Spring Dawns and Quiet Night Thoughts
five Tang dynasty poets: brief biographies and poem analysis; semester research paper for my college writing class
Introduction
As members of American and English-speaking society, it’s hard to relate to the literary culture of China. Our language, based on phonetics, is rapidly changing — if we were to go back in time, not only would we have a difficult time understanding our predecessors’ speech, but we would be at a loss reading their inconsistent spelling, outdated vocabulary, and strange versions of our modern letters. The further we go back in time, the less likely it is that our versions of English would be mutually intelligible. In fact, English changes so quickly that the language one thousand or two thousand years ago could hardly be called English at all.
And because of this phenomenon, studies of literature in school extend only to works a few hundred years old; anything older requires a translated, modernized version or else a prerequisite of ancient English study. Shakespeare, perhaps, is one of our most studied writers, and still most of us remember only the most basic ideas: Romeo and Juliet were in love, Hamlet had some family drama. Most people don’t read his works unless required to, and then they forget the contents shortly after, mostly for reasons such as difficulty to understand and irrelevance to modern life.
All this is not the case with Chinese. Chinese, as a written language, changes very very slowly, to the point that people now would still be able to understand the Analects of Confucius, written over two thousand years ago. The Chinese characters are based on meaning, not sound — this is why it was so common to find Chinese characters exported to neighboring countries like Japan, Korea, and Vietnam — though the spoken languages might be wildly different, the written versions languages would be easily decipherable. Though there were once varying versions of the characters, different by region, the First Emperor Qin Shi Huang, with his unification of the warring states, also mandated a unification of writing systems. To this day, written Chinese characters have changed very little.
This stability of language (and Confucian values of respect for elders) played a huge role in the strong legacy of ancient Chinese literature both in China and overseas. Students in school now study works from a thousand years ago or more, and elementary students are often required by either school or their parents to memorize collections of ancient poetry. For some, studying poetry is China’s equivalent to studying the Bible: a way to learn the written language and a source of inspiration or entertainment.
One of the most well-known collections of ancient poetry is the Three Hundred Tang Poems (唐诗三百首), compiled in the Qing Dynasty by scholar Sun Zhu. It contains works from over seventy poets of varying fame, and with a varying number of poems each. Many of China’s best poets and poems are represented in this anthology, and many people own or have studied versions of this collection.
Chinese poetry’s two main characteristics are vivid detail and moral significance. A poem about longing, for example, might include references to a hometown and staring at the moon. This makes poems relatable even to modern people, by capturing the essence of emotions, with settings that could be picked up and moved to the modern world without seeming too out of place. Although technology changes over time, human emotions don’t.
Each poet’s life experiences and religious or philosophical beliefs shapes their poetry, which is why a biographical study of a poet isn’t complete without a study of their poetry. In this paper we will discuss the five poets with the most representation in the Three Hundred Tang Poems, along with some of their most well-known works. Through a literary lens, we will take a deeper look at how each poet’s approach at self-expression shows their individual personalities and values, as well as the culture and values of China as a whole.
Li Bai (701–762)
If you ask any Chinese kindergartener to recite a poem, the answer you get will be the same: an automatic, if not almost robotic recitation of these four lines:
床前明月光
Chuáng qián míngyuè guāng
Bright shines the Moon before my bed;
疑是地上霜
Yí shì dìshang shuāng
Methinks ’tis frost upon the earth.
举头望明月
Jǔtóu wàng míngyuè
I watch the Moon, then bend my head
低头思故乡
Dītóu sī gùxiāng
And miss the hamlet of my birth. (Zawadzki, 95)
This is “Jìng Yè Sī,” or “Quiet Night Thought,” the most famous of all Chinese poems, written by Tang Dynasty poet Li Bai. It’s a type of poem called Shi (诗), which although just means “poetry” in Chinese, English the term refers to more specifically to poetry modeled after works in the Old Chinese, Confucian Classic of Poetry (Watson 147).
Shi poems are generally quatrains, as in Quiet Night Thought. There are two main forms of Shi poetry: gushi (ancient poetry) and jintishi (modern poetry), which are defined more by their structure than the time period in which they were written. Li Bai’s poems are all gushi, a form which is formally defined by its line length (four to seven characters) and its rhyme scheme (ABAB) (147). Although Quiet Night Thought is four lines, many of Li Bai’s other poems are longer and more free-form.
