Yangzhou, by the name of “Little Cloud.” We met when the moon was crescent and parted at half moon, Not enough time to leave my writings all over her apricot-yellow skirt.

In a brisk and gentle tone, it nevertheless shows a passionate devotion, visualizing the unrestrained manner of an unconventional man of letters. “Song of Someone Who’s Able to Make Me Young” depicts the fantastic female beauty with grace and pathos. One of the “Miscellaneous Poems from the Year of Ji Hai” goes, in reference to the First Emperor of the Qin and Martial Emperor of the Han, “I imagine that, these heroes, in their last years, / Where would they live, if not in the Land of Feminine Charms?” Eventually love is where home is in life. Individuality and passion were what Gong Zizhen attached the greatest importance to in poetry; all the rest was insignificant. In form, his poetry includes both long and short pieces in either old-style or regulated verse. Most unique among them would be “Miscellaneous Poems from the Year of Ji Hai,” which consist of three hundred and fifteen heptasyllabic quatrains, and tell his return to the south after he resigned from office as well as all kinds of his emotions about life. In terms of style, his poems are plain at times, and sometimes abstruse; they use much argumentation, but are always passionate. As he once remarked, “I would like to write something that’s plain and easy to understand; / But once I put brush to paper, it turns clear or profound beyond my control.” (“Miscellaneous Poems”) The reason that he failed to achieve plainness was because of his unique impressions, profound thinking, complex and dynamic emotions, which demanded to be represented in unusual imagery and exceptional language structure. Gong Zizhen’s poetry strikes the reader with a feeling of extraordinary beauty and broad imaginative vision; it sounds neither like that of the Han and the Wei, nor that of the Tang and the Song, in a style that is entirely unique with him.


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Gong Zizhen was also good at composing song lyrics. Melancholic and beautiful, they are filled with a feeling of indignation. For instance, the following lyric, “The Moon in Hunan,” expresses the author’s resentment over the setbacks he suffered in the ten years after he left Hangzhou, his hometown: A wind from the sky blew me up and then dropped me in a corner by the lakeside hills which turned out to be refreshingly beautiful. Once a young visitor inside the gates of the capital city, but when I try to recall that, it was boundlessly remote. Fame and honor of a dog-butcher rolls of writing of a dragon-carver: how can these be my life’s ambition? The legendary beauty of my hometown, Su Xiaoxiao, would surely laugh at me for not doing the right thing. A stroke of beams from the setting sun and fragrant grasses half over the embankment arouse in me a sense of melancholy. Where am I ever to receive the news of the one in silk socks? I miss her sorely in intense loneliness. In grief I play the flute, elated I talk about swordsmanship, feeling transported in both. Two different kinds of spring dreams dissolve into clouds and waters in the sound of the boat-scull.

In Gong Zizhen’s various kinds of writings, trenchant thought, free spirit, proud and unconventional personality, and a fiery passion, combine to account for his singularity. One may consider him to be a representative of the evolution toward modernity of the classical tradition. Liang Qichao, in his Introduction to the Academic Research of the Qing Dynasty, has compared Gong Zizhen to Jean Jacques Rousseau of France, and he also observed, “Zizhen surely made his contribution to the ideological liberation in the Late Ming.” More or less, he noticed the “modernity” in Gong Zizhen. Love Reincarnate and the Strummed Lyric Popular forms of performing arts in the Qing dynasty included the drum lyric (gu ci) in the north and the strummed lyric (tan ci) in the south. As regards their origin, they evolved, generally speaking, from

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the “transformation texts” of the Tang, the tao zhen9 of the Song, and the “tale in lyric” of the Yuan and Ming, and eventually developed into two branches in the north and the south due to the cultural variety in the two different regions. Judging from extant texts, the drum lyric mainly tells war stories and legends of heroes by borrowing from history; a well-known work among them is Military Commanders from the Hu Family. The strummed lyric, on the other hand, contains more elements of literary composition. The text of the strummed lyric consists of two parts, the spoken and the singing. The former is in prose, and the latter is primarily in heptasyllabic verse. In language there is a difference of the “national sound” (common speech or mandarin) and the “local sound” (dialect). The strummed lyric in dialect is mostly in the Wu dialect; others, such as the Wooden Fish Tales of Guangdong, incorporate some Guangdong dialect. The strummed lyric is not infrequently large in scale. For example, Dream of Pomegranate Flowers, which was generated in Fujian, runs to three hundred and sixty sections and about five million Chinese characters in length. In content, they are usually narration in the third person, and the language is mostly quite plain. So far as the literary nature is concerned, the strummed lyric is actually a kind of novel in verse. The performance of the strummed lyric was extremely simple; all that was needed were two or three performers (even on occasions just one performer), with a few musical instruments, and one text could be told in great length. That kind of special feature made it an appropriate form for daily family entertainment, and the text of the strummed lyric could also serve as entertainment reading. In particular, some women from families of higher social status, who did not have to engage in labor and had few social interactions, led an extremely boring life, so the attendance to the performances of the strummed lyric, or the reading of the text of the genre, became a diversion in their life. The popularity of the strummed lyric in the Qing dynasty had something to do with such a background, so the composition of quite a number of texts of the strummed lyric were meant for such an audience. Many talented women accordingly participated in the composition of the strummed lyric, both as a way to entertain themselves and others, to while away

9 Tao zhen, literally “dredging of truth,” was a form of performing arts that started in the Song dynasty. It was singing in the accompaniment of a pipa or a drum.


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the time, and also to express their thoughts about life. Some wellknown works, like Love Reincarnate, Flowers Rain Down from Sky, Flowers Generated by the Writing Brush, and Dream of Pomegranate Flowers, were all composed by female authors. Flowers Rain Down from Sky, in thirty chapters, was a work from the early period of the strummed lyric of the Qing dynasty. It was completed as a book in the eighth year of the Shunzhi reign, and its author was Tao Zhenhuai. It is the story about Zuo Weiming, a loyal official at the end of the Ming, and his daughter Zuo Yizhen. The book is filled with old-time moral preaching, but in its portrayal of female images like Zuo Yizhen and others, it praises their intelligence and talent and, to a certain degree, expresses dissatisfaction with the authority of the father and the husband from a female perspective. Love Reincarnate, a lengthy text of the strummed lyric produced during the Qianlong reign, received widespread attention from researchers after it was commended by the famous scholar Chen Yingke. The book is in twenty sections; the first seventeen sections were composed by Chen Duansheng, the last three sections were by Liang Desheng, and eventually it was revised by Hou Zhi into an eighty-chapter version for publication; all three were women. Chen Duansheng (1751– ca. 1796) was the grand-daughter of Chen Zhaolun, who served as the Compiler-in-Chief of The Sequel to A General Study of Documents. The story of Love Reincarnate has numerous threads and the plot goes through many dramatic changes. In brief, it tells how Meng Shiyuan, a Grand Secretary who resigns from office and returns to his hometown, has a daughter, Meng Lijun, who is extraordinarily talented and beautiful. She is betrothed, in an arranged match, to Huangfu Shaohua, the son of Huangfu Jing, the Governor-General of Yunnan. Liu Kuibi, the son of the emperor’s father-in-law, wants to marry Meng Lijun but is unable to do so, so he plots a frame-up of the two families of Meng and Huangfu. Lijun disguises herself as a man and escapes; later she wins the degree of Principle Graduate, renders successive meritorious services, and is appointed as the highest-ranking official in the state. In the course, Liu is defeated, and Huangfu Shaohua also does some deed of merit due to Lijun’s recommendation and is made a prince. In general, at this juncture the story should have closed with a “grand reunion,” but Chen Duansheng, instead, goes on to tell how Meng Lijun, due to various reasons, does not want to reveal her true identity and refuses to recognize her parents and marry Shaohua. Finally, the emperor knows about the secret and wants to force Lijun to become

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his consort. Lijun, infuriated and anxious, spits blood. Probably finding it too difficult to design a satisfactory closure of the story, Chen Duansheng discontinued her composition. When Liang Desheng continued, she still closed it with the hackneyed “grand reunion” which was rather uninteresting. The story pattern of Love Reincarnate is not uncommon, that of the struggle between the loyal and the treacherous, plus some marriage complications, and the basis of the conduct of the personages in the book is well within the scope of orthodox morality. However, the book still has something new about it. Chen Duansheng, the talented and confident female author, represented her personal dream in life through Meng Lijun, the protagonist. It is not only reflected in Meng Lijun’s talent and meritorious deeds, but also as Chen Yingke has observed in his “On Love Reincarnate,” the book tells how Lijun, after being appointed as a senior official in a man’s identity, defies the imperial edict and refuses to take off the robe on the emperor’s behalf, reprimands her parents, who want to re-claim her, to their face, and also receives the kowtow from Huangfu Jing and Shaohua, father and son, “from these we know that in Duansheng’s heart, she was using such descriptions to overthrow the three cardinal guides of sovereign, father, and husband, which were still considered as golden rules in our nation at that time.” On the other hand, Chen Duansheng’s way of doing that was to make use of the precepts of old-time morality to oppose the imperial order. The orthodox ethical code, flaunted in the book, has turned into something specious, something that one could fiddle with as long as it was useful to oneself. The author was unable to continue the story when Meng Lijun’s identity is revealed, because fundamentally she did not want her protagonist to return to her position as someone dependent on the male. Such special features of the book, as discussed in the above, clearly express women’s desire to free themselves from the bondage of old-time ethics. Chen Duansheng’s innovative thinking accounts for the intelligence and vitality in her work. Love Reincarnate is a work of legendary nature, and its entire story arises from imagination and fiction, but the unfolding of its storyline does not strike its reader as mechanical or stiff. The portrayal of its characters is also quite vivid and refined, including the part about the struggle between the good and the evil, wherein the personality of both the positive and the negative characters does not go to extremes. In particular, its structure is commended by scholars: in spite of its numerous threads, they are treated in superb organization,


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and the storyline, with all its dramatic turns, is meticulous and succinct. Surely, as a work of imaginary from a young woman in her inner chamber, it is not entirely free from places that are removed from life’s reality. By the early years of the Xianfeng reign, there appeared Flowers Generated by the Writing Brush, in twenty-two chapters, composed by Qiu Xinru, which was modeled after Love Reincarnate. It tells the story of Jiang Dehua, a woman of the Ming, who flees from the selection of imperial concubines disguised as a man, and later establishes herself by performing meritorious deeds.

3. Poetry and Prose of the Late Qing Period The Late Qing was from the eruption of the Opium War to the 1911 Revolution (1840–1911), a period that has also been referred to as the “recent times” in general. The Late Qing may be considered as the most abnormal and chaotic age in Chinese history. The Manchu court, along with the entire imperial political system, was on the verge of collapse. There were domestic trouble and foreign invasion in consecutive years. Western culture rushed into China like tidal waves. The prospect of China and Chinese civilization became extremely uncertain. From the call “to learn from the strengths of the foreigners so as to control foreigners,” made by forerunners like Lin Zexu and Wei Yuan, to the idea of “Chinese learning as the fundamental structure, Western learning for practical use” suggested by advocators of Westernization led by Zeng Guofan and Zhang Zhidong, and then even later to the increasing popularity of the theory of “revolution” that aimed to build a Western-style republic, the society was constantly in great turbulence. Against the background, literature changed, in an extremely unstable condition, in new directions. Wei Yuan and Yao Xie Wei Yuan (1794–1857) was a good friend of Gong Zizhen’s. A knowledgeable scholar and thinker, he was entrusted by Lin Zexu with the compilation of a work about the history and geography of foreign countries, The Illustrated Records of Maritime Nations. Wei Yuan’s poetry leaves the reader a strong impression of its overwhelming feeling of impending crisis. The degradation of politics, the

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hardship of people’s lives, and in particular, the insolence and brutality of strong enemies, made him feel that it was difficult to resolve the crisis of the society. For instance, his “Chanting in Jiangnan: Ten Pieces,” “Within the Seas: Ten Pieces” and “Another Ten Pieces,” “Autumn Meditation: Ten Pieces,” were all poems which discussed current affairs and expressed his emotions. In such a depressing age, the ultimate meaning of individual existence also turned into a vexing problem in the deep recess of his mind. “By the Window at Dawn,” a pentasyllabic quatrain, goes: In my youth I went to sleep at the crowing of cocks; Now in old age, at the crowing of cocks I get up. Through a thousand ages, people of a myriad generations Have worn out amid such sound of crowing.

On the other hand, Wei Yuan was by nature a gallant and unrestrained man, and he was not always wallowed in grief and indignation. The two couplets in his “Recalling the Past at Jinling” show great vigor and a heroic mood: “As of now, in rain and snow, a thousand sailboats go north; / Since the antiquity, below layers of clouds, a myriad of horses have run east. / Across the land, that has stood for a millennium, there are the wind, the moon, and I; / For a lifetime of a hundred years, I’ve seen swans flying back and forth.” He was fond of describing the magnificent and spectacular sights in nature, and poems of this nature include “Song of Mt. Taishi,” “Song of Watching the Tidal Waves at the Qiantang River,” “Song of Watching the Waterfall at the Stone Arch in Mt. Tiantai,” “Song of Traveling by Boat on the Xiang River,” etc., from which one could see the author’s aesthetic taste. In general, Wei Yuan was close to Gong Zizhen in reflecting an outgoing personality in his poetry, but he obviously did not have the latter’s heightened sensitivity to life as represented in a kind of unusual language constructions. Yao Xie (1805–1864) wrote many poems about current affairs during the Opium War or about social conditions. Take, for example, the second piece of his “An Elegy for Jiangnan: in Five Refrains Using the Rime Pattern of [Du Fu’s] ‘Autumn Meditation in Eight Pieces,’ ”: High winds rolled up the big flag; even the Seven Stars10 got tilted. The white-haired supreme commander had a disastrous season.

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The Big Dipper.


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On the narrow space ashore, he had no powerful bow to shoot at the tides; Rather than a ship to the moon, high in the sky, he had a decayed raft only. In recruiting soldiers, was he able to do as Feng Tang once recommended? To break down the formation, the southern stone bugle was blown in vain. It was so regretful: in the Wusong River, over the low spring waters, In the red evening glow, all the flowers in the small woods drifted away.

This poem was about Chen Huacheng’s death in battle. During this period, most of the poems about current affairs were bombastic in mood. Yao Xie’s poem, instead, depicts how the aging Chen Huacheng was unable to prevent the decline, with a sense of deep grief and sympathy, making it more touching than those highly emotional poems. Yao Xie’s “Poem on a Pair of Zhen11 Birds” is a narrative poem about a tragedy of love. Dominated by heptasyllabic lines, it runs to more than three hundred lines, quite unusual among old-style poems. In great length, the poem provides a detailed, vivid description of the love and misery of the male and female protagonists, making no attempt whatsoever to make it implicit and circuitous, which also reflected the changes of the old-style verse. Zeng Guofan and Those around Him Because of his suppression of the rebellion of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Zeng Guofan acquired his distinguished status and became a spiritual leader for many; accordingly he also held great appeal in the field of literature. As a leader of those who advocated Westernization, Zeng Guofan was not to be simply regarded as a conservative figure. In his thoughts about culture, however, he certainly strived to re-establish a stable order for the imperial Qing regime by promoting Confucian principles. It was for that purpose that he gave his support to the classical prose of the Tongcheng School. An indication of that was also found in Wang Xianqian’s remark, in his “Foreword to A Sequel to Classified Anthology of Classical Prose,” that Zeng and Mei Zengliang “joined each other in cultivating the Way and embracing the creed, so that Xibao’s [Yao Nai] heritage got to be preserved.”

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A legendary bird with poisonous feathers.

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Zeng Guofan made some revisions of the literary views of the Tongcheng School, of which the most important one was to add another item, “practicality,” to the three elements of principle, research, and writing as suggested by Yao Nai, and he remarked, “One cannot do without any of these four elements.” (Classified Selection of Diaries from the Studio of Defect Search) The emphasis on the practical use of writing in political affairs was in agreement with his special status. On the other hand, it also distanced the “classical prose” further away from literary prose. Under the circumstances when imperial politics declined steeply and Western studies became increasingly popular, “the restoration of the Tongcheng School,” on the surface, had all the sound and fury at the time, but its vitality was quite limited. By the time of the disciples taught by Zeng himself, they had no choice but to respond more promptly to the changing situations. Zeng Guofan’s followers included many men of letters, and quite a few among them were known for their writing at the time. The most illustrious ones, Zhang Yuzhao, Wu Rulun, Xue Fucheng, and Li Shuchang, were known as “Master Zeng’s Four Disciples.” In particular, Wu Rulun was considered as the last master of the Tongcheng School. However, Wu not only paid his attention to Western studies, but even declared, “All my life I have browsed few books by the Confucians of the Song dynasty.” (“In Reply to Wu Shifu”) He also heralded, “In the future Western studies will gain popularity, and there is no need to read all the six classics.” (“A Letter in Reply to Yao Muting”) One can hardly imagine that any of his predecessors of the Tongcheng School would ever say that. In addition, Yan Fu and Lin Shu both claimed to be “masters of classical prose.” The former translated Evolution and Ethics and many Western works of sociology which sent great reverberations in the society. The latter, in collaboration with others, translated a large number of Western novels. They smacked of the old-liners, but they also had many new ideas (especially Yan Fu), and they played a major role in bringing social and cultural changes. Zeng Guofan was also a leader of the so-called “Movement of the Song Poetry.” Prior to him, Cheng Enze and Qi Junzao from the earlier period had already promoted Song poetry, but when Zeng Guofan, in his pre-eminent position, made the call, it turned into a prevailing trend to commend Song poetry, especially that of Huang Tingjian. Zeng Guofan himself, accordingly, noted that “Since I suggested Master Huang as our model, / It has been welcomed by contemporaries.” (“Written on Peng Xu’s Poetry Collection and also as a Valediction to


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Him on His Homebound Trip to the South”) In addition to Zeng himself, better known poets of the group also included He Shaoji, Zheng Zhen, Mo Youzhi, and others. By the end of the Qing and during the early Republican period, the Song Poetry School evolved further into the “Style of Tong[-zhi]/Guang[-xu].” Wang Kaiyun and Chen Sanli At the end of the Qing and the beginning of the Republic, Western studies became increasingly popular, and more radical changes occurred in culture. Under the circumstances, there were still a group of poets who adhered to the tradition of classical Chinese poetry; Wang Kaiyun and Chen Sanli may be considered as their representatives. Wang Kaiyun’s (1833–1916) poetry is skilled in modeling after the Han, the Wei and the Six Dynasties in style, expressing the feeling of an old-type scholar. It sounds rather old-fashioned, but is quite accomplished in art. Take, for example, his “Mailed to Xinmei with My Loving Thoughts”: Heavy frosts have set in the empty mountains; when the moon sinks, it’s dark over a thousand miles. I assume that person has not yet gone to sleep, and we miss each other quite the same way. In just one night, the phoenix trees get old from hearing the sound of your lute on the river.

At the end of the Qing dynasty, the most influential poetic school was the “Style of Tong/Guang” which followed the convention of the Song poetry. The time of their activities was mainly after the middle years of the Guangxu reign, and it continued until after the “May Fourth.” It may be divided into the Fujian School represented by Chen Yan and Zheng Xiaoxu, the Zhejiang School represented by Shen Zengzhi, and the Jiangxi School represented by Chen Sanli. Chen Sanli made the most outstanding achievements. Chen Sanli (1853–1937) became a Metropolitan Graduate in 1886 and served in the capital. Later, in Hunan, he assisted his father Chen Baozhen, who served as the Governor, in practicing the new political measures. After the abortive Reform of 1898, both of them, father and son, were removed from office. After the Incident of the Lugou Bridge took place, Chen Sanli died from fasting due to worry and indignation. Compared to Wang Kaiyun, who was perfectly at ease embracing

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the old-type cultural conventions, Chen was far more sensitive to the changes in the politics, ideology, and culture in the society. His poetry is primarily modeled after Huang Tingjian, though it is by no means mere imitation of the Song poet. In his attempt to avoid clichés and seek innovation, he displayed his deep and heightened sensitivity to life. Yoshikawa Kōjirō, the Japanese scholar, spoke very highly of the sensitiveness in Chen Sanli’s poetry. He observed that it often articulated a claustrophobic feeling, of someone who was surrounded and oppressed by external forces but was unable to find an escape. (See A History of Chinese Poetry) Take, for example, “On the Evening of the Fourteenth of the Eleventh Month, I Set Out from the Moon River in Nanchang on a Travel by Boat”: Vapors of dew are like tiny insects; Waves are like recumbent bulls. The bright moon is like a white cocoon That envelops the boat on the river.

Dews and waves are transformed into animate beings that come, wriggling, toward the poet. Moonshine, always an image of gentleness and serenity in traditional poetry, appears to be an enormous cocoon that is about to bind the poet. Compared to Wang Kaiyun’s peaceful, quiet and aloof poem cited previously, it is markedly different. For another example, here is “Looking at a Light Snow in My Private Garden”: By the beginning of the year, it still snows lightly; In the pavilion of the garden, there is a sense of decline. At the topmost branches, magpies are silenced by the height; Against the leaning rocks, the mucus of snails turns alive. Overwhelmed in the freeze, a thousand streets are still. Distress is on display in a myriad of things in front. Drifting to the window, it falls like petals of plum; In an untidy mess, it does not make a lovely sight.

A light snow over a pavilion in the garden has always been a beautiful sight favored by poets. Here, however, it has been presented as a stifling world. The sensitive nature of Chen’s poetry indicated that it was difficult for him to adopt the mind of an old-type recluse any more. Objectively speaking, it was because the prospect of China, which was going through cultural changes, was extremely uncertain, making people uneasy. On the other hand, it also arose from the conflict between the


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individual will, which needed the space of freedom, and the depressing social environment in general. Also, it was often difficult to specify the so-called “depressing social environment in general” which seemed to be an invisible existence; therefore the poet represented it mostly with symbols of images from nature. In the New Literature of the later period, such a kind of feeling continued to be represented in different forms. Accordingly, while Chen Sanli’s poetry was entirely classical in its form of language, its intrinsic nature already contained some elements of modernity. As the last important author of the classical poetic tradition, he deserved our close attention. Kang Youwei and Others During the Reform of 1898 and the anti-Qing revolution, some of the men and women of the hour, such as Kang Youwei (1858–1927), Tan Sitong (1865–1898), Qiu Jin (1875–1907) and others, were not poets in the general sense of the word. However, some of their poems certainly stood out as a consequence of their strong personality and their confidence in making history. For instance, Kang was a strong-willed and conceited man, and his poetry was also out of the common run in its vigor. “Ascending the Great Wall” goes as follows: Behold the battlements of the Qin and camps of the Han; In mid-autumn, alone on horseback, I’ve come to the old wall. With a whip, rocks are flogged up a thousand mountains into the clouds; It stretches to the sky’s end, for thousands of miles, pressing on the frontier. Eastward, it goes to the blue sea where mountains stand; Westward, it turns along the Yellow River in the shining setting sun. Let us not simply give him credit for driving away the foreigners; The creativity of a hero, displayed herein, is simply marvelous!

In the poem, in order to show the extraordinary power of heroic figures, who take control of everything, the legend of how a god uses a whip to flog the rocks down into the sea to build a bridge for the First Emperor has been changed to how he uses the whip to flog the rocks up the mountain. The last two lines are particularly noteworthy. To Kang, what was most marvelous about the First Emperor was his bold vision displayed in the “creativity of a hero.” The composition of this poem was many years before Kang participated in the 1898 Reform, but a sense of self-conceit and heroic spirit was already discernible between the lines.

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In the 1898 Reform, Tan Sitong did not hesitate to sacrifice his life for his ideal, to the great admiration of the nation. Even the poems he wrote in his early years were impassioned and unrestrained, showing the disposition of a hero. Take, for example, his “Tong Pass”: Since the ancient times high clouds have gathered atop this city-wall; The autumn wind carries the scattered sounds of galloping horses. The river, which runs through the great plain, still chafes at its limits; The mountains, even after entering the Tong Pass, refuse to fall down low.

Both the great river, which runs without restraint, and the mountains that stand upright as if in contest with one another, are symbols of the poet’s personality. Placed side by side with the declaration to break through all kinds of nets and traps in his A Study of Benevolence, the poem displays a strong spirit of freedom and liberation. Qiu Jin, who gave herself the literary name of Jianhu Nüxia (“Chivalrous Lady of the Mirror Lake”), had a relish of wine and knowledge of swordsmanship. She was a woman of courage and resolution, and her image may be seen in her poem, “Composed for My Japanese Friend Ishii Who Asks for a Poetic Exchange, Using the Original Rime Pattern”: Do not say that a woman is unable to make a hero. Over ten thousand miles I’ve come, riding the wind, to the east alone. For a poetic idea: look at the single sail over the empty and vast sea. In a dream, my soul hovers above the Three Isles12 under the dainty moon. The bronze camels have fallen: it’s so sad to recall. I regret not having done any deed of merit on the battleground. In such grief over all the miseries about my country and home, How can anyone enjoy the spring wind while being a traveler?

The poems cited in the above in this section are all from important political figures who helped to bring about historical changes in the Late Qing period, and they should be considered representatives in reflecting the ideological trend in the society. Notwithstanding their respective position, they share common ground in taking pride in doing heroic deeds and in fostering their individual values through choosing and undertaking some social mission on their own initiative. Therefore poems of this kind were entirely different in nature from political poems composed by those in a dependent and subordinate 12

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position, being the products of a historical environment wherein free thinking was developing continuously. At the beginning of the chapter we have cited Liang Qichao’s remark that the New Scholars during the years of the Guangxu reign “felt as if electrified” in reading Gong Zizhen’s writings. Looking back on Gong’s criticism of the social conditions in which human nature turned submissive and degenerated and talented people became hard to find, one may understand what these scholars saw in him. Huang Zunxian, Liang Qichao and Others At the end of the Qing, in the field of poetry and prose, Huang Zunxian and Liang Qichao tried to introduce radical changes in adaptation with the changing society. Huang Zunxian (1848–1905) became a Provincial Graduate during the Guangxu reign, served as an attaché of the diplomatic missions in Japan and England, and as Consul General in San Francisco and Singapore. After he returned to China, he took an active part in the Hundred Days’ Reform, and after its failure he was dismissed from office and went back home. He died in his hometown. “Random Thoughts,” composed by Huang Zunxian at the age of twenty-one, denounced “Vulgar scholars who like to celebrate the antiquity,” and declared, displaying his personality which was not to be constrained by the tradition, that “I’ll use my hand to write what comes from my mouth. / How could I ever be restrained by the antiquity?” On the eve of the 1898 Reform, he went further to coin up the name of “new-type poetry.” In his poem “In Reply to Zeng Chongbo, the Junior Compiler, and also to Show Lanshi” he says, “I would like you to spend your energy for a month of official editing / To read pieces and pieces of my new-type poetry.” Subsequently, in the “Author’s Preface to Draft Poems from the House in the Human World” he provided a more detailed explanation of his pursuit in the field of poetry, the main idea of which, in general, was to incorporate, as extensively as possible, materials from both culture in the past and life in reality, break free from all restrictions, and eventually to “Make it, after all, a poetry that is all my own.” He suggested, most characteristically, two points. First, he put forward the idea that “Things that people in the past did not have and spheres they never explored—if I have personally heard about or seen them, I will use my writing brush to write them down.” It indicated that he attached importance to the

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use of poetry in reflecting the contents of life, which were continuously changing and increasingly expanding. In addition, he proposed that one should “use the spirit of the single line in the form of parallel lines,” and “use the classical prose masters’ method of expansion-contraction, connection-disconnection in poetry,” which demonstrated that he had a partiality for the prose-like style in poetry, a partiality which was related to his preference for narration of events and description of things in his poetry. One of the most striking characteristics of Huang Zunxian’s poetry was the dominance of records of current affairs therein. For instance, poems about the Sino-French War and the Sino-Japanese War, like “Song of General Feng,” “Song of the Eastern Ravine,” “A Lament for Lüshun,” “In Mourning of Weihai,” “Song of General Duliao,” etc., and poems about the rebellions of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Boxers, like “A Record of What I Heard About after Being Rescued from the Hand of the Bandits,” “A Record of the Turmoil in Tianjin,” “Song of General Nie,” etc., are all embodiments of Huang’s deliberate attempt to take poetry as history. What struck the reader as something particularly fresh and new were works related to his experience as a diplomat, which represented the local conditions and customs around the world, as well as those which contained his knowledge of new sciences and cultures. In the former category, “Song of Cherry Blossoms” describes the delirious jubilation of the entire nation when the cherries were in bloom in Japan, “Account of Events” tells about the presidential campaign and the disputes between the two parties in the United States, “Ascending the Iron Tower in Paris” depicts what he saw and thought about when he ascended the Eiffel Tower. In the latter category, the four poems of “Departure Today” adopt the conventional subject matter of the husband on the road and the wife at home, but create scenes of departure and mutual yearning by such new things like train, steamship, telegraph, and photography and the phenomenon of the Eastern and Western hemispheres having antipodal day and night. All such poems opened up new horizons for the Chinese people. The following is the fourth piece of “Departure Today”: Where is your soul about to go to? I’d like to follow you, my lord. Drifting in air, I’d cross the blue sea, Unafraid of the perilous wind and waves. Last night I entered your room, I raised my hand to pull up your curtain.


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The curtain was up, but I didn’t see you, I could only assume that you went to bed late. If your soul is looking for me, It’s also hard for us to meet. I’m afraid that your soul may arrive At a time when I’m not in sleep. When I’m asleep, you may be awake; When you’re asleep, how am I supposed to know? You hear nothing from me, nor I from you; No wonder we’ll often miss each other. I raise my head and see the bright moon: She has just appeared in the window. At this moment, I think of you, my lord, Who may be throwing on a robe at dawn. You, my lord, are at the other corner of the sea; I, your wife, am at this side of the sky. We are apart by tens of thousand of miles. With day and night just the contrary for us. To go to bed and to get up at different times Makes it hard for our souls to meet in a dream. The distance over the land is so long—it won’t shrink; Our wings are too short—we are unable to fly. All I have is a heart that yearns for you Which won’t change, even if the sea dries up. Deep, oh so deep, as the sea is, It’s not as deep as our affections!

Because day and night are just the opposite in the Eastern and the Western hemispheres, when one goes to sleep, the other gets up, so the souls of the two who live apart cannot even meet in a dream. Against the tradition of classical poetry, conception of this kind naturally sounds very innovative. Huang Zunxian enjoyed an important place in the history of poetry. He was clearly aware of the fact that the tradition of classical poetry was insufficient to give a full display of life in the society and general knowledge which were becoming increasingly complicated, so he made the call that poetry must change in step with time and break free from all restrictions and taboos in subject, style, and vocabulary. It was highly significant for the promotion of changes in poetry. His poetry left a very strong impression with the poetic circles of his time. Qiu Fengjia praised him as “the Christopher Columbus of the world of poetry.” (“A Colophon to Draft Poems from the House in the Human World”) Huang took great pride in himself. However, he did not open a new path for Chinese poetry. When the novelty caused by Western

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things wore off, the shortcomings of his poetry also got exposed. In On the Art of Poetry, Qian Zhongshu was critical of Huang’s poetry, observing, very much to the point, that it “was somewhat able to talk about the systems and things in the West, and to pick up something from the subjects of acoustics, optics, electricity, and chemistry as decorations, but actually it showed very little understanding of the marvelous essentials of Western civilization and philosophy. As a result, his poetry talks about new things, but shows nothing new in essence and in style.” It was also evidence that Chinese poetry must change in a more fundamental nature. In his early years, as a disciple of Kang Youwei’s, Liang Qichao (1873–1929) was one of the key figures of the 1898 Reform. Afterward, together with Kang, he organized the Royalists Society. However, Liang was able to change his thinking in adaptation to time, and he was always receptive to newly emerging things; as a consequence of that he was able to make many contributions in promoting cultural changes in his late years. After the 1898 Reform failed, Liang Qichao escaped to Japan and came into contact with a wide range of new Japanese culture and Western cultures, and borrowing the Japanese usage of the term geming as “revolution,” he came up with the slogans of “the revolution in the field of poetry,” “the revolution in the field of prose,” and “the revolution in the field of fiction.”13 In Travels in Hawaii, Liang Qichao discussed the direction of “the revolution in the field of poetry,” observing that it needed to combine three strengths: first, “new sphere” (referring mainly to the subject matter and contents of poetry); second, “new expressions and new lines;” third, “embodiment in the style of the ancients.” He had the greatest appreciation of Huang Zunxian’s poetry, saying that among poets “who were set on exploring new land, none was the match for Huang Gongdu (style of Zunxian).” But he also pointed out that “the so-called spheres, expressions, and lines about Europe in his poetry are mostly the trivial and rough aspects on the material side, which have nothing to do with the spirit and thinking.” In brief, by the lower standard, Huang could be considered as a 13 [Original note] In Chinese, the original meaning of the term geming was “the change of heavenly mandate,” referring to dynastic changes. The Japanese used the term as a translation of the English word “revolution,” i.e., fundamental change of conditions.


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model of “the revolution in the field of poetry;” by a higher standard, though, even he was unqualified. The movement of poetic reform in the Late Qing was not very effective, and there were many reasons. For instance, its excessive emphasis on social functions (just the same as for “the revolution in the field of fiction”) and a lopsided pursuit of novelty stood in the way of artistic achievements, but the crucial problem existed with the issue of what Liang Qichao called “the style of the ancients.” Classical Chinese poetry enjoyed a long tradition and brilliant achievements, but it also had its limits in aesthetic mentality and convention of appreciation. It was in fact very difficult to represent, with success and great creativity, the life and psychology of modern people, under the condition of fully preserving the strengths of classical poetry without deviating from “the style of the ancients.” This also accounted for the inevitable rise of the new poetry. Newspaper, as a brand-new and popular form of mass media, sprang up vigorously around the 1898 Reform, which exerted a powerful impact on the changing prose style. Liang Qichao was a representative figure in advocating this kind of “journalistic style,” also called the “new prose style.” At first, he served as the chief commentator of the Current Affairs Gazette, the most influential newspaper at the time, giving publicity to his ideas on the Reform. During his exile in Japan, he continued to write articles for the Pure Talk Gazette and the New People’s Series, discussing political affairs and disseminating knowledge of Western scholarship and culture. Articles of this kind still fell under the range of classical language, but they already contained more elements of the vernacular. In his Introduction to the Academic Research of the Qing Dynasty, Liang pointed out the special features of such writings, saying that they “tried their best to be plain and smooth, sometimes incorporating slang, rhyme, and syntax of foreign languages, running free and uninhibited. . . . These writings were neatly organized, often emotional between the lines; they held a charm of their own to the reader.” While writings of the “new prose style” were primarily propaganda rather than literature in nature, at the time they completely broke free from the restrictions of traditional classical prose, and helped to accelerate the birth of the new type of prose. Some of such writings also displayed much of literary grace. In the following we shall cite, as an example, the closure of “On China in Youth”:

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chapter eighteen The red sun has just risen, shining in its great light. The Yellow River emerges from the undercurrent and pours into the vast sea. The hidden dragon soars from the deep pool with its scales and claws in the air. The milk-secreting tiger roars in the valley, inspiring awe in all beasts. Eagles and hawks spread their wings sending dust up in the wind. The exotic flower bursts in its first bloom: how lush and beautiful! The great sword-maker sharpens his work on the whetstone: how it sparkles! The sky hovers above in its blue serene; the earth lies down in its yellowness. In history we have a thousand ages; in land we run to the eight poles. Our road ahead is as wide as the sea; we have all the time before us. How beautiful is our China in youth: she, like Heaven, will never get old! How strong are the youths of China who, like our nation, know no limits!

Colorful in imagery, with flashes of brilliance in language, it is particularly suitable to be read aloud. It shows the author’s conversance with parallel prose, but in its spontaneity and passion it is different from the parallel prose which always stresses a kind of quiet elegance. Around the 1898 Reform, there also appeared a new trend in popularizing the prose in the vernacular language. A large number of newspapers and journals in the vernacular language were founded at various cities. Qiu Tingliang, for example, even put forward the idea “to promote the vernacular and abolish the classical language.” (“On the Vernacular as the Foundation of Reform”) His object in mind was to universalize education as a way to build China into a powerful nation; objectively, though, he provided an important social foundation for Hu Shi and others to advocate vernacular literature subsequently. Also, Su Manshu (1884–1918) was worthy of our attention. An extremely intelligent and romantic man, he was good at poetry and painting, wrote fiction, and knew a number of foreign languages including Japanese, English, French, and Sanskrit, having translated the poems of Byron and Shelley, and Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables. He was a Buddhist monk as well as a revolutionary, but he was unable to find his peace of mind in either of these two vocations. Sometimes adopting an excited posture and, at other times, a decadent one, he found an outlet for his strong passion of life. Su Manshu’s poems are often permeated with a sense of loneliness and melancholy, as in the ninth piece of his “Ten Occasional Poems”:


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In a spring rain, up the tower, someone is playing a shakuhachi. When am I to return, to watch the tidal waves in Zhejiang? None knows me—wearing my straw sandals and holding a broken alms bowl. How many bridges have I already crossed, with cherry flowers all along the way?

His love poems caused a great sensation at the time. The following is the third piece of his “Mailed to the Koto-Player”: By stealth I have tasted the dew from the lips of the celestial maiden; Several times, in the wind, I have to wipe off the stains of my tears. Day after day, I’ve missed you, my darling; it makes one feel old; Alone by the window, I feel utterly helpless in the gathering dusk.

Yu Dafu remarked in his “A Random Discussion of Manshu’s Works,” “His poetry had its origin in Dingkan’s [Gong Zizhen] ‘Miscellaneous Poems of the Year of Ji Hai,’ but has also added a fresh and new flavor of recent times.” The so-called “flavor of recent times” is mainly displayed in its boldness and sincerity in the expression of emotions, and in relation to that, in its intimacy and naturalness in language. Familiar with the poetry of Shelley and Byron, Su Manshu integrated into his own love poems the spirit and charm of Western romantic poetry, which may be found in the uninhibited honesty and indulgence and the yearning for and praise of females in these poems. He rarely makes use of any unusual concepts and terms in his poetry, but it still has a fresh and new taste notwithstanding its traditional form. At the time, the passionate, beautiful but also sorrow-stricken mood of his poetry elicited a sympathetic response from young men and women who desired to be free and liberated in love.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

DRAMA AND FICTION OF THE QING DYNASTY

Generally speaking, drama and fiction of the Qing developed in the same direction as those of the Ming; specifically speaking, though, there were some differences. Drama prospered in the early period; Li Yu at the beginning of the Qing, Hong Sheng and Kong Shangren of the Kangxi reign all wrote outstanding plays. After the Qianlong reign, while theatrical performance became increasing popular and widespread, the fashion for senior scholar-officials to keep house entertainers and the interest of the literati in dramatic composition were both on the decline, and accordingly, from a literary perspective, there was not much new creation. As regards fiction, in the Qianlong reign, represented by A Dream of Red Mansions and An Unofficial History of the Scholars, it reached a new height in the history of Chinese literature. By the end of the Qing, due to the popularity of the new forms of mass media, newspapers and journals, the composition of fiction mushroomed. While there were few outstanding works, there were numerous new experiments.

1. Drama and Fiction of the Early Qing Period Li Yu Li Yu (1611–1680) was an important playwright and vernacular short story writer of the Early Qing. In the past, because his works were considered to be lacking in ideological content, he was not given due attention; in recent years, however, the situation has changed. He took part in the provincial examinations for many times at the end of the Ming without any success. At the beginning of the Qing he lived in Jinling and earned a livelihood by running a bookstore, publishing popular books, and organizing small family theatrical troupes for touring performances at the residences of officials and the gentry, in the status as a hanger-on of the rich and powerful and also as a businessman in cultural circles. He was the author of two collections of short

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stories, Twelve Towers and Silent Operas, and a collection of plays, Ten Plays from Liweng. Li Yu, an extremely intelligent and sophisticated man who was influenced by the Late Ming ideological trend, had a clear understanding of the absurdity of orthodox cultural and social life. On the other hand, he made a living by writing. As far as the appeal to the readers and the audience was concerned, the entertaining function of his works was of paramount importance, and this accounted for the common characteristics of his drama and fiction. Zhongli Ruishui’s preface to Twelve Towers cited Li Yu’s own saying: “I am not unconcerned with poetry and prose, but I dare not treat fiction as a trifling skill as it makes me feel satisfied and happy.” In terms of the delight he found in composition, he even placed fiction above poetry and prose in significance. In content, his fiction is nothing but stories of love and marriage, in the category of how women love the talent in men, and how men like the appearance in women, and they often incorporate sermon of traditional ethics or demonstration of karma and causality. However, Li Yu’s “serious talks” are often given in a ridiculous way, making them sound extremely ironic. Take, for example, the unusual statement in “Tower for the Summer Heat” which is very funny: “A man copulating with a woman is nothing serious by nature,” and it is only because it may bring a son that it turns into “an immortal affair.” For another example, the opening section in “Tower for the Union of Shadows,” stresses that one must be thorough in preventing a young man and a young woman from coming into touch with each other, because once they get the idea, then even if “the Jade Emperor issues an edict to execute them, Yama, King of Hell, sends out an arrest warrant, all the mountains, rivers and plants turn into armed soldiers, and the sun, the moon and the stars become arrows and pellets, they will still risk their death to satisfy their will.” It turns into the argument that “love” is unstoppable and asceticism is ineffective. In storyline, Li Yu’s stories are mostly original and wellconceived, and their seemingly preposterous plot often contains withering scorn for concepts of traditional culture. For example, “A Male Mother of Mencius Moved Three Times to Bring Up the Son,” a story from Silent Operas, tells how two men, Xu Wei and You Ruilang, fall in love with each other and get married like husband and wife. Ruilang not only loves his “husband” deeply, but also keeps his chastity after the latter’s decease. He also models after the mother of Mencius in moving three times in order to bring up the latter’s son to be a worthy person, and gets to be appointed as “a titled lady by imperial

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mandate.” Stories of this kind demonstrate some orthodox concepts of value system in a ludicrous manner. In addition, some of Li Yu’s stories about the passionate love affairs between young men and young women are extremely moving (such as “Tower for the Union of Shadows”), and they may be said to have continued the tradition of the “Three Word’s” and “Two Striking’s.” Li Yu’s Casual Expressions of Idle Feelings includes various kinds of miscellaneous writings like the sketches. Among them, the “Section of Song Lyric and Aria,” which is about dramatic works, is divided into six parts, “Structure,” “Diction,” “Sound and Prosody,” “Spoken Parts,” “Gags,” and “Setup.” It is a well-known premodern work of dramatic theory characterized by the importance it devotes to the effects of theatrical performance and from that, its emphasis on the specificity of dramatic literature. The subject matter of Ten Plays from Liweng is the same kind of stories that easily appeal to the audience such as the talented young men and beautiful young women. To provide entertainment, they are mostly in the form of comedy or melodrama, and, just like his stories, they often try to make the audience laugh by preposterous plot. (For example, the play The Apathetic Heaven and the story “The Ugly Man Fears the Lovely but Unexpectedly Wins All the Beauties” use the same storyline, which is about how an extremely ugly man marries three women of unrivalled beauty.) In his plays, Li Yu also often uses language in a bantering tone to ridicule the bad habits in society and the laughable aspects of human nature. For example, using the clown Qi Shi as a mouthpiece, The Mistake with the Kite advertises the pleasure of playing games, and throws withering scorn for the “genteel folks” in such a denouncement: “Fundamentalist scholars like King Wen, Lord of Zhou, Confucius and Mencius, who composed those several classics, have really tortured people to death.” It really integrates something serious in the apparently humorous statement. Among Li Yu’s dramatic works, Flatfish, a play about love, is the most moving piece. It tells how Tan Chuyu, a poor and humble scholar, falls in love with Liu Miaogu, an actress in a troupe, so he joins the troupe to learn performing, and the two have a secret affair. Later, Miaogu is forced by her greedy mother to marry Qian Wanguan [whose surname Qian means “money” and whose name Wanguan means “ten thousand strings of 1,000 coins”]. She pledges to die rather than to obey, and then she takes the opportunity of playing in a performance of The Story of Thorn Hairpin, assuming the role of Qian

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Yulian and using some new lyrics, composed by herself, to reprove her mother for her greed for wealth, and lash out at Qian Wanguan, who is in the audience. Then she jumps into the river from the stage, and Tan also follows her and jumps into the river. After their death they transform into a pair of flatfish; they are caught in a net by someone, resume their human form and get married as husband and wife. The passionate love between a young man and a young woman, abiding in life or death, is given a vivid portrayal in great details. In artistic techniques, Li Yu’s plays well exemplify the principles he has put forward in Casual Expressions of Idle Feelings. Most remarkably, they are new and original in plot and superbly organized. They never fall into conventional pattern, and their plots of coincidences, while unexpected, are well conceived in meticulous details. For instance, Flatfish is quite original in its use of a play within the play. The Mistake with the Kite makes another outstanding example in telling a story of successive misunderstandings among two young couples. Li Yu’s stories and plays usually have no lofty intentions, and their secular townsfolk taste has often been criticized. However, they have the obvious strength in their excellent description of life’s desires of the common people and their representation of life’s reality in preposterous storylines. Generally speaking, they are outstanding in deviating from the cultural convention of the scholar-officials, in detaching from the political and moral functions of literature, and in emphasizing entertainment values. These characteristics were also a kind of embodiment of the move toward modernity of classical Chinese literature. Li Yu and Others In the Ming dynasty, Suzhou was at one time a center for the composition and performance of drama. By the Early Qing period, many playwrights were still active in the city. Among them, Li Yu [a different author from the one discussed in the previous section] was best known, and the others included Zhu Hu, Zhu Zuochao, Ye Shizhang, Zhang Dafu, Qiu Yuan, and others. Most of them were in close contact with one another, and they even collaborated in writing plays. Accordingly some scholars have called them “the Suzhou School.” According to Wu Weiye’s “Foreword to the Expanded Revised Scores of Northern Song Lyrics,” Li Yu (1591?–1671?) won the degree of Provincial Graduate on a Supplementary List at the end of the Ming. He wrote more than thirty plays of which eighteen are extant today.


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Among them, what were known as composed at the end of the Ming, One Handful of Snow, Man-and-Beast Pass, Everlasting Union, and Winning the Queen of Flowers, known collectively by the first characters in their titles as One Man Everlasting Winning, are the best known ones. In addition, Register of the Upright and Loyal, is of unknown date; however, Wu Weiye’s foreword for the play was written at the beginning of the Qing, so the play was perhaps also written at the time; Union across Ten Thousand Miles (also known as Predestined Relationship across Ten Thousand Miles) and A Thousand Bushels of Income (also known as The Slaughter of a Thousand Loyal Ones) were both written at the begnning of the Qing. Li Yu was among those who strived to come to the rescue of a “degenerating age” by revitalizing the old morality at the end of the Ming and the beginning of the Qing. Works representative of such an effort are One Handful of Snow and Register of the Upright and Loyal. One Handful of Snow tells the story of how Yan Shifan, the powerful treacherous courtier, frames up Mo Huaigu, for the purpose of obtaining “One Handful of Snow,” a precious jade cup in the latter’s family collection handed down from his ancestors. A few characters of lowly social status play a key role in the conflicts of the entire play, and they belong, respectively, to the two opposite camps of the good and the evil. Tang Qin, a retainer of the Mo family, is on the evil side. Originally a craftsman who wanders about the streets destitute, he is taken in by the Mo family. Later, to fawn on Yan Shifan, he masterminds the scheme for the latter to frame up Mo Huaigu, and also takes the opportunity to seize Xue Yanniang, Mo’s favorite concubine. Those on the good side are Mo Cheng, the loyal servant of the Mo family and Xue Yanniang, the faithful concubine; the former gives up his life in Mo Huaigu’s place so that his master may escape, and the latter pretends to be willing to marry Tang Qin, so that Tang will not tell the truth about how Mo Cheng dies in his master’s place, stabs Tang to death in the bridal chamber, and then commits suicide. The play is filled with the eulogy of the morality of slaves, and the author seemed to believe that it made a force that was able to rectify “the public morals.” Tang Qin is a very lively character in the play. He is good at seizing every chance to gain advantage by trickery. Smart and treacherous, he does not believe in any heavenly principles of ethics and justice, and has no consideration whatsoever for human feelings. While he is an intelligent and talented man, he has no moral scruples in climbing

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up the social ladder. A character from the townsfolk of his kind, with characteristics of the age, was unprecedented in drama. Register of the Upright and Loyal is based on the historical events during the Tianqi reign, when Wei Zhongxian and the clique of the eunuchs persecuted those in the Donglin Society. Zhou Shunchang in the play was in reality not so important in his political status, but the author deliberately portrayed him as a kind of spiritual pillar for the state, so that he appeared as an extremely moral man in personality. He is not only presented in his upright and outspoken nature as “a loyal minister fearless of death,” but is also repeatedly depicted as unconcerned, almost apathetic, toward his wife and children, so as to set in relief the thoroughness of his “dedication to the sovereign.” The spirit of loyalty to the ruler, attained through a complete denial of the individual, is consistent with the morality of the slaves eulogized in One Handful of Snow. A better composed work among Li Yu’s plays is A Thousand Bushels of Income, which tells the story of the struggle for the throne between the Prince of Yan (subsequently Emperor Yongle)1 and Emperor Jianwen2 at the beginning of the Ming. After the capital of Nanjing is seized, Emperor Jianwen becomes a fugitive disguised as a Buddhist monk. The text of the song of “Pouring the Cup: Jade Hibiscus,” in the act of “Tragic Sight,” was widespread at the time: Pick up the earth, the mountains and the rivers and load them all on a carrying pole. All the sensuous world—in its four elements—is an illusion. I have walked across the enormous distance on my travel: vast planes of woods in mist, ranges and ranges of mountains, and the rough waters of long rivers. I’ve seen the cold clouds shrouded in heavy fog and interwoven in grief; I’ve endured all the sad rains and dreary winds that are extended in misery. How majestic is the city-wall! So the land looks all the same today. Who will know me any more, holding a beggar’s spoon, wearing a straw hat, and arriving in the city of Xiangyang?

1 2

Emperor Chengzu of the Ming. Emperor Hui of the Ming.


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The play tells the historical events at the beginning of the Ming, but the downfall of the Ming somehow looms in the background. The details about the massacre carried out by the Prince of Yan in search of Emperor Jianwen, and the desolate and distressed scenes on the road of Emperor Jianwen’s exile, help to create the tragic atmosphere with a sense of loss caused by the cataclysms of history. Most of Li Yu’s plays have excellent stage effects because of their compact organization and sharp conflicts. However, the passion shown by the kinds of roles like loyal officials or their equally loyal servants and faithful concubines, who sacrifice their own lives for their masters, depends mostly on pompous language and does not hold any really strong appeal to the audience. Strange Tales from Make-Do Studio Fiction about ghosts, monsters and supernatural things in classical language, as a medium to express wild imagination and secret feelings, had been quite popular among scholar-officials since the Late Ming, and it was brought into its fullest play in Pu Songling’s Strange Tales from Make-Do Studio. Pu Songling (1640–1715) was born in an aristocratic family that had been on decline for a long time. In childhood, he studied under the tutorship of his father, who had given up Confucian studies and engaged in business, but had never forgotten to resume the family’s honor and prestige. At the age of nineteen, he was appointed as a National Academy Student because he had ranked first on the examinations on the level of district, prefecture, and circuit. After that he shot to a literary fame, and he had a high opinion of himself, but he remained unsuccessful in subsequent examinations, and it was not until he was seventy-one years old when he, following the usual practice, acquired the status as a Tribute Student, which was already meaningless to him. He served on the staff of regional officials for a short while, and then, for a long time, he made a living by being a private tutor for families of officials. Approximately starting from his middle age, he composed Strange Tales from Make-Do Studio at the same time when he was teaching. Even in draft stage it was circulated among his friends, and even gained the appreciation of Wang Shizhen, the leader of the poetic circles of the age. In the system of classical fiction, Strange Tales from Make-Do Studio is a mixture of the supernatural (zhi guai) and the tale of the

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marvelous (chuan qi). Among the entries included in the book, with a total number of nearly five hundred, approximately half of them are simple records of all kinds of strange hearsay which do not contain any storyline, and only the other half are fiction in the real sense of the word, and they mostly involve strange tales about divinity, ghosts, fox spirits, spirits of flowers and plants, and the like. Because the author suffered all life the torture of the civil service examinations, stories related to the subject are therefore always filled with the bitterness and indignation in his heart, leaving a deep impression on the reader. For example, the story “Three Lives” tells how Xingyu Tang, a reputed scholar, is failed by a certain examiner, so in his three successive lives of transmigration he tries to settle the score with the reincarnations of the examiner; such a kind of unrelenting enmity is exactly a reflection of Pu Songling’s own mentality. “Wang Zi’an” tells how the title character fails repeatedly in examinations; once, when the list of successful candidates is about to be published, he gets extremely drunk; in an instant, he dreams that he has won the degrees of Provincial Graduate, Metropolitan Graduate, and gets appointed in the Imperial Hanlin Academy, and he repeatedly shouts to give tips to the messengers who bring the good news; then it dawns on him that he need to “bring honor to his hometown neighborhood,” and because his “footman” is late in showing up, he “banged on his bed and stamped his feet, and cursed loudly, ‘Where did the stupid slave go?’” It is only after he sobers up that he realizes that it is all an illusion. The penetrating description not only reveals the obsession of the scholars, but also smacks of soul-searching. As someone who was a failure in reality, Pu Songling was often laden with grief and gloom. He was in need of success in imagination, and he had the talent to create beautiful dreams. Many of his stories about the love between fox spirits and other supernatural beings and human beings were generated from that. Such stories like “Jiao Na,” “Green Phoenix,” “Ying Ning,” “Fragrant Lotus,” “A Bao,” “Qiao Niang,” “Pian Pian,” “Crow Head,” “Hemp Scarf,” “Fragrant Jade,” and “Girl in Green” are all very moving. The main characters in these stories are all females: some are straightforward and willful, some are cunning and smart, some are delicate and gentle, but they are all full of life. As they are fox and flower spirits or the like, they are not bound by the principles of Confucian ethical codes; unlike people in the society, they do not have as much concern for gains and losses, and their choices of lovers are only under the control of their feelings.


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In short, they are a group of beings who have hardly been polluted by the civilized laws of the human world. Generally speaking, these female characters, depicted in the author’s imagination, disclose an important truth: only after they are free from the restrictions of the ruthless rules of Confucian ethics will females become most beautiful and lovely. Certainly, even in imagination, the dark shadow of reality still exists, so the short union between human beings and fox spirits or ghosts, solitary males and lonely females, always leaves the reader with a feeling of melancholy at its end. What makes the stories in Strange Tales from Make-Do Studio particularly touching is that they manage to represent genuine feelings in impossible, fantastic fancy, and furthermore, truthful human emotions and life experience, due to their transformation in the preposterous storyline, appear even more distinct and striking. For instance, “Girl in Green” tells how when Yu Sheng studies in an old temple deep in the mountain, a girl suddenly arrives out of nowhere, “wearing a green blouse and long skirt, looking incomparably lovely.” The two of them get intimate with each other, and afterward the girl comes every night: One night, they were having a drink together. In the conversation, she showed a deep understanding of music. Yu said, “You have a lovely fine voice, if you sing something, it will surely be soul-stirring.” The girl laughed and said, “I dare not sing anything to stir your soul.” Yu insisted. She said, “It is not because I stint my voice. I’m just afraid that I may be heard by others. If you really want to hear it, then I’ll make a fool of myself right away; however, allow me to give a demonstration in a soft voice.” So, she tapped the footstool with her delicate tiny foot and sang, “The little bird up on the tree / Tricks me into leaving at midnight; / I mind not getting my embroidered shoes wet, / I’m afraid only that my man has no company.” Her voice, soft like that of a fly, was just audible. But in the stillness it sounded sweet and powerful, pleasing to the ear and tugging at one’s heartstring.

After she finishes the song, the girl in green suddenly becomes extremely apprehensive, and says sadly, “I feel agitated in heart; my gains are coming to an end!” At daybreak, when she is about to leave, she begs Yu to see her off at the door: (Yu) was just about to go back in and sleep, when he heard the girl crying desperately for help. Yu ran over, looked all around, but saw nothing. He traced the sound up to the eaves, so he raised his head and looking more carefully, he saw a spider as big as a pellet catching some creature that screamed sadly. Yu broke the web, got the creature down,

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chapter nineteen and freed it from the binding. It turned out to be a green bee which seemed to be at its last gasp. He took it back into the room and put it on the desk. It was not until after nearly an hour that it was able to move. Slowly it ascended to the inkslab, and threw itself into the ink. Then it got out of the ink onto the desk, and moved around to write the word “thanks.” It kept flapping its wings, and then it made its way out through the window. From then on nothing appeared ever again.

A fragile life, being under the watch of a violent external force, still risks all the danger to acquire the joy of love, however transient it may be. The sorrowful lyricism in the illusive story is simply unforgettable. The language used in Strange Tales from Make-Do Studio has special features of its own. Its narration is in terse and elegant classical Chinese, but the dialogues between the characters, while also in classical language, are not only plain and simple in comparison, but often incorporate elements of the spoken language in an ingenious way so as to simulate the real expression and tone of the characters. For example, “Pian Pian” tells how the title character, a fairy maiden, takes under her care Luo Zifu, a prodigal in dire straits, and she makes a brocade clothing interwoven with leaves for her lover. One day, someone known as “Lady from the Flower City” calls on them. Luo twice stealthily takes liberties with “Flower City,” when his clothing turns back into yellow leaves on both occasions. He turns out making a fool of himself right on the spot: Flower City laughed and said, “That little boy of yours is truly indecent. If you are not a lady of such green-eyed jealousy, I’m afraid he might simply disappear into the skies.” Pian Pian also laughed and said, “A fickle boy like that deserves to be left to pop off from the freezing cold!” Both clapped their hands. Flower City left the dinner table and said, “I’m afraid my little daughter is awake, and she may cry until her heart breaks.” Pian Pain also stood up and said, “When you were obsessed with luring someone else’s boy a while ago, how come you didn’t remember that your little girl might cry?”

It provides a vivacious description of the two ladies poking fun at each other. The story is also extremely interesting. A Sequel to Water Margin and other Novels In the Early Qing period, many popular novels appeared. Among them, A Sequel to Water Margin, Complete Stories of Yue Fei and Romance of the Sui and Tang Dynasties fall under the same category in telling the legendary stories of heroic figures.


