B. Biography (699-759 or 701-761)

1.family background

• from Shan-hsi aristocratic family; the Wangs from Taiyuan were one of the "seven great names"
• father an was a mid-level provincial official, died early
• his mother was a Tsui (very aristocratic family name

2.education and early court career

• Confucian aristocratic education
• by 15 he had already gained renown for his poetry
• passed the highest civil service exam in 721
• went on to serve in various high-level governmental positions
• got into some trouble at court in 723; demoted to a low post in Ch'i-chou, Shantung

3.exile (723-33)

• on his journey he writes his first great poems (in the exile mode)
• spends 723-33 roaming around Eastern China
• wife dies around 730, after which he became a celibate and interested in Buddhism; studied for 10 years with the Ch'an master Tao-kuang

4.return to officialdom (734-38)

• yet, as a good Confucian, he never abandoned his government career
• in 734 he became secretary to the emperor
• 737 removed from this post and assigned to a post in the northwest
• returned to Ch'ang-an in 738

5 .reclusion/office (738-55)

• from 742 to 755 served in a series of relatively low level posts, but probably spent most of the 40s and 50s at his Wang-ch'uan Estate

6.rebellion and post-rebellion (755-61)

• in 755 was captured and "forced" into office (755-57)
• after the suppression of the Rebellion he was seen as a traitor (though saved by his brother Wang Chin, Minister of Justice) but was eventually able to rise to one of the highest ministerial positions under Su-tsung

C. Poetry: general

• relative small number of poems (400), most of which were written during or about his various periods of retreat
• early poetry rather conventional court poetry and exile poetry
• later poetry more influenced by Buddhism and more prone to quietist depictions of nature
• Buddhist influenced quatrains are what he is famous for
• resembles Chinese landscape painting

D."Deer Enclosure" (HANDOUT)

E."Bird-singing Stream" (HD)

F. "In the Mountain" (HD)

G. "Composed on the Cold Food Day" (HD)

Qingming Festival

H."The Hill of Hua-tzu" (BIRCH, 220)

I. "Seeing Master Yuan Off on His Mission to Kucha" (BIRCH, 224)

J. "To the Assistant Prefect Chang" (BIRCH, 224)

K.Conclusions

• raised the Quatrain form to new artistic heights
• authenticity; the poetic's subjective self should be suppressed to present the external world directly
• simple language masks deeper philosophical concerns about the nature of reality, self's relation to reality, and epistemology
• concern with the problem of human perception of the external world
  

A.Introductory remarks

• one of the most renowned of all Chinese poets of any period
• free spirit who wrote unconventional poetry and loved to drink
• very different from Wang Wei in his self-indulgence
• his poetry is a kind of reaction against li and social restrictions and restraint;
• "the strange within the strange" (or the extraordinary)
• wrote in all the popular forms of the day (Regulated Verse, Quatrain, and Ancient Style)

B.Biography (701-62)

1. early life (701-27)

• born in Turkestan and was probably at least partly non-Han
• grew up in Sichuan
• well read in the classics and in Taoist literature
• an "outsider," someone without aristocratic lineage and proper training
• also learned the martial arts

2. first period of travel (727-42)

• down the Yangtse Valley, cultivated acquaintances, visiting places and writing poetry; gaining a reputation for himself
• settles in An-chou (Hu-pei) and marries into a locally powerful family

3.Chang'an (742-44)

• introduced into Hsuan-tsung's court and given a position in the Han-lin Academy
• Hsuan-tsung regarded him highly, but socially he was viewed as something of a playboy and philanderer and was slandered frequently
• lost favor in 744 and was expelled from the court

4. second travels (744-56)

• wandered in the East and Southeast, proclaiming himself an unappreciated man of genius
• met Tu Fu, not too impressed

5. exiled again (756-62)

• somehow worked for, or was forced to become court poet, for the Prince of Yung, Su-tsung's brother, who led a secondary rebellion in the south), was implicated and briefly imprisoned
• spent the last years of his life wandering around the Yangtse River Valley
• legend has it that he died trying to embrace the moon's reflection in the water

C.Poetry (General)

1. technique

• master poetic craftsman; made skillful use of existing forms
• but tended to prefer forms which allowed greater freedom for his imagination

