Little Primer of Du Fu, Poems 11-15

[x_los]

This is week 3/7 on David Hawkes' Little Primer of Du Fu. I'll replicate the poems themselves here, but as this book contains considerable exegesis I advise you to grab this copy.

 

This week we're reading poems 11 through 15, inclusive.

 

How to Read Chinese Poetry has two chapters on forms Du Fu uses extensively:

 

Ch 8, Recent Style Shi Poetry, Pentasyllabic Regulated Verse (Wuyan Lüshi) 

Ch 9, Recent Style Shi Poetry, Heptasyllabic Regulated Verse (Qiyan Lüshi) 

 

Three other chapters on other verse forms that Du Fu sometimes employs, or which people quoting Du Fu employ, also mention him:

 

Ch 10,  Recent Style Shi Poetry, Quatrains (Jueju): some mention of Du Fu’s “Three Quatrains, No. 3”

Ch 14, Ci Poetry,  Long Song Lyrics on Objects (Yongwu Ci): some mention of Du Fu's “Beautiful Lady” (Jiaren)

Ch 18, A Synthesis:  Rhythm, Syntax, and Vision of Chinese Poetry: some mention of Du Fu’s poem “The Jiang and Han Rivers” 

 

Additional Reading for this Week: Chapter 8

Comments

Re: 12. 佳人 Jiā-rén

[x_los]

“There is no reason at all why we shouldn’t think of it as a faithful record of a real encounter.” Is there any compelling reason to think his poetry diaristic in that way?

“it is only when we know something about a person’s history that the trivialities of his dress and deportment begin to take on significance” nice point

“Nineteen Old Poems” oooh it’s the same style as those!

“Vetch is a well known legume also known as common vetch or tares.”

“Hé-hūn: the albizzia julibrissia, a tree whose vetch-like leaves fold up at night time: hence the lady’s remark about its ‘knowing the time’.” I don’t exactly know this line does, what is the significance of sensitivity to the time?

“Once a woman has left her husband a thousand things will be said and believed of her, even though she is innocent, and her reputation is ruined past recovery.” Is this really the meaning of the spring water line? I find it rather unclear.

What’s the final line doing?

—

How to Read Chinese Poetry, on another poem’s usage of a quote from this one: “Another level of equation is found in the second strophe, which contains an allusion to a couplet from the poem “Beautiful Lady” (Jiaren), by Du Fu (712–770): “The day is cold, her green sleeves thin; / The sun sets as she leans on slender bamboos.”11 Du Fu’s “Beautiful Lady” depicts a highbred woman who has become a wanderer after having lost her brothers and been abandoned by her husband in a time of chaos and disorder. To preserve her integrity and purity, she lives in seclusion and solitude. This comparison of the blossoming plum and the beautiful lady provides the background for the subsequent strophes.”

Re: 12. 佳人 Jiā-rén

[superborb]

Baike suggests this poem is dealing with how Du Fu sees his situation reflected in her.

Baike mentions in their analysis that the flickering light is a metaphor for time passing rapidly and the world changing.

Baike says multiple possible interpretations of the spring water line. In addition to the interpretation that Hawkes takes, there's also the interpretation that she is the clear water and the husband the muddy, and by staying on the mountain, she's refusing to become muddy. Or it's about chastity, or the two wives.

Baike's gloss is the tall bamboo is a metaphor for the noble principles of the lady.

Re: 12. 佳人 Jiā-rén

[x_los]

Ah, that makes sense re the final line. I do wonder if it's pulling on like, friends of winter bamboo imagery et al that doesn't occur to me. And of course that bamboo kicker works better if you take Baike's line on the immediately preceding spring water question as relating to her withdrawal as moral choice, as abstention from sin.