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A Sequel to Water Margin, in forty chapters, was first published in the third year of the Kangxi reign (1664) and its composition should have been during the years of transition from the Shunzhi to the Kangxi reign. At the time, the Qin regime had already established its rule of the entire nation, though tides of resistance still rose one after another at various places. Its author, Chen Chen, regarded himself as a loyalist of the subjugated Ming. The lines from the introductory poem in the first chapter of the book express his feeling about and the purpose of his composition, “Thousands of years, a myriad ages, my regret lasts forever; / White-haired, under a solitary lamplight, I write the sequel to an old book.” Though said to be a sequel to Water Margin, the novel actually was closely associated with contemporary history. Using as its background the Jin army’s invasion into the south and the peril of the Song regime, it tells how some of the surviving leaders of Mt. Liangshan, descendents of the Liangshan heroes, and also some other chivalrous men from the “rivers and lakes,” come together once again under Li Jun’s leadership to take to the greenwood. At the beginning they mainly resist local corrupt officials; beginning from the fourteenth chapter, it turns into a fight against the traitorous powerful courtiers like Gao Qiu, Tong Guan, Cai Jing and his son, etc., as well as against the Jin troops. At the end, Li Jun and his men go overseas to found a new nation, but they still accept the honorary title conferred by the Southern Song court. Such contents obviously made a veiled allusion to events at the beginning of the Qing reign, and reminded the reader of the Zheng Chenggong regime, which was using Taiwan as its base in its attempt to resist the Qing and restore the Ming. In many respects, A Sequel to Water Margin has preserved the characteristics of The Story of the Water Margin. However, because of its essential preference for the representation of national consciousness, the aspect of the novel’s personages as “high-minded and loyal subjects” is strengthened, whereas the chivalrous and liberal personality of the heroes of the Water Margin and their pursuit of worldly blessing have not been in full display, which puts a limit on the novel’s achievements. On the other hand, artistically the author was quite accomplished. As an original novel, it has a coherent narrative structure. It is smooth and lively in language, although it does not have as much vitality as The Story of the Water Margin. Complete Stories of Yue Fei, in eighty chapters, tells the story of how Yue Fei fights against the Jin and how he eventually dies from

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being framed by Qin Kuai. It was inscribed as “compiled by Qian Cai and expanded by Jin Feng.” Nothing is known about the life of Qian Cai and Jin Feng. In the front there is a foreword by Jin Feng in the twenty-third year (1684) of the Kangxi reign. During the Ming, Xiong Damu composed Popular Romance of the Restoration of the Great Song, which was abridged by Zou Yuanbiao into Story of Yue Fei, the Loyalist. Complete Stories of Yue Fei was written on the basis of those earlier works; its content is primarily based on historical facts but also contains much of fiction. The story of Yue Fei’s fight against the Jin naturally involves the issue of national conflict, but the novel keeps some distance to it. The book defines the warfare between the Song and the Jin as a kind of “the will of the Heaven,” and its description of the figures of the Jin regime, as compared to that found in the works of the Ming dynasty, uses relatively little language of vilification, and even not without some praise. It served the purpose of refraining from offending the rulers of the Qing dynasty. The struggle between the upright and the treacherous turns into the main thread of ideas of the work; whether they are loyal to their respective regime and sovereign consistently makes the highest criterion of judgment. Therefore the images of Yue Fei and Qin Kuai, respectively as the incarnation of “the upright” and “the treacherous”, are obviously inclined to serve a symbolic role. After he is arrested, Yue Fei, for example, is worried that Yue Yun and Zhang Xian may lead a rebellion, so he writes a letter and tell them to come so that they will face death together. Zhang Bao, a subordinate of his, visits him in prison; seeing the horrible situation he is in, Zhang bumps his head against the prison wall to his death. Without showing any pity, Yue Fei bursts into laughter, saying that Zhang Bao has helped him to achieve his goal. Such description of Yue Fei, apparently for the purpose of glorifying him, actually has a touch of obsequious servility. Some of the secondary characters, on the other hand, have turned out to show more of their individuality, particularly Niu Gao, a figure in the style of Li Kui (Water Margin), who is reckless and straightforward, and often stirs up trouble, helping to enliven the atmosphere. He dares to curse at “that damned emperor,” and he has the courage to observe that “all those who become emperors are in general coldblooded and heartless.” His image sets off that of Yue Fei, and also provides a kind of psychological balance for the reader. Complete Stories of Yue Fei holds its appeal to the reader primarily in its strong narrative nature. The arrangement of its storyline, with the exception of the last more than ten chapters, which appear to be


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somewhat fragmentary and cumbersome, has a clear framework and dramatic twists and turns, with numerous but clear threads. Many of the scenes therein, like Yue Fei sending the Young Prince of Liang in the air with his spear, Gao Chong pushing up the rolling crushers, Liang Hongyu beating drums in the fight at Mt. Jinshan, Yue Yun storming into the military camp, are all portrayed in a very lively manner, making their appeal to the general reader. They are particularly suitable to be used as material for professional storytelling. In terms of its language, there is nothing special about the novel, though it still reads quite poised and smooth. Romance of the Sui and Tang Dynasties, in a hundred chapters, was written by Chu Renhuo. Probably completed during the Kangxi reign, it was adapted from historical novels since the end of the Yuan dynasty such as Accounts of the Sui and Tang Annals, Chronicles of the Erotic Adventures of Emperor Yang of the Sui, Leftover Records from History of Sui, etc. It begins from the Sui Emperor Wen’s conquest of the Chen regime, and ends with the Tang Emperor Xuanzong’s return to Chang’an after the An-Shi Rebellion. The relations between Emperor Yang and Zhu Gui’er and that between Xuanzong and Consort Yang are treated as “a pre-destined love relationship in reincarnation,” which turns into a thread of storyline that runs through the entire book. This novel incorporates, to a large extent, materials of great diversity from related unofficial histories, sketches, and fiction. As a kind of popular literature, it holds its appeal to the reader, first of all, in highlighting Emperor Yang’s life in his harem and his love affairs, and secondly, in recounting the events of the rebellion of the heroes toward the end of the Sui dynasty. These two storylines, seemingly contradictory to each other, are nevertheless similar in accommodating to popular mentality. Its defect, just as Lu Xun has criticized, lies in its being “glamorous on the surface but lacking in depth.” However, the novel contains a rich body of historical tales, and the images of popular heroes like Qin Qiong, Shan Xiongxin, Cheng Yaojin, and Luo Cheng are well portrayed. Another novel that shares something in common with Romance of the Sui and Tang Dynasties in content is Complete Chronicles of the Stories of the Tang (referred to in brief as Stories of the Tang), inscribed as “edited by Yuanhu Yushou (“Old Fisherman of the Mandarin Duck Lake”), in sixty-eight chapters. Some believed that it was produced during the Yongzheng reign, though the earliest extant print of the novel was from the Qianlong years. The book focuses on the stories about the heroes who gather at the Wagang Stockade in rebellion at the end of the Sui dynasty. It is more

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fictitious in nature than Romance of the Sui and Tang Dynasties, and the characterization of Qin Qiong, Shan Xiongxin, Cheng Yaojin, and Luo Cheng shows more vitality. Novels of the kind as discussed in the above create the images of many folk heroes of the greenwood, obviously under the influence of The Story of the Water Margin. Remarkably, however, orthodox morality became increasingly strong in these novels. The personality of the heroes therein, while still characterized by unruliness, came under the increasingly strong control and restraint of orthodox figures. Evolving in such a direction, there appeared the fiction of chivalry and legal cases wherein the “heroes” collaborate with the government and the “upright officials.” In the early Qing period, there also appeared a large number of novels which fall under the type of talented young men and beautiful young women. These novels generally follow the basic format, without any exception, of how young men and women exchange poems and letters, fall in love in secret, live through many setbacks, and eventually get married by imperial decree (or by the command of their parents). The characters in such novels are always from the family of distinguished officials or hereditary clans. Females, always extremely beautiful, love talent with no concern for money or power. Males, always extraordinarily talented, win their degrees of Metropolitan or Principal Graduate effortlessly. Because of its detachment from life in reality, characterization is in general quite flat. However, the popularity of such novels reflected, after all, that the pursuit of love and marriage of one’s own choice had become more universal in society. Subsequently, the so-called fiction of “mandarin ducks and butterflies” was in its direct line of descent. More representative works of the genre are the two novels, Cold Swallow of Mount Even and Lovely Jade and Pear. Both are in twenty chapters, and both are attributed to Yiqiu Sanren (“Recluse of Autumn Rush”) [or Di’an Sanren (“Recluse of the Reed Shore”), etc.] The former tells the love story of two pairs of talented men and beautiful women, Yan (“Swallow”) Bohan and Shan (“Mount”) Dai, Ping (“Even”) Ruheng and Leng (“Cold”) Jiangxue. The latter tells the story of how Su Youbo, a talented man, get to marry two beautiful women, Bo Hongyu (“Jade”) and Lu Mengli (“Pear”).3 3 The titles of these two novels are made of part of the names of their respective major characters.


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Palace of Eternal Life and Peach Blossom Fan Hong Sheng’s Palace of Eternal Life and Kong Shangren’s Peach Blossom Fan, which appeared in the middle period of the Kangxi reign, were the last masterworks of premodern dramatic literature. A student of the National University for more than twenty years, Hong Sheng (1645–1704) never received any official appointment. He was by nature an aloof and proud person. Zhao Zhixin has remarked that he “often viewed others with disfavor, and was viewed with disfavor by others.” (Notes on the Dragon) Since the Tang dynasty, the events about Li Longji (Emperor Xuanzong) and Consort Yang had taken on an enormously diversified look in all kinds of official and unofficial histories, folklore, and literary imagination. Using the account in Bo Juyi’s “Song of the Everlasting Sorrow” and Chen Hong’s “Story of the ‘Song of the Everlasting Sorrow’ ” as the basis, Hong Sheng read different kinds of materials extensively, making his choices of inclusion and exclusion, spent more than a decade, and made three revisions in completing his Palace of Eternal Life. The primary motive of his composition was to make a conclusive narration of this specific subject matter in Chinese literature. In fact, Palace of Eternal Life finalized the literary composition, in its classical period, of this story. The story about Li and Yang contained an inherent contradiction from its very beginning. On the one hand, it represents, through an imagination of life in the imperial palace, the pursuit of a majestic and romantic love; on the other, the conventional interpretation of that part of history believes that the cause of the An-Shi Rebellion is because of Li Longji’s neglect of state affairs due to his obsession with Consort Yang. Consequently, the expression of feeling about the rise and fall of the nation and the praise of romantic love easily run against each other in conflict. Palace of Eternal Love tries to combine the contents of both these two aspects into unity and provide a complete depiction. The play tells how the emperor’s obsession with the consort and the monopoly and abuse of power of the Yang family members lead to the disruption of the political order of the state and social upheaval. While it is still critical, in intention, of the emperor’s misrule, its focus, judging from the structure of the entire play, is not to provide any political lesson, but rather to describe the total separation between the male and female protagonists because of their own mistakes, and to highlight the sorrow that even as the Son of Heaven and

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the imperial consort, they are unable to shape their own destiny. Such a kind of depiction not only fails to constitute a negation of “Eros,” but rather, just on the contrary, provides the condition for “Eros” to be elevated to an unprecedented level of passion. Precisely because of their separation by death and the discontinuation of their sexual ecstasy, the protagonists come to a full realization of the indispensable value of love in life. For example, the act of “Crying Over the Statue” tells how the emperor, looking at a wooden statue of Consort Yang, becomes distraught and weeps sadly until tears begin to well up from the eyes of the wooden statue. The reader or the audience cannot but feel deeply touched by such a scene. “Eros,” represented in such an ultimate way, is able to move heaven and earth, gods and spirits, and transcend life and death. Finally, the two of them manage to rise to the palace of the immortals together, fulfilling a beautiful dream of love. Since “Eros” is consistently at the core of, and threads through, the entire play, the contradiction between the feeling about the rise and fall of the nation and the romantic love is thereby eased up. To eulogize love as a force that transcends life and death in such a way was actually a continuation of the spirit of Late Ming literature. In his “Introduction” the author voices his approval of the observation that the play is “a Peony Pavilion with more activity and excitement,” which also shows that Palace of Eternal Life is in direct descent of Peony Pavilion. Artistically, Palace of Eternal Life has won the acclaim in the past in two aspects, its structure and its song texts. Due to their unrestricted length and scale, the chuan qi plays of the Ming and Qing are not infrequently confused in their main threads and contain many digressions in storyline; even a masterpiece like Peony Pavilion is not free from that. The entire play of Palace of Eternal Life is in fifty acts. At the same time when it tells the love story of Li and Yang, it also devotes a fairly large part of its space to an account of the An-Shi Rebellion and the related political and social condition. With all its grand scenes, numerous characters, and all the dramatic turns in its storyline, it is nevertheless very well organized, and its rich content is unfolded, from beginning to end, in a meticulous and succinct order. The play uses as its main thread of storyline the love affair of Li and Yang, and such a main thread is carried from beginning to end by a set of props, the gold hairpin and the inlaid box, used by Li and Yang as their token of love, which stay together, separate,


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and come together again with the changes in the storyline, with strong dramatic effects. The beauty of the song texts in Palace of Eternal Life has always been highly acclaimed. In language, they are characterized by their easy grace, detailed delineation, and strong lyricism. In terms of their sound and melody, Hong Sheng himself was knowledgeable about them and in addition, he also enlisted the help of Xu Lin, an expert who composed New Scores of the Nine Gong Modes. Consequently, the texts are “exquisite and harmonious in every word and line.” (Foreword by Wu Yiyi) Even when one reads them on paper, one can feel the beauty of their musicality. The act of “Hearing the Bells” follows the style of “Song of the Everlasting Sorrow” and Rain in the Phoenix Trees, using the sound of wind and rain to highlight the sorrow in the emperor’s heart and to provide an in-depth representation of his obsession with “Eros.” We shall cite as an example the song of “Flowers in Wuling” as follows: Pitter, patter, How startling is this dreary scene! Sounding from afar, across mountains and trees, the wind and the rain come together as in a battle making themselves heard, low and high. Pitter: one drop, another drop, Patter: one drop, another drop, they blend into the sad man’s tears of blood. Facing the heart-rending place here, I recall the grave in the wild. The white poplars rustle in the lashing rain; At this moment, how desolate her lonely spirit is! Chilling is the light from the will-o’-the-wisp; Fireflies swarm among the wet grass. How I regret that I let you down, my dear, in panic, I let you down, my dear! Alone in the human world, I really, really do not want to live on. I tell my beautiful one: sooner or later, we’ll hold each other in the shades below. I let out an agonized cry: the mountains fall quiet, and the sound of bells comes in reply. Oh the rugged path in the valley is like my mind which can never turn even again!

This may be read as a beautiful lyric poem. The style of the song texts in Palace of Eternal Life varies with the different status of the characters.

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For example, the song of “One Sprig of Flower,” sung by Li Guinian when he is stranded in Jiangnan, has a desolate feeling of its own: I never dreamed that I’d run into such turmoil in my declining years to be forced to live in poverty along the forked roads. My face turns black from all the running about in wind and dust, and alas, my age-worn hair and beard have turned white as frost. Today, leading a vagabond’s life at the end of the earth, I have nothing left but my pipa. Covering up the shame in my face, I walk along long and short streets. By no means am I like Gao Jianli, singing sadly while striking up his lute; Rather, I’m like Wu Zixu, playing the flute while living as a beggar.

This song, along with that of “Pouring the Cup: Jade Hibiscus” in the act of “Tragic Sight” in Li Yu’s A Thousand Bushels of Income, became extremely popular at one time, so much so that there was a popular saying, “In every house, it goes, ‘Pick up . . .;’ in every family, it goes, ‘I never dreamed . . .’ ” Kong Shangren (1648–1718) was a descendent of Confucius. Through recommendation he lectured on classics for Emperor Kangxi who recognized his talent, so he was promoted, breaking the normal process, from a student to an Erudite at the National University. Later, he was transferred to serve as the Vice Director of the Ministry of Revenue, but for some reason was dismissed from office. The composition of the play, Peach Blossom Fan, started before he began his government service. After some painstaking work of ten years, he finally completed the work in the thirty-eighth year of the Kangxi reign. The play uses as its main thread of storyline the love story of Hou Fangyu, a celebrated member of the Restoration Society (which derived from the Donglin Party), and Li Xiangjun, a famous courtesan of the Qinhuai district, providing an account of the turbulent and brief history of the Hongguang regime of the Southern Ming court and therewith the final downfall of the Ming dynasty. The purpose of the play, according to the author, is “to use the emotions over parting and reunion to express the feeling about the rise and fall of the nation,” (“Prelude” of Peach Blossom Fan) to provide a historical lesson for later generations by explaining, “by whom, from what events, in which year, and at which place, was the empire built up in three hundred years destroyed,” so that “the mind of human beings may learn the lesson as a rescue from the last regime.” (“Brief Introduction” to Peach Blossom Fan) All the characters in the play are based on real people, and the author also carried out an in-depth study and research of the


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basic historical facts of the Southern Ming, which accounted for the nature of the play as, in a strict sense, historical drama. Peach Blossom Fan depicts the history of Late Ming, and eulogizes Shi Kefa who fought against the Qing; accordingly it has often been referred to as a work that demonstrates national consciousness, which in fact is simply untrue. Not only does the author deliberately sing the praise of the Manchu in the opening act to display the basic stand of the play, but he has also based his evaluation of the main characters largely on the official position of the Qing government. Only one month after Shi Kefa was defeated in battle and executed, Duo Duo, the commander-in-chief of the Manchu troops, issued an order to build a shrine in Shi’s honor. (See Ji Liuqi’s A Brief History of the South during the Ming) From then on, the Qing rulers repeatedly praised Shi to serve the dual purpose of winning over the people and commending loyalty and moral integrity. Ma Shiying and Ruan Dacheng, on the other hand, had been placed among “treacherous officials” since the composition of the Manuscript of the History of the Ming. (The composition of the Manuscript of the History of the Ming began many years before the publication of Peach Blossom Fan.) In occasions like these, it was impossible for the author to venture any distinctive opinion of his own. On the other hand, one may also notice something from a different perspective. The publication of Peach Blossom Fan was already more than fifty years after the conquest of the Ming. The Manchu rule had become completely stable. The sorrow, indignation, and the strong anti-Manchu emotions prompted by the downfall of the Ming had gradually calmed down. Notwithstanding all these, however, there was still a strong feeling of nostalgia, especially in the case of a large number of literati and scholar-officials, whose value of existence had depended on the presence of the imperial Ming court, and the fact of the dynastic change, inevitably, gave them a sense of loss in life. Peach Blossom Fan answered, in a timely way, the mental need in the society. Through the description of scenes in social life during a special historical stage of disaster and upheaval, it expresses the profound emotions of people aroused in enormous historical changes. The great appeal of the artistic power of Peach Blossom Fan lies precisely in such a concern for human destiny and human existence. As a historical play which represents important political events, Peach Blossom Fan is not entirely free from the cliché of the opposition of the “upright” versus the “evil.” On the other hand, however,

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it does not place the blame for all the bad consequences, in a simplistic way, on the “evil and treacherous.” The play indicates that the inevitable fall of the Southern Ming court was not simply because of Emperor Hongguang, Ma Shiying, and Ruan Dacheng, etc., who were “self-serving sovereign and self-serving ministers serving none but themselves in bestowing favor and making revenge.” (“Marginalia” on the act of “Paying Homage at the Altar” in Peach Blossom Fan) In addition, the literati of the Restoration Society, who considered themselves to be an uncontaminated group and acted on impulse, Shi Kefa, who was not particularly talented and rather indecisive, Zuo Liangyu, who dispatched his troops to “rid the sovereign of ‘evil’ ministers around him” when the large Manchu force was bearing down on the border, all shared heavy responsibility for the conquest of the Southern Ming regime. “The state might be superseded, but the doors to their own houses would never fly open; not only were the ‘small men’ like that, but also the ‘gentlemen’. How deplorable!” (“Marginalia” on the act of “Paying Homage at the Altar”) That, indeed, is the true picture of the doomsday of a regime wherein no one is able to extricate oneself from the inevitable end. It discloses therein a more sophisticated understanding of history. There had been a large number of plays which provided a combined description of love affairs and important historical events, but Peach Blossom Fan managed to achieve a closer integration of the two themes than any previous works. The sad parting and joyful reunion of the male and female protagonists are always involved in the vortex of Southern Ming politics, and in the entire process, from its establishment to its elimination, of the Southern Ming regime. In addition, the author deliberately avoids any exclusive depiction of romantic love. It serves the purpose of highlighting the “emotions over the rise and fall of the nation,” i.e., to emphasize the relationship between history and the individual. At the beginning of the play, it tells how Li Xiangjun and Hou Fangyu fall in love with each other and live together. The love affair between a talented scholar and a renowned courtesan is the most romantic phase of the life of the scholar-officials in southeast China at the end of the Ming dynasty, of which the author provides a fascinating representation. However, after a series of disturbances and complications, when the two of them, Hou and Li, meet again at the White Cloud Shrine in the suburbs of Nanjing after the fall of the Ming, it seems a scene of happy reunion is about to unfold. What turns out, however, is that the romantic love comes to an end with the


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berating of Zhang, the Taoist priest, who tears apart the Peach Blossom Fan, a symbol of love’s constancy and faith which is painted with drops of Xiangjun’s blood: Bah, you two fools! Look: where is the nation? Where is the family? Where is the sovereign? Where are the parents? Don’t tell me you are unable to get rid of this fleshly lust of yours!

The fulfillment of love between Hou and Li, which has been imparted with a strong political flavor in the play, is closely connected with the existence of the Southern Ming regime. When the state falls, the family, naturally, follows suit, and so the two of them can only end up turning into, respectively, a monk and a nun. In Kong Shangren’s age, no one was allowed to challenge the rationality of the Manchu rule’s replacement of the Ming. Likewise, it was also off limits to challenge the spirit of “loyalty and righteousness” of the individual for the imperial regime he once belonged to. Since the worth of the individual was unable to exist all by itself, the scholarofficials who survived the dynastic change and, after all, still had to live under the rule of the new regime were caught in a kind of dilemma. To define the historical cataclysm as an illusion became the only alternative for self-consolation. It is not only the case with the love affair of Hou and Li, the entire play of Peach Blossom Fan is permeated with a sense of desolation and disillusionment. For example, in the act of “Drowning in the River,” the chorus of the characters is used to sing the praise of Shi Kefa, who dies for the state: Walking along the river, who are we to tell the indignation in our heart? The wind blows at our tear-stained old faces. Looking at the desolate city, we’ve kept gazing anxiously for the rescue to arrive. He exhausted all the leftover forces in bloody battles, and broke away from the strong siege in an undying love for the former state. Who knows that after all the singing, only an empty banquet table is left? All along the Yangtze, for three thousand miles from Wu to Chu, all fall under someone else’s possession. In the wind and rain, with the cold waves rolling east, everything is left to cloud and mist. Please show up, the spirit of our hero! The sound of the “Great Summon” travels far to the end of the sea and the sky. (“Ancient Luntai [‘Wheel Platform’]”)

The appeal here lies not only in the impassioned death of the hero as a martyr, but also in the sad realization that he has failed to clear up the mess in life and done nothing to help in death. In the end, “everything is left to cloud and mist” only.

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Breaking away from the conventional format of grand reunion, Peach Blossom Fan made the singular consummate tragedy in premodern dramatic literature, leaving more space for thinking for the reader and the audience. It was because the author realized how helpless and insignificant the individual would become in historical changes. It may have been unconscious on the author’s part, but he did touch upon an extremely profound issue: under the condition when the individual’s dependence upon the community is emphasized, once someone is caught in the dilemma caused by history, he is unable to free himself from the tragedy in life. Kong Shangren attached much importance to dramatic structure. In his “Introduction,” he makes the suggestion that the plot of the play should have “ups and downs, twists and turns,” that it should “find its way to a world of its own,” going beyond common expectation and staying away from the beaten track, and that it should achieve “coherence in its sequence of ideas,” become closely knit, without “meandering in all directions.” All these important theoretical points of view on drama have been well embodied in Peach Blossom Fan. The play is slightly smaller in scale than Palace of Eternal Life, but its storyline is far more complex than the latter, and its numerous dramatic turns manage to sustain the tension in atmosphere. It is also more closely organized than Palace of Eternal Life. The play uses the Peach Blossom Fan, a symbolic prop, to hold the multiple threads of the story together, and it is often ingenious in structure. In terms of its characterization, Li Xiangjun, the female protagonist, is highly impressive. The author portrays her within the vortex of political struggles, and also uses her image to express some kind of moral thinking, so some details in the plot turn out to be rather hyperbolic. However, her beauty, wisdom, and courage are still quite illuminating. In particular, in the act of “Keeping Watch at the Tower,” it tells how Xiangjun sheds her blood on the Peach Blossom Fan, how she would rather die than surrender under the pressure of violent external forces. It is not only a representation of “loyalty and constancy” in the ordinary sense of the concept, but also shines in the glory of humanity wherein human dignity is higher than life. In premodern times, dramatic works that involve political struggles used to push the personality of their characters to extreme in a moral sense. Story of the Crying Phoenix and Register of the Upright and Loyal made typical examples of that. Peach Blossom Fan directed more attention to the diversity of character types and to the multi-


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plicity of personality, which was certainly a significant improvement. Ruan Dacheng, for instance, was a renowned playwright. In the play he is portrayed as cunning and treacherous, but the aspect of his talent does not get ignored. For the literati of the Restoration Society, the play also touches upon their mannerism as “eccentric, self-indulgent scholars” in their flippant and unrestricted behavior. Most remarkably, the play has also created a few marginal figures in between the positive and negative roles. Among them, Yang Wencong is most successfully portrayed. Accomplished in poetry and painting, he is pleased with himself in his romantic temperament and unconventional behavior; smooth and slick, he is at home in all kinds of social settings; a person of no principle politically, he does have a human touch. The peach flowers on the fan, which symbolize Li Xiangjun’s noble personality, are his brushwork from the drops of blood that Xiangjun sheds over the fan. This is also a meaningful fine touch. Precisely because of the enormous vitality of its characterization, the play appears exceptionally insightful and lively in its storyline.

2. Drama and Fiction of the Middle Qing Period An Unofficial History of the Scholars and A Dream of Red Mansions, the two novels that emerged during the Qianlong reign, have a special worth of their own in the history of Chinese literature. Wu Jingzi and Cao Xueqin, the authors of these two novels, respectively, were both descendents from aristocratic families that had become impoverished, and were both very well educated. Their special experience in life gave them increased sensitivity to the crisis and changes in contemporary history, and they were able to perceive, in a more sober and sophisticated manner, some of the essentials in human feelings and social conditions, from which they managed to raise grave doubts about the value of orthodox old-time culture and to search for some kind of new directions in life and new spiritual prospects. An Unofficial History of the Scholars and A Dream of Red Mansions were also theretofore the most serious works of fiction. They were under little, if any, influence of the popular ideas in the society of the time; nor did they have any intention to cater to the popular taste of the common reader. What ran through them, instead, were their authors’ specific life’s experience, their profound thought about life, and their painstaking artistic creation. It further demonstrated the advantage of the novel as a

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literary genre, which is able to reflect the truth about human nature and the surroundings of human existence through the description of social conditions and the portrayal of human character. In the transition from the premodern to the modern literature, these two novels represented significant landmarks, and their artistic achievements also inspired many latecomers, including modern writers. Wu Jingzi and An Unofficial History of the Scholars Since his great-grandfather, Wu Jingzi (1701–1754)’s family had been successful with the civil service examinations for generations. For a period of fifty years, “the family basked in glory and prosperity.” By the time of Jingzi’s father, however, the family began to go downhill. At the age of twenty, Jingzi won the degree of Cultivated Talent (which was the highest he would ever get in life). Three years later, his father passed away. Jingzi received a rather generous legacy, but he spent it all in a matter of only a few years, and was regarded locally as a “wastrel” for “the sons of all families to take warning against.” (Wu Jingzi’s song lyric, “Lily Magnolia Flower with Reduced Words”) Because of the deteriorating relationship with others in his family clan, Wu Jingzi moved to Nanjing when he was thirty-three years old. In straitened circumstances, he nevertheless still carried on an uninhibited, free, and easy life style. Zhao Guoling, Governor of Anhui, recommended him for the examination of the “Erudite Literatus” in the capital, but he declined on the excuse of poor health. Meanwhile, he was increasingly hard up financially, and lived primarily on freelance writing and assistance from his friends. An Unofficial History of the Scholars was composed by Wu Jingzi in his forties, precisely during the period when he lived through the drastic changes of his family circumstances and gained an insight about mundane affairs and human nature. As a novel, An Unofficial History of the Scholars is idiosyncratic in structure. Instead of any main characters and narrative framework that thread through the entire book, it is a series of interlocking stories which are relatively independent of one another. On the other hand, it is by no means simply a bunch of short stories. Using the Ming dynasty as its background, the book exposes the spiritual degeneration of the literati under the imperial autocracy and in connection with that, all kinds of social maladies. It has a well-defined central theme, very clear threads of time, and its storyline shows an inherent coherence which works in concert throughout the entire work, from beginning to end.


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In the old times, the literati made the nucleus stratum of the society. According to the original Confucian ideal, while the profession of the “literati” was to “serve the state,” their ultimate destination in life, on the other hand, was supposed to seek the “Tao” or “Way,” something they should take pride in. (As the Analects says, “The literati had their purpose in the Tao.”) In real life under the imperial autocracy, however, the educated became increasingly dependent upon the nation and the state, and lost their right, even their capability, for independent thinking, which led to the debasement and servility of their personality. How to free oneself from such a predicament had become a central issue for literature since the Late Ming. First of all, An Unofficial History of the Scholars launches a full-scale attack on the system of civil service examination. In the first chapter, “Induction,” in the voice of Wang Mian, it criticizes that because the existence of such a “road toward self-glorification” as the civil service examination, the educated have become negligent of the “origin of accomplishment and conduct,” i.e., the way of learning, personal integrity, and attitude about success and failure in society as prescribed by traditional Confucianism. In the second chapter, right after it gets into the main text, it focuses on the vicissitudes of life in the examination hall of Zhou Jin and Fan Jin, two poverty-stricken scholars, and discloses how the civil service examination system lures and destroys the educated mentally with its tremendous force. Both of them are old “Apprentices”4 who have struggled for several decades of years without any success; they are treated with disdain and insult by others in their daily life. Once they manage to receive the degree of Provincial Candidate which allow them to become members of the genteel class, “those who were unrelated came to claim them as relatives; those who were unacquainted came to make their acquaintance,” and some would even offer them houses, estates, money, and servants. In and out of the threshold of civil service examination lie the opposites of poverty and wealth, humbleness and dignity, disgrace and honor. Accordingly, it is no surprise that Zhou Jin, on entering the Hall of the Tribute5 for a trip when he is still in dire straits, bumps his head

4 It was the quasi-official designation of a candidate for a civil service examination who had never been a student in a state school; during the Qing dynasty the status required certification in a preliminary local examination given by a District Magistrate. 5 It was the examination hall inside the Ministry of Rites where the capital examinations were held.

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against the number plate and faints, and after some comes to his rescue and brings him back to consciousness, he goes from one Numbered Chamber6 to another crying bitterly, until blood spills from his mouth. While Fan Jin is trying to sell an old hen, which he holds in his arms, in the market, he hears the news that he has won the degree of Provincial Graduate; he falls into raptures and goes crazy. Fortunately, thanks to his father-in-law, Butcher Hu, who gives him a slap in the face, he regains consciousness. Through these two characters the scene of how the educated turn crazy because of the civil service examination is given a remarkably faithful representation, though in a gloomy and stifling atmosphere. As the gallery of a variety of scholars, An Unofficial History of the Scholars does not keep the target of its attack on the civil service examination only. The novel presents in front of us all kinds of people among the literati. In addition to the type of Zhou Jin and Fan Jin, there are also despicable country squires like Zhang Jingzhai and Tribute Student Yan, or greedy and brutal bureaucrats such as Governor Wang and District Magistrate Tang. We see an indigent Cultivated Talent like Wang Yuhui, whose mind is contorted by old-time morality, and a pedant like Mr. Ma Er (“Ma the Second”), who takes delight in discussing the eight-legged essay but has completely lost his sensitivity to beauty. There are a large number of dilettantes like Jing Lanjiang and Zhao Xuezhai who, notwithstanding their diverse appearances, generally rush around, from door to door, the houses of bureaucrats or rich people. We also see young aristocrats like Master Lou San (“Lou the Third”), Master Lou Si (“Lou the Fourth”), and Du Shenqing, who are fond of doing things like “treating worthy men with courtesy” wherein they may pose as lovers of culture while, as a matter of fact, it is only because they have nothing better to do in life. In different perspectives and to various degrees, these characters reflected how extremely devoid of meaning the spirit of the educated was, a condition that prevailed among them. They kept themselves busy running around in the world, but there was no ballast in their life. In a fundamental way, such a social panorama revealed how the imperial system destroyed talents and thereupon also brought its own ruin, having lost all of its vitality.

6 These were where the candidates of the examination put up during the period of examination.


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But for the literati where, after all, would the way out be found? It was still a challenging problem for Wu Jingzi. In his late years, he devoted himself to the study of Confucian classics, regarding it to be “where one should get on with one’s work in a lifetime.” (“Biography of Master Wenmu”) It was an attempt on his part to reform society and culture through a re-interpretation of the original Confucianism. In connection to that, there also appear in An Unofficial History of the Scholars “true Confucians” like Zhuang Shaoguang, Chi Hengshan, and Erudite Yu. The author wished that the manner of the gentlemen in the classical sense, as embodied by these characters, might help to reconstruct rational and reasonable social values. That, however, was a conceptualized wishful thinking without any foundation in real life. The images of such “true Confucians” mostly appear one-dimensional and pale. The scene of the sacrificial ceremony at the Shrine of Taibo (“Grand Earl”), a key event in the entire book, appears to be solemn and serious but is in fact affected and pedantic. Towards the end of the novel, the symbolic Shrine of Taibo has long been in waste—Wu Jingzi obviously realized that it only represented an unattainable ideal. Finally, the author uses the story of four “extraordinary men among ordinary townsfolk” to close the work. These “extraordinary men,” though quite refreshing with a touch of urban life, are after all no more than re-incarnations of the recluse in the cultural convention of the scholar-officials. In short, the author was eventually unsuccessful in his search for a way to reform the society, and all he was able to do was to reveal, through irony, the literati’s dilemma of existence. The irony of An Unofficial History of the Scholars is an ingenious integration of realism and hyperbole, and the former is, in particular, a solid basis for the novel. Previous novels such as The Plum in the Golden Vase also contain some ingenious touches of irony but, overall, hyperbole and a comic tone prevail in them. It is different in the case of An Unofficial History of the Scholars, wherein its irony is achieved through the selection of appropriate material and precise portrayal that goes deep into the psychology of the characters. Many common occurrences in daily life, after the author’s refinement and delineation, as well as a kind of quiet, unperturbed amplification in the narration, turn into a clear representation of the absurdity in society and the falsehood of human heart. When the reader runs into such stories, however, he still feels that they are reflections of real life. The “General Comment” on the third chapter in the Woxian Caotang (“Thatched Cottage of Leisure while Lying Down”) Edition says, “Be careful. Don’t

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read An Unofficial History of the Scholars. If you finish reading it, then you may feel that An Unofficial History of the Scholars is all around you in your everyday life.” This comment has called our attention to the novel’s great power in arousing our vigilance which is formed in its use of realism as the basis of irony. For example, the second chapter tells how Wang Hui, who has just won the degree of Provincial Graduate in the recent examination, makes a stop for rest at the Shrine of Guan Yin during a boat trip, where Zhou Jin, a private tutor, puts up for the night. First, some dazzling self-glorification takes place, and then the meal ensues: They prattled to each other while they lit the candles. The housekeeper served wine and rice; chicken, fish, duck and meat were placed all over the rectangle dinner table. Provincial Graduate Wang did not treat Zhou Jin with any courtesy by offering him precedence, and simply sat down by himself and ate his meal, after which the bowls were taken away. Later, the monk brought out Zhou Jin’s meal, a dish of yellow vegetable leaves and a pot of hot water. Zhou Jin also ate his. They said good night to each other, and went to bed respectively. The next morning it cleared up. Provincial Graduate Wang got up, washed his face and put on his clothes; after making a cupped-hand salute, he left for his boat. Chicken bones, duck wings, fish bones, and shells of melon seeds spread all over the floor, and Zhou Jin, feeling dizzy and giddy, swept it for the whole morning.

It sounds plain and trivial in style, but takes on a rich flavor of comedy. The way the two have their meals respectively forms a kind of contrast, while another kind of contrast is provided in the seemingly casual account, in a deadpan style, of how Provincial Graduate Wang just takes his leave after “making a cupped-hand salute,” and the meticulously detailed description of how Zhou Jin cleans up the mess after the meal. It is hyperbolic to say that Zhou “swept it for the whole morning,” but in the comic atmosphere that has already been created, it is almost the kind of hyperbole that satisfies the reader’s expectation. Wu Jingzi was very sharp in observation. While he created some extremely mean and vulgar character like Tribute Student Yan, he was not without his understanding of the common people. The seemingly laughable conduct of many of his characters, after all, only represents the weakness of ordinary human nature, or a kind of contorted personality under the pressure of society and destiny, and his satire of these often contains a touch of sympathy, which accounts for the appeal of An Unofficial History of the Scholars. For instance, the scene


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of how Zhou Jin bumps his head against the number plate, cries bitterly, and spits blood inside the Hall of the Tribute, seems so stupid and funny by itself. However, the reader, who has already read about all the humiliation and insult which Zhou Jin has suffered as an old “Apprentice,” will feel that his conduct is quite natural and inspires our pity. In Chapter 48, when his daughter commits suicide after having just become a widow, Wang Yuhui, the indigent Cultivated Talent, raises his head to heaven and laughs loudly, saying: “What a nice death! What a nice death!” It sounds terribly absurd, but the author has also told us that his daughter’s death has something to do with the poverty of both her husband’s and her own family. Although Wang Yuhui manages to define the suicide as a noble incident, he is not entirely untouched by it. Accordingly, when he goes out and sees on the way a young widow in mourning, he is reminded of his daughter, and “burning tears brimmed over and fell on his cheek.” Masterworks of fiction from the Ming and Qing dynasties showed a tendency to evolve from the legendary to the non-legendary in nature. In essence, it was a process that moved from the exclusion of extraordinary figures and contingent elements to a gradually deepening exploration of true human nature. The achievements in this aspect of An Unofficial History of the Scholars are not only shown in the almost complete absence of legendary features and big dramatic conflicts in the novel, but more importantly, in the attempt to get hold, in depth, of the character’s mentality, which has begun to appear in the novel, and in its inclusion of accurate and faithful representation in that respect. Wu Jingzi was good in his understanding of the psychology of his characters, but he did not like to provide any analysis of that in an author’s status. Rather he would represent that through the characters’ movements and dialogues on their own part. For example, Chapter 5 tells that when Madame Wang, Tribute Student Yan’s wife, is seriously ill, Madame Zhao, Yan’s concubine, burns joss-sticks every night and prays to heaven and earth, in tears, expressing her wish to die in Madame Wang’s place. Later, when Madame Wang says that if she dies, Madame Zhao may be raised to wife’s status, “Madame Zhao immediately asked the Master to come in and repeated what the Lady had just said.” Just in a single line of sentence, Madame Zhao’s inner thought is revealed. Chapter 14 tells, in apparently prosaic but actually refined style, how the pedantic and upright Master Ma Er looks at women for several times by the West Lake. The first time, he comes upon several boatloads of countryside women who have come

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on a trip to make a sacrificial offering and burn joss-sticks. He looks at these women very carefully, taking heed of their hair style, clothing, and their faces, even the scars and scabies on their faces. That he takes such liberties is because he “was not concerned.” The second time, he watches, again by the lake, three ladies from families of wealth and rank change clothes inside their boat, until these women walk slowly onto the shore with their maid servants. By the time when he is about to run into them, he “lowered his head and walked by, without ever looking up.” This time, he is actually somewhat “concerned,” so he turns out to be more restrained in behavior. The third time, he falls across groups of females from families of rank and wealth at the Jingci Temple. “Sticking out his belly,” he “rushed his way through the crowds,” but “the women did not look at him; nor did he look at the women.” It is because Master Ma Er, who is priggish and fastidious about the bearing of a gentleman, dares not look at any female in close distance. However, “not looking” is also a kind of “looking.” In this way, by the side of the West Lake, Master Ma Er is involved in some little disturbance caused by women, but he passes peacefully between “heavenly principles” and “human desires.” Such a detail with very little drama and focusing only on the character’s mentality was rarely found in previous novels. An Unofficial History of the Scholars uses a highly skilled vernacular language that is concise, precise, lively and vivid. It hardly contains any verbose elements; nor does it use any stylized, stereotyped expressions. For instance, in Chapter 2, Zhou Jin appears on the scene as follows: Donning a battered felt hat on his head, he wore an old lounging robe in black silk, with its right sleeve and the place where he sat down on in the back already worn-out, and a pair of well-worn red silk shoes underneath. He had a haggard face in dark complexion, and a grizzled beard.

In a few strokes, it sketches the outline of a needy old private school tutor. For example, the “battered felt hat” tells that he has not even acquired the degree of the Cultivated Talent; that his “right sleeve” is threadbare shows that he often bends over his desk writing. Both are minutely detailed touches, and examples like these may be readily found throughout the novel. Vernacular language, used in such an exquisite and refined manner, is fully qualified to compare favorably with the age-old literary Chinese.


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An Unofficial History of the Scholars surely also has some imperfections, but many of its characteristics are fairly close to modern fiction. Some of the crisp descriptions and the cool, detached tone in Lu Xun’s fiction, for instance, demonstrate its connection with the earlier novel. Cao Xueqin and A Dream of Red Mansions The author of A Dream of Red Mansions was Cao Zhan (ca. 1715– ca. 1763), better known by his literary name, Xueqin. His ancestors were Chinese who lived in the Liaodong region; subsequently they were enrolled among the division of the Pure White Banner, and entered the Pass with the Manchu. The wife of Cao Xi, Xueqin’ great-grandfather, once served as Kangxi’s nurse during the emperor’s childhood, and Xueqin’s grandfather Cao Yin also served as Kangxi’s Reader-Companion in boyhood. Thus the Cao family had a special relationship with the Manchu imperial house, and hence was granted special favors during the Kangxi reign. For a period of more than sixty years, Cao Xi, Cao Yin, Cao Yong (the elder brother of Xueqin’s father), and Cao Tiao (Xueqin’s father) served successively as the Textile Commissioner at Jiangning, a position officially responsible for the purchase of fabric and daily necessities for the imperial house.7 Cao Yin, however, was in fact a personal agent and confidant sent by Kangxi to keep an eye on the Jiangnan region. Kangxi made a total of six tours in southern China, and for four of these he used the official residence of the Textile Commissioner at Jiangning as his temporary abode. It showed how much Cao Yin was trusted by the emperor, and how rich and sumptuous the Cao family was. Cao Xueqin spent his childhood when his family was in such illustrious and thriving circumstances. The decline of the Cao family resulted from the supersession of the imperial power. In the fifth year of the Yongzheng reign (1727), Cao Tiao was charged with running up “massive deficits in the funding of manufacturing” and other crimes, and removed from office; the family property was confiscated, and the whole family moved back to Beijing. Afterward, during the early years of the Qianlong reign, another incident of which little was known led to the ultimate downfall of the Cao

7 For this official position I have adopted David Hawkes’s rendition, a more concise one in English than Charles O. Hucker’s.

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family, sending its descendents to the lowest stratum of the society. Of Cao Xueqin himself, we have so far known very little, except that he did some odds and ends of office work at a private school of the family clan, known as “Clan School on the Right Wing.” In straitened means, he often had to sell his own paintings to make ends meet. In his last years, for more than a decade, Cao Xueqin was stranded in a small mountain village in Beijing’s western suburbs, leading an even more destitute life, to the extent of “The whole family feed on porridge, and wine is often bought on credit.” (Dun Cheng: “Presented to Cao Qinpu.”) It was in such a humble and out-of-the-way place that he wrote his masterpiece, A Dream of Red Mansions, (originally entitled The Story of the Stone), but he passed away before he was able to finish his manuscript. The various editions of A Dream of Red Mansions may be divided into two bodies. The first is that of the 80-chapter “Rouge Edition,” so called due to the attached commentary from the “Rouge Inkstone Studio” (an anonymous relative or friend of the author’s). It was a handwritten copy of the original manuscript of The Story of the Stone. The other system is that of the 120-chapter “Cheng Edition,” which was published by Cheng Weiyuan in the fifty-sixth year of the Qianlong reign (1791) using, for the first time, letterpress printing; in the subsequent year, it was typeset and printed again with some changes in the text, hence these two prints have respectively been called “Cheng Edition A” and “Cheng Edition B.” No final conclusion has been reached today as to how the last forty chapters in the Cheng Edition were composed, but generally they are considered to have been composed in continuation by Gao E (ca. 1738–ca. 1815). On the other hand, some believe that Cao Xueqin may have left behind some manuscript after Chapter 80, and all that Gao E did was to put it together. A Dream of Red Mansions is a great novel. Because it is so different from all previous novels, there have emerged a large number of farfetched, stretched interpretations of the work. In the twenties of the last century, Hu Shi wrote his A Textual Study of A Dream of Red Mansions in which he makes the suggestion that the book was Cao Xueqin’s “autobiography.” If by such reference he means that it is a literary composition using the author himself as the model, without excluding the free imagination that is inherent in a work of fiction, then it should be a tenable argument. At the same time, one should note here that, if such a kind of novel unfolds itself by means of remembrances, then what are evoked therein are not simply past


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events; instead the author’s lifetime experience and his serious thinking both work in the re-formulation of events in the past. As to why the novel was composed, the author has provided an account at its very beginning: The author himself said, “After having lived through disillusionment, I have covered up the real events and, making use of the saying of “communion with the spirit,” composed this book, The Story of the Stone. . . . Then he said again, “Now, having endured the hardships of wind and dust, I have accomplished nothing in my life. Then, suddenly, my mind turned to all those females I knew in the past and, thinking about them carefully, one by one, I felt that their conduct and knowledge were all superior to mine. Why am I, a virile man, inferior to those of the fair sex? I am really ashamed of myself, but also think that simply being ashamed is totally futile, so I feel completely helpless. At this juncture, I would like to tell my experience, from the time when I, relying on heaven’s favors and my ancestors’ virtues, led a life of luxury and pomp with all my desires being satisfied, to the time when I let down the kindness of the teaching of my father and elder brothers, and the grace of my teachers and friends, all into one book, so as to tell people in the world: I am certainly not to be absolved of blame myself, but there have been worthy people among the softer sex; and I should never, in an attempt to cover up my own defects, let those worthy people sink into oblivion just like myself.” . . . In this chapter, the reason why I use words like “dream” and “illusion” is to remind the reader of the original purpose of the book’s composition.

It is worthy of notice here that, in previous literary works, whenever the author provided an account of himself, it was always infiltrated by the principles of social values or, at least, principles that the author himself regarded as “essential.” Even in Du Shaoqing of An Unofficial History of the Scholars, a character modeled on the author Wu Jingzi himself, one could hardly detect anything about the latter’s experience of having dissipated the family fortune from leading an extravagant life in the arena of romantic affairs. Cao Xueqin, however, made an attempt to approximate life’s reality directly. In the past, because of the excessive emphasis on the nature of A Dream of Red Mansions as a social critique, the above passage was often understood as a kind of deliberate digression, which was actually untenable. Cao Xueqin did not offer therein a false confession; on the other hand, he did not really feel disgraced for the life that he apparently showed some regret for. When one recalls one’s youth after having lived through life’s vicissitudes, one may find oneself absurd and culpable by the judgment of

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reason; emotionally, however, one recalls it with so much nostalgia. In the remembrances of past events, the feeling of regret and self-love may coexist; if that is the case, then in the ambience of a novel, the function of the latter becomes even more important. Precisely because of its faithfulness to oneself and to emotions, A Dream of Red Mansions unfolds itself in a way totally different from all previous novels. In the passage cited above, Cao Xueqin repeatedly stresses that “dream” and “illusion” are the main key to the novel. Obviously, he feels life’s illusiveness from the rise and decline of his family, and his total failure in society in spite of his talent. However, he is unable to forget things in life which he finds beautiful and yet feels sinful about. To track down the beauty in dream and illusion and to lament its irretrievable loss, in a kind of reconstitution in writing, represents the very essence of A Dream of Red Mansions, and to the reader, it is the source of its great appeal. In terms of the first eighty chapters of A Dream of Red Mansions, Jia Baoyu’s age runs from eleven or twelve to fifteen or sixteen. Accordingly, it is not so accurate to regard the work simply as a love novel; rather it is about the special emotional experience of a sexually precocious and sensitive boy. In Chapter 5, Baoyu makes a dream trip to the fairy Disenchantment’s8 Land of Illusion, and thenceforth he begins an intimate relationship with a multitude of women (roughly, no fewer than a dozen) which has either obvious or latent sex implications. At the same time, he also gets involved with some from the same sex. Even when Lin Daiyu has acquired an increasingly important special status, Baoyu has not stopped his “general love of the masses” altogether. It is because his are a boy’s sentiments, extremely active and unrestricted. Back in the old days, a boy’s sex consciousness was not approved and treated seriously in the world of adults and, by the same token, it was not recognized in the world of literature. Even when Cao Xueqin recalled past events by use of Baoyu’s story, he could hardly absolve himself from a sense of guilt. However, he had such nostalgia for the past that he would bring it out in his representation regardless of consequences. Therefore in the work of this genius, we see a natural, even religious, kind of admiration and love of females, and an unprecedented gallery of young women who are so graceful and

8 For this and the names of other characters from the novel, transliterated or translated, I have followed David Hawkes in most cases.


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ravishing; they have become the singular existence of beauty in the life of “dream and illusion.” A boy’s life, full of sensibilities, is doomed to be devastated by the rules of the world of adults. The pressure of the family on the boy is in direct proportion to that of the society on its general members. The more the personality a boy has formed in himself deviates from the social criteria, the stronger the force of reformation he runs into. Therefore we see the agitated confrontation between Baoyu and his father: in his fury Jia Zheng even wants to strangle his son to death. In the course of growing up, a human being continually loses part of himself from the need to adapt himself to social norms; it is a condition of human nature. People had never felt anything unusual about it, but Cao Xueqin felt deeply sad about it. In the novel, the world of the adult men stands for the canon of history and culture and for the peremptory power that engulfs Baoyu’s favorite, the little dreamlike world illuminated by young women. In addition, in both the Ningguo and Rongguo Houses, among the men who are pillars of the clan, we see someone who seeks immortality by making pills, someone who is lecherous and commits adulteries, someone who is content with all the rank and wealth, and someone who is pedantic and rigid; none of them, however, has any lofty aspirations, or intelligence and capabilities. In addition, this corrupted aristocratic family, in a self-destructive way, eventually plunges Baoyu’s emotional world and his “Land of Females” into the abyss of ruin. In an emphatic way, A Dream of Red Mansions reveals to the reader that all things of beauty are fragile and break easily. “The flesh and bones of females are made of water; the flesh and bones of males are made of clay.” Compared to the male, the female is fragile. Even among women, compared to Xue Baochai, Lin Daiyu is fragile, and compared to Xi Ren (“Aroma”), Qing Wen (“Skybright”) is fragile. There is also You Sanjie (“You the Third Sister”), who appears quite tough and tenacious when she takes her liberties handling Jia Zhen and his like in a degenerated, wanton way, but once she falls in true love with someone, her life immediately falls apart. A Dream of Red Mansions abounds in the destruction of beauty, which discloses that the world people live in is a vulgar and filthy one which is always a stage of tragedy for things of beauty. On the other hand, A Dream of Red Mansions also abounds in the pursuit of beauty, a pursuit which, in all its sorrow, stands for the insatiable desire in human life. It holds great, lasting appeal to people in the world.

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A Dream of Red Mansions is not concerned with the love life of the men and women in Prospect Garden only. As a novel with a touch of autobiography, it has its entire storyline unfolded around the history of the decline of the Jia family. In a kind of unprecedented realism, it depicts the decline of a hereditary aristocratic family, and through the extensive social contacts of the Jia family—up to the imperial palace and down to townsfolk and rustics, it presents, from varied distance, an even broader panorama of life in the society. Notwithstanding that it does not have a premeditated task of political critique, it still discloses how powerful families defy laws both human and divine, and how the laws of the old-time society have turned out to be totally useless against them, from a series of episodes like how Jia Yucun bends the law to help his own acquaintances, how Wang Xifeng gets round laws by bribery and takes advantage of family connections to manipulate power for personal ends, how Xue Pan strikes someone to death but does not take it as a serious matter at all, etc. All this is determined by the realistic nature of the novel. The filthiness of the mundane world also provides a reasonable basis for Baoyu’s abhorrence of the “planning for an official career.” Artistically, A Dream of Red Mansions is most praiseworthy for its characterization. With meticulous care and precision, the book creates more than a hundred figures from a variety of social strata and with different cultural background; all of them have a personality and a special mentality of their own, and even those who show up briefly are portrayed in a lifelike and vivid manner. Together they constitute an enormously rich gallery of characters which helps to make the novel an immortal masterpiece in the history of Chinese literature. Such accomplishment certainly embodies the author’s extraordinary talent, but eventually it has its source in his deep understanding of complex human conditions and rich human nature, within which is a heartfelt sympathy for the painful existence of human beings in contemporary world. We may perhaps perceive this more easily from some of the minor characters. For example, Miao Yu (“Adamantina”), a Buddhist nun, is from a noble family but, due to the family’s decline, has to live under the roof of the Jia family. To cover up the mental injury caused by her actual dependent status, she always appears so aloof and proud in an affected way, showing a deliberate persistence in keeping a noble, unsullied and refined life style. For another example, driven by life’s hardship, Grannie Liu, an old rustic woman, comes to the Jia family on the excuse of some “out-of-the-way” relationship,


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hoping to find some meal tickets. She willingly feigns craziness and acts like an idiot for the entertainment of Grandmother Jia and others, extremely like a clown in a comedy. However, with a more careful reading, one may detect her wisdom, sophistication and bitterness all over the place. The author also builds up, with deep sympathy and a kind of special deference to young women, the beautiful images of many maidservants, telling their hard effort to maintain their freedom and dignity as human beings despite their lowly status. For instance, Qing Wen, who looks ravishingly pretty but is proud and unyielding by nature, has the courage to revolt, and Xiang Ling (“Caltrop”), who is gifted in intelligence, has a penchant for poetry; the stories of how they are brought to ruin are simply unforgettable. Even the meek and smart Xi Ren, who is good at catering to the wishes of the masters, is not without her own misery. When Baoyu expresses the wish to have her two cousins to also come to the Jia household, she remarks, sneeringly, “I am destined to be a slave, and it’s all right. How could all my relatives be destined to be slaves?” It is precisely such an unprecedented humanistic concern that has provided a source of the artistic creative power of A Dream of Red Mansions. As for the main figures in the novel, in addition to Jia Baoyu, Lin Daiyu, Xue Baochai, and Wang Xifeng all have distinctive personality and fine nuances of character of their own, and the formation of their respective personality, without exception, has a solid base in the logic of real life. Take Lin Daiyu as an example: clever but frequently sick, she easily feels sorrow for herself; in the Jia household, she is an “outsider” who has come to seek refuge after the death of her parents, and yet she has also won the tender love of Grandmother Jia and other elders; her oversensitive pride and acrimonious way of speaking are prompted precisely by the above factors. Due to her lack of a sense of security and inability to be in control of her own destiny, she is always vigilant and suspicious in her undivulged love for Baoyu, continually asking for assurance and pledge; consequently this love story is constantly enveloped in the dark shade of sadness. Xue Baochai, on the other hand, is brought up in a family of rank and wealth without a male as its backbone. Sensible, precocious, and worldly-wise, she rarely appears, accordingly, as self-centered as Daiyu, but due to her inherent concern for vital interests in reality, she is susceptible to estrangement from Baoyu who is emotional willful by nature. As for Wang Xifeng, who runs the Rongguo House, she has, among all the females in A Dream of Red Mansions, the most associations with the world of

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men. With a “seductive body,” clever, unrestrained, quick-witted, tactful, and ruthless, she not only disregards conventional moral principles, but also completely ignores supernatural beings and retribution. As a strong and wise person, while she keeps the Jia household running, not without difficulty, she also, at the same time, tries her best to reap personal profits, leading a self-indulgent but low-key life of her own. Eventually, she speeds up the decline of the Jia family and thereby sinks herself as well. In the novel, she is the most complex, dynamic and refreshing figure. Together, An Unofficial History of the Scholars and A Dream of Red Mansions marked the new height of the language in vernacular literature. They are different, however, in that the former is markedly characterized by its terse, lucid and lively style while the latter is more refined and implicit. A Dream of Red Mansions is particularly skilful in its dialogues which fit each character’s status, education, personality, and psychology under specific circumstances, so that the reader may seem to hear and see that character in person; in addition, the storyline itself is often recounted in dialogues, which is a continuation and development of the strength of The Plum in a Golden Vase. As an illustration, in Chapter 20, Jia Huan throws dice with Ying Er (“Oriole”) in gamble and loses. He starts crying, and is driven back by Baoyu. Asking and hearing the reason, Aunt Zhao reproaches him: Who ever told you to play with those ranked high above you, you shameless rogue? Where else couldn’t you have some fun? Who ever told you to go over there to ask for a snub?

Hearing it from outside the window, Xifeng first reprimands Aunt Zhao: He’s a master now. If he does anything wrong, there are those who take care of teaching him. What has it to do with you?—Brother Huan, come out here and go play with me!

Then, she gives some instructions to a maidservant and simultaneously chides Jia Huan: Go bring a string of cash. The girls are playing in the back. Send him there to play with them.—Now you, if you bring yourself so low and get obsessed like this tomorrow, I’ll give you a beating first, and then send someone to tell the school about you. They’ll skin you alive for that!

Aunt Zhao always resents that Baoyu is in everyone’s favor but Jia Huan is liked by none, so she vents her indignation on Jia Huan. How-


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ever, according to the old-time ethics of the patriarchal clan system, notwithstanding that Aunt Zhao, who used to be a maidservant, has been taken by Jia Zheng as a concubine, she is still a slave in status, while her son Jia Huan is one of the masters. Therefore, when Xifeng hears Aunt Zhao scolding her son with oblique reference to Baoyu, she starts lecturing her without any courtesy. As for Jia Huan, whom Xifeng also despises, she nevertheless demands that he conduct himself like a master. Here, Aunt Zhao’s servile personality and resentment, Wang Xifeng’s imperious bearing, and Jia Huan’s uncouth manners which he has acquired from staying close to his mother, all show forth in the text. Strokes of genius like this are found everywhere in A Dream of Red Mansions; they help to take the reader into a vivid, lifelike world. Discussions of A Dream of Red Mansions, as with all masterpieces of literature, are inexhaustible. It holds a romantic appeal like poetry, and great force in its in-depth realistic portrayal. Permeated with the philosophical and religious idea that regards the mundane life as nothingness, it nevertheless displays a nostalgia and desire for life as something indispensable. In 1904, Wang Guowei wrote his “Commentary on A Dream of Red Mansions,” which has been considered the first academic thesis in China, in the modern sense of the word. It may have something to do with the fact that it is more appropriate to read A Dream of Red Mansions with modern concepts, as compared to other novels. Flower in the Mirror and Other Works Quite a few of the novels have been handed down from the Middle Qing period. Among them, Li Ruzhen’s Flower in the Mirror and Li Haiguan’s Lamp at the Crossroads stand out in distinctive features. An erudite man, Li Ruzhen (ca. 1763–ca. 1830) failed in the civil service examinations, and served for a few years only as an assistant in odd jobs in local governments. He was the author of Flower in the Mirror, in one hundred chapters. The story begins when a hundred flower spirits, headed by the Flower Fairy, are banished to earth because they violate the discipline in heaven. Flower Fairy is born in reincarnation as Tang Xiaoshan, the daughter of Tang Ao, a Cultivated Talent. The first half of the novel is primarily about the adventures of three characters, Tang Ao, Lin Zhiyang, and Duo Jiugong, who travel to more than thirty countries overseas. The second half mainly tells how one

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hundred talented young women, the reincarnations of the one hundred flower spirits, participate in the examinations held for females initiated by Wu Zetian, and after their success attend the imperial banquet where they compose poems. At the same time, the concept for the preservation of the imperial Li family’s line of succession and against Wu Zetian’s usurpation threads through the entire novel, from beginning to end. While there are some connections in plot between the first and second half of the work, they are somewhat inconsistent in style and tone. The first half of the novel is more interesting. The foreign countries, in the author’s description, are mostly based on the fragmentary records from the Book of Mountains and Seas and other old books, but they are primarily made up from imagination. In the novel’s fanciful fictitious storyline, the author expresses his opinion on many issues in real society. For instance, the promotion of equality of men and women is an important idea in Flower in the Mirror. The entire narrative framework of the novel, telling how one hundred flower spirits are born in reincarnation, and how each of them has accomplished something in the world, is related to the idea, which is more vividly embodied in the episode of the “Land of Women.” The phenomenon of “men’s superiority over women” in reality is reversed by the author, by the same token, to “women’s superiority over men” in the “Land of Women,” so as to cry out against injustice on women’s behalf. The episode tells how Lin Zhiyang is chosen as the Queen’s “royal concubine,” and suffers from getting pierced in his earlobes to wear earrings and from getting his feet bound up. In fact, it urges men to learn how repulsive and inhuman such corrupt customs like foot binding are from women’s perspective. In addition, the hypocritical and deceptive natives in the “Land of Two Faces,” the mean and greedy natives in the “Land of No Intestines,” the natives of the “Land of Swine Snout” who are habitual liars, and the rigid and stiff natives of the “Land of the Tiptoes” are all reflections of life in reality. They are all portrayed in caricatures, and in hyperbolic transformations they demonstrate how repugnant and laughable the society is. It is not so profound, but it has some strength in its enlightening poignancy. The author also uses the style of caricature to describe his ideal society. As an illustration of that, in the “Land of Gentlemen,” it is a fashion to give precedence to each other, and in business exchanges, the seller seeks a low price while the buyer seeks a high price. In a humorous stroke, the author expresses his admiration for the “archaic manners.”


