The Vitality of the Lyric Voice: Shih Poetry from the Late Han to the T'ang PDF
Preview The Vitality of the Lyric Voice: Shih Poetry from the Late Han to the T'ang
The Vitality of the Lyric Voice Studies on China, 6 A series of conference volumes sponsored by the Joint Committee on Chinese Studies of the American Council of Learned Societies and Social Science Research Council For titles in the series see page 407 Vitality of the Lyric Voice Shih Poetry from the Late Han to the T'ang · Edited by Shuen-fu Lin and Stephen Owen PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS Copyright © 1986 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, NewJersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Guildford, Surrey All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data will be found on the last printed page of this book ISBN 0-691-03134-7 Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from the Paul Mellon Fund of Princeton University Press This book has been composed in Bembo by Asco Trade Typesetting Ltd, Hong Kong Clothbound editions of Princeton University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and binding materials are chosen for strength and durability Printed in the United States of America by Princeton University Press, Princeton, NewJersey To Hans H. Frankel Contents Foreword IX 1. Theoretical Background Profound Learning, Personal Knowledge, and Poetic Vision Tu Wei-ming 3 Some Reflections on Chinese Poetic Language and Its Relation to Chinese Cosmology Franfois Cheng 32 The Paradox of Poetics and the Poetics of Paradox James]. Y. Liu 49 The Self's Perfect Mirror: Poetry as Autobiography Stephen Owen 71 II. Concepts and Contexts !O3 Description of Landscape in Early Six Dynasties Poetry Kang-i Sun Chang !OS The Decline and Revival of Feng-ku (Wind and Bone): On the Changing Poetic Styles from the Chien-an Era through the High T'ang Period Lin Wen-yueh 130 Verses from on High: The Ascent ofT'ai Shan Paul W. Kroll 167 The Nature of Narrative in T'ang Poetry Ching-hsien Wang 217 Vlll Contents III. Forms and Genres 253 The Development of Han and Wei Ytieh-fu as a High Literary Genre Hans H. Frankel 255 The Legacy of the Han, Wei, and Six Dynasties Ytieh-fu Tradition and Its Further Development in T'ang Poetry Zhou Zhenfu 287 The Nature of the Quatrain from the Late Han to the High T'ang Shuen-fu Lin 296 The Aesthetics of Regulated Verse Yu-kung Kao 332 Contributors 387 Index 391 Foreword Under the sponsorship of a predecessor committee of the Joint Committee on Chinese Studies, of the American Council of Learned Societies and the Social Science Research Council, with funds provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Ford Foundation, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, a conference on the "Evolution of Shih Poetry from the Han through the T'ang" was held at the Breckinridge Public Affairs Center of Bowdoin College in York, Maine, from 9 to 14 June 1982. It was the first symposium of its kind on Chinese poetry ever to be held in the West. For four and a half days, thirteen scholars met in that lovely retreat—Breckinridge Center—to discuss eleven papers and two oral presentations on classical Chinese poetry. The twelve essays collected in this book represent the fruit of that cooperative endeavor. Poetry is one of the imperishable glories of traditional Chinese civilization. By the turn of our century, it had a history already three thousand years old. Moreover, throughout the last two millennia, poetry has been the most esteemed form of literary expression for the educated elite in China. In organizing a conference on so vast and important a subject, naturally we found it necessary to limit ourselves to one phase of the development of only one major genre. Thus our conference was devoted to the evolution of shih poetry during the period from the second to the tenth century, the period that began with the sudden flowering of shih poetry in five- character meter and culminated in the glory of the T'ang, the golden age of classical Chinese poetry. The historical development during this specific period became the synchronic repertoire of classical poetry in the millennium that followed. That repertoire is held together by a single, unified definition of the form: shih yen chih HfSr- or "poetry articulates in language what preoccupies the mind." This old Chinese definition dating from the ancient period was canonical, and initiated a tradition dominated by the expressive
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