Quiet Night Thought is unique among Li Bai’s poems for its vagueness. The details of the moon and surroundings, with the lack of personal details, makes this poem one that many readers easily relate to. For one historian, Yuan Haiwang, a Chinese person living abroad in America, the details of the moon especially make this a memorable poem:
“The moon in China has a special meaning. And when it’s full, that represents the fullness and reunification of the family,” says Yuan. “So that poem struck the deep core of my heart whenever I miss my family.” (Gracie)
The idea of a full moon representing family togetherness is such an important concept in Chinese culture that there are several holidays themed after it. The Lantern Festival (Yuan Xiao Jie) takes place on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, which is also the first full moon of the new year. It marks the end of New Year’s festivities, and is celebrated by coming together with family and eating yuanxiao, often known as tangyuan: small, chewy balls of glutinous rice similar to mochi that are served in soup, sometimes with sesame or red bean fillings.
Another, more relevant holiday is the Mid-Autumn Festival (Zhong Qiu Jie), which takes place on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, also a full moon. This holiday is celebrated by eating the popular, traditional mooncakes, and of course with family reunions. The moon that Li Bai references in Quiet Night Thought is most likely this mid-autumn moon, given the time of year (“Li Bai Drinks with the Moon” 341).
The value of family, especially filial piety, is a main tenet of Confucianist philosophy. Confucianism is an integral part of Chinese culture, both now and during Li Bai’s time. During ancient times, the imperial government was considered the parental figure in the government-subject relationship. Thus, the Emperor was considered the “Father” of his subjects, and all his subjects were expected to fulfill their filial duties toward him (Cartwright). Like many other distinguished ancient poets, Li Bai served the imperial court and the Emperor in a government post far from home.
Quiet Night Thought embodies the concept of filial piety: Li Bai, as the narrator, fulfills his duty toward the Emperor by serving his government post, and fulfills his duties toward his ancestors by thinking of and missing his hometown, lamenting the fact that he cannot reunite with his family for the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Li Bai was also quite a drunkard. Like his contemporary Du Fu, he nearly worshipped drunkenness and the power of wine, and wrote many of his poems while inebriated. Li Bai likely wrote Quiet Night Thought drunk. Author Jingxiong Wu notes that “while some may have drunk more wine than Li [Bai], no-one has written more poems about wine” (Wu, 66). Even his death reflected his love for wine (and the moon): according to legend, Li Bai drowned when, on a boat, he attempted to embrace the reflection of the moon on the water. “He was drunk [then], presumably… He was drunk a good deal of the time” (Gracie). Many paintings of Li Bai picture him in flowing white robe and beard, raising a glass of wine to the moon.
Although drunkenness is viewed negatively in modern society, it wasn’t so in ancient China. Inebriation was viewed as the route to divine inspiration. Li Bai was even included as one of the Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup, a group of Tang Dynasty poets and scholars known for their love of wine (Eijkhoff 3).
Li Bai is remembered by history as “a hero among poets.” The educated who read his works praised him as a scholar, and the illiterates, who passed down orally his songs, admired his colorful character. In China, poets in general were “admired for the courage of their moral and political convictions, their ability to face adversity with dignity, and their honest attempts to comprehend and accept a constantly changing natural world… Moreover, Li [Bai] does so in an apparent state of drunken abandon, which underscores his refusal to be bound by conventional rules of courtly decorum” (“A Hero Among Poets” 355). In the end, his political bravery resulted in his becoming arrested and exiled (Encyclopaedia Britannica).
Although Quiet Night Thought is just one of Li Bai’s many poems, it exemplifies his work as a whole: his Confucianist thought, his fixation with the moon, his involvement with the imperial court, and his appreciation of drunkenness. The poem may appear simple at first glance, but a deeper look into the circumstances of his life yield a multi-layered understanding of what it means and why it matters to the billion people who still treasure it.