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Li Ruzhen, of the scholar type among the literati, was fond of showing off his learning in the novel. The second half of Flower in the Mirror tells how the one hundred talented women take the examinations for females, with the intention of promoting women’s status. However, in the part after the one hundred women gather, it almost entirely deviates from the storyline for a full display of wordplay, devoting more than a dozen pages for one single wager’s game in drinking. It really turns extremely longwinded and tedious. In terms of its narrative art, Flower in the Mirror is not so successful. On the other hand, it is quite original in its representation of people’s curiosity about the overseas world, and it also foretells the diversified changes of premodern fiction. Lamp at the Crossroads, in one hundred and eight chapters, was composed earlier than Flower in the Mirror. Its author was Li Haiguan (1707–1790). The book circulated for a long time in handwritten form only, and did not get printed until the 1920s. In the 1980s, a fine edition, annotated and proofread by Luan Xing, was published. Because it was a premodern novel that had long been forgotten, it evoked a heated discussion at one time. The novel tells the story of Tan Shaowen, the descendent of an aristocratic family. Befriending some “gangsters,” he embarks on the road of degeneration and loses all the family fortune; later he repents and makes a fresh start, and eventually he becomes famous and successful. It has a very clear didactic purpose, and the book abounds in direct promotion of the Cheng-Zhu Lixue philosophy and old-time ethics. However, in describing the course of Tan Shaowen’s degeneration, the novel provides a glimpse of the society of that age and some lively characterization of urban dandies, and is worth reading in that respect. Drama of the Middle Qing Period and Afterward From the Late Ming to the Early Qing, it was a golden age for the composition of drama among the literati. By the Qianlong reign, however, such composition already came to an end. There were a large number of compositions, but they were generally not so original. Accordingly, we shall only offer a brief introduction to the main playwrights of the Middle Qing period. Tang Ying (1682–ca. 1754) was the author of Drama from the Old Cypress Hall which consists of seventeen plays. Some of his plays have the strength of being simple and easy to understand, and also easy

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to put on stage. For instance, Laugh about the Flour Jar, Hillock at Crossroads, and Meilong Town, revised from texts of Clapper Opera, were revised subsequently into Beijing Opera, respectively as Striking the Flour Jar, Wu Song Smashes the Wine-Shop, and A Wandering Dragon Plays with the Phoenix, which have been widely performed. It was rather uncommon among playwrights of the Qing dynasty. Jiang Shiquan, known for his poetry and prose, left behind sixteen plays, of which Nine Plays from the Refuge Garden are more popular. During the Qianlong reign, Jiang’s plays were very famous, but most of them had a strong didactic tendency. For instance, the play Holly Trees, which tells the death of Wen Tianxiang, Xie Fangde and others, has been regarded by some as a work in recognition of “a patriot’s moral integrity,” but the author’s original purpose was mainly to advocate loyalty and devotion. Another play that shares the same tone and mood is Frost in Guilin, which tells how Ma Xiongzhen, governor of Guangxi, refuses to follow Wu Sangui in plotting a rebellion, and is killed by the latter. To the author, in terms of “loyalty and uprightness,” there was no difference between Wen Tianxiang’s loyalty to the Song and Ma Xiongzhen’s loyalty to the Manchu. Accordingly, the character of the personages is rather pale. The strength of his plays lies in that the author used his remarkable accomplishment in poetry to write his song texts, which are rather sophisticated and exquisite in language. Yang Chaoguan (1712–1791) composed thirty-two short one-act plays which have been put together in the collection, Miscellaneous Plays from the Pavilion of Chanting in the Wind. Most of these plays use historical records as source material but add something fictitious to express his opinion of politics and society. Some among them advocate old-time morality, as in The Vein-Exposing Fairy Who Moves the Queen of Heaven, which commends chastity. Lord Kou Cancels a Banquet on Thinking about His Mother tells how Kou Zhun of the Northern Song plans to have a banquet in celebration of his own birthday in great extravagance. Seeing the sight, an old maidservant in his house recalls how Kou Zhun’s mother used to bear all the hardships in bringing up her son, and breaks down in sadness. Kou Zhun is moved by this and gives the order to cancel the banquet. This play focuses on Kou Zhun’s thought of filial piety; it also cautions against extravagance and celebrates frugality. However, it has a humane touch and holds more appeal to the audience.


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In addition, plays about the White Snake and the Thunder Peak Pagaoda, after a long period of circulation and transformation in folk literature, were basically in finished form during the middle years of the Qianlong reign. There appeared two important plays both entitled Thunder Peak Pagoda. One of them, a script used by performers, was said to have been composed by the actor Chen Jiayan and his daughter; the other was a revised edition from Fang Chengpei, a man of letters from Huizhou. The story of the White Snake has been extremely popular in theatrical performances throughout the country, so the appearance of these plays was noteworthy. Starting from the Qianlong era, the Kunshan Opera gradually lost its dominance. There began a distinction between the “Variety Genre” (which refers to all kinds of local operas) and the “Refined Genre” (which refers to the Kunshan opera), which signified that it was already possible for local operas to stand up to the Kunshan Opera as equal, and gradually prevailed over the latter. Li Dou has observed in his Notes from the Painted Boat in Yangzhou, “The Refined Genre is the Kunshan Tune. The Variety Genre consists of Beijing Tune, Shaanxi (Qin) Tune, Yiyang Tune, Clapper Opera, Luoluo Opera, and Erhuang Tune.” It referred to the theaters in Yangzhou during the Qianlong times, and one could see how the various kinds of the Variety Genre already thrived. In Beijing, because the troupes from all over the country went into the city, a gathering of both northern and southern theaters had benn going on for a long time. During the Qianlong age, the Shaanxi Opera was especially popular. Then, in the last years of the Qianlong reign, the four big Anhui troupes, Three Celebrations, Four Blessings, Spring Platform, and Peaceful Spring went to the capital, bringing with them the Erhuang Tune of the Anhui Opera. The Anhui troupes mainly sang in the Erhuang Tune, but they also incorporated into their performance the ways of the Shaanxi Opera and the Kunshan Opera. They gradually became the fashion of the time. In the Daoguang years, the Erhuang Tune was integrated with the Xipi Tune brought by the performers from Hubei , forming into a new type of Anhui Opera, the so-called Pi-Huang Drama. Later, it was called Beijing Opera instead, and gradually it became a popular type of theatrical performance nationwide. In the study of the history of theatrical performance, the Variety Genre and Beijing Opera are extremely important, though their scripts are mostly adaptations of earlier works, without much originality of

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their own. Some of the scripts of earlier plays of the Variety Genre have been preserved in the Stitched-Up White Fur Coat (new collection) edited by Qian Decang during the Qianlong reign.

3. Fiction of the Late Qing Period In the Late Qing period, especially in the last decade or two at the end of the Qing dynasty, the publication of fiction was on an unprecedented scale. According to the research of Tarumoto Teruo, a Japanese scholar, in his A Catalogue of Fiction from the Late Qing to the Early Republican Period, from 1840 to 1911, 2,304 works of fiction were published (including 1,016 translated works of fiction). Primarily two factors accounted for the unprecedented flourish of fiction. First, the commercialized cities kept expanding in spheres, and there was a steady increase in the demand from the urban residents for such reading material, mainly of an entertaining nature. Second, mass media in a new form came of age. According to statistics, by the year of 1912, there were approximately five hundred newspapers and two hundred journals nationwide. Among these, there were journals which exclusively published works of fiction such as New Fiction, Fiction with Illustrations, Fiction Monthly, and The Grove of Fiction. In addition, there were also many newspapers which published works of fiction in the form of literary supplement. Newspapers and journals like these offered unprecedentedly favorable conditions for the generation and circulation of fiction. Since the Opium War, it had been tumultuous in the society, and various trends of new thoughts had come into the country; also, the Qing regime had gradually lost its effective control of the society, especially in the concessions, where the government had no authority of rule, and which turned to be the place where the newspapers and journals abounded. Hence there had been many new changes in subject matter and content of the fiction of the Late Qing period. If one believes that such chivalrous novels like Tales of Young Heroes and Heroines and Three Chivalrous Men and Five Warriors still, generally speaking, fell under the range of premodern fiction, then in novels on the subject of prostitutes, there were both those that assumed the old-fashioned format of talented men and beautiful women, and also those with a cool-headed, realistic touch, like Biographies of Flowers in Shanghai, which provided a depiction of the specific circumstances in the urban life of semi-colonized Chinese metropolises. With the


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growing loss of confidence in the Qing regime, political fiction which focused on attacking the seamy side of the official circles, what Lu Xun has called “Fiction of Denouncement,” also emerged in a large number, in an incisive tone theretofore unknown in all kinds of Chinese literature. Furthermore, there also appeared some fiction of political propaganda which had an avowed aim to call for revolution. At the same time, fiction for the purpose of entertainment, such as science and detective fiction, also began to become popular. In short, during this period, the composition of fiction was thriving, from which one may perceive the series of changes that took place in the Chinese society of the time. In addition, we must also take note of the translation and publication of Western fiction. While translated fiction does not fall under the range of “Chinese literature,” they in fact exerted a significant influence on the changes in Chinese literature during this special period of time. It not only helped people to know about the culture, conditions and customs in the West and broadened their horizon, but also played a role in the mental awakening of a new generation of Chinese intellectuals. The best known “translator” of the Late Qing and Early Republican period was the “classical Chinese essayist” Lin Shu, who did not know any foreign language but relied on the oral interpreting of others to put into his writing. Single-handedly he translated approximately more than fifty works of fiction before the 1911 Revolution, which had an enormous influence in the society. La Dame aux camélias (The Lady of the Camellias),9 Joan Haste,10 etc., caused a great sensation at the time and were popular all over the country. On the other hand, Lin Shu was, at the same time, a staunch defender of the orthodox Chinese cultural canon. In short, at the end of the Qing dynasty, nothing bizarre and grotesque would come as a surprise to anyone at all. Chivalrous Novels Since The Story of the Water Margin, there had appeared, in popular literature, a body of texts which told the legends of folk heroes. Permeated by old-time morality, the heroic protagonists in such stories

9 A novel (1848), later adapted for the stage, by the French writer Alexander Dumas, fils (1824–1895). 10 A novel (1895) by the British novelist Henry Rider Haggard (1856–1925).

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were increasingly controlled by the will of the government. The Cases of Lord Shi, which appeared during the Jiaqing reign, consists exclusively of stories about how Shi Shilun, an upright official, tries criminal cases, with the help of Huang Tianba and other good fellows from the greenwood. In the Late Qing period, chivalrous novels continued such a convention, telling the legends of heroes while upholding the government’s position. More representative works include Tales of Young Heroes and Heroines, Records of the Elimination of Bandits, Three Chivalrous Men and Five Warriors, etc. The extant Tales of Young Heroes and Heroines has forty chapters, inscribed as composed by Yanbei Xianren (“Idler of Northern Yan”). The real author was Feimo Wenkang, a native of the Red Rim Banner of the Manchu and the second grandson of Le Bao, a Grand Secretary. The novel was probably completed at the end of the Daoguang or the beginning of the Xianfeng reign. The story goes as follows. An Xuehai is framed up by his superior and thrown into prison, so his son An Ji sells the family property and goes to his father’s rescue probably by paying a ransom. On his way there he runs into some bandits; fortunately he is saved by Sister Thirteen, a chivalrous young swordswoman, who also acts as a go-between for An Ji and Zhang Jinfeng, a young woman from the village who is also saved by her, to get married. Sister Thirteen turns out to be He Yufeng, the daughter of an old friend of An Xuehai’s. She has changed her name to carry out her plan to assassinate Commander-in-Chief Ji Xiantang to avenge her father’s death. Ji is later executed by the emperor. Feeling that she has nowhere to go, Yufeng is about to become a nun, but she is stopped by Zhang Jinfeng and others, who succeed in persuading her to also marry An Ji. With the help of his two wives, An Ji wins third place in the Metropolitan examination, gets successive promotions until he becomes the highest-ranking official in court. Jinfeng and Yufeng each gives birth to a son and the entire family enjoy the glory of rank and wealth. Tales of Young Heroes and Heroines tries to describe an ideal life enveloped by the “Three Cardinal Guides and Five Constant Virtues.” The members of the An family, together, materialize all such basic moral principles like the loyalty as a subordinate, the strictness of a father, the loving care of a mother, the filial piety of a son, and the geniality and virtuousness of a wife. Also, An Xuehai primarily embodies the general virtues celebrated by the literati in the old times such as erudition, kindness, and indifference to worldly desires. On the other hand, the author has placed his expectation for the young


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Manchu aristocrats to restore the prestige of their predecessors in his description of An Ji’s rapid advances in official career. In short, one may say that in the novel, a group of perfect (in the traditional moral sense of the word) people form into a perfect family that eventually acquire perfect happiness. Just as the author has openly declared in the thirty-fourth chapter, the novel is completely opposed to A Dream of Red Mansions. Generally speaking, novels with such strong preconceptions easily become pedantic and tedious. However, while Tales of Young Heroes and Heroines is not a truly outstanding work, it still holds some attraction and appeal. It is because the novel does not always preach, and the author is good in making up stories, providing some vivid and interesting details. The novel is told in the language of a “storyteller,” which often succeeds in bringing out the lively manners and tones of the characters. For example, in the fourth and fifth chapters, which take place in the Pleasure Inn, the pedantic An Ji forms a sharp contrast with the chivalrous Sister Thirteen, with the lively touch of traditional chivalrous fiction. The so-called “Young Heroes and Heroines” in its title suggests that the novel has actually combined two types of stories into one unity, “talented men and beautiful women” and “romance of heroic figures.” It signifies an attempt to weed through old clichés to bring forth something new. Records of the Elimination of Bandits consists of seventy chapters with an attached conclusion at the end. It was written by Yu Wanchun (1794–1849) and published during the early years of the Xianfeng reign. In storyline it picks up where Jin Shengtan’s abridged seventychapter edition of the Water Margin ends: all the one hundered and eight heroes of the Water Margin are captured and killed by Zhang Shuye, Chen Xizhen and others, gods of thunder who have descended to the human world. On the one hand, it demonstrates the author’s hostility to the heroes of the Water Margin, and his refusal to allow them to accept amnesty and to serve the government. On the other hand, as a novel, it is quite a ruse to attract the reader to reverse the story of a masterwork in history. Three Chivalrous Men and Five Warriors, in one hundred and twenty chapters, was first published in the early years of the Guangxu reign. It was elaborated by Shi Yukun, an entertainer, from earlier novels such as The Cases of Judge Bao. It was originally entitled Tales of Men of Chivalry and Loyalty. The first half of the novel focuses on Judge Bao’s trial of criminal cases, and gradually the storyline brings in the activities

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of chivalrous martial arts masters like Zhan Zhao, Gallant of the South, and Ouyang Chun, Gallant of the North, etc., making them Judge Bao’s helpers in assisting the imperial regime and eliminating public scourges. Chivalrous fiction was a literary genre very popular among the general public. Prior to that, it was represented by the Water Margin which observed the principle of “loyalty and righteousness” to the imperial court, though its basic content focused on the resistance to the existent order of injustice. The main activities of the characters in Three Chivalrous Men and Five Warriors, however, embodied the “loyalty and righteousness” to the imperial state, and in spite of frequent minor improper behaviors, they felt honored to take orders from senior officials. This reflected the degeneration, even the disappearance, of the convention of the description of heroic figures in folk literature. However, the characters in Three Chivalrous Men and Five Warriors still preserved their status as commoners of the “rivers and lakes,” and accordingly still kept, more or less, the candid, forthright, and uninhibited personality inherent to this type of personages. Perhaps one may say that it still somehow continued the spirit of The Story of Water Margin, and catered to the subconscious mentality of the urban commoners to “go beyond one’s bounds once in a while.” Yu Yue, a renowned scholar at the end of Qing dynasty, rewrote the first chapter, and changed its title to Seven Chivalrous Men and Five Warriors which subsequently turned into the most popular edition of the work. Biographies of Flowers in Shanghai and Others In the Late Qing period prostitution, as a business, thrived with the expansion of the cities, especially in a city like Shanghai, which had become extremely prosperous in the course of turning into a semicolony. Enormous amount of money and all kinds of people, including a great multitude of fallen women, gathered there. A few men of letters who frequented brothels depicted the life in there in novels popular with urban residents. The better known works among them included Traces of Flowers and the Moon, Dream of the Blue Mansions, Dream of Pomp and Splendor in Shanghai, etc. Novels of this kind usually followed the same fixed format, but there also emerged Biographies of Flowers in Shanghai which was different from all the other works. In addition, there was also a novel like A Precious Mirror for the Ranking


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of Flowers, which was about the intimate relations between men of rank and wealth and actors. In terms of the author’s attitude, it was similar to the other novels mentioned above. A Precious Mirror for the Ranking of Flowers, in sixty chapters, was completed in the late years of the Daoguang reign. The novel has its background in the Qianlong reign and focuses on the story of the homosexual relation between Mei Ziyu, a renowned young aristocrat, and Du Qinyan, a famous actor who plays female roles. It describes the intimacy with actors, as a habit, among aristocrats and wealthy merchants, and on occasions also the anecdotes in the official circles or among the literati. During the Qianlong reign, intimate relations with actors became widespread in the capital, and many bigwigs enjoyed such relations. The author, Chen Sen, lived in Beijing for a long time and knew the theatrical circles very well; hence he used what he had witnessed or heard to write this book. A novel about homosexuality, it nevertheless adopts the style of the love story of “talented men and beautiful women,” and the image of the actors is not much different from that of the prostitute. The distinction between “the evil and the upright” or “the vulgar and the refined” also falls under the conventional ethical decoration of the love story of “talented men and beautiful women.” In its narrative, sentimentality abounds. For instance, in the twenty-ninth chapter, Du Qinyan visits the sick Mei Ziyu, who is having a date with Du in a dream, chanting the lines from Bo Juyi’s “Song of the Everlasting Sorrow.” Standing by Mei’s bed, Du cannot help weeping at the sight. This is a typical scene of romantic obsession. Although the novel deals with an unusual subject, it has failed to provide a full description of human nature in such abnormal life. However, in its special theme, it reflects the diversification of fiction at the end of the Qing dynasty. Sociologically speaking, the storyline of the novel offers an adequate evidence of a feminist theory: the female is not only a physiological sexual distinction; it is, in the first place, a social distinction. Biographies of Flowers in Shanghai, in sixty-four chapters, was inscribed as “composed by Huaye Liannong (“Even Flowers Love Thee”).” The author’s real name was Han Bangqing (1856–1894). He failed in the civil service examinations, and lived in Shanghai as a visitor for a long time, often making contributions to the Shanghai News. Starting from the eighteenth year of the Guangxu reign, Biographies of Flowers in Shanghai was serialized, two chapters for each issue, in Marvelous Writings from Shanghai, a journal founded and published

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by Han himself. It ran through fifteen issues up to thirty chapters. Two years later, the book was published in lithographic printing in its entirety. Biographies of Flowers in Shanghai primarily depicts the life of prostitutes and their customers in high-end brothels in the concessions in Shanghai at the end of the Qing dynasty, which have turned into places of social contacts for government officials and wealthy merchants, and occasionally also about the life of low-end prostitutes. Accordingly, brothels, official and business circles constitute the three main scenes of the book. The novel takes the activities of Zhao Puzhai and Zhao Erbao, brother and sister, as the main storyline. The first half tells how Puzhai comes from the countryside to Shanghai to seek help from Hong Shanqing, his mother’s brother. Because he frequents the brothels, he comes down to having to pull a rickshaw for a living. The second half tells how Zhao’s mother brings Erbao to Shanghai to look for Puzhai; succumbing to the temptations in Shanghai, Erbao turns into a prostitute. In language the novel uses Mandarin for its narration and Suzhou dialect for its dialogues. For those unfamiliar with the Wu dialect it is not easy to read, which accounts for the reason of its limited circulation. Biographies of Flowers in Shanghai is different from all previous fiction of similar subject matter. It does not depict the brothel as a hotbed for love affairs; nor do we see therein the format of the romantic love of “talented men and beautiful women.” On the other hand, it does not take any pleasure in exposing the “evil aspects” of prostitutes. Even when the author states, in his “Introduction,” that the book was “composed for cautionary purpose,” it is nothing more than a declaration of formality, not the real intention of the novel. What he has presented therein are mostly the detailed routine scenes of life in the brothels in which the characters move around. Selling their bodies is a way of living for the prostitutes; just like ordinary people, they have their joy, anger, and sorrow, and they are neither better nor worse than them. The author’s description of the prostitutes’ emotional involvement with their customers has considerable depth. It always gives a hint of game-playing, and yet it is not simply cheating with each party. Like actors who identify closely with their role in the play, they may be able to display genuine feelings that hold great appeal. Once the prostitutes become serious about the relation and attempt to lead an ideal life, they are unable to escape a tragic ending. In the last few chapters of


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the novel, on the one hand, when Zhou Shuangyu finds out that her hope to marry Zhu Shuren has been dashed, she makes a scene in forcing the latter to commit suicide in her company; on the other hand, Zhao Erbao, after waiting for a long time in vain for Master Shi the Third, who has promised to marry her, to arrive, has to resume her profession in the house of joy where she is subjected to the ruthless humiliation from “Favus-Scalped Turtle,” a scoundrel. The hopeless life of these fallen women arouses great pity and sympathy from the reader. In terms of the novel’s realistic portrayal, Biographies of Flowers in Shanghai is almost a match for A Dream of Red Mansions. The author never directs his attention to anything strange or unusual in the storyline; instead his narration is always low-keyed, fairly trivial like “idle chat,” and almost free from any hyperbole or excessive dramatic touch. It is through such narration that the characters’ subtle mentality and the taste of life’s bitterness are brought out. Lu Xun has commended the novel for being “plain but close to nature,” which is a glowing praise. (A Concise History of Chinese Fiction) The style has exerted an obvious influence on some modern writers, such as Zhang Ailing. It was really quite extraordinary among novels of the same time. Exposure of the Official Circles and Strange Scenes Witnessed in the Last Two Decades After the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895, through a series of great misfortunes, the old China slipped, step by step, to the verge of a conquered nation. Chinese people lost all their confidence in the corrupted Manchu government. At the same time, the Manchu government, in its last gasp, had less and less power to control the society. Under the circumstances, there appeared a large number of novels which lashed out at contemporary politics and exposed the dark and seamy side of the official circles. Novels of this kind were mostly poignant in tone. However, because they were mixed up with commercial purposes, the authors often catered to the reader’s need for some temporary satisfaction, and consequently their description often suffered from overstatement. Lu Xun has observed that novels of this type are not qualified as Fiction of Satire, so he has referred to them as “Fiction of Denouncement.” Li Baojia’s Exposure of the Official Circles and Wu Woyao’s Strange Scenes Witnessed in the Last Two Decades are representative works of this type of novels. Liu E’s Travels of Lao Can and

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Zeng Pu’s Flowers in a Sea of Sins are usually also placed among “Fiction of Denouncement,” though they are somewhat different in type. Known for his talent in youth, Li Baojia (1867–1906) won his degree of Cultivated Talent in the first place, but never succeeded in the exam for the Provincial Graduate, which incurred his displeasure with the society. When he was thirty years old he arrived in Shanghai, and founded, one after another, small newspapers of an entertaining nature with a strong literary flavor, including Compass News, Recreation News, and Splendor of the World News. In addition, he also served as the editor-in-chief of Fiction with Illustrations, a well-known journal of fiction. Exposure of the Official Circles, in sixty chapters, was composed during a few years after 1901. The author fell sick and passed away before he finished the manuscript, so a small part at the end of the novel was put together by a friend of his. The structure of the novel is roughly like that of An Unofficial History of the Scholars, made up of a series of interlocking stories about a variety of characters which are relatively independent of one another. Lu Xun has summarized its content as follows: “What it tells are all stories about catering to the wishes of superiors, currying favor with those in power for personal gain, deceiving or misleading people, trying hard to scrape up money, jostling against each other, etc., and also taking up accounts of some men of letters who hanker after an official career and the secrets in the bedrooms of bureaucrats.” (A Concise History of Chinese Fiction) The novel describes a comprehensive variety of government officials, both civil and military, from the lowest-ranking Clerk to the highestranking Grand Minister of the State, who get appointed through civil service examinations or military merit, by making a contribution to the state or even taking someone else’s position by assuming his name. In short, the author provides his “Exposure” of whoever is involved in the “Official Circles.” The novel aims to expose the dark side of the official circles, and in some places the author provides vivid and spirited descriptions. For instance, the second chapter tells how Clerk Qian fawns on Zhao Wen, hoping to use the latter to solicit help from his Examination Mentor,11

11 A reference by Provincial and Metropolitan Graduates to the senior officials who had presided over the examinations in which they had succeeded.


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Wu Zanshan. At a later gathering, when Qian sees that Wu is quite indifferent to Zhao, he turns cold as well: When the gathering dispersed, Clerk Qian said nothing but thought to himself: “With a teacher nearby like that, he doesn’t know how to curry his favor, then what are we going to do, those of us who are still trying our best to secure a teacher for ourselves?” From the time onward, he stopped thinking highly of Zhao Wen. But then it occurred to him that it was rather unpredictable for men of letters, and Zhao might very likely win a higher degree, so he should wait a few more days in his case.

It is a meticulous, subtle description of the mentality of a lowly functionary. However, just as Hu Shi has noted in his “Foreword” to Exposure of the Official Circles, the novel is very good in its description of “assistants and clerks,” and “quite unnatural when it comes to senior officials.” Perhaps it was due to the author’s limited life experience. On the other hand, the interest of the general urban reader was mostly in the secrets of the senior officials, hence the author devoted his attention to this aspect. The stories about senior officials in the book are mostly what Lu Xun has referred to as “subjects for ridicule” (hearsay in the society) without much truth in them. For example, the fifth chapter tells how Provincial Commissioner He, who sells official posts, is checking his accounts; later, quarreling with “Three Couches,”12 his own brother as well as his agent, over the spoils, comes to blows with the latter which almost causes the miscarriage of his pregnant wife. Senior officials selling official posts for their own profit was indeed a widespread social malpractice at the end of the Qing dynasty, but in the author’s account, it has been made to look like a business of ordinary urban rascals, and consequently it has lost its true significance in “Exposure” as well as its critical strength. Throughout the entire novel, it is mostly in the style of such caricature; none of the officials therein is a good guy, and they are all so evil as to be totally devoid of humanity. It certainly served the pleasure of those who hated the Manchu government at the time, but the complexity of society and human nature was made to appear simplistic. It is hard to tell how much literary value a novel like that holds. Wu Woyao (1866–1910) was born in a declining official family. In his twenties he arrived in Shanghai, made frequent contributions to newspapers, and together with Zhou Guisheng and others founded the

12

A nickname.

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Fiction Monthly, for which he served as its main contributor. Strange Scenes Witnessed in the Last Two Decades remains the best known novel he wrote, among more than thirty works of fiction, including History of Pains and The Strange Case of the Nine Murders. Strange Scenes Witnessed in the Last Two Decades consists of one hundred and eight chapters. Forty-five chapters began to be serialized in New Fiction, the journal with Liang Qichao as its chief editor, in 1903, and the entire novel was finished in 1909. The novel has “Jiusi Yisheng”13 as its protagonist, and tells all kinds of strange scenes he has seen or heard since the Sino-Franco War of 1884. Its purpose is roughly similar to that of Exposure of the Official Circles, though it involves a broader social range than the latter. It mainly brings to light those in the official circles, but also holds up the mirror to those in the foreignized metropolis and the business circles, and people of all sorts. The entire book uses first-person narration, which was theretofore not found in other novels and probably under the influence of translated fiction. Wo Woyao, staunch by nature, was filled with indignation at the society, so his style is exceptionally poignant. His attitude about social problems was “to advocate the restoration of the old morality.” (Commentary on Collection of Translations from the New Shrine) Therefore he often launched his attack on the violation of traditional morality. In his description, however, the condition of “inordinate vilification and deviation from truth” (Lu Xun, A Concise History of Chinese Fiction) becomes even worse than in Exposure of the Official Circles. Here are a few illustrations. Commissioner Gou kneels down to beg his newly widowed daughter-in-law to marry His Excellency the Governor-General as his concubine, to help with his promotion. Fu Mixuan maltreats his grandfather, forces him to beg for food from neighbors, and nearly hits him to death. Mo Keji usurps his younger brother’s official post by passing off as him, seizes the latter’s wife as his own, and even “shares her with others who like her as a way to establish connections for jobhunting.” All these people appear unreasonable in their bestial acts. It is simply implausible to denounce the morality of the ruling class in the society with such irrational depiction. Lu Xun has therefore frowned at the novel, saying that it “eventually is no more than pages and pages

13 Literally, “nine deaths and one life,” and figuratively, “a narrow escape from death” or “survival after many hazards.”


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of ‘subjects for ridicule’ which only provide the material for the gossip and laugh of those who have nothing better to do.” (Ibid.) Travels of Lao Can and Flowers in a Sea of Sin Travels of Lao Can, in one hundred chapters, carried the signature of Hongdu Bailiansheng (“The Well-Tempered Master from the Grand Capital”). In 1903, it began to be serialized in Fiction with Illustrations, and subsequently continued to be serialized in Tianjin’s Daily News. In 1906, it was published as a book in a separate edition. The author was Liu E (1857–1909). Born in a bureaucrat’s family, he received a traditional Confucian education, but was also interested in “Western studies.” He worked as a medical doctor and a businessman, but was not too successful in either of the two professions. Subsequently, when he served on the staff of Wu Dacheng, Governor of Henan, he made contributions in rendering assistance to the harnessing of the Yellow River, and was appointed as a Prefect. Close to those who promoted Westernization in thinking, he was engaged in Westernized industrial and commercial activities in railroads, mines, and transportation. Later, during the occupation of Beijing by the Eight-Power Allied Forces, he purchased from the Russian troops, at a low price, grains from the Imperial Granary in Russian possession, to relieve the people from hunger; because of that he was banished to Xinjiang where he died. Travels of Lao Can adopts the format of a travel book, and tells what “Lao Can” sees and hears at various places while he practices medicine, stringing together a series of episodes that depict the social and political situation of the time. On the one hand, the author is adamantly opposed to the revolution led by Sun Zhongshan; on the other, he believes that to save the nation, the only way out is to promote science and vitalize industry and commerce. In the first chapter of Travels of Lao Can, he compares China to a sailboat that is tossed about in terrifying waves, and argues that what is needed is not to change those who operate the rudder and hoist the sails on the boat, but to provide them with the most accurate foreign compass so that they will take the best route. In general, those who were relatively new-fashioned like Liu E were more flexible in conduct, and the major resistance they ran into was from old-liners who prided themselves in their uprightness but were impenetrably thick-headed. This special feature of its author accounts for the difference between Travels of Lao Can and

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the works of Fiction of Denouncement in general. When it denounces the evil of bureaucrats, it targets mainly on the so-called “upright officials.” The author has noted in the “Original Commentary” of the sixteenth chapter, “Corrupt officials are hateful, but everyone knows about them. Upright officials are even more hateful, since few know about them. Corrupt officials know themselves to be in the wrong, so they dare not do evil publicly. Upright officials, however, believe that as long as they do not want money, what is there that they cannot do? Self-willed and opinionated, they will commit minor crimes by killing people and major crimes of misleading the nation. We have seen so many of them. Please watch Xu Tong and Li Bingheng, who stand out among them.” Both Xu Tong and Li Bingheng were representatives of diehard conservatives at the end of the Qing dynasty. The author deliberately mentioned these two men who had nothing to do with the novel itself, which revealed that he had an axe to grind in targeting the “upright officials.” There are mainly two “upright officials” portrayed in the novel, Yu Xian and Gang Bi. Yu Xian, Prefect of Caozhou, is politically renowned for making his jurisdiction a region where “no one picks up what’s left by the roadside,” which he has achieved by ruthless tyranny; within one single year, more than two thousand people died from being tortured in the “standing cage.”14 Gang Bi, nicknamed “Gang the Plague,” takes pride in his contempt for money, and thereof uses all kinds of tortures indiscriminately which result in the wrongful death of innocent people. He mistakes the Wei’s, father and daughter, as major criminals who have murdered thirteen people of one family; when the servant of the Wei family tries to bribe him to save his masters, he takes it as a “conclusive evidence” of their crime, and uses brutal torture to extort an alleged confession. Travels of Lao Can demonstrates that such so-called “upright officials” are in fact oppressive officials, bringing to light, with great insight, a special phenomenon of the feudal society in its seamy aspects. As a novel, Travels of Lao Can is somewhat loose in structure and weak in characterization. However, the author was a highly accomplished man, and many episodes in the novel read as great familiar essays. For instance, the passages of the landscape at the Daming Lake, the moonlit evening at Mt. Peach Flowers, and the performance of the female storytellers, Black Maid and White Maid, are all written in a

14

A torture device which gradually strangles the person held in it to death.


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facile and succinct style with strikingly graphic description, superior to all the other novels at the time; they have helped to raise the artistic value of the novel. The first edition of Flowers in a Sea of Sin was signed as “Initiated by Lover of Freedom, Edited and Narrated by Sick Man of East Asia.” The latter is the penname of Zeng Pu; the former, that of his friend Jin Songcen. Jin wrote the first six chapters of the novel, and then Zeng took over, making some revisions of the previous chapters and continued on to the subsequent part. According to their original plan, the novel was to consist of sixty chapters, but the finished work consists of thirty-five chapters only. The first twenty-five chapters were composed from 1904 to 1907, and the last ten were written some time after 1927, so it was not entirely a work of the end of the Qing dynasty. The author, Zeng Pu (1872–1935), once studied French at the Institute of Shared Language15 by which he acquired a good understanding of Western civilizations, especially French literature; he translated the works of Victor Hugo and others. He participated in the Reform Movement led by Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, and went into the political circles after the Revolution of 1911, having served as Head of the Finance Department of the Jiangsu province. Zeng Pu lived in a later age, and he received more influence from Western thoughts; hence the novel not only supported revolution in its political inclinations, but also promoted the new concept of “natural rights for human beings and equality of all things on earth,” making it different from the so-called “Fiction of Denouncement” in general. The novel uses the story of Jin Wenqing, a Principal Graduate, and Fu Caiyun, a renowned courtesan, as its main storyline, and describes the life of the literati and scholar-officials of the upper social strata during the three decades from the early years of the Tongzi reign to the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895, providing a panorama of Chinese politics, diplomacy and society during the period. In terms of the aim of its composition, Flowers in a Sea of Sin was written as a historical novel. Most of the characters in the novel are modeled on real people. For example, Jin Wenqing is Hong Jun, Fu Caiyun is Sai Jinhua, Earl Weiyi is Li Hongzhang, Kang Youhui is Kang Youwei, Liang Chaoru is Liang Qichao, etc. Some of the characters simply assume the name of real people. The author himself claimed that what he wanted

15

Set up in Beijing by the Qing government in 1862 for the training of interpreters.

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to represent in the work were the various phenomena of “cultural transformation” and “political changes” in the “critical transition of China from the old to the new,” that he wished “to integrate all the silhouettes or prospects and all related details,” so that they would “unfold, scene after scene, in a natural manner, as if one were to see, with their own eyes, all the major events in their mind.” (“A Few Words to Say after Revision”) Such an intentional attempt to capture the essence and tendency of history through the activities of various characters had an obvious modern touch. Regretfully, though, the author failed to attain his objective, which was primarily due to his not so refined literary taste. It seemed that he did not have a certain historiographic philosophy as a means to grasp the rich variety of phenomena in history, and he had not put in enough effort to explore human nature. On the contrary, he was far more interested in seeking novelty and sensation, and he was fond of putting all kinds of anecdotes about those with power and influence or celebrated people among the literati, as well as the so-called “romantic” life of men of letters and prostitutes, into the novel. Eventually, he was catering to the taste of the reader. On the other hand, some of the characteristics of modern novel as embodied in Flowers in a Sea of Sin still deserve our attention. First of all, through the protagonist’s travel and social activities abroad, the novel provided the depiction of social and cultural scenes theretofore unfound in Chinese fiction, and simultaneously also reflected, truthfully, how the Western way of life began to exert its impact on Chinese people. In addition, some of the author’s postures in his portrayal of characters were also unknown in previous literature. In particular, Fu Caiyun, for whom the author devoted much of his attention, stands out among the characters. From a prostitute, she turns into a concubine of Jin Wenqing’s and at one time assumes the status of a diplomat’s wife, but eventually resumes her status as a prostitute. In the novel, she is seen as in turns meek or daring, affectionate or dissolute. As soon as she shows up, it turns vivid and dramatic. This character was actually created by the author under the influence of French fiction, hence the refreshing touch about her. For instance, the novel tells how Jin Wenqing finds out that Fu Caiyun has committed an adulterous affair. Jin is about to denounce Fu for that, but instead draws a rebuttal, with forceful assurance, from the latter. According to Caiyun’s idea, only the “main wife” is obliged morally to defend the ethical standards of


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the Jin family; as an “Auntie,”16 i.e., a concubine, instead, she has no need to care for that: In your eyes, an Auntie is nothing but a toy. At good times, you hold her in arms or place her on your knees, and call her darling or sweetie. As soon as something goes wrong, she may get kicked out, sent faraway, or given to others, in a variety of ways! . . . When you married me, you didn’t expect me to observe the Three Subjections and Four Virtues17 or to become a model of chastity and loyalty, in the first place; so now, if I’ve done something you don’t like, it’s nothing unusual. If you still want to be happy for the second half of your life, and keep someone who’d wait upon you to your heart’s content, then you can’t do without me! All those overwhelming, stupendous things, you have no choice but to let me do them! Otherwise, considering how I have looked after you for several years, leave me a way out of this. All I’ve done is no more than ruining myself; it has nothing to do with Your Excellency Jin. Put it this way, then there’s no need for me to die, and it’s not worthwhile for me to die. If you say that you want me to give up vice and return to virtue, alas! It’s easy to change rivers and mountains but hard to change a person’s nature. Honestly, I’m afraid even you are incapable of keeping me dead set in sticking to you!

Such a tone in the statement does not simply represent being “bold and daring” in the general sense of these words; instead it contains a new concept of life, towards which the author, even if he did not approve heartily, at least did not condemn it vehemently either. Precisely due to the author’s tolerant attitude, the beautiful and unrestrained prostitute has managed to receive a vivid portrayal. Generally speaking, while there did not appear any masterpieces of fiction like An Unofficial History of the Scholars and A Dream of Red Mansions at the end of the Qing dynasty, it was nevertheless a period full of new changes.

16

A form of address for father’s concubine in the old times. The code of behavior a woman must observe in Confucian ethics. Three Subjections are subjection to father before marriage, to husband after marriage, and to son after husband’s death. Four Virtues are morality, proper speech, modesty and diligent housework. 17

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To stay away from the pitfall of mechanical, uncritical application, this author has deliberately kept to minimum translated modern concepts in this book. However, the reader may have noticed that in the parts about the literature of the Yuan, the Ming, and the Qing dynasties, the concept of “humanism” has nevertheless appeared, repeatedly, for quite a number of times. It is because, in the author’s view, it is appropriate to use the concept to describe the development and changes of classical Chinese literature in its later stages. In addition, the growth of the spirit of humanism in the literature of those three dynasties even constitutes an important connection between classical and modern Chinese literature. For many years, the Chinese people have felt perplexed by the opposition between “tradition” and “modernism.” As soon as the term “modernism” is mentioned, it sounds as if it were something that had deviated from tradition and thrown itself into the embrace of Western civilization. As for “tradition,” it appears as if it had had no choice but to be on the retreat all the time, as if the modernization of Chinese civilization had never been anything it demanded for its own sake. However, as a matter of fact, tradition is something that keeps changing. Changing elements in a culture may start as heresy, but once their legitimacy is acknowledged, they become a part of the tradition. Without question, since the end of the Qing dynasty, and especially since the “May Fourth” movement, Chinese civilization has been under the enormous impact of Western culture, and literature may be said to have changed with each passing day. Without the intrinsic changing elements and the inherent demand for changes within Chinese civilization itself, however, it would not have been possible to bring about such rapid changes. On the other hand, while the “newness” of New Literature has a strong touch of Western culture, it has nevertheless been generated from the history and circumstances of Chinese civilization itself; it confronts the life and dilemma of Chinese people themselves, and also carries with it hidden perils of its own. We can regard the growth of the spirit of humanism in classical Chinese literature in its later period as a phenomenon of “variation,”

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because it used the individual human being as its basis, treasured human feelings and human desire, and affirmed the free will of the individual. This led to its direct conflict with, and contradiction against, the prevailing ideology in the society, which demanded the self-control of the individual and the individual’s subjection to the will of the community and the authority of those in power. Simultaneously, however, we may also say that the growth of the above-mentioned spirit of humanism led to the generation of a new tradition in Chinese culture and Chinese literature, because it represented the existence, full of vitality, of historical rationality. Many phenomena in literary composition proved the connection between classical and contemporary literature in the humanist “tradition.” An especially remarkable illustration of that was that during the Late Ming, “May Fourth,” and 1980s, there appeared, in great number, works with love and marriage as the subject matter. Generally speaking, works of this type were not very good in portraying the emotional content of “the world of two people, man and woman,” and they lacked depth in their representation of the psychology of love, which was because works of this type were more concerned with the oppression of the family and society on the individual than with the relationship between the two sexes. In Chinese literature, love and lust have often been praised as a self-assuring force of the individual in life; the freedom to choose a marriage partner from the other sex, and the rational satisfaction of natural sexual desire, have been considered, consciously or unconsciously, as a door to freedom and rights for the individual. As soon as the society infringes on the freedom and rights of the individual, literature would always take the initiative to knock at that door. In saying all this, this author has no intention whatsoever to depreciate the role of external culture on the development of modern Chinese literature. On the contrary, without the stimulus and powerful influence of the former, the pace of the latter in moving forward would have been extremely slow, and its aspects would have been strikingly different from what it looks like today. All we have attempted to prove is that there existed some historical tendencies throughout the entire course of the development and evolution of Chinese literature, and that between classical and modern literature, there certainly also existed some shared core values.

GLOSSARY-INDEX

“Account of How Emperor Yang Opened the Canal, An” 煬帝開河記 559 “Account of the Labyrinth of Emperor Yang of the Sui, An” 隋煬帝迷樓記 559 Jiangdu 江都 559–560 “Account of the Sea and Mountains of Emperor Yang of the Sui, An” 隋煬帝海山記 559 Accounts of the Sui and Tang Annals 隋唐志傳 560 actual record 實錄 119 adjutant play 參軍戲 561–562 adjutant 參軍 561 dark eagle 蒼鶻 561 advise a hundred and persuade the one 勸百諷一 85, 88 An Lushan 安祿山 148 n. 2 An-Shi Rebellion (755–762) 安史之亂 148, 851, 853–854 Analects, The 論語 55, 63–64, 66–67, 791, 796 Book II 為政 64 Book VII 述而 65 Book IX 子罕 64 Book XI 先進 65 Ancient Songs in the Music Bureau Collection 樂府古辭 99 Anecdotes about Emperor Wu of Han 漢武故事 127 Archaic Study of the Classics 古文學派 18 aria (qu) 曲 137 associated image 興 29–30 Attendant Gentleman (Han) 侍郎 108 n. 2 Ban Biao 班彪 89, 93, 122 “Rhapsody on the Journey to the North” 北征賦 89 Sequel to Historical Records 史記後傳 122 Ban Gu 班固 31, 34, 37–38, 45, 78, 93–95, 122–124, 678 Served as Clerk of the Orchid Pavilion 蘭臺令史 122

History of the Han 漢書 31–32, 34, 37, 45, 678 “Biographies of Li Guang and Su Jian” 李廣蘇建傳 123 Treatise on Arts 藝文志 31, 34, 37, 45 Treatise on Geography 地理志 32 “Poem on History” 詠史 136 “Rhapsody on the Two Capitals” 兩都賦 78, 93–95 “Eastern Capital Rhapsody” 東都賦 93 “Western Capital Rhapsody” 西都賦 93 Guest from the Western Capital 西都賓 93 Host of the Eastern Capital 東都主人 93 Ban the Imperial Consort 班婕妤 88 “Song of Complaint” 怨歌行 128 “Rhapsody of Self-Mourning” 自悼賦 88 Bao Shichen 包世臣 799 Four Methods of People Management 齊民四術 799 Bao Zhao (ca. 414–ca. 466) 鮑照 [style, Mingyuan 明遠] 43, 196, 201, 203–204, 209–214, 221, 226 native of Donghai 東海 (south of the Cangshan County 蒼山縣 in Shandong today) 209 served as a military aide 參軍 under Liu Zixu 劉子頊, Prince of Linghai 臨海王 209 “En Route Back to the Capital” 還都道中 209 “En Route from Jingkou to Zhuli” 行京口至竹里 210 “Letter to My Younger Sister after Reaching the Bank of the Big Thunder, A” 登大雷岸與妹書 196, 212–213, 226 Purple Cumulus Peak 紫霄峰 313 n. 7 Ruomu 若木 213 n. 6 “A Rephrased Song of Dongwu” 代東武吟 212

902

glossary-index

“Rephrased Song of Going Out of the Northern Gate of Ji, A” 代出自薊北門行 212 “Rephrased Song of Poverty, Humbleness and Misery, A” 代貧賤苦愁行 211 “Rephrased Song of Suffering from the Heat, A” 代苦熱行 212 “Rephrased Song of Up the Hall, A” 代堂上歌行 210 “Rhapsody on the Ruined City” 蕪城賦 196, 212 “Simulation of the ‘Hard Road’ ” 擬行路難 211–212 “Written on My Way Back to the Capital from Xunyang” 上潯陽還都道中作 210 “Yangqi and Shoufeng” 陽岐守風 210 Bathing Day 上巳 173, 176, 183 Si 巳 173 n. 10 Bei Qiong 貝瓊 659 Beijing Opera 京劇 880–881 Bells in Peaceful Nights 清夜鐘 753 (author) Weiyuan Zhuren (“Master of the Vetch Garden”) 薇園主人 753 ben se (“inherent nature” or “original color”) 本色 728 bi (“simple writing”) 筆 195, 350, 376 bi ji (“sketch-book”) 筆記 566 Bian Gong 邊貢 671 Bianjing 汴京 (Kaifeng, Henan) 425, 429, 434, 507, 509, 521, 557, 568 bianwen (see “transformation text”) 354, 391 Bin 豳 15–16, 19, 25 Bin 彬 15–16, 19, 25 Biographies of Literary Authors from Fujian 福建文苑傳 539 Bo Juyi (772–846) 白居易 [style, Letian 樂天] 310, 323, 326, 331–332, 334, 345, 347, 349–356, 364, 374, 415–416, 466– 469, 473, 478, 530, 581–583, 585, 594, 690, 693, 778, 780, 808, 811, 853, 887 native of Xiagui 下邽 (Weinan 渭南, Shaanxi today) 349 literary name, Xiangshan Jushi (“Layman Buddhist of Fragrant Hills”) 香山居士 349 served as Left Reminder 左拾遺, Left Grand Master Admonisher of the Crown Prince 太子左贊善大夫, Vice Prefect of Jiangzhou 江州司馬, Prefect 刺史 of Zhongzhou 忠州, Hangzhou 杭州, and Suzhou 蘇州,

Director of the Palace Library 祕書監, Governor of Henan 河南尹, and Junior Mentor of the Crown Prince 太子少傅 349 Allegorical Poems 諷喻詩 351 Collection of Policy Advices 策林 350 “The Collecting of Poems as a Complement to the Observation of Current Affairs” 採詩以補察時政 350 Lamentation (Poems) 感傷 (詩) 352 “Letter to Yuan Zhen, A” 與元九書 331, 349–350 “Light and Plump” 輕肥 351 “Memories of Jiangnan” 憶江南 416 Miscellaneous Poems in Regulated Verse 雜律詩 355 “Old Man of Duling, The” 杜陵叟 351 “Old Man with a Broken Arm of Xinfeng, The” 新豐折臂翁 352 Poems of Leisure 閑適詩 355 “Preface to New Music Bureau Poems” 新樂府序 350 “Pulling up a Silver Vase from the Bottom of the Well” 井底引銀瓶 351, 581 “Reading Zhang Ji’s Old Music Bureau Poetry” 讀張籍古樂府 345 “Songs from the Qin” 秦中吟 351 “Song of the Everlasting Sorrow” 長恨歌 352–354, 583, 778, 853, 855, 887 “Song of Pipa” 琵琶行 332, 352, 354, 585, 778 Xunyang River 潯陽江 354 “Spring Trip to the Qiantang Lake, A” 錢塘湖春行 355 Jia Pavilion 賈亭 355 Temple of the Solitary Hill 孤山寺 355 Bo Pu (1226–) 白樸 [style, Taisu 太素] 351, 571, 576, 581–582, 584, 586, 593, 607–608, 611–612 original name: Bo Heng 白恒 [style, Renfu 仁甫] 581 literary name: Langu (“Orchid Valley”) 蘭谷 581 son of Bo Hua 白華 581 Atop the Wall and on Horseback 牆頭馬上 351, 581–583 Dragon in Muddy River 混江龍 582

glossary-index Li Qianjin 李千金 582–583 Li Shijie 李世杰 582 Pei Shaojun 裴少俊 582 “Clear Sky over the Sand: Winter” 天淨沙·冬 611 Rain over the Parasol Tree 梧桐雨 581, 583, 585 “Yellow Bell Coda” 黃鐘煞 583 “Shady Tree: Facing a View” 喬木查·對景 608 “Spring Aria: On Love” 陽春曲·題情 611 Bo Qi 白起 36, 41 Bo Xingjian 白行簡 396, 400–401 “The Story of Miss Li” 李娃傳 396, 400, 401 n. 3 Lady of Qianguo 汧國夫人 401 “A Spray of Flowers” 一枝花 401 n. 3 Yingyang 滎陽 400–401 Book of Changes, The 易經 13, 573, 796 Qian Yuan (divinatory symbol for Heaven) 乾元 573 Book of Documents, The 書經 52 [See Documents of High Antiquity] Book of Marvel Tales (attributed to Cao Pi) 列異傳 189–190 “Mr. Tan” 談生 89 Book of Mountains and Seas, The 山海經 6, 86, 878 Book of Rites, The 禮記 4 “Interpretation of the Classics” 經解 17 Book of Songs, The 詩經 7, 9–10, 14, 662 bi (comparison) 比 29, 350, 376 Feng (Lyric Songs / Suasio / airs) 風 15, 29, 326, 350 fu (exposition) 賦 29 Songs of the States 國風 15–16, 22–25, 27–28 Songs of Bei 邶風 15, 23–25 “Beating Drums” 擊鼓 25 “Nice Maiden, A” 靜女 23 “Valley Wind, The” 谷風 24 Songs of Bin 豳風 15–16, 25 “Broken Axes” 破斧 25 “Eastern Hills” 東山 25 Songs of Cao 曹風 15 Songs of Chen 陳風 15, 24 “Moon Rises, The” 月出 24 Songs of the Kings 王風 15 Songs of Kuai 檜風 15 Songs of Qi 齊風 15

903

Songs of Qin 秦風 24 “Reeds” 蒹葭 24 Songs of Tang 唐風 15 “Cricket, The” 蟋蟀 22, 47 “Thorn-Elm in the Mountain” 山有樞 22 Songs of Wei 衛風 15, 24–27 “Oh Brother” 伯兮 25–27 “That Fellow” 氓 24, 29 Songs of Wei 魏風 15, 24–27 “Cutting Sandalwood” 伐檀 27 Songs of Yong 鄘風 15, 28 “Behold the Rat” 相鼠 28 Songs of Zheng 鄭風 15, 23 “Creeper Grows in the Wilds” 野有蔓草 23 “Fallen Leaves” 蘀兮 22 “Zhongzi, Please” 將仲子 23 South of Zhou 周南 15–16, 33 “Broad Han, The” 漢廣 33 “Lush Peach, The” 桃夭 30 “Ospreys, The” 關雎 30 South of Zhao 召南 15–16, 23 “In the Wilds There Is a Dead River Deer” 野有死麕 23 Qi 齊, Lu 魯, Han 韓 and Mao 毛 poetics 17 Six Principles 六義 29 Song (Hymns) 頌 15 Hymns of Zhou 周頌 15, 18 Hymns of Shang 商頌 15 Hymns of Lu 魯頌 15 xing (associated image / association) 興 29, 350 Ya (Odes / Correctio / elegance) 雅 15–16, 326, 350 Major Odes of the Kingdom 大雅 10 “Birth to the People” 生民 18 “Great Light” 大明 18 “Looking Up” 瞻卬 20 “Lord Liu” 公劉 18–19 “May Heaven Protect” 天保 20 “Sovereign Might” 皇矣 18 “Spreading” 緜 18 “Valiant as Ever” 常武 19 Minor Odes of the Kingdom 小雅 15, 19 “Bring Out the Chariots” 出車 19 “A Crane Cries” 鶴鳴 29 “Deer Cry” 鹿鳴 19 “First Moon” 正月 21 “Lush Pear-Trees” 杕杜 25 “Northern Hills” 北山 20

904

glossary-index

“Picking Ferns” 采薇 25–26 “Plucking the White Millet” 采芑 19 “Sixth Month” 六月 19 “Solar Eclipse in the Tenth Month” 十月之交 21 “What Plant Yellows Not” 何草不黃 25 Boxers 義和團 832 Brecht, Bertolt 593 Der kaukasische Kreidekreis (The Caucasian Chalk Circle) 593 Byron, George Gordon 836–837 Cai Qi 蔡啟 359 Poetic Remarks from Cai Kuanfu 蔡寬夫詩話 359, 466 Cai Songnian 蔡松年 563 Cai Yan 蔡琰 [style, Wenji 文姬] 99, 159 “Poem of Grief and Indignation” 悲憤詩 159 Cai Yong (139–192) 蔡邕 97–99 “Rhapsody on the Maidservant” 青衣賦 97–98 “Rhapsody Recounting a Journey” 述行賦 97 Cai Yuanfang 蔡元放 745 Records of the Various States of the Eastern Zhou 東周列國志 745 Feng Menglong’s work 馮夢龍 745 New Records of the Various States 新列國志 743, 745 Yu Shaoyu 余邵魚 745 Story of the Various States 列國志傳 744 Canglang 滄浪 33, 34 n. 2 Cao Biao 曹彪 163 Cao Cao (155–220), Emperor Wu of the Wei 曹操 (魏武帝) [style, Mengde 孟德] 147, 149, 154–160, 162–163, 170, 565, 580, 640–644 native of Qiao 譙 in the princedom of Pei 沛國 (Bozhou, Anhui 安徽亳州市 today) 154 “Dew on Onion Leaves” 薤露 155 “Short Song” 短歌行 156, 161 “Song of the Nether World” 蒿里行 155 “Songs of Walking out of the Xia Gate” 步出夏門行 155 “Watching the Deep Blue Sea” 觀滄海 155

Cao Fang 曹芳 166 Cao Pi (187–226), Emperor Wen of the Wei 曹丕 (魏文帝) [style, Zihuan 子桓] 81, 160 “Composed at the Black Warrior Pond” 於玄武陂作 161 “Composed at the Hibiscus Pool” 芙蓉池作 161 “Discourse on Literature” in Authoritative Discourses 典論·論文 151, 156 “Letter(s) to Wu Zhi” 與吳質書 161, 165 “Miscellaneous Poems” 雜詩 159, 161, 173, 178, 186 “Songs of Swallows” 燕歌行 161 Cao Shuang 曹爽 166–167 Cao Song 曹嵩 154 Cao Teng 曹騰 154 Cao Xueqin (ca. 1715–ca. 1763) 曹雪芹 (known by his literary name) 869–877 (Original Name: Cao Zhan 曹霑 [style, Mengruan 夢阮]) 869 Cao Tiao 曹頫 (Xueqin’s father) 869 Cao Xi 曹璽 (Xueqin’ great-grandfather) 869 Cao Yin 曹寅 (Xueqin’s grandfather, Emperor Kangxi’s Reader-Companion 伴讀) 869 Cao Yong 曹顒 (the elder brother of Xueqin’s father) 869 Textile Commissioner at Jiangning 江寧織造 869 “Clan School on the Right Wing” 右翼宗學 870 Dream of Red Mansions, A 紅樓夢 (Original Title: The Story of the Stone 石頭記) 638, 741, 772, 786, 839, 861, 869–877, 885, 889, 897 Aunt Zhao 趙姨娘 876–877 Cheng Edition 程本 870 Cheng Edition A 程甲本 870 Cheng Edition B 程乙本 870 Cheng Weiyuan 程偉元 870 Disenchantment 警幻 872 Gao E (ca. 1738–ca. 1815) 高鶚 (co-author) 870 native under the Yellow Rim Banner of the Han Divisions 漢軍鑲黃旗 870 served as Reader-in-Attendance at the Hanlin Academy 翰林院侍讀 870

glossary-index Grandmother Jia 賈母 875 Grannie Liu 劉姥姥 874 Hawkes, David (translator) 869 n. 7, 872 n. 8 Jia Baoyu 賈寶玉 786, 872, 875 Jia Huan 賈環 876–877 Jia Yucun 賈雨村 874 Jia Zhen 賈珍 873 Jia Zheng 賈政 873, 877 Lin Daiyu 林黛玉 872–873, 875 Miao Yu (“Adamantina”) 妙玉 874 Ningguo House 寧國府 873 Qing Wen (“Skybright”) 晴雯 873, 875 Red Inkstone Studio 脂硯齋 741, 870 Rongguo House 榮國府 873, 875 Rouge Edition 脂本 870 Wang Xifeng 王熙鳳 874–875, 877 Xi Ren (“Aroma”) 襲人 873, 875 Xiang Ling (“Caltrop”) 香菱 875 Xue Baochai 薛寶釵 873, 875 Xue Pan 薛蟠 874 Ying Er (“Oriole”) 鶯兒 876 You Sanjie (“You the Third Sister”) 尤三姐 873 Dun Cheng 敦誠 870 “Presented to Cao Qinpu” 贈曹芹圃 870 Cao Zhi (192–232) 曹植 [style, Zijian 子建] 90, 153, 156–158, 162–165, 174–175, 189, 405 “Letter to Wu Zhi (Jizhong), A” 與吳季重書 165 “Letter to Yang Dezu (Xiu), A” 與楊德祖書 165 “Piece on the Famous Capital, A” 名都篇 162 “Piece on Shrimps and Eels, A” 鰕觛篇 162 “Piece on the White Steed, A” 白馬篇 162 “Presented to Biao, Prince of Baima” 贈白馬王彪 163 “Presented to Ding Yi” 贈丁儀 164 attach 依 164 drift 飄 164 “Rhapsody on Hawk and Sparrow” 鷂雀賦 405 “Rhapsody on the Luo River Goddess” 洛神賦 90, 165 “Seven Sorrows” 七哀 157–158, 163–164

905

“Sitting in Attendance to the Crown Prince” 侍太子坐 164 illuminate 曜 164 settle 靜 164 “Song of a Siskin in the Wild Fields” 野田黃雀行 163 Cases of Lord Shi, The 施公案 884 Huang Tianba 黃天霸 884 Shi Shilun 施仕倫 884 Catalogue of Books Imported by Boats 舶載書目 742 Cen Shen (715–769) 岑參 290, 292–294 native of Jiangling 江陵 (within Hubei today) 295–296 “Composed after Getting Drunk at the Banquet of the Governor of Jiuquan” 酒泉太守席上醉後作 293 “Evening Party with Administrative Assistants in the Liangzhou Guesthouse, An” 涼州館中與諸判官夜集 294 “Song about Governor Tian’s Consorts Who Danced like Lotus Flowers Whirling to the North, A” 田使君美人舞如蓮花北旋歌 293 “Song of the Galloping Horses Plain: Presented for the Troops’ Launching of the Campaign to the West, A” 走馬川行奉送出師西征 293 “Song of the White Snow: Presented to Administrative Assistant Wu before He Returned to the Capital, A” 白雪歌送武判官歸京 293 Central Plains 中原 Central States 中國 Chang E (Lady in the Moon) 嫦娥 736 Chang Jian 常建 289–290 “Written on the Wall of a Buddhist Lodge behind the Broken Hill Temple” 題破山寺後禪院 290 Chang’an 長安 112, 157, 251, 311, 313, 319, 330, 340 n. 7, 356, 375, 360, 722, 777, 851 chantefable 詞話 92, 409, 569, 574 Chantefable of the Sutra Search of Tripitaka of the Great Tang Dynasty 大唐三藏取經詩話 637, 729 Chao Buzhi 晁補之 504 Chao Cuo 晁錯 104, 122 “Memorial to the Throne on the Importance of Grain, A” 論貴粟疏 104