2.Yueh-fu song (or imitation folk ballad)

• of 1,000 poems extant, 1/6 are yueh-fu
• "To Someone Far Away" (BIRCH, 226)

3. Ancient-Style Poetry (ku-shih)

• many of his best poems in this freer form, without the difficult formal and technical restrictions of the Regulated Verse
• undetermined length
• in 5 or 7-character forms, though the occasional line can be uneven
• rhymes used, but the same rhyme need not be used throughout the poem

4. fantasy and imagination

• quality of fantasy and "child-like wonder" to his poems
• Owen says that ultimately Li Po's poems are about the power of the poetic imagination and poetic genius

D.Uses his poetry to project personas of himself

1.intro

• his poetry projects selves
• playful obsession with self and images of the self
• some see this obsession with representations of the self as a reflection of his "outsider" background; he had to "invent himself"
• he uses certain "masks" through which to assert his creative powers

2. persona of "knight-errant" or bravo

3. eccentric genius

4. the immortal

• "On the Mountain: Question and Anwer" (Birch, 225)

5. the drinker

• "Jiang jin jiu" (Bring on the Wine) (BIRCH, 232 #4)

E. "Drinking Alone Under the Moon" (HD; BIRCH, 230)

F. "Sitting Alone at Ching-t'ing" (HD)

F. "Spring Thoughts" (BIRCH, 225)

G. Conclusions

• known for direct expression, simple style
• projection of self
• power of the imagination
• not melancholy or despairing, optimistic
• Confucian/Taoist tension

A. General Remarks

• occupies the same place in Chinese literary history that Shakespeare does in the West
• historian of Chinese poets
• compare Li Po and Wang Wei

B.Biography (712-770)

1. early life (712-35)

• Henan native
• son of a minor official, poor as a child; travelled a great deal
• by 14 or 15 entered literary circles
• no important poetry from this period

2. Ch'ang-an (735-755)

• fails metropolitan exams in 735
• presented Hsuan-tsung with some fu and in 742 was accepted into official ranks, but never given an official position
• met Li Po in 744 and wrote poems in praise of his friend
• failed exams a second time in 747
• 754 was a year of floods, followed by famine; and Tu Fu wrote poems describing their effects; his youngest son died as a result of the famine
• finally, in 755, was assigned to Police Commission, but shortly after resigned
• 130 poems, some with a youthful and swaggering quality; self-confidence of youth; others in the mid-fifties reflect his personal suffering

3. Rebellion years (755-59)

• flees the rebellion and takes wife and family to Fu-chou in 755
• captured by the rebels and taken back to Ch'ang-an where he was kept for several months
• in 757 escaped and fled to the new capital (Feng-hsiang) where the new emperor Su-tsung gave him a higher post than he had ever held
• then returns to Ch'ang-an
• spoke in support of a friend who had been defeated in battle and was removed from his post and exiled Hua-chou
• went to Ch'in-chou (about 300 miles west of Ch'ang-an) and eventually settled in Ssu-ch'uan
• 140 poems from this period, many about the waste and ruin of war
• have an existential quality which seems to question the reasons for living in such a troubled and difficult time
• much self-pity and nostalgia for his wife
• some poems are satirical attacks on the gov't; i.e. "Recruiting Officer Li" (BIRCH, 239)

4. Ch'eng-tu (160-65)

• period of relative calm and peace in which he wrote many poems about nature
• 540 poems
• sense of the loss of ambition for the world
• sorrows of peasant life
• poems about historical sites and artefacts
• vivid descriptions of his daily life with a naturalist attention to detail

5. Wandering (765-770)

• civil unrest in Ssu-ch'uan forces him to leave; makes his way down the Yang-tse and settles for a while K'uei-chou
• period of restlessness and wandering, hounded by sickness and privation
• poetry of this period is dark and despairing; nostalgia and sorrow
• 600 poems; richest period
• most profound voice
• "Autumn Meditations #2" (Birch, 235-)

D. Poetry (General)

1. something for everyone

• Confucian moralists praise him for his moral voice
• leftist praise his social conscience, his depictions of the peasants and the suffering of the common man
• conservative critics stress his erudition and his strict following of poetic rules
• iconoclasts delight in his innovatins in subject matter and diction
• the supporters of vernacular movement value his use of vernacular diction