Du Fu (712–770)
If any ancient poet were to be on Twitter, documenting his daily experiences and thoughts, it would be Du Fu, a Tang Dynasty contemporary of Li Bai, whose 1,400 poems chronicle his life, from major events like his experience as a refugee during the An Lu-Shan Rebellion to small, daily grievances like the disappointing quality of a delivery of fresh vegetables. Du Fu wrote poems about every semi-significant occurrence in his life, utilizing poetry as a medium the same way modern people use Twitter. “[He forgot] what you can and can’t do in poetry,” says sinologist Stephen Owen, translator and author of The Poems of Du Fu. “And 30 years later poets [look] back and [say], ‘This is the greatest poet we have’” (Radsken).
Owen’s work is the first complete translation of all of Du Fu’s poetry. Poetry that’s “a lot more fun when you get out of the well-known ones” (Radsken). He’s right. Du Fu has a relatively unknown poem about bean sauce, for example, titled “Meng of the Granaries Section Comes on Foot to Give This Old Man Full Pots of New Ale and Bean Sauce” (The Poetry of Du Fu 181). (The “old man” Du Fu refers to in this context is himself. Here is one of his quirks: Du Fu saw himself as old not long after he passed thirty, and many references to himself are with this epithet. Writing in third person isn’t so much a quirk, though: classical Chinese poetry is terse and condensed, so pronouns are often omitted. His usage of this epithet, then, is to emphasize his age.) The full eight-line poem, although only about a trivial occurrence, reads much deeper:
Chu shores gave passage to autumn clogs,
as my folding chair faced the evening fields.
Having strained the lees, you separated the liquid from the dregs,
[4] the pot of bean sauce spills over as you carry it.
One will add fragrant flavor when I dine on coarse meal,
as for the other, when friends come we will get drunk.
How can one avoid ordinary things in managing life? — [8] please tell my rustic wife how to make these. (The Poetry of Du Fu 4078)
“Du Fu tackles the subject of war extensively, but there is also [this] poem about bean sauce and another about taking down a gourd trellis in which Du Fu compares the challenging, if mundane, task to the fall of the Shang dynasty” (Radsken). Maybe Du Fu’s habit of treating each and every event as profound, and then writing every note, letter, and diary entry in poetic form is what sets him apart as arguably the best of Chinese poets, the only one to master every form of classical poetry at his time, even pushing the boundaries of some forms. In fact, not only is his work extensive in breadth and quantity, it’s intensive as well: no other poet has such fluid, natural mastery of the restrictive poetry forms as he does.
Du Fu is most known for his works in the lüshi (律诗) form, a style of jintishi defined by regulated verse with eight lines and five to eight characters per line, although Du Fu wrote many a work in pailü (排律) form, which is lüshi but with more than eight lines. The most impressive feature of Du Fu’s lüshi work is the attention he gives to creating parallelism between lines. Since each line is so strictly regulated, juxtaposition in parallelism is an innate quality of lüshi. Within each couplet, the first characters of each line contrast, and so on for each “column.” Many times even the two-character phrases contrast between lines. Such can be seen in the poem “Màn chéngyī shǒu”:
漫成一首
“Haphazard Composition”
江月去人只数尺，
The river moon is just a few feet away from me;
风灯照夜欲三更。
a wind-shaken lamp shines in the night, almost the third watch.
沙头宿鹭联拳静，
Egrets spending the night on the sand, legs bent under, quiet;
船尾跳鱼拨刺鸣。
at the boat’s stern a leaping fish makes the sound of splashing. (The Poetry of Du Fu 2811, 3099)
This poem is only four lines, with seven characters per line. A deeper look at the latter two lines reveals painstaking parallelism.
(bank)
sand head / sleep egrets / / gather fists / tranquil
boat tail / jump fish / / spread cut / cry(sound)
. . . . . . . . .(wake)
(The Selected Poems of Tu Fu xii)
Each column’s contrasting meaning (sleep versus jump, gather versus spread, tranquil versus cry) leads to foreshadowing: “a threatening tension arises when predator is coupled with prey.” The calm egrets in the third line become an omen, evident when, in the fourth line, the splashing fish appear. The English translation of the last character of the poem, 鸣, however, is lacking: the character is made up of the characters for mouth (口) and bird (鸟), revealing the original meaning: “the cry of a bird,” not simply “sound.” When read this way, the predator-prey violence is clearer: the tranquility of the third line is broken by the cry of the egrets as they swoop onto the fish (The Selected Poems of Tu Fu xii).