906

glossary-index

Chao Gongwu’s 晁公武 394 Notes from Reading at the Commandery Study 郡齋讀書記 394 Chen (Dynasty) 陳 247–248, 250 Chen Baozhen 陳寶箴 827 Chen Cao’an 陳草庵 608 “Sheep on the Slope: Untitled” 山坡羊·無題 608 Chen Chen 陳忱 [style, Xiaxin 遐心] 849 literary name: Yandang Shanqiao (“Woodcutter of Mt. Yandang”) 雁宕山樵 849 A Sequel to Water Margin 水滸後傳 848–849 Cai Jing 蔡京 849 Gao Qiu 高俅 849 Li Jun 李俊 849 Tong Guan 童貫 849 Chen Duo (before 1469–1507) 陳鐸 [style, Dasheng 大聲] 706 literary name: Qiubi (“Autumn Blue”) 秋碧 706 Humorous Tunes 滑稽餘韵 706 “Water Fairy: The Burial of a Scholar” 水仙子·葬士 707 Chen Han 陳翰 401 n. 3 Collection of Strange Tidings 異聞集 401 n. 3 Chen Hong 陳鴻 353, 396, 403, 853 “The Story of ‘Song of the Everlasting Sorrow’ ” 長恨歌傳 353, 391, 396, 403, 853, 855, 887 Chen Jiayan 陳嘉言 881 Thunder Peak Pagoda 雷峰塔 881 Chen Liang 陳亮 538 Chen Lin 陳琳 157, 159, 165 Chen Ping 陳平 118 Chen Qi 陳起 546–548, 550 “Buying Flowers” 買花 550 Collections of Rivers and Lakes 江湖集 547–548 Poetry Collections of Rivers and Lakes 江湖詩集 547 Second Collections of Rivers and Lakes 江湖後集 547 Supplementary Collections of Rivers and Lakes 江湖續集 547 Chen Sanli (1853–1937) 陳三立 [style, Boyan 伯嚴] 827–829 literary name: Sanyuan Laoren (“Old Man of the Dissipation Plain”) 散原老人 827

native of Yining 義寧, Jiangxi (Xiushui 修水 of today) 827 Metropolitan Graduate in the 12th year of the Guangxu reign (1886) 827 served as Director at the Ministry of Personnel 吏部主事 827 “Looking at a Light Snow in My Private Garden” 園居看微雪 828 “On the Evening of the Fourteenth of the Eleventh Month, I Set Out from the Moon River in Nanchang on a Travel by Boat” 十一月十四夜發南昌月江舟行 828 Chen Sen 陳森 887 A Precious Mirror for the Ranking of Flowers 品花寶鑑 887 Du Qinyan 杜琴言 887 Mei Ziyu 梅子玉 887 Chen Sheng 陳勝 113 Chen Shidao (1053–1101) 陳師道 [alias Wuji 無己, also styled Lüchang 履常] 445–446, 502–503, 508, 511, 522 literary name: Houshan 後山 502 native of Pengcheng 彭城 (Xuzhou in Jiangsu today) 502 served as Instructor at Xuzhou Prefecture 徐州教授 502 “Letter in Reply to Qin Gou” 答秦覯書 502 Poetic Remarks of Houshan 後山詩話 446 “Spring Thoughts: To Be Presented to Neighbors” 春懷示鄰里 502–503 Chen Shixiu 陳世修 422 Chen Shou 陳壽 640 History of the Three States 三國志 154, 640 Book of the Wei 魏書 154 “Basic Annals of Emperor Wu” 武帝本紀 154 Pei Songzhi’s 裴松之 (annotator) 640 “Biography of Cao Man” 曹瞞傳 640 Chen Shubao, Late Monarch of Chen 陳叔寶 [陳後主] (553–604) 247, 249 “A Boating Trip in the Xuanpu Garden on a Beautiful Day with a Soft Breeze at the Beginning of the New Spring” 獻歲立春光風具美泛舟玄圃 250 “A Trip to the Qixia Temple at Mt. Sheshan in the Company of

glossary-index Councilor Jiang” 同江僕射游攝山棲霞寺 249 Chen Suowen 陳所聞 715 Chronicles of the Southern Palace Songs 南宮詞紀 715 Chen Tingzhuo 陳廷焯 533 n. 2, 785 Remarks on the Song Lyric from the White Rain Studio 白雨齋詞話 533 n. 2, 785 Chen Weisong (1625–1682) 陳維崧, [style, Qinian 其年] 781, 784–786, 805 literary name: Qieling 迦陵 784 native of Yixing 宜興, Jiangsu 784 Erudite Literatus 博學鴻詞 in late years 784 served as Examining Editor at the Hanlin Academy 翰林院檢討 784 Yangxian School 陽羨派 786 “Congratulation to the Bridegroom: On the Mid-Autumn Day of the Year of Jia Chen (1664) I Was in Guangling (Yangzhou) and Had a Drink at Sun Baoren’s Hall of Irrigation, On Return I Composed the Song and Showed It to Ruanting (Wang Shizhen)” 賀新郎·甲辰廣陵中秋小飲孫豹人溉堂歸歌示阮亭 776, 784 n. 6 Cheng Bushi 程不識 785 n. 7 Li Guang 李廣 785 n. 7 Xie Shang 謝尚 785 “Dance of Myna” 鸜鵒舞 785 “Happy Event in Near Future” 好事近 785 Chen Xuanyou 陳玄祐 396, 593 “An Account of the Departing Soul” 離魂記 396, 593 Qian Niang (“Beautiful Lady”) 倩娘 396 Wang Zhou 王宙 396 Chen Yan 陳衍 827 Chen Yaowen 陳耀文 401 n. 3 Notes from Mt. Tianzhong 天中記 401 n. 3 Chen Yinke 陳寅恪 295, 355, 811 Manuscript of My Research on the Poetry of Yuan Zhen and Bo Juyi 元白詩箋證稿 355, 811 Chen Yuyi (1090–1138) 陳與義 [style, Qufei 去非] 508–510 literary name: Jianzhai 簡齋 508 native of Luoyang 508 moved from Chenliu 陳留 508

907

served as State Councilor 參知政事 508 “Clearing up after Rain” 雨晴 509 “Encountering the Enemy Troops on Their Arrival at the Fangzhou City on the Twelfth Day of the First Month” 正月十二日自房州城遇虜至 509 “I Missed Tianjing and Master Wisdom, Therefore I Visited Them” 懷天經智老因訪之 509 “New Year’s Eve” 除夜 510 “Peonies” 牡丹 510 Green Mound Stream 青墩溪 510 Luo River 洛水 510 Yi River 伊水 510 “Rain” 雨 509 Supplement to the Jianzhai Collection, A 簡齋集外集 508 “Up at the Yueyang Pavilion” 登岳陽樓 510 Chen Zi’ang (661–702) 陳子昂 [style, Boyu 伯玉] 170, 275–277, 284 “Foreword Presented to Left Scribe Dongfang Qiu’s ‘A Piece on Tall Bamboos’ ” 與東方左史虬修竹篇序 275 “Reflections on Experience” 感遇 170 “Retrospect on the Ancient Times at Jiqiu: Presented to Lu Cangyong, the Layman Buddhist” 薊邱覽古贈盧居士藏用 276 “Song of Ascending the Youzhou Terrace” 登幽州臺歌 277 Chengdu 成都 312 Cheng Enze 程恩澤 826 Cheng Hao 程顥 / Cheng Yi 程頤 464, 656, 662–663, 665–666, 672, 675, 751, 770–771, 788, 790–792, 879 Posthumous Manuscripts from the Two Cheng Brothers 二程遺書 464 China Books Inc. 中華書局 571 Chiyou 蚩尤 2 Chronicles of Tang Poetry 唐詩紀事 373 Chu 楚 Savage Jing 蠻荊 31 Chu Guangxi 儲光羲 289 “Fishing Bay” 釣魚灣 290 Chu Renhuo 褚人穫 851–852 Romance of the Sui and Tang Dynasties 隋唐演義 848, 851–852

908

glossary-index

Accounts of the Sui and Tang Annals 隋唐志傳 851 Cheng Yaojin 程咬金 851–852 Chronicles of the Erotic Adventures of Emperor Yang of the Sui 隋煬帝艷史 851 Leftover Records from History of Sui 隋史遺文 851 Luo Cheng 羅成 851–852 Qin Qiong 秦瓊 851–852 Shan Xiongxin 單雄信 851–852 Zhu Gui’er 朱貴兒 851 Chu songs 楚歌 125, 127, 131 chuan qi (Tang) (See also “tale of the marvelous”) 傳奇 121, 310, 354, 391–405, 558, 719, 845–846 “An Account of the Ancient Mirror” 古鏡記 393–394 attributed to Wang Du 393 Wang Ji 王勣 394 “Supplementary Biography of Jiang Zong’s White Ape, A” 補江總白猿傳 393–394 Ouyang He 歐陽紇 394 Ouyang Xun 歐陽詢 394 ci (See also “song lyric”) 詞 137, 227, 251, 361, 371, 373, 374 cí (offering) 祠 9 Civil Code of the Ming Dynasty, The 明律 736 Classical Prose Movement 古文運動 308 Classified Record of Events during the Yuan and Ming Dynasties 元明事類鈔 633 Clerk (Han) 掌故 108 n. 2 collateral name 氏 35 n. 4 Collected Material of a Sequel to Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government 續資治通鑒長編 459 Collection of the Gorgeous in the Woods of the Lyric, A 詞林摘艷 715 Columbus, Christopher 833 combined lives 合生 557 n. 6 Commentaries 傳 54 Common Affairs with Annotations 朴通事諺解 729 Complete Chronicles of the Stories of the Tang 說唐演義全傳 851 (See also Chu Renhuo) Yuanhu Yushou (“Old Fisherman of the Mandarin Duck Lake”) 鴛湖漁叟 (author) 851

(short title: Stories of the Tang 說唐) 851 Wagang Stockade 瓦崗寨 851 Complete Stories of Yue Fei 說岳全傳 848–851 Gao Chong 高寵 851 Jin Feng 金豐 [style, Dayou 大有] of Yongfu 永福 (co-author) 850 Liang Hongyu 梁紅玉 851 Mt. Jinshan 金山 851 Niu Gao 牛皋 850 Qian Cai 錢彩 [style, Jinwen 錦文] of Renhe 仁和 (co-author) 850 Qin Kuai 秦檜 850 Xiong Damu 熊大木 850 Popular Romance of the Restoration of the Great Song 大宋中興通俗演義 850 Young Prince of Liang 小梁王 851 Yue Yun 岳雲 850–851 Zhang Bao 張保 850 Zhang Xian 張憲 850 Zou Yuanbiao 鄒元標 850 Story of Yue Fei, the Loyalist 岳武穆精忠傳 850 composing the song lyric as shi poetry 以詩為詞 445, 449 Confucius (551–479 B.C.) 孔夫子[Kong Qiu 孔丘, style, Zhongni 仲尼] 54–55, 63–67, 463, 491, 841, 856 Concise General Catalogue of the Four Treasuries of Books 四庫總目提要 473, 626, 778, 787, 789 Consort Li 驪姬 59 Consort Yang 楊貴妃 (See Yang Yuhuan) Consort Yu 虞姬 126–127 Contemporary Study of the Classics 今文學派 17 Conversations from the States 國語 11 “Conversations from the Jin” 晉語 59 “Conversations from the Wu” 吳語 59 “Conversations from the Yue” 越語 59 “Conversations from the Zhou” 周語 20 cross-talk 相聲 561 Cui Hao (?–754) 崔顥 281, 284–285 native of Bianzhou 汴州 (the city of Kaifeng, Henan 河南開封市 today) 284

glossary-index Presented Scholar: the eleventh year of the Kaiyuan reign 284 served as Vice Director of Merit Titles at the Department of State Affairs 尚書司勳員外郎 284 “Yellow Crane Tower” 黃鶴樓 284–285 Cui Hu 崔護 562 “Cui Hu in Six Refrains” 崔護六么 562 Cui Qi 崔琦 130 Cui Shi 崔寔 105 Political Discourse 政論 105 Cui Tong 崔峒 329 Cui Yuan 崔瑗 130 Cultivated Talent 秀才 cultural down-reaching 文化下移 11 curved complexes (gou lan) 勾欄 557, 562 Da Guan 達觀 (See Tang Xianzu) 754–755 Dadu 大都 (Beijing today) 555 Dai Biaoyuan (1244–1310) 戴表元 [style, Shuaichu 帥初] 620, 622–623 native of Fenghua (within Zhejiang today) 622 served Instructor at the Jiankang prefecture 建康府教授; Instructor at Xinzhou 信州教授 622 “Foreword to Hong Qianfu’s Poetry” 洪潛甫詩序 622 “On What Took Place on the Third Day of the Sixth Month in the Year of Xin Si (1281)” 辛巳歲六月三日書事 622 “Passing By beneath the Southern Mountains” 南山下行 622 “Thatched Studio” 茅齋 622 “Valediction to Zhang Shuxia on His Trip to the West” 送張叔夏西遊序 623 Dai Fugu (1167–?) 戴復古 [style, Shizhi 式之] 548–549 literary name: Shiping (“Stone Screen”) 石屏 548 “Compopsed in the Year of Gengzi (1240): Successive Years of Famine” 庚子薦飢 548 “Lament from the Weaving Woman” 織婦嘆 549 “Looking across Jiangnan: A Self-Ridicule” 望江南·自嘲 549

909

“Putting Up for the Night at a Peasant’s” 夜宿田家 549 “Ten Quatrains on Poetry” 論詩十絕句 549 “Zhao Yongfu from the Three Mountains Ancestral Shrine Asked me about My Recent Poems . . .” 三山宗院趙用父問近詩 . . . . . . 549 Dai Mingshi 戴名世 790 Collection from the Southern Hills 南山集 790 Dai Shulun 戴叔倫 370, 415 Daily News (Tianjin) 日日新聞 893 Daoxue (“Study of the Way”) 道學 462, 464, 675–676, 796 Dark Learning (Metaphysics) 玄學 150, 166, 181–184 Darwin, Charles 413 Dawenkou 大汶口 13 Deng 鄧 (today’s Dengzhou, Henan 河南鄧州) 255 Departing Soul of a Beautiful Lady, The 倩女離魂 569 Destined Matrimonies that Awaken the World 醒世姻緣傳 741–743 Chao Yuan 晁源 742 Di Xichen 狄希陳 742 Hu Wuyi 胡無翳 742 Lady Ji 計氏 742 Ranlizi (“Master Who Burns Goosefoot”) 然藜子 741 Tong Jijie 童寄姐 742 Xi Zhou Sheng (“Scholar of Western Zhou”) 西周生 741 Xue Sujie 薛素姐 742–743 Yang Fuji 楊復吉 741 Trivial Notes Taken after Awakening from Dreams 夢闌瑣筆 741 Bao Yiwen 鮑以文 741 Zhen Ge 珍哥 742 Di 狄 242 White Di 白狄 242 Diamond Sutra 金剛經 742 Ding Yaokang 丁耀亢 741 A Sequel to the Plum in Golden Vase 續金瓶梅 741 discordant lines 拗句 322 discordant style 拗體 322 discourse 文辭 9 distinguished families and great clans 高門大族 147

910

glossary-index

Documents of High Antiquity (Shang shu) 尚書 3–4, 11 “Against Idleness” 無逸 4 Documents of High Antiquity in Ancient Script, The 古文尚書 52 Documents of High Antiquity in Contemporary Script, The 今文尚書 52 Forged Documents of High Antiquity in Ancient Script, The 偽古文尚書 52 “Pangeng” 盤庚 3 “Pledge of Qin, The” 秦誓 53–54 Dong Jieyuan 董解元 568–575 Medley of the Western Chamber 西廂記諸宮調 399, 507, 568–570, 575, 581, 586, 590 Dong Qichang 董其昌 734 Dong Si 董祀 159 Dong Zhongshu 董仲舒 130 Works of Dong Zhongshu 董仲舒集 130 Dong Zhuo 董卓 159 Dongfang Suo (154–93 B.C.) 東方朔 86 “Response to a Guest’s Interrogation” 答客難 86 Donghai (Jiangsu) 東海 92 Donglin Party (Ming) 東林黨 766, 773, 856 Dongting Lake 洞庭湖 247 Dream of the Blue Mansions 青樓夢 886 Dream of Pomp and Splendor in Shanghai 海上繁華夢 886 drum lyric 鼓詞 409, 819–820 Military Commanders from the Hu Family 呼家將 820 Du Bao 杜寶 640 Anecdotes from the Daye Reign 大業拾遺錄 640 Cao Cao striking at a flood dragon in the Qiao River 曹操譙水擊蛟 640 Liu Bei jumping across the Tan Brook on horseback 劉備檀溪躍馬 640 Du Du 杜篤 130 Du Fu (712–770), 杜甫 [style, Zimei 子美] 224, 310–326, 336–338, 347, 350, 371, 461, 469–470, 488, 498, 500, 502, 508, 510, 530, 549, 565, 658, 664, 666, 722, 780

born in Gongxian 鞏縣 (within today’s Henan) 311 served as Adjutant in the Helmets Section of the Right Guard Command 右衛率府冑曹參軍, Left Reminder 左拾遺, Personal Manager and Adjutant of Huazhou 華州司空參軍, (Honorary Title) Acting Vice Minister of the Ministry of Works 檢校工部員外郎 311 lived in Fengxian 奉先, Yun’an 雲安 and Kuizhou 夔州, died near Leiyang 耒陽 311 “Another Poem Presented to the Young Master Wu” 又呈吳郎 318 “Ascending the Height” 登高 318 “Ascending the Yueyang Tower” 登岳陽樓 320 “Autumn Meditations: Eight Poems” 秋興八首 320–321 “Chanting about My Thoughts after Cutting the Paddy” 刈稻了詠懷 321 “Continuous Rain, A” 雨不絕 321 “Diversions at the Waterside Balustrade” 水檻遣心 317 “Dreaming of Li Bo” 夢李白 318 “Gorge of the Iron Hall” 鐵堂峽 322 “Grief in Spring” 傷春 321 “Hearing that the Imperial Army Has Restored Henan and Hebei” 聞官軍收河南河北 324 Ba Gorge 巴峽 324 Sword Gate 劍門 324 Wizard Gorge 巫峽 324 “Highest Tower of the White Lord City” 白帝城最高樓 322 Feeble Water 弱水 322 Fusang 扶桑 322 “Journeys in the Prime of Life” 壯遊 311–312 “Memorial about the Presentation of the Rhapsody on the Vulture, A” 進雕賦表 311 “Moonlit Night, A” 月夜 314 “Night Thoughts on a Voyage” 旅夜書懷 321 “Northern Expedition” 北征 323 “Painted Eagle” 畫鷹 313

glossary-index “Playfully Presented to Section Chief Lu the Nineteenth to Divert from Boredom” 遣悶戲呈路十九曹長 318 “Presented to Commander Hua” 贈花卿 412 “Presented to Lüqiu, my Senior Fellow Apprentice and Buddhist Monk from Shu” 贈蜀僧閭邱師兄 269 “Qiang Village: Three Poems” 羌村三首 318 Fuzhou 鄜州 319 “Quatrain” 絕句 320 “Random Quatrains” 絕句漫興 320 “Response to Prefect Yuan’s ‘Song of Chongling,’ A” 同元使君舂陵行 325 “River Swelled and Looked Like the Sea, So I Wrote This Short Account, The” 江上值水如海勢聊短述 319 “Riverside Pavilion” 江亭 321 “Riverside Village” 江村 317 “Singing About My Thoughts on the Trip from the Capital to Fengxian” 自京赴奉先詠懷 313, 323 “Song of the Beautiful Ladies” 麗人行 323, 347 “Song of Cuckoo” 杜鵑行 320 “Song of Eight Drunken Immortals” 飲中八仙歌 313 “Song of Ravings” 狂歌行 320 “Song of Tonight, A” 今夕行 313 “Song of War Chariots” 兵車行 313 “Speaking My Mind on Winter Solstice: to be Sent to Former Supervising Secretaries of the Northern Department and Old Friends of the Two Courts” 至日遣興寄北省舊閣老兩院故人 320 “Spring View” 春望 314, 321 “Sunny Weather” 晴 322 “Thinking About Li Bo at the Ends of the Earth” 天末懷李白 318 “Three Departures” 三別 314, 317, 323 “Departure of the Newly Wed” 新婚別 316–317 Departure of the Old Man” 垂老別 316–317 “Three Officials” 三吏 314, 317, 323 “The Official of Shihao” 石壕吏 350

911

“The Official of Xin’an” 新安吏 350 Guo Ziyi 郭子儀 (Left Vice Director of Imperial Secretariat 左僕射) 316 n. 3 “Yangtze and the Han River, The” 江漢 313 Du Guangting 杜光庭 403–404 “The Story of the Curly-Bearded Man” 虬髯客傳 11 (also attributed to Pei Xing) 403 Li Jing 李靖 403–404 Red Whisk 紅拂 403–404 Three Chivalrous People in Chaotic Times 風塵三俠 404 Yang Su 楊素 404 Du Mu (803–853) 杜牧 [style, Muzhi 牧之] 343, 360–364, 373, 387, 417, 485, 541 native of Wannian, Jingzhao 京兆萬年 (Xi’an, Shaanxi today) 361 Presented Scholar in the second year (828) of the Dahe reign 361 served as Prefect 刺史 of Huangzhou 黃州, Chizhou 池州, and Muzhou 睦州, Secretariat Drafter 中書舍人 361 Annotations of Sunzi’s Art of War 孫子兵法注 361 “Ascending the Height on the Ninth Day at Mount Qi” 九日齊山登高 363 “Expressing my Thoughts” 遣懷 362 “Inscribed at the Waterside Pavilion of the Kaiyuan Temple of Xuanzhou” 題宣州開元寺水閣 363 “Note on Li He’s (Changji’s) Songs and Poems, A” 李長吉歌詩敘 343 “Quatrain Composed When I Went Up to the Le You Tombs before I Set Out for Wuxing, A” 將赴吳興登樂遊原一絕 362 “Recalling the Ancient Times at the Red Cliff ” 赤壁懷古 362 Zhou Yu 周瑜 362 “Rhapsody on the E Pang Palace” 阿房宮賦 387, 485 Sinful Words 罪言 361 “Summoning Li Ying, the Presented Scholar, on the New Year’s Day in Hunan” 湖南正初招李郢秀才 363

912

glossary-index

“Trip into the Mountains, A” 山行 363 Du Shanfu 杜善夫 576 Du Shenyan (ca. 645–708) 杜審言 [style, Bijian 必簡] 269–270, 272 “A Companion Piece to a Poem on a Sightseeing Trip in Early Spring by Vice Magistrate Lu of Jinling” 和晉陵陸丞早春遊望 270 Du Xunhe 杜荀鶴 374–375 “Lament in the Spring Palace” 春宮怨 375 “Presented to Grand Master Li” 投李大夫 375 “Running into an Old Man in the Village after the Upheaval” 亂後逢村叟 374 Du You 杜佑 361 Encyclopedia of Decrees, Institutions and Regulations 通典 361 Du Yu 杜預 311 Duan Inkstone 端硯 740 Duan Pidi 段匹磾 [Regional Inspector of Youzhou 幽州] 180 Dugu Ji 獨孤及 377 Duke Ai of Lu 魯哀公 54 Duke Gong of Cao 曹共公 56 Duke Huai of Jin 晉懷公 57 Duke Huan of Qi 齊桓公 103, 115 Duke Ling of Wei 衛靈公 65 Duke Mu of Qin 秦穆公 53 Duke Yin of Lu 魯隱公 54 Duke Xian (of Jin) 晉獻公 59 Dumas, Alexander fils 883 n. 9 La Dame aux camélias 883 Dunhuang Grotto 燉煌石窟 405, 409 e mei 蛾眉 194 n. 1 Earlier Seven Masters 前七子 667, 671–675, 678 (See Bian Gong, He Jingming, Kang Hai, Li Mengyang, Wang Jiusi, Wang Tingxiang, and Xu Zhenqing) Eight Banners 八旗 786 n. 8 Eight Masters of the Tang and Song 唐宋八大家, 790–792 Elite 士 11 Elite as Wandering Political Advisors 遊說之士 11 Literary Elite 文學之士 11 Wandering Elite 遊士 76–77 Emperor Aizong (Jin) 金哀宗 565 Zhengda reign 正大 565

Emperor An (Eastern Jin) 晉安帝 182 n. 15 Yixi reign 義熙 182 Emperor Cheng (Han) 漢成帝 92 Yuanyan reign 元延 92 Emperor Chengzong (Yuan) 元成宗 575 Dade reign 大德 575, 593, 624 Emperor Chengzu (Ming) 明成祖 [Zhu Di 朱棣] 663, 844 n. 1 Yongle reign 永樂 844 Emperor Daizong (Tang) 唐代宗 326 Dali reign 大歷 312, 326, 329 Guangde reign 廣德 312 Emperor Daozong (Liao) 遼道宗 459 Emperor Dezong (Qing) 清德宗 334 Guangxu reign 光緒 772, 827, 831 Emperor Dezong (Tang) 唐德宗 334 Zhenyuan reign 貞元 326, 329, 334, 336, 356 Emperor Duzong (Song) 宋度宗 598 Xianchun reign 咸淳 597 Emperor Gaozong (Qing) 清高宗 488 Qianlong reign 乾隆 745 Emperor Gaozong (Song) 宋高宗 488, 507 Zhao Gou, Prince of Kang 康王趙構 507 Shaoxing reign 紹興 516, 531 Emperor Gaozong (Tang) 唐高宗 268–269, 272 Emperor Gaozu (Han) 漢高祖 (Liu Bang 劉邦) 118, 120, 126 “Song of the Big Wind” 大風歌 126 Emperor Guangwu (Han) 漢光武帝 (Liu Xiu 劉秀) 94, 596 Emperor Guangzong (Song) 宋光宗 597 Shaoxi reign 紹熙 532 Emperor Huan (Han) 漢桓帝 97 Emperor Hui (Jin) 晉惠帝 174 Emperor Hui (Ming) 明惠帝 844 n. 2 Jianwen reign 建文 844–845 Emperor Huizong (Yuan) 元惠宗 627 Zhizheng reign 至正 627 Emperor Huizong of the Song 宋徽宗 426, 507, 509 n. 1 “Pavilion at Mt. Yanshan” 燕山亭 426 Xuanhe reign 宣和 597 Zhenghe reign 政和 508 Emperor Jing (Han) 漢景帝 104, 114, 122

glossary-index Emperor Lizong (Song) 宋理宗 546 Chunyou reign 淳祐 549 Emperor Ling (Han) 漢靈帝 97 Guanghe reign 光和 97 Emperor Ming (Han) 漢明帝 122 Emperor Ming (Wei) 魏明帝 162 Emperor Mu (Eastern Jin) 晉穆帝 183 Yonghe reign 永和 183 Emperor Muzong (Mng) 明穆宗 664 Longqing reign 隆慶 664, 674, 679, 716 Emperor Muzong (Tang) 唐穆宗 337 Emperor Ningzong (Song) 宋寧宗 526, 538, 546 Jiatai reign 嘉泰 526, 532 Kaixi reign 開禧 538 Emperor Qinzong (Song) 宋欽宗 507, 509 n. 1 Jingkang reign 靖康 509, 515 Emperor Renzong (Qing) 清仁宗 771 Jiaqing reign 嘉慶 771, 803, 805 Emperor Renzong (Song) 宋仁宗 430, 432, 461, 471, 474, 487 Jiayou reign 嘉祐 481–482, 675 Qingli reign 慶歷 484, 675 Tiansheng reign 天聖 945 Zhihe reign 至和 480 Emperor Shengzu (Qing) 清聖祖 770 Kangxi reign 康熙 639 Essence of Nature and Principles 性理精義 769 “Imperial Instructions from the Benevolent Emperor Shengzu” 聖祖仁皇帝聖訓 770 “Introduction to the Imperial Edition of the Complete Books of Master Zhu” 御製朱子全書序 769 Emperor Shenzong (Ming) 明神宗 683 Wanli reign 萬歷 683, 700, 715–716 Emperor Shenzong (Song) 宋神宗 444 Xining reign 熙寧 448, 486, 497 Yuanfeng reign 元豐 948 Emperor Shizong (Ming) 明世宗 635 Jiajing reign 嘉靖 635, 639, 646 Emperor Shizong (Qing) 清世宗 742 Yongzheng reign 雍正 742 Emperor Shizu (Qing) 清世祖 Shunzhi reign 順治 778–779, 821

913

Emperor Shizu (Yuan) 元世祖 Kublai Khan 忽必烈汗] 573, 619 Zhiyuan reign 至元 573 Emperor Shunzong (Tang) 唐順宗 358 Yongzhen reign 永貞 358 Emperor Sizong (Ming) 明思宗 734, 777 Chongzhen reign 崇禎 734, 750, 752–753, 788 Emperor Suzong (Tang) 唐肅宗 295 Baoying reign 寶應 295 Qianyuan reign 乾元 312, 314 Emperor Taizong (Song) 宋太宗 425, 468, 779 Taiping Xingguo reign 太平興國 468 Emperor Taizong (Tang) 唐太宗 (Li Shimin 李世民 267–268, 403, 409 Zhenguan reign 貞觀 269 Emperor Taizu (Ming) 663 [Zhu Yuanzhang 朱元璋] 655–658, 660–662 “Emperor’s Note in His Majesty’s Own Handwriting, The” 皇帝手書 655 Great Edict 大誥 655 Hongwu reign 洪武 656 Emperor Taizu (Song) 宋太祖 459 Emperor Wen (Chen) 陳文帝 248 Emperor Wen (Han) 漢文帝 81 Baling Tomb 霸陵 157 Emperor Wen (Liu Song) (南朝) 宋文帝 [Liu Yilong 劉義隆] 536 Yuanjia reign 元嘉 535 Emperor Wen (Sui) 隋文帝 253, 851 Emperor Wenzong (Qing) 清文宗 823 Xianfeng reign 咸豐 823 Emperor Wenzong (Tang) 唐文宗 360 Dahe reign 大和 356, 360, 365 “Sweet Dew Incident” 甘露之變 365 Kaicheng reign 開成 933 Emperor Wu (“Martial Emperor”) (Han) 漢武帝 52, 127, 954 n. 1 “Song of the Autumn Wind” 秋風辭 127 Taichu reign 太初 113 Taishi reign 太始 112 Tianhan reign 天漢 112 Emperor Wu (Jin) 晉武帝 174 Taikang reign 太康 174 Emperor Wu (Liang) 梁武帝 200, 227, 231, 245 n. 43 Tianjian reign 天監 200

914

glossary-index

Emperor Wu (Liu Song) (南朝) 宋武帝 [Liu Yu 劉裕] 536 Emperor Wu (Qi) 齊武帝 215 Yongming reign (483–493) 永明 215 Emperor Wuzong (Ming) 明武宗 674 Zhengde reign 正德 674, 705, 708, 715 Emperor Xianzong (Ming) 明憲宗 656 Chenghua reign 成化 656, 663–665, 714 Emperor Xianzong (Tang) 唐憲宗 334 Yuanhe reign 元和 334–335, 347–351, 353–354, 398 Emperor Xiaowu (Northern Wei) 北魏孝武帝 (Toba Tao, 拓拔燾) 193 Emperor Xiaozong (Ming) 明孝宗 664 Hongzhi reign 弘治 664–665, 667, 669, 671–673, 705 Emperor Xiaozong (Song) 宋孝宗 525 Chunxi reign 淳熙 522–523, 526, 532, 541 Longxing reign 隆興 519 Qiandao reign 乾道 520, 525, 529 Emperor Xizong (Ming) 明熹宗 745 Tianqi reign 天啟 745, 774 n. 2, 750, 788 Emperor Xuan (Han) 漢宣帝 79, 86 Ganlu reign 甘露 138 Emperor Xuanzong (Qing) 清宣宗 Daoguang reign 道光 793 Emperor Xuanzong (Tang) 唐玄宗 [Li Longji 李隆基] 279–280, 295, 409, 412, 414, 559, 583, 625 n. 6, 851, 853 Kaiyuan reign 開元 280, 295, 395, 412, 660 Tianbao reign 天寶 268, 279, 295, 400, 412, 660 Emperor Yang (Sui) 隋煬帝 (Yang Guang, 楊廣) 253, 559–560, 640, 851 Daye reign 大業 559–560 Emperor Yingzong (Ming) 明英宗 665 Tianshun reign 天順 665 Zhengtong reign 正統 665 Emperor Yingzong (Yuan) 元英宗 636 Zhizhi reign 至治 636, 640

Emperor Yuan (Eastern Jin) 晉元帝 181, 182 n. 15 Jianwu reign 建武 182 n. 15 Emperor Yuan (Han) 漢元帝 584–585 Emperor Zhenzong (Song) 宋真宗 432, 461, 472–473 Dazhong Xiangfu reign 大中祥符 976 Emperor Zhezong (Song) 宋哲宗 444 Shaosheng reign 紹聖 Yuanfu reign 元符 Yuanyou 元祐 Emperor Zhongzong (Tang) 唐中宗 268–269 Jinglong reign 景龍 269 Shenlong reign 神龍 269 Empress Dowager Gao (Song) (宋) 高太后 444 Empress Dowager Xie (Song) (宋) 謝太后 556 Empress Wu (Tang) 唐武后 (Wu Zhao / Wu Zetian, 武曌 / 武則天) 268–269, 272, 280, 878 Encyclopedia of Nature and Principle 性理大全 769 Engels, Friedrich (1820–1895) xix entering tone 入聲 175 Events during the Xuanhe Reign of the Great Song Dynasty 大宋宣和遺事 636, 645 Explication of Simple and Compound Characters, An 說文解字 9 Extensive Records of the Taiping Reign 太平廣記 392 eye of poetry 詩眼 320 family name 姓 35 n. 4 Fan 樊 (today’s Xiangfan 襄樊, Hubei) 255 Fan Chengda (1126–1193) 范成大 [style, Zhineng 致能] 519–522, 527, 538, 540, 542 literary name: Buddhist Layman of the Stone Lake 石湖居士 520 “Bridge of the Prefecture” 州橋 521 “Inspirations on Various Occasions from Fields and Gardens through the Four Seasons: Sixty Poems” 四時田園雜興六十首 520–521 “Suzhou” 宿州 520 Fan Chong 范沖 488 Fan Kuai 樊噲 120 Fan Peng (1272–1330) 范梈 [style, Hengfu 亨父, alias Deji 德機] 624–626 “Xunyang” 潯陽 626

glossary-index Fan Ye 范曄 661 History of the Later Han 後漢書 105–106, 110, 661 “Assembly of Confucian Scholars” 儒林 661 “Garden of Literary Authors” 文苑 661 Fan Yun 范雲 215 Fan Zeng 范増 120 Fan Zhongyan 范仲淹 445, 464, 477–478, 589 “Memorial to the Throne on Current Affairs” 奏上時務書 464 “Pride of the Fisherman” 漁家傲 445 “Sumuzhe” 蘇幕遮 589 Fang Bao (1668–1749) 方苞 [style, Linggao 靈皋] 790–793, 809 literary name: Wangxi (“Watching a Stream”) 望溪 790 Metropolitan Graduate in the 45th year of the Kangxi reign (1706) 790 served as Grand Secretary 內閣學士 and Vice Minister of Rites 禮部侍郎 790 “Another Note Written after the ‘Biography of the Moneymakers’ ” 又書貨殖傳後 791 “Introduction to Selections of Classical Prose” 古文約選序例 791 “Letter in Reply to Shen Qianju, A” 答申謙居書 791 “Miscellaneous Notes from Inside the Prison” 獄中雜記 792 Fang Chengpei 方成培 881 native of Huizhou 徽州 881 Thunder Peak Pagoda 雷峰塔 881 Fang Dongshu 方東樹 498 Illuminating Chatters 昭昧詹言 498 Fang Feng 方鳳 623 “Foreword to Posthumous Collection from the Mountain Village” 山村遺集序 623 Fang Guan 房琯 309 Fang Hui 方回 466, 471 “Foreword to a Poem Presented to Luo Shouke” 送羅壽可詩序 466 Fang Xiaoru 方孝孺 573 “A Valediction to Lu Xindao” 贈盧信道序 573 Feimo Wenkang 費莫文康 [style, Tiexian 鐵仙] 884–885

915

native of the Red Rim Banner of the Manchu 滿洲鑲紅旗 884 second grandson of Le Bao 勒保, a Grand Secretary 大學士 884 penname: Yanbei Xianren (“Idler of Northern Yan”) 燕北閑人 884 Tales of Young Heroes and Heroines 兒女英雄傳 881, 884–885 An Ji 安驥 884–885 An Xuehai 安學海 884 He Yufeng 何玉鳳 (Sister Thirteen 十三妹) 884 Ji Xiantang 紀獻唐 884 Zhang Jinfeng 張金鳳 884 Feng Menglong (1574–1646) 馮夢龍 [style, Youlong 猶龍] 558, 635, 704, 713, 716–717, 733, 745–751, 763 native of Changzhou 長洲 (Suzhou, Jiangsu today) 745 served as District Magistrate of Shouning, Fujian 福建壽寧知縣 745 Common Words to Caution the World 警世通言 558, 635, 745–750 “Du Shiniang Sinks Her Jewel-Box in a Rage” 杜十娘怒沉百寶箱 733, 747, 749 Li Jia 李甲 747, 749 Sun Fu 孫富 747 “Editorial Assistant Cui: Lovers and Foes in Life and Death” 崔待詔生死冤家 558 “Jade Avalokiteśvara” 碾玉觀音 558 Constant Words to Awaken the World 醒世恆言 558, 745–750 “Fifteen Strings of Coins: Words of Joking Turned by Chance into a Disaster” 十五貫戲言成巧禍 558 “Cui Ning Wrongly Beheaded” 錯斬崔寧 558 “Governor Qiao Makes Arrangement for Wrong Matches through Erroneous Identification” 喬太守亂點鴛鴦譜 746 “Military Commissioner Zheng Wins Honor by His Bow for a Magic Arm” 鄭節使立功神臂弓 746 “Red Spider and White Spider” 紅白蜘蛛 746 “The Young Oil Vender Monopolizes the Queen of

916

glossary-index

Flowers” 賣油郎獨佔花魁 747, 752 Qin Zhong 秦重 747 Xin Yaoqin 莘瑤琴 (“Queen of Flowers” 花魁) 747 Hanging on the Twigs 掛枝兒 713, 716–717 (also entitled First Show of Childish Infatuation 童癡一弄) 716 “Having a Dream” 做夢 716 “Valediction” 送別 717 Danyang 丹陽 717 History of Love 情史 746, 751 “Commoner of Kunshan” 昆山民 746 “Zhang Youqian” 張幼謙 751 Illustrious Words to Instruct the World 喻世明言 745–750 (originally entitled Stories Old and New 古今小說) 745 “Jiang Xingge Re-Encounters the Pearl Shirt” 蔣興哥重會珍珠衫 733, 748–749, 752 Chen Dalang 陳大郎 748 Wang Sanqiao 王三巧 748 “Ruan San Pays the Debt as Retribution at Drifting Cloud Shrine” 閑雲庵阮三償冤債 747 Defense Minister Chen 陳太尉 748 Ruan San 阮三 747–748 Yulan 玉蘭 748 Mountain Songs 山歌 704, 713, 716–717 (also entitled Second Show of Childish Infatuation 童癡二弄) 716 “Simulation” 模擬 717 New Records of the Various States 新列國志 743, 745 Three Collections of Words 三言 635 Feng Weimin (ca. 1511–ca. 1580) 馮惟敏 [style, Ruxing 汝行] 707, 709– 711, 723, 725 literary name: Haifu (“Drifting on the Sea”) 海浮 709 native of Linqu 臨朐, Shandong 709 Provincial Graduate, served as District Magistrate of Laishui 淶水知縣, Assistant Prefect of Baoding 保定通判 709 “Fairy Walking in the Toad Palace: Ten Evils” 仙子步蟾宮·十劣 710

“ ‘It’s Nice to be Upright’ in the Major Gong Mode: A Panorama of Lü Chunyang’s Three Worlds” 正宮端正好·呂純陽三界一覽 709 Twenty Four Examples of Filial Piety 709 Guo Ju 郭駒 709 Qiu Hu 秋胡 709 Wang Xiang 王祥 709 “Locking up Southern Branches in the Southern Mode: A Prostitute Taking a Nap” 南鎖南枝·盹妓 710 “Making Obeisance to the Son of Heaven: Presented to Tian Guifang” 朝天子·贈田桂芳 710 Monk and Nun as Accomplices 僧尼共犯 723, 725 Hui Lang 惠朗 723 Ming Jin 明進 723 Wu Shouchang 吳守常 723 “Song of Jade River: A View of the World” 玉江引·閱世 710 Feng Yan 馮衍 94–95 “Rhapsody on Revealing My Aspirations” 顯志賦 94–95 Feng Yansi (903–960) 馮延巳 [style, Zhengzhong 正中] 422–424, 428, 430–431 native of Guangling 廣陵 (Yangzhou, Jiangsu today) 422 Collection of Spring 陽春集 422 “Magpie Steps on the Branch” 鵲踏枝 414, 424 “Paying Homage to the Golden Gate” 謁金門 423 “Return to the Faraway Homeland” 歸國遙 423 feeling in idleness 閒情 424, 430, 437 melancholy in idleness 閒愁 424, 430, 454 Feng Xu 馮煦 439 “Introduction” to Selections from Sixty-One Lyricists 六十一家詞選例言 439 Feng Xuan 馮諼 62 Fengjie 奉節 237 n. 22 Fengxiang 鳳翔 312, 319 fiction 小說 xii–xiii, xv, 12, 51, 56, 58, 60, 62, 119, 121, 155, 187, 189–190, 192, 239, 261–263, 354, 383, 392–393, 396, 403–410, 465, 507, 543, 555,

glossary-index 557–560, 562, 575, 617, 628, 633–639, 644, 650–651, 686, 719–721, 726, 728–730, 733, 735, 741, 746, 749, 752–753, 772, 790, 822, 834, 835–836, 839–840, 845, 850, 851–852, 861, 867, 869–870, 879, 882–883, 885–889, 892–897 anecdotal fiction 佚事小說 263 fiction of chivalry and legal cases 公案俠義小說 852 fiction from entertainers 俳優小說 189 fictional biographies 志人小說 263 supernatural fiction 志怪小說 189–190 fiction journals of the Late Qing 882 Fiction Monthly 月月小說 882, 892 Fiction with Illustrations 繡像小說 882, 890, 893 Grove of Fiction, The 小說林 882 New Fiction 新小說 882, 892 Fiction of Denouncement 譴責小說 (Lu Xun) 883, 889–890, 894–895 figures of chantefable 說唱俑 92 First Emperor of Qin (Yingzheng) 秦始皇 (嬴政) 73, 818 Five Dynasties and the Ten Kingdoms 五代十國 419 Later Shu 後蜀 419 Guangzheng reign 廣政 419 Southern Tang 南唐 419, 422, 424–425, 432 Western Shu 西蜀 419–420, 422 Five Kinds of Completely Illustrated Vernacular Stories 全相平話五種 636–637 Completely Illustrated Vernacular Stories of the History of the Three Kingdoms: a New Print from the Zhizhi Reign 至治新刊全相平話三國志 636 Completely Illustrated Vernacular Stories of King Wu’s Conquest of King Zhou of the Shang: a New Print 新刊全相平話武王伐紂書 636, 743 Completely Illustrated Vernacular Stories of Qin’s Annexation of the Six Kingdoms: a New Print 新刊全相秦併六國平話 636 Completely Illustrated Vernacular Stories of the Sequel to the History of the Former Han: a New Print 新刊全相平話前漢書續集 636

917

Completely Illustrated Vernacular Stories of Yue Yi’s Strategic Plan against Qi or the Latter Part of Spring and Autumn Annals of the Seven Kingdoms: a New Print 新刊全相平話樂毅圖齊七國春秋後集 646 Flowers from the Literary Garden 文苑英華 260 form of Trouble (from “On Encountering Trouble”) 騷體 31, 34 Foshan 佛山 771 Fou 缶 666 n. 2 Four Ling’s of Yongjia 永嘉四靈 (See also Weng Juan. Xu Ji, Xu Zhao and Zhao Shixiu) 547, 617 Yongjia prefecture 永嘉 (around Wenzhou 溫州, Zhejinag today) 547 Four Masters of the Yuan 元四家 (See Fan Peng, Jie Xisi, Yang Zai, and Yu Ji) 593, 624 Four Scholar-Retainers of Su Shi 蘇門四學士 (See Chao Buzhi, Huang Tingjian, Qin Guan, and Zhang Lei) 497, 504 Four Talents of the Early Ming 明初四傑 (See Gao Qi, Xu Beng, Yang Ji, and Zhang Yu) 659 Four Talents (of Early Tang) (初唐) 四傑 (See Lu Zhaolin, Luo Binwang, Wang Bo and Yang Jiong) 271–275 Four Talents of Suzhou 吳中四才子 (See Tang Yin, Wen Zhengming, Xu Zhenqing and Zhu Yunming) 667, 674 Four Tones and Eight Defects 四聲八病 196, 216 Fu Chai 夫差 366 Fu Yi 傅毅 89–90 “Rhapsody on Dancing” 舞賦 90 Further Five Masters 廣五子 677 Gan Bao (?–336) 干寶 [style, Lingsheng 令升] 190–191 Records of the Search for the Supernatural 搜神記 190–191 “Gan Jiang and Mo Ye” 干將莫邪 190 Chi 赤 190 “Han Ping and his Wife” 韓憑夫婦 190 King Kang of Song 宋康王 190 “The Youngest Daughter of the King of Wu” 吳王小女 190

918

glossary-index

Fu Chai (King of Wu) 夫差 190 Han Chong 韓重 190 Purple Jade 紫玉 190 Gao Bing 高棅 268, 310, 660 A Critical Collection of Tang Poetry 唐詩品彚 268, 310, 660 Gao Lian 高濂 764–765 Story of Chastity and Filial Piety 節孝記 722, 764 Story of the Jade Hairpins 玉簪記 764 Chastity Nunnery 女貞觀 764 Chen Jiaolian 陳嬌蓮 (Miao Chang 妙常) 764 “Exchange in Music-Playing” 寄弄 765 “Song of Fairy Worship” 朝元歌 765 Pan Bizheng 潘必正 764 Gao Ming (?–1359) 高明 [style, Zecheng 則誠] 600–603 literary name: Caigen Daoren (“Vegetable Root Taoist”) 菜根道人 600 native of Rui’an 瑞安 in Yongjia, Zhejiang 600 Metropolitan Graduate in the fifth year of the Zhizheng reign (1345) 600 served as Manager of the Administrative Office of Chuzhou 處州錄事; Office Manager of the Fujian Branch Secretariat 福建行省都事 600 The Story of Pipa 琵琶記 599–605, 686 Cai Bojie (Cai Yong) 蔡伯喈 (蔡邕) 600–602 “Chaff and Husks: A Self-Complaint” 糟糠自厭 602 “Song of Filial Piety” 孝順歌 603 Miss Niu 牛小姐 602 Prime Minister Niu 牛丞相 601 Zhao Wuniang 趙五娘 600–603 Gao Qi (1336–1374) 高啟 [style, Jidi 季迪] 627, 656–659 literary name: Qingqiuzi (“Master of Green Hills”) 青邱子 656 served as Junior Compiler at the Hanlin Academy 翰林院編修 656 “Hearing Grand Scribe Xie Reciting the Poems of Li Bo and Du Fu” 夜聞謝太史誦李杜詩 658

“Passing by the Battlefield of Fengkou” 過奉口戰場 657 “Poem on a Solitary Wild Crane” 孤鶴篇 659 “Song of Master of Green Hills” 青邱子歌 627, 657 “Taking a Walk to the Eastern Plateau” 步至東皋 659 “Wild Goose on the Pond, A” 池上雁 658 Gao Ru 高儒 637, 645 Baichuan’s Notes on Books 百川書志 637, 645 Gao Shi (ca. 704–ca. 765) 高適 [style, Dafu 達夫] 290–291, 461 native of Xiuxian, Bohai 渤海蓨縣 (Jingxian, Hebei 河北景縣 today) 290 served as District Defender of Fengqiu 封邱縣尉, Chief Secretary 書記 on the staff of the Military Commissioner of Hexi 河西節度使幕, Vice Minister of Justice 刑部侍郎, and enfeoffed as Marquis of Bohai District 渤海縣侯 290 “Fengqiu District” 封邱縣 291 “Presented to District Defender Yan on the Double Ninth Day” 九月九日酬顏少府 290 Cai Ze 蔡澤 291 “Song of the North 燕歌行” 291 Gao Shitan 高士談 563 Gao Zhongwu 高仲武 328–329 Anthology from the Peaceful Restoration Period 中興閒氣集 328–329 Ge Shengzhong 葛勝仲 508 “Foreword to Chen Qufei’s Poetry Collection” 陳去非詩集序 508 Ge Zhaoguang 葛兆光 xxii Geng Wei 耿湋 329 Genghis Khan 成吉思汗 618 Gentleman 君子 21 Goddess of Mount Shaman 巫山神女 90 Going up the River on the Qingming Festival 清明上河圖 428 Gong’an School 公安派 (See Yuan Hongdao, Yuan Zhongdao and Yuan Zongdao) 686–690, 693, 695, 697–700, 703, 780, 796–797 Gong Dingzi 龔定孳 773 Gong Kai 龔開 645 A Tribute to Song Jiang and the Thirty-Six Men 宋江三十六贊 645

glossary-index Gong Tianting 宮天挺 [style, Dayong 大用] 596–597 served as Dean of the Diaotai Academy in Zhejiang 浙江釣臺書院山長 596 Chicken and Rice Party of Fan and Zhang 范張雞黍 596 Fan Shi 范式 596 Zhang Shao 張劭 596 The Seven-Li Shoals 七里灘 596–597 Yan Ziling 嚴子陵 596–597 Gong Tianwo 龔天我 715 Marvelous Sounds of Selected Brocades 摘錦奇音 715 Gong Zizhen (1792–1841) 龔自珍 also named Gongzuo 鞏祚 [style, Seren 璱人] 669, 772, 812–819, 823–824, 831, 837 literary name: Dingkan 定龕 812 native of Renhe 仁和, Zhejiang (Hangzhou today) 812 Metropolitan Graduate in the ninth year of the Daoguang reign (1829) 812 served as a Director in the Ministry of Rites 禮部主事 812 died at the Yunyang Academy 雲陽書院 of Danyang 丹陽 812 “An Account of the Sick Plum Shelter” 病梅館記 814 Coiling Dragon Plaza 龍蟠 in Jiangning 江寧 814 Dengwei Hill 鄧尉山 in Suzhou 814 Western Stream 西溪 in Hangzhou 814 “First Observation of Embryo between the Ren and Kui Years” 壬癸之際胎觀第一 813 “Five Cautionary Poems” 戒詩五章 817 “Four Quatrains Composed in a Dream” 夢中作四截句 817 “I Got the First Line in a Dream and Completed the Poem after I Woke Up” 夢得東海潮來月怒明之句醒足成一詩 817 “Miscellaneous Poems” 雜詩 817–818 “Miscellaneous Poems in the Year of Ji Hai (1839)” 己亥雜詩 669, 815, 816–818, 837 “Moon in Hunan, The” 湘月 815, 819

919

“My Heart in Autumn: Three Poems” 秋心三首 817 “Ninth Observation during the Years of Yi and Bing” 乙丙之際著議第九 813 “On the Evening of the Twentieth of the Tenth Month, There Was a Big Wind, I Failed to Go to Sleep, So I Rose to Express My Thought” 十月廿夜大風不寐起而抒懷 816 “On History” 詠史 816 Tian Heng 田橫 816 “On Selfishness” 論私 813 “Poems of Three Special Favorites” 三別好詩 817 “Second Observation on Conscience” 明良論二 817 “Song of Fallen Flowers in the West Suburbs” 西郊落花歌 817 “Song of Someone Who’s Able to Make Me Young” 能令公少年行 818 Works from the Stillness Shrine 定庵文集 772 “Wu Zhiqu” 吳之癯 814 Gongyang Commentary 公羊傳 54, 791 Gongxi Hua 公西華 65 Goujian 勾踐 59 Grand Councilor 令尹 36 Grand Astrologer / Grand Historian 太史令/太史公 112 Grand Master 太師 17, 21, 45 Grand Master Shangguan 上官大夫 36 Grand Mentor 太傅 81 Grand Talk behind Latticed Windows 青瑣高議 560–561 “Zhang Hao: Marrying Miss Li under the Flowers” 張浩·花下與李氏結婚 560 Gu Kuang (?–after 802) 顧況 [style, Buweng 逋翁] 332, 337, 393 “Preface to Dai’s Extensive Records of the Strange” 戴氏廣異記序 393 “Song of a Lady from Zheng Playing the Zither” 鄭女彈箏歌 333 “Song of the Waterfalls at Mt. Lushan: Presented to Li Gu” 廬山瀑布歌送李顧 333 “Song on Court Attendant Li’s Playing of the Konghou” 李供奉彈箜篌歌 332 “Song on the Landscape Painting of Fan, the Recluse in the Mountains” 范山人畫山水歌 332

920

glossary-index

Gu Sili 顧嗣立 622, 627 Selected Poetry of the Yuan Dynasty 元詩選 622–624, 627 Gu Yanwu 顧炎武 770 Notes from Daily Learning 日知錄 770 “Final Conclusion on Master Zhu’s Late Years” 朱子晚年定論 770 Gu Ying (1310–1369) 顧瑛 [style, Zhongying 仲瑛, alias A Ying 阿瑛] 627, 633–634 native of Kunshan 昆山 (within today’s Jiangsu) 633 lived at Thatched Cottage of the Jade Hill 玉山草堂 633 Collection from the Refined at the Thatched Cottage of the Jade Hill 玉山草堂雅集 633 “Inscribed on My Own Portrait” 自題像 634 “The Painting of Driving Carts on a Winding Way in Snow” 雪景盤車圖 634 Guan Hanqing 關漢卿 507, 571, 576–581, 584, 586, 589, 592–593, 599, 603–604, 607, 609–610, 633 literary name: Yizhai Sou (“Old Man of the Yi Studio”) 已齋叟 576 native of Dadu (Beijing today) 576 served as Member (or Director) of the Imperial Academy of Medicine 太醫院戶(尹) 576 Butterfly Dream 蝴蝶夢 577, 592 Crimson Robe Dream 緋衣夢 577 Double Dreams 雙赴夢 577 Going to a Meeting with a Single Broadsword 單刀會 577, 579–580 Jingzhou 荊州 579 “Stopping the Horse to Listen” 駐馬聽 580 Golden Thread Pool 金線池 577 “Half and Half: On Love” 一半兒·題情 610 Lu Zhailang 魯齋郎 577, 592 Jade Dressing Table 玉鏡臺 577 Moon-Praying Pavilion 拜月亭 577, 599, 603–604 Mourning for Cunxiao 哭存孝 577 Moving Heaven and Earth: Injustice to Dou E 感天動地竇娥冤 (shortened as Injustice to Dou E 竇娥冤) 577–578, 591 Donkey Zhang 張驢兒 578 “Rolling Silk Ball” 滾綉球 578

“New Water Melody in Double Tune: Untitled” 雙調新水令·無題 610 Rescue of a Courtesan, The 救風塵 577, 579 Song Yinzhang 宋引章 579 Zhao Pan’er 趙盼兒 579 Zhou She 周舍 579 Riverside Pavilion 望江亭 577, 579 Master Yang 楊衙內 579 Tan Ji’er 譚記兒 579 “Sprig of Flower in the Southern Feminine Tune: Not Yielding to Age, A” 南呂一枝花·不伏老 576 “Sprig of Flower in the Southern Feminine Tune: Views in Hangzhou, A” 南呂一枝花·杭州景 576 Tricking the Maiden 詐妮子 577 Xie Tianxiang (Heavenly Fragrance) 謝天香 577 Guan Yu 關羽 [style, Yunchang 雲長] 579–580, 641–644 Guan Yunshi (1286–1324) 貫雲石 613, 705 original name: Xiaoyunshi Haiya 小雲石海涯 613 literary name: Suanzhai (“Studio of Sourness”) 酸齋 613 “Clear River Prelude” 清江引 613 “Clear River Prelude: On Plum” 清江引·詠梅 613 Guangling 廣陵 (modern Yangzhou 揚州) 212, 467 Gui Youguang (1507–1571) 歸有光 674, 676–677 “A Few Things about My Mother” 先妣事略 677 “An Epitaph for Chillposy” 寒花葬志 677 “Foreword to Master Shen Cigu’s Poetry” 沈次谷先生詩序 677 “The Ultimate Virtue of Tai Bo” 泰伯至德 677 “The Xiangji Belvedere” 項脊軒記 677 guild texts (yuanben) [Jin] 院本 567, 571 “Du Fu’s Spring Outing” 杜甫遊春 571 “Master Zhang Boils the Sea” 張生煮海 571

glossary-index “Warfare at the Red Cliff ” 赤壁鏖兵 571 “Zhuang Zhou’s Dream” 莊周夢 571 Guliang Commentary 榖梁傳 54, 791 Gun 鯀 8 Guo Chengzhi 郭澄之 263 Master Guo 郭子 263 Guo Maoqian 郭茂倩 137, 143–144 A Collection of Music Bureau Poetry 樂府詩集 137, 143–144, 412, 437 “Water Tune” 水調 412, 437 Guo Pu (276–324) 郭璞 [style, Jingchun 景純] 181–182 native of Wenxi, Hedong 河東聞喜 (within Shanxi today) 181 served as an Editorial Director 著作郎 181 “Poems on the Wandering Immortals” 遊仙詩 181 “Rhapsody on the River” 江賦 181 Guodian (Hubei) 郭店 63 gu ying (“archaic and solid”) 古硬 477 Haggard, Henry Rider 883 n. 10 Joan Haste 883 Haizhou 海州 645 Han (Dynasty) 漢 ִix, x, xii, 15, 17, 31–34, 37–38, 43, 45, 51–54, 59–60, 64, 66, 69, 75–147, 149–153, 155, 159, 199, 234 n. 19, 240 n. 26, 243 n. 30, 244 n. 35, 246, 252 nn. 49–51, 263, 277, 282, 376, 379, 395, 412 n. 1, 425, 596, 600, 616, 672, 692 n. 6, 785 n. 7, 790–791, 805 Eastern Han 東漢 75, 78–79 Chuping reign 初平 157 Jian’an reign (196–220) 建安 99 Western Han 西漢 75, 77, 80–83, 87, 89–90, 92–93 Han Anguo 韓安國 118 Han Bangqing (1856–1894) 韓邦慶 [style, Ziyun 子雲] 887–889 literary name: Taixian (“Grand Immortal”) 太仙 887 native of Songjiang 887 Biographies of Flowers in Shanghai 海上花列傳 881, 886–889 penname: Huaye Liannong (“Even Flowers Love Thee”) 花也憐儂 887 Favus-Scalped Turtle 癩頭黿 889 Hong Shanqing 洪善卿 888 Master Shi the Third 史三公子 889

921

Zhao Erbao 趙二寶 888–889 Zhao Puzhai 趙樸齋 888 Zhou Shuangyu 周雙玉 889 Zhu Shuren 朱淑人 889 Marvelous Writings from Shanghai 海上奇書 887 Han Fei 韓非 (ca. 280–ca. 233 B.C.) 73–74 Hanfeizi 韓非子 73–74 “Five Worms, The” 五蠹 73 Han Hong 韓翃 329 Han Ju (?–1135) 韓駒 [styled Zicang 子蒼] 503 “Matching a Poem by Mr. Li from the Superior College: About Something on a Winter Day” 和李上舍冬日書事 503 “Ten Quatrains Composed for Yaqing” 十絕為亞卿作 503 Ge Yaqing 葛亞卿 503 Han River 漢水 16, 32–33, 34 n. 2 Han Tuozhou 韓侂冑 522, 526, 532, 538 Han Xin 韓信 118 Han Wo (842–923) 韓偓 373, 425 Collection from the Fragrant Toilet Case 香匳集 373–374 “Half Asleep” 半睡 373 “Listening to the Rain” 聞雨 373 “Passing Thought, A” 意緒 373 “Running into Her” 偶見 373 Han Yu (768–824) 韓愈 [style, Tuizhi 退之] 42, 310, 333–340, 343–345, 350, 376, 378–379, 382–385, 387, 462–464, 480–481, 484, 488, 491, 619, 661, 682, 789, 791, 798 alias Han Changli 韓昌黎from the name of his home commandery 336 native of Heyang 河陽 (the city of Mengzhou 孟州 in Henan today) 336 served as Erudite of the School of the Four Gates 四門博士, Investigating Censor 監察御史, Chancellor of the Directorate of Education 國子監祭酒, Vice Minister of Personnel 吏部侍郎 336 “Another Letter in Reply to Zhang Ji” 重答張籍書 379 “Arrow Hits the Pheasant, The” 雉帶箭 338 “Biography of Mao Ying”毛穎傳 382

922

glossary-index

“Chaste Woman Gorge” 貞女峽 338 “Director Lu Yunfu Sent by Mail His Two Poems Presented to the Master of the Valley of Bends and I Composed My Songs in Reply” 盧郎中雲夫寄示送盤谷子詩兩章歌以和之 338 “disgusting in appearance and tasteless in speech” 面目可憎語言無味 384 “Early Spring: Presented to Vice Director Zhang Ji of the Bureau of Waterways and Irrigation” 早春呈水部張十八員外 339 “Explication of ‘Progress in Learning,’ An” 進學解 53 “Farewell to Poverty” 送窮文 382–383 “Fire at Mount Luhun: In Reply to Huangfu Shi Observing His Rhyming” 陸渾山火和皇甫湜用其韻 338 “Foreword to a Collection of Exchanged Poems Composed at Jingtan” 荊潭唱和詩序 380 “Foreword to the Linked Poems on the Stone Cauldron” 石鼎聯句詩序 383 Hou Xi 侯喜 383 Liu Shifu 劉師服 383 Xuanyuan Miming 軒轅彌明 382 “full of difficult, unpronounceable words” 佶屈聱牙 384 “Funeral Oration for My Nephew, A” 祭十二郎文 381, 484, 804 “In Response to Others at a Dinner Party, in Eighty-Two Couplets” 和席八十二韻 337 “Left for Dongye after Intoxication” 醉留東野 337 “Letter in Reply to Li Yi, A” 答李翊書 379 “Letter to the Grand Councilor, A” 上宰相書 378 “Letter to Li Ao, A” 寄李翱書 382 “Memorial to the Throne on the Bone of Buddha” 論佛骨表 380 “On Being a Teacher” 師說 380 “On Horses” 說馬 381 Bo Le 伯樂 381 “On Human Nature” 原性 380 “On the Way” 原道 380 “Poem of Farewell Composed in Shaozhou and Left for Governor Zhang, A” 韶州留別張使君 250