2. perfect mixture of external (ching) and internal worlds (ch'ing)

3. literary originality and contribution

• tu-tsao (originality and creativity) coupled with yi (profundity of meaning)
• brought the Regulated Verse form to maturity
• innovative use of parallelism in the two parallel couplets in the Regulated Verse form; Tu contrasted the two couplets
• broadened tremendously the range of subject matter
• also shows a naturalist attention to detail of the external world
• sometimes combines "tragi-comedy" to encompass the fullness of meaning of a situation

E. "Moonlit Night" (HD)

F. "Spring gazing" (HD) [click to hear various chantings of this poem in Chinese dialects]

G."Thoughts Written While Travelling at Night" (HD)

H. "Autumn Meditations" (BIRCH, 235-39)

A. Pre-Sung

• collapse of the Tang
• Five Dynasties (907-960)

B. Song (960-1279) [map of Sung]

1.establishment

• in 960 Chao K'uang-yin, a general under the last of the Five Dynasties in the north, emerged and established the Sung
• became Sung T'ai-tsu, a very capable and respected emperor


2. broad historical division

• Northern Sung (960-1127), with capital in K'ai-feng (Pien-ching)
• invasion from the north of the Jurched people and established the Chin dynasty in the north and forcing the Sung to retreat to the south were it established a new capital in Hang-chou; the Chin and the Sung agreed to divide their territory along the Huai River and the Sung would pay tribute to the Chin
• Southern Sung (1127-1276), Hang-chou
• like the Tang, the Sung is characterized by a traumatic historical event in its middle, one which affected the poetry of the day


3. urbanization [view a slide show from the Qingming shanghe tu, scroll painting "On the River during the Qingming Festival")

• K'ai-feng in the north and Hang-chou in the south were major urban centers; we have extant many sources which describe in great detail the life of these cities; its shops, streets, brothels, restaurants, popular attractions, entertainment
• entertainment quarters (centers of music, prostitution, story-telling, acrobatics, juggling, dance, shadow plays....) were the areas which gave rise to a new kind of poetry which will be the focus of this section of the course; the Lyric Meter arose in the Kai-feng entertainment quarters
• hence, rise of wealthy urban middle class with some leisure time and extra money; broadened the readership
• also, rise of a merchant class


4. Science and Technology

• huge successes in science and technology (gun powder, printing, metallurgy, astronomy...) which put China way ahead of the West, causing scholars to ponder the question as to why, ultimately, the West surpassed China in technology (such a central aspect of modern Chinese history); some say that technology was advanced to solve specific problems and that the Chinese lacked a systematic application of the scientific method to all natural phenomena, what one might call scientific spirit
• printing advances greated more literacy and a larger reading public, thoughs still a small minority


5. Confucian revival

• Chu Hsi and the Neo-Confucianism
• begins with attacks on Buddhism and Taoism and their other-worldly orientation


6. Cultural advances

• pottery, landscape painting
• the Lyric Meter, which shows a sensuality that is much less present in the Tang Regulated Verse or Quatrain

A. Generic description

1. definitions

• "Lyric Meters" or "Poems in the irregular meter"
• lyrics put to tunes


2. form and relation to music

• uneven line lengths and irregular meter
• form and development intimately interconnected with music
• as tunes became popular, writers began to write lyrics for them
• a poem was written to the tune and meter of a particular melody (known as "tune patterns," cipai); the lyrics, the words, were filled in (tianci) to fit the metrical and tonal requirements of the tune patterns
• none of the tunes are extant, so we don't know how they sound; but we know the basic rythm and meter of the tune from the lyrics; even today poets write poems conforming to the tune patterns of songs they never heard
• 200 principal tunes
• the tonal and metrical rules for each tune pattern are very complex, which make the writing of such poetry very difficult, some argue even more difficult than the regulated verse

B. History of Lyric Meters

1. origins in popular song of the T'ang

2. hsiao-ling in pre-Sung period

• with Li Yu we move toward a use of the genre for more personal expression; he blended the elegance of Wen Ting-yun's style with the popular language of Wei Chuang
• hsiao-ling: two stanza short lyrics with ties to Quatrains


3. man-tzu form

• Liu Yong in the Sung develops the man-tz'u, a longer form which allowed for greater complexity of emotional expression