This poem is one example of the depth Du Fu achieves with his mastery of these forms. While other poets are limited by restrictions, Du Fu is empowered. This means that no translation can ever fully capture the depth, complexity, and simplicity of Chinese poetry. To keep the simplicity in a translation reduces the depth, and keeping the depth results in a loss of the elegance and rhythm.
It’s no wonder that Du Fu is revered with numerous epithets: poet sage (诗圣) and poet historian (诗史) are just two of them (The Selected Poems of Tu Fu viii). Maybe, to future generations, he will be known by a modern name: the pretweet and his works The Poet Diaries.
Meng Haoran (689/691–740)
In my home is a battered old book, each page, cover, and sleeve saturated with classical Chinese landscape art, with windy mountains, droopy willows, and misty rivers frozen in time. The edges of the book are worn soft, and fraying paper peeks out from the laminated surface. Each page is well-read, and at certain moments, well-loved. Before I knew how to read, my mother taught me verses of those ancient poems printed on the book’s pages, explaining to me the stories and meanings even as I was too young to grasp their worth. Though the constant urging to memorize poems I did not understand displeased me, one poem, however, still sounded sweet to my ears.
Though, as a child, I’d tripped over the homophones and similar-sounding characters, the meaning and mood of the poem I had proudly recited to teachers and relatives still remains mostly the same now, as I reread it with a graduated perspective.
This poem is “Spring Dawn (春晓)” by Tang poet Meng Haoran, whose many works focused on landscape and its foreground details, like small actions of people that add to the profundity of a scene. The four-line “Spring Dawn,” unlike some other classical works, is fairly straightforward, with rather simple vocabulary and plot. It paints an image of a bright, wet, peaceful morning, breathing with nature, much like the many artworks often associated with it.
春曉
Chūn Xiǎo
[spring] [dawn]
Spring Dawn
春眠不覺曉，
Chūn mián bù jué xiǎo,
[spring] [sleep] [not] [aware] [dawn]
In Spring one sleeps, unaware of dawn;
處處聞啼鳥。
chùchù wén tíniǎo.
[place] [place] [hear] [crow] [bird]
everywhere one hears crowing birds.
夜來風雨聲，
Yè lái fēngyǔ shēng,
[night] [come] [wind] [rain] [sound]
In the night came the sound of wind and rain;
花落知多少。
Huā luò zhī duōshǎo.
[flower] [fall] [know] [many] [few]
who knows how many flowers fell? (Grigg)
This translation, from Hugh Grigg’s blog East Asia Student, translates directly each character and juxtaposes them with the holistic translations, providing a deeper look at the poem’s original meaning. However, the poem’s original rhythm and rhyme are not present in Grigg’s translation. Another blog’s translation manages to capture those two elements at the expense of precision in meaning:
Asleep in spring unconscious of the dawn
Then all around I hear the birds in song
Last night came loud with wind and rain
I wonder how many of the flowers are gone (Foreman)
This translation, from Poems Found in Translation, is great because it captures the essence of the poem and the AABA rhyme scheme, including the small detail of the last line’s slant rhyme. However, this translation introduces a first-person point-of-view that the original poem lacked, and changes some minor details (from broken flowers to missing flowers, for example). Unfortunately, as with any translations, neither could retain the original five-syllable-per-line meter.
Meng Haoran was famous for his admiration of nature, especially of flowers, and specifically plum blossoms. While other poets of his time held government positions, Meng failed his only attempt at the capital examination and proceeded to live most of his life as a recluse. In his later years, he lived as a recluse on Mount Lumen, from which a popular legend surfaced: “Each year in the early spring, when the snow still covered the ground, Meng set out over the Ba Bridge near the Tang capital of Chang’an in search of the first plum blossoms of the year.” This story even eventually inspired a large number of classical paintings (Park 136).
Meng’s fascination for nature and emotional disposition showed in nearly all his poems. “Spring Dawn” leans more strongly on the nature side than some of his other poems, but the beautiful imagery creates a sentimental feeling for many readers. Another of his poems, “Seeing a Friend Off to the Capital,” showcases Meng’s two favorite topics in a much more blended way:
Milord ascends the azure clouds, departing,
I gaze toward the azure mountain, returning home.