“Poem on the South Mountains” 南山詩 338 huo (some) 或 338 ruo (like) 若 338 “Postscript to an Obituary of Master Ouyang” 題歐陽生哀辭後 378 “Proclamation to the Crocodile” 鱷魚文 382 “Recommending a Scholar” 薦士 335 “to get blamed for whatever one does 動輒得咎 384 “to lower one’s head and be all ears (be docile and obedient)” 俯首帖耳 384 “to lower one’s head and lose one’s vital force (crestfallen and dejected)” 垂頭喪氣 384 “to make sound when out of balance” 不平則鳴 384 “to wag one’s tail and beg for pity (fawn obsequiously)” 搖尾乞憐 384 “Valediction to Dong Shaonan” 送董邵南序 381 “Valediction to Li Yuan Who Returned to Pangu” 送李愿歸盤谷序 381 “Valediction to Meng Jiao” 送孟東野序 381 Handan Chun 邯鄲淳 189 Han’gu Pass 函谷關 103 Hankou 漢口 771 Hanlin Academy 翰林院 295 Hanzhong 漢中 31 Hao Jing (1223–1275) 郝經 [style, Bochang 伯常] 619 native of Lingchuan 陵川 (Jincheng 晉城, Shanxi today) 619 “A Trip to the Northern Mountain Ridges” 北嶺行 619 He Jingming (1483–1521) 何景明 [style, Zhongmo 仲默] 673–674 literary name: Dafu (“Great Restoration”) 大復 673 native of Xinyang, Henan 673 served as Vice Superintendent of Education of Shaanxi 陜西提學副使 673 “A Letter to Li Mengyang on Poetry” 與李空同論詩書 674 “Post Station by the Yuan River” 沅水驛 674 He Shaoji 何紹基 827 He Xun (?–514) 何遜 [style, Zhongyan 仲言] 223–224

glossary-index native of Shan, Donghai 東海郯 (Shancheng, Shandong 山東郯城 today) 223 “Descending the Square Mountain” 下方山 224 “Leaving the River Mouth at Fuyang by Sunset: A Poem in Reply to Lord Lang” 日夕出富陽浦口和朗公 223 “Rock of Benevolent Grandma, The” 慈姥磯 223–224 “Saying Farewell” 相送 224 “Saying Farewell to My Old Friends at Night, on the Eve of My Journey” 臨行與故游夜別 224 He Zhu (1052–1125) 賀鑄 [style, Fanghui方回] 453–454 literary name: Qinghu Yilao (“Old Fogy of Lake Celebration”) 慶湖遺老 453 “Green Jade Desk” 青玉案 454 “Heading of the Song of Six Prefectures” 六州歌頭 453 Heaven 天 4–5 Hemudu 河姆渡 1 Henei 河內 89 heptasyllabic poetry or heptasyllabic verse 七言詩 127, 129–132, 161, 211, 217, 225, 227, 229, 233–234, 247, 250, 269, 271, 274, 282–284, 290–292, 303, 323, 325, 356, 364, 367, 371, 406, 412, 530, 549, 623, 800, 820 hereditary clan 世族 148 hereditary system 門閥制度 106 high price of paper in Luoyang 洛陽紙貴 178 history in annals and biographies 紀傳體 133 History of the Chen 陳書 195, 250 “Biography of Jiang Zong” 江總傳 250 History of the Jin 晉書 148, 167, 177 “Biography of Wang Dun”王敦傳 148 History of the Liang 梁書 231 “Biography of Yu Jianwu” 庾肩吾傳 231 History of the Ming 明史 656, 662– 663, 672 “Biography of Gui Yanliang” 桂彥良傳 662 “Survey of Official Appointment” 選舉志 656 History of the Northern Dynasties 北史 202

923

“Biographies of the Literary Arena” 文苑傳 202 History of the Song 宋書 151, 182–183 “Commentary on the ‘Biography of Xie Lingyun’ ” (Shen Yue) 謝靈運傳論 182–183 “Commentary on the ‘Biography of Zang Tao’” 臧燾傳論 151 History of the Song 宋史 481, 522, 545 Biographies of Confucian Scholars 儒林傳 522 “Biography of Ouyang Xiu” 歐陽修傳 481 History of the Southern Dynasties 南史 214, 225, 227 “Biography of Wang Yun” 王筠傳 214 “Biography of Wu Jun” 吳均傳 225 “Biography of Xu Mian” 徐勉傳 227 History of the Southern Qi 南齊書 149 “Commentary on the ‘Biography of Chu Yuan’” 褚淵傳論 149 History of the Sui 隋書 191, 377 “Preface to the Literary Biographies” 文學傳序 377 Treatise on Classics and Books 經籍志 191 History of the Yuan 元史(See also Song Lian) 661 “Biographies of Confucian Scholars” 儒學傳 661 Homer 6 Hong Liangji 洪亮吉 806 “A Biography of the Late Mr. Huang” 黃君行狀 800 Hong Pian 洪楩 635, 745 Stories from Sixty Authors 六十家小說 635, 745 Hong Sheng (1645–1704) 洪昇 [style, Fangsi 昉思] 853–856 literary name: Baixi 稗畦 853 native of Qiantang, Zhejiang (Hangzhou today) 853 Palace of Eternal Life 長生殿 853–855, 860 “Crying Over the Statue” 哭像 854 Eros 情 854–855 “Hearing the Bells” 聞鈴 855 “Flowers in Wuling” 武陵花 855 Gao Jianli 高漸離 856 Wu Zixu 伍子胥 856 Li Guinian 李龜年 856

924

glossary-index

Wu Yiyi 吳儀一 (author of a preface) 855 Hou Fangyu (1618–1654) 侯方域 789–790, 856, 858 (Name of Studio) Zayong Hall (“Hall of Mixing Up with the Mediocre”) 雜庸堂, Zhuanghui Hall (“Hall of Regret at Thirty Years of Age”) 壯悔堂 789 “Account of the Zhuanghui Hall, An” 壯悔堂記 790 “Colophon to Wang Yuyi’s Posthumous Collection, A” 跋王于一遺集 790 “Letter on Prose Writing to Ren Wanggu, A” 與任王谷論文書 789 Hou Ji 后稷 18–19 Hou Jing 侯景 228, 231, 245 n. 43 Hsia, C. T. 夏志清 644 n. 14 The Classic Chinese Novel: A Critical Introduction 中國古典小說史論 644 n. 14 Hu Ji 胡忌 636 Hu Quan 胡銓 516 Hu Shi 胡適 7, 654, 671 n. 3, 689, 730, 741, 870, 891 “Foreword to Exposure of the Official Circles” 官場現形記序 891 Textual Study of A Dream of Red Mansions, A 紅樓夢考証 870 Hu Tianyou 胡天游 805 Hu Weiyong 胡惟庸 662 Hu Yinglin 胡應麟 270, 327, 392, 559, 617, 633 Confluence of Poetry 詩藪 270, 327, 617, 633 Writings from the Shaoshi Mountain Lodge 少室山房筆叢 392, 559 huaben (“prompt books” or “vernacular story”) fiction 話本 354, 391, 558 Huainan Xiaoshan 淮南小山 86 “Summons for a Recluse” 招隱士 86 Huainanzi 淮南子 6, 8 “A Contemplation of the Obscure” 覽冥訓 8 Huan Kuan 桓寛 104 “Debate on Salt and Iron” 鹽鐵論 104 Huan Wen 桓溫 533 n. 2, 538 Huang Di 黃帝 2, 186 n. 17 Huang Gai 黃蓋 580 Huang Jingren (1749–1783) 黃景仁 [style, Zhongze 仲則] 799–801

native of Wujin 武進, Jiangsu 799 “Autumn Thought at the Gate of the Capital” 都門秋思 799 “Inspired by Recalling the Past” 感舊 800 “It Rained on the Evening of the Mid-Autumn Festival” 中秋夜雨 799 “Random Composition on the Last Evening of the Year of Gui Si (1833), A” 癸巳除夕偶成 800–801 “Random Thought” 雜感 800 “Saying Farewell to My Old Mother” 別老母 799 “Song of Encircling the Tiger” 圈虎行 799–800 “Song of Tide Watching” 觀潮行 800 “Thought of Love, A” 綺懷 800–801 Huang Tingjian (1045–1105) 黃庭堅 [style, Luzhi 魯直] 323, 452–455, 497–502, 508, 511, 540, 564, 826, 828 literary name: Shangu Daoren (“Taoist of the Mountain Valley”) 山谷道人 452 native of Fenning 分寧 (Xiushui 修水, Jiangxi today) 452 under surveillance at Yizhou 宜州 (within the Guangxi province today) 452 “Heading of the Pleasure of Returning to Farming” 歸田樂引 452 “Heading of Water Tune” 水調歌頭 447–448, 453 “Inscribed at the Falling Star Temple” 題落星寺 499 “Letter in Reply to Hong Jufu” 答洪駒父書 497–498 “Lovely Nian Nu” 念奴嬌 448, 453 “Mailed to Huang Jifu” 寄黃幾復 500 Duke Ding 定公 501 Duke Xi 僖公 500 Huiyan Peak, Mt. Hengshan 衡山回雁峰 500 “Matching the Rhyme Pattern of Liu Jingwen’s Poem: Thought on Ascending the Terrace of Prince Ye” 次韻劉景文登鄴王臺見思 499 “Matching the Rhyme Pattern of Liu Tongsou’s: Mailed to Wang Wentong” 次韻柳通叟寄王文通 499

glossary-index “On an Event at the Jingjiang Pavilion after Recovering from Sickness” 病起荊江亭即事 502 “Postscript to Wang Zhizai’s Miscellaneous Poems from Mt.Qushan” 書王知載朐山雜詠後 497 “Spring in the Princess’s Garden” 沁園春 452 “Two Poems: Watching Mt. Junshan after Ascending the Yueyang Pavilion in the Rain” 雨中登岳陽樓望君山二首 501 Qutang Gorge 瞿塘 501 Yanyu Rock 灔澦 501 Huang Wenhua 黃文華 715 One Bough in the Woods of the Song Lyric 詞林一枝 715 Huang Yongnian 黃永年 746 Huang Zunxian (1848–1905) 黃遵憲 [style, Gongdu 公度] 831–832 literary name: Renjinglu Zhuren (“Master of a House in the Human World”) 人境廬主人 831 native of Jiaying 嘉應 (Meixian 梅縣 today), Guangdong 831 “Account of Events” 紀事 832 “Ascending the Iron Tower in Paris” 登巴黎鐵塔 832 Eiffel Tower 832 “Author’s Preface to Draft Poems from the House in the Human World” 人境廬詩草自序 831 “Departure Today” 今別離 832 “In Mourning of Weihai” 哭威海 832 “In Reply to Zeng Chongbo, the Junior Compiler, and also to Show Lanshi” 酬曾重伯編修並示蘭史 831 “Lament for Lüshun, A” 哀旅順 832 “Random Thoughts” 雜感 831 “Record of the Turmoil in Tianjin, A” 天津紀亂 832 “Record of What I Heard About after Being Rescued from the Hand of the Bandits, A” 拔自賊中述所聞 832 “Song of Cherry Blossoms” 櫻花歌 832 “Song of the Eastern Ravine” 東溝行 832 “Song of General Duliao” 度遼將軍歌 832

925

“Song of General Feng” 馮將軍歌 832 “Song of General Nie” 聶將軍歌 832 Huangfu Mei 皇甫枚 403–405 Short Notes from Sanshui 三水小牘 403–404 “Bu Feiyan” 步飛煙 404–405 Wu Gongye 武公業 404 Zhao Xiang 趙象 404–405 Huangfu Shi 皇甫湜 332, 338 “Foreword to the Poetry of Gu Kuang” 顧況詩集序 332 Huangfu Song 皇甫松 417, 419 Hugo, Victor 836 Les Misérables 836 Huguang 湖廣 683, 686 Hui Hong 惠洪 499 Evening Remarks from the Cold Studio 冷齋夜話 499 Hui Jiao 慧皎 191 Biographies of Venerable Buddhist Monks 高僧傳 191 Hui Yuan 慧遠 409, 612 n. 2 White Lotus Shrine 白蓮社 612 Humanity 仁 4 Iliad 7 illustrious and influential schools of thought 顯學 66 Imperial Secretariat 尚書臺 108 n. 2 Six Sections 六曹 108 n. 2 Imperial Secretary (Han) 尚書 108 n. 2 individual aria (sanqu) 散曲 406, 577, 596, 605–617, 628, 704–712, 763, 781 ai yo 哎唷 606 aria set 套數 576, 605, 609–611, 614–616 “Autumn with Swan Geese on the Frontier: A Drinking Party of Village Folks” 塞鴻秋·村夫飲 606 hai ya 咳呀 606 short aria 小令 605, 610–612, 614–616 take-along aria 帶過曲 605 Institute of Shared Language 同文館 895 Intrigues of the Warring States 戰國策 11–12, 60–62, 678 “Draw a Snake and Add Feet to It” 畫蛇添足 62 “Fox Borrows the Might of the Tiger, The” 狐假虎威 62

926

glossary-index

“Intrigues of Qi” 齊策 62 “Intrigues of Qin” 秦策 61 “Intrigues of Wei” 魏策 60 “To Head for the South while Driving the Chariot North,” 南轅北轍 62 “To Mend the Fold after the Sheep Is Lost,” 亡羊補牢 62 “Su Qin Initiates the Horizontal Alignment” 蘇秦始將連橫 61 “When the Snipe and the Clam Grapple, It’s the Fisherman Who Stands to Profit” 鷸蚌相爭漁翁得利 62 “Zhuang Xin Persuades King Xiang of Chu” 莊辛說楚襄王 61 Jade Gate Pass 玉門關 281, 283 Jester Shi 優施 59 Jesus Christ 426 Ji Dan 姬旦 4 (See Lord of Zhou) Ji Junxiang 紀君祥 590–591 Orphan of the Zhao Family 趙氏孤兒 590–591 Cheng Ying 程嬰 590–591 Gongsun Chujiu 公孫杵臼 590–591 Han Jue 韓厥 590 Tu’an Gu 屠岸賈 590 Zhao Dun 趙盾 590 Ji Kang (223–262) 嵇康 [style, Shuye 叔夜] 167, 170–172, 182 native of Zhi in Qiaojun 譙郡銍 (west of Suxian 宿縣 in Anhui today) 170 served as Grand Master without Portfolio 中散大夫 170 For My Elder Brother Gongmu, the Cultivated Talent, on His Joining the Army 兄秀才公穆入軍 172 “Letter to Shan Tao (Juyuan) to Break off Our Friendship, A” 與山巨源絕交書 171 “On the Absence of Joy or Sorrow in Music” 聲無哀樂論 170 “On Guan and Cai” 管蔡論 170 “Poem of Secret Indignation” 幽憤詩 172 “Rebuke of the Saying ‘Fondness of Learning is in Human Nature,’ A” 難自然好學論 171 Ji Liuqi 計六奇 857 A Brief History of the South during the Ming 明季南略 857 Ji Shilao 吉師老 407

“Watching a Shu Woman Performing the Transformation of Zhaojun” 看蜀女轉昭君變 407 Ji Xi 嵇喜 172 Ji Zhongfu 吉中孚 329 Jia Dao (779–843) 賈島 [style, Langxian 浪仙] 340, 343–345, 547 religious name: Wuben 無本 (“Without Source”) 343 served as like the Vice Magistrate of Changjiang 長江主簿 343 “In Gratitude to Grand Councilor Linghu for Giving Me Nine Sets of Clothes” 謝令狐相公賜衣九事 344 “On an Autumn Evening Thinking with Admiration about the Musical Gathering of the Two Gentlemen, Qian and Meng” 秋夜仰懷錢孟二公琴客會 344 “Presented to Friends in Fun” 戲贈友人 344 “Presented to His Reverend Wu Ke” 送無可上人 344 “Seeing Monk Wuben on his Trip back to Fanyang” 送無本師歸范陽 344 Jia Sidao 賈似道 544, 765 Jia Yi (200–168 B.C.) 賈誼 81–82, 84, 94, 103–104, 661 “Finding Fault with Qin” 過秦論 103 “On the Policy of Public Order” 論治安策 103–104 “Rhapsody in Mourning for Qu Yuan” 吊屈原賦 81–82 “Rhapsody on the Owl” 鵩鳥賦 81–82 Jia Zhongming 賈仲明 586, 639 Sequel to A List of Ghosts 錄鬼簿續編 639 Jian’an wind and bone (an affective directness) 建安風骨 154 Jianye 建業 (modern Nanjing, Jiangsu) 180 Jiang Fang 蔣防 399–400 “The Story of Huo Xiaoyu” 霍小玉傳 399–400, 762 Li Yi 李益 399–400 Jiang Kui (ca. 1155–ca. 1209) 姜夔 [style, Yaozhang 堯章] 458, 540– 544, 782, 802, 804 literary name: Taoist of White Rock 白石道人 540

glossary-index native of Poyang 鄱陽 (Boyang 波陽, Jiangxi today) 540 (style) refreshingly open 清空; refreshingly strong 清剛; unrestrained and open 疏宕 541 “Passing the Hanging Rainbow Bridge” 過垂虹橋 542 Xiao Hong (“Little Red One”) 小紅 542 “Returning to Tiaoxi from the Stone Lake on New Year’s Eve” 除夜自石湖歸苕溪 544 “Sparse Shadows” 疏影 542 “Subtle Fragrance” 暗香 542–544 “Crimson Lips” 點絳唇 544 “Yangzhou Adagio” 揚州慢 541, 543–544 Jiang Shiquan 蔣士銓 795, 880 Nine Plays from the Refuge Garden 藏園九種曲 880 Frost in Guilin 桂林霜 880 Ma Xiongzhen 馬雄鎮 880 Wu Sangui 吳三桂 880 Holly Trees 冬青樹 880 Xie Fangde 謝枋得 880 Jiang Wei 江為 471 Jiang Yan (444–505) 江淹 [style, Wentong 文通] 220–221, 257 native of Kaocheng, Jiyang 濟陽高城 (east of today’s Lankao, Henan 河南蘭考) 220 Master Jiang depleted of his talents 江郎才盡 220 “Red Pavilion Islet” 赤亭渚 220 “Rhapsody on Parting” 別賦 220 “Rhapsody on Resentment” 恨賦 220 Jiang Yuan 姜嫄 18 Jiang Yinke 江寅科 687 Jiang Zong (519–594) 江總 [style, Zongchi 總持] 250–251 native of Kaocheng, Jiyang 濟陽考城 (east of today’s Lankao, Henan 河南蘭考) 250 served as Director of the Imperial Secretariat 尚書令 250 “Meeting with a Messenger from Chang’an I Sent This Poem to Minister Pei” 遇長安使寄裴尚書 251 “On a Homebound Trip from Chang’an to Yangzhou: Passing by a Pavilion at the Vetch Hill on the Double-Ninth Day” 於長安歸還揚州九月九日行薇山亭 251

927

“Plum Flowers Drop” 梅花落 251 “Song of Bedroom Resentment” 閨怨篇 250 Jiangling (Hubei) 江陵 36 Jiangnan 江南 32, 41, 227, 237, 243, 245, 303, 351, 414, 416, 430, 456, 466–467, 497, 501, 519, 549, 556, 615, 623, 691, 713, 779, 783, 795, 824, 856, 869 Jiangxi School of Poetry 江西詩派 452, 497–505, 508–510, 520 Three Patriarchs 三宗 508 Jie Xisi (1274–1344) 揭傒斯 [style, Manshuo 曼碩] 624, 626 “Holding Another Banquet for Li Shiyi: A Composition on the Moon by the Southern Tower” 重餞李九時毅賦得南樓月 626 “Maid from Linchuan” 臨川女 626 Jin 晉 12 Jin (Dynasty) 晉 52, 166, 172–174, 176, 180–181, 183, 233 Eastern Jin 東晉 52 Western Jin 西晉 166, 172–174, 176, 180–181, 183 Jin [Jurchen Jin] (Dynasty) 金 507, 563–571 Jurchen (Nüzhen or Nuchen) 女真 563 Jin Luan (ca. 1495–ca. 1584) 金鑾 [style, Zaiheng 在衡] 707–709 literary name: Boyu (“White Islet”) 白嶼 708 “New Water Melody in Double Northern Tune: Setting out on Road to Beihe at Dawn” 北雙調新水令·曉發北河道中 708 “Northern Tribe Tunes, No. 18: Amorous Mockery” 北胡十八·風情嘲戲 709 Jin Shengtan 金聖嘆 646, 651, 885 “Third Foreword to The Fifth Book by the Gifted and Talented: Shi Nai’an’s Story of the Water Margin” 第五才子書施耐庵水滸傳序三 651 Jin Zhuo 晉灼 130 Jing 荊 (today’s Jiangling, Hubei 湖北江陵) 255 Jing Cuo 景差 12 Jing Ke 荊軻 118 Jing Wei 精衛 186 Jingdezhen 景德鎮 683

928

glossary-index

Jingling School 竟陵派 697–700 (See Tan Yuanchun and Zhong Xing) Jingling 竟陵 (Tianmen 天門, Hubei today) 697 Jingshan 荊山 31 Jingzhou 荊州 157–158 Jinling (Nanjing) 金陵 357, 364 Jizhou 冀州 8 jueju (“truncated lines,” quatrain) 絕句 127 Kang Hai (1475–1540) 康海 671, 705, 722–723 “Water Fairy: Drinking Wine” 水仙子·酌酒 705 Wolf of Mt. Zhongshan, The 中山狼 722–723 Ma Zhongxi 馬中錫 723 “An Account of the Wolf of Mt. Zhongshan” 中山狼傳 723 Master Dongguo (“Eastern City-Wall”) 東郭先生 723 Kang Jinzhi 康進之 590–592 Li Kui Carries Thorns 李逵負荊 590–591 Lu Zhi’en 魯智恩 591 Mantang Jiao (“All-Round Lovely”) 滿堂嬌 591 Song Gang 宋剛 591 Wang Lin 王林 592 Kang Youwei (1858–1927) 康有為 829 “Ascending the Great Wall” 登萬里長城 829 Ke Danqiu 柯丹邱 603–604 The Story of Thorn Hairpin 荊釵記 603–604 Prime Minister Moqi 万俟丞相 604 Qian Yulian 錢玉蓮 604 Sun Ruquan 孫汝權 604 Wang Shipeng 王十朋 604 Khitans 契丹 459 King Cheng (Zhou) 周成王 156 n. 4 King Huai (Chu) 楚懷王 35–37, 42 King Ping (Zhou) 周平王 20 King Qingxiang (Chu) 楚頃襄王 36–37, 41 King Xiang (Chu) 楚襄王 90–91 King Xuan (Zhou) 周宣王 19 King Wen (Zhou) 周文王 841 King Wu (“Martial King”) (Zhou) 周武王 2, 743–744 King You (Zhou) 周幽王 21 Kings’ Estates 王畿 16

Kōjirō Yoshikawa 吉川幸次郎 465 An Introduction to Poetry of the Song Dynasty 宋詩概說 465 Kong Anguo 孔安國 112 Kong Guangsen 孔廣森 806 konghou 箜篌 332 Kong Pingzhong 孔平仲 504–505 Kong Rong 孔融 149, 157–158 “Letter to Lord Cao on Sheng Xiaozhang, A” 與曹公論盛孝璋書 158 “Letter to Rebuke Lord Cao’s Memorial to Ban Alcohol, A” 難曹公表制酒禁書 158 Kong Sanchuan 孔三傳 568 Kong Shangren (1648–1718) 孔尚任 [style, Pinzhi 聘之] 839, 853, 856–861 Peach Flower Fan 桃花扇 780, 856–861 “Brief Introduction” 小引 856 “Drowning in the River” 沉江 859 “Ancient Luntai (‘Wheel Platform’)” 古輪臺 859 Duo Duo 多鐸 857 Emperor Hongguang 弘光帝 858 (See Prince Fu) Hou Fangyu 侯方域 856, 858 “Introduction” 凡例 860 “Keeping Watch at the Tower” 守樓 860 Li Xiangjun 李香君 856, 858, 860–861 Ma Shiying 馬士英 857–858 “Paying Homage at the Altar” 拜壇 858 “Prelude” 先聲 856 Qinhuai district 秦淮 856 Ruan Dacheng 阮大鋮 857–858, 861 Shi Kefa 史可法 857–859 Yang Wencong 楊文驄 861 Zuo Liangyu 左良玉 858 Kong Wenzhong 孔文仲 504 Kong Wuzhong 孔武仲 504 Kong Zhigui (447–501) 孔稚珪 [style, Dezhang 德璋] 220–222 “Proclamation on North Mountain” 北山移文 221–222 Kou Zhun 寇準 430, 471 Kuang Zhouyi 況周頤 420 A Study of Lyricists through the Ages 歷代詞人考略 420 Kuizhou 夔州 662 Kyōhō reign (Japan) 享保 742

glossary-index Lady Qi 戚夫人 128 “Pounding Song” 舂歌 126 Lake Taihu 太湖 727 lament of the palace lady 宮怨 86 Lang Shiyuan 郎士元 329 “Laoshang” 勞商 34 Laozi / Laozi 老子 13, 63, 182 Li Er 李耳 (style, Dan 聃) 63 served as Archivist 柱下史 63 Daodejing 道德經 182 n. 16 Supreme Virtue 上德 182 Last Five Masters 末五子 677 Later Five Masters 後五子 677 Later Seven Masters 後七子 (See Li Panlong, Liang Youyu, Wang Shizhen, Wu Guolun, Xie Zhen, Xu Zhongxing, and Zong Chen) 674, 676–679, 681, 688 Legalists 法家 73 letter to break off friendship 絕交書 111 level tone 平聲 175 high and level tone 陰平 175 n. 11 rising tone 陽平 175 n. 11 li 里 237–238 Li Baojia (1867–1906) 李寶嘉 [style, Boyuan 伯元] 889–892 literary name: Nanting Tingzhang (“Chief of Southern Pavilion”) 南亭亭長 890 native of Wujin 武進, Jiangsu 890 Compass News 指南報 890 Exposure of the Official Circles 官場現形記 889–892 Clerk 典史 890–891 Clerk Qian 錢典史 890–891 Examination Mentor 座師 890 Grand Minister of the State 軍機大臣 890 Provincial Commissioner He 何藩臺 891 Three Couches 三荷包 891 Wu Zanshan 吳贊善 890–891 Zhao Wen 趙溫 890–891 Recreation News 遊戲報 890 Splendor of the World News 世界繁華報 890 Li Bi 李壁 488 Notes and Commentary on Wang Anshi’s Poetry 王荊文公詩箋注 488 Li Bo (701–761) 李白 [style, Taibo 太白] 170, 182, 282, 294–305, 307,

929

461, 470, 479, 490–492, 517, 524, 530, 658, 693, 701, 800 born in Suiye 碎葉 (located in today’s Kirghizstan) 294 native of Chengji, Longxi 隴西成紀 (Li Yangbing) 294 moved to Changlong, Mianzhou 綿州昌隆 (Jiangyou 江油, Sichuan of today) 294 lived at Yuncheng 鄖城 (Anlu 安陸, Hubei today) 294 father-in-law: Xu Yushi 許圉師 294 served as an Academician in Attendance 翰林待詔 294 exiled to Yelang 夜郎 (in the neighborhood of Tongzi, Guizhou 貴州銅梓 today) 294 died in Dangtu 當塗 294 “Bring in the Wine” 將進酒 299–300 Man of Crimson Hill 丹邱生 299 Pingle (Palace) 平樂 (宮) 299 Prince of Chen 陳王 299 “Chant of Liangfu” 梁甫吟 298 Li Yiji 酈食其 298 “Composed after Intoxication On a Trip to the Dongting Lake in the Company of My Uncle the Vice Minister” 陪侍郎叔遊洞庭醉後 303 “Dream Trip to Mt. Tianmu: Chanted at Departure, A” 夢遊天姥吟留別 299 “Drinking Alone in Moonshine” 月下獨酌 304 “Drinking in the Company of a Recluse in the Hills” 山中與幽人對酌 300 “Getting Across the Jingmen Ferry: Composed for Those Who Saw Me Off ” 渡荊門送別 300 “Hardship of the Way to Shu” 蜀道難 301 “Holding a Banquet for My Cousin at the Garden of Peach and Plum on a Spring Evening: A Preface” 春夜宴從弟桃李園序 307 “Inspiration” 感興 296, 303 “Letter in Reply to the Proclamation of District Defender Meng, Composed on Behalf of Shoushan, A” 代壽山答孟少府移文書 297 “Letter Presented to Administrator Pei of Anzhou, A” 上安州裴長史書 296

930

glossary-index

“Long Separation” 久別離 301 “Old Airs” 古風 170, 297–298 Lu Zhonglian 魯仲連 297–298 “Preface to ‘The Rhapsody of the Great Roc’ ” 大鵬賦序 296 Sima Chengzhen (Taoist priest) 司馬承禎 296 “Presented to Councilor Zhang Gao” 贈張相镐 296 “Presented to Wang Lun” 贈汪倫 302 “Putting Up for the Night at the Home of Xun, an Old Woman” 宿五松山下荀媼家 302 “Sent to Wang Changling from Afar on Hearing that He Was Demoted to Longbiao” 聞王昌齡左遷龍標遙有此寄 302 “Song of the Cloud Terrace at the Western Sacred Mountain: Seeing Off the Master of the Crimson Hill” 西嶽雲臺歌送丹邱子 301 “Song of the Eastern Tour of the Prince of Yong” 永王東巡歌 299 “Song of the Maids of Wu” 越女詞 303 “Song of Minggao: Seeing off Cen, Gentleman Summoned to Office” 鳴皋歌送岑徵君 298 Mo Mu 嫫母 298 Xi Shi 西施 298 yanting (Lygosoma indicum) [lizards] 蝘蜓 298 n. 2 “Song of Mt. Lushan: Sent to Lu Xuzhou, the Attendant Censor” 廬山謠寄盧侍御虛舟 301 “Song of the Riverside in Autumn” 秋浦歌 302 “Song of Xiangyang” 襄陽歌 296 “Suffering from the Rain at the Guesthouse of Princess Yuzhen” 玉真公主別館苦雨 298 “Thought on a Quiet Night” 靜夜思 304 “Yellow Crane Pavilion: Seeing Meng Haoran Off to Guangling” 黃鶴樓送孟浩然之廣陵 302 Li Changqi 李昌祺 720 Leftover Tales Told while Cutting the Lampwick 剪燈餘話 720 “Story of Jia Yunhua’s Resurrection” 賈雲華還魂記 720

Li Chaowei 李朝威 398 “The Story of Liu Yi” 柳毅傳 239, 398 Dragon Prince of the Jing River 涇河小龍 398 Dragon Princess of Lake Dongting 洞庭龍女 398 Lord of the Qiantang River 錢塘君 398 Li Chunfu 李純甫 564 Li Daoyuan (?–523) 酈道元 [style, Shanchang 善長] 236, 492 native of Zhuoxian, Fanyang 范陽涿縣 (today’s Zhuozhou, Hebei 河北涿州) 236 The Guide to Waterways with Commentary 水經注 235–236 Commentary on Rivers 河水注 236 “Mount Mengmen” 孟門山 236 “The Three Gorges” 三峽 236 Li Dongyang (1447–1516) 李東陽 [style, Binzhi 賓之] 664, 723 literary name: Xiya (“Western Waterside”) 西涯 664 also known as Chaling 茶陵 (his native place) [Poetic School of Chaling 茶陵詩派] 664 Poetic Remarks from Hall of Yearning for the Foothills 懷麓堂詩話 664 Li Dou 李斗 881 Notes from the Painted Boat in Yangzhou 揚州畫舫錄 (See Theatrical Performances) 881 Li Duan 李端 329 Li E 李諤 202, 237 n. 21 “A Memorial to Emperor Gaozu of the Sui on the Elimination of Literary Ornateness” 上隋高祖革文華書 202 Li E (1692–1752) 厲鶚 [style, Taihong 太鴻] 802 literary name: Fanxie 樊榭 802 native of Qiantang (Hangzhou today) 802 Chronicles of Song Poetry 宋詩紀事 802 “Cold Spring Pavilion” 冷泉亭 802 “Pleasure All under Heaven: Watching the View Across the River after the Snow Clears Up from Mt. Wushan” 齊天樂·吳山望隔江霽雪 802 Li Fang (925–996) 李昉 467

glossary-index Li Fuyan 李復言 403 Further Records of the Dark and Supernatural 續玄怪錄 403 Li Gang 李綱 516–517 Li Gongzuo 李公佐 402–403 “The Story of the Governor of the Southern Branch” 南柯太守傳 402–403, 762 Chunyu Fen 淳于棼 402 Kingdom of Huai’an (Peace in Scholar-tree) 槐安國 402 “The Story of Xie Xiao’e” 謝小娥傳 403 Li Gu (94–147) 李固 110 “A Letter to Huang Qiong” 遺黃瓊書 110 Li Guang (?–119 B.C.) 李廣 112, 117–118, 123, 252 nn. 49, 51, 535 Li Haiguan (1707–1790) 李海觀 [style, Kongtang 孔堂] 877, 879 literary name: Lüyuan (“Green Garden”) 綠園 879 Provincial Graduate during the Qianlong reign 879 served as District Magistrate 879 Lamp at the Crossroads 歧路燈 877, 879 Luan Xing 欒星 (new edition) 879 Tan Shaowen 譚紹聞 879 Li Haogu 李好古 592 Master Zhang Boils the Sea 張生煮海 592 Li He (790–816) 李賀 [style, Changji 長吉] 43, 340–343, 501, 619, 632 born in Fuchang 福昌 (Yiyang, Henan 河南宜陽 today) 340 son of Li Jinsu 李晉肅 340 appointed as a Vice Director for Ceremonials 奉禮郎 (ninth lower class 從九品) 340 “Autumn Arrives” 秋來 341–342 “Dream of the Sky” 夢天 342 “High Are the Wizard Mountains” 巫山高 342 “King of Qin Drinks Wine” 秦王飲酒 343 “Poems on Horse” 馬詩 343 “Song of the Fields at Southern Mountains” 南山田中行 342 “Song of the Prefect of Yanmen” 雁門太守行 341 “Southern Garden” 南園 340 Marquis with a fief of 10,000 households 萬戶侯 340 n. 7

931

“Merit Pavilion” (“Misty Pavilion”) 凌煙閣 340 “those with orchid garlands” 佩蘭客 341 “True Pearl, Maid from Luoyang” 洛姝真珠 342 “Up in the Sky” 天上謠 342–343 Li Huiniang (Beijing Opera) 李慧娘 (See Zhou Chaojun’s Story of the Red Plum) 765–766 Li Jiao 李嶠 412 “Song of Fenyin” 汾陰行 412 Li Jing (916–961) 李璟 [style, Boyu 伯玉] 422, 424–425 “Silk-Washing Stream” 浣溪沙 424 Fort Roosters 雞塞 425 Li Jue 李玨 556 “Colophon to Categorized Manuscripts from the Lakes and Mountains” 湖山類稿跋 556 Li Kaixian (1502–1568) 李開先 [style, Bohua 伯華] 672, 725–726 literary name: Zhonglu (“Middle Foothill”) 中麓 725 native of Zhangqiu 章邱, Shandong 725 Metropolitan Graduate in the Jiajing reign 725 served as Vice Minister of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices 太常寺少卿 725 Poetic Jokes 詞谑 672 Story of a Precious Sword 寶劍記 725–726 “Buying Good Wine” 沽美酒 726 Gao Qiu 高俅 725 Lin Chong 林沖 725 “Partridge in the Sky” 鷓鴣天 726 “Running Away at Night” 夜奔 726 Tong Guan 童貫 725 Li Ke 里克 59 Li Lin, Prince of Yong 李璘 [永王] 280, 295, 299 Li Linfu 李林甫 280, 722 Li Ling 李陵 112, 116, 123 Li Mengyang (1473–1530) 李夢陽 [style, Xianji 獻吉] 666, 671–674, 678–679, 713 literary name: Kongtongzi (“Master of Vacuity and Likeness”) 空同子 672 native of Qingyang 慶陽 (within Gansu today) 672

932

glossary-index

father served as an Instructor at the residence of Prince Fengqiu 封邱王府教授 672 served as Vice Superintendent of Education of Jiangxi 江西提學副使 672 “Foreword to Collection of Singing in Spring” 鳴春集序 672 “Foreword to Master Meiyue’s Poetry” 梅月先生詩序 672 “Foreword to My Own Poetry Collection” 詩集自序 672 “Foreword to Sound of Fou” 缶音序 666 “Letter Rebutting Mr. He’s Views on Prose, A” 駁何氏論文書 673 “Looking Around in Autumn” 秋望 673 “Of Studies” 論學 666 Li Panlong (1514–1570) 李攀龍 [style, Yuling 于鱗] 674, 677–679, 688 literary name: Cangming (“Deep Blue Sea”) 滄溟 678 native of Licheng, Shandong 678 Metropolitan Graduate in the 23rd year of the Jiajing reign (1547) 678 served as Surveillance Commissioner of Henan 河南按察使 678 “Four Frontier Songs: Valediction to Yuanmei (Wang Shizhen)” 塞上曲四首·送元美 679 Li Qi (ca. 690–ca. 751) 李頎 281, 283–284 native of Dongchuan 東川 (Santai, Sichuan 四川三臺 of today) 283 Presented Scholar: the twenty-third year of the Kaiyuan reign 283 served as the District Defender of Xinxiang 新鄉縣尉 283 “Ancient Song of Joining the Army” 古從軍行 283 “Ancient Topic” 古意 283 “Listening to Big Dong Playing a Hun Reed Flute, Also Presented in a Playful Mood to Executive Assistant Fang” 聽董大彈胡笳兼寄語弄房給事 284 “Presented to Zhang Xu” 贈張旭 284 “Saying Farewell to Liang Huang” 別梁鍠 283 “Seeing Chen Zhangfu Off ” 送陳章甫 284 Li Qianfu 李潛夫 592 Story of the Chalk Circle 灰闌記 592

Li Qingzhao (ca. 1084–ca. 1151) 李清照 373, 511–515 literary name: Buddhist Layman Yi’an 易安居士 511 native of Zhangqiu 章邱 (within Shandong today) 511 married Zhao Mingcheng 趙明誠 (who served as the Prefect of Jiankang 建康知府) 511 “Crimson Lips” 點絳唇 (“After playing on the swing”) 373 “Discussion of the Song Lyric” 詞論 446, 512 “Dreamlike Tune” 如夢令 512 “Drunk in the Shade of Flowers” 醉花陰 513 “Epilogue to Notes on Bronze and Stone Inscriptions” 金石錄後序 512 “Joy of Eternal Union” 永遇樂 514 “Quatrain on a Summer Day” 夏日絕句 512 “Sheaf of Plum Flowers, A” 一剪梅 513 “Sound by Sound: In Slow Tempo” 聲聲慢 514 “Spring in Wuling” 武陵春 514 Li Qunyu 李羣玉 372 “Temple of the Royal Consorts” 黃陵廟 372 Li Ruzhen (ca. 1763–ca. 1830) 李汝珍 [style, Songshi 松石] 877–879 native of Daxing, Zhili 直隸大興 (within Beijing today) 877 served as Aide to District Magistrate 縣丞 877 Flower in the Mirror 鏡花緣 877–879 Duo Jiugong 多九公 877 Flower Fairy 百花仙子 877 Land of Gentlemen 君子國 878 Land of No Intestines 無腸國 878 Land of Swine Snout 豕喙國 878 Land of the Tiptoes 跂踵國 878 Land of Two Faces 兩面國 878 Land of Women 女兒國 878 Lin Zhiyang 林之洋 878 Tang Ao 唐敖 877 Tang Xiaoshan 唐小山 877 Li Shangyin (813–858) 李商隱 [style, Yishan 義山] 360, 365–371, 373, 387, 419, 466, 472, 545 literary name: Yuxi Sheng (“Master of the Jade Creek”) 玉溪生 365

glossary-index native of Henei, Huaizhou 懷州河內 (Qinyang 沁陽, Henan today) 365 Presented Scholar in the second year (837) of the Kaicheng reign 365 “Clepsydra” 促漏 368 “Composition of One Hundred Couplets while Stopping at the Western Suburbs on the Trip, A” 行次西郊一百韻 366 “Dragon Pool” 龍池 366 “Le You Tombs” 樂遊原 370 “Letter to His Excellency the Metropolitan Governor and Minister of State, A” 獻相國京兆公啟 366 “Master Jia” 賈生 366 “More Thoughts” 重有感 366 “Mourning for Liu Fen” 哭劉蕡 366 “Patterned Zither” 錦瑟 369 hui (“ambiguity”) 晦 369 ming (“illumination”) 明 369 Wang Di 望帝 370 “Preface to the First Fannan Collection” 樊南甲集序 387 “Thoughts: Two Poems” 有感二首 366 “Untitled” 無題 368 “Untitled Poems” 無題詩 367 “Wu Palace” 吳宮 366 Li Shen 李紳 345, 347–348 “Music Bureau Songs with New Titles” 樂府新題 347–348 Li Shuchang 黎庶昌 826 Li Si 李斯 73, 102 “A Memorial to Remonstrate against Expelling Visitors” 諫逐客書 102 Li Yannian 李延年 128 “Song of a Beautiful Woman” 佳人歌 128 Li Yangbing 李陽冰 295 “Preface to the Collection of the Thatch Cottage” 草堂集序 295 Li Yi (748–829) 李益 [style, Junyu 君虞] 332–334, 379 “Getting up the Wall of the City of Surrender Acceptance and Hearing Someone Playing the Flute” 夜上受降城聞笛 334 “One Night While in the Army, We Put Up North of Liuhu, and Let Our Horses Drink at the Rock of Sword Sharpening, I Composed This Song to Honor the Dead

933

Soldiers” 從軍夜次六胡北飲馬磨劍石為祝殤辭 333 “Passing by Mawei” 過馬嵬 334 Li Yu (937–978) 李煜 [style, Chongguang 重光] 422, 425–428, 515 Li Houzhu (“Li the Later Monarch”) 李後主 425 “Beauty Yu” 虞美人 427 “Breaking the Formation” 破陣子 426 “Joy of Meeting” 相見歡 427 “Music of Peace and Serenity” 清平樂 426 Li Yu (1611–1680) 李漁 [style, Liweng 笠翁] 787–788, 839–842 Casual Expressions of Idle Feelings 閑情偶寄 788, 840–842 “Bok Choy” 菜 788–789 “Section of Song Lyric and Aria” 詞曲部 841 “Structure 結構,” “Diction 詞采,” “Sound and Prosody 音律,” “Spoken Parts 賓白,” “Gags 科諢,” and “Setup 格局.” 841 Silent Operas 無聲戲 840 “A Male Mother of Mencius Moved Three Times to Bring Up the Son” 男孟母教合三遷 840 Xu Wei 許葳 840 You Ruilang 尤瑞郎 840 “The Ugly Man Fears the Lovely but Unexpectedly Wins All the Beauties” 醜郎君怕嬌偏得艷 841 Ten Plays from Liweng 笠翁傳奇十種 840–841 Apathetic Heaven, The 奈何天 841 Flatfish 比目魚 841–842 Liu Miaogu 劉藐姑 841 Qian Wanguan 錢萬貫 841–842 Tan Chuyu 譚楚玉 841 Mistake with the Kite, The 風箏誤 841–842 Qi Shi 戚施 841 Twelve Towers 十二樓 840 “Tower for the Summer Heat” 夏宜樓 840 “Tower for the Union of Shadows” 合影樓 840–841 Yama, King of Hell 閻羅天子 840

934

glossary-index

Zhongli Ruishui 鍾離睿水 (author of preface) 840 Li Yu (1591?–1671?) 李玉 [style, Xuanyu 玄玉] 842–845, 856 literary name: Yili’an Zhuren (“Master of the Shrine of the Single Bamboo Hat”) 一笠庵主人 (from name of studio) 842 One Handful of Snow 一捧雪 843–844 Mo Cheng 莫誠 843 Mo Huaigu 莫懷古 843 Tang Qin 湯勤 843 Xue Yanniang 雪艷娘 843 Yan Shifan 嚴世藩 843 Everlasting Union 永團圓, 843 Man-and-Beast Pass 人獸關 843 Register of the Upright and Loyal 清忠譜 843–843, 860 Wei Zhongxian 魏忠賢 844 Zhou Shunchang 周順昌 844 Thousand Bushels of Income, A 千鍾祿 843–844, 856 (also known as The Slaughter of a Thousand Loyal Ones 千忠戮) 843 Emperor Jianwen 建文帝 844–845 Prince of Yan 燕王 (subsequently Emperor Yongle 永樂帝) 844–845 “Tragic Sight” 慘睹 844, 856 “Pouring the Cup: Jade Hibiscus” 傾盃玉芙蓉 844, 856 Union across Ten Thousand Miles 萬里圓 843 (also known as Predestined Relationship across Ten Thousand Miles 萬里緣) 843 Winning the Queen of Flowers 佔花魁 843 Li Zhaoluo 李兆洛 805 Selections of Parallel Prose 駢體文鈔 805 Li Zhi (1527–1602) 李贄 [style, Zhuowu 卓吾] 604, 653, 684–687, 689–690, 713, 732, 754, 770, 796, 812 literary name: Hongfu 宏甫, Wenling Jushi (“Layman Buddhist of Wenling”) 溫陵居士 685 served as Prefect of Yao’an, Yunnan 雲南姚安知府 685 A Book to Be Burned 焚書 685, 754 “In Reply to Vice Censor-in-Chief Geng” 答耿中丞 685

A Book to Be Stored 藏書 685 “On the Descendents of Virtuous Confucian Officials” 德業儒臣後論 685 “Discussion of the Heart of a Child” 童心說 685, 688, 754, 812, 815 “Inscription on a Portrait of Confucius at the Iris Buddhist Shrine” 題孔子像於芝佛院 685 “Li Zhuowu’s Criticism of The Story of the Secluded Boudoir or The Moon-Praying Pavilion” 李卓吾批評幽閨記拜月亭 604 Mr. Li’s Prose Collection 李氏文集 685 “Discussion of the Past: First Note” 道古錄上 685 Lian Po 廉頗 226, 535 Liang (Dynasty) 梁 196, 198, 200, 206, 214–232, 246–247, 249, 258 Liang Chenyu (ca. 1521–ca. 1594) 梁辰魚 [style, Bolong 伯龍] 707, 711–712, 725–728 literary names: Shaobai 少白, Chouchi Waishi (“Unofficial Historian of Chouchi”) 仇池外史 711 native of Kunshan 昆山 711 “Double-Tuned ‘Boat Traveling at Night’ in the Xianlü Pitch: Adopting the Conventional Title ‘Recalling the Past at Jinling’ ” 仙呂入雙調夜行船序·擬金陵懷古 711 “Jade Abdomen Cover: Message for a Fish” 玉抱肚·囑魚 711 Story of Silk Washing 浣紗記 725–728 Fan Li 范蠡 727 “Reception of Shi” 迎施 727 “Golden Chain” 金落索 727 “Recollection” 思憶” 727 “Pride of Fisherman: Mixture of Two Modes” 二犯漁家傲 727 Xi Shi 西施 727–728 Liang Hong 梁鴻 127 “Song of Five ‘Alas’ ” 五噫歌 127 Liang Qichao (1873–1929) 梁啟超 [style, Zhuoru 卓如] 772, 819, 831, 834–835 literary names: Rengong 任公, Yinbingshi Zhuren (“Master of the Ice-Sipping Chamber”) 飲冰室主人 834

glossary-index native of Xinhui 新會, Guangdong 834 Current Affairs Gazette 時務報 835 Introduction to the Academic Research of the Qing Dynasty 清代學術概論 772, 819, 835 New People’s Series 新民叢報 835 “On China in Youth” 少年中國說 835 Pure Talk Gazette 清議報 835 Travels in Hawaii 夏威夷遊記 834 Liang Su 梁肅 377–378 “Preface to the Collected Works of Mr. Li Qian, Rectifier of Omissions” 補闕李君前集序 378 Liang Youyu 梁有譽 677 Liao 遼 459 Liao Yan (1644–1705) 廖燕 788 Cultivated Talent in what is Shaoguan 韶關 today 788 “On Human Nature” 性論 788 On Miscellaneous Topics from the Mountain Lodge 山居雜談 788 Lin’an 臨安 (Hangzhou in Zhejiang today) 507–508, 511, 519, 526, 529, 552, 555, 557, 568 Lin Bu (968–1028) 林逋 [posthumous title: Hejing 和靖 (“Peaceful and Serene”)] 430, 471–472 “Plum Flowers” 梅花 (“Little Plum Trees in the Hillside Garden” 山園小梅) 471–472 Lin Hong 林鴻 660 Lin Sheng 林升 519 Lin Shu 林紓 826, 883 Joan Haste 迦茵小傳 (See Haggard) 883 La Dame aux camélias (The Lady of the Camellias) 茶花女遺事 (See Dumas) 883 Lin Zexu 林則徐 823 Ling Mengchu (1580–1644) 凌濛初 [style, Xuanfang 玄房] 603, 606, 711, 713, 733, 750–753 literary name: Jikongguan Zhuren (“Master of the Temple of Approaching the Vacuity”) 即空觀主人 750 native of Wucheng 烏程, Zhejiang (Huzhou 湖州 city today) 750 served as Vice Magistrate of the Shanghai District 上海縣丞, Assistant Prefect of Xuzhou 徐州判官 750

935

Miscellaneous Notes on Aria and Drama 譚曲雜札 603, 711 Striking the Table in Amazement 拍案驚奇 750–753 Striking the Table in Amazement: Second Book 二刻拍案驚奇 750–753 “Two Striking’s” 二拍 733, 746, 750–753 “Cheng the Traveling Trader Gets Assistance in Repeated Investment in Rare Commodities” 疊居奇程客得助 751 “Great Confucian Scholar Gets Angry about Trifles in Forcing Himself to Review a Civil Case, The” 硬勘案大儒爭閑氣 751 Tang Zhongyou 唐仲友 751 Yan Rui 嚴蕊 751 “Lamplight Leads into the Lady’s Chamber for Two Faithful Hearts, The” 通閨闥堅心燈火 751 Luo Xixi 羅惜惜 751 Zhang Youqian 張幼謙 751 “Luck Turns in the Favor of the Man in His Adventure with the Lake Dongting Red Tangerines” 轉運漢遇巧洞庭紅 751 “Scholar Wen Has a Wild Fight at the Green Floating Nunnery” 聞人生野戰翠浮庵 752 Wen Renjia 聞人嘉 752 literary Chinese 文言文 57, 868 literary composition 文章 63 literary name 號 Liu Ban 劉攽 430 Poetic Remarks from the Central Mountains 中山詩話 430 Liu Bei 劉備 [style, Xuande 玄德] 538, 640–643 Liu Cang 劉蒼 130 Collection of Poetry in Lines of Seven Homonymic Characters 七言別字詩集 130 Liu Cha 劉叉 340 Liu Dakui (1698–1779) 劉大櫆 [style, Caifu 才甫 and Gengnan 耕南] 790, 793, 809 literary name: Haifeng (“Mountain-Peak in the Sea”) 海峰 793 served as Instructor in Yixian District 黟縣教諭 793

936

glossary-index

“Random Notes on Prose Writing” 論文偶記 793 Liu E (1857–1909) 劉鶚 [style, Tieyun 鐵雲] 889, 893–895 native of Dantu 丹徒, Jiangsu 893 served on the staff of Wu Dacheng 吳大澂 (Governor of Henan); Prefect 知府 893 Travels of Lao Can, 老殘遊記 889, 893–895 Penname: Hongdu Bailiansheng (“The Well-Tempered Master from the Grand Capital”) 洪都百煉生 893 Black Maid 黑妞 894 Daming Lake 大明湖 894 Gang Bi 剛弼 894 Li Bingheng 李秉衡 894 Mt. Peach Flowers 桃花山 894 White Maid 白妞 894 Xu Tong 徐桐 894 Yu Xian 玉賢, Prefect of Caozhou 曹州 894 Liu Feng 劉鳳 667 Sequel of Tributes to Sages of the Past in the Wu Region 續吳先賢贊 667 Liu Guo 劉過 538 Liu Ji (1321–1375) 劉基 [style, Bowen 伯溫] 655, 660, 662–663, 705 Works of Liu Ji, Grand Preceptor, Earl of Honesty, and Lord Wencheng 太師誠意伯劉文成公集 655 “Expressing my Feelings” 感懷 663 “Foreword to Poetry Collection of Monk Zhao Xuan” 照玄上人詩集序 662 “Foreword to Wang Yaunzhang’s Poetry Collection” 王原章詩集序 662 Liu Jiu 劉汲 564 Collection from the Western Cliff 西嵓集 564 Liu Kai (947–1000) 柳開 463–464, 466, 480–481 “Letter No. 3 Presented to Academician Wang” 上王學士第三書 463 “Self-Defense” 應責 463 Liu Kezhuang 劉克莊 [style, Qianfu 潛夫] 478, 536, 548–551, 802 literary name: Houcun Jushi (“Buddhist Layman of the Back Village”) 後村居士 549

native of Putian 莆田 (within Fujian today) 549 served as Minister of Works 工部尚書 549 “Black Rock Mountain” 烏石山 550 “Foreword to Xin Jiaxuan’s Works” 辛稼軒集序 550 Poetic Remarks from Liu Kezhuang 後村詩話 478 Liu Kun (271–318) 劉琨 [style, Yueshi 越石] 174, 180 served as Regional Inspector of Bingzhou 并州刺史 and General-in-Chief 大將軍 180 “Another Poem Presented to Lu Chen” 重贈盧諶 180 “In Reply to Lu Chen” 答盧諶 180 “Song of Fufeng” 扶風歌 180 Liu Ling 劉伶 167, 479 Liu Mian 柳冕 377–378 “A Letter in Grateful Reply to Grand Councilor Du’s Letter on Fang and Du, the Two Grand Councilors” 謝杜相公論房杜二相書 378 “A Letter on Writing to Grand Master Lu in Huazhou” 與滑州盧大夫論文書 378 Liu Xiyi 劉希夷 277–278 “Rephrased Poem of Lament for the White-Haired Old Man” 代悲白頭翁 278 Liu Xizai 劉熙載 446 Generalizations on Arts 藝概 446 Liu Xiang 劉向 31, 34, 60, 235 n. 20 “An Account about the Intrigues of the Warring States” 戰國策敘錄 60 Garden of Tales 說苑 34 Miscellaneous Notes on the Western Capital 西京雜記 235 n. 20 Liu Xiaochuo 劉孝綽 288 “Composed by Order while Attending an Imperial Banquet at the Talent-Gathering Hall” 侍宴集賢堂應令 288 Liu Xie (ca. 465–ca. 532) 劉勰 [style, Yanhe 彥和] 15, 31, 33-35, 48–49, 81, 86, 88–89, 97, 195–200, 202–204, 216 name as Buddhist monk: Huidi 慧地 198 served as an Interpreter-Secretary 通事舍人 198

glossary-index Literary Mind: Carving Dragons 文心雕龍 35, 89, 195–200, 202–204, 216 “Emotions and Coloration” 情采 200 “Exegesis of Poetry” 明詩 203 “Factual Allusion and Textual Reference” 事類 200 “Giving Evidence from the Sages” 徵聖 198–199 “Hyperbole” 誇飾 200 “Its Source in the Way” 原道 198 “Latent and Outstanding” 隱秀 199 “Nature and Form” 體性 200 “Parallel Phrasing” 麗辭 200 pattern and coloration 文采 200 “Revering the Classics” 宗經 198 “Sensuous Colors of Physical Things, The” 物色 200 “Sound and Rhythm” 聲律 200 “Spirit Thought” 神思 200 “Talents” 才略 89 “Variation of The Songs of the South, The” 辯騷 35 wind and bone 風骨 199, 204 Liu Xin 劉歆 89 “Rhapsody on Original Intention” 遂初賦 89 Liu Xingwei 劉星煒 806 Liu Xu (Prince of Guangling) 劉胥 [廣陵王] 127 Liu Xun 劉埙 597–598 Manuscript from the Water and Cloud Village 水雲村稿 597 “Biography of Song Lyricist Wu Yongzhang” 詞人吳用章傳 597 Liu Yin (1249–1293) 劉因 [style, Mengji 夢吉] 618, 620 literary name: Jingxiu (“Quite Cultivation”) 靜修 620 served as Right Grand Master Admonisher 右贊善大夫 620 “Crossing the White Gully” 渡白溝 620 “En Route on the Cold Food Day” 寒食道中 620 Liu Yiqing (403–444), Prince of Lingchuan 劉義慶 [臨川王] 261–265 A New Account of Tales of the World 世說新語 [Annotated by Liu Jun 劉峻] 150, 261, 263–265, 695

937

“Appearance” 容止 263–264 “Generosity” 雅量 265 Battle of Feishui 淝水之戰 265 “Lamenting for the Deceased” 傷逝 264 Gu Rong 顧榮 [style, Yanxian 彥先] 264 Zhang Han 張翰 [style, Jiying 季鷹] 264 “Moral Conduct” 德行 263 “Willful Absurdities” 任誕 264 Wang Huizhi (?–388) 王徽之 [style, Ziyou 子猷] 264 n. 54 “Words” 言語 263 Records of Light and Shade 幽明錄 192, 261–262, 395–396 “A Daughter of the Shi Family” 石氏女 396 “Liu and Ruan Enter Mt. Tiantai” 劉阮入天臺 261 Liu Chen 劉晨 261, 395 Ruan Zhao 阮肇 261, 395 “Pang E” 龐阿 262 “The Young Woman Who Sells Exotic Cosmetics” 賣胡粉女子 261–262 Liu Yong 柳永 [style, Qiqing 耆卿] 430, 432–439, 432–439, 441, 450 original name: Sanbian 三變 432 native of Chong’an 崇安 (within Fujian today) 432 served as Vice Director of the State Farms Bureau 屯田員外郎 432 “Bells in Continuous Rain” 雨霖鈴 435–436 “New Chrysanthemum Blossoms” 菊花新 432 “Quelling the Disturbance” 定風波 433, 436 “Song of the Fragrance of the Autumn Blossoms” 秋蕊香引 436 “Song of the Lost Fairy” 迷仙引 433 “Song of the Riverside Fairy” 臨江仙引 436 “Watching the Sea Tide” 望海潮 434, 436 Liu Yu 劉裕 193, 196 n. 2 Liu Yun (971–1031) 劉筠 472–473 “Martial Emperor of the Han” 漢武 473 Liu Yuxi (772–842) 劉禹錫 [style, Mengde 夢得] 356–358, 416, 457 native of Luoyang (in modern Henan) 356

938

glossary-index

served as Investigating Censor 監察御史, Vice Prefect of Langzhou 朗州司馬, Advisor to the Crown Prince 太子賓客 356 “Black Robe Lane” 烏衣巷 357, 457 “Memories of Jiangnan” 憶江南 416 “Recalling the Ancient Times at West Fortress Mountain” 西塞山懷古 357 Wang Jun 王濬 357 Yizhou 益州 357 “Rock Town” 石頭城 457 “Song Accompanied by Stamping of Feet” 蹋歌詞 358 “Song of Bamboo Twigs” 竹枝詞 358 qing 晴 (“shine”) / 情 (“love”) 358 n. 8 “Song of Willow Branches” 柳枝詞 358 “Terrace City” 臺城 357 “Walking on the Dyke” 堤上行 358 Liu Zhangqing (ca. 727–ca. 790) 劉長卿 [style, Wenfang 文房] 326–328 served as Prefect of Suizhou 隨州刺史 327 “Composed at a Riverside Pavilion at the End of Autumn” 秋杪江亭有作 328 “Inscribed on Wei Wancheng’s Riverside Pavilion” 題魏萬城江亭 327 “Joining the Army” 從軍 327 “Running into a Snow and Putting Up at the Master of the Hibiscus Hills” 逢雪宿芙蓉山主人 328 “Seeing Off the Reverend Ling Che” 送靈澈上人 328 “Song of the Exhausted Soldiers” 疲兵篇 327 “Song of a Little Bird: Presented to Governor Pei” 小鳥篇上裴尹 327 “Thoughts” 感懷 327 Liu Zhen 劉楨 157–159, 565 “Miscellaneous Poems” 雜詩 159 “Three Poems Presented to My Younger Cousin” 贈從弟 159 Liu Zongyuan (773–819) 柳宗元 [style, Zihou 子厚] 338, 356, 358–360, 378–380, 385–387 native of Hedong 河東 (Yongji, Shanxi 山西永濟 today) 358 served as Vice Prefect of Yongzhou 永州司馬 and Prefect of Liuzhou 柳州刺史 358