4. Su Shi

• broadened the themes of lyrics
• moved away from the constraints of music form and established lyrics as a respected poetic, literary genre
• schism develops among critics between Su's hao-fang (Heroic Abandon) style and the wan-yueh (Elegant) style of other lyric poets


5. Southern Song style of "yung-wu"

• personal feelings are expressed through external objects (ie. plums and fallen leaves)
• exemplars: Wu Wen-ying, Chiang K'uei, Chang Yen, Wang I-sun, Chou Mi


6. General development

• from short and simple to longer and more complex
• move away from a strictly musical form to become a poetic genre


7. reception as a genre

• because of its popular origins, it took a long while before this poetry was established as elegant high art

C. Themes

1. general

• tended toward the personal and private


2. love and eroticism

• Sun Kuang-hsien, "Free and Easy" (344)
• Anon., "The Drunken Young Lord" (353)
• Li Ch'ing-chao, "Crimson Lips Adorned" (358)
• "Chuhua hsin" (hd)


3. nostalgia and regret

• Li Yu, "Gazing South" (351)


4. general melancholy and enniu (existential boredom)

• Wen T'ing-yun, "Strangers in the Saint's Coif" (337, #4)


5. heroic

• Su Shih, "The Charms of Nien-nu" (356)

A. Biography (987-1053)

• born in Fujian
• spent much of his younger years failing attempts at the examination and wandering about
• man of the pleasure quarters
• finally passed the chin-shih degree in 1034 at the age of 47, but never held a very high political position
• was junior secretary in Che-kiang most of his life, supervising agricultural work
• died in poverty and legend has it that his sing-song girl friends raise money for his funeral
• it became a custom for courtesans to visit his tomb

B. Poetry (General)

• first great poet of the Sung lyric meter poets
• composed new tunes and developed the man-tz'u form
• his language is simple, bordering on the vulgar
• themes sometimes erotic
• many of his lyrics are in the voice of woman speaking in the language appropriate to her class (example of realism)

C. Poems

• "Yulin ling" (HD)
• "Ying-hsin ch'un" (Greeting the New Spring) (HD)
• "Chu-hua hsin" (HD)

A. Intro

• one of few known women writers; why?
• she wrote in all forms; was a collector, literary critic, scholar of history and classics, painter and calligrapher...
• her poems have a refinement and sophistication

B. Biography (1084-1151?)

• from Jinan in Shandong, from an extremely learned, but somewhat unconventional family that encouraged her education and her writing of poetry
• at 21 married a gov't student named Chao Ming-ch'eng from a wealthy official family; considered an excellent match and they seemed to share much happiness in their early marriage, sharing a love of literature, art and books
• their relations, however, were intertwined with the Wang An-shi (Ts'ai Ching) and Su Shih factionalism over reform; so the Chao family fortunes were intertwined with the ups and downs of the reformist faction
• after the Chin invasion of 1127, she was separated from her husband who had left for official business in Nanking
• eventually reunited in Nanking, where he had become mayor
• she wrote satirical poetry criticizing those Sung officials who encouraged emperor Kao-Tsung not to fight the invading forces
• husband dies in 1129 and she flees the Chin forces to Hangchou
• remarries (Chang Ju-chou, but he apparently abuses her and she files for divorce, also accusing him of misappropriating military funds; the divorce is granted and he is convicted; yet she is also arrested for bringing a lawsuit against her husband
• in her later life her lyrics express her grief, nostalgia, longing and regret

C. Lyrics

1.General

• orthodox in form and adhere carefully to tune patterns; craftmenship
• she criticized Su Shih for not following the rules and for not adhering to the proper musicality of the tune patterns and Liu Yung for his vulgarity
• tone of elegance, refinement and sophistication in her poetry
• expression of subjective, personal and private feelings; but also writes political poems
• only 78 lyric meters are extant


2. development

• early: passion and romance; carefree tone
• middle: nostalgia for husband and later lost home
• late: grief and profound despair after death of husband


3. Poems

• "Wan-hsi sha" (HD)
• "As in a Dream" (HD)
• "Bouquet of Plum Blossom" (HD)
• "Spring in Wuling" (HD)
• "Every Sound" (HD)