Clouds and mountain, from here separate,
Tears moisten my frond and vine-woven cloak. (Kroll 347)
Here, the imagery of mountain and clouds act as a metaphor for him as the narrator and his friend, whom he addresses as “milord.” The friend is addressed as such because of his (likely new) government position, for which he is leaving to take. The azure mountain is Mount Lushen, the poet’s home; as the friend leaves, Meng watches him disappear into the clouds cloaking the mountainsides. The metaphors here are of course representing Meng as the mountain and his friend as the clouds. For now, the two are together, but eventually the cloud must separate from the mountain and find its own way in the world. The friend’s “ascension,” too, is a metaphor for the phrase “climbing on high,” referring to his climbing the ladder of success with his government post. In contrast, the last line’s mention of Meng’s “frond and vine-woven cloak” show that he is just a humble man with simple clothing (Kroll 347, 348).
In this poem, the majestic images of misty, foggy mountain ridges are expertly and smoothly blended with the sentiments of two friends bidding their goodbyes. Even beyond this, the phonetic components of the poem add to the contrasts of togetherness and parting, although to get into the details would get quite long. All these elements and more are squeezed into twenty syllables, “and yet his poetry is often so nearly ingenuous and smooth-flowing that signs of obvious craft are quite hidden. ‘He does not seize upon the strange or pick out the odd, nor does he force one to chew over rough words’” (Kroll 350).
Although not much is known about Meng Haoran’s life compared to his contemporaries, his breathtaking ability to paint scenes rivalling those of the Hudson River School movement in just four lines, combined with the human emotion in his stories raise him to a firm standing among the greats of the Tang Dynasty and the legends of the world as a whole. On the surface, his art can be appreciated for its pretty pictures, as I did as a child, but a deeper studies reveal layers and layers of expert crafting and unmatched skill.
Wang Wei (699–759)
A contemporary and close friend of fellow poet Meng Haoran, Wang Wei was also a talented painter, musician, government official, and devout Buddhist. Like Meng, his works focused on landscapes, but while Meng’s works emphasized people and their actions, Wang Wei’s works are defined by their absence. Though none of Wang Wei’s paintings remain today, they leave their legacy via the art of the many future artists they influenced. One of his poems titled “Parting (送别)” exemplifies his style of beautifully describing nature:
下马饮君酒，
I dismount from my horse and I offer you wine,
问君何所之？
And I ask you where you are going and why.
君言不得意，
And you answer: “I am discontent
归卧南山陲。
And would rest at the foot of the southern mountain.
但去莫复问，
So give me leave and ask me no questions.
白云无尽时。
White clouds pass there without end.” (Bynner 224)
Although this translation places the dialogue inside one set of quotation marks, the original version is unclear about who is speaking. In fact, it’s likely that the fifth line is both speakers talking — the narrator tells his friend to leave and the friend responds that he should ask no more questions. Another interpretation is that this poem is all one soliloquy from the poet’s point of view as he laments his friend’s leaving (Yu 173).
The white clouds in the last line are a motif commonly found in Wang Wei’s work, usually with two main meanings. The first meaning, shown clearly in this poem, is timelessness. The vast sky of white clouds seems to the narrator to be never-ending, and to symbolize stability while the world around him changes — in this case, the change contrasted by the white clouds is his friend’s departure.
The second meaning is dual — the clouds both represent concealment and the things they conceal, a paradox which Wang Wei uses to bring attention to the gaps between visual observance and more spiritual, intuitive awareness. The aspect of timelessness and limitlessness plays into this second meaning, since it explains the mystical symbolism of the clouds. This concept, too, is representative of Wang Wei’s Buddhist philosophies (Yu 172).
The white clouds aren’t separate from people. In other words, they aren’t unreachable. People can live among the white clouds, in mountain monasteries, and the narrator himself can enter the clouds. However, Wang Wei only mentions the clouds when he views them from a distance; when he describes a scene from among the clouds, he no longer mentions them. “In a poem about the majestic Chung-shan Mountain, when the poet ‘turns to look, the white clouds have closed up,’ but when he ‘enters it, in the blue mist I see nothing.’ The image is beautifully apt, for clouds do dissolve into mist when one is in them, so when the poet has covered the distance, he enters to see ‘nothing’” (Chou 130).
Wang Wei’s Buddhism is the core of most of his work. Though his nature poems seem simple and straightforward on the surface, a deeper probing of his work reveals careful symbolism and connection. (Some poems, though, contain explicitly Buddhist details like monks and monasteries, in addition to implied allusions to religious tenets.) This is why, of his peers and contemporaries, Wang Wei is the least discussed and studied, because his works seem too simple on a first reading and require too much effort and dissecting to reveal any deeper significance.
Despite this view on the depth of Wang Wei’s poetry, some critics doubt that many of his works have deeper philosophical meaning — or at least any meaning that he originally intended. Compared to other poems with Buddhist intent, Wang Wei’s don’t obviously have a religious moral. Still, scholars generally agree that Wang Wei, as a devout Buddhist, viewed the world through a Buddhist lens, and thus wrote his poems with Buddhist intention. Through careful reading, his Buddhist ideals can be found, just as a monastery can be found behind walls of white clouds (Chou 136).
Li Shangyin (c. 813–858)
Unlike the previous four poets mentioned in this paper, Li Shangyin was not a close contemporary of the others. Although he was a Tang Dynasty poet, he was of the later Tang era, about fifty to a hundred years later than Li Bai, Du Fu, Meng Haoran, and Wang Wei.
Li Shangyin’s most famous poem relates a well-known ancient Chinese myth, the one of Chang’e, or the goddess who lives on the moon. According to legend, Chang’e swallowed a pill of immortality, which imbued her with flight, causing her to soar to the moon. When she arrived at the moon’s surface, she spit out the pill capsule, which then transformed into the Jade Rabbit, her companion. This myth is China’s version of the “man on the moon” story; when you look up at the moon, there seem to be outlines of a woman and a rabbit.
Li’s poem, titled “Chang’e (嫦娥)” discusses how lonely the goddess must feel, all alone and far far away from the rest of humankind.
雲母屏風燭影深，
Yúnmǔ píngfēng zhú yǐng shēn,
[mica][] [screen][] [candle] [shadow] [dark]
On a mica screen, a candle casts dark shapes;
長河漸落曉星沈。
chánghé jiàn luò xiǎo xīng chén.
[long] [river] [gradual] [descend] [morning] [star] [lower]
the Milky Way slowly descends, the Morning Star is low.
嫦娥應悔偷靈藥，
Cháng’é yīng huǐ tōu líng yào,
[Chang] [E] [probably] [regret] [stealing] [soul] [medicine]
Chang’e must regret stealing the elixir of life;
碧海青天夜夜心。
bìhǎi qīngtiān yè yè xīn.
[jade] [sea] [blue] [sky] [night] [night] [heart]
blue sea and blue sky, night after night in her heart. (Grigg)
This poem is told from his point of view as he sits in his room and relates his views to those of Chang’e. The glittering mica screen in his room is similar to the sky full of glittering stars that she sees; the candle and its shadows, too, represent the dark and light of the night sky. From his window, the poet sees the Milky Way and the Morning Star, just as he imagines Chang’e does (Cai 219). Then, in the final lines, Li makes this allusion explicit: he brings up her name, and wonders if she regrets her isolation on the moon, just as he feels isolated now. “Blue sea and blue sky,” in the original version, “is an idiom, literally ‘jade sea blue sky,’ that refers to [color] of the sea and sky merging into one endless void. It describes extreme loneliness, particularly of a widow” (Grigg). The last line, then, shows Chang’e alone, for nights and nights, staring at the vastness of the world and feeling the loneliness intensifying in her heart.
Like other poets, many of Li’s works are tinged with religious belief. As a Daoist, Li injects his poetry with Daoist philosophy; “Chang E’s flight to the moon has that obvious association with the Daoist search for physical immortality.” When Li questions the goddess’s regret and loneliness, he is really commenting on whether it’s truly worth it to reach immortality as Daoist belief encourages. As an immortal, Chang’e lives in a cold, pure, beautiful world, constantly striving and looking her best (shining pretty moonlight upon Earth) despite the loneliness. In the original myth, her confinement to the moon is more of a punishment than a reward (Yu 91).
Even in other poems, Li makes the same commentary. In many of his love lyrics, the land of the immortals is the place where his lover is:
The Peng mountain is not far from here,
Pray, Blue Bird, diligently seek news of her for me!
Sometimes, it represents the impossibility of union with his lover:
Young Liu already regrets that the Peng Mountain is far,
You are ten thousand times more removed than the Peng Mountain! (Yu 94)
Just as Li is known for his mythological allusions and Daoism, he is also known for his love poems. He “is one of the few Chinese poets who can recognize [that] female beauty and…sorrows of love [are] themes to be taken up in all seriousness, and it is for these reasons that…his poems had such a great impact on the classical Chinese love poetry in subsequent centuries” (Lavrač 166). The first of the two poems mentioned previously is an example filled with allusions and romantic yearning. It is one his many poems that are “without title (无题).”
Hard is for us to meet and hard to go away;
Powerless lingers the eastern wind as all the flowers decay.
The spring silkworm will only end his thread when death befalls;
The candle will drip with tears until it turns to ashes grey.
Facing the morning mirror, she fears her cloudy hair will fade;
Reading poems by night, she should be chilled by the moon’s ray.
The fairy mountain P’eng lies at no great distance;
May a Blue Bird fly to her and my tender cares convey! (Liu)
The first line sets the scene: the narrator has an affair with some woman. Meeting up is difficult, since their relationship is secret and taboo, and parting is difficult because they are deeply in love. In the next line, “the eastern wind” represents the narrator, powerless to meet her when the time isn’t right, and powerless to be with her officially. His love interest is represented by the flowers, her youth and beauty withering as the narrator waits. The next two lines have similar meanings: the narrator will continue to follow this path and story until death, doing only what he knows to do. Just as the silkworm cocoons itself in silk, the narrator cocoons himself in grief and despair. And as the candle consumes itself with its fire, the poet hurts himself with his passion. The two lines after this show the grief from the woman’s side: she watches as she grows old and her beauty fades waiting for him, and spends cold nights alone (Lavrač 171).
The last two lines, which we have already looked at, bring together the themes of the poem: the natural imagery and accompanying imagery, the longing and despair of an illicit love, and the decay of age as time stretches on. “The fairy mountain” is the land of immortals, which may suggest that the woman has died, but still the narrator is hopeful. The “Blue Bird” is, in myths, a messenger of a deity, connecting the two lovers across realms (172).
These two poems, “Chang’e” and “Without Title,” are prime examples of the range of most of Li Shangyin’s work, and, especially, his penchant for allusions and ambiguity. His work, famous for its beautiful imagery and sound, its philosophical intention, and often aching overtones, are treasured by Chinese across the globe and through the ages. A study of his work isn’t just a study of literature, it’s a study of mythology, history, philosophy, and religion all together, making his works some of the most 深 (shēn) in meaning: rich, deep, and poignant.
Conclusion
When I had started writing this paper, I knew maybe two things about Chinese poetry: one, that I should study it, and two, that it’s difficult to understand without fluency in Chinese. It turned out that the second thing was wrong. Yes, the poems seem a bit like an impenetrable wall when first encountered, but with the right approach, they become just as clear as English-language poetry — that is, perfectly clear or still impenetrable, depending on the poem.
I had also expected to go through this paper just spouting biographies, but I soon found that reaching deeper into popular poems and culture was much more fulfilling. Rereading poems I had memorized as a child and since forgotten brought new life into old words, showing me a doorway through that once impenetrable wall. And, I learned that understanding people’s means of expression is much more integral to understanding who they were as individuals than any timeline of Events that Happened to Them. Researching each poet’s background and history resulting in their stories all blending and merging together; reading and studying their poetry pulled them apart to make them each stand out on their own.
Chinese poetry is representative of Chinese culture as a whole, of the appreciation for their people’s history and the experiences that make us human. These poets were only five out of hundreds, maybe thousands of their time, and just a drop in the sea that is China’s literary artists. Through a continued reading of the literature that is out there, we can get to know our world better, get to know those writers of eras past as friends of now, and ultimately, get to know ourselves better: what we value, what we see, and how we can make everything connect.
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