“An Account of the Small Hill West of the Flatiron Pond” 鈷鉧潭西小邱記 385 “An Account of the Small Rock Pond West of the Small Hill” 至小邱西小石潭記 386 “An Account of Yuan’s Eddy” 袁家渴記 386 “Biography of a Bug 蝜蝂傳” 385 “Biography of the Building Worker” 梓人傳 386–387 “Biography of Camelback Guo the Gardener” 種樹郭橐駝傳 386–387 “Five Chants at Master Xun’s Shrine: Meditation Hall” 巽公院五詠·禪堂 359 “Getting Up at Midnight and Looking at the West Garden while the Moon Happen to Be on the Rise” 中夜起望西園值月上 359 “Letter in Reply to Wei Zhongli on the Principles of a Teacher, A” 答韋中立論師道書 378–379 “Looking at Mountains in the Company of the Reverend Haochu and Sent by Mail to Friends and Relatives in the Capital” 與浩初上人同看山寄京華親故 359 “Old Fisherman, The” 漁翁 360 “On the Snake Hunter” 捕蛇者說 386–387 “Preface to Liu Zongzhi’s Prose Categories of the Western Han” 柳宗直西漢文類序 379 “Preface to the Poem Presented to The Reverend Xun to Say Farewell Before His Visit to the Vice Censor-in-Chief, My Uncle, at the Latter’s Summon” 送巽上人赴中丞叔父召序 358 “Reply to the Letter on the Composition of Prose from Cui An, the Cultivated Talent, A” 報崔黯秀才論為文書 379 “Saying Farewell to My Younger Brother Zongyi” 別舍弟宗一 359 “Snow on the River” 江雪 359 “Three Cautionary Notes” 三戒 385 “Donkey of Guizhou” 黔之驢 385 “Visiting Master Chao’s Shrine in the Morning to Read Zen Sutras” 晨詣超師院讀禪經 359 Lixue (“Study of the Principles”) 理學 309, 462, 464, 522, 539, 620, 622, 653, 656, 661–663, 665–666, 672, 675,

glossary-index 678–679, 722, 751, 769, 771, 788, 790, 792, 801, 809, 879 Longmen 龍門 236 Lord 帝 4–5 Lord Chunshen 春申君 72 Lord of Zhou (Ji Dan) 周公 (姬旦) 4, 156 n. 4, 841 Lord on High 上帝 4 “Lotus Flowers Drop” 蓮花落 671 Love Reincarnate 再生緣 821–823 Chen Duansheng (ca. 1751–ca. 1796) 陳端生 821–822 (main author) Chen Zhaolun 陳兆倫 821 The Sequel to A General Study of Documents 續文獻通考 821 Hou Zhi 侯芝 821 Huangfu Jing 皇甫敬 821–822 Huangfu Shaohua 皇甫少華 821 Liang Desheng 梁德繩 821–822 Liu Kuibi 劉奎璧 821 Meng Lijun 孟麗君 821–822 Meng Shiyuan 孟士元 821 Lovely Jade Plum 玉嬌李 741 Lu Chui 陸倕 215 Lu Guimeng 陸龜蒙 388 Lu Ji (261–303) 陸機 [style, Shiheng 士衡] 135, 152, 173–178, 180 native of Huating, Wujun 吳郡華亭 (Songjiang 松江, Shanghai today) 174 “An Article in Mourning for Emperor Wu of the Wei” 吊魏武帝文 176 “Defense of Taking Refuge, A” 辯亡論 176 “Preface to the ‘Rhapsody on the Gallant Man’ ” 豪士賦序 176 “Rhapsody on Literature” 文賦 152, 175 “Song of Suffering from the Cold” 苦寒行 175 “Song of the Sun Rising from the Southeast Corner” 日出東南隅行 175 “Summon the Recluse” 招隱 174 Lu Jia 陸賈 127 Annals of Chu and Han 楚漢春秋 127 Lu Jiuyuan 陸九淵 (Lu Xiangshan 陸象山) 462, 630 n. 8 Lu Lun 盧綸 329 “Running into a Sick Soldier” 逢病軍人 329 “Song of the Northern Frontier: In Reply to Vice Director Zhang” 和張僕射塞下曲 329

939

Lu of Jintai 金臺魯氏 714 Stop the Scudding Clouds at the Fifth Watch of the Night in Four Seasons: A New Collection 新編四季五更駐雲飛 714 Lu Renlong 陸人龍 753 Words as Models of the World 型世言 753 “Adulteress Betrays Her Husband and Gets Killed, The; The Gallant Man Is Bestowed a Favor and Receives Pardon” 淫婦背夫遭誅俠士蒙恩得宥 753 Geng Zhi 耿埴 753 Madame Deng 鄧氏 753 Kuizhang Pavilion 奎章閣 (University of Seoul in South Korea) 753 Lu Sidao (535–586) 盧思道 [style, Zixing 子行] 251–253 “Lotus-Picking Melody” 採蓮曲 252 “Song of Joining the Army” 從軍 252, 253 Fish Trap 魚麗 252 Flying General 飛將軍 252 Half Moon 偃月 252 Huo Qubing (140–117 B.C.) 霍去病 252 n. 51 Gate of Ji 薊門 252 n. 52 Shuofang 朔方 252 n. 49 Sweet Fountain 甘泉 (in today’s Chunhua, Shaanxi 陜西淳化) 252 Talent at Left 左賢 (王) 252 n. 50 Lu Su 魯肅 579 Lu Tong 盧仝 340 Lu Xun 魯迅 7, 103, 117, 151–152, 189, 191, 557 n. 6, 559–560, 730, 735, 740, 851, 869, 883, 889–892 “Casting Sword” 鑄劍 [“A Foot between Eyebrows” 眉間尺] 191 Concise History of Chinese Fiction, A 中國小說史略 189, 557 n. 6, 559–560, 730, 735, 740, 889–890, 892 Essentials of the History of Han Literature 漢文學史綱要 103, 117 “Mannerism of the Wei-Jin Period and the Interrelations of Writings, Medicine and Wine” 魏晉風度及文章與藥及酒之關係 151 On Mara’s Poetic Power 摩羅詩力說 45

940

glossary-index

Lu You (1125–1210) 陸游 [style, Wuguan 務觀] 525–531, 600 literary name: Fangweng (“The Old Man Who Does as He Pleases”) 放翁 525 grandson of Lu Dian 陸佃 and son of Lu Zai 陸宰 525 served as as the Controller-General 通判 of Zhenjiang 鎮江, Longxing 隆興, and Kuizhou 夔州; Tea and Salt Supervisor 提舉常平茶鹽公事 of Fujian and Jiangxi; Director of the Palace Library 秘書監; Edict Attendant of the Hall for Treasuring the Heritage 寶謨閣待制 525 “An Account of Myself ” 自述 528 “For My Children” 示兒 526 “Fortuneteller: On the Plum” 卜算子· 詠梅 531 “Moon above Mountain Passes” 關山月 527 “Phoenix Hairpin” 釵頭鳳 530 Tang Wan 唐琬 531 Poetic Manuscripts from Jiannan 劍南詩稿 526 “Postscript to Supervising Secretary Fu’s Note” 跋傅給事帖 525 “Reading Books on the Art of War at Night” 夜讀兵書 527 “Shown to My Son Yu” 示子遹 530 “Song of an Old Horse” 老馬行 527 “Song of a Sword Inlaid with Gold” 金錯刀行 528 “Spring Rain Has Just Cleared Up in Lin’an, A” 臨安春雨初霽 529 “Telling My Heart” 訴衷情 531 “Trip to the Village West of the Hills, A” 遊山西村 529–530 “Visiting a Nearby Village in a Small Boat, I Took a Walk on My Way Home, Leaving the Boat Behind” 小舟遊近村捨舟步歸 600 “Writing down My Indignation” 書憤 530 Lu Yun 陸雲 174 Lu Yunlong 陸雲龍 693–694, 699 “Foreword to Master Zhong Bojing’s Vignettes” 鍾伯敬先生小品序 699 Vignettes of Sixteen Masters from the Imperial Ming Dynasty 皇明十六家小品 694 Lu Zhaolin (ca. 634–ca. 686) 盧照鄰 [style, Shengzhi 昇之] 272–273

“An Ancient Topic from Chang’an” 長安古意 273 Lu Zhi 盧摯 607–608 “Intoxicated in the East Wind: Leading an Idle Life” 沉醉東風· 閑居 608 “Intoxicated in the East Wind: Stepping Backward” 沉醉東風·退步 608 Lu Zhonglian 魯仲連 297–298 Lü Benzhong 呂本中 497 n. 1, 503, 510–511 A Diagram of the Sects of the Jiangxi Poetic Society 江西詩社宗派圖 497 n. 1, 503 “Foreword to Xia Junfu’s Works” 夏均父集序 511 “Miscellaneous Poems after the Chaos Caused by the War” 兵亂後雜詩 510 “Poem of Thirty Couplets to My Younger Brother after Parting, A” 別後寄舍弟三十韻 511 Lüqiu Xiao (Prefect of Bozhou) 閭邱曉 (亳州太守) 282 Lü Tiancheng 呂天成 754, 763 Ranking of the Aria 曲品 754, 763 Lugou Bridge 盧溝橋 827 Lujiang Commandery 廬江府 143–144 Luo Binwang (ca. 638–?) 駱賓王 272–273, 305–306 “A Letter to Family” 與親情書 306 “A Piece on the Imperial Capital” 帝京篇” 273 “A Piece on the Past” 疇昔篇 273 “A Quatrain on Seeing Someone Off at the Yi River” 於易水送人一絕 273 “Singing about Cicadas while in Prison” 在獄詠蟬 273 “War Proclamation for the Expedition against Wu Zhao” 討武曌檄 306 Xu Jingye 徐敬業 273, 306 Luo Dajing 羅大經 524 Jade Dew in the Cranes’ Forest 鶴林玉露 524 Luo Guanzhong 羅貫中 [known by style, original name: Luo Ben 羅本] (See Romance of the Three Kingdoms) 639–640, 642, 645 literary name: Huhai Sanren (“Idle Person by Lakes and Seas”) 湖海散人 639 Luo Ye 羅燁 561, 635, 645

glossary-index Tattle from the Drunken Old Man 醉翁談錄 561, 635, 645 “Biography of Wang Kui” 王魁傳 561 “Blue-Faced Beast” 青面獸 645 “Dissolute Monk” 花和尚 645 “Su Xiaoqing” 蘇小卿 561 “Sun Li the Rock” 石頭孫立 645 “Wu the Layman Buddhist” 武行者 645 Luo Yin 羅隱 388, 780 “Song for the Insect of Autumn” 秋蟲吟 388 “Words from a Woman of Yue” 越婦言 389 Zhu Maichen 朱買臣 388 Luo Yuming 駱玉明 xiv–xv, xvii Luoyang 洛陽 93, 133 n. 5, 174–176, 178, 233, 236–238, 240, 244, 245 n. 38, 278, 283, 295, 311, 313, 324, 338, 342, 346, 349, 364, 482, 510, 582, 609 Ma Rong (79–166) 馬融 96 “Rhapsody on the Long Flute” 長笛賦 96 Ma Zhiyuan 馬致遠 584–586, 593, 607–608, 611–612, 705 literary name: Dongli (“Eastern Fence”) 東籬 584 native of Dadu 584 served as Administrative Supervisor of the Jiangsu and Zhejiang Region Secretariat 江浙行省省務提舉 584 Autumn in the Han Palace 漢宮秋 584–586 “Capturing Jiangnan” 收江南 586 “Plum Flower Wine” 梅花酒 586 Chen Tuan the Recluse 陳摶高臥 584 “Clear Sky over the Sand: Autumn Thoughts” 天淨沙·秋思 (attributed to anonymous author by some) 612 “Coda of a Banquet at the Travelers’ Pavilion” 離亭宴煞 611 Monument of Blessing 薦福碑 584 “Night-Sailing Boat in Double Tune” 雙調夜行船 611 Ren the Madman 任風子 584 Tears on the Blue Robe 青衫淚 584–585 Pei Xingnu 裴興奴 585 “That One Cannot Break by Plucking: Untitled” 撥不斷·無題 608, 611 Yueyang Pavilion 岳陽樓 584

941

Maicheng 麥城 158 make merry while ye may 及時行樂 133–134 mandate of heaven 天命 4 manner and carriage of the Wei and Jin 魏晉風度 172 Manuscript of the History of the Ming 明史稿 857 Manuscript of the History of the Qing 清史稿 806 Mao Jin 毛晉 754 Sixty Plays 六十種曲 754 Mao Kun 茅坤 676 Selected Prose of Eight Masters of the Tang and Song Dynasties 唐宋八大家文鈔 676 Mao Qiling 毛奇齡 805 Mao Wenxi 毛文錫 419 Maozhou 茂州 662 Marquis Donghun 東昏侯 218 martial arts (wuxia 武俠) fiction 404 Marx, Karl Heinrich (1818–1883) xix, 6 Capital (Das Kapital) xix Communist Manifesto, The (Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei) xix Critique of Political Economics, A 6 Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 xix Master Lü’s Spring and Autumn Annals 呂氏春秋 101, 678 medley (zhugongdiao, “several melodies in the gong mode”) 諸宮調 567 Medley of Liu Zhiyuan 劉知遠諸宮調 568, 604–605 Mei Gao 枚皋 86 Mei Guangdi 梅光迪 671 n. 3 Mei Sheng 枚乘 (?–140 B.C.) 82–85 “Seven Stimuli” 七發 82–85 Mei Yaochen (1002–1060) 梅堯臣 [style, Shengyu 聖俞] 464, 474–478 native of Xuancheng 宣城 (within Anhui today) 474 served as a Vice Director of the Department of State Affairs 尚書都官員外郎 474 “builder of the first temple on a famous mountain” (founder) 開山祖師 of Song poetry 478 “After Reading Academician Shao Buyi’s Examination Paper” 讀邵不疑學士試卷 477 “Eastern Creek” 東溪 478 “Farmers” 田家 475 “Fellow Visitor at the Residence of Fan Zhongyan (Prefect of Raozhou)

942

glossary-index

Talked about Globefish as Food, A” 范饒州座中客語食河豚魚 477 “In Reply to Poems Presented to Me by Han Zihua [third son in the family], Han Chiguo [fifth son in the family], and Han Yuru [sixth son in the family]” 答韓三子華韓五持國韓六玉汝見贈述詩 464 “My Infant Daughter, Chenchen, Died on the Twenty-First Day of the Third Month in the Year 1048” 戊子三月二十一日殤小女稱稱 476 “Poor Girl from the High Bank of the Ru River, A” 汝墳貧女 475 “Potters” 陶者 475 “Sent by Mail to Ouyang Xiu in Chuzhou” 寄滁州歐陽永叔 475 “Trip in the Lu Mountains” 魯山山行 478 “Words from Farmers” 田家語 475–476 Mei Ze 梅賾 52 Melody of the West 西曲 227 Meng Haoran 孟浩然 279, 281, 285–286, 288, 302, 780 native of Xiangyang 襄陽 285 lived as a recluse at Garden South of the Stream 澗南園 near Mt. Nanxian 南峴山 285 “Song of Returning to Deer Gate Mountain at Night” 夜歸鹿門山歌 285 “Visiting an Old Friend’s Village” 過故人莊 286 Meng Jiao (751–814) 孟郊 [style, Dongye 東野] 334–337, 340 native of Wukang, Huzhou 湖州武康 (Deqing 德清, Zhejiang today) 334 served as Commandant of Liyang 溧陽尉 334 “Autumn Thoughts” 秋懷 335–336 “Chant of Suffering from Coldness” 苦寒吟 336 “Song of a Wanderer” 遊子吟 335 “Song of the Common People in the Cold Region” 寒地百姓吟 335 “Stream in Rocks” 石淙 336 Meng Ke 孟軻 (Mencius, ca. 372– ca. 289 B.C.) 67–68, 463, 661, 840–841 descendent of Meng Sun 孟孫 67 native of Zou 鄒 (modern Zouxian 鄒縣 in Shandong) 67

Mencius / Mencius 孟子 33 Book IV B 離婁下 68 Book VII B 盡心下 68 Meng Qi 孟棨 391 Original Stories behind Poems 本事詩 391 Meng Yuanlao 孟元老 557 Dreams of Splendor of the Eastern Capital 東京夢華錄 557 Metropolitan Graduate 進士 (from the Song dynasty onward) Miao Fa 苗發 329 Miu Quansun 繆荃孫 558 Popular Fiction in the Capital Edition 京本通俗小說 558 Milo River 汨羅江 36 Ming (Dynasty) 明 145, 573, 586, 600, 602–603, 615, 617, 627, 629–630, 633–635, 637, 639, 642, 645–646, 653–717, 719–773, 775–776, 778–781, 785, 788–789, 793–794, 796, 805, 820–821, 823, 839, 842–845, 849–850, 854, 856–859, 899–900 Miscellaneous Records from the Xuanzong Reign 明皇雜錄 412 Mo Di 墨翟 16, 66 austerity in funerals 節葬 66 condemnation of military offense 非攻 66 frugality in spending 節用 66 Mozi 墨子 16 “Gong Meng” 公孟 16 universal love 兼愛 66 Mo Youzhi 莫友芝 827 Mo Yunqing 莫雲卿 639 Dust from Writing Brushes 筆塵 639 Mode of Song 宋調 439 More Records of the Search for the Supernatural (attributed to Tao Qian) 搜神後記 187, 191–192 “Daughter of Xu Xuanfang, The” 徐玄方女 192 Ma Zi 馬子 192 “Fair Lady of the White River, The” 白水素女 192 Xie Rui 謝瑞 192 “Yuan Xiang and Gen Suo” 袁相根碩 192 Mt. Huashan 華山 145 Mt. Junshan 君山 303–304 Mt. Jingmen 荊門山 300 Mt. Lushan 廬山 185 Mt. Qilian 祁連山 252 n. 49 Mt. Silver Bird 銀雀山 45 n. 8

glossary-index Mt. Tiantai 天台山 192 Mt. Wushan 巫山 295 Mt. Yaoshan 崤山 103 Mt. Zhongshan 鍾山 221, 249 n. 47 Mu Xiu (979–1032) 穆修 463–464, 480 Music Bureau (Poetry) 樂府(詩) 132, 136–137, 139, 142–145, 154, 457 Affiliate Music Bureau 系樂府 136 Drum and Flute Songs 鼓吹曲辭 137 Elegantiae music 雅樂 137 Ensemble Songs 相和歌辭 137 folk music 俗樂 137, 139 Miscellaneous Songs 雜曲歌辭 137, 143 “Mulberry by the Road” (“A Love Song about Luo Fu”) 陌上桑 [豔歌羅敷行] 141–142 Luo Fu 羅敷 141 Qiu Hu 秋胡 141 “Music of Rock Town” 石城樂 457 New Music Bureau 新樂府 136 “Oh You Up There” 上邪 143 “Old Poem: Composed for Jiao Zhongqing’s Wife, A” 古詩為焦仲卿妻作 143–145 Jiao Zhongqing 焦仲卿 144–145 Liu Lanzhi 劉蘭芝 144–145 “Peacocks Fly Southeast” 孔雀東南飛 144 Songs of Drum, Flute and Nao 鼓吹鐃歌 137, 142 “Song of East Gate” 東門行 139–140 “Song of an Orphan” 孤兒行 139–140 “Song of Qiu Hu” 秋胡行 154 “Song of a Sick Wife” 婦病行 138, 140 Songs of Suburban and Temple Offerings 郊廟歌辭 137, 142 “They Fought South of the City Walls” 戰城南 142 “When I was Fifteen I Went on a Military Campaign” 十五從軍征 140 Music Bureau Poetry and Folk Songs of the Northern & Southern Dynasties 南北朝樂府民歌 254–260, 537 “A Crow in the West Flies at Night” 西烏夜飛 256 “Maid Who Spent the Night, The” 夜度娘 256

943

Melodies of Drum, Horn and Flute from the Liang 梁鼓角橫吹曲 258, 260 Melodies of the West 西曲 254 “Crow Caws at Night” 烏夜啼 255 “Joy in the Stone City” 石城樂 255 “Joy of Jiangling” 江陵樂 255 “Joy of the Merchant” 估客樂 255 “Joy of No-Sorrow” 莫愁樂 255 “Joy of Shouyang” 壽陽樂 255 “Melody of the Crow in Nest” 烏棲曲 255 Melody from the Western Islet 西洲曲 257 “Midnight Songs” 子夜歌 254–255, 257–258 “Midnight Songs of the Four Seasons” 子夜四時歌 254–255, 257–258 “Poem of Mulan” 木蘭詩 260 (attributed to Wei Yuanfu 韋元甫) 260 “Quatrain of Three Young Wives” 三婦絕 537 “Song of Chi Le” 敕勒歌 259 Dark Mountain 陰山 259 “Song of the Three Islets” 三洲歌 256 Songs of the Music of Wu (Songs of Wu) 吳聲歌曲 (吳歌) 254–255 “In the Hills Country of Mount Hua” 華山畿 255 “Songs of Humming the Melodies” 讀曲歌 255–256 “Songs of Regret” 懊儂歌 255 Song Texts of Miscellaneous Melodies 雜曲歌辭 257–258 “Text of a Song of Analogy” 企喻歌辭 259 “Text of the Song of a Horseman from Youzhou” 幽州馬客歌辭 259 “Text of the Song of Breaking the Willow” 折楊柳歌辭 259 “Text of the Song of the Prince of Langya” 瑯玡王歌辭 259 Texts from Miscellaneous Folk Songs 雜歌謠辭 258 Music Bureau poetry of Zhang and Wang 張王樂府 346 Music Bureau Songs of Harmony and Light 雍熙樂府 715 Music of Hu 胡樂 411–412

944

glossary-index

Hu 胡 411, 412 n. 1 Qingshang 清商 412 Qiuzi 龜茲 (Kuqa, Xinjiang 新疆庫車 today) 412 n. 1 Music of Yan 燕樂 411–412 Naide Weng (“Old Man of Endurance”) 耐得翁 557 Wonders of the Capital City 都城紀勝 557 Nalan Xingde (1655–1685) 納蘭性德 [original name: Chengde 成德; style, Rongruo 容若] 428, 781–782, 786–787 literary name: Lengqie Shanren (“Mountaineer of Lengqie”) 楞伽山人 786 Manchu native under the Pure Yellow Banner 正黃旗 786 son of Mingzhu 明珠 786 Metropolitan Graduate in the fifteenth year of the Kangxi reign (1676) 786 served as First-Rank Imperial Guard 一等侍衛 786 “Butterfly’s Fancy for Flowers” 蝶戀花 787 “Dreamlike Lyric” 如夢令 786–787 “Flowers in the Hills” 山花子 787 “Song of Golden Threads: A Note to Liang Fen” 金縷曲·簡梁汾 786 “Song of Golden Threads: Presented to Liang Fen” 金縷曲· 贈梁汾 786 Nanzhang (Hubei) 南彰 31 Nanzhao 南詔 352 Nanzi 南子 65 Nao (musical instrument) 鐃 137, 142 new change 新變 195, 229 New Form of Yongming 永明新體 196 New History of the Tang, The 新唐書 329 New Records of National Treasuries 國寶新編 667 “Biography of Zhu Yunming” 祝允明傳 667 New Sounds in an Era of Prosperity 盛世新聲 715 Neo-Confucianism 新儒學 462 Ni Zan 倪瓚 627 Nie Yizhong 聶夷中 374 “Singing about the Farmers” 詠田家 374

Nine Buddhist Monks 九僧 471 Bao Xian 保暹 471 Huai Gu 懷古 471 Hui Chong 惠崇 471 “An Egret at the Pond: Assigned to Use the Rhyming Word of Light” 池上鷺分賦得明字 471 Jian Chang 簡長 471 Wei Feng 惟鳳 471 Wen Zhao 文兆 471 Xi Zhou 希晝 471 Xing Zhao 行肇 471 Yu Zhao 宇昭 471 Nine Divisions 九州 168–169 Nine Ranks of Rectifiers 九品中正 148 “Nineteen Old Poems” 古詩十九首 99, 131–136 Niu Jiao 牛嶠 419–420 “Bodhisattva Barbarian” 菩薩蠻 420 Niu Sengru 牛僧孺 403 Records of the Dark and Supernatural 玄怪錄 403 Niu Xiji 牛希濟 419–420 “Hawthorne Fruit” 生查子 420 Northern Qi (Dynasty) 北齊 193, 248, 254 Northern Wei (Dynasty) 北魏 193, 233–234, 236–238, 254 Empress Dowager Hu 胡太后 238 Eastern Wei 東魏 193, 238, 254 Dingwu reign 定武 238 Western Wei 西魏 193, 202, 231, 233, 240, 246, 254 Northern Zhou (Dynasty) 北周 193, 240, 248, 254 Nurhachi (1559–1626) 努爾哈赤 786 n. 8 founder of the Later Jin 後金 786 n. 8 honored as Emperor Taizu of the Qing 清太祖 786 n. 8 Nüwa 女媧 8 Odyssey 7 Old History of the Tang, The 舊唐書 290, 313, 332, 349, 396 Old Testament 7 Psalms 7 one-man comic show 獨角戲 562 oracle bone inscriptions 甲骨文 2, 13 Orchid Pavilion Poems 蘭亭詩 183 Ouyang Jiong 歐陽炯 419

glossary-index Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072) 歐陽修 [style, Yongshu 永叔] 422, 439–442, 444, 461, 464–465, 470, 473–474, 477, 480–486, 490–492, 661, 791 native of Jishui 吉水 (within Jiangxi today) 439 Presented Scholar in the eighth year of the Tiansheng 天聖 reign (1030) 439 served as Vice Commissioner of Military Affairs 樞密副使; Participant in Determining Government Matters 參知政事 439 “An Account of the Pavilion of the Drunken Old Man” 醉翁亭記 470, 484 Chuzhou 滁州 484 Luling 廬陵 484 Mt. Langya 琅玡山 484 ye 也 484–485 “Butterfly’s Fancy for Flowers” 蝶戀花 440 “Epitaph at the Long Ridge Tomb Passage” 瀧岡阡表 483 “First Letter to Judge Shi” 與石推官第一書 481 “Ghost Carriage” 鬼車 482 “Inscription on Mei Yaochen’s Tomb Tablet” 梅聖俞墓誌銘 477 “Inspired by the Two Gentlemen” 感二子 481 “Intoxication at Penglai” 醉蓬萊 440 “Letter in Reply to Wu Chong, Candidate of Metropolitan Examination, A” 答吳充秀才書 465 “Note of Valediction to Xu Wudang on His Trip Back South, A” 送徐無黨南歸序 465 “On the Biographies of Masters of Musical Entertainments in History of the Five Dynasties” 五代史伶官傳論 483 “On the Inscription on Yin Shilu’s Tomb Tablet” 論尹師魯墓誌 481 “On Partisanship” 朋黨論 483 “Picking Mulberry Fruit: Words Uttered on the West Lake” 採桑子·西湖念語 439 “Picture of Peonies in Luoyang” 洛陽牡丹圖 482 “Poem of the Third Bridge” 三橋詩 483

945

“Poem Sent to Shunqin and Yaochen while Traveling in the Water Valley by Night” 水谷夜行寄子美聖俞詩 477 Poetic Remarks from the Layman Buddhist of Six Ones 六一詩話 473 “Rhapsody on the Sounds of Autumn” 秋聲賦 485 “Southern Song” 南歌子 441, 454, 458 “Stepping on Nut Grass” 踏莎行 431, 440, 450 “When I First Came to the West Lake in Yingzhou, I Had Some Lotus and Boxwood Planted: Mailed to Lü, Revenue Section of the Transport Commission, and Xu, Bureau of Receptions of the Supply Commission, in Huainan” 初至穎州西湖種瑞蓮黃楊寄淮南轉運呂度支發運許主客 483 Works of Lord Ouyang Xiu 歐陽文忠公集 482 “Yan and Zhi” 顏跖 482 Palace Guard Cavalry (Cavalry of the Plumed Woods) 羽林騎 142 n. 9 Palace-Style Poetry 宮體詩 176, 216–217, 229–233 Pan Lang 潘閬 430, 471 Pan Ni 潘尼 174 Pan Yue (247–300) 潘岳 [style, Anren 安仁] 176–177 native of Zhongmou, Yingyang 滎陽中牟 (in Henan today) 176 “Article Lamenting the Eternally Departed, An” 哀永逝文 177 “Funeral Eulogy for Ma, Supervisor of Qian, A” 馬汧督誄 177 “Poems in Mourning for the Deceased” 悼亡詩 177 “Rhapsody on Autumn Inspirations” 秋興賦 177 “Rhapsody on Recalling Old Friends and Kin” 懷舊賦 177 “Rhapsody on a Westward Journey” 西征賦 177 parallel prose 駢體文 14, 371, 376–379, 381–382, 384, 386–387 Partisan Struggle of the Niu’s and Li’s 牛李黨爭 365 pattern 文 199–201, 222, 247, 257 Pei Du 裴度 594, 611 n. 1 Hall of Green Plains 綠野堂 611

946

glossary-index

Pei Qi 裴啟 263 Forest of Words 語林 263 Pei Xing 裴鉶 392, 403–404 Passing on the Strange or Tales of the Marvelous (Chuan qi) 傳奇 392 “Nie Yinniang” 聶隱娘 404 “The Servant from Kunlun” 崑崙奴 404 “The Story of the Curly-Bearded Man” 虬髯客傳 (also attributed to Du Guangting) 403 Pei Ziye 裴子野 202 “On Carving Insects” 雕蟲論 202 Penglai (Fairyland) 蓬萊 614 pentasyllabic poetry or pentasyllabic verse 五言詩 125, 127–128, 136, 160, 269 adhesion 黏附 269 pentasyllabic quatrain 五言絕句 219, 224, 243, 257, 274, 824 perfection of human nature and preservation of trueness 全性保真 70 Pi Rixiu 皮日休 374, 387–388 “A Lament for the Acorn Woman” 橡媼嘆 374 “Preface to Master Pi’s Prose Collection” 皮子文藪·序 388 “Proposal to Have Han Yu Honored in Secondary Status at the National University” 請韓文公配享太學書 388 “Upright Music Bureau” 正樂府 374 pictorial augury 圖讖 105–106 ping dan (“bland and plain”) 平淡 449, 477 pingtan (storytelling and ballad singing in Suzhou dialect) 評彈 568 pipa 琵琶 229 pithy sayings and marvelous ideas 要言妙道 82, 85 Plum in the Golden Vase: Prosimetric Version, The 金瓶梅詞話 733–741, 865 Battalion Commander of the Judicial Bureau 理刑千戶 736 Censor Cai 蔡御史 736, 740 Chang Shijie (“Regular Times”) 常時節 739 Chun Mei (“Spring Plum”) 春梅 733 Commissioner Wang 王招宣 737

Dai An 玳安 739 Dong Jiao’er (“Dong the Lovely One”) 董嬌兒 736 Dong Wu Nongzhuke (“The Man Who Plays with Pearls in Eastern Wu”) 東吳弄珠客 734 Grand Preceptor Cai 蔡太師 736 Hua Zixu 花子虛 738 Jiang Zhushan 蔣竹山 738 Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng (“Smiling Scholar of Lanling”) 蘭陵笑笑生 734 Li Ping’er (“Li the Vase”) 李瓶兒 733 Meng Yulou (“Meng the Jade Tower”) 孟玉樓 737 Pan Jinlian (“Pan the Golden Lotus”) 潘金蓮 733 Plum in Golden Vase with Illustrations and Commentaries in a New Edition, The 新刻繡像批評金瓶梅 734 Ru Yi’er (“As You Will”) 如意兒 739 Taoist Priest Pan 潘道士 738 Wu Da 武大 737 Wu Song 武松 734 Wu Yueniang (“Wu the Moon Lady”) 吳月娘 737 Ximen Qing 西門慶 733–740 Xingxingzi (“Master of Joy”) 欣欣子 734 Zhang Dahu 張大戶 737 Zhang Zhupo 張竹坡 734 “Poem of the Cypress-Beam Terrace” 柏梁臺詩 130 Poetic Remarks from the FishermanRecluse at the Trumpet-Creeper Creek 苕溪漁隱詩話 365 Poetic Remarks from the Paulownia River 桐江詩話 365 Poetic School of the Rivers and Lakes 江湖詩派 544, 547–551 Poetic School of Suzhou 吳中詩派 656 poetry collection 採詩 16 Poetry of Fields and Gardens 田園詩 183 Poetry of the Immortal True Man 仙真人詩 125 Poetry of Landscape (“mountains and rivers”) 山水詩 183 Poetry of Mystic Talk 玄言詩 182–183 poetry presentation 獻詩 16 Poets of the Rivers and Lakes 江湖詩人 547–551

glossary-index political prose 政論散文 102–104 popular lecture 俗講 407 popular rhapsody (sufu) 俗賦 391 “Rhapsody on the Divine Birds” 神鳥傅 (賦) 92, 395, 405 “Rhapsody of Han Peng” 韓朋賦 395 “Rhapsody on the Swallow” 燕子賦 395, 405 “Rhapsody of the Young Master Pang” 龐郎賦 395 popular taste 俗 432, 439 powerful clan 勢族 148 precious scroll 寶卷 409 Presented Scholar 進士 (until the Early Song dynasty) Prince of Changsha 長沙王 81 Prince Fu (Southern Ming) 南明福王 766, 856 Hongguang reign 弘光 766, 856 Prince Gui (Southern Ming) 南明桂王 766 Prince Jiu 公子糾 115 Prince of Wusun 烏孫王 127 Prince Xiao of Liang 梁孝王 83 Prince Ying (Qin) 子嬰 103 Princess Liu Xijun 劉細君 127 Principal Graduate 狀元 proper 正 16 prose of argumentation 論說散文 102–107, 110 Prose of the Masters 諸子散文 62–74 prose rhapsody 文賦 485 Provincial Graduate 舉人 Pu Songling (1640–1715) 蒲松齡 [style, Liuxian 留仙] 741, 845–848 literary name: Liuquan Jushi (“Layman Buddhist of the Willow Fountain”) 柳泉居士 845 native of Zichuan 淄川 (Zibo 淄博 today), Shandong 845 Strange Tales from Make-Do Studio 聊齋志異 845, 848 “A Bao” 阿寶 846 “Crow Head” 鴉頭 846 “Fragrant Jade” 香玉 846 “Fragrant Lotus” 蓮香 846 “Girl in Green” 綠衣女 846–847 Yu Sheng 于生 847 “Green Phoenix” 青鳳 846 “Hemp Scarf ” 葛巾 846 “Jiao Na” 嬌娜 846 “Pian Pian” 翩翩 846, 848 Lady from the Flower City 花城娘子 848

947

Luo Zifu 羅子浮 848 “Qiao Niang” 巧娘 846 “Three Lives” 三生 846 Xingyu Tang 興于唐 846 “Wang Zi’an” 王子安 846 “Ying Ning” 嬰寧 846 Pulling Up a Silver Vase from the Bottom of the Well 井底引銀瓶 569 Pure Talk 清談 150, 181–182 Qi (Dynasty) 齊 196, 198, 200, 214–220, 227, 230 Yongming reign 永明 196, 215–217, 220 Qi Junzao 祁寯藻 826 Qi Zhaonan 齊召南 805 “Foreword to Collection from the Stone Container Mountain Lodge” 石笥山房集序 805 Qian Daxin 錢大昕 805 Qian Decang 錢德蒼 881 Stitched-Up White Fur Coat 綴白裘 881 Qian Qi 錢起 327, 329 Qian Qianyi (1582–1664) 錢謙益 [style, Shouzhi 受之] 678, 773–776 literary name: Muzhai (“Herding Studio”) 牧齋, Mengsou (“Ignorant Old Man”) 蒙叟 773 native of Changshu 常熟, Jiangsu 773 served as Vice Minister of Rites 禮部侍郎 773 “Foreword to Selected Prose from the Hall of Reliance on the Ancients” 賴古堂文選序 774 “In the Fifth Month of the Year of Yi Chou of the Tianqi Reign (1625), An Imperial Edict Was Issued for My Dismissal from Office and Return to the South, I Went Aboard the Boat by the Lu River, and It Took Me Two Months to Arrive in Jingkou; On the Road I Thought about the Imperial Favor and Was Inspired by the Events, and I Composed Ten Poems at Various Times” 天啟乙丑五月奉詔削籍南歸, 自路河登舟, 兩月方達京口, 途中銜恩感事, 雜然成詠, 凡得十首 774 n. 2 “Inscribed on Du Canglüe’s Criticism of his Own Poetry and Prose” 題杜蒼略自評詩文 774

948

glossary-index

“Letter in Reply to Xu Botiao of Shanyin, A” 答山陰徐伯調書 774 Short Biographies in Selected Poetry of Various Reigns 列朝詩集小傳 678 “Thirty Quatrains Composed at the Waterside Pavilion of the Ding Residence” (Complete Title) “In the Spring of the Bing Shen Year (1656) I Sought Medical Advice in Qinhuai, Lived at the Waterside Pavilion of the Ding Residence for Two Full Months, and Composed Thirty Quatrains Before Leaving.” 丙申春就醫秦淮, 寓丁家水閣浹兩月, 臨行作絕句三十首 775 n. 3 Qian Weiyan (977–1034) 錢惟演 472 Qian Zeng 錢曾 635 Catalogue of the Library of Also a Garden 也是園書目 635 Catalogue of the Library of the Hall of Reviewing the Old Times 述古堂藏書目 635 Qian Zhongshu 錢鍾書 511, 834 On the Art of Poetry 談藝錄 834 Selected Song Dynasty Poetry with Annotations 宋詩選注 511 Qiang 羌 239 Qiao Ji (?–1345) 喬吉 [style, Mengfu 夢符] 596, 614 literary names: Shengheweng (“An Old Man with His Flute and Crane”) 笙鶴翁 and Xingxing Daoren (“Intelligent Taoist Priest”) 惺惺道人 596 “Aria of Snapping Cassia: Mooring at the Qingtian County” 折桂令·泊青田縣 614 Dream of Yangzhou 揚州夢 596 Zhang Haohao 張好好 596 “Pleasure in front of the Hall: Ascending the First Tower over Mountains and Rivers” 殿前歡· 登江山第一樓 614 Beigu Temple 北固寺 614 n. 3 Tower of Great Views 多景樓 614 n. 3 “Single Melody of Green: A SelfAccount” 綠么遍·自述 614 “Someone by the Balustrade: En Route to Jinling” 憑欄人·金陵道中 614

Story of a Gold Coin 金錢記 596 Han Hong 韓翃 596 Wang Liumei 王柳眉 596 Two Generations of Lovers Brought Together by Destiny 兩世姻緣 596 Han Yuxiao (“Jade Flute”) 韓玉簫 596 Wei Gao 韋皋 596 “Water Fairy: Remembrances of Love” 水仙子·憶情 614 Qin Guan (1049–1100) 秦觀 [style, Shaoyou 少游] 450–452, 455, 504, 536, 804 native of Gaoyou 高郵 (within Jiangsu today) 450 Presented Scholar in the eighth year of the Yuanfeng reign (1085) 450 served as Proofreader of the Palace Library and concurrently Junior Compiler in the Historiography Institute 秘書省正字兼國史院編修 450 sent on exile to Chenzhou 郴州 and Leizhou 雷州 450 died in Tengzhou 藤州 450 “An Autumn Day” 秋日 504 “Fairies at the Bridge of Magpies” 鵲橋仙 451 “For Delivery on the River” 河傳 451 “Fragrance Fills the Courtyard” 滿庭芳 452 “Silk-Washing Stream” 浣溪沙 452 “Spring Day, A” 春日 504 “Stepping on Nut Grass” 踏莎行 450 Qin Jia 秦嘉 111 “Another Letter in Reply to My Wife” 重報妻書 111 “Letter to My Wife Xu Shu, A” 與妻徐淑書 111, 136 “Poems Presented to My Wife” 贈婦詩 136 Qin Jianfu 秦簡夫 595–596 Old Man of the Eastern Hall 東堂老 595–596 Li Shi (Dongtang Lao or “Old Man of the Eastern Hall”) 李實 595 “Rolling the Silk Ball” 滾繡毬 595 Yangzhou Nu (“Yangzhou Slave”) 揚州奴 595 Zhao Guoqi 趙國器 595

glossary-index Selling Hair to Treat Guests 剪髮待賓 595 Zhao Li the Loving Brother 趙禮讓肥 595 Qin Kuai 秦檜 516, 525 Qing (Dynasty) 清 2, 52, 121, 379, 428, 565, 602, 622, 639, 699–700, 730, 734, 741–742, 745, 769–837, 839–897, 899 qing (color) 青 80 Qiu Chi (464–508) 邱遲 [style, Xifan 希范] 226 “A Letter to Chen Bozhi” 與陳伯之書 226 Qiu Fengjia 邱逢甲 833 “A Colophon to Draft Poems from the House in the Human World” 人境廬詩草跋 833 Qiu Jin (1875–1907) 秋瑾 829–830 literary name: Jianhu Nüxia (“Chivalrous Lady of the Mirror Lake”) 鑑湖女俠 830 “Composed for My Japanese Friend Ishii Who Asks for a Poetic Exchange, Using the Original Rime Pattern” 日人石井君索和即用原韻 830 Qiu Jun 邱濬 722 Story of Loyalty and Filial Piety: All-Comprehensive Five Human Relations 五倫全備忠孝記 722 Wu Lunbei (“Comprehensive Five Human Relations”) 五倫備 722 Wu Lunquan (“All Five Human Relations”) 五倫全 722 Qiu Tingliang 裘廷梁 836 “On the Vernacular as the Foundation of Reform” 論白話為維新之本 836 Qiu Xinru 邱心如 823 Flowers Generated by the Writing Brush 筆生花 821, 823 Jiang Dehua 姜德華 823 Qiu Yuan 邱園 842 Qiu Yuan (1247–1326) 仇遠 [style, Renjin 仁近] 623 served as an Instructor at Liyang 溧陽教授 623 “During a Drink” 酒邊 623 “Matching Hu Weihang’s Rhyme Scheme” 次胡葦杭韻 623 qu (vernacular song) 137 Qu You (1341–1427) 瞿佑 [style, Zongji 宗吉] 719–720, 764

949

New Tales told while Trimming the Lampwick 剪燈新話 719–720, 764 “Biography of Emerald” 翠翠傳 720, 764 Huai’an 淮安 720 Jin Ding 金定 720, 764 “Story of the Tower of Double Fragrance” 聯芳樓記 720 Xue Huiying 薛蕙英 720 Xue Lanying 7 720 Zheng Sheng 鄭生 720 New Tales Told while Trimming the Lampwick with Line-by-Line Explanation 剪燈新話句解 719 “Postscript to the New Edition of New Tales Told while Trimming the Lampwick” 重校剪燈新話後序 719 Qu Yuan (ca. 339–ca. 277 B.C.) 屈原 [name, Ping 平] 5, 12, 30–49, 425 n. 5, 552 n. 4 (See Songs of the South) served as Follower on the Left 左徒 35 “Divination” 卜居 37, 40 “Far-off Journey” 遠游 37 “Fisherman, The” 漁父 35, 37 “Heavenly Questions” 天問 34, 37, 42, 45 “Nine Pieces” 九章 34, 37, 40 “Alas for the Days Gone By” 惜往日 40 “Crossing the River” 涉江 40 “Embracing Sand” 懷沙 31, 37, 40, 42 “Grieving at the Eddying Wind” 悲回風 40 “Grieving I Make My Plaint” 惜誦 40 “In Praise of the Orange-Tree” 橘頌 40 “Lament for Ying, A” 哀郢 37, 40–41 “Outpouring of Sad Thoughts, The” 抽思 40 “Thinking of a Fair One” 思美人 40 “Nine Songs” 九歌 33–34, 37, 42–44, 46, 49 Great Unity, God of the Eastern Sky 東皇太一 43 Greater Master of Fate 大司命 43 Honoring the Dead 禮魂 43 Hymn to the Fallen 國殤 43–44

950

glossary-index

Lesser Master of Fate 少司命 43 Lady of the Xiang 湘夫人 43–44 Lord of the East 東君 43 Lord of the Xiang 湘君 43–44 Lord within the Clouds 雲中君 43 Mountain Spirit 山鬼 43–44 River Earl 河伯 43 “On Encountering Trouble” (Li Sao) 離騷 34–35, 37–40, 44, 48, 425 n. 5, 609–610 Chonghua 重華 39 coda (luan) 亂 40 li (to leave or to be detached from) 離 37 li (to suffer from or to encounter) 罹 37 Nü Xu 女嬃 39 “Summons of the Soul” 招魂 33–34, 37 Queen Mother of the West 西王母 736 Ran You 冉有 65 Records from the Outlying Yue 越絕書 11 Records from the Wilderness of the Xiang Mountains 湘山野錄 471 Records of Clans 氏族志 267 Records of Flora and Fauna 博物志 370 Records of Heroes 英雄譜 646 Records of the Huayang State 華陽國志 370 Records of the Political Strategists of the Warring States Period 戰國縱橫家書 60 Refined Literature (wen) 文 227 refined taste 雅 430, 432, 439 Reform of 1898 戊戌變法 827, 829 Hundred Days’ Reform 百日維新 831 Remarks Recorded while Staying Away from the Heat 避暑錄話 434 Ren Fang 任昉 234 Ren Na 任訥 704 General Introduction to the Individual Aria 散曲概論 704 Restoration Society (Ming) 復社 766, 856, 858, 861 restrain the cruel oppressor 禁苛暴 80–81 restrain oneself 克己 4 restraining oneself and controlling fear 克自抑畏 4 retelling of history 講史 557, 560

Revolution of 1911 辛亥革命 895 rhapsody (rhyme-prose) 辭賦 12, 14, 75–99, 165, 174–175, 177, 196, 198, 220, 387–388, 485, 493 rhapsody on capital 京都賦 93 rhapsody recounting a journey 紀行賦 89, 94, 97 Rhetoric outweighing substance: that’s the Scribe 文勝質則史 9 Rig Veda 7 rites 禮 4–5 Rites of Zhou 周禮 29 Rocks Nod Their Heads, The 石點頭 753 (author) Tianran Chisou (“An Old Man Crazy by Birth”) 天然癡叟 753 Romance of the Investiture of the Gods 封神演義 743–744 Jiang Ziya 姜子牙 743–744 King Wu 武王 743–744 King Zhou 紂王 743–744 Nezha 哪吒 744 Shu Zaiyang 舒載陽 743 Xu Zhonglin 許仲琳 (attributed author) 743 Romance of the Sui and Tang 隋唐演義 560 Romance of the Three Kingdoms 三國演義 (See Luo Guanzhong) [original title: Popular Romance of History of the Three Kingdoms 三國志通俗演義] 639–650 “Guan Yu Decapitates Hua Xiong while the Wine Is Still Warm” 關羽溫酒斬華雄 643 Gongsun Zan 公孫瓚 643 Wen Chou 文醜 643 Yan Liang 顏良 643 Mao Lun 毛綸 639 Mao Zonggang 毛宗綱 639 Mi Heng 彌衡 642 “Beating Drums and Abusing Cao” 擊鼓罵曹 642 Pang De 龐德 642 Rong 戎 20 Rousseau, Jean Jacques (1712–1778) 823 Royal Charters of a Shining Age 昭代王章 721 Royalists Society 保皇會 834 Ru River 汝水 16 Ruan Dacheng (ca. 1587–1646) 阮大鋮 [style, Jizhi 集之] 766–768

glossary-index literary name: Yuan Hai (“Round Sea”) 圓海 767 native of Huaining 懷寧 (within Anhui today) 767 Plays from the Hall of Unbosoming 詠懷堂傳奇 767 Spring Lantern Riddles 春燈謎 767 (complete title) Ten Misidentifications: Spring Lantern Riddles 十錯認春燈謎 767 Swallow’s Love Note, The 燕子箋 767 Fei Yun 飛雲 767 Huo Duliang 霍都梁 767 Li Andao 酈安道 767 “Picking up the Note” 拾箋 767 “Returning in Drunkenness in Someone’s Arms” 醉扶歸 768 Putuo 普陀 768 Xing Yun 行雲 767 Xianyu Ji 鮮于佶 767 Two Candidates on the Golden List 雙金榜 767 Union of Buddhist Pearls 牟尼合 767 Ruan Ji (210–263) 阮籍 [style, Sizong 嗣宗] 150, 167–172, 182, 565 native of Weishi, Chenliu 陳留尉氏 (Kaifeng 開封, Henan today) 167 “Biography of a Great Man” 大人先生傳 170 “On Understanding Zhuangzi” 達莊論 170 “Poems from My Heart” 詠懷詩 167–170 Ruan Yu 阮瑀 99, 157, 159 Ruan Yuan 阮元 805 “A Colophon to the Foreword to Selections of Refined Literature by the Crown Prince Zhaoming of the Liang” 書梁昭明太子文選序後 805 Ruan Xian 阮咸 167 Rules of Maritime Trade 市舶則法 573 Sa Dula (ca. 1300–?) 薩都剌 [style, Tianxi 天錫] 628 literary name: Zhizhai (“Studio of Integrity”) 直齋 628 “Double Ninth Day” 九日 628–629 Beigu Hill 北固山 628

951

“Lovely Nian Nu: Ascending the Tower of the Stone City in Dongpo’s Rhyme Scheme” 念奴嬌·登石頭城次東坡韻 629 “Song of Parrot: Inscribed on Consort Yang’s Embroidered Pillow” 鸚鵡曲題楊妃繡枕 628 “Trip to the West Lake, A” 遊西湖 628 Saitō Seiken 齋藤正謙 118–119 Remarks on Literature from the Clumsy Studio 拙堂文話 119 scholar clan 士族 148–151, 178, 180 School of the Gate of the Great Capital 鴻都門學 97 School of the Yellow Lord and Laozi 黃老 114 School of Natural Sensibility 性靈派 795 (See Yuan Mei) School of the Song Lyric of Western Zhejiang 浙西詞派 782, 784 (See Zhu Yizun) Gong Xianglin 龔翔麟 784 Song Lyrics of Six Masters from Western Zhejiang 浙西六家詞 784 School of Yin and Yang 陰陽家 75 Scribe 史 9 “Secret Biography of Emperor Wu of the Han, The” (attributed to Ban Gu) 漢武帝內傳 189 Seven Masters of the Jian’an Period 建安七子 157 Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove 竹林七賢 167 Shaman 巫 9 Shan Tao 山濤 167, 171 served as Director of the Personnel Ministry 吏部郎 171 Shanyin 山陰 183 Shang (Dynasty) 商 4, 13 Shang Zhongxian 尚仲賢 592 Liu Yi Forwards a Letter 柳毅傳書 592 Shangguan Yi (ca. 608–664) 上官儀 [style, Youshao 游韶] 269 Shanghai News 申報 887 Shanhai Pass 山海關 773 Shaoguan 韶關 788 Shao Qitao 邵齊燾 806 Shao Yong 邵雍 675 posthumous title: Master Kangjie 康節先生 675 Shelley, Percy Bysshe 836–837

952

glossary-index

Shen Defu 沈德符 713–715, 734, 741, 757 A Book of Acquisitions from Out of Office during the Wanli Reign 萬歷野獲編 713 “Along the Pu River” 濮上 714 “Among Mulberries” 桑間 714 “By the Side of the Dressing Table” 傍妝臺 713 “Clay Figurine” 泥涅人 713, 715 “Crying to the Imperial Heaven” 哭皇天 713 “Divination by Shoes” 鞋打卦 713 “Dried Lotus Leaves” 乾荷葉 713 “Hanging on the Twigs” 掛枝兒 713 “Holding out Hair in a Coil” 熬狄髻 713 “Intoxication in Peace” 醉太平 713 “Lament at the Silk River” 羅江怨 713, 716 “Locking up Southern Branch” 鎖南枝 710, 713, 715 “Loops of Silver String” 銀紐絲 713 “Making a Scene at Dawn” 鬧五更 713 “Mistletoe” 寄生草 713 “Pink Lotus” 粉紅蓮 713 “Playing with Kids” 耍孩兒 713 “Pole to Strike Jujubes” 打棗桿 713 “Reproving Sheep on the Hillside” 數落山坡羊 714 “Sheep on the Hillside” 山坡羊 713–714 “Song of Tongcheng” 桐城歌 713 “Stop the Scudding Clouds” 駐雲飛 713–714 Miscellaneous Notes on the Aria 顧曲雜言 757 (See Tang Xianzu’s Peony Pavilion) Shang Xiaoling 商小玲 757 Yu Erniang 俞二娘 (of Loujiang 婁江) 757 Shen Deqian (1673–1769) 沈德潛 [style, Queshi 確士] 145, 163, 175, 664, 793–795 literary name: Guiyu (“Return to Foolishness”) 歸愚 793 Metropolitan Graduate at sixty-seven years old 793

served as Grand Secretary and concurrently as Vice Minister of Rites 內閣學士兼禮部侍郎 793 Differentiation of Ming Poetry 明詩別裁集 794 Differentiation of the Poetry of Our Dynasty 國朝詩別裁集 794 (alias, Differentiation of Qing Poetry 清詩別裁集 794) “Introduction to Differentiation of the Poetry of Our Dynasty” 國朝詩別裁集·凡例 794 Differentiation of Tang Poetry 唐詩別裁集 793 Origins of the Old Poems, The 古詩源 145, 793 sound and prosody 格調 794–795 Toddler Remarks on Poetry 說詩晬語 163 “Twelve Quatrains on Ming Poetry” 論明詩十二斷句 664 Shen Fu (1763–?) 沈復 [style, Sanbai 三白] 810–811 native of Suzhou, Jiangsu 810 Six Records of a Floating Life 浮生六記 810–811 Chen Yun 陳芸 810 “The Joy of the Wedding Chamber” 閨房記樂 810 “The Pleasures of Leisure” 閑情記趣 810 “The Sorrows of Misfortune” 坎坷記愁 810 Shen Gua 沈括 412 Shen Jiji (ca. 750–797) 沈既濟 396–397, 402–403, 761 served as Senior Compiler at the Historiography Institute 史館修撰 396 “An Account of the World inside a Pillow” 枕中記 396, 402–403, 761 “Beautiful Dream of Yellow Millet” 黃粱美夢 402, 761 Handan 邯鄲 402 Master Lu 盧生 402 Old Lü 呂翁 402 “The Story of Lady Ren” 任氏傳 396–397 Wei Yin 韋崟 397 Zheng Liu 鄭六 397 Shen Jing (1553–1610) 沈璟 [style, Boying 伯英] 754, 762–763

glossary-index literary names: Ning’an (“Shrine of Serenity”) 寧庵, Ciyin (“Recluse in the Song Lyric”) 詞隱 762 native of Wujiang 吳江 (within Jiangsu today) 762 Master Ciyin on the Aria 詞隱先生論曲 762 Musical Scores of the Thirteen Tunes in the Nine Southern Gong Modes 南九宮十三調 754, 762 Story of the Buried Sword 埋劍記 763 Story of the Mutual Dream 同夢記 762 (See Tang Xianzu’s Peony Pavilion) Story of a Pair of Fish 雙魚記 763 Story of the Red Dasheen 紅蕖記 763 Shen Quanqi (ca. 656–713) 沈佺期 [styled Yunqing 雲卿] 269–271 “Missing Him in Loneliness” 獨不見 271 Shen Sheng 申生 59 Shen Shi (1488–1565) 沈仕 [style, Maoxue 懋學] 707 literary name: Qingmen Shanren (“Mountaineer of the Green Gate”) 青門山人 707 Green Gate Style 青門體 707 “Locking up the Southern Branches: A Song about What I Saw” 鎖南枝·詠所見 707 Shen Tai 沈泰 754 Variety Plays of the High Ming 盛明雜劇 754 Shen Tingfang 沈庭芳 792 “A Colophon to the Biography of Master Fang” 書方先生傳後 792 Shen Yue (441–513) 沈约 [style, Xiuwen 休文] 215–217 native of Wukang, Wuxing 吳興武康 (modern town of Wukang, in Deqing, Zhejiang 浙江德清武康鎮) 215 served as the Director of the Imperial Secretariat 尚書令 215 “A Discussion in Reply to Lord Zhen” 答甄公論 216 “Lament for Xie Tiao, A” 傷謝朓 217 “Leaving for Dingshan Early in the Morning” 早發定山 217 “Listening to the Crying of Apes at the Stone Pond Rapids” 石塘瀨聽猿 217 The Manuel of the Four Tones 四聲譜 215

953

“Saying Farewell to Fan Ancheng” 別范安成 217 “Six Tablets of Memory” 六憶 217 “Song of Night after Night” 夜夜曲 217 theory of “Four Tones and Eight Defects” 四聲八病說 196, 216 bee’s waist 蜂腰 216 crane’s knee 鶴膝 216 joining tails 上尾 216 juxtaposed heads 平頭 216 Shen Zengzhi 沈曾植 827 Shen Zijin 沈自晉 763 Lakeview Pavilion 望湖亭 763 “Riverside Fairy” 臨江仙 763 Sheng (reed pipe) 笙 15 Sheng Hongzhi 盛弘之 237 Notes on Jingzhou 荊州記 237 Sheng Ruzi 盛如梓 612 Miscellaneous Notes from Someone Who Studies in Old Age at the Commoner’s Studio 庶齋老學叢談 612 shi (“poetry”) 詩 411, 416–418, 429, 438, 440, 445–446, 449, 452–453, 459, 503, 508, 515, 533, 589, 606–607, 615, 633, 640, 711, 781, 784, 802, 804 Shi Hui 施惠 [style, Junmei 君美] 603–604 The Story of the Moon-Praying Pavilion 拜月亭記 [alias The Story of the Secluded Boudoir 幽閨記] 599, 603–604 Jiang Shilong 蔣世隆 604 Wang Rulan 王瑞蘭 604 Shi Jie (1005–1045) 石介 463 “On the Strange” 怪說 463 Five Constant Virtues 五常 463 Nine Measures 九疇 463 Three Cardinal Guides 三綱 463 Two Orders 二儀 463 Shi Junbao 石君寶 592 Qiu Hu Plays Tricks on His Wife 秋胡戲妻 592 Shi Miyuan 史彌遠 538 Shi Nai’an 施耐庵 (See Story of the Water Margin, The) 645–646, 651 Shi Shaoxin (ca. 1588–ca. 1630) 施紹莘 [style, Ziye 子野] 712 literary name: Fengmao Langxian (“Dissolute Immortal of Mountains and Lakes”) 峰泖浪仙 712 native of Huating 華亭 (Songjiang, Shanghai today) 712

954

glossary-index

“ ‘God Erlang in the Southern Shang Mode: Affection for Flower” 南商調二郎神·惜花 712 “Three Sections” 三段子 712 Shi Siming 史思明 148 n. 2 Shi Yukun 石玉昆 885 Three Chivalrous Mens and Five Warriors 三俠五義 881, 884–886 Original Title: Tales of Men of Chivalry and Loyalty 忠烈俠義傳 885 The Cases of Judge Bao 龍圖公案 885 Lord Bao (Zheng) 包公 (包拯) 885 Ouyang Chun, Gallant of the North 北俠歐陽春 886 Zhan Zhao, Gallant of the South 南俠展昭 886 Shi Zhezhi 史宅之 544 Shuangjian in the City of Yuzhang 雙漸豫章城 569 Shun 舜 37, 39 Siddhartha 426 Sikong Shu 司空曙 329 Sikong Tu 司空圖 331, 338, 370, 780 “Inscription at the End of Liu Zongyuan’s Works” 題柳柳州集後 338 “Letter on Poetry to Mr. Li, A” 與李生論詩書 331 “Letter to Jipu” 與極浦書 370 Sima Guang 司馬光 321, 444 More Remarks on Poetry from Wengong 溫公續詩話 321 Sima Lun (Prince of Zhao) 司馬倫 (趙王) 177 Sima Qian (145–ca. 87 B.C.) 司馬遷 [style, Zichang 子長] 31–32, 35, 37, 43 n. 7, 45, 58, 101, 108–109, 112–124, 500, 661, 675–676, 694, 789 native of Xiayang 夏陽, Zuopingyi 左憑翊1 (modern Hancheng 韓城 in Shaanxi) 112 born in Longmen (“Dragon Gate”) 龍門 676 n. 4 “Letter in Reply to Ren An, A” 報任安書 58

Historical Records 史記 [Grand Astrologer’s Book 太史公書 5] 12, 31–32, 101, 112–124, 500, 590, 678 banquet at Hongmen 鴻門宴 119–120 Basic Annals 本紀 113, 119 Biographies/Accounts 傳 113, 115 “Biographies of Cruel Officials” 酷吏列傳 116 “Biographies of Guan Zhong and Yan Ying” 管仲晏嬰列傳 115 “Biographies of the Moneymakers” 貨殖列傳 114 “Biography of Boyi” 伯夷列傳 114–115 Shu Qi 叔齊 115 “Biography of Chao Cuo” 晁錯列傳 122 “Biography of Li Si” 李斯列傳 119 “Biography of Sima Xiangru” 司馬相如列傳 500 “Grand Astrologer’s Postface for Himself ” 太史公自序 116 Hereditary Houses 世家 113 “Hereditary House of the Lord of Zhou” 周公世家 156 n. 4 “Hereditary House of Zhao” 趙世家 590 Historical Tables 表 113 Monographs 書 113 Textual Research of the Collected Annotations of the Historical Records 史記會注考証 119 Sima Rui (Prince of Langya) 司馬睿 (瑯玡王) 180 Sima Shi 司馬師 7 000 Sima Tan 司馬談 112 Sima Xiangru (?–118 B.C.) 司馬相如 [style, Changqing 長卿] 79, 83–89, 93, 104 native of Chengdu, the Shu Commandery 蜀郡成都 (in modern Sichuan) 83 “Proclamation to Ba and Shu, A” 喻巴蜀檄 104

1 Literally “Guardian on the Left,” one of the three commanderies 郡 or administrative areas (the “Three Guardians” 三輔) around the capital Chang’an during Emperor Wu’s reign, respectively ruled by the Metropolitan Governor 京兆尹, the Guardian on the Left (official title same as that of the commandery), and the Guardian on the Right 右扶風.

glossary-index “Rhapsody in Lament for the Second Emperor” 哀二世賦 86 “Rhapsody on the Fair One” 美人賦 84 “Rhapsody on the Great Men” 大人賦 83 “Rhapsody on the Shanglin Park” 上林賦 83–84, 89 “Rhapsody on Sir Vacuous” 子虛賦 83–84 Lord No-Such 亡是公 84 Master Improbable 烏有先生 84 Sir Vacuous 子虛 83–84 “Rhapsody on the Tall Gate Palace” 長門賦 84, 86, 88 Sima Yan 司馬炎 172 Sima Yi 司馬懿 166–167, 174 Sima Yi (Prince of Changsha) 司馬乂 (長沙王) 174 Sima Ying (Prince of Chengdu) 司馬穎 (成都王) 174 Sima Zhao 司馬昭 172 Siming Mountains 四明山 622 Sleeping Tiger Land of Yunmeng 雲夢睡虎地 129 small talk 小說 557 Sobering Stone, The 醉醒石 753 (author) Dong Lu Gu Kuangsheng (“Ancient Crazy Scholar of Eastern Lu”) 東魯古狂生 753 Song (dynasty) 宋 40, 137, 188, 267–268, 290, 309, 311, 320, 336, 340, 359, 375, 378, 384, 387, 392, 411–413, 428–505, 507–564, 567–569, 571, 573–574, 597–598, 600, 620, 630 n. 8, 634, 635 n. 12, 636, 640, 645, 647, 656, 661, 666, 675, 681, 756, 774, 820 n. 9, 826 Song (dynasty during the Age of Division) 劉宋 193, 196, 203-214, 254, 261, 263 Song Jiang 宋江 591–592, 645–646 Song Lian (1310–1381) 宋濂 [style, Jinglian 景濂] 629–630, 660–662, 666, 673 literary name: Qianxi (“Underlying Stream”) 潛溪 660 served as Editor-in-Chief of History of the Yuan 元史總裁; Hanlin Academician, Recipient of Edicts 翰林學士承旨; Drafter 知制誥 660 “Foreword to Collection of Memorable Pieces” 可傳集序 630

955

“Foreword to Prose Collection of Instructor Xu” 徐教授文集序 661 Origin of Writing 文原 661, 666 Song Sheng (grandson) 宋慎 662 song lyric (ci) 詞 137, 227, 251, 361, 371, 373–374, 411–459, 465, 469, 485, 503–504, 508, 511–519, 529–530, 532–554, 557, 561–566, 589, 597, 606–607, 613–615, 618, 623, 629, 636, 640, 704, 708, 711–713, 715, 735, 739, 773, 781–787, 802–804, 815, 819, 841, 862 “bold and unconstrained” (haofang 豪放) style 413, 450, 453 harmony 和聲 412, 429 lyric for the song 曲子詞 412 overtone 泛聲 412 Song Lyric (Anonymous) 414–415 “Bodhisattva Barbarian” 菩薩蠻 (attributed to Li Bo) 415 “Recalling the Lady from Qin” 憶秦娥 (attributed to Li Bo) 415 Song Lyric of Dunhuang 燉煌曲子詞 414–415 Collection of Cloud Ballads and Miscellaneous Songs 雲謠集雜曲子 414 “Fairy from Heaven” 天仙子 415 “Looking across Jiangnan” 望江南 414 “Magpie Steps on the Branch” 鵲踏枝 414 Song Maocheng 宋懋澄 733, 747–749 “Biography of the Unfaithful Lover” 負情儂傳 733, 747, 749 “Pearl Shirt” 珠衫 733, 748–749 Song of Sacrifices in the Suburbs” 郊祀歌 130 “Song of the Western Gate” 西門行 132 “Song of the Yue Native” 越人歌 34 song poems 歌詩 136 song text 詞文 405–406, 409 “Song of the Teasing of the Bridegroom” 下女夫詞 406 “Song Text of Ji Bu Shouting Abuses in front of Formations” 季布罵陣詞文 406 Qiaozhou 喬州 406 Song Zhiwen (ca. 656–ca. 713) 宋之問 [styled Yanqing 延清] 269–270, 272 “Funeral Oration for Academician Du Shenyan” 祭杜學士審言文 272 Song Zihou 宋子侯 142 “Dong Jiaorao” 董嬌饒 142

956

glossary-index

Song Yu 宋玉 12, 45–49 “Responding to the Question of the King of Chu” 對楚王問 46 “Rhapsody on the Gaotang Shrine” 高唐賦 46 “Rhapsody on the Goddess” 神女賦 46 “Rhapsody on Master Dengtu the Lecher” 登徒子好色賦 46 “Rhapsody on the Wind” 風賦 46 Songs of the South, The 楚辭 (See also Qu Yuan and Song Yu) 6–7, 12, 30–49, 76, 80, 83 “Great Summons” 大招 76, 80, 83 “Nine Arguments” 九辯 34, 45–48 “Sorrowful Song, A” 傷歌行 99 Sound of Wu 吳聲 227 southern play 南戲 (play text 戲文) 593, 597–605 Missteps of the Son of an Official Family 宦門弟子錯立身 598 Story of Liu Zhiyuan and the White Rabbit, The 劉知遠白兔記 603–604 Li Sanniang 李三娘 605 Sun Junior the Butcher 小孫屠 598–599 Wang Kui 王魁 598 Zhang Xie the Principal Graduate 張協狀元 598 Zhao Zhennü and Cai Erlang 趙貞女蔡二郎 598, 600 Cai Bojie (Cai Yong) 蔡伯喈 (蔡邕) 600–602 Zhao Wuniang 趙五娘 600–603 Southern Sect of Painting 南宗畫派 287 “Southern Twigs” 瑣南枝 672 “Southeast the Peacock Flies” 孔雀東南飛 10, 143–146 spiritual charm 神韻 289 Spring and Autumn (period) 春秋 9–11 Spring and Autumn Annals, The 春秋 11, 51–54 “Stories of Emperor Wu of the Han, The” (attributed to Ban Gu) 漢武帝故事 189 Story of the Crying Phoenix 鳴鳳記 (attributed by some to Wang Shizhen) 725–726, 860 Dong Chuance 董傳策 726 Yan Song 嚴嵩 726 Yang Jisheng 楊繼盛 726 Zhao Wenhua 趙文華 726

“Story of the Land in a Cavern” (attributed to Guo Xian 郭憲) 洞冥記 189 Story of the Water Margin, The 水滸傳 15–16, 19 [See Shi Nai’an and Luo Guanzhong] 591, 639, 645–651, 686, 849, 852, 883 Complete title: Complete Story about Loyalty and Righteousness of the Water Margin, The 忠義水滸全傳 646 Edition of the Indulgence Hall 容與堂本 646 Edition of Yuan Wuya 袁無涯刻本 646 Tian Hu 田虎 646 Wang Qin 王慶 646 “Officer Outside the Imperial Capital” 天都外臣 (foreword author) 646 Chao Gai 晁蓋 645, 648 Li Kui 李逵 590–592, 649–651, 850 Lin Chong 林沖 648, 651 Commander-in-Chief Gao 高太尉 651 Master Gao 高衙內 651 Shrine of the Mountain God 山神廟 648 Lu Zhishen 魯智深 591–592, 648–651 Jin Cuilian 金翠蓮 649 Zheng the Butcher 鄭屠 649 “Practice the Way on Behalf of Heaven” 替天行道 647–648 Shi En 施恩 649 Sister-in-Law Gu 顧大嫂 649 Song Jiang 宋江 591–592, 645–646 Temple of the Dark Lady of the Highest Heavens 九天玄女廟 645 Yan Poxi 閻婆惜 645 Three Ruan Brothers 阮氏三兄弟 648 Wu Song 武松 648–650 Director-in-Chief Zhang 張都監 648 Door-God Jiang 蔣門神 649 Jingyang Hill 景陽岡 648 Mandarin Ducks Tower 鴛鴦摟 648 Shi En 施恩 649 Wu Yong 吳用 648 Xie Bao 解寶 648 Xie Zhen 解珍 648 Dengzhou 登州 649

glossary-index Great-Grandfather Mao 毛太公 648 Yang Zhi 楊志 645, 651 Niu the Second 牛二 651 Zhang Qing 張青 649 Zhu Tong 朱仝 649 storytelling (shuo hua) 說話 574, 600, 634, 636–637, 640, 645, 650 “Strange Connection between Shen and Wang: a Fireside Story of Jiao and Hong, The” 申王奇遘擁爐嬌紅記 [attributed to Song Meidong 宋梅洞 (Song Yuan 宋遠) or Yu Ji 虞集] 637 [shortened as “The Story of Jiao and Hong” 嬌紅記 637, 720 Controller-General Wang 王通判 638 Jiao Niang 嬌娘 638 Shen Chun 申純 638 strummed lyric 彈詞 409, 819–821 Dream of Pomegranate Flowers 榴花夢 820–821 Wooden Fish Tales 木魚書 820 Study of (Confucian) Classics 經學 75, 79, 112, 771, 791, 803–804, 806 Classical Study of Confucian Classics 古文經學 105 Contemporary Study of Confucian Classics 今文經學 105, 804 Study of the Principles 理學 (See Lixue) Study of the Way 道學 (See Daoxue) style 字 (Chinese name system) style of the Spring and Autumn Annals 春秋筆法 54 Style of the Supreme School 太學體 481 Style of Terrace and Hall 臺閣體 663–664, 673 Three Yang’s 三楊 663–664 Yang Pu 楊溥 663 Yang Rong 楊榮 663–664 “Preface to Collection of Self-Retrospection” 省愆集序 664 Yang Shiqi 楊士奇 663 “Preface to Poetry Collection from the Jade Snow Studio” 玉雪齋詩集序 663 Style of Tongzhi and Guangxu (Style of Tong/Guang) 同光體 827–829 Su Che (1039–1112) 蘇轍 [style, Ziyou 子由] 444, 461, 480, 486, 496, 504

957

“An Account of the Delightful Pavilion in Huangzhou” 黃州快哉亭記 486 Sayings from the Late Su Che 欒城遺言 486 Su Chuo 蘇綽 202 “The Great Mandate” 大誥 202 Su Manshu (1884–1918) 蘇曼殊 836–837 “Mailed to the Koto-Player” 寄調箏人 837 “Ten Occasional Poems” 本事詩十章 837 Su Qin 蘇秦 61, 291 Su Shi (1037–1101) 蘇軾 [style, Zizhan 子瞻] 187, 287, 413, 444–450, 452–453, 455, 461, 474, 480, 485–486, 490–497, 501, 503–505, 508, 512, 516–518, 533, 536–537, 539, 564, 629, 640, 690, 695, 804 literary name: Dongpo (“Eastern Slope”) 東坡 444 born in Meishan 眉山 (within Sichuan today) 444 served as Controller-General of Hangzhou 杭州通判, Prefect 知州 of Mizhou 密州, Xuzhou 徐州 and Huzhou 湖州; Vice Military Training Commissioner of Huangzhou 黃州團練副使; Prefect of Hangzhou 知杭州 444 “Case of Poetry at the Blackbird Pavilion” 烏臺詩案 448 “Blackbird Pavilion” 烏臺 [Censorate 御史臺] 448 died in Changzhou 常州 445 “An Account of the Stone Bells Mountain” 石鐘山記 492 Li Bo 李渤 492 “Chanting of Dragon in Water” 水龍吟 449 Dongpo’s Memorabilia 東坡志林 640 Dongpo’s Postscripts and Colophons 東坡題跋 501 “Eating Litchis” 食荔支 496 “Feeling Weary at Night” 倦夜 496 “First Rhapsody of the Red Cliff ” 前赤壁賦 485, 493 “Fortuneteller” 卜算子 449 “Heading of Water Tune: Mid-Autumn Festival, 1076” 水調歌頭·丙辰中秋 447–448, 453, 518

958

glossary-index

“In Response to Su Che: Recalling the Past at Mianchi” 和子由渑池懷舊 496 “Inscribed on the Wall of West Forest Temple” 題西林壁 495 “Letter in Reply to Xie Minshi” 答謝民師書 491 “Letter to Su Che, A” 與蘇轍書 187 “Lovely Nian Nu: Recalling the Antiquity at Red Cliff ” 念奴嬌·赤壁懷古 448, 453 “Memorial on How Military Commanders on the Frontiers Covered Up Their Defeat and Loss and How the Authorities Concerned Failed to Establish the Truth” 論邊將隱匿敗亡憲司體量不實札子 445 “Memorial to Emperor Shenzong” 上神宗皇帝書 492 “Note Inscribed on the Back of Li Taibo’s Monument” 李太白碑陰記 490–491 “On Chao Cuo” 晁錯論 492 “On Fan Zeng” 范增論 492 “On Han Fei” 韓非論 492 “On Hui Chong’s Evening Scenes along the Spring River” 惠崇春江晚景 495 “On Jia Yi” 賈誼論 492 “On the Road to Xincheng” 新城道中 494 “On Zhang Liang” 留侯論 492 “Riverside Town” 江城子 446 “Written on Mojie’s Image of Mist and Rain at Lantian” 書摩詰藍田煙雨圖 287 “Written while in Dan’er” 在儋耳書 494 Su Shunqin (1008–1048) 蘇舜欽 [style, Zimei 子美] 464, 474, 478–480 native of Kaifeng (within Henan today) 478 served as a district magistrate 縣令; Subeditor at the Academy of Scholarly Worthies 集賢殿校理 478 built the Canglang Pavilion 滄浪亭 478 “Defeat at Qingzhou” 慶州敗 479 “Facing Wine” 對酒 479 “Letter Presented to Sun Cong, Grand Master of Remonstration, A” 上孫沖諫議書 464

“Poem in Exchange: Running into a Favorable Wind on the Huai River” 和淮上遇便風 479 “Severe Drought in Wu and Yue” 吳越大旱 479 “Taste of Summer, A” 夏意 479 “Thoughts at Southern City: Presented to Ouyang Xiu” 城南感懷呈永叔 479–480 Su Wu 蘇武 127, 135 Su Xun (1009–1066) 蘇洵 [style, Mingyun 明允] 444, 481, 486 “On the Six States” 六國論 486 subtle enlightenment 妙悟 289 subtle words with profound meaning 微言大義 54 such 類 42 Sui (Dynasty) 隋 193, 197, 202, 233, 251–254, 250–251 Sui Jingchen 睢景臣 616 “Exposition in the Banshe (Yu) Tone: Emperor Gaozu Returning to Homeland” 般涉調哨遍·高祖還鄉 616 Sun Chuo 孫綽 183 Sun Quan 孫權 535–536 Sun Xingyan 孫星衍 806 Sun Zhongshan 孫中山 893 “Supplementary Records of the Daye Reign” 大業拾遺記 559–560 Yu Shi’nan 虞世南 560 Yuan Bao’er 袁寶兒 560 Sutra lecture text 講經文 405, 407 “Lecture Text of the Buddhacarita Amitābah Sutra” 佛說阿彌陀經講經文 407 “Lecture Text of the Lotus Sutra” 妙法蓮華經講經文 407 “Lecture Text of the Scripture on the Great Debt of Gratitude to Parents” 父母恩重經講經文 407 “Lecture Text of the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa Sutra” 維摩詰經講經文 407 Sutra stories 說經 557 n. 6 Tai 邰 19 Taiping Heavenly Kingdom 太平天國 825, 832 Taiyuan 太原 771 tale of the marvelous (See chuan qi) 傳奇 tale of the supernatural (zhi guai) 志怪 189–192, 261–262, 845–846, 876

glossary-index Tan Sitong (1865–1898) 譚嗣同 829–830 A Study of Benevolence 仁學 830 “Tong Pass” 潼關 830 Tan Xian 譚獻 781–782 Song Lyrics within the Suitcase 篋中詞 782 Tan Yuanchun (1586–1637) 譚元春 [style, Youxia 友夏] 697–699 Destination of Poetry 詩歸 (with Zhong Xing) 698–699 Destination of Ancient Poetry 古詩歸 698 Destination of Tang Poetry 唐詩歸 698 “View of the Broken Silk Pond, A” 觀裂帛湖 698 Tang 湯 2, 12 Tang (dynasty) 唐 55, 92, 136, 148, 149, 188, 197, 207, 211, 214, 228, 231, 239, 246, 250, 258, 260, 267–389, 391–419, 421 n. 4, 460–462, 471, 483, 504, 557, 559, 565, 617, 625 n. 6, 637, 650, 660, 672, 728–729, 767, 848, 851–853 Early Tang 初唐 267–279, 305–308 High Tang 盛唐 267–268, 279–308 Late Tang 晚唐 309, 360–389 Mid-Tang 中唐 309–360 Tang Ju 唐且 60 Tang Le 唐勒 12 Tang Shunzhi (1507–1560) 唐順之 674–676, 678 “Another Letter to Hong Fangzhou” 又與洪方洲書 676 “In Reply to Superintendent of Education Liao Dongyu” 答廖東雩提學 676 “Letter to Wang Yaoqu, A” 與王堯衢書 675 “The Second Letter in Reply to District Magistrate Mao Kun” 答茅鹿門知縣第二書 676 “To Chen Lianghu” 與陳兩湖 675 “To Vice Minister Hu Boquan” 與胡柏泉參政 675 “To Vice Minister Wang Zhunyan” 王遵岩參政 675 Tang-Song School 唐宋派 674–678 Tang Xianzu (1550–1616) 湯顯祖 [style, Yireng 義仍] 754–756, 759, 761–763 literary names: Ruo Shi (“Like a Scholar”) 若士, Qingyuan Daoren

959

(“The Serene and Remote Taoist Priest”) 清遠道人 754 native of Lingchuan, Jiangxi 754 Metropolitan Graduate in the 11th year of the Wanli reign (1583) 754 served as Secretary at the Ministry of Rites in Nanjing 南京吏部主事, District Jailor at the Xuwen District in Guangdong 廣東徐聞縣典史, District Magistrate at Suichang, Zhejiang 浙江遂昌知縣 754 “Foreword to Gathering of the Strange” 合奇序 755 “Foreword to Qiu Maobo’s Manuscript” 序邱毛伯稿 755 “Foreword to Shen’s Discussion of Gain by Shooting” 沈氏弋說序 756 Four Dreams from the Jade Tea Hall, The 玉茗堂四夢 762 “In Reply to Lü Jiangshan” 答呂姜山 755 “Mailed to Da Guan” 寄達觀 754, 756–759, 761–762, 764 Peony Pavilion 牡丹亭 (complete title) Story of the Revival from Death at the Peony Pavilion 牡丹亭還魂記 756–762, 764 “Falling in Love Du Liniang Revives after Death” 杜麗娘慕色還魂記 756 “Awakened from a Dream” 驚夢 757, 759 “Black Silk Robe” 皂羅袍 757, 759 Chen Zuiliang 陳最良 758 Du Bao 杜寶 756 Du Liniang 杜麗娘 756–761 “In Search of a Dream” 尋夢 757, 759 Li Quan 李全 756 Liu Mengmei 柳夢梅 756–758 “Painting the Self-Portrait” 寫真 759 “Prelude to Revelation of Mind” 傾懷序 760 “The Sound of Wild Geese Passing By in Flight” 雁過聲 760 Story of Handan 邯鄲記 756, 761–762 Master Lu 盧生 761 Revenue Manager of Yazhou 厓州司戶 761

960

glossary-index

Story of the Purple Flute 紫簫記 756 Story of the Purple Hairpins 紫釵記 756, 762 Story of the Southern Branch 南柯記 756, 762 Tang Yin (1470–1524) 唐寅 [style, Bohu 伯虎; alias Ziwei 子畏] 667, 669–670, 689, 705 literary names: Liuru Jushi (“Layman Buddhist of the Six Likes”) 六如居士, Taohua’an Zhu (“Master of the Peach Flower Shrine”) 桃花庵主 669 “Expressing My Will” 言志 670 “On an Event at the Chang Gate” 閶門即事 670 “Rhapsody on the Gilded Land of Blessing” 金粉福地賦 670 “Song of Holding the Wine and Facing the Moon” 把酒對月歌 670 “Song in Intoxication” 醉時歌 670 “Song of the Peach Flower Shrine” 桃花庵歌 670 “Song of a Year” 一年歌 670 Tang Ying (ca. 1682–ca. 1754) 唐英 879 Clapper Opera 梆子腔 880–885 Drama from the Old Cypress Hall 古柏堂傳奇 879 Hillock at Crossroads 十字坡 880 Wu Song Smashes the Wine-Shop 武松打店 880 Laugh about the Flour Jar 面缸笑 880 Striking the Flour Jar 打面缸 880 Meilong Town 梅龍鎮 880 Wandering Dragon Plays with the Phoenix 遊龍戲鳳 880 Tao Kan 陶侃 184 Tao Qian (365–427) 陶潛 [Tao Yuanming 陶淵明; style, Yuanliang 元亮] 90, 170, 184–189, 191, 529, 609, 612 n. 2 native of Chaisang, Xunyang 潯陽柴桑 (Jiujiang 九江, Jiangxi today) 184 served as the District Magistrate 縣令 of Pengze 彭澤 184 “Biography of the Gentleman of Five Willows, A” 五柳先生傳 188, 609 “Drinking Wine” 飲酒 170, 184 “Elegiac Address to My Younger Sister, Mrs. Cheng, An” 祭程氏妹文 188

“Note on the Peach Blossom Spring, A” 桃花源記 187 “Reading the Book of Mountains and Seas” 讀山海經 186 “Returning to My Abode with Garden and Fields” 歸園田居 185 “Rhapsody on Scholars with Unrecognized Talents” 感士不遇賦 188 “Rhapsody on Stilling the Passions” 閒情賦 90 “Shape, Shadow and Spirit” 形影神 184 “Song of the Homeward Journey” 歸去來辭 188 “Twelve Miscellaneous Poems” 雜詩十二首 186 Tao Wangling 陶望齡 [style, Zhouwang 周望] 687, 690, 694 literary name: Shikui (“Stone Case”) 石匱 694 “A Letter Mailed to my Younger Brother Junshi after Arriving in the Capital in the Year of Xin Chou (1601)” 辛丑入都寄君奭弟書 690 tao zhen (“dredging of truth”) 陶真 820 Tao Zhenhuai 陶貞懷 821 Flowers Rain down from Sky 天雨花 821 Zuo Weiming 左維明 821 Zuo Yizhen 左儀貞 821 Tao Zongyi 陶宗儀 571 Records from Someone Who Stopped Farming in the Southern Village 南村輟耕錄 571 Tarumoto Teruo 樽本照雄 882 A Catalogue of Fiction from the Late Qing to the Early Republican Period 清末民初小說目錄 882 teaching of the Songs 詩教 17, 28 Ten Masters of Fujian 閩中十子 (See Lin Hong) 660 Ten Talents of the Dali Reign 大歷十才子 (See Cui Tong, Geng Wei, Han Hong, Ji Zhongfu, Li Duan, Lu Lun, Miao Fa, Qian Qi, Sikong Shu, and Xiahou Shen) 326, 329 Theatrical Performance since the Qing Dynasty 881 Anhui Opera 徽劇 881 Four Big Anhui Troupes 881 Four Blessings 四喜 881 Peaceful Spring 和春 881 Spring Platform 春臺 881 Three Celebrations 三慶 881

glossary-index Kunshan Opera 昆曲 881 Refined Genre 雅部 881 Kunshan Tune 昆山腔 881 Pi-Huang Drama 皮簧戲 881 Erhuang Tune 二簧調 881 Xipi Tune 西皮調 881 Variety Genre 花部 881 Beijing Tune 京腔 881 Clapper Opera 梆子腔 881 Erhuang Tune 二簧調 881 Luoluo Opera 羅羅腔 881 Shaanxi (Qin) Tune 秦腔 881 Yiyang Tune 弋陽腔 881 Three Cardinal Guides and Five Constant Virtues 三綱五常 884 Three Masters East of the Yangtze 江左三大家 (See Gong Dingzi, Qian Qianyi, and Wu Weiye) 773 Three Masters West of the Yangtze 江右三大家 (See Jiang Shiquan, Yuan Mei, and Zhao Yi) 795 Three Talents of the Northern Land 北地三才 234 Thirteen Classics with Annotations and Scholia, The 十三經注疏 52 Ti Ying 緹縈 136 Tianshui 天水 89 tiled sheds (wa she) 瓦舍 557 Tongcheng School 桐城派 379, 771, 789–794, 798, 805, 808–810, 825–826 Traces of Flowers and the Moon 花月痕 886 transformation text (bianwen) 變文 354, 391, 407–409 bian (“transformation”) 變 407 citra (picture) 407 transformation (zhuan bian) 轉變 407 “Transformation Text on Mahāmaudgalyāyana’s Rescue of His Mother from the Underworld” 大目乾連冥間救母變文 408 “Mulian Transformation” 目連變 408 “Transformation Text on the Meng Jiang Lady” 孟姜女變文 408 “Transformation Text on the Subduing of Demons” 降魔變文 408 Sariputra 舍利弗 408 Sixth Master 六師 408 “Transformation of Wang Ling, Military Commander of the Han” 漢將王陵變文 408

961

“Transformation Text of Wang Zhaojun” 王昭君變文 408 “Transformation Text on Wu Zixu” 伍子胥變文 408 Travel to the West 西遊記 17 (See Wu Cheng’en) 728–733, 735 “Beheading the Dragon of the Jing River in Dream” 夢斬涇河龍 729 Bian Ji 辯機 728 Bodhisattva Guan Yin (Avalokiteśvara) 觀 (世) 音菩薩 731 Hui Li 慧立 17 (See Yan Cong) 728 The Biography of Master Tripitaka of the Great Temple of Love and Kindness of the Great Tang 大唐大慈恩寺三藏法師傳 (co-author: Yan Cong) 728 Jade Emperor 玉皇大帝 731 Manushya-Rakshasi 羅剎女 732 Monkey (Sun Wukong, “Monkey who is Aware of Vacuity”) 孫悟空 729 Most Exalted Lord Laozi 太上老君 731 New Illustrated Official Edition of Travel to the West in Big Characters, A 新刻出像官版大字西遊記 (published by the Hall of Virtuous Generations of the Tang Family 唐氏世德堂) 729 Foreword by Chen Yuan 陳元 729 Pigsy (Zhu Bajie, “Pig of the Eight Precepts”) 豬八戒 731 Prince Ox-Demon 牛魔王 732 Princess Baihuaxiu (“One Whose Beauty Puts All Flowers to Shame”) 百花羞公主 732 Ruan Kuisheng 阮葵生 730 Tathāgata, Founder of Buddhism 如來佛祖 731 Tripitaka (Monk of Tang) 唐僧 (三藏) 729–730 Wu Changling 吳昌齡 729 The Search for Sutras in the West of Tripitaka of the Tang 唐三藏西天取經 729 Wu Yujin 吳玉搢 730 Xuan Zang 玄奘 728 Accounts of the Western Regions under the Great Tang 大唐西域記 728 Yan Cong 彥悰 17 (See also Hui Li) 728

962

glossary-index

Yang Jingxian 楊景賢 729 Travel to the West 西遊記 729 Yellow-Robed Demon 黃袍怪 732 Travels of Marco Polo 573 Tu Long 屠隆 734 “Elegiac Address to a Scarf ” 祭頭巾文 734 Tuoba (family) 拓跋氏 566 Tuoba Tao 拓跋燾 535 Turmoil of the Eight Princes 八王之亂 172 using prose for poetry 以文為詩

325

Vajra 金剛 648 variety play 雜劇 507, 557 official-version variety play 官本雜劇 562 Variety Play of the Yuan 雜劇 575–596, 639 act 折 575 Competing in Paying a Debt of Gratitude 爭報恩 591 Double Merit 雙獻功 591 gong tunes 宮調 575 central feminine gong 中呂宮 576 double tune 雙調 576 fairy feminine gong 仙呂宮 575–576 large stone tune 大石調 576 regular gong 正宮 576 shang tune 商調 576 southern feminine gong 南呂宮 576 yellow bells gong 黃鐘宮 576 Yue tune 越調 576 leading female 正旦 576 leading male 正末 576 miscellaneous 雜 576 outsider 外 576 painted-face 淨 576 Return to the Prison 還牢末 591 School of the Natural Color 本色派 580 text 本 575 female text 旦本 576 male text 末本 576 wedge 楔子 576 Yan Qing Bets with Fish 燕青博魚 591 Yellow Flower Valley 黃花峪 591 vernacular story (huaben) 話本 391 Tang Vernacular Story at Dunhuang 409

“An Account of Emperor Taizong of the Tang Entering the Underworld” 唐太宗入冥記 409 “The Story of Han Qinhu” 韓擒虎話 409 “The Story of Master Yuangong at Mt. Lushan” 廬山遠公話 409 “The Story of Ye Jingneng” 葉淨能話 409 “Poem of Ye Jingneng” 葉淨能詩 409 n. 7 Vernacular Stories from the Yuan 646 “Buddhist Monk Who Sent an Anonymous Letter” 簡帖和尚 635 Huangfu Dianzhi 皇甫殿直 635 “Romance at the Pavilion of Auspicious Immortal” 風月瑞仙亭 635 “Story of a Contract” 合同文字記 635 “Story of Liu Qiqing’s Poetry Compositions and Drinking Parties at the Tower of Playing by the River” 柳耆卿詩酒玩江樓記 635 Zhou Yuexian 周月仙 636 “Story of Three Pagodas by West Lake” 西湖三塔記 635 Vernacular Stories from the History of the Five Dynasties 五代史平話 604, 636–637 Vernacular Stories from the Mountain-Level Hall of the Qing 清平山堂話本 635 vignette (short prose piece, xiao pin) 小品 225, 494, 693–697, 699-704, 788 Virtue 德 5 Voltaire 591 L’Orphelin de la Chine 591 Waley, Arthur 729 n. 1 (See Travel to the West) Monkey 729 n. 1 Wang Anshi (1021–1086) 王安石 [style, Jiefu 介甫] 444, 470, 474, 481, 486–489, 492, 522, 789 literary name: Banshan 半山 486 native of Linchuan 臨川 (Fuzhou 撫州, Jiangxi today) 486 Presented Scholar in the second year of the Qingli reign (1042) 486

glossary-index New Policies 新政 444, 486 “An Account of My Trip to Mount Baochan” 遊褒禪山記 487, 492 “Boat Moors at Guazhou, The” 船泊瓜洲 489 “Confiscation of Salt” 收鹽 487 “Lament for Zhongyong” 傷仲永 487 “Letter in Reply to Sima, Master of Remonstrance” 答司馬諫議書 487 “Letter Presented to Academician Shao” 上邵學士書 486 “Letter Presented to Someone” 上人書 486 “Memorial to Emperor Renzong on Current Affairs” 上仁宗皇帝言事書 487 “Northern Mountain” 北山 488–489 “On Annexing” 兼併 487 “On Reading the Biography of Lord Mengchang” 讀孟嘗君列傳 487 “People in Hebei” 河北民 487 “Poem Composed at the Request of a Couple of Presented Scholars from Baoying Who Saw Me Off ” 寶應二三進士見送乞詩 489 “Postscript on the Biography of Assassin-Retainers” 書刺客傳後 487 “Sent by Mail to Cai Tianqi” 寄蔡天啟 488 “Songs of Consort Ming” 明妃曲 487 Wang Zhaojun 王昭君 487–488 “Thought on an Event” 感事 487 “Written on the Wall of Master of the Shady Side of the Lake” 書湖陰先生壁 489 Wang Bao (W. Han) 王褒 86, 89 “Rhapsody on the Vertical Bamboo Flute” 洞簫賦 86–87 “Slave’s Contract” 僮約 101 Wang Bao (ca. 513–ca. 576) 王褒 [styled Ziyuan 子淵] 240, 246–247 served as Junior Guardian of the Heir Apparent 太子少保 and Vice Minister of Works 少司空 246 “At the Summit by the Cloud Abode Temple” 雲居寺高頂 246 “Crossing the River Northward” 渡河北 246 “Song of the North” 燕歌行 246 Wang Bo (650–676) 王勃 [style, Zi’an 子安] 272–275, 305–306

963

“In the Mountains” 山中 274, 288 “Letter to Vice Director Pei of the Personnel Ministry” 上吏部裴侍郎啟 275 “Lotus-Picking Song” 採蓮曲 274 “Preface to the Pavilion of the Prince of Teng” 滕王閣序 306 “Seeing District Defender Du Off to Shuchuan” 送杜少府之蜀川 274 “Pavilion of the Prince of Teng” 滕王閣 274 Wang Can (177–217) 王粲 [style, Zhongxuan 仲宣] 99, 153, 157–158, 552, 594 “Rhapsody on Ascending the Tower” 登樓賦 158, 594 “Seven Sorrows” 七哀 157–158, 163–164 Wang Changling (ca. 690–ca. 757) 王昌齡 [style, Shaobo 少伯] 279, 281–283, 302 native of Chang’an, Jingzhao 京兆長安 (Xi’an, Shaanxi today) 282 Presented Scholar: the fifteenth year of the Kaiyuan reign 282 “Going out of the Fortress” 出塞 282 “Songs of the Blue Mansion: Two Poems” 青樓曲二首 283 “Song of Joining the Army: Seven Poems” 從軍行七首 282 Wang Chong (ca. 27–ca. 97) 王充 105 native of Shangyu, Guiji 會稽上虞 (in modern Zhejiang) 105 Steelyard of Expositions 論衡 105 Wang Chongmin 王重民 414 Notes on the Dunhuang Collection of Lyrics for the Song 燉煌曲子詞集敘錄 414 Wang Du 王度 393–394 Wang Dun 王敦 181 Wang Fu 王符 105–106 Discourses of a Hidden Man 潛夫論 105–106 Wang Guowei 王國維 3, 413, 415, 422, 426, 450, 458, 562, 578, 581, 591, 787, 877 An Examination of Yin and Zhou Institutions 殷周制度考 3 “Commentary on A Dream of Red Mansions” 紅樓夢評論 877 History of Song and Yuan Drama, A 宋元戲曲史 562, 578, 581

964

glossary-index

Remarks on the Song Lyric from the Human World 人間詞話 422, 450, 787 Unofficial Records of Master Qingzhen 清真先生遺事 458 Wang Han 王翰 279, 281 “A Song of Liangzhou” 涼州詞 281 Wang Heqing 王和卿 607, 610 “Sky in Intoxication: On a Big Butterfly” 醉中天·詠大蝴蝶 610 Wang Ji (589–644) 王績 271–272 “View in the Wilds” 野望 271 Wang Jia 王嘉 262 Records of Recovered Omissions 拾遺記 [revised by Xiao Qi 蕭綺] 262 Wang Jian 王建 [style, Zhongchu 仲初] 345–346, 415 served as Vice District Magistrate 縣丞 and District Defender 縣尉, and Vice Prefect of Shanzhou 陜州司馬 346 “One Hundred Palace Poems” 宮詞一百首 346 “Song of the Boat Trackers” 水夫謠 346 Wang Jide (?–1623) 王驥德 [style, Boliang 伯良] 706, 725, 754, 763 literary name: Fang Zhusheng 方諸生 763 Prosody of the Aria 曲律 706, 725, 754, 763 Wang Jiusi (1468–1551) 王九思 671, 705, 722 Du Fu’s Spring Outing 杜甫遊春 722 Wang Kaiyun (1833–1916) 王闓運 [style, Renqiu 壬秋] 827–828 literary name: Xiangqi 湘綺 827 native of Xiangtan 湘潭, Hunan 827 “Mailed to Xinmei with My Loving Thoughts” 寄懷辛眉 827 Wang Keyu 汪珂玉 639 Web of Corals 珊瑚網 639 Wang Pan (ca. 1470–ca. 1530) 王磐 [style, Hongjian 鴻漸] 705–706 literary name: Xilou (“Western Tower”) 西樓 705 “Making Obeisance to the Son of Heaven: Ode to Trumpet” 朝天子·詠喇叭 706 “Ridiculing Those Who Go in All Directions” 嘲轉五方 706

Wang Qi 王圻 642, 646 Collection of Historical Anecdotes 稗史滙編 642 Wang Qi 王錡 664 Miscellaneous Notes from a Family Garden 寓圃雜記 664 Wang Rong 王戎 167 Wang Rong 王融 215 Wang Ruoxu 王若虛 470, 564 Poetic Remarks from South of the Hu River 滹南詩話 564 Understanding Prose 文辨 470 Wang Shenzhong (1509–1559) 王慎中 674–676, 678 “Foreword to Best Prose of Zeng Gong” 曾南豐文粹序 675 Wang Shifu 王實甫 586–590, 633 Hall of Beautiful Spring 麗春堂 586 Story of the Derelict Cave Dwelling 破窯記 586 Story of the Western Chamber 西廂記 399, 585–590, 594 (See also under Dong Jieyuan and Yuan Zhen) “Appreciating the Blossoming Season: In Continuation” 賞花時幺篇 589 “Just Right” 端正好 589 “Note of Chattering” 叨叨令 589 Old Lady 老夫人 586–588 Sun Feihu 孫飛虎 587 Zheng Heng 鄭恆 587 Wang Shimao 王世懋 678 “Congratulatory Message to the Promotion to Left Provincial Administration Commissioner of Grand Master Xu Ziyu of Tianmu” 賀天目徐大夫子與轉左方伯序 678 Wang Shizhen (1526–1590) 王世貞 [style, Yuanmei 元美] 282, 669, 671, 674, 677–680, 688, 708 literary names: Fengzhou (“Phoenix Islet”) 鳳洲 and Yanzhou Shanren (“Mountaineer of Yanzhou”) 弇州山人 679 born in Taicang 太倉 (within Jiangsu today) 679 Metropolitan Graduate in the 26th year of the Jiajing reign (1547) 679 served as Director in the Ministry of Justice 刑部郎 679 “Accolade Attached to a Portrait” 像贊 669

glossary-index Beauty of Arias, The 曲藻 708 “Ferry of Dezhou” 德州渡口 680 Manuscripts in Four Sections from Mountaineer of Yanzhou 弇州山人四部稿 679 More Manuscripts 續稿 679 Random Talk from the Garden of Art 藝苑卮言 282, 671, 679 “Short Song Making Fun of Myself, A” 短歌自嘲 679 Wang Shizhen (1634–1711) 王士禛2 [style, Yishang 貽上] 778–782, 785, 793, 845 literary names: Ruanting 阮亭, Yuyang Shanren (“Mountaineer from the Fishing Ocean”) 漁洋山人 778 native of Xincheng 新城, Shandong 778 Metropolitan Graduate in the 15th year of the Shunzhi reign (1658) 778 served as Minister of Justice 刑部尚書 778 “Autumn Willows: Four Poems” 秋柳四首 779 Baixia Gate 白下門 779 Daming Lake 大明湖 779 Dou Jiande 竇建德 779 “Song of the Yellow Horse” 黃驄曲 779 “Village of the Crows’ Night” 烏夜村 779 “By the River” 江上 781 Collection of the Samadhi of Tang Sages, A 唐賢三昧集 780 Collection of Spirit Resonance, A 神韻集 780 Sketches by the Ancestor of Fragrance 香祖筆記 781 spirit resonance 神韻 780–781, 793 Wang Shouren (1472–1528) 王守仁 [Master Yangming 陽明先生] 653 n. 1, 666 Wang Siren (1574–1646) 王思任 [style, Jizhong 季重] 700 literary name: Xue’an (“Shrine of Bantering”) 謔庵 700 “Mt. Tianmu” 天姥 700 Nanming 南明 700 “Small Ocean” 小洋 700

965

Wang Tingxiang 王廷相 671 Wang Tong 王通 [alias Wenzhongzi 文中子] 202–203, 393, 463 On Centrism 中說 203 “Chapter on Heaven and Earth” 天地篇 203 Wang Wan 汪琬 789–790 Wang Wei (ca. 701–ca. 761) 王維 [style, Mojie 摩詰] 279, 281, 285, 287–290, 307, 461, 780 native of Qixian, Taiyuan 太原祁縣 (within Shanxi today) 287 Presented Scholar: the ninth year of the Kaiyuan reign 287 served as Reminder on the Right 右拾遺 and Assistant Director of the Right in the Department of State Affairs 尚書右丞 287 Wangchuan Mountain Lodge 輞川山莊 287 “Autumn Evening at the Mountain Lodge” 山居秋暝 287 “Deer Enclosure” 鹿柴 288 “Farm House at Weichuan” 渭川田家 289 “In the Mountains” 山中 288 “Letter to Pei Di, the Cultivated Talent, from the Mountains, A” 山中與裴秀才迪書 307 Ba River 灞(水) 307 Huazi Hill 華子岡 307 Wang Stream 輞水 307 “Mt. Zhongnan” 終南山 287, 289 “On a Mission to the Borders” 使至塞上 287 “Seeing Off Yuan Er (“Yuan the Second”) on His Mission to Anxi” 送元二使安西 289 “Yangguan Pass in Three Refrains” 陽關三疊 289 “Songs of Youth” 少年行 289 “Watching in Distance above the Han River” 漢江臨眺 289 Wang Xianqian 王先謙 825 “Foreword to A Sequel to Classified Anthology of Classical Prose” 續古文辭類纂序 825 Wang Xisun 汪喜孫 806 A Chronological Life of Master Wang Rongfu 汪容甫先生年譜 806 Wang Xizhi 王羲之 183

2 (Original) The Chinese character 禛 (zhen) in his name was posthumously changed to 禎 (zhen) because of the Qing court’s taboo on Emperor Yongzheng’s name.

966

glossary-index

“Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Poems” 蘭亭詩序 183 Wang Yan 王炎 525–526, 528 Pacification Commissioner of Sichuan 四川宣撫史 525 Nanzheng, Hanzhong 漢中南鄭 526, 528 Wang Yanshou (ca. 124–ca. 148) 王延壽 96 “Rhapsody on a Dream” 夢賦 96 “Rhapsody on the Hall of Numinous Brilliance in Lu” 魯靈光殿賦 96 “Rhapsody on the Young Aristocrat” 王孫賦 96 Wang Yi 王逸 32, 37, 45–46 Annotated Songs of the South, The 楚辭章句 12 Wang Yin 王隱 177 Wang Yisun 王沂孫 [style, Shengyu 聖與] 551, 553, 804 literary name: Bishan (“Emerald Mountain”) 碧山 553 served as Instructor of the Qingyuan Circuit 慶元路學正 (Yuan) 553 “Pleasure all under Heaven: Cicadas” 齊天樂·蟬 554 Wang Yuanliang 汪元量 555–556 “Pengzhou” 彭州 556 “Platform for a Horse Show” 戲馬臺 556 “Songs of Huzhou” 湖州歌 556 “Songs of Intoxication” 醉歌 556 “Songs of Yuezhou” 越州歌 556 Wang Yucheng (954–1001) 王禹偁 [style, Yuanzhi 元之] 430, 466, 468–470 native of Juye 巨野 (within Shandong today) 468 Presented Scholar in the eighth year of the Taiping Xingguo reign (983) 468 served as a Hanlin Academician 翰林學士; Drafter 知制誥 468 “An Account of the Newly Constructed Small Bamboo Pavilion at Huangzhou” 黃州新建小竹樓記 470 “Another Letter in Reply to Zhang Fu” 再答張扶書 470 “Facing the Snow” 對雪 468 “Letter in Reply to Zhang Fu, A” 答張扶書 470 “Note to Zhongxian When the Day Gets Longer” 日長簡仲咸 469

“On Events in Early Autumn” 新秋即事 469 “Poem Composed from a Thought on My Newly Completed Silk Jacket, A” 新製綾襖成感而有詠 468 “Trip to a Village” 村行 468 Shangzhou 商州 469 Wang Yun 王惲 607 Wang Zhaofu 王兆符 791 “Foreword to the Prose Collection from Wangxi” 望溪文集序 791 Wang Zhaojun 王昭君 584 Wang Zhihuan (688–742) 王之渙 [style, Jiling 季凌] 281 “A Song of Liangzhou” 涼州詞 281 Wang Zhong (1744–1794) 汪中 [style, Rongfu 容甫] 806–808 “An Account of Myself ” 自序 806 “In Praise of the Robber of Hufu” 狐父之盜頌 806 “On Omens” in the Liezi 列子·說符篇 806 Robber of Hufu 狐父之盜 806 Yuan Jingmu 爰旌目 806 “Lament for the Salt Boats” 哀鹽船文 806 “Preface to the ‘Elegy for Ma Shouzhen Composed While Passing by the Site of the Former Southern Garden’ ” 經舊苑弔馬守真文序 806–808 Ban Jieyu 班婕妤 807 Cai Wenji 蔡文姬 807 Chen Lin 陳琳 807 Huang Zu 黃祖 807 Ma Xianglan 馬湘蘭 807–808 Mi Heng 彌衡 807 Rong Ruqi 榮如期 807 Yuan Shao 袁紹 807 “Response about Guangling, A” 廣陵對 806 Wang Zhuo 王灼 434 Random Notes from the Emerald Rooster Lane 碧雞漫志 434 Wanyan Aguda 完顏阿骨打 563 warm, gentle, honest, and sincere 溫柔敦厚 17 “Warm Spring” 陽春 34 Warring States (period) 戰國 7, 11–12 Weaver Girl 織女 736 Wei (Dynasty) 魏 136–192 Zhengshi reign (240–249) 正始 166–172 Wei Hao 魏顥 296–297, 302

glossary-index “Preface to the Collected Writings of Academician Li” 李翰林集序 296–297, 302 Wei Hong 衛宏 112–113 The Old Etiquette of the Han Officialdom 漢官舊儀 112–113 Wei Liangfu 魏良輔 727 Wei Meng 韋孟 125 “Poem at Zou” 在鄒詩 125 “Poem of Remonstration” 諷諫詩 125 Wei Shou (505–572) 魏收 [style, Boqi 伯起] 234–235 “The Song of Holding a Zither” 挾瑟歌 235 Wei Xi 魏禧 789 Weiyang [Yangzhou] 維揚 (揚州) 296 Wei Ye 魏野 471 Wei Yingwu (ca. 737–ca. 791) 韋應物 330–331, 360, 415–416, 780 native of Chang’an 330 served as Prefect 刺史 of Chuzhou 滁州, Jiangzhou 江州, and Suzhou 蘇州 330 “Fun of the Game” 調笑 416 “Presented to Monk Cong” 贈琮公 331 “Sent to the Taoist Monk in the Quanjiao Mountains” 寄全椒山中道士 331 “Western Ravine at Chuzhou” 滁州西澗 331 Wei Yuan (1794–1857) 魏源 [style, Moshen 默深] 823–824 native of Shaoyang 邵陽, Hunan 823 served as the Magistrate of Gaoyou 高郵 823 “Another Ten Pieces” 後十章 824 “Autumn Meditation: Ten Pieces” 秋興十章 824 “By the Window at Dawn” 曉窗 824 “Chanting in the Southland: Ten Pieces” 江南吟十章 824 Illustrated Records of Maritime Nations, The 海國圖志 823 “Recalling the Past at Jinling” 金陵懷古 824 “Song of Mt. Taishi” 太室行 824 “Song of Traveling by Boat on the Xiang River” 湘江舟行 824 “Song of Watching the Tidal Waves at the Qiantang River” 錢塘觀潮行 824

967

“Song of Watching the Waterfall at the Stone Arch in Mt. Tiantai” 天臺石梁雨後觀瀑歌 824 “Within the Seas: Ten Pieces” 寰海十章 824 Wei Zhuang (836–910) 韋莊 [style, Duanji 端己] 375, 419–423, 428 served as Right Rectifier of Omissions 右補闕, Chief Secretary 書記 of Wang Jian 王建, Military Commissioner of Western Sichuan 西川節度使, Prime Minister (Earlier Shu) (前蜀)宰相 375 “Lotus-Leave Cup” 荷葉盃 421 Maid Xie (Xie Niang) 謝娘 421 Xie the Autumn Maid (Xie Qiu Niang 謝秋娘) 421 n. 4 “Recalling the Past” 憶昔 375 “Song of the Woman of Qin” 秦婦吟 375–376 Huang Chao 黃巢 375 “Thinking about the Monarch’s Land” 思帝鄉 421 wen (“writing with a pattern”) 文 195, 227 Wen Tianxiang (1236–1283) 文天祥 [style, Songrui 宋瑞] 555–556 literary name: Wenshan 文山 555 native of Luling 廬陵 (Ji’an 吉安, Jiangxi today) 555 served as Prime Minister on the Right and concurrently as Military Affairs Commissioner 右丞相兼樞密史 555 “Crossing the Solitary Bay” 過零丁洋 555–556 Terrifying Shoal 惶恐灘 555 “Family Letters from the Prison” 獄中家書 555 n. 5 “I Heard that Jiwan (Wen Wenbi) Had Arrived” 聞季萬(文文璧)至 555 n. 5 “Song of the Noble Spirit” 正氣歌 556 Wen Tingyun (?–862) 溫庭筠 [style, Feiqing 飛卿] 371–373, 417–420, 423, 545, 804 native of Taiyuan (in today’s Shanxi) 371 “An Early Trip in the Shang Mountains” 商山早行 372 “Bodhisattva Barbarian” 菩薩蠻 417–418

968

glossary-index

“Clepsydra” 更漏子 417–418 “For Delivery on the River” 河傳 417 “Lament from the Jade-Decorated Zither” 瑤瑟怨 371 “Lotus-Leave Cup” 荷葉盃 417 “Telling my Heart” 訴衷情 417 Wen Zhengming 文徵明 667 Wen Zisheng (495–547) 溫子昇 [style, Pengju 鵬舉] 234 “A Song on Washing Clothes” 搗衣歌 234 “White Nosed Yellow Steed” 白鼻騧 234 gua 騧 234 n. 18 Weng Fanggang (1733–1818) 翁方綱 793–795 served as Grand Secretary 內閣學士 794 “Foreword to Collection of the Expression of Will” 志言集序 795 “Foreword to Poetry of the Three Masters of Eastern Guangdong” 粵東三子集序 795 texture 肌理 793–795 Weng Juan 翁卷 547–548 “Straw Cape Temple at Xinzhou” 信州草衣寺 548 West Kunlun School 西昆派 (See also Yang Yi) 463, 466, 472–474, 481 Kunlun Mountains 昆侖山 472 Qunyu Mountains 群玉山 472 White Lord City 白帝城 237 “White Snow” 白雪 34 words cannot fully express intention 言不盡意 71 written word 文 198 writings 文章 195–196, 198–199, 202, 216, 228, 233, 245–247 Wu Bing (?–1647) 吳炳 [style, Shiqu 石渠] 766–767 literary name: Canhua Zhuren (“Master of Smiling Flowers”) 粲花主人 766 native of Yixing (within Jiangsu today) 766 Five Plays from the Smiling Flowers Studio 粲花齋五種曲 766 Green Peony 綠牡丹 766 Lady in the Painting 畫中人 766 Soup to Cure Jealousy 療妒羹 766 Story of Love at Posthouse 情郵記 766

Story of the Western Garden 西園記 766–767 Wang Boning 王伯寧 (“Wang the Plebeian” 王白丁) 766 Wang Yuzhen 王玉真 766–767 Zhang Jihua 張繼華 766–767 Zhao Yuying 趙玉英 766–767 Wu Cheng’en (ca. 1500–ca. 1582) 吳承恩 729–730 (See Travel to the West) native of Shanyang 山陽 729 Local Records of the Huai’an Prefecture 淮安府志 729–730 Wu Guolun 吳國倫 677 Wu Ji 吳激 563 “Someone under the Full Moon” 人月圓 563 Wu Jingzi (1701–1754) 吳敬梓 [style, Minxuan 敏軒] 861–869, 871 literary name: Wenmu Laoren (“Old Man by the Literary Wood”) 文木老人 862 native of Quanjiao, Anhui 安徽全椒 862 “Biography of Master Wenmu” 文木先生傳 865 “Lily Magnolia Flower with Reduced Words” 減字木蘭花 862 Unofficial History of the Scholars, An 儒林外史 740–741, 839, 861–869, 871, 876, 890, 897 Apprentices 童生 863 Butcher Hu 胡屠夫 864 Chi Hengshan 遲衡山 865 District Magistrate Tang 湯知縣 864 Du Shenqing 杜慎卿 864 Erudite Yu 虞博士 865 Fan Jin 范進 863–864 Governor Wang 王太守 864 “Induction” 楔子 863 Jing Lanjinag 景蘭江 864 Jingci Temple 淨慈寺 868 Master Lou San (“Lou the Third”) 婁三公子 864 Master Lou Si (“Lou the Fourth”) 婁四公子 864 Mr. Ma Er (“Ma the Second”) 馬二先生 864 Shrine of Taibo (“Grand Earl”) 泰伯祠 865 Tribute Student Yan 嚴貢生 864, 866–867 Wang Hui 王惠 866

glossary-index Wang Mian 王冕 863 Wang Yuhui 王玉輝 864, 867 Woxian Caotang (“Thatched Cottage of Leisure while Lying Down” 臥閑草堂) Edition 865 “General Comment” 總評 865 Zhang Jingzhai 張靜齋 864 Zhao Xuezhai 趙雪齋 864 Zhou Jin 周進 863–864 Hall of the Tribute 貢院 863, 867 Numbered Chamber 號房 864 Zhuang Shaoguang 莊紹光 865 Wu Jun (469–520) 吳均 [style, Shuxiang 叔庠] 225, 262 “Hard Is the Journey” 行路難 225 “Letter to Song Yuansi, A” 與宋元思書 225 “No Humans in the Tartar Region” 胡無人行 225 Sequel to the Records from Qi Xie, A 續齊諧記 262 “A Scholar of Yangxian” 陽羨書生 262 “Zhao Wenshao” 趙文韶 262 Goddess of the Blue Creek 青溪神女 262 Wu Qi 吳起 226 Wu Qian 吳潛 544 Wu Rulun 吳汝綸 826 “In Reply to Wu Shifu” 答吳實甫 826 “Letter in Reply to Yao Muting, A” 答姚慕庭書 826 Wu Weiye (1609–1672) 吳偉業 [style, Jungong 駿公] 773, 775–778 literary name: Meicun (“Plum Village”) 梅村 775 native of Taicang 太倉, Jiangsu 775 served as Mentor on the Left for the Heir Apparent 左庶子 (Ming), Chancellor of the Directorate of Education 國子監祭酒 (Qing) 775 “Congratulation to the Bridegroom: Thoughts in Illness” 賀新郎·病中有感 776 “Foreword to the Expanded Revised Scores of Northern Song Lyrics” 北詞廣正譜序 842 “Song of Listening to the Lute Playing of Bian Yujing, the Taoist Priestess” 聽女道士卞玉京彈琴歌 776

969

“Song of the Mandarin Duck Pond” 鴛湖曲 776 “Song of an Old Prostitute from Linhuai” 臨淮老妓行 776 “Song of the Palace of Everlasting Peace” 永和宮詞 776 “Song of the Pipa” 琵琶行 776 “Song of Yuanyuan” 圓圓曲 776–778 Crimson Tree 絳樹 777 Green Pearl 綠珠 777 Li Zicheng 李自成 777 Liu Zongmin 劉宗敏 777 Tian Wan 田畹 777 Wu Sangui 吳三桂 777–778 “Thoughts while Passing by Huaiyin” 過淮陰有感 776 Wu Wenying 吳文英 [style, Junte 君特] 458, 544–546, 551 literary name: Mengchuang (“Dream Windows”) 夢窗 544 native of Siming 四明 (Ningbo, Zhejiang today) 544 “Clouds across the River: Qingming Festival on the West Lake” 渡江雲·西湖清明 545 “Prelude of the Trilling of a Warbler” 鶯啼序 546 Wo Woyao (1866–1910) 吳沃堯 [style, Yanren 趼人] 889, 891–893 native of Nanhai 南海, Guangdong 891 literary name: Wofo Shanren (“I am a native of Foshan [Mt. Buddha]”) 我佛山人 891 Commentary on Collection of Translations from the New Shrine 新庵譯萃評語 892 History of Pains 痛史 892 Strange Case of the Nine Murders, The 九命奇冤 892 Strange Scenes Witnessed in the Last Two Decades 二十年目睹之怪現狀 889, 892–893 Commissioner Gou 茍觀察 892 Fu Mixuan 符彌軒 892 Governor-General 制臺 892 Mo Keji 莫可基 892 Jiusi Yisheng 九死一生 892 Wu Xiqi 吳錫麒 806 Wu Zhizhen 吳之振 467 Selected Song Poetry 宋詩鈔 467, 469 Wu Zi 吳鼒 806

970

glossary-index

Selected Parallel Prose from Eight Masters of Our Dynasty 國朝八家四六文鈔 806 Wu Zimu 吳自牧 562 Notes from the Golden Millet Dream 夢粱錄 562, 568 Wuguan 武關 36 Wujiang School 吳江派 (See also Feng Menglong, Lü Tiancheng, Shen Jing, Shen Zijin, and Wang Jide) 762–764 Bu Shichen 卜世臣 763 Fan Wenruo 范文若 763 Ye Xianzu 葉憲祖 763–764 Story of Winter Clothes 寒衣記 764 Yuan Jin 袁晉 763–764 Story of the Western Tower 西樓記 764 Mu Suhui 穆素徽 764 Yu Juan 于鵑 764 Wuling 武陵 187 Wutai Mountains 五臺山 [Grand White 太白] 619 n. 4, 648 Wuyuan 五原 89 xi 兮 34, 47 Xi Shi 西施 631 Xia (Dynasty) 夏 2 Xiahou Shen 夏侯審 329 Xianbei 鮮卑 566 Xiang River 湘水 36, 43, 303–304 Xiang Bo 項伯 120 Xiang Xiu 向秀 167 Xiang Yu (232–202 B.C.) 項羽 (alias Xiang Ji 項籍) 117–121, 125–126, 242, 245 n. 43, 692 “Song of Gaixia” 垓下歌 125–126 Xiangyang 襄陽 324 Xianyun 玁狁 26 Xiao Chen 蕭琛 215 xiao dao (“small way”) 小道 429 Xiao Dexiang 蕭德祥 605 Killing a Dog to Persuade the Husband 殺狗勸夫 605 Xiao Gang (503–551) 蕭綱 [style, Shizan 世缵] 194, 196, 200, 225–226, 228–232, 240, 247 Emperor Jianwen of the Liang 梁簡文帝 228 Prince of Jin’an 晉安王 200 “Advice for Medicine, An” 勸醫文 228 “Letter in Reply to Zhang Zan’s Note of Thanks for Being Shown my

Collection, A” 答張瓒謝示集書 194 “Letter to Exhort Daxin, Lord of Dangyang, A” 誡當陽公大心書 228 fangdang (“to let oneself go”) 放蕩 228 “Letter to the Prince of Xiangdong, A” 與湘東王書 228 “On a Mist” 咏煙 230 “On the Topic of the Drizzle that Falls on the Steps” 賦得入階雨 230 “To Sing About my Wife Sleeping in Daytime” 咏內人晝眠 229 Xiao Guanyin (1040–1075) 蕭觀音 459 “Heart-Changing Court” 回心院 459 xiao pin (See vignette) Xiao Shiwei 蕭士瑋 774 “Seven Entries on Reading Qian Qianyi’s Works” 讀牧齋集七則 774 Xiao Tong (501–531) 蕭統 [style, Deshi 德施] 198, 226–228, 805 Crown Prince of Resplendent Brilliance” (Zhaoming) 昭明太子 227 Selections of Refined Literature (Wenxuan) 文選 46, 227–228, 623 Xiao Yan (464–549) 蕭衍 [style, Shuda 叔達] Emperor Wu of the Liang 梁武帝 215, 226–227 native of Southern Lanling 南蘭陵 (NW of Changzhou, Jiangsu 江蘇常州 today) 8 000 “Jiangnan Tunes” 江南弄 227 Xiao Yaoguang 蕭遙光 (Prince of Shi’an 始安王) 218 Xiao Yi (508–554) 蕭繹 [style, Shicheng 世誠] Emperor Yuan of the Liang 梁元帝 195, 214, 225–226, 231–233, 258 Master of the Golden Tower 金樓子 195, 231 “Achieve Glory by Writing” 立言 195, 231 “Rhapsody on the Autumn Thoughts of a Lustful Woman” 蕩婦秋思賦 233 “Rhapsody on Lotus-Picking” 採蓮賦 233

glossary-index “Song of the North, A” 燕歌行 232 Black Rabbit City 玄菟城 232 Cross River 交河 232 cui mao 翠眊(旄) 232 n. 17 Liaodong 遼東 232 Yellow Dragon Garrison 黃龍戍 232 study of the ancients 古人之學 231 Confucianism 儒 / refined writing 文 231 study of contemporaries 今人之學 231 Confucianism 儒 / scholarship 學 / refined writing 文 / brushwork 筆 231 Xiao Yingshi 蕭穎士 377 Xiao Ziliang (Prince of Jingling) 蕭子良 [竟陵王] 215 Eight Friends of Jingling 竟陵八友 215, 227 Xiao Zixian 蕭子顯 195, 210, 214, 258 “Commentary on the Treatise on Literature in the History of the Southern Qi” 南齊書文學傳論 195, 210, 214 xie (write) 寫 / (discharge or to release) 瀉 169 Xie An 謝安 183 Xie Fangde 謝枋得 574 “A Valediction to Fang Bozai Who Returns to the Three Mountains” 送方伯載歸三山序 574 Xie Huilian 謝惠連 196, 207 “Rhapsody on Snow” 雪賦 196, 207 Xie Hun 謝混 183 Xie Lingyun (385–433) 謝靈運 203–209, 215, 217–218, 220, 228 native of Yangxia, Chenjun 陳郡陽夏 (Taikang, Henan 河南太康 today) 204 served as Governor of Yongjia 永嘉太守, Palace Attendant 侍中, and Chamberlain of Linchuan 臨川內史 204 recluse at Shining 始寧 204 “Ascending to the Singular Islet in the River” 登江中孤嶼 206 “Climbing the Tower above the Pond” 登池上樓 206 “From the Bamboo-Grove Ravine I Crossed the Mountain Ridge and Followed the Brook” 從斤竹澗越嶺溪行 205

971

“On a Trip to Red Rocks I Sailed Out on the Sea” 遊赤石進帆海 205 “Towards the Year’s End” 歲暮 206 “Trip to the Southern Pavilion, A” 遊南亭 206 “Visit to the Shining Estate, A” 過始寧墅 206 “Written on the Lake after Returning from the Stone Cliff Shrine” 石壁精舍還湖中作 205 Xie Qiuniang (Xie the Autumn Maid) 謝秋娘 421 n. 4 Xie the Senior and Xie the Junior 大小謝 217 Xie Tiao (464–499) 謝朓 [style, Xuanhui 玄暉] 196, 214–215, 217–220, 223–224, 231 served as Governor of Xuancheng 宣城太守 and Court Gentleman of the Ministry of Personnel in the Imperial Secretariat 尚書吏部郎 217 “Ascending the Three Hills by Evening and Looking Back at the Capital City” 晚登三山還望京邑 217 “Chanted in Moonlight atop the Gate Tower of Jinling” 金陵城樓月下吟 219 “Lament from the Jade Steps, A” 玉階怨 219 “On a Short Trip to the Lower Capital, I Set Out at Night from Xinlin, and on Arriving in the Capital City I Present this Poem to my Colleagues at the Western Office” 暫使下都夜發新林至京邑贈西府同僚 219 “On a Trip to the Xiancheng Commandery, I Embarked for Banqiao at the River Mouth of Xinlin” 之宣城郡出新林浦向板橋 219 “Poem in Reply to Xu of the Capital Ministry on an Outing to the Xingting Islet, A” 和徐都曹出新亭渚 218 “Trip to the Eastern Fields, A” 游東田 218 Xie Xuan 謝玄 204, 219 Xie Zhen 謝榛 677 Xie Zhuang 謝莊 196, 207 “Rhapsody on the Moon” 月賦 196, 207

972

glossary-index

Xin Qiji (1140–1207) 辛棄疾 [style, You’an 幼安] 413, 517, 519, 529, 531–538, 550, 784–785, 802, 804 literary name: Jiaxuan 稼軒 531 born in Licheng 歷城 (Ji’nan, Shandong today) 531 grandson of Xin Zan 辛贊 531 native of Didao, Gansu 甘肅狄道 531 lived at Belt Lake Villa, Shangrao 上饒帶湖別墅; Qianshan 鉛山 532 relation with Geng Jing 耿京 531 relation with Zhang Anguo 張安國 531 served as Prefect of Chuzhou 滁州知府; Judicial Commissioner 提點刑獄, Fiscal Commissioner 轉運使, and Military Commissioner 安撫使 in Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, etc., and later in Fujian; Prefect of Shaoxing 紹興知府 and concurrently as the Military Commissioner of Eastern Zhejiang 浙東安撫使; Prefect of Zhenjiang 鎮江知府 531 “Breaking the Formation” 破陣子 533 “Chanting of Dragon in Water: Ascending the Pavilion of Amusement at Jiankang” 水龍吟· 登建康賞心亭 534 “Chanting of Dragon in Water: In Celebration of the Birthday of Minister Han of the Southern Creek in the Year of Jiaxu” 水龍吟·甲辰歲壽韓南澗尚書 534 “Congratulation to the Bridegroom” 賀新郎 534 “Joy of Eternal Union: Recalling the Past at the Beigu Pavilion of Jingkou” 永遇樂·京口北固亭懷古 535 “Moon over the Western River” 西江月 537 “Music of Peace and Serenity” 清平樂 537 “Note on My New Residence at Shangliang” 新居上梁文 532 “Partridges in the Sky” 鷓鴣天 536 “Sands Washed in Waves” 浪淘沙 534 “Scooping Up Fish” 摸魚兒 536, 566 “Tune of Ganzhou in Eight Rhymes” 八聲甘州 534

Xin Yannian 辛延年 142 “Gentleman of the Palace Guard” 羽林郎 142 Xing Shao (496–?) 邢卲 [style, Zicai 子才] 234 “A Poem of Lament in Winter” 冬日傷志篇 234 “Thinking about the Young Master” 思公子 234 Xing Tian 刑天 186 Xiong Renhuan 熊稔寰 715 Elegant Melodies of Hui Pool 徽池雅調 715 Xiongnu 匈奴 112, 123, 584 Xiqi 奚齊 59 Xu Beng 徐賁 659 Xu Chen 徐 605 The Story of Dog-Killing 殺狗記 603, 605 Sun Hua 孫華 605 Sun Rong 孫榮 605 Yang Yue 楊月 605 Xu Chi 徐摛 196, 247 Xu Du 徐度 508 Collection from Retreating and Sweeping 卻掃編 508 Xu Feiqiong 許飛瓊 736 Xu Gan 徐幹 157, 159 “Thoughts of a Wife” 室思 159 Xu Heng 許衡 573 Xu Hun 許渾 [style, Yonghui 用晦] 364–365 Presented Scholar in the sixth year (832) of the Dahe reign 364 served as the Prefect 刺史 of Muzhou 睦州 and Yingzhou 郢州 364 “Heaven-Reaching Terrace” 凌歊臺 364 “Recalling the Ancient Times at Gusu” 姑蘇懷古 364 “Recalling the Ancient Times at Jinling” 金陵懷古 364 Xu Ji 徐璣 547–548 “Putting up at the Buddhist Temple” 宿寺 547–548 Xu Lin 徐麟 855 New Scores of the Nine Gong Modes 九宮新譜 855 Xu Ling (507–583) 徐陵 [style, Xiaomu 孝穆] 131, 143, 195–196, 203, 231, 240, 247–250 native of Shan, Donghai 東海剡 (in Shancheng 剡城, Shandong today) 247

glossary-index served (Chen) as Minister of Personnel 吏部尚書 and Left Vice Director of the Imperial Secretariat 尚書左僕射 247 “A Letter to Supervisor Yang” 與楊僕射書 248 Yang Zunyan 楊遵彥 248 “Miscellaneous Melody” 雜曲 247 Later Monarch of Chen 陳後主 247 Zhang Lihua 張麗華 247 “Moon at the Mountain Pass” 關山月 247–248 Mid-Cloud 雲中 248 Upper Commandery 上郡 248 Willow City 柳城 248 New Songs of the Jade Terrace 玉臺新詠 131, 135, 143–144 “Song of Going Out of the Northern Gate of Ji” 出自薊北門行 247 “Water of the Upper Long” 隴頭水 247 Xu River 潊水 41 n. 6 Xu Shu 徐淑 136 “Poem in Reply to My Husband” 答夫詩 136 Xu Wei (1521–1593) 徐渭 [style, Wenchang 文長] 597, 678, 680–683, 688, 696, 722, 724, 756, 763 literary names: Tianchi Shanren (“Mountaineer of the Celestial Pool”) 天池山人; Qingteng Daoren (“Taoist of Green Vines”) 青藤道人 681 born in Shanyin (Shaoxing, Zhejiang today) 681 Discussions of the Southern Play 南詞敘錄 597–600, 726–727 Haiyan Tune 海鹽腔 726 Kunshan Tune 昆山腔 726–727, 762 Yiyang Tune 弋陽腔 726 Yuyao Tune 餘姚腔 726 “Foreword to Ye Zisu’s Poetry” 葉子肅詩序 681 Four Screeches from Monkeys 四聲猿 722, 724–725 Crazy Drummer 狂鼓史 724 Dream of the Emerald Land 翠鄉夢 724 Emerald Willow 柳翠 724 Red Lotus 紅蓮 724–725 Yu Tong 玉通 724–725

973

Female Principal Graduate 女狀元 724 Mulan of the Fair Sex 雌木蘭 724–725 Huang Chonggu 黃崇嘏 724 “Ibid. (Mistletoe)” 寄生草么篇 725 Mulan 木蘭 724–725 “Note on the Hall of Sudden Vision” 豁然堂記 681 “On Centrality” 論中 681 “Shrine of Lord Wu” 伍公祠 682 Wu Zixu 伍子胥 682 “Shrine of Master Yan” 嚴先生祠 682 Yan Guang 嚴光 682 “To Ma Cezhi” 與馬策之 681 “Youth” 少年 682–683 Dragon-Spring Mountain 龍泉山 682 Yaojiang 姚江 683 Yuyang Roll 漁陽撾 683 Xu Xuan 徐鉉 467 “Looking Northward after Climbing up to the Sweet Dew Temple” 登甘露寺北望 467 Guangling City 廣陵城 467 Haimen 海門 467 Jingkou 荊口 467 Yangtze Ferry 揚子渡 467 Xu Yi 許顗 336 Yanzhou’s Poetic Remarks 彥周詩話 336 Xu You 許由 179 Xu Zhangru 徐長孺 195 Xu Zhao 徐照 547–548 “An Inspiration in the Mountains” 山中即事 548 Xu Zhenqing 徐禎卿 667, 671 Xu Zhongxing 徐中行 677 Xu Zuosu 徐作肅 789 “Foreword to Prose Writings from the Zhuanghui Hall” 壯悔堂文集序 789 Xue Daoheng (540–609) 薛道衡 [styled Xuanqing 玄卿] 251–252 “Salt, Night after Night” 昔昔鹽 252 Xue Fucheng 薛福成 826 Xue Zhaoyun 薛昭蘊 419 Xun Kuang 荀況 72–74 served as Magistrate of Lanling 蘭陵令 72 Xunzi 荀子 13

974

glossary-index

“Chapter of Playing the Tune” 成相篇 73 “Chapter of the Rhapsodies” 賦篇 73 Xun Yue 荀悅 105 Cautionary Statements 申鑒 105 Xunyi 旬邑 19 Xupu 潊浦 41 n. 6 Yan Di 炎帝 2, 186 n. 17 Yan Fu 嚴復 826 Evolution and Ethics 天演論 (translator) 826 Yan Jidao (ca. 1030–ca. 1106) 晏幾道 [style, Shuyuan 叔原] 439, 442–443, 512, 536 literary name: Xiaoshan (“Small Mountain”) 小山 442 served as Judge at the Superior Prefecture of Kaifeng 開封府推官 442 “Author’s Preface” to Song Lyrics of Xiaoshan 小山詞自序 442 “Partridges in the Sky” 鷓鴣天 442–443 Yan Liben 閻立本 340 n. 7 yanqing shi (erotic poetry) 艷情詩 361 Yan Ruoqu 閻若璩 52 Yan Shu (991–1055) 晏殊 [style, Tongshu 同叔] 422, 430–433, 437–439, 442 native of Linchuan 臨川 (within Jiangxi today) 430 “Silk-Washing Stream” 浣溪沙 431 “Stepping on Nut Grass” 踏莎行 431 Yan Song 嚴嵩 679 Yan Wu 嚴武 (Military Commissioner of Jiannan 劍南節度使) 312 Yan Yanzhi 顏延之 [style, Yannian 延年] 203, 208, 220 served as Grand Master for Splendid Happiness (Song) 光祿大夫 208 “Composed after Having Arrived at Liangcheng on my Return” 還至梁城作 208 “On a Mission to Luo in the North” 北使洛 208 “Presented to Minister Wang of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices” 贈王太常 208 yan yi (“elaboration of official historiography”) 演義 410, 744 Yan Yu 嚴羽 219, 284, 539–540, 578, 617, 780

Canglang’s Remarks on Poetry 滄浪詩話 219, 284, 539–540 Yan Zhitui 顏之推 687 Family Instructions of the Yan’s 顏氏家訓 234, 687 Yang Chaoguan (1712–1791) 楊潮觀 880 Miscellaneous Plays from the Pavilion of Chanting in the Wind 吟風閣雜劇 880 Lord Kou Cancels a Banquet on Thinking about His Mother 寇萊公思親罷宴 880 Kou Zhun 寇準 880 The Vein-Exposing Fairy Who Moves the Queen of Heaven 感天后神女露筋 880 Yang, Gladys 戴乃迭 772 n. 1 Yang Ji 楊基 657, 659 “Short Foreword to the Poem ‘I Dreamed about My Friend Gao Jidi’ ” 夢故人高季迪詩小序 657 Yang Jiong (650–after 693) 楊炯 272–275 “A Song of Joining the Army” 從軍行 274 “Preface to Wang Bo’s Works” 王勃集序 275 Yang Shen (1488–1559) 楊慎 [style, Yongxiu 用修] 666, 707–708 literary name: Sheng’an (“Shrine of Rising”) 升庵 708 native of Xindu 新都, Sichuan 708 First place in Metropolitan Examinations during the Zhengde reign 708 served as Senior Compiler of Hanlin Academy 翰林修撰 and at Yongchang 永昌, Yunnan 708 “Decline of Writing” 文字之衰 666 Individual Arias of Yang Shen and His Wife 楊昇庵夫婦散曲 (with his wife Huang E 黃娥) 708 “Oriole: Spring Evening” 黃鶯兒·春夕 708 Yang Shengwu 楊繩武 780 “Inscription on the Tablet Guarding the Passageway to the Tomb of Lord Wang, Grand Master for Assisting in Governance, Lecturer of the Classics Colloquium, Minister of Justice” 資政大夫經筵講官刑部尚書王公神道碑 780 n. 5

glossary-index Yang Su (544–606) 楊素 [styled Chudao 處道] 253 Yang Wanli (1127–1206) 楊萬里 [style, Tingxiu 廷秀] 511, 519–520, 522–525, 527, 538 literary name: Chengzhai (“Studio of Honesty”) 誠齋 522 native of Jishui 吉水 (within Jiangxi today) 522 served as Erudite of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices 太常博士; Academician of the Hall for Treasuring the Heritage 寶謨閣直學士 522 Chengzhai Style 誠齋體 511, 522–525, 547 “Composed on Narcissus Flowers and Lakeside Hills in Evening Chill” 晚寒題水仙花並湖山 523 “Foreword to the Jingxi Collection” 荊溪集序 522 “Inscribed on Tang Deming’s Jianyi Studio” 題唐德明建一齋 523 “Letter to Xu Da” 致徐達書 523 method of liveliness 活法 511 “My Boat Passed by the Xie Pond: Three Pieces” 舟過謝潭三首 524 “Passing by Songyuan, Cooking Breakfast at Qigong’s Inn: Six Pieces” 過松源晨炊漆公店六首 524 “Small Pool” 小池 523 “Two Days after the Double Ninth, I Ascended the Valley of the Stream of Ten Thousand Flowers with Xu Kezhang, and We Passed Cups of Wine Around under the Moon” 重九後二日同徐克章同登萬花川谷月下傳觴 524 Yang Weizhen (1296–1370) 楊維楨3 [style, Lianfu 廉夫] 618, 627, 629–633, 656, 659–660, 662, 668 literary names: Tieya (“Iron Cliff ”) 鐵厓; Tiedi Daoren (“Taoist with an Iron Flute”) 鐵笛道人; Dongweizi (“Master of Eastern Base”) 東維子 629 native of Zhuji 諸暨 (within today’s Zhejiang) 629 served as Director of the Qianqing Saltworks 錢清鹽場司令 and Judge

975

of the Jiande Route Command 建德路總管府推官 629 Archaic Yuefu Poetry from the Iron Cliff 鐵厓古樂府 630 “Eight Poems of the Fragrant Toiletry Case” 香奩八詠 633 “Meeting Each Other” 相見 633 “Missing Each Other” 相思 633 “Receiving the Message” 的信 633 “Secret Dating” 私會 633 “Foreword to the Collection from the Pavilion that Brings Cranes” 來鶴亭集序 630 “Foreword to Manuscript of Wu Fu’s Poetry” 吳復詩錄序 630 “Foreword to Poetry from Shan and Shao” 剡韶詩序 630 “Foreword to Selected Regulated Poems under Banana Tree by the Window” 蕉窗律選序 660 “Lyric of a Great Man” 大人詞 627, 630, 632 “Nine Songs of Bamboo Twigs from the West Lake” 西湖竹枝歌九首 632 “Song of a Beautiful Woman in the West of the City” 城西美人歌 632 “Song of a Taoist” 道人歌 630 “Trip to the Five Lakes” 五湖遊 630–632 Eastern Fusang Sea 東扶(桑)海 631 Fan Li 范蠡 [“Master of Leather Bag 鴟夷子皮] 631 n. 9 God of Waves 陽侯 631 Gou Jian 勾踐 631 n. 9 Isle of the King of Wu 吳王洲 631 Jingwei 精衛 631 Leather-Bag Lake 鴟夷湖 631 Zheng Dan 鄭旦 631 “Twenty Poems as a Sequel to the Collection of Toiletry Case: The Swing” 續奩集二十詠·秋千 632 Yang Xianyi 楊獻益 772 n. 1 Yang Xianzhi 楊顯之 592 Rain in Hunan 瀟湘雨 592

3 (Original Note) The character 楨 has another variation 禎. It varies in different books of the time. We follow the version in History of the Ming.

976

glossary-index

Yang Xiong (53 B.C.–A.D. 18 ) 揚雄 [style, Ziyun 子雲] 80, 87–88, 463, 692 n. 7 “Dissolving Ridicule” 解嘲 87 “Dissolving Reproof ” 解難 87 “Objection to ‘On Encountering Trouble,’ An” 反離騷 87 “Rhapsody on the Capital of Shu” 蜀都賦 87 “Rhapsody on the East of the River” 河東賦 87 “Rhapsody on Arrow Hunting” 羽獵賦 87 “Rhapsody on the Sweet Springs Palace” 甘泉賦 87 “Rhapsody on the Tall Poplars Palace” 長楊賦 87 Yang Xuanzhi 楊衒之 237–240 Notes on the Buddhist Temples of Luoyang 洛陽伽藍記 235–240 qie lan (Samghârāma) 伽藍 237 Temple of Divine Clouds 法雲寺 239 chi 箎 239 “Song of the Round Fan” 團扇歌 239 “Sound from the Upper Long” 隴上聲 239 Yuan Chen, Prince of Hejian 元琛 [河間王] 239 Zhaoyun (“Morning Cloud”) 朝雲 239 Temple of Everlasting Peace 永寧寺 238 Temple of Great Forest 景林寺 238 Temple of Great Unity 大統寺 239 Yang Yi (974–1021) 楊億 463, 472–473 compiled The Collection of Poems in Exchanges from the West Kunlun 西昆酬唱集 in the second year of the Dazhong Xiangfu reign (1009) 472–473s “Martial Emperor of the Han” 漢武 473 “Setting Sun” 夕陽 473 Yang Yuhuan (Consort Yang) 楊玉環 (楊貴妃) [Taizhen 太真] 334, 353, 583, 625 n. 6, 628, 851, 853–854 Yang Yun (?–55 B.C.) 楊惲 109–110 “A Letter in Reply to Sun Huizong” 報孫會宗書 109 Yang Zai (1271–1323) 楊載 [style, Zhonghong 仲弘] 624–626

“An Improvised Random Composition” 遣興偶作 625 “On a Dream” 紀夢 626 “Snow Veranda” 雪軒 625 “Watching the Moon at Zongyang Palace: In the Distribution of the Rhyme Scheme I Got the Word ‘Sound’ ” 宗陽宮望月分韻得聲字 625 Yangshao 仰韶 1 Yangtze 長江 1, 5, 16, 31–33, 41, 117, 181–182, 193, 233, 237 n. 22, 245 n. 43, 249 n. 46, 255, 300, 313, 422, 512, 579, 581, 597, 614 n. 3, 773, 775, 779, 795, 859 Yao 堯 37 Yao He 姚合 345, 547 Yao Nai (1731–1815) 姚鼐 [style, Jichuan 姬傳] 790, 793, 798, 806, 808–810, 825–826 known as Master Xibao (name of his studio) 惜抱先生 808 Metropolitan Graduate in the 28th year of the Qianlong reign (1763) 808 served as Director in the Ministry of Justice 刑部郎中, Senior Compiler of the Office of the Four Treasuries 四庫館修纂 808 “An Account of the Ascendance of Mt. Taishan” 登泰山記 809 Classified Anthology of Classical Prose, A 古文辭類纂 798, 806, 809, 825 “Introduction and Contents of A Classified Anthology of Classical Prose” 古文辭類纂序目 809 Four Major Disciples 四大弟子 810 Fang Dongshu 方東樹 810 Guan Tong 管同 810 Mei Zengliang 梅曾亮 810, 825 Yao Ying 姚瑩 810 “Letter in Reply to Qin Xiaoxian, A” 復秦小峴書 808 Yao Xie (1805–1864) 姚燮 [style, Meibo 梅伯] 824–825 literary name: Fuzhuang 復莊 824 Provincial Graduate in the Daoguang reign 824 “An Elegy for Jiangnan: in Five Refrains Using the Rime Pattern of [Du Fu’s] ‘Autumn Meditation in Eight Pieces,’ ” 哀江南詩五疊秋興韻八章 824 Chen Huacheng 陳化成 825

glossary-index “Poem on a Pair of Zhen Birds” 雙鴆篇 825 Ye 鄴 (Linzhang, Hebei 河北臨漳 today) 147, 160 Ye Mengde 葉孟得 489 Poetic Remarks from the Stone Forest 石林詩話 489 Ye Shaoweng 葉紹翁 550–551 “A Trip to a Garden Which Happened to be Closed” 遊園不值 550–551 Ye Shi 葉適 547–548 “Inscribed on Liu Qianfu’s Poetry Manuscripts from the Southern Mountain” 題劉潛夫南岳詩稿 548 Selected Poems by the Four Ling’s 四靈詩選 547 Ye Shizhang 葉時章 842 Ye Xie 葉燮 479 Tracing the Origins of Poetry 原詩 479 Ye Yin 葉茵 547 “Presented to Chen Yunju (Chen Qi)” 贈陳芸居 547 Yecheng (Xiangzhou) 鄴城 (相州) 314–315 Yelü Chucai (1190–1244) 耶律楚材 [style, Jinqing 晉卿] 618–619 literary name: Zhanran Jushi (“Layman Buddhist of Clairvoyance”) 湛然居士 618 “Matching a Poem by Chen Xiuyu in the Same Rhyme: Passing by the Capital of the Yan” 過燕京和陳秀玉韻 618 “Missing My Parents” 思親有感 618 Yellow River 黃河 1, 2, 5, 7, 16, 37–38, 43, 236, 242, 247, 282, 291, 299, 301, 468, 516, 673, 709, 725, 829, 836, 893 Yin 殷 (Shang) 3 Yin Fan 殷璠 291 The Collection of the Great Souls of the Yellow River and Sacred Mountains 河岳英靈集 291 Yin Keng 陰鏗 [styled Zijian 子堅] 248–249 served as Governor of Jinling with the title of Supernumerary Cavalier Attendant-in-Ordinary 晉陵太守員外散騎常侍 248 “Failing to See Off Liu of the Imperial Entertainments Office at the Ferry Crossing” 江津送劉光祿不及 248

977

“In Reply to Master Fu’s ‘Returning to Xiangzhou at Year’s End’ ” 和傅郎歲暮還湘州 249 tang 棠 or tangli 棠梨 (Pyrus betulaefolia) 249 n. 48 “Kaishan Temple” 開善寺 249 “Setting Out at Night from the Five-Islets” 五洲夜發 249 Xishui County, Hubei 湖北浠水 249 n. 46 Yin Zhongwen 殷仲文 183 Ying 郢 (near today’s Jiangling) 36, 41 Ying Yang 應瑒 157, 159 Yiqiu Sanren (“Recluse of Autumn Rush”) 荑秋散人 852 [or Di’an Sanren (“Recluse of the Reed Shore”) 荻岸散人, etc.] 852 Cold Swallow of Mount Even 平山冷燕 852 Leng (“Cold”) Jiangxue 冷絳雪 852 Ping (“Even”) Ruheng 平如衡 852 Shan (“Mount”) Dai 山黛 852 Yan (“Swallow”) Bohan 燕白頷 852 Lovely Jade and Pear 玉嬌梨 852 Bo Hongyu (“Jade”) 白紅玉 852 Lu Mengli (“Pear”) 盧夢梨 852 Su Youbo 蘇友白 852 yonghuai (“revelation of innermost feelings”) poetry 詠懷詩 663 Yongle Encyclopedia 永樂大典 598 Yongzhou 雍州 103 Yoshikawa Kōjirō 吉川幸次郎 828 A History of Chinese Poetry 中國詩史 828 You Guoeng 游國恩 80 A General Discussion of The Songs of the South 楚辭概論 80 Yu 禹 5, 8, 11–12 Yu Dafu 郁達夫 813, 837 “Introduction” to The Second Collection of Prose in General Anthology of New Chinese Literature 中國新文學大系·散文二集·導言 813 “Random Discussion of Manshu’s Works, A” 雜評曼殊的作品 837 Yu Huai 余懷 727 Notes of Listening to Singing Performances at the Garden to Heart’s Content 寄暢園聞歌記 727

978

glossary-index

Yu Huan 魚豢 189 A Short History of Wei 魏略 189 Yu Ji (1272–1348) 虞集 [style, Bosheng 伯生] 624–625, 628, 637 “Crab-Apple Flowers” 海棠 625 “Foreword to Fu Yuli’s Poetry Collection” 傅與礪詩集序 628 “Sitting Alone in the Courtyard” 院中獨坐 624 Yu Jianwu 庾肩吾 196, 231 Yu Shi’nan (ca. 558–ca. 638) 虞世南 [style, Boshi 伯施] 269 Yu Wanchun (1794–1849) 俞萬春 885 Records of the Elimination of Bandits 蕩寇志 884–885 Chen Xizhen 陳希真 885 Zhang Shuye 張叔夜 885 Yu Xin (513–581) 庾信 [style, Zishan 子山] 196, 203, 231, 240–247 native of Xinye, Nanyang 南陽新野 (within today’s Henan) 240 served as Scholar of the Eastern Palace (in Liang) 東宮學士 240 served (in N. Zhou) as Cavalry Generalissimo and Commander Unequalled in Honor 驃騎大將軍開府儀同三司 240 “Respectfully Composed in Reply to ‘A Mountain Pool’ ” 奉和山池 240 “Rhapsody on the Sorrow for Jiangnan” 哀江南賦 243–246 Black River 黑水 244 n. 36 Cross River 交河 245 Dark Clay Fortress 青泥關 244 n. 36 Feng Yi 馮異 243 n. 30 four-six format 四六體 245 Green Wave 青波 (in today’s Xincai, Henan 河南新蔡) 245 Guangzhong 關中 244 n. 36 Husband-Watching Rock 望夫石 (in Wuchang 武昌) 245 n. 41 Jiangdong (East of the Yangtze) 江東 245 Jing Ke 荊軻 244 n. 31 Jing River 涇水 244 n. 32 Liu Bian, Emperor Shao of E. Han 劉辨 (漢少帝) 244 n. 35 Liu Xie, Emperor Xian 劉協 (漢獻帝) 244 n. 35 Mian River 渑水 244 Son-Watching Hill 望子陵 (in Zhongshan 中山) 245 n. 41

Son-Watching Terrace 望子臺 245 n. 41 “Song of the Upper Long” 隴頭歌 245 n. 39, 247 Sun Ce 孫策 (175–200) 245 Tulufan, Xinjiang 新疆吐魯番 245 n. 40 Xi Jian, Regional Inspector of Gunzhou 郄鑒 [袞州刺史] 244 n. 34 Zi River 淄水 244 n. 37 “Rhapsody on Spring” 春賦 240–241 “Sent to Wang Lin by Mail” 寄王琳 243 “Simulation of ‘From My Heart’ ” 擬詠懷 241–242 Yu Zishan’s Works 庾子山集 246 Yu Xiong 鬻熊 31 Yu Yue 俞樾 886 Seven Chivalrous Men and Five Warriors 七俠五義 886 Yuan (dynasty) 元 351, 453, 507, 539, 551, 553–556, 558, 561–562, 567, 571, 573–651, 653–656, 658, 662, 668, 676, 704, 713, 719–720, 725, 743, 746, 774, 851, 899 institution of the four classes of people 四等人制 574 Yuan Haowen (1190–1257) 元好問 [style, Yuzhi 裕之] 504, 563–567, 607, 617 literary name: Yishan 遺山 565 native of Xiurong 秀容 (Xinxian 忻縣, Shanxi today) 565 served as Vice Director of the Left Office of the Branch Department of State Affairs 行尚書省左司員外郎 565 Collection of the Central Provinces 中州集 563–564 Music Bureau of the Central Provinces 中州樂府 563 “On Events after His Majesty Made the Eastern Hunting Trip in the Twelfth Month of the Year of Ren Chen” 壬辰十二月車駕東狩後即事 566 “Qiyang” 歧陽 565 Fengxiang 鳳翔 565 Long River 隴水 565 “Scooping Up Fish” 摸魚兒 566 Bingzhou 并州 566 Daming 大名 566

glossary-index “Someone under the Full Moon: Moving to the East Garden of My Maternal Grand-Parents” 人月圓· 卜居外家東園 607 “Thirty Poems on Poetry” 論詩三十首 565 “Wild Goose Hillock” 雁邱辭 567 Yuan Hongdao (1568–1610) 袁宏道 [style, Zhonglang 中郎] 676, 680, 682, 686–691, 695–696, 713 literary name: Shigong (“Lord of Rock”) 石公 686 Metropolitan Graduate in the 20th year of the Wanli reign (1592) 686 served as District Magistrate of Wuxian 吳縣令, Director at the Ministry of Personnel 吏部郎中 686 “Biography of Xu Wenchang (Xu Wei)” 徐文長傳 682, 688, 696 “Composed on the Lake: Saying Farewell to Master Tongfang” 湖上別同方公子賦 691 “Evening Sight En Route to Dong’e, An” 東阿道中晚望 691 “Foreword to Cai Buxia’s Poetry” 蔡不瑕詩序 693 “Foreword to Collection from the Pavilion of Snow Waves” 雪濤閣集序 689 “Hosting a Gathering for the Gentlemen at the Temple of Divine Witness: Using Words about Mountains and Woods in the City for the Rhyme Schemes” 顯靈宮集諸公以城市山林為韵 691 “In Reply to Huang Wujing of the Ministry of Rites” 答黃無淨祠部 690 “Introduction to Chen Zhengfu’s (Chen Suoxue) Collection of Cognition” 敘陳正甫會心集 687 “Introduction to Collection of the Rules of the Guo Family” 敘呙氏家繩集 690 “Introduction to Xiaoxiu (Yuan Zhongdao)’s Poetry” 敘小修詩 676, 687–690 “Mailed to Jiang Jinzhi (Yinke) on the Mid-Autumn Day When There Has Been a Rain for Days” 病中見中秋連日雨柬江進之 693 “Mailed to Vice Commissioner Cao Zunsheng” 寄曹大參尊生 690

979

natural sensibility 性靈 676, 687–690, 695, 698, 703 charm 韻 687 delight 趣 687 “Note in Celebration of My Eldest Sister’s Fiftieth Birthday, A” 壽大姐五十序 696 “Someone in Jiangnan” 江南子 691 “To Qiu Changru” 邱長孺 695 “To Zhang Youyu” 張幼于 690 “West Lake” 西湖 695–696 Yuan Jiao 袁郊 403–404 Hearsays from Ganze 甘澤謠 403–404 “Lazy Can” 懶殘 404 “Red String” 紅線 404 Yuan Jie (719–772) 元結 [style, Cishan 次山] 325–326 served as Prefect of Daozhou 道州刺史 325 “Attached Note to Music Bureau Poems” 繫樂府序 326 “Foreword to the Poem on Attendant Censor Liu’s Banquet on a Moonlit Evening” 劉侍御月夜宴會詩序 326 “Showing to Officials and Functionaries after the Bandits Retreated” 賊退示官吏 325 “Song of Chongling” 舂陵行 325 Yuan Jue 袁桷 622 “Memorial Tablet Inscription for Master Dai’s Tomb” 戴先生墓志銘 622 Yuan Kai 袁凱 659 Yuan Mei (1716–1797) 袁枚 [style, Zicai 子才] 771, 793, 795–798, 801, 805–806 literary name: Jianzhai (“Studio of Simplicity”) 簡齋, Suiyuan Zhuren (“Master of the Accommodation Garden”) 隨園主人 795 native of Qiantang 錢塘, Zhejiang (Hangzhou today) 795 Metropolitan Graduate in the fourth year of the Qianlong reign (1739) 795 served at Hanlin Academy, District Magistrate 795 lived at the Accommodation Garden 隨園 at Mt. Xiaocang 小倉山 in Jiangning 江寧 (Nanjing today) 795

980

glossary-index

“An Account of Accommodation Garden” 隨園記 798 “An Elegiac Address to My Younger Sister” 祭妹文 798 Suwen 素文 798 “Mailed to Cong Niang” 寄聰娘 797 “Miscellaneous Poem on a Spring Day” 春日雜詩 797 “On Moral Integrity” 清說 796 “Random Composition, A” 偶然作 796 “Second Letter in Reply to Dingyu” 答定宇第二書 796 “Self-Mockery” 自嘲 797 “Thinking of Qian Yusha, Regional Earl, I Sent This in Mail to Tell Him about My Return to Hometown” 寄懷錢嶼沙方伯予告歸里 796–797 Yuan River 沅水 41 Yuan Shansong 袁山松 237 Notes on Yidu 宜都記 237 Yuan Shao 袁紹 641, 643–644 Yuan Shu 袁術 [style, Gonglu 公路] 641, 643–644 Yuan Zhen (779–831) 元禛 [style, Weizhi 微之] 269, 331, 334, 345, 347–351, 355, 364, 392, 396, 398–399, 401 n. 3, 568, 581 native of Henei, Henan 河南河內 (Luoyang, Henan today) 347 ranked first in the civil service examination, under the category of “Talent, Knowledge and Intelligence in Practice” 才識兼茂明於體用科 in the first year (806) of the Yuanhe reign 347 served as Left Reminder 左拾遺, Investigating Censor 監察御史, Vice Minister of Works and Jointly Manager of State Affairs 工部侍郎同平章事 347 “Dawn in Spring” 春曉 349 “Epitaph to the Late Mr. Du, Vice Director of the Ministry of Works of the Tang, with a Preface” 唐故工部員外郎杜君墓誌銘并序 269 “Expressing My Sorrow” 遣悲懷 349 “In Reply to Hanlin Academician Bo’s Poetic Epistle in a Hundred Couplets” 酬翰林白學士代書一百韻 401 n. 3

“In Response to Editor Li’s Music Bureau Songs with New Titles: Twelve Pieces” 和李校書新題樂府十二首 348 “Inverted Bells of Huayuan” 華原磬 348 “Playing on the Five Strings” 五弦彈 348 “Song for Buddhist Rituals” 法曲 348 “White-Haired Woman in the Shangyang Palace” 上陽白髮人 348 “Preface to Music Bureau Poems under Ancient Titles” 樂府古題序 348 “Song of Miss Li” 李娃行 396 “Story of Yingying, The” 鶯鶯傳 349, 398–399, 568, 570, 581, 590 Cui Yingying 崔鶯鶯 398–399 Hong Niang (“Red Maid”) 紅娘 398 Lady Zheng 鄭氏 398 Master Zhang 張生 398 Pujiu Temple (“Savior of All Temple”) 普救寺 398 Puzhou 蒲州 398 “Words from the Farmer” 田家詞 348 Yuan Zhi 袁袠 670 “Foreword to Tang Bohu’s Works” 唐伯虎集序 670 Yuan Zhongdao (1570–1623) 袁中道 [style, Xiaoxiu 小修] 676, 687, 690, 692–694, 696–697 literary name: Fuyin Jushi (“Layman Buddhist of the Wild Duck Hermitage”) 鳧隱居士 687 Metropolitan Graduate in the 44th year of the Wanli reign (1616) 687 served as Erudite at the Directorate of Education 國子監博士; Director at the Ministry of Rites in Nanjing 南京禮部郎中 687 “Biography of Li Wenling (Li Zhi)” 李溫陵傳 690 “Composed to Show Li Zhexing and Cui Huizhi in the Boat during Wind and Rain Shortly after Failing at the Examinations” 風雨舟中示李謫星崔晦之時方下第 692 “Fountain Spring at Night, A” 夜泉 693

glossary-index “In Reply to Cai Yuanlü, Surveillance Commissioner” 答蔡觀察元履 694 Huang Hui 黃輝 [style, Pingqian 平倩] 694 “Poems to Express My Feeling” 感懷詩 692–693 Lou Hu 樓護 [style, Junqing 君卿] 692 n. 6 Wood Shavings from Daily Life 遊居柿錄 697 (Yuan Xiaoxiu’s Diaries 袁小修日記) 697 Yuan Zongdao (1560–1600) 袁宗道 [style, Boxiu 伯修] 686, 690, 693 first place in the Metropolitan Examinations in the 14th year of the Wanli reign (1586) 687 appointed as Hanlin Bachelor 翰林庶吉士; served as Mentor on the Right for the Heir Apparent 右庶子 687 Yue Fei 岳飛 621, 691, 849–851 Yue Shi 樂史 559 “Biography of the Green Pearl” 綠珠傳 559 yuefu (see Music Bureau Poetry) Yunmeng Marsh 雲夢澤 84 Yuwen Xuzhong 宇文虛中 563 “A Spring Day” 春日 563 Zang Maoxun 臧懋循 754 Selected Yuan Plays 元曲選 754 ze 則 655 zei 賊 655 Zeng Gong (1019–1083) 曾鞏 [style, Zigu 子固] 486, 491, 675 native of Nanfeng 南豐 (within Jiangxi today) 675 Zeng Guofan 曾國藩 823, 825–827 Classified Selection of Diaries from the Studio of Defect Search 求闕齋日記類鈔 826 “Written on Peng Xu’s Poetry Collection and also as a Valediction to Him on His Homebound Trip to the South” 題彭旭詩集後即送其南歸 826–827 Zeng Ji 曾幾 510–511, 530 “Living at Wuxing as a Visitor” 寓居吳興 510 “On the Road in Sanqu” 三衢道中 510

981

Zeng Pu (1872–1935) 曾樸 [style, Mengpu 孟樸] 890, 895–897 native of Changshu, Jiangsu 895 Provincial Graduate during the Guangxu reign 895 Flowers in a Sea of Sin 孽海花 890, 893, 895–897 co-author: Jin Songcen 金松岑 895 pennames: Lover of Freedom 愛自由者 and Sick Man of East Asia 東亞病夫 895 “A Few Words to Say after Revision” 修改後要說的幾句話 896 Auntie 姨娘 897 Earl Weiyi 威毅伯 895 Fu Caiyun 傅彩雲 895–896 Hong Jun 洪鈞 895 Jin Wenqing 金雯青 895–896 Kang Youhui 康猶輝 895 Li Hongzhang 李鴻章 895 Liang Chaoru 梁超如 895 Sai Jinhua 賽金花 895 Three Subjections and Four Virtues 三從四德 897 Zeng Xi 曾皙 (style, Dian 點) 65–66 Zeng Yu 曾燠 806 Zha Shenxing 查慎行 782 Zhan Fangsheng 湛方生 183 “The Sailboat Enters the Southern Lake” 帆入南湖 183 Zhang Ailing 張愛玲 889 Zhang Binglin 章炳麟 (Zhang Taiyan 章太炎) 775 “Appendix” in A Book of Imposing Words 訄書·別錄 775 Zhang Chushu 張楚叔 711 An Anthology of Southern Melodies 吳騷合編 701, 711 Zhang Dafu 張大復 842 Zhang Dai (1597–1697) 張岱 [style, Zongzu 宗子 and also Shigong 石公] 700–703 literary name: Tao’an (“Tao Hut”) 陶庵 701 Dream Memories from the Tao Hut 陶庵夢憶 701–703 “West Lake on the Day of the Full Moon in the Seventh Lunar Month” 西湖七月半 701–703 “Epitaph for Myself, An” 自為墓誌銘 701 Searching for West Lake in Dreams 西湖夢尋 701

982

glossary-index

Zhang Fei 張飛 641 Zhang Han 張翰 535, 538 Zhang Heng (78–139) 張衡 78, 94–96, 131, 136 “Poem of Four Sorrows” 四愁詩 131 “Rhapsody on Contemplating the Mystery” 思玄賦 95–96 “Rhapsody on Returning to the Fields” 歸田賦 95–96 “Rhapsody on the Two Metropolises” 二京賦 94–95 Master Live-in-Peace 安處先生 94 Sir Based-on-Nothing 憑虛公子 94 “Song in the Same Voice, A” 同聲歌 136 Zhang Hu 張祜 365 “Inscribed at the Jinling Ferry” 題金陵渡 365 Zhang Hua (232–300) 張華 173–174 “Miscellaneous Poems” 雜詩 173 “Piece on the Bathing Day, A” 上巳篇 173 “Poems of Emotion” 情詩 173 Zhang Huan (104–181) 張奐 111 “A Letter to Cui Zizhen” 與崔子貞書 111 “A Letter to Yandu” 與延篤書 111 Zhang Huiyan (1761–1802) 張惠言 [style, Gaowen 皋文] 802–804 literary name: Mingke 茗柯 803 native of Wujin 武進 (Changzhou today) 803 Metropolitan Graduate in the 4th year of the Jiaqing reign (1799) 803 served as Editor of Hanlin Academy 翰林院編修 803 Changzhou School 常州派 803–804 Selected Song Lyrics 詞選 803–804 Zhang Ji 張繼 330 “Mooring at the Maple Bridge” 楓橋夜泊 330 Zhang Ji (ca. 766–ca. 830) 張籍 [style, Wenchang 文昌] 339, 345–346, 350, 504 Presented Scholar in the fifteenth year (799) of the Zhenyuan reign 345 served as Director of the Bureau of Waterways and Irrigation 水部郎中, Director of Studies at the Directorate of Education 國子司業 345

“Autumn Thought” 秋思 346 “Deer Stands at the Mountains, A” 山頭鹿 345–346 “In Memoriam of Han Yu” 祭退之 345 “Letter Presented to Han Yu, A” 上韓昌黎書 345 “Song of Hurry” 促促詞 345 “Song of an Old Rustic Man” 野老歌 345 Zhang Jiuling (678–740) 張九齡 [style, Zishou 子壽] 279–280 “Missing Someone Far Away while Looking at the Moon” 望月懷遠 280 “Reflections on Experience” 感遇 280 “Travel by Night on the Western River” 西江夜行 280 Zhang Jun 張浚 525 Zhang Kang 張亢 174 Zhang Kejiu (ca. 1270–after 1348) 張可久 [style, Xiaoshan 小山] 613, 615–616 native of Qingyuan 慶元 (in the region of Ningbo, Zhejiang today) 615 “Making Obeisance to the Son of Heaven: Spring Thoughts” 朝天子·春思 616 “Pleasure in front of the Hall: During a Trip” 殿前歡·客中 616 “Red Embroidered Shoes: En Route to the Tiger Hill” 紅繡鞋·虎邱道上 616 “Someone under the Full Moon: Visiting Chuihong” 人月圓·客垂虹 616 “Universal Happiness: On an Occasion in Late Spring” 普天樂· 暮春即事 615 Zhang Lei 張耒 384, 504 “On Han Yu” 韓愈論 384 Zhang Liang 張良 118, 120–121 Zhang Mi 張泌 419 Zhang Peiheng 章培恆 xiv, xxii, 302 n. 3, 635 “Li Bo’s Marriages, Social Status and Clanship” 李白的婚姻生活、社會地位與氏族 (in Presentations of Suspicions 獻疑集) 302 n. 3 “On the Extant So-Called ‘Huaben from the Song Dynasty’ ” 關於現存的所謂“宋話本” Bulletin of

glossary-index Shanghai University 上海大學學報, (1)1996 635 n. 12 Zhang Pu 張溥 246 Collected Works of 103 Writers from Han, Wei and the Six Dynasties 漢魏六朝百三家集 246 Zhang Ruoxu 張若虛 277–279 “A Moonlit Night among Flowers by the Spring River” 春江花月夜 278–279 Zhang Shicheng 張士誠 660 Zhang Shoujie 張守節 127 Commentary of the Historical Records 史記正義 127 Zhang Shunmin 張舜民 432 Records of Colored Wall-Covering 畫墁錄 432 Zhang Shuye 張叔夜 645 Zhang Wentao (1764–1814) 張問陶 [style, Zhongye 仲冶] 795, 801–802 literary name: Chuanshan (“Boat Hill”) 船山 801 native of Suining 遂寧, Sichuan 801 Metropolitan Graduate at the end of the Qianlong reign 801 served as Examining Editor of Hanlin Academy 翰林院檢討, Prefect of Laizhou 萊州知府 801 “Eight Poems on Writing” 論文八首 801 “Inscribed on the Wall while Passing by Anju En Route to Chengdu” 初冬赴成都過安居題壁 801–802 “Inside the Carriage at the Speckled Bamboo Pond” 斑竹塘車中 801 “Twelve Quatrains on Poetry” 論詩十二絕句 801 Zhang Xian (990–1078) 張先 [style, Ziye 子野] 422, 430, 437–438, 804 native of Wucheng 烏程 (Huzhou 湖州, Zhejiang today) 437 served as Director of the Criminal Administration Bureau in the Department of State Affairs 尚書都官郎中 437 “Celebration of a Millennium” 千秋歲 437 “Clepsydra” 更漏子 437 “Cutting down Peony Flowers” 剪牡丹 438 “Fairy from Heaven” 天仙子 437–438 “Lily Magnolia Flowers” 木蘭花 438

983

“Song of the Blue Gate” 青門引 438 “Telling my Heart” 訴衷情 437 Zhang Xiaoxiang (1132–1170) 張孝祥 [style, Anguo 安國] 516–518 literary name: Buddhist Layman of Lake Yu 于湖居士 517 “Heading of the Song of the Six Prefectures” 六州歌頭 517 “Lovely Nian Nu: Passing by the Dongting Lake” 念奴嬌·過洞庭 518 Zhang Xie (?–307) 張協 173–174, 178 “Miscellaneous Poems” 雜詩 178 Zhang Xu 張旭 313 Zhang Xuan 張萱 145 Suspicion of Splendor 疑耀 145 Zhang Xuecheng 章學誠 796, 805 “A Colophon to a Workshop Print of Poetic Remarks” 書坊刻詩話後 796 Zhang Yan (1248–?) 張炎 [style, Shuxia 叔夏] 458, 541, 546, 551–553, 782, 804 literary names: Yutian (“Jade Field”) 玉田; Lexiaoweng (“Old Man Who Delights in Laughing”) 樂笑翁 552 “Detaching a Chain of Rings: A Single Wild Goose” 解連環·孤雁 553 Sources of the Song Lyric, The 詞源 541, 546 , 552 “Tall Sun Terrace” 高陽臺 552–553 Zhang Yanghao 張養浩 607–608 “Aria of Heaven Worship: Untitled” 朝天曲·無題 608 “Sheep on the Slope: Remembrances of the Past” 山坡羊·潼關懷古 608 Zhang Yu 張羽 659 Zhang Yuangan (ca. 1091–ca. 1161) 張元幹 [style, Zhongzong 仲宗] 516–517 literary name: Buddhist Layman of Reed Stream 蘆川居士 516 “Congratulation to the Bridegroom: Mailed to Prime Minister Li Boji” 賀新郎·寄李伯紀丞相 517 “Congratulation to the Bridegroom: A Valediction to Hu Bangheng, Edict Attendant, on His Way to Xinzhou” 賀新郎·送胡邦衡待制赴新州 516 Zhang Yue (667–731) 張說 [style, Daoji 道濟] 279–280

984

glossary-index

“An Introductory Song of the Capital of Ye” 鄴都引 280 Zhang Yuzhao 張裕釗 826 Zhang Zai 張載 174, 462 Zhang Zhidong 張之洞 823 Zhang Zhihe 張志和 415 literary name: “Fisherman in Misty Waves” 煙波釣徒 415 “Fisherman” 漁父 415 Zhang Zhuo 張鷟 [style, Wencheng 文成] 395 served as District Defender of Xiangle, Ningzhou 寧州襄樂縣尉 395 “A Visit to an Immortals’ Grotto” 遊仙窟 395, 638 Heyuan 河源 395 Shi Niang (“Tenth Lady”) 十娘 395 Zhao Chengzuo 趙承祚 419 Collection among Flowers 花間集 419–420 Zhao Delin 趙德麟 568–569 “Butterfly’s Fancy for Flowers in the Shang Mode” 商調蝶戀花 568 Zhao Gu 趙嘏 372–373 “An Autumn Scene in Chang’an” 長安秋望 372 Zhao Kuangyin 趙匡胤 [See also Emperor Taizu (Song)] 196 n. 2 Zhao Mengfu (1254–1322) 趙孟頫 [style, Zi’ang 子昂] 620–622, 624 literary name: Songxue Daoren (“Pine-Snow Taoist”) 松雪道人 620 native of Huzhou 湖州 (within Zhejiang today) 620 served as Hanlin Academician and Recipient of Edicts 翰林學士承旨 620 “Grave of Yue, the Prince of E, The” 岳鄂王墓 621 “Hearing the Sound of Beating Clothes in Washing” 聞搗衣 621 Zhao Shixiu 趙師秀 547–548 “Above the Moat” 壕上 547 “Appointment with a Friend” 約客 548 Zhao Yi 趙壹 97–98 “Rhapsody Criticizing the World and Condemning Evil” 刺世疾邪賦 97

Zhao Yi (1727–1814) 趙翼 [style, Yunsong 雲崧] 565, 795, 798–799 literary name: Oubei 甌北 798 served on the Military Defense Circuit of western Guizhou 貴西兵備道 798 Notes on the Twenty-Two Histories 廿二史札記 798 “On Poetry” 論詩 798 Poetic Remarks from Oubei 甌北詩話 565 Research in Various Fields from Ridges between Fields 陔餘叢考 798 “Twenty-One Poems on Reading Histories” 讀史二十一首 799 “Guo Ju Buries His Son Alive” 郭巨埋兒 799 Hui Yuan 慧遠 799 “Twenty-Four Cases of Filial Piety” 二十四孝 799 Zheng Xuan 鄭玄 799 Zhao Zhixin 趙執信 781, 853 Notes on the Dragon 談龍錄 781, 853 zheng 箏 333 Zheng Chenggong 鄭成功 775, 849 Zheng Guangzu 鄭光祖 [style, Dehui 德輝] 593–594 native of Xiangling, Pingyang 平陽襄陵 (in Shanxi today) 593 Departing Soul of a Beautiful Lady, The 倩女離魂 593–594 “Little Red Peaches” 小桃紅 594 Wang Wenju 王文舉 593–594 Zhang Qiannü 張倩女 593 Pretty Plum Fragrance 芻梅香 593–594 Bo Minzhong 白敏中 594 Pei Xiaoman 裴小蠻 594 Wang Can Ascending the Tower 王粲登樓 593–594 Zheng Xiaoxu 鄭孝胥 827 Zheng Xie 鄭燮 795 Zheng Zhen 鄭珍 827 zheng zong (“proper and right”) 正宗 429 Zhi An 止庵 606 “Discussion of Singing” 唱論 606 Zhong Rong (ca. 468–518) 鍾嶸 [style, Zhongwei 仲偉] 131, 134, 200–202

glossary-index served as Western Leader of Court Gentlemen 西中郎將 and Record Keeper 記室 200 Ranking of Poetry 詩品 131, 134, 200–202 archaic candidness (on Cao Cao) 古直 201 simple forthrightness (on Tao Yuanming) 質直 201 Zhong Sicheng 鍾嗣成 576 A Roster of Ghosts 錄鬼簿 576, 586, 593, 615 Zhong Xing (1574–1624) 鍾惺 [style, Bojing 伯敬] 697–699 literary name: Tuigu (“Valley of Retreat”) 退谷 697 Metropolitan Graduate: 38th year of the wanli reign (1610) 697 served as Assistant Superintendent of Education in Fujian 福建提學僉事 697 Destination of Poetry 詩歸 (with Tan Yuanchun) 698–699 Destination of Ancient Poetry 古詩歸 698 Destination of Tang Poetry 唐詩歸 698 Zhongchang Tong 仲長統 105–106 Sincere Words 昌言 105–106 Zhou (Dynasty) 周 1–5, 7, 10, 15, 156 n. 4 Zhou 紂 2 Zhou Bangyan (1056–1121) 周邦彥 [style, Meicheng 美成] 455–458, 515, 545, 802, 804 literary name: Qingzhen Jushi (“Layman Buddhist of Refreshing Truth”) 清真居士 455 native of Zhejiang Qiantang 錢塘 (Hangzhou, Zhejinag today) 455 served as Edict Attendant of the Palace Hall of Brilliant Planning 徽猷閣待制; Supervisor of the Bureau of Great Glory (Imperial Music Institute) 提舉大晟府 455 “Chant of Lucky Dragon” 瑞龍吟 457 “Outlandish Bonnets” 蘇幕遮 455 “Prince of Orchid Hills: Willows” 蘭陵王·柳 456 “Six Ugly Sons: Composed when the Roses Went Out of Season” 六醜· 薔薇謝後作 457

985

“West River: Recalling the Antiquity at Jinling” 西河·金陵懷古 457 Zhou Chaojun 周朝俊 765–766 Story of the Red Plum 紅梅記 765–766 “The Ghost in Defense” 鬼辯 766 Li Huiniang 李慧娘 765–766 Pei Yu 裴禹 765 Zhou Deqing 周德清 593 Rhymes in the Central Plains 中原音韻 593 Zhou Dunyi 周敦頤 462, 464 “On Writing” 文辭 464 Zhou Guisheng 周桂笙 891 Zhou Ji (1781–1839) 周濟 541, 546, 804 “Introduction to The Song Lyrics of Four Song Dynasty Masters” 宋四家詞序論 541 Miscellaneous Writings on the Song Lyric from the Jiecun Studio 介存齋論詞雜著 804 The Song Lyrics of Four Song Dynasty Masters 宋四家詞選 546 Zhou Ji 周楫 752 Second Collection of West Lake Stories 西湖二集 752 “An Ingenious Courtesan Assists Her Husband to Rise to Fame” 巧妓佐夫成名 752 Zhou Mi (1232–1298) 周密 [style, Gongjin 公謹] 458, 551–552 literary name: Caochuang (“Thatched Windows”) 草窗 551 served as the District Magistrate of Yiwu (Song) 義烏令 551 “Autumn in the Jade Capital” 玉京秋 551–552 Rustic Talks from Eastern Qi 齊東野語 540–541 “Single Red Calyx, A” 一萼紅 552 Things Bygone in Wulin 武林舊事 557, 562, 568 Zhou Yu 周瑜 642 Zhou Zuoren 周作人 654, 689 Zhu Hu 朱翯 842 Zhu Jing 朱經 576 “Foreword to the Blue Mansion Collection” 青樓集序 576 Zhu Mu (100–163) 朱穆 111 “Letter to Liu Bozong to Break Off Our Friendship, A” 與劉伯宗絕交書 111

986

glossary-index

Zhu Quan 朱權 613, 615 Taihe Manual of Prosody 太和正音譜 613, 615 Zhu Xi 朱熹 40, 384–385, 412, 462, 481–482, 486 , 653, 656, 661–663, 665–666, 672, 675, 681, 751, 769–771, 788, 790–792, 879 Classified Conversations of Master Zhu 朱子語類 481–482 “On Reading the Monographs in History of the Tang” 讀唐志 385 Zhu Yizun (1629–1709) 朱彝尊 [style, Xichang 錫鬯] 781–784, 802 literary name: Zhucha (“Lodge in Bamboos”) 竹垞 782 native of Xiushui 秀水 (Jiaxing 嘉興 of today), Zhejiang 782 Erudite Literatus 博學鴻詞 at fifty 782 served as Examining Editor at the Hanlin Academy 翰林院檢討 782 “Introduction” to An Omnibus of the Song Lyric 詞綜·發凡 782 “Autumn at the Cassia Hall” 桂殿秋 783 “Song of Immortal in Caves: Setting Out at Dawn from the Wu River” 洞仙歌·吳江曉發 782 Zhu Youdun 朱有燉 705, 721–722 Music Bureau Songs from the Sincerity Studio 誠齋樂府 705, 721 Lament of an Incense Bag 香囊怨 721 Liu Panchun 劉盼春 721 Lu Yuan 陸源 721 Zhou Gong 周恭 721 Zhu Yuanzhang (See Emperor Taizu of Ming) Zhu Yunming (1460–1526) 祝允明 [style, Xizhe 希哲] 466, 597–598, 666–669 literary name: Zhishan 枝山 667 served as District Magistrate of Xingning, Guangdong 廣東興寧知縣, Assistant Prefect of the Yingtian prefecture 應天府通判 667 “A Celebration of My Birthday in the Year of Ding Wei (1487)” 丁未年生日序 668 Confessions 罪知錄 [Master Zhu’s Confessions 祝子罪知錄] 466, 666, 668

“Matching Tao Yuanming’s ‘Drinking Wine’ in Rhyme Scheme” 和陶淵明飲酒詩 668 “On How Scholarship Went Wrong in the Song Dynasty” 學壞於宋論 666 “Rhapsody on the Great Trip” 大遊賦 668 “Song of the Short and the Long” 短長行 668 Trifles 猥談 597–598 Zhu Zuochao 朱佐朝 842 Zhuang Zhou 莊周 69–72 native of Meng 蒙 in the state of Song (modern Shangqiu 商邱 in Henan) 69 served as a low-ranking local agent at Qiyuan 漆園吏 69 Zhuangzi 莊子 6, 13, 69–72, 170, 182, 370 “Autumn Floods” 秋水 71 “Equality of Things” 齊物論 370 “Free Wandering” 逍遙遊 71 Kun 鯤 71 Peng 鵬 71 Qi Xie 齊諧 71 “Heaven and Earth” 天地 170, 182 n. 16 Magic Pearl 玄珠 182 “Human World, The” 人間世 71 Inner Chapters 內篇 69 Miscellaneous Chapters 雜篇 69 Outer Chapters 外篇 69 “Ultimate Happiness, The” 至樂 70 “Virtue of Nature, The” 德充符 71 Zhuge Liang 諸葛亮 642 Zhuo Wangsun 卓王孫 582 Zhuo Wenjun 卓文君 234 n. 19, 582 Zilan 子蘭 36 Zilu 子路 65 Zong Chen 宗臣 677 Zou Yang 鄒陽 102, 107 “A Memorial from Prison to the King of Liang” 獄中上梁王書 102, 107 Zuo Si (ca. 250–ca. 305) 左思 [style, Taichong 太沖] 174, 178–180, 264 native of Linzhi, the princedom of Qi 齊國臨淄 (Zhibo 淄博市 in Shandong today) 178 served as an Assistant at the Palace Library 秘書郎 178

glossary-index “Poem on My Lovely Daughters” 嬌女詩 180 “Poem to Call the Recluse to Service” 招隱詩 264 “Poems on History” 詠史詩 178–180 “Rhapsodies on the Three Capitals” 三都賦 178 Zuo Si’s force of wind 左思風力 180

987

Zuoqiu Ming 左邱明 55 Zuo Commentary 左傳 1 [Master Zuo Commentary 左氏傳 3] 11, 55–63, 500–501, 791 Chong’er 重耳 56–57, 62 Huaiying 懷嬴 57, 62 “Zhu Zhiwu Repulses the Qin Troops” 燭之武退秦師